The evening air had grown relatively brisk in the late summer; a fact made all the more clear by the fact that Sam had neglected to bring his hoodie with him when he set off across campus back to his dorm. If he had to take a stab at it, he probably left it lying somewhere in the parking lot. Such was a mistake often made by those succumbed to inebriation. "Fuck!" he retorted, turning back towards the stadium. "I should really go back; it's colder than I thought it'd be."
"Can't it wait until morning, man?" his friend asked lazily.
"No no." Sam shook his head. "Someone might snag it overnight. Ju-just go on without me... I'l catch up. I promise."
Through glazed, bloodshot eyes, he saw his friend shrug. "Alright then. See you back in the dorms."
Sam watched in a stupor as his buddy walked off towards the residential section of campus, vanishing into distance and darkness.
Certain that he was now alone, Sam turned on his heels and walked back towards the football stadium, stumbling, stuttering, and loafing on as he went about. 'You're such a lightweight,' his friends would always tell him. They weren't wrong, of course. Sam rarely indluged in the common vices of the university student. This night, however, mere days before the start of what would be his final year, was one of those scant ocassions upon which he 'turned up.' The substances of use had been varied at the "tailgate" he and his classmates had just concluded. Alcohol had been in highest abunance, being so easily accessible; Sam had had more than his fair share of the hard liquor; so infrequently as he did partake in the intoxication, he was like to make up for it by going as hard as he could, which usually ended with him being blasted harder than his more seaworthy peers.
This night in particular though, Sam had kicked it up one step further: following the steady stream of rum and whiskey, his drunken self had decided to fumigate with three massive rips from his roomate's bong. The alcohol and cannabis crossed paths, and drunkenness and highness peaked just as he set is way backtracking to snag his hoodie. The walk was long and slow. Not only were his steps reminscent of the Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz, but his mind was in a thick fog of thought that gave pause to his every move.
Without even realizing it, he found himself back in the Stadium parking lot. Eerily, the stadium lights were all still on, piercing the otherwise black curtain of the night. It was as though the stadium itself were a sanctuary in a foreboding landscape. "Ah!" he spotted the grey pullover, clumped upon the asphalt, evidence of a tire mark upon it, but otherwise undisturbed. He leaned down... rather dropped like a stone... and gathered the garment, slipping it on over his t-shirt. "That's better." He never thought he'd say that about a warm sweater in August, but here he was.
He gazed upward as though he were looking at the sky for the first time; it was overcast, not a star sight, nor a moon to illuminate the univeristy with its natural glow.
Despite having gotten what he had said he'd come for, Sam didn't move. Instead, he pulled out his phone, and scrolled to a text he had gotten a few hours earlier. "I'll be over by the stadium later," it read. It was a message from another friend of his. He had hoped to have seen them at the party earlier, but they must have gotten tied up with something else, saying they'd meet up afterwards. Sam wasn't too concerned by the isolated nature of the meeting; this friend wasn't as well acquainted with the ones he had just been with, so hanging out just the two of them made enough sense.
To be clear, he hadn't left his hoddie behind on purpose. However, it DID give him a valid excuse to return to the parking lot to meet his other friend wihtout it seeming like he was just bailing on the party. Witty and intelligent as he was, saying he had planned this stint out was giving him too much credit.
He waited for what felt like hours, though it likely only seemed that way because of the crossfading. As the minutes passed, he saw no sign of anyone, much less his friend, emerging from the darkness.
As a cold wind kicked up, cutting even through his hoodie, a strange sense of dread engulfed him. His chest pounded like the marching band's' largest bass drum. His hairs prickled up in a static surge. Sam peered into the dark of the night... somehow it seemed to have gotten even darker than before. Sweating, he bolted towards the stadium, hoping that the lights would at least give him some peace of mind. If he was still feeling off about the situation, he could just call one of his friends at the party... or better yet, snag an Uber or Lyft, since his entourage would be too fucked up to ride a bike, let alone a car.
But as he inched closer to the field, the sense of security that he had hoped for slipped quickly from his heart. The gates into the stadium were suspicously open; maybe it was just the football team up to some hijinx. Yeah. That's all it was. They were party animals as much as anyone lese on campus, and they probably picked the keys off of maintenance, or the athletic director. Sam had to validate it one way or another.
Yet the sight of the field was something that no mental gymnastics could justify or make sense of. There, laying on the fifty yard line, square in the center of the University's logo, was a lumped, limp... human body.
The temperature in the library spiked. The air thickened and grew unbearably heavy. What WAS going on? Whatever the commotion had been, it had attracted at least a half-dozen others to the same corner of the building. Three of them caught Sam's immediate attention, however.
One was a dark clad, dare he say "goth" type. Paled skin... probably makeup, black eyeliner, and similarly shaded attire, though it was, to Sam's eyes, quite elegant in its own style, even if not one that he'd personally adorn himself in. For a flaring second, he reacted to the sight of this person, but rebounded quickly. It wasn't frequent that he witnessed that aesthetic on campus, but he had seen it enough that it was, while curious, not out of sorts; Sam's high-school self definitely wouldn't have felt the same way.
The other, who seemed to have entered with the goth, was more wild looking. His hair, visibily blonde, bore at least a hint of prior colors to the point that determining what his natural hue was would have been nearly impossible. His ensemble was just as... colorful. No single discernable method, only pure madness. The guy seriously looked like he had gone on a shopping spree hitting up every thrift store, piercing hut, and maybe a Hot Topic to piece together what Sam could only see as a costume rather than a simple outfit. The guy seemed agitated, his expression matching the unpredictability of his attire. Sam edged away as he moved, worrying the consequences of standing in the way.
"Hot Topic" approached a third person: a timid looking blonde girl who, by her body language and the look upon her face, had only just arrived on the scene. She had been the first to break what had grown into a tense silence. Sam locked onto her when she pulled the tape from her bag; she had gotten a track too. He moved towards her, but stopped, as the blonde guy moved more quickly than he did. Sam clenched himself tight as "Thirft Store" interrogated Aurora. He moved closer to the pair, prepared to at least try to deal with the guy if his assertiveness gave way to aggression.
Fortunately, the tension broke, and the conversation deesacalted quickly and smoothly. Sam's heart would skip a beat when the blonde guy brought up the deceased student. He felt a sharp pain through his chest when the words reached the air: "Did you... Know him?"
Sam looked at the wildly dressed guy. "I..." he started, and then quickly shifted his attention to Aurora. He dug into his own bag and pulled out a similar tape to the one she held in her hand, holding it out plainly for her to see. "I got one too," he said reassuringly. "I don't think it's any kind of hazing. If it is, it's targeting randomly though, seeing as I'm not a first year."
