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A sharp, burning pain. Terrible pain.

A scream.

Screaming.
Screaming.
Scream....

Lionel jolted upright into the waking world. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead as he panted, still shaken from the nightmare. The alarm clock on his bedside table continued to screech until he slapped it into silence.
The pale, flaxen blonde male of twenty-three years groaned as he stood, mentally cursing the warm rays of sunlight that poured in from his dorm room window.
He would go back to bed if he hadn't already accumulated his maximum number of absences for his oral communications class. As soon as midterms were here, it wouldn't matter if he skipped a couple more classes. But as it was now, he'd get an F if he missed one more day. Too bad midterms were still a few weeks away.

Lionel was lucky to have a dorm room all to himself. His roommate had bailed one week into the semester, and for whatever blessed reason, no one had yet filled the vacancy.
It wasn't that Lionel didn't like people. He just didn't like any roommate he'd ever had. Ever. He'd been through a total of nine. And he'd only changed dorm rooms once, and that was due to half a dorm building being shut down when campus officials had uncovered a meth lab on the fourth floor, almost a year ago. Fun stuff.
No, Lionel liked people alright. He wasn't social... but he didn't harbor a hatred for every living being simply because they were smiling and happy with their own ignorant lives. But people didn't always like him. And even those that did... just didn't seem to stick around. He was just cursed to be alone. Some people just are.

There was less snow on the ground than there had been over the last few days. In the drifts the snow was about knee deep on him, but on average there was less than a foot all around campus. It was enough to keep the groundskeepers busy, driving their mini-plows around the sidewalks, spreading salt to melt the ice.
Lionel liked the snow. Not just because he liked the cold. He just liked the way snow looked. All white and fresh and new... but after just a few hours it could be dirty, melting, and pot-marked with footprints. It was just proof that nothing pure lasted once it touched earth. Everything was corruptible. Everything.

It was a short walk to his first class of the day. Even clear across campus was only about half a mile, so in Lionel's opinion, everywhere on campus was a short walk, which was disappointing. Because he loved to walk through the snow. Always blazing a new path, if he could. Like he wanted to be a part of the snow's corruption.
There weren't a lot of people in class today. Hell, there weren't many people anywhere on campus. A lot of students had taken advantage of the excuse of snow and ice and skipped class.
Lionel threw his backpack into an empty seat and sat in the chair next to it. He folded his arms and slumped low in his seat, fully prepared to sleep through this lecture. Professor Hanly wasn't exactly known for his enthralling speeches. You'd really think the professor for oral communications would at least be able to keep his students awake.
Even though he was one of the first ones in the classroom, very few students entered after him. He’d guess maybe a third of the class had actually bothered to show up. No big surprise there. The professor was one of the last to walk in. Lionel felt drowsy just looking at the portly middle-aged man.
He wasn’t paying much attention to anything around him, so he was startled to hear a voice right next to him.

“Is this seat taken?”

Lionel looked up. The student was a man roughly his own age, no more than twenty-five at the most. He had short, dark hair and was dressed pretty nice. Lionel was certain he’d never seen him in the class before. He looked down at the chair next to him where he had placed his backpack… with the very intent that no one would be able to sit there. “Uh…” he glanced around the room. There were literally at least a dozen open seats. “No…” he tried not to sound reluctant, and he picked his backpack up out of the hair and shoved it under his seat.
“Thank-you.” The man smiled. Lionel shrugged and looked back towards the front of the room, trying to hide a blush. He was a pretty good-looking guy….

“I’m Taylor.” The dark haired student extended his hand.
Lionel blinked. “Uh… I’m Lionel.” He shook Taylor’s hand. “I… don’t think I’ve seen you in this class before.”
Taylor nodded, still smiling. “I just transferred here a week ago. Professor Hanly was kind enough to let me enroll late.”
Lionel frowned. That didn’t sound like Hanly. In fact, the oral com teacher was kind of known for how much of a hard-ass he was. “Well that was… nice of him.”

The lecture was particularly boring today. But Lionel didn’t doze off like he usually did. He felt wide awake, wired, like there was electricity shooting through every nerve. He wasn’t used to anyone sitting next to him in class, and now he was hyper-aware of being next to Taylor. He knew it sounded stupid, but it felt like Taylor was… watching him. But the few times that Lionel dared to turn his head just the slightest amount in order to look at the man, he was always facing forward, apparently captivated by whatever the hell the professor was talking about.
But Lionel couldn’t shake the feeling. It made his skin crawl. And he was used to being watched by Death. So it was a very uneasy feeling.
By the end of class, Lionel’s nerves felt fried. Literally. The electricity that seemed to be overloading his system was becoming painful, and his fingertips had begun tingling. As soon as Hanly dismissed the class, Lionel snatched up his bag and stood up in the same movement. He was making a beeline for the door when…
“What class do you have next?”

Lionel flinched, but he stopped and looked back. Taylor was putting on his jacket. “Uh, well… Biology lecture, but it’s, uh… not for another hour.”
Taylor picked up his bag. “Oh. With the way you were rushing out the door, I’d assumed you were headed straight for another class.” He smiled. Something in the smile told Lionel that he knew exactly why he was in a rush to leave.
What was it about this guy that unnerved him so bad? He didn’t seem threatening or menacing or anything like that. He was a good-looking guy and seemed nice enough. But Lionel just had this funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Oh, um… yeah, I just, uh….” He trailed off, not sure of what excuse to make.
Taylor waved a hand absently, dismissing the matter. “So you’re free for an hour? If you don’t mind, could you show me where Augustine Hall is? I haven’t had much time to learn where things are on campus yet.”
Lionel ran a few excuses through his head, but they all sounded lame and fake. He sighed. “Uh, yeah… sure.”
The dark haired man smiled again, but this time there was something almost… sympathetic about it. “You… don’t have to, you know. If you don’t want to.”
Lionel suddenly felt a little guilty, and he tried to smile. “No, no… It’s fine, actually. That’s where my bio class is anyway, so….” He shrugged.
Taylor smiled again, and for the first time Lionel noticed that he had green eyes. Like, really green, not that greyish hazel color that girls tell themselves is “green” cause they think it sounds more attractive. It almost looked like he was wearing colored lenses.

Augustine Hall wasn’t very far from Murphy, where their oral com class was. So even though the walk was short it was still a little awkward. As they walked between the buildings, the wind picked up, and Lionel held his coat closer around himself. As much as he liked the cold, he didn’t like to freeze. He couldn’t help noticing that Taylor didn’t even flinch, and the man was only wearing a jacket. “Aren’t you cold?” He felt like it was a stupid question.
Taylor just shrugged. “The cold doesn’t really bother me. I come from some place a lot colder than this.”
“Where?”
“Oh, no place you’ve heard of, I’m sure.” He smiled, but clearly that was meant to end the questioning.
Lionel frowned. It was one thing to not want to go into detail about your past or something, but not even wanting to say where you came from? That was kind of dodgy.
The warmth of the Hall was welcoming after the brief cold. Lionel kicked the snow off his shoes on the entrance mat, then gestured down the hall. “So, uh, this is Augustine. Actually, it’s the Remington building, too. They’re connected.”
Taylor nodded. “That’s why I didn’t see it before. I think I just saw the Remington half.”
“Um, yeah…. Well, these are the math and science buildings, for the most part…. There’s a little deli on the first floor, and… yeah, that’s about it.” Lionel shrugged, suddenly feeling awkward again. He was trying to think of something he could say he had to go do.
“Thank-you for your help. If you aren’t busy, could I perhaps… buy you lunch? Being new and all, it’d be nice to talk to someone for a bit.” He smiled a little sheepishly and ran a hand through his short dark hair.
Lionel blinked, a little taken aback and unsure. He was still getting that uneasy vibe from Taylor, but the guy seemed nice enough. But buying him lunch so they could talk? Really? He ran through a dozen different reasons to say “no” in his head… should he say he had to study? Meeting a friend? Too obvious…. “Um, well….”
Taylor shrugged and smiled again, but there seemed to be a little color rising in his cheeks. “I’m sorry, that was a little forward…. I’m sure you have other things you’d rather be doing, I don’t mean to impose.”
Impose? Who says that anymore? “Oh, uh, no, that’s okay, it’s just….” Lionel couldn’t find the right words for what he wanted to say, so he just sighed. “I guess if you want to talk to someone that’s fine,” he said honestly, “but, uh, I can buy my own lunch.” He didn’t want to add on that it would just feel awkward for him if he let some guy he just met buy him lunch.
Taylor seemed to relax and he smile appreciatively. “Alright.”

As they walked to the deli, Lionel still had that uneasy feeling. It was almost like… like Taylor was stalking him rather than following him, if that made any sense. Like Lionel was a mouse and Taylor was a cat just waiting to pounce on him. He hoped it was nothing, because Taylor seemed like a nice guy. And Lionel didn’t have a lot of friends. Maybe after they talked and Lionel learned a little more about this guy he would get rid of the unsettling feeling.