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Sam rolled out of bed as the hateful chiming of her alarm clock roused her from a wonderful dream. Though the dream itself had already begun to fade from her memory, it left her feeling light and happy. It was almost as if she had nothing to worry about, She did remember, however, that in her dream there were no heroes and villains, no Hounds of Humanity, and she didn’t have to worry about whether Kyle would make it home to her after spending his nights out fighting criminals as Lyger. For a moment, once the realization that it had all been just a dream, she felt somewhat deflated. She stood there a moment listening to the alarm before she finally went over to it and turned it off. 

Then, she looked down at the clock.

10:02AM


She didn’t have to be over to the campus for her radio show until just after noon, but she liked to get there early to sort through the music that she would play, as well as any topics of the day that she might have to touch on briefly. Fortunately, with the majority of the student body away on summer break, preparations for her show took considerably less time, as the shows were listened to by practically no one, she could realistically allow a chimp to do the show and nobody would notice. Still, she liked to be prepared for her show, no matter who was, or more accurately, who wasn’t listening.  Being careful not to wake Kyle, she crept across the room and grabbed her favorite oversized tee shirt, which went all the way down to her knees and slipped it on, before sneaking out of the room to go shower. 

Shortly after her shower, she returned to the room she shared with Kyle and quietly got dressed. After a quick check to make sure she had everything; her phone, keys, purse, and sunglasses, she made her way out to her beat up blue Toyota. As she got settled into the driver’s seat she adjusted the seat and mirrors, as Kyle was the last one to drive the car and he was a bit taller than she was, and tuned the radio to her favorite station before she pulled out of the narrow driveway and started out toward Lost Haven University. 

The drive from the house in Crown Ridge wasn’t too bad, in fact, it was such an easy commute that she was considering giving up her on campus housing in the fall and save some money by living with Kyle full time, as he’d already discussed the probability that he wouldn’t be returning to dorm life once the school year started again. It took her only about fifteen minutes to travel from Crown Ridge to Lost Haven, however, once she got into the city, traffic began to slow a bit. It took another twenty minutes to get from the city line to Little Ulster, which was only a few blocks from LHU. 

“But I won´t cry for yesterday, there´s an ordinary world. Somehow I have to find, and as I try to make my way…” she trailed off from her duet with her car’s radio as she noticed drove past the new Thai place that opened about a half a block from LHU’s North Campus, Phuken Gud. The name itself usually drew a snicker from her when she passed the place, but this morning there was something off. Blue flashing lights up ahead drew her attention to the police line that had blocked access to the campus. Just ahead of her a uniformed police officer directed traffic away from the school entirely. 

“That can’t be good.” Sam said to herself as she changed the radio channel to a local news station which was discussing the active shooter situation on the LHU campus. Though they didn’t have much information to go on as it was a developing news story, they were able to confirm that multiple shooters had descended on the campus and there were a number of casualties. 

Sam felt a swelling in her chest as the news began to sink in, and just as one of the news anchors had suggested that the school was somehow lucky that this occurred during the summer break, and not during the regular school year as the number of casualties would potentially be much greater, the tears began to flow down her face.

"My god." She said to herself as she reached for her cell phone, her first instinct was to call Kyle and fill him in on what she knew.