I skipped class for the first time. The professor doesn’t take attendance and I reached out to another classmate to get the notes, so I think it’ll be fine.

I mean, he didn’t have notes because he doesn’t take any (I might take awful notes but at least I’m trying) but he confirmed the professor didn’t hand out the exam study sheet so I’m at least okay there. I’ve had two exams in this class so far and he hands the study sheet out on random days and it is literally every topic and question that’s going to be on the exam so if you study off it, you’re guaranteed to pass. I think he’s doing it like this because his class is so easy to skip and he’s sadistically trying to fail the students that don’t show up on the regular.

Yes, this is the professor that drones on about dinosaurs and puts everyone to sleep.

Anyway, I made the bold choice to skip class that day because I was pretty sure if I walked into the classroom, I was going to die.

(if you’re new, start here, and if you’re totally lost, this might help)

I was running late to class. It wasn’t my fault, I always left the dorm room with plenty of time to spare because I’m just paranoid like that. Look, I’ve sacrificed a lot to be here and maybe some of my classmates can afford to blow it off and not take it seriously, but I can’t. I just can’t. I’m on scholarship and if I lose that, there is nothing to fall back on.

Well, except loans with exorbitant interest rates that’ll keep me in debt until I’m dead, I suppose.

Not a great option!

So in the interests of not destroying my life so early into it, I’m Very Serious about attending class and being there on time. Except this time, I was on my way to my dinosaur class when I heard someone yelling my name behind me. At first I thought it was Grayson because it was a man’s voice and I guess I’m not very good at telling people’s voices apart. I slowed and turned around and waited for him to catch up. My class is at a popular class time, so the sidewalk was fairly crowded, and I didn’t get a close look at who it actually was until he was almost upon me.

It was Daniel.

I hastily turned around again and kept walking. I ducked my head and held onto the straps of my backpack as if that was some comfort, because I didn’t know what I should do. Maria had said to not talk to him, but here he was, trying to catch up to me so we could… talk? So he could yell at me? I didn’t know and I didn’t want to find out. I wanted to help him, I felt sorry for him, but I think… I’ve been listening to what you all have to say…

I think I’m also kind of mad at him.

He could have apologized! He’s had plenty of time to apologize! And then I could have accepted it because he’s scared and we sometimes do stupid things when we’re scared and it all would have been fine.

“You have to help me,” he gasped, coming up from behind and grabbing hold of my arm.

“Maria is helping you, isn’t she?”

I kept walking, pulling my arm out of his grasp. He trailed along in my wake. I wanted him to just leave. I hadn’t told Maria about how I thought maybe we could transfer the scratching thing’s target because, well, you all put enough doubts in my head that I’m no longer sure. Maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe it doesn’t take talking directly to the computer person, maybe it’s just any major distraction that’ll make someone a valid target. And then there’s the people that said it's his trial and he should deal with it and I don’t know anymore.

So I was going to talk to Maria and see what she thought but he was right here and I didn’t know what to do yet.

“Look!” he gasped.

He pulled his sleeve up and shoved his arm in front of my face. I had to stop walking or I would have run right into it. I backed away, averting my gaze, but it was too late. I saw what he wanted me to see. The long scratches running down the back of his arms, the band-aids covering where the nails bit deep enough to draw blood.

“It hurts,” he said. “I-I can’t do this anymore.”

“I told you - you have to be the one to kill it.”

I tried to keep going. He grabbed a strap on my backpack and jerked backwards. I didn’t expect it, so when the backpack went tight against my arms, pulling me back, I panicked. My chest went tight and I thought of the flickering man, of how he grabbed me by the throat, and I just… shrugged out of my backpack. I abandoned it to free myself and then I whirled around to stare at Daniel in disbelief.

He’d grabbed me.

“I need your help,” he said.

His backpack was still clutched in his hand and he was making no move to offer it back to me. I was breathing in short gasps and something was clawing its way free inside of me. I felt like I was about to come apart at the seams.

“I can’t,” I said stiffly.

“Yes you can!” he cried. “They told me you could!”

What the shit!?

“Who told you that?” I asked as evenly as I could manage.

He didn’t know, he said. It was a note that was slipped under his door, a few days after our argument in the student union. It said that I knew more than I was telling him. Which… was true… but I wasn’t sure if it was meant in the way he’d taken it. He knew everything that I did about the scratching. But more importantly - who had sent it? Who was meddling?

Inhuman things were cryptic by nature, but a note under the door didn’t seem like their style. Then again, this campus is a strange blend of old rules and new rules, so perhaps this is something they would do. The laundry lady, perhaps? If I did manage to stop the scratching, then that would surely piss the flickering man off even more and further her aims.

“I’ve told you everything I know about the scratching in the hallway,” I said. “Give me my backpack.”

I held out my hand expectantly. We were taking up too much space on the sidewalk, I realized. People were having to uncomfortably step off into the grass to get around us, averting their eyes so that they wouldn't be pulled into our drama. I wanted to get my things back and then leave as quickly as possible.

“You know something else. You have to,” he said desperately.

I have a theory. That’s all. I couldn’t tell him this. Instead, I just held out my hand in silence, waiting.

“Don’t LIE to me, Ashley!” he screamed, clutching my backpack to his check with both arms.

I flinched. He was making a scene again. I didn’t dare look around us. I didn’t want to see people staring.

“Fine,” I hissed, stepping in close to him in an attempt to get him to lower his voice. “I might have an idea. It’s more of a guess, really. Can I have Maria set up a time for us to talk about it?”

He eyed me suspiciously, so I got out my phone and texted Maria right then and there so that he could see I wasn’t blowing him off. I hastily put the phone away before she could respond, though. That was enough to satisfy him. He handed me my backpack and I threw it over my shoulders and hurried away. He did not follow me.

By then I was only running a little bit late for class. If I hurried, I’d make it perhaps only a minute late, which isn’t as late as some students show up so it should be fine. Except as I walked, I felt that tightness in my chest wasn’t receding. It was getting worse.

I made it to the geology building and ducked into the restroom. It was deserted, as class was starting, and the hallways were emptying. I leaned on the counter and stared into the mirror, breathing heavily, trying not to cry.

Okay, so, I guess I’m no longer okay with anyone trying to grab me. We have the flickering man to thank for that. But what the hell do I do about that? I can’t afford to get all weepy and panicky like this. And I didn’t feel upset, like it was more… I felt angry. But my body wasn’t keeping up with my emotions. It was off doing its own thing and I hated how it was making me feel underneath all that anger.

It took a bit to get my head back together. By the time I’d stopped crying and was mostly composed enough to show my face in the classroom, I was nearly fifteen minutes late. I could still slip in the back and the professor probably wouldn’t even notice, but I felt embarrassed to be walking into the classroom so late anyway. I hurried down the hallway and only slowed my pace once I reached the end where the double doors led to the lecture hall.

There were roots on the floor. They sprawled along the sides of the hallway and the space between them was covered in dust. I kicked at it, overturning a layer to see if it was ashes. It was not. Just a fine layer of grayish sand.

Tentatively, I pulled the door open. If there were giant insects crawling along the walls again, I was going to leave. Otherwise, I’d just ignore the roots. That’s what I told myself.

The lights in the room were off and the professor had started his lecture. He stood with his back to me, gesturing at the presentation projected against the wall. I didn’t want to make my way to my normal seat, as that would disturb too many students, so I looked for the nearest empty chair in the back.

It was occupied. I almost stepped through the doorway to take the one next to it but something jarred my brain. The student sitting there at the edge of my vision didn’t look… right. So I took a moment to look at them properly.

They were hunched over the desk, crouched on the chair with their knees up against their chest. Their arms were long and thin, crossed over each other, and its face was facing the front of the classroom.

Its body was covered in bits of metal. They glinted dully when they caught the scant light coming from the projector overhead. At first I thought they were shards of glass, but it shifted slightly, and the pieces all swayed with its movement. They were different sizes and different colors and they were attached to something - something that was driven through the student’s clothing and into its body.

The stabbed student. The stabbed student was in the classroom and this time, it wasn’t covered in butter knives.

It’d been stabbed with keys. They’d been driven all the way in and only the keychains remained, dangling from its flesh like little metal banners.

I took a step backwards. The door creaked as I did.

It swiveled its head around to stare at me. A cluster of keychains swung from its eye sockets like wind chimes.

None of the other students had noticed its presence. It was as far back as anyone could sit in the lecture hall and no one was turning around to look at a late student creeping in through the back. Hell, perhaps no one was left awake. The professor’s drone was nigh impossible to resist.

But I saw it and it saw me.

It slipped from the chair. It began to crawl across the floor towards me. Its body was slung close to the ground, the keychains hanging from its chest dragging along the carpet. Its hands were splayed wide, the tendons rising and falling between the keys driven through the back of its hands and out through the palms. I stood there, transfixed, unable to tear my eyes from the swaying keychains, as it inexorably inched closer.

Then it paused.

A thick tree root lay between me and it. It hesitated, its hand hovering over it, and then it very carefully and very deliberately rose to its feet and tentatively stepped over the root.

It was refusing to touch them, I realized. And in doing so, it was no longer looking at me, but at the ground to make sure no part of its body came into contact with the tree root.

That broke the hold my fear held over me. I stumbled backwards, letting the door to the lecture hall fall shut, and then I turned to run.

And almost ran straight into Professor L.

He’s the geology professor I had last year that doesn’t believe in monsters even though the one in the lecture hall apparently likes to follow him around on the ceiling.

Just in case you needed a refresher.

“Woah, hey, are you alright?” he asked, startled. “I saw you standing there and was coming to ask if things were okay.”

I can’t imagine how I looked to him, wide-eyed and panting.

“S-sorry,” I stammered. “I should go.”

“Is this your class? You are taking it this semester, aren’t you?”

“I can’t go in there.”

Which was the worst excuse, I could have said anything else like I don’t know, my mom is trying to get a hold of me and it must be important because she never calls and that would have made sense but instead I said something stupid and his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Are you… having problems with someone in the class?” he ventured.

There we go. He gave me an out. I nodded frantically, hoping that would be a good enough explanation for him and he’d let me out of this conversation. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on edge because I could hear something fumbling at the door behind me. There was the meaty clunk of the door handle engaging.

“Do you want to sign up for counseling? There’s resources for this sort of thing. You shouldn’t have to miss class because of that,” he said.

I told him it was nothing, really. I was blowing something way out of proportion because I was tired. Which wasn’t a lie, I… haven’t been sleeping well lately. There’d just been a lot of pressure on me lately and a minor disagreement was getting out of hand.

“I mean, you can still go to the counseling center for what feels like little stuff,” he said in exasperation. “You don’t have to be in the middle of a crisis to get help.”

Behind me the door began to creak open. I heard a jingle, the sort of noise you hear when you pull your keys out of your pocket.

“C’mon, we’ll go back to my office and get you signed up,” he offered helpfully.

“Sure,” I said desperately. “Let’s do that.”

Anything to get out of there. He started walking towards the offices and I anxiously followed, casting nervous glances behind me the entire way.

The door was open a foot. The creature’s hand was curled around it and its face was pushed through the opening. It watched me with empty eyes, the keys sprouting from its body shining with blood in the fluorescent lights.

I followed Professor L. to his office and sat there miserably while he pulled open the counseling center’s website and then when he asked me what times I had free, that was when I told him I wasn’t sure about all of this and I’d rather not.

Ugh I know everyone in the comments is going to say I should have taken him up on it or that I should have done that long ago instead of saying I would and then not actually doing it, but look, I’m busy, I don’t know if I’ll have time for it and also like wtf do I even tell them??? Oh nbd I’m just dealing with literal monsters that want to kill me?

He said some things, trying to talk me into it I’m sure, but I wasn’t really listening.

I was staring at the tree root that lay across his desk.

Because I was certain that it was intersecting with the paperweight I’d seen last time I was in here, except it looked so natural, like the chunk of rock sitting on the corner of his desk had been a part of the root all along.

“Sure, that’s fine,” I said automatically when he paused to wait for my response. “What’s that?”

I pointed at the paperweight. He reached over and picked it up. It left behind a hollow spot in the root.

“I found it in the graveyard on campus, of all places,” he said. “Here. Take a look.”

He handed it to me. By now I’ve sat through enough tedious lectures to be able to recognize petrified wood when I was holding it.

“I thought it looked like a heart,” he continued.

I stared at it for a moment while he waited expectantly. It was somewhat rounded and had a slight ridge in the middle, but that was the extent of the heart resemblance in my mind.

“Maybe if you squint,” I finally said.

“I know,” he laughed. “But I was trying to figure out how to propose to my wife at the time and I thought that a heart-shaped piece of petrified wood would be romantic. Then I realized how stupid the idea was and bought her a ring like a normal person. Anyway, I’ve kept it for good luck, I guess.”

I set it back on the desk, back into the recess in the root, exactly as I’d found it. I knew better than to leave things like that disturbed.

“Do you think it works?” I asked. “As a good luck charm, that is.”

“Well I’m the only person in this building that hasn’t run into ghosts,” he smirked. “Would you believe that Professor M. says he saw something that looked like a person covered in syringes? Like they’d been stabbed to death with them. Pretty gruesome, huh?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s… wild.”

It’s not invisible to the professors. That stabbed student is really in here and other people have seen it. But not him. Not when it was right above him.

I need a piece of that petrified wood.[x]

Update: so uh I think I should have paid better attention to our conversation because now that I think back on it I think I might have said something was fine without really processing what I was agreeing to and that something was a timeslot and I just got a phone call from the counseling center confirming my appointment for next Tuesday at 4

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