By the time Ashton had left the library the sun had left the sky, he sat through hours of studying with the Japanese study group. Their teacher had been relentless with quiz after quiz, to the point where he had begun to think in Japanese for the past few days. The group of weebs and nerds walked towards the exit, laughing at how bad their Japanglish really was. Occasionally, one of them would yell some anime quote, and the rest would join in. Even Ashton couldn’t resist his true calling, but as fun as it was the bed sounded even better. What was better than that? Anime in bed.

The smell of old pages and coffee stained the inside of the library, which was to be expected of a Tuesday night at Brooke-U , diligent studying and mental breakdowns. The crowd of dorks piled down the stairs fitting everybody in their clique, they kept bumping into poor souls that just wanted to go home. As they crammed down the steps, Ashton felt a small ringing in the back of his face. The slight twinge of pain must have been written all over his face. One of his study buddies, put their arm over his shoulders and rubbed him gently.

“You good buddy?”, they asked jokingly, but still had a sprinkle of concern in their voice. Ashton didn’t mean to seem like an asshole, but he needed some air. Lifting their arm off of him, “Sorry, I just need some fresh air, all this japanese has gotten into my brain.”, wincing through the pain. Ashton needed to get out of there as the ringing became a solid string of penetrating white noise. He stopped on the stairs clutching his head with his left hand. Sounds began to merge together muddling together, even the worries of his study group couldn’t even break the mental onslaught.

The nearest exit would be his  best friend, the one in front of him was blocked by a gathering of concerned dorks. Where would he go? The back entrance, he remembered, the back entrance, but it was in the rear section of the 2nd floor. Great, Backtracking, Ashton hated backtracking. With all of this happening on the inside, he wondered if he was giving it away that he was getting his shit rocked. Fuck now, his study group will he’s tweaking out.

“I-I’m gonna go this way, because my ride is up this way, and yeah,” he awkwardly fumbled through his words while his mind was turning into soup. Embarrassed and suffering, he gave the study group his peace out, pivoted on his backfoot and sped walk back to the 2nd floor. Leaving the rest of his class in utter confusion.

Ashton’s brisk walk had become a full medium sized jog, getting out of here was more of a priority than saving his social image, that shit was destroyed. All the while, the white noise hasn’t stopped, it was making his vision blur. The glasses he wore were completely useless now, he took them off mid-stride which proved to be a terrible idea since he almost trucked a man walking into the building. Luckily, he just bumped shoulders with man, who just happened to be structured like a brick, he fell over onto the ground. The few gasps from onlookers as he groaned getting up, but where were his glasses? He still needed those expensive little shits, he cursed. Patting around on the ground gently, hoping he didn’t crush them, he channeled his inner Velma.

“Here,” a serious voice spoke to him, “You dropped these along with yourself.” This man was cracking jokes, a life-threatening migraine and comedy name a better duo. He grabbed at the black blot where his spectacles, put them on, and looked at his jogging victim. An older guy, not older by much though, he was a brother like Ashton, with dark chestnut skin and brown eyes. He was taller, stood upright, followed up by a big messy afro. The grey scarf covering his face was pulled down to reveal a light goatee. “You really should watch where you’re going, might hurt someone.” he smiled through baggy eyes. Must be a hard worker, Ash thought. There was an awkward silence as this guy adjusted his black coat, and cleared his throat.

“Thanks, dude!”, Ashton said as he sprang up from the ground finally remembering his manners. The walking afro puff shrugged his shoulders and walked away, having done his good deed he no longer cared. Interesting, Ashton was confused, but it took him a second before the absence of ringing told him that his headache. Until it came back full force, but the door was right there, his way out. On the way out he took one last look at the afro’d man walking deeper into the library. Freedom. Mental freedom. Pushing the door open the cold air slapped him in the face, the insta-chill shock subdued the migraine into a more manageable irritation. Maybe he was in the initial stages of some strange disease he caught from the smoke session last night. Ever since smoking some weird things have been happening lately.

Lost in thought, cold, and hungry he approached the bus stop. Racking his brain around the what’s been occuring around him, wondering why the hell he got a migraine, he rarely had headaches even. And why did it stop, once he talked to that man? The wind picked up speed, really tearing his skin up with frost, Ash put some pep in his step. Luckily for him the bus shelter was only a few pep steps away. A warm salvation, that would care for him until the metal carriage came to take him away from the elements. Back to the dorm, sweet dorm. A few seconds turned into a minute, 5 minutes to 10 minutes, but the bus never came. Ashton checked the time, 8:30 pm, the buses should still be running until at least 10. Was this day, or just his luck, cursed as hell he didn’t know for sure at this point. Weird dreams, headaches, now the bus won’t even show up. Fuck. The cold wind whipped the exposed part of his skin for the last few minutes was annoying as hell, and he had enough.

As Ashton stood, pissed, arms folded, he felt a pulse through the air around him, almost like it flowed through him and space. Vision began to distort and bend, twisting the threads of reality creating tension, until it snapped, rubber banding back to normal. Ashton tripped back as the waves began to suffocate his mind, he clutched the bench trying to grasp his sanity. As the ripples subsided, he could see his breath slowly faded until he couldn’t see it anymore. The cold chill turned into a soft nothingness, no wind, no temperature. It was like time had stopped moving. It must’ve been a little late for this, but something was off. Very off. He scrambled up the bench, patting his body looking for his phone, and any other mortal wounds. Clutching the phone in his hands, the lock screen proved to be no help when he glanced at the time. The time was illegible, fluctuating between numbers at a rate Ash had never seen before. They kept cycling before they came to a halt abruptly, at 0:00.

He put the phone back into his pocket, now slightly panicked breathing became a struggle. Deep breathes in, followed by shallow out. Ashton repeated this until his heart calmed down. He had two options either walk home in the dark, or die here in the Twilight Zone. Fuck. That. Adjusting the bookstrap that lay on his shoulder, Ash began to shuffle down the road towards his dorm room. While the wind seemed to have halted, and clocks were out of the question, he found it surprising that the street lamps yellow glow continued to illuminate the sidewalk.  Underneath one of the lights an all black figure stood, shaking. Finally another person, he thought, as he quickly jogged up to them.

“Yo man, it’s cold as hell, I know right?”, Ash joked to making small talk. The weird situation grew, when the figure stood in its place, vibrating. He continued to get close, but his steps began to slow as he approached the man. The closer he got, the more dread and uncomfortable the silence became suffocating Ashton. Every feeling in his gut told him to stop, but the lure of the figure kept him going. That same curiosity he felt when he was trapped in his dream from last night. By this point he was about an arm’s length away from the man, then he realized he messed up. What he had gotten closer to wasn’t a man at all, hell it wasn’t even human.

It’s skin was black with a reddish hue, almost like onyx. The crimson aura radiated off the creature with such vigor like miasma. Skinny, skeletal arms, with large claws attached at the end, that the creature had wrapped around itself. It was hugging itself, still shivering, but not from the cold. Its movements were unnatural, it jirated in ways Ashton had never seen before. What scared him the most was the large fangs that sprouted out of the mouth that followed into what he believed were the empty eye sockets. For a long moment, he stood completely frozen in fear, and awe of the monster. Shortly after awe turned into dread as Ashton realized that this “thing” made his skin crawl, every bone in his body told him death awaited the longer he stood near it.

One foot after the other, he slowly backed away. Taking each step cautiously, like it was his last, he kept eyes locked onto it. The last thing he wanted to do right now, was to turn his back on it. As the creature started to shrink in his vision, Ashton forgot where the sidewalk ended and fell over the curb onto the asphalt of the road behind him. His inching back had cost him because no he hoped, he really fucking hoped that thing wouldn’t wake up. He quickly shook off the pain from losing to the ground, shooting the monster one more look, but he noticed something different about it now. It wasn’t twitching anymore. Now that he got a closer look at the monster he was kicking himself for ever thinking it was a regular dude. Sleek dull black humanoid, surrounded by a red miasma, the figure reared back its mouth-less, smooth head, back.

Ashton heard ripping and tearing as its flesh split apart, forcing its mouth open from almost nothing. The sound curdled his blood, while he watched the phenomenon it put a fear in his chest that tightened the rest of his body to the point where he couldn’t feel his fingertips anymore. The monster’s head gaped open, and the muffled noises Ashton heard turned into a piercing unearthly roar. The echoing noise snapped him out of trance, so he covered his ears, the audio boom shook his entire vision as the things continued roaring. The cupped hands didn’t provide much help, once dizziness was setting in, the vision began to haze. Was he going to die, the thoughts of everything going wrong poured into his mind. The space distorted around it, like the monster was the problem or like it didn’t belong here. Whatever the purpose for it being here Ashton wanted 0 parts of it, he looked up again after the fog, and noise, cleared from his mind. Sleek black skin had been replaced, or maybe filled with static. Black and white pixels seized within its skin, eyes bright black, and mouth fang-full. They had met eyes, and it smiled toothfully, setting its eyes on Ashton as the prize. 

He had fucked up.