"Dante? Are you okay?" Virgil calls again.

Like some weak, pathetic creature found in the thicket near death, I rip off my blindfold and sit up, tucking my hands between my legs to shield myself from view. "I fell into some crates!" I shout back hoarsely, "The rope snapped!"

Virgil squeaks down the stairs and comes to a stop at the bottom of the steps, frozen. "Jesus fucking Christ!" He breathes, and he darts over, taking off his coat as he goes. "Are you hurt anywhere? Did any of the crates fall on you?"

"I'm fine, just a little banged up is all," I reply, and Virgil throws his coat over my shoulders and kneels next to me, eyebrows pulled in concern when he sees my bloody hands and wrists where the rope had dug into earlier. 

"Why are you here?" I ask him after I collect myself and catch my breath, "I thought you weren't coming for another few hours."

"I wasn't," Virgil helps me stand and steadies me, one hand pressed against my chest. "But I was having dinner with Ovid and watching Monmouth from my window, and we saw someone with a flashlight go into the building. I wanted to make sure you weren't going to get hurt, so I came down here as fast as I could."

"You were having dinner with Ovid?" I ask, feigning relief while inside I was dying. "Did either of you see who was going into the school?"

"We have dinner every Saturday," Virgil sighs, pushing his hair back out of his face. "And unfortunately, no, we didn't, but the figure was almost as tall and wide as John."

I gulp as I recall the stranger putting his warm tongue on my throbbing flesh and feeling his hot breath pass over my face before he began to work his way down my body with those large hands. Against my better judgment, I look down at Virgil's hands tipped with chipped black fingernail polish and find them to be surprisingly normal-sized but with long, elegant fingers.

If I'd had a choice between dying and telling Virgil that I had let a stranger touch me so intimately while I was dangling from the ceiling, then I would have preferred to die. I hadn't even set foot in a classroom or unpacked my car, yet here I was attending a poetry club with a bunch of strange men and one woman who enjoyed having sex with one another and reading Keats.

"We should go just in case they decide to come back," I say, and I pull his coat tighter around my shoulders, noticing that this time it was different from the wool one he'd worn when I met him. This jacket was a luxury purchase for going on dates and wandering museums—soft, tan, and cashmere. It was also extremely warm and draped three sizes too big around my smaller frame. "Does it still count as finishing the initiation if I leave early?"

Virgil smiles a bastard's smile. "Well, I certainly won't tell the others if you don't."

There's a clatter from behind us, and we both turn to see a small, black mouse running out from behind the pile of crushed containers, squeaking like mad. Screaming shrilly, I throw myself into Virgil's arms, cartoon style, when the hideous little rodent darts right over my bare feet and under the staircase, into obscurity. "Ahh! Fuck me sideways!"

"It's alright, Dante! It's just a little mouse!" Virgil explodes with laughter, his broad chest vibrating against my shoulder as I hold onto him for dear life.

"I know that, you absolute dolt! But where the hell did it come from?" I demand and start scanning the pile of broken crates before I finally spot a sizable wall crack that wasn't there before.

"Well, it's a mouse, so I suspect anywhere. Monmouth's full of all kinds of spooky little creatures," Virgil muses as I slide out of his arms and go examine the wall. "Say, Dante? I know this isn't the best time, but I was wondering if you weren't too busy with unpacking, then maybe we could have lunch together or go grab a coffee in town."

I gently touch the brick wall as Virgil stumbles over his words and quickly pull my hand back when a layer of thick moisture sticks to my palm. The wall felt like it was sweating, but it was freezing cold. I imagined that in the dead of winter, any moisture down here would freeze right over like one big meat locker. I move down curiously and find that the crack extended fully through the brick and into the other side, which contained some kind of chamber. 

"Virgil! Come look at this!"

Virgil quickly comes over and stands next to me, leaning in, one finger pressed to his chin. "Oh! You must have uncovered this when you knocked those old crates over. How strange! It looks like there's a room behind this wall." He reaches down to push at the bricks a little, but they remain steady and don't give away beneath his hand.

"What do we do?" I ask him, practically burying myself in his coat now, "Should we tell someone?"

"Why would we do that?" Virgil asks, amused, "Monmouth is our clubhouse. If the college gets word that there's a crack in the wall that might bring this building crashing down on top of us, they'll shut us down faster than a rat up a drainpipe. No, I think we should explore this more on our own, but maybe with a little help. I'll ask Homer to grab a sledgehammer from the groundskeeper tomorrow and see if he can chip away some of these bricks. He's used to working on a farm, and he's stronger than all of us combined."

"You're mad!" I reply, shocked, "You just said the wall could send the whole building crashing down on top of us!"

"Building crumbles, time arrests," Virgil replies in his velvet voice. "Man finds truth in ruins."

"We're going to die, aren't we?" I exhale, "I knew that signing my soul over to you all was a terrible idea."