Sorrow, Fury, and Love by Carter (Alex) Pearl
There was a scream outside his room. At least, Connor was fairly certain it was a scream. Trying to fall asleep in a single dorm proved just as hard as doing so with a roommate, with added difficulties of the ambience—the imagination tended to distort the mundane noises of his room into more elaborate or grotesque sounds, like footsteps, crying, or screams. Connor gritted his teeth and toyed with the thought of getting up and investigating, but ultimately decided that the sound was more likely to be some kid yelling for no reason at all, which seemed to happen often in college. A second part of his brain, however, interjected and reminded Connor that it was currently four AM on a Tuesday. Anything benign that would make a student cry out would have happened hours ago, if not days. He’d already pulled on a pair of gym shorts and grabbed a T-shirt before he was able to fully rationalize his journey into the dorm hallway, punctuating his train of thought with a justifying, I have to pee anyway. Connor poked his head outside of his dorm room, checking the hall cautiously. He checked his pockets for his keys and slipped into the hallway, making sure to catch the door before it closed to avoid slamming it. Rounding the corner and heading to the floor lounge, Connor heard no evidence of any parties, sport events, or any other student activity. As a matter of fact, he didn’t hear much of anything, and the silence and time of day combined to give him the unpleasant image of his being the first to find a formerly whole and living college student splayed out on the floor of the lounge, their life having ended with a slip on some spilled water and one final, lonely scream. In ten minutes, Connor would find himself frantically wishing that was what he’d found instead. The first thing that he saw when he opened the floor lounge door was Kelly, a business major from Ohio, huddled and sobbing in the closest corner of the room to the door. Before Connor could ask her what was wrong, he noticed the rest of the lounge—tables had been flipped over, chairs scattered, cabinets thrown open with their contents spilled on the linoleum floor. He did not notice the cause of the discord until he had dumbly closed the door behind him and looked up to see the three figures centered amongst the stilled havoc. 39