Alternatively

Cryptid

He saw her at three in the morning, blood on her shirt and pencils sticking out of her pony tail.

Jeremy stared for a second, frozen burrito semi forgotten in the open microwave. She spared him a glance, eyes sliding wearily to the hall before her as she trudged to the dorms. Her bag dragged along the floor and she was missing a shoe.

He was still staring even when she disappeared around a corner.

Then he shook his head, punched in the time indicated on the box, and focused on his burrito.

It was strange; he never paid much attention to the blonde, or even noticed her until that night. He didn't know she was in his 9 a.m. lecture, didn't realize she sat two tables down in his lab, didn't realize how often she frequented the dining hall when he worked the grave yard shift. But after seeing her splattered with blood, he began to notice, and he wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing.

For one thing, catching her attention was equivalent to being spotted by a lion.

A hungry, tired, pissed off lion.

He has seen her plunk a golden dagger onto her desk after coming in twenty minutes late to class, the students around her hardly batting an eye. Even their professor, an attendance stickler, would continue his lecture as though she didn't commit a high offense. He had seen her prop up her phone to record the lesson before falling asleep, he had heard her snores that didn't seem to bother any one else around her.

He has laid witness to their lab professor confronting her about a missing signature on a form only to have her lazily snap her fingers and say, "Check again." That alone was a ballsy move, but the man glanced at the paper in his hand and actually said, "Oh, my mistake."

There was no signature on the paper when he turned around.

Once, when they were waiting for the doors to open, he saw her chase her meds with a can of Redbull, which left him worried and impressed.

Then there was the time he was sitting in his Ancient Architecture class, zoning out as the professor went off on a tangent regarding Pompeii. To the teacher's credit, the topic did rile a bit more conversation from the 9 AM class, as it was a more familiar topic that everyone and their cousin had studied at least once in high school. Jeremy himself did several projects on it, but he didn't have anything particularly unique to add to the discussion. He was content fiddling with his notebook when a snort followed a statement about the volcano's wrath.

"That's exactly what happened," Annabeth had deadpanned in such a way that he didn't know whether she was serious or not. "A volcano, yeah, that's what destroyed the city."

A chill ran up his spine and once again, it was like he was the only one who heard her.

What the fuck did she mean?

Like.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

It would have been different if his friends or literally anyone else recognized her behavior as strange, but it was like he was alone in his mental break down.

"Come on, the blonde on Tuesdays and Thursdays?" he waved his hand. "The one who said her partner couldn't have some candy because, and I quote, it would set her bones on fire and turn her blood to ash?"

Micheal threw the hacky sack against the wall with a chuckle. "Dunno, bro, I musta missed that."

"Come on, the scary pretty one?"

"You feelin' alright, dude?" he tossed the sack at Jeremy with a smirk. "You're soundin' like, what's the word...crazy?"

No one he worked with took special interest in the girl either, but no one he worked with really took interest in anything. It was always so late when she found her way to the dining hall, and he knew he didn't even notice her half the time. Though, once, as he swiped her ID, she was talking on the phone to someone and said, "Yeah, no, if you kill them, make sure they stay dead" before heading off to fill a bowl with salad and three slices of pizza.