Irving Hall was one of the few unusual dorms on campus where it had student rooms on the first floor instead of the usual lobby-like reception and study areas that many other places featured. Aside from its unusual presence, however, the first floor there, where Nicolas Lucille lived, was appallingly normal. Mike and Zach passed by a few small open-roomed parties on their way in and Zach nearly got knocked over by a milling group of half-drunken students who were less concerned about the legal age for alcohol than he. However, the corner where Nick was was very quiet, meaning that either most of the people there had already departed for home (since Halloween fell upon a Friday this year), or they were getting drunk somewhere else.
Mike stopped in front of Nick's door, raised his hand, and looked at Zach, who shrugged. Mike shrugged in response and gave the door a sharp rap that was very characteristic of Mike.
"Who is it?" called Nick. Or, in this case, " 'hoo eez et?"
"Me," snapped Mike, worries making him rather more sarcastic than he would normally be under the given circumstances. "Unless you've invited some other people to your mid-night no-explanation party that I don't know about?"
"Would that be me?" asked Zach. "Open up, Nick!" he said hastily, when Mike just gave him that LOOK of his.
Very, very slowly and cautiously the door opened a crack and Nick peered out into the hallway with a sort of meticulous paranoia that was thoroughly worthy of any spy movie that was worth its salt (and all the ones that weren't), but that was thoroughly out of place in the appallingly normal student dorm hallway.
Mike was no where near as cautious. He pushed his way in past Nick. "Geez we're not serial killers."
"The only thing I've killed today is my bio worksheet and a week's worth of humor," agreed Zach, slipping in behind him.
Nick gave a nervous laugh and shut the door again. The room immediately went to the particular pitch of darkness that could only result from securely drawn curtains, no light, and a general feel of subdued panic that hovered in the air.
"Can't you turn on the light?" complained Mike, taking a step in where he remembered the floor lamp to be and immediately tripped over something that definitely shouldn't be there. Zach, without thinking, took a step in the direction of Mike's voice, stumbled over something else, and fell with a startled squawk and a crash. Nick flung out his hand and caught Mike's arm with the consequence that Mike, swung around by the force of his own inertia, fell against the wall with a thud.
"Watch out," said Nick, apologetically.
"Urgh," said Mike. "Thanks for the warning."
"Why's your chair and suitcase in the middle of the room, Nick?" Came Zach's faint, disembodied voice from somewhere near the center of the room.
_________________________________
lol Glad you are aware of the fact that you are not a French guy, Lucy. Very glad. I recall something about an issue with gender confusion in calc, but ethnicity confusion...is that a new twist...?
Chill. The story's just begun.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment