Lightning Fury

Chapter 1

The first three weeks of my second semester at Fengari University have been the least eventful time of my life. I have spent every night for the past seven days with a bag of flavor-blasted cheddar goldfish and as many old movies as I could find on Netflix. The weeks before that, I have been occasionally entertained by my best friend, Margot, who would order pizza and summon me to her room so she could play her newest songs to me on her graffitied guitar. She would then ask me how I was feeling, I would tell her I was fine, and she would nod her head, and ask me if I wanted to dye my hair pink. I would say, "maybe next week," and complain of being tired, only to crawl back into my bed and scroll through Instagram until I fell asleep.

A tall boy with wet hair and a 'Fengari Swimming' shirt squeezed in between my table and the next, his backpack knocking against my cup. As it began to tip over, I caught it, and my nearly completed journal flopped to the ground, a couple loose pages scattering on the concrete. He apologized and tried to help me pick it up, but I snatched up the pages and the book, rolled my eyes, and stormed off, giving up on trying to get out of my room.

As I crossed the street in front of my residence hall, the sky grew dark, and raindrops splattered on my strawberry-blonde hair. I glanced back at the patio of the cafeteria to see the swimming team grab their bags and run inside, as if it made a difference anyways with their chlorine soaked hair. I smiled at their misfortune and swiped my id card in front of the scanner by the door.

The elevator in the building was very old, and sometimes would just stop in between the floors. Usually, this happened when no one was inside, but once, during a thunder storm, my roommate, who had particularly ugly ears, got stuck in between the fourth and fifth floor. It took a whole hour for the firemen to arrive and get her out. I managed to get in an entire two episodes of Gilligan's Island without using my headphones before she finally made it back to the room.

Though my room was all the way on the fifth floor, I had a very odd feeling about the elevator today, so I stomped all the way up the four flights of stairs and all the way to the end of the hallway, huffing from the exercise. A note taped to the door of my dorm reminded me of a mandatory hall meeting tonight at six, and I ripped it off , crumpling it in my hand. I made a reminder in my phone to 'unintentionally' be somewhere besides the residence hall at that time.

Margot was gone this week, away on a tour with the choir she was in. I was alone this week, forced to entertain myself, though that didn't pose too much of a problem for me. I usually preferred to be alone anyways. As I opened my door, my giant GoldenDoodle, Georgie, got up off his bed on the floor, wagging his tail and coming towards me. It was two in the afternoon, and I was done with my classes for the day, so I crawled into my bed and pulled the covers over my eyes with a small gap to breathe, and I fell asleep as a flash of lightning lit up the sky outside my window.

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At five thirty, my alarm woke me up, letting me know that I needed to evacuate the building to avoid the procession of the RAs to every door in the building, forcing our attendance at the meeting. I slipped on my rain boots, since it had been stormy earlier, but when I glanced out my window, the sky had become remarkably clear, and a bright pink sunset glowed over the tips of the pine trees in the expansive forest that bordered the south end of Fengari's campus.

I switched out the rain boots for some sandals, grabbed my backpack, put Georgie's leash on, and hurried down the stairs. As I passed an RA on the way down, I quickly called my brother so she wouldn't stop me to talk. The phone rang twice, and his excited voice pierced my ears, causing me to wince.

"Rhose! I'm so glad you called I have things to tell you I'm so excited!" The twelve year old boy's run-on sentence made me giggle.

"What is it, Noah? Did you break your glasses and have to get new ones again?" I teased, and he let out an exasperated huff into the mic, and I took the phone away from my ear as the speakers crackled from the loud noise.

"Noooo, Dad told me I can get a dog just like Georgie!!" Noah exclaimed, and I smiled, reaching the bottom of the stairs. He had been begging for a service dog for months, ever since I brought Georgie to school with me as an Emotional Support Animal. I suffered from panic attacks, but Noah had the option to get a Service dog because of his leukemia.

"That's awesome! What will you name him?" I asked, dodging another RA.

"I think it will be a girl, and I'll name her Rosie Posie, after you," he said, and I stopped for a second, a little shocked at what he said.

"That's so sweet, Noah, you're going to make such an awesome owner friend for her. I love you, you know?" I asked him, leading Georgie down the sidewalk in front of the residence hall.

"I love you too. When is the next time you'll come visit me?" he asked, and I hesitated, sad that I had to give him such bad news.

"It's gonna be a while this time, I have to wait all the way until spring break. But it's all going to be fine, though, because you'll get your dog and she'll replace me so fast that you won't even remember who I am anymore, okay?"

"You're silly, Rhosie-rhose, I'll never forget you. But it's okay, I'll just call you all the time, right?" Noah asked, and I smiled.

"Of course, buddy," I said. As I passed in front of the other girls' residence hall, a girl with blonde hair and a cropped tee shirt with green stripes flew past me and off of the sidewalk on a skateboard. She looked back over her shoulder at Georgie, and then up at me, and smiled, never stopping. I took a sharp breath, and said, "I gotta go now, but I'll call you back, okay? I love you."

"I love you too, rhosie-rhose. Bye," he said, his young sweet voice echoing in the phone. He ended the call, and I looked up to see the girl on the skateboard far off now, nearly to the library. When I saw her go inside the building, I decided it was probably time for me to do my research for that paper I have coming up, and I headed in the same direction.