My alarm rang and I sat up with a moan. I reached over and slammed my hand on it—nearly missing it because I was so tired.

I took a deep breath and climbed out of bed, raiding my closet for a decent dress and then heading out to my first class of the day.

On my way out of the dorm, I was joined by my friend, Jenny, who nearly skipped over to me and waved an invitation in my face. “This Saturday, we’re all gonna have a party at George’s place! You’re gonna come right?”

I shook my head with a smile as we rounded a corner onto the stairs. “You know I don’t like parties, Jenny. I’d much rather stay in my dorm and eat pizza or something.”

Jenny stepped in front of me as I tried to climb the last step on the staircase.

“Damn it, Robin! I won’t let you keep passing up chance to find a boyfriend—maybe even your true love—just because you… You think they won’t like you once you tell them about… About you!” Jenny said angrily.

I rolled my eyes and snorted as I brushed past her. “Nice save, Jenny. You can say it, I’m not a real woman like you are and I never will be.”

“That is not what I was going to say!” Jenny complained as she stalked me through the noisy lobby and out onto the colorful campus itself. “I’m tired of you putting words in my mouth and making it seem like I’m belittling you!”

I giggled a little. She was so easy to mess with.

We merged with a crowd of students approaching the crosswalk ahead of us and I groaned inwardly as I saw that we had just missed our chance to cross. To Jenny I said, “I can’t help it, Jenny. I have no confidence when it comes to dating. Besides…”

My mind flashed to Asher, and I just couldn’t continue.

“You’re still stuck on that cute boy whose picture is on your dresser, aren’t you?” Jenny asked.

The words were caught in my throat, and I could only nod in response.

“We have to fix that…” Jenny said mischievously and trailed off.

Jenny blabbered on about various things as we walked to our first class of the day.

I tuned in and out, but I was mostly thinking about Asher now with his fiery red hair and his earthy brown eyes.

“I’m going to make you my princess! Just you wait! When we’re grown up, I’ll get you a diamond ring and buy you a big house where no one will make fun of you again!”

I blushed.

That was the power he still had over me.

The sun was beating down on us, but we luckily found respite under a row of tall trees and I was glad that the math building was now just a few paces ahead.

“Oh no, another one…” Jenny said with a deep frown.

I snapped back to reality when I saw what she was talking about.

A woman lay dead in the shade of the trees. Her condition resembled that of the dead man me and Asher had encountered as children—her face and body seemed drained of blood and it looked as if her eyes had been sucked out of her sockets. Doctors had given the disease the name melancholia because the only thing connecting all the people who had died from it was that they were diagnosed with depression.

I looked into the woman’s socketless eyes for a moment; I was captivated by them.

My bones ached; my blood turned to ice.

Robin.

I gasped.

“Are you okay, Robin?” Jenny asked.

I wasn’t sure, but I nodded nonetheless and then whipped out my phone.

It was my turn to call the police upon encountering a body.

We continued onward to class after that, but I was unable to get the body out of my mind.

I took a seat next to Jenny at the back of the class.

I concentrated on the teacher’s lesson until I felt impossibly cold.

I heard the ball at the edge of my hearing for the first time in years.

Images preyed upon my mind.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Gleaming teeth with a piece of human flesh between them.

“Robin, do you know the answer?” The teacher called on me.

I was in a pool of sweat until I realized I had come back to reality.

I looked at the equation on the white board and gingerly shook my head. Luckily, she moved on to a different student who had their hand up when I couldn’t answer.

__

At lunch, me and Jenny went to our favorite fast food joint on campus and found a nice and quiet place to sit and eat our junk food under the shade of a beautiful eucalyptus tree.

Jenny said through a mouth full of burger, “so, you gonna call your dad for Father’s Day?”

I sniffed a little with a gentle smile. “I don’t have one.”

Jenny never knew that about me, and her jaw went slack. “No kiddin’? So every other time I asked you whether you were gonna call your dad and you gave me some vague answer, you just thought I wasn’t a good enough friend to know things about you?”

I held my own burger in my hands thoughtfully for a moment, and then I answered, “it just didn’t matter. He abandoned us and I have no idea where he is.”

Jenny realized how brokenhearted I was about it, and she squeezed my shoulder apologetically. “I’m sorry Robin. I didn’t know.”

I shrugged and cleared my throat awkwardly. “That’s why… That’s one of the reasons why it’s so hard to put myself out there.”

I don’t want anything to do with devils.

Jenny nodded and slurped up her drink through a straw. “Don’t worry! We’ll fix that!”

__

At the end of the day, I returned to my dorm and thought of the many Cs I was getting along with the few As. I had a biology test in hand which I had gotten a C on. I went over it in silence and eventually angrily tossed it onto the floor.

I collapsed on my back and looked up at the ceiling with a blank face.

What am I doing? I don’t belong here… I wondered to myself. I had never planned to enroll in college; I never wanted to. And yet, here I was.

I rolled onto my side and looked at the picture of Asher on my dresser.

It’s partly your fault… But I also wanted to prove Mom wrong. I thought to myself with a deep-set frown.

I remembered the conversation like it was yesterday.

We were both seventeen at that point and we had the big talks with our guidance counselors. After school, as we walked home, Asher asked cheerfully, “so, you’re planning on going to college, right?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have the money. Besides, I have to start working to keep the house afloat.”

Asher was dead silent for a time. I could see the disapproval on his face. “So, you’re going to spend your life looking after a woman who abuses you?”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

My head whirled at his bluntness.

I knew he had always been thinking that at the back of his mind, but I never thought he would ever say it out loud.

I faced him with gritted teeth—I was nearly frothing at the mouth. “And what about you and your abusive mother? The one who convinced you that you’re only allowed to leave your house on Saturdays and test days because you cough and sneeze?”

He met my angry gaze with angry tears of his own. He wiped them away in a moment with a palm. “My mom isn’t abusive. She knows I have a weakened immune system and acts accordingly. Come on, Robin. You can do so much more with your life—it doesn’t have to begin and end with her…”

“What am I good at, Asher? I hate math, I hate writing, and I hate art. I’m sick of school and I want to be of use!” I cried.

“You’re getting good grades… You’re smart. You can do whatever you want with your life.” Asher protested as I furiously brushed past him.

“I’m only getting good grades because of you.” I replied sullenly.

“You don’t think the effort you put into it had anything to do with it?” Asher challenged me.

I didn’t want to hear it.

I ran away from him and back into the arms of my mother.

All I could think of when I tried to sleep at night was my condition and Asher’s weakened immune system.

And those creatures I may or may not have seen years before.

If it weren’t for those creatures Asher and I had seen, I might have thought that our physical conditions were just an accident—a mistake in nature.

But I knew better.

It was nature’s revenge; a purposeful mistake.

Nature was trying to keep us miserable.