There’s an old saying in North Carolina:
“There are poor men, there are rich men, and there are men who graduated from Bensen University.”
Established in 1876 by Reynold Bensen, a strict well to
do Methodist and fabulously wealthy tobacco baron, the University was a showcase of the best and brightest the South had to offer. Businessmen, lawyers, politicians, the southern American college was never lacking for prestige, wealth, and influence.
Beyond the obvious academic edge Bensen granted those fortunate enough to attend, the southern school was just plain gorgeous over all. Shunning the Neo-Geothic style of the schools up north, Bensen University was a symphony of red bricks and green
grass. The Georgian Architecture of the school dominated the entirety of the campus, from Founder’s Hall to the new freshmen dorms. No matter where one went, he or she would be greeted by whiteroofs, red bricks, and sturdy wooden doors.
Even the local fast food restaurants were not spared the
tell-tale style; they either had to adhere to Bensen’s University’s strict décor policy or move to another school. Bensen University had something to offer for everyone: For those who sculpted, painted, and designed there was a multimillion dollar arts complex, for those who preferred more intellectual pursuits there was an eight floor library complete with a section devoted to books so rare and well kept they could not even be checked out, and nearly every southern athlete knew that Bensen University was
the place to hone their considerable physical abilities.
It was hardly surprising, then, that Danielle accepted almost immediately when the head track coach of the school offered her a spot on the team.
She remembered how hot her heart had felt when Mr. Kurt had informed her that the Methodist Marathoners could use her on their mid-distance relay team. The fire in her chest ignited like her blood was made of gasoline. She had been resigned to attending the local community college.
Danielle was not a dumb girl; far from it, but she did tend to put priority on running over her academics. Biology, Statistics, and European History were certainly interesting fields of study, they just did not make Danielle feel as alive as she did when she sprinted mid-distance.
In the autumn months leading up to the head coach’s generous offer, Danielle nearly tore herself apart with stress over the college process.
Essays were written, then critiqued, then re-written, resumes were combed over and optimized, and many of Danielle’s friends who graciously volunteered help and who had never managed to get above a C in Algebra suddenly developed a knack for probability and statistics unknown to even the best logician. Her high school guidance counselor had used words such as “maybe”, “unlikely”, and “hopefully” in regards to the prospects of her getting accepted to schools she assumed were givens, and the bespectacled man who some called Lead Academic Adviser could only give Danielle a sad shake
of his head when she inquired him about her chances of getting into Bensen.
“It probably won’t happen”, the man mumbled with a sympathetic bow of his head “but if you really want to go you might as well apply.” Indeed, the days before her ticket to academic and athletic paradise were both troublesome and taxing.
At that time, there was but a flicker of light in her chest, a lingering hope
that remained despite everyone, herself included, being resigned to the inevitability that she would be attending Nassau Community College, a college located across the street from her high school. It was a childish and immature hope, that despite her substandard grades she’d be able to go to the school of her dreams, and she knew that the spark of light in her heart would probably lead her to more misery
than she would experience if she extinguished the spark with the icy waters of reality.
Yet here she stood a month into her freshmen year of college; an outlier in a sea of nearly insurmountable odds and a star performer of the Bensen Methodist Marathoners. She had not merely adapted to the College lifestyle, she had thrived. Today was a Friday, which meant the track team had practice from five in the
afternoon till ten in the evening.
These longer practices had become routine to Danielle, and she had
come to enjoy them despite their exhausting nature. The coach had an appointment with the dentists at ten forty five , which meant that tonight Danielle and her teammates would be checking out for the
evening a half an hour early.
Usually Danielle would accompany her allies to Bensen’s excellent
refractory for a post practice meal, but she had made a decision three days prior to stick to a strict diet in order to build up more energy and endurance. The diet she was on focused on having a moderate breakfast, a large lunch, and a smaller dinner, and Bensen’s Refractory had a reputation for giving the diners who went there more calories than they bargained for. Danielle did not lack confidence in her
self-control, but her father had always insisted that a locked door prevented temptation far more than a wide open door ever could. It was that fear of deviating from her strict dietary schedule that led to her passing on having dinner with her Methodist Marathoners.
True, there was a blues concert hosted by Pi Kappa Sig that evening, and true, Danielle had bought a ticket to attend the show, but she would never dream of leaving her teammates to dry for such a silly thing. No, Danielle was attending the concert strictly out of a desire to keep herself in shape, the presence of Lucas Hoffman, his cute little French
beret, and his gorgeously toned abdominal muscles was merely a happy coincidence.
Suddenly, her backpack buzzed. Danielle unzipped the small middle pocket, stuck her left hand in, and produced her cell phone. The phone’s screen displayed one word: "Help."
Danielle sighed, she had a suspicion that both dinner and the concert would be off the table tonight. One of the upper classmen noticed that Danielle wasn’t walking towards the refractory with the group. “Are you heading back to Porter, Dany?” she asked.
Danielle bit her lip and replied. “Yes, I am. Something silly has just come up.”
The upperclassman winced. ‘Ah, Emily’s having some trouble again?”
Danielle slowly nodded her head. “Don’t worry Trish, it’s probably nothing major. I’ll pop over there real quick and then meet the rest of you guys tomorrow for sprints.”
The Bensen Athletic Center was located fairly far away from Danielle’s dorm, roughly two miles away if she were to follow the grassy trail that led to the freshmen campus by way of the magnolia woods. Long distances had never really deterred runners in the past, however, and Danielle was one of the best. Even with her body shot from the copious amount of work, she had forced herself to do at practice, Danielle managed a respectable pace and cleared a mile and a half of her journey in a little under fifteen minutes.
It was then a rare spectacle occurred: Danielle decided to walk. Her decision wasn’t one made out of exhaustion (though she WAS exhausted), nor was her choice made out of boredom (though she HAD seen more exciting evenings.) She had reached a
clearing in the woods and was overcome by an urge to simply take in her surroundings and look at the
stars.
One notable aspect of attending Bensen University was its considerable distance from any major city. Reynold Bensen had decided to build the University on one of his underperforming tobacco fields, and one result of that fateful decision was the nearest gas station being fifteen miles away from the school grounds. The students didn’t particularly mind this aspect of the school, as Bensen University was
a world in and of itself. Though the school had a rich Methodist heritage which could still be seen even to this day, Bensen had not been immune to society’s ever changing standards.
The school, which once threatened expulsion for dancing, was now the go to place for raves, blackout parties, and boasted ten
fraternities and seven sororities. While Danielle appreciated the great nightlife(her mother was concerned that perhaps she appreciated the nightlife a bit TOO much), she mainly enjoyed the isolation.
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Bensen University had to offer due to the gorgeous skyscape that one could see in the evening. In more populated areas of North Carolina, and indeed most of the country, many stars were rendered invisible by the light pollution that came with tall buildings and suburban sprawls.
This was not the case at Bensen University. As Danielle slowed her pace in the clearing, countless sparks of light were reflected in her hazel eyes. The fire in her heart burnt brighter and more intense than ever before.
“I’m here.”
Danielle softly whispered, “I’ve finally made it.”
She had beaten the odds in getting to school, and she would be able to beat the odds again and again so long as she was here, a freshman, a star, at Bensen University. Fifteen feet behind her, near the entrance of the clearing Danielle had recently ran through, a twig suddenly snapped. Danielle’s heart jumped, she turned around almost instantly. There was nothing in front of her but a broken twig, some magnolia trees, and the grassy path.
Danielle began to laugh nervously. “Haha, oh man, I shouldn’t psyche myself
out so much.”
As a runner whose event was started by a gunshot, Danielle was more prone to sensing
and reacting to sudden noises than a typical college student. More than a decade of experience had taught her to violently react at the any sudden sound. She had spent longer in the clearing staring at the stars than she had intended to. Her little shock had helped her regain focus, and she resumed her speedy pace, running out of the clearing and northwards towards the Freshmen Residence halls. Bensen
University had a reputation for fairly lavish student living facilities, and with Danielle’s dorm this was especially the case.
She lived in Porter’s Residence Hall, the newest freshmen dorm on campus. It was
reserved for honor students, All State musicians, artists, and student athletes. Bensen valued the strength of diversity, so the institution made an official school policy to avoid pairing up students with similar interests. Athletes would get paired up with either artists or musicians, and vice versa. Danielle’s
roommate in particular was a sculptor from Colorado named Emily Rose. The two didn’t hang out much due to their demanding schedules, but were very friendly and supportive towards each other. Emily
would come to cheer Danielle on at the track meets whenever she could, and Danielle would listen to Emily’s insecurities about her art with a smile.
Emily lived up to her last name; she could be sweet and
demure most of the time but occasionally would have violently emotional outbursts. During these times, Danielle would sit on the edge of Emily’s bed and comfort her until the surge of emotions stopped. Emily had been getting better with her outbursts as of recently, but still would occasionally text Danielle for
support. The three story dorm had ten rooms on every level; each room came with generous living space and two queen sized beds. The hall itself boasted three common rooms, each with a large twenty-six inch LCD television complete with touch screen capability and a live stream of weather for the day.
Each floor was attended to do daily by a professional maid staff, and as a result Porter Hall had earned the moniker “The Porter Inn” among the student body, especially among those students who lived in the more standard residence halls.
The looks of longing and resentment Danielle had received when she
told her fellow students she was in Porter Hall had trained her to avoid the topic of where she lived whenever possible. The main entrance to Porter Hall was located across the street from where the grassy trail ended.
The entrance to Porter was composed of a sturdy wooden door and, slightly above
and to the left of the door, a foot long and six inches wide black plastic box with a red light near the top. To get into the building, a student needed only to scan his or her I.D. card in front of the electronic lock, which would then change color and unlock the door. The lock could be opened by any student or faculty keycard, but only until five in the afternoon. After that, only the residents of the hall could get into the building. There was a metal skeleton key available for use by the sanitary staff and campus
administrators, but it was usually only used when the electronic lock wasn’t functioning properly.
Danielle scanned her card in front of the black box, and the red light turned green for a brief moment. The door in front of her unlocked with a soft click.
Danielle entered the lobby, walked past the leather chairs, and climbed up the flight of marble stairs directly in front of her. After climbing to the second
floor of the dorm, she took a sharp left into the girls hallway. Bensen allowed Co-Ed dorms, but they kept hallways segregated by sex so things didn’t get too crazy at night. Danielle was a supporter of that particular decision, she had learned that if a girl talked to a boy she found cute at eight in the evening they wouldn’t bid adieu until three in the morning.
Danielle wasn’t a prude, and certainly saw no harm in being sexually active, but the last thing someone who just ran fifteen miles and would have to run
eight more in the morning wanted was to be kept awake. Danielle went past three doors before she arrived at her room. She knocked on the door twice, and was greeted by silence. Danielle coughed and cleared her throat. “Emily? You there?” Still no answer came from the door. Danielle grew slightly concerned, Emily was by no means a quiet girl and usually was quick to answer. Danielle fumbled through her backpack again and called Emily. The phone went straight to voicemail. It was at this point
that Danielle smelt something foul. Porter Hall, despite its many niceties, was still a residence hall for college students, and the smell of vomit, fecal matter, and other such pleasantries was no stranger to
Danielle. This smell, however, was alien and disturbing. It reminded Danielle of the time she had accidentally drunken rotten milk, but the current scent induced three times the nausea. The smell just outright spooked Danielle, there was something fundamentally WRONG about the scent. Danielle tensed up, and tried turning the door handle. The handle moved, and the room was apparently
unlocked.
She gulped, and pushed the handle forward. Almost immediately, the stench grew worse.
Danielle felt like she wanted to throw up, despite not having much in her stomach. She gasped with horror and disgust at what she saw.
There was a muddy substance covering the room. Edging over
towards the foul smelling and ugly looking substance, she worked up the courage to poke the muck with her finger. Fear, then confusion, then irritation flashed suddenly and subsequently on the athlete’s face. Danielle placed her palm to her face and groaned loudly. The substance that was now making her hand
smell like decaying animals was clay, but unfortunately for Danielle and her room this particular brand of clay was the sulphur based kind.
Emily had mentioned that she preferred the sulphur and oil based
clay over the water based clay because sulphur based clay could hold a shape better than water based clay could. Danielle understood Emily’s decision, but she never assumed that the sculptor would actually attempt to use their nice and tidy dorm room to sculpt. Still, despite her annoyance and the sorry shape of her dorm room, Danielle was happy that her earlier fear was unfounded. Turning around to get some
paper towels to clean up the mess, she noticed a message scribbled on a whiteboard .
“Hey Dany, I’ve made a bit of a mess in here, I’m off to get some cleaning supplies. I’ll see you later!”
Emily had signed the message with a pink erasable marker, and had drawn a super deformed picture of Danielle
and her holding hands below the signature.
Danielle giggled to herself. “Good old Emily.” Danielle decided to take a quick shower in order to wash off the clay. If she was quick enough, she would be able to snag a front row seat for the jazz concert after all. Danielle headed back down the hall, towards the girls bathroom. She couldn’t believe she had been so worried over something so silly.
She was at Bensen, things generally went well here. The people were nice if a bit snooty, and the classes were great. She placed her left hand on the bathroom door, and started to push.
Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her left thigh. With a sudden jerk, she grabbed her stomach with both her hands. Danielle had often experienced terrible cramps from running, but she had never felt any pain in her abs and stomach
that was intense and burning as she did now. She coughed up some mucus reflectively.
After the pain dissipated a bit, she examined her left thigh. There, jaggedly sticking out of her upper leg were Emily’s purple scissors. Danielle’s face turned very pale. She attempted to remove the object, but she ended up pushing both blades into her thigh even deeper. She cried out from the severe pain, and noticed that her hands and leg were covered with blood. Danielle coughed up some mucus once more, but the taste
differed greatly this time.
Her tongue could make out the usual texture of her phlegm, with a metallic
flavor. Danielle realized all too swiftly that she was coughing up blood. The pain caused her to stumble, then fall. She couldn’t move. She didn’t know why she couldn’t move, or how a pair of scissors had come to be lodged in her thigh, or why they were there, but they were. Although she never paid much attention in biology class, she thought a person could only cough up blood from being stabbed in the
stomach, not from something as minor as being stabbed in the leg. Yet, the puncture present in her thigh seemed to make her entire body hurt.
Danielle suddenly felt cold, more cold than she had ever felt, even more cold than the time the Island got a three foot snowstorm. The pain grew more severe and
more intense. Her stomach throbbed and convulsed rapidily. With a wretched gasp, she puked up even more blood in addition to the oatmeal she had eaten ten hours earlier. Her arms and legs kicked out and thrashed, in vain she tried to get back up or crawl. Danielle’s body, which now seemed to weigh a hundred tons, would not obey her brain’s commands, would not listen to her heart’s desperate plea.
She attempted to call out for helped, to yell, but all that came out of her throat was a guttural wheeze accompanied by bloody mucus and metallic tasting vomit. Both of her legs were soaked with sticky crimson fluid now. Her eyes watered, and tears starting flooding down her cheek. Her vision started to fade and take on a red tint. With one last burst of willpower, Danielle managed to turn her neck just enough to look behind her. She squinted with every ounce of her body. All she could make out were a
pair of milky blue eyes.
And then the fire went out.