Chapter Text
Chapter One, Alice
The rain beat down on the windows and cast the library archive in a gray-blue light. I was alone, restocking. It was meditative in a way, the silence of the library. My heartbeat seemed to fill the whole room, accompanied only by the pattering of the rain and the settling of the building. As a child, I imagined college to be one big drunk party. Perhaps, somewhere across the campus, there was a party. Maybe the loud music echoed through the apartment and leaked out into the rainy night. Maybe there were girls like me, only cooler, because they knew how to get into a party, and weren’t restocking books in an empty library. As I looked out the grand window into the fuzzy gray, I imagined one of the lights that glimmered back at me was that party. Like a star, its light reached me, even if my world was so far away.
I’m not sure I’d even like a party if I were to attend. I hate loud noise, and I don’t think I’d have anything in common with the other people there. In high school, I had a few good friends, but each of them took off to colleges out of state. We all try to keep in touch, but it really isn’t the same. I had thought that maybe in college I would find my cliche. Maybe there was another girl just like me here, but she was also too shy and awkward to introduce herself. Here, at least, I had the chance to reinvent myself. I hadn’t made any real friends yet, but I had a handful of classmates who knew my name and liked talking to me. That's got to count for something, right? I also had my coworkers, my favorite of which was the director of the archives, Professor Bixby. She was a kooky old woman who had been at the school longer than any of the other staff. She is who I think I might be one day.
I was supposed to have a roommate, who perhaps I might have been close with, but last minute, she developed some strange illness. From what I heard, she became increasingly more sick, but with no clear cause. She never made it to move in. So I find myself alone in my two-room dorm. Recently, however, I had heard from my RA that there was a student applying late to the term. They were looking for somewhere to place her. I hoped desperately that she would be placed with me. It was incredibly lonely to have that whole suite to myself. The other room always sat dark, and it felt almost haunting.
The sound of footsteps jolted me back to reality. Professor Bixby rounded the corner, her unruly gray curls tucked behind a faded tie-dye headband.
“Alice!” she startled. “You scared me! I thought you had left already, my dear.”
I laughed. “You scared me!”
“Well, never mind that, I suppose. It is certainly getting late. I feel bad keeping you to this hour. Go! You can finish this section tomorrow.”
“Alright.” I set down the last book. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I rushed through the winding streets back to my dorm. The rain soaked through my jacket and clung to my skin. I clamored inside the old stone building of my dorm and climbed the stairs to the top floor, where, at the end of the hall, I could see something taped to my door. An official-looking letter, I looked it over.
“Alice Ebner, this letter is to inform you…” My eyes rapidly scanned the paper in the dim light. “...you can expect your new roommate, Carmilla Karnstein, to move in this Friday, September 5th…” My heart skipped. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.