The boy went outside of the building and looked out at his surroundings. He saw a series of small buildings that made up the dorms of a college campus, a large wall that stretched out as far as the eye could see dividing the campus into sections, and the upper half of a giant pumpkin peeking over the inner wall.

He let out a sigh. “I can’t stand this place, but some things make it tolerable”. He entered a nearby restaurant called “Kup of Joe”. The boy sat down at a table in the corner away from the other customers. He took out his phone and constantly turned it on and off. 

Two girls almost bumped into each other in front of the coffee shop when they both attempted to enter at the same time. One was a caucasian girl named Wendy, she had black hair in a ponytail, green eyes, wore a white jacket, black jeans, white boots and a red scarf. The other girl was asian, had long black hair, black eyes, wore a red sweater, blue pants, red boots, a white scarf, and was carrying a bag. 

They both exchanged an apology for cutting each other off. “You here on break too?” said the girl in the red sweater. “Kind of…”, Wendy responded. Need to scrounge up some change first.” The girl in the red sweater stuck her hand in her pocket and took out a few paper bills. She offered it to her.

“No I…”, started Wendy, but she was cut off.  “You gonna make me beg?”, said the girl in the red sweater. Wendy let out a sigh. She knew that she couldn’t really refuse this kind gesture, so she gave in and accepted it.  Wendy smiled at her. The girl in the red sweater gestured for Wendy to go through the door first.

Wendy accepted this offer as well and promised to return the kindness by paying her back when she could. “You want to join me?”, asked Wendy while gesturing to a table. The girl in the red sweater smiled, “I would, but I’m meeting up with someone. Sorry.”.

Wendy gave her a smug look realizing that this might not be an “ordinary” person. “You meeting a guy?” The girl turned her attention to the boy messing with his phone. Wendy's expression turned very serious and she took a moment to think about the words that would come out of her mouth next. “Oh...I think he wants to be alone”, she finally said.

The girl in the red sweater gave the boy a concerned look. “I worry about him”. Wendy gave a little smile to the girl in the red sweater. “Ok...But be careful...There’s something off about him.”

They split off and the girl in the red sweater approached the boy. He stopped messing with his phone when he heard the girl’s voice. “You pretending to be busy again, so no one bugs you?”

The boy looked up from his phone and noticed the lady in the red sweater giving him a smug look. “Sucks, it doesn’t work on everyone.”

She made a fake shocked expression and placed a hand over her heart as if his words had just wounded her. “I’m hurt”, she said with a hint of sarcasm.

She placed her bag on the floor next to the chair opposite of the boy and sat down. She suddenly noticed a spider on the table and froze. Her face turned pale and she started trembling a little. The boy noticed the spider and flicked it away. The girl in the red sweater watched it carefully as it crawled away into a nearby hole in the wall. Some of the color returned to her face and she stopped trembling.

She cleared her throat and regained some of her composure. “Um...You get first pick.” The boy thought about it for a moment. “Heads”, he said. The girl took a coin out of her pocket and flipped it. “Guess I get tails”.

The coin landed on tails. “Guess it’s your turn to buy the coffee”, said the boy with a smug look on his face. “Next time, it’s your turn”, she said, slightly annoyed. She stood up.

 “Two sugar packets, and a dash of milk, right?”, she asked. The boy nodded.

The girl in the red sweater left and the boy went back to messing with his phone. A ball of black smoke flew past him and he began to shiver. He looked around and saw several clouds of black smoke hovering around the ceiling.

“Somebody must be smoking in here”, he thought to himself. The boy turned his attention back to his phone. The girl in the red sweater returned to his table with two coffee cups. One of them had “Damian” written on it and the other had “Joanna”.

The boy stared at his name on the cup with confusion. “Why do they always have to write the names on them?” Joanna handed Damian his cup of coffee. “I did that.”

He turned his look of confusion from the cup to her. “Why?”. Joanna gave him an accusing look. “I seem to recall someone switching my half cup for his empty one when I wasn’t looking.” Damian avoided eye contact. “It was one time.” She gave him a more pressing look “No, it wasn’t.”

She sat down in her chair. “So what’s new with you?”. Damian took a sip of his coffee. “I had a weird dream last night.” Joanna looked hesitant, almost afraid of what she might hear. Damian noticed this. “...Not the usual ones”.

She relaxed herself a little. “...What was it about?” Damian went on to explain about the world being in ruins, meeting a giant skeleton, a puppet, and pretty much everything he had just experienced. Joanna took a long sip from her cup before responding.

“Were you watching a horror movie or something before you went to sleep? Those things tend to give people nightmares”. Damian shook his head. “I didn’t watch any movies. All I did was eat my halloween candy then go to sleep”.

She gave him a confused look. “How did you get Halloween candy this early?” The same expression formed on Damian’s face. “What do you mean this early? Halloween was yesterday”.

Joanna put her cup down on the table. “Today’s October first. Maybe your dream affected your memory”.

Damian held up his phone. “I bet you five dollars that today is November first.”. Joanna rested her head on her fist and gave him a cocky smile. “Deal.”

Damian began searching through his phone while Joanna drank the last of her coffee. He stopped after about a minute and Joanna tossed her cup in a nearby garbage can from her chair like a basketball. Damian held up five dollars and had a look of defeat on his face.

 “Thanks for paying me back”, said Joanna with a cheerful tone. She stood up, took the money and slung her bag around her shoulder. “Time for class.”

Damian was about to drink the remaining coffee he had, but Joanna snatched it out of his hand.  “Hey!”, said Damian, clearly annoyed. Joanna shook the cup a little and gave him a coy smile. “Consider this extra.”

She walked away while drinking the last of his coffee. Damian smiled for a moment then quickly shifted to a scowl. He got up and began to walk towards the exit. He stopped halfway and began shivering.

“Why is it so cold in here?”, he thought to himself. He noticed that the ceiling was covered in a black fog. The fog began to stretch out to the other students and swarm around them. They all began breathing it in and casually fanning it away. Anyone that breathed it in suddenly looked annoyed.

 “That damn barista got my order wrong again!” yelled one student as he threw his coffee across the room at the barista lady. She quickly dodged it . “I’d like to see you do my job without making any mistakes!” She threw a pot of coffee across the room at the same student, but she didn’t miss. He let loose a scream as his skin began to burn.

They weren’t the only ones picking fights. All of the students in the building began fighting each other. Damian breathed in black smoke and fanned it away from his face. He gave them a look of indifference. “These guys must be on something other than cigarettes.”