⊕Sinead⊕
Sinead walked onto the campus, looking around with a hint of satisfaction in her expression. College. She'd wanted to go from the moment she learned that it was a place you went away to, to learn. A school you didn't have to come home from. She had dedicated herself to the task from that moment on: go to College, as soon as possible. She had a better home now, with the Turings. One she could even be happy to go back to. For now though, she could take in the beauty of her surroundings, breathe in deep breaths of sweet, fresh air, and enjoy the fact that she'd won. Da was in his grave, Lorcan in his cell, and Tobias Wren, in hiding. Oh, the war still raged; Wren, his thugs, and their clients would pursue her to the ends of the earth if they ever found her. But for now? She was in College. On her way to the future she chose to create.
She wore her hair in a "Cortana" style, longer toward the front than the back, a sleek suit, a silver Telepathy One wearable computer headset, and a haptic interace on her left hand.
As she glanced around, she spotted a pip superimposed over the second story of one of the buildings by the augmented-reality program on her T-One.
Right then, glad that's sorted. I could have wandered around this place for hours before I found it otherwise. The movers had brought her gear and set it all up in her dorm room. The wifi was good here, so her T-One had no trouble finding her workstation.
The campus was
gorgeous. The buildings were all flying buttresses and Gothic spires, like rocketships poised to hurl themselves at the stars. The stone and ivy and mature trees, all conspired to convey a sense of permanence. Solidity.
Safety. It was only a 'sense,' not necessarily the real thing, but Sinead found herself enjoying it anyway.
With a flick of the fingers of her left hand, Sinead opened her new school inbox, two messages. She opened the first one, a welcome from the Administration.
Field games? I'm not much for sports, but it might be fun to watch. A dance? Eeeeeeeeeh...no. What the...?
Sinead felt a chill come over her, and at the same time, a stirring of hot anger.
First bloody day of school, and there's some psycho maniac already stalking girls? Really?! Oh, and they're showing Nightmare on bloody Elm Street
to welcome us back to school? What bright spark came up with that
idea?! Alright, alright, better get to my dorm and get my security systems set up then. "Ada, search, Ana Grant murder," she said. That name sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it. No time to sift through stories about the murder before she reached her dorm, but she could finish her email. Another finger-flick switched her back to her email window, then back to the inbox. That's when she saw that her other email was from...the Raven.
Arcane Society,
Ana, oh poor Ana. It was really you who put a end to her, not me. I just followed through with what I promised. And now I am making a new promise...I will hunt down every last one of you and watch you suffer. Some will end up like Ana, others I have a special place for you where you WILL wish you were died.
~ The Raven
P.S Welcome back! It is a lot easier to hunt you when you are all in the same campus!
Oh, bugger all! Sinead thought. After being accepted at Langston, she'd been invited to join the Arcane Society. Some kind of best-of-the-best thing. The vibe seemed more like 'cabal of wizards' than the usual TOGA! TOGA! TOGA! drunken-popularity-contest-and-stupidity Greek-letter sorority/fraternity thing, and thus had at least a chance of being cool. If not...well, it was never hard to leave an 'elite' group.
Maybe I should do that then? Tell 'em I'm not interested in joinin' after all? No school club is worth gettin' killed for, an' I've got enough problems already! But...that'd be givin' in t' the creep, an' no guarantee he wouldn't come after me anyway. Ana Grant! She was the Director, the one that sent the the invite! Right, so what'll he do next? Start at the top an' work his way down? Or...go after the newest member next? Why would he be huntin' 'em anyway? Some whackadoodle fundamentalist who thinks they're castin' spells in the basement? Or...what if the Arcane Society drove him to it, like if they're massive bullies and snobs or somethin', found a nutter with a few screws loose, made his life miserable until he snapped? I've never even been to any of their meetings, don't know the secret hand...shake...
Opening the door of the dorm building, Sinead found herself facing...guys. Open-mouthed with shock and starting to blush, she flicked her left hand to bring up her augmented reality. Sure enough, the locator pip was there, as if she could look through the ceiling to the second floor and two or three doors down and see the room where her things waited.
"The...girls'...dorm?" she choked out to the first guy who approached her.
