The week passed by splendidly and before she knew it, Friday had arrived. Artemis finished her last class and headed back to her dorm room to get ready for the party. Nicer than for class but still casual? Yeah, she could manage that…

She quickly freshened up a bit and changed into a nice tanktop and jeans. She picked out a necklace from the ones her family had given to her, a simple blue gem on a silver chain, probably made of glass but still pretty. Then she packed her smaller bag. What was she going to need to bring again? Keys and ID, obviously. The bingo page so she could fill it out to be turned in… She had a mini clipboard thing that would be perfect to keep it on. Oh, and some fun colored gel pens so people could sign the bingo board. Also a spare scrunchie, chapstick, mints, and some other knick knacks she liked to keep on her ‘just in case’...

Her roommate was out, either not back from class yet or already headed out, so Artemis decided to walk to the party by herself. She knew when she was getting close to the party location as students slowly became more dense and animated in nature. The music radiating from the area was another, possibly more obvious, indicator.

“Hey, there’s one of our fresh meats!” She instinctively looked in the direction of the voice and noticed one of the woodsmen team gesturing her over. “Over here, Arty! We’re still waiting on some others before we go in.” She walked over.

“So… Who we still waiting on?” She seamlessly integrated herself into the group and conversation. It didn’t take long for the missing members to arrive and they headed in.

And it took even less time before someone was approaching her to strike up a conversation. There was a good balance of guys and girls wanting to talk with her. Not like she was the only one… All the freshmen were making extra effort to interact with new people and a bunch of the upper classmen were helping out in that regard. Artemis was easily meeting dozens of new people in the first half hour but it was happening so naturally that she barely noticed.

“You try the purple chip dip yet? Mr. Holmes from the science department made it himself… He frequently makes dishes for events throughout the year and they’re always a hit.”
“It’s purple.”
“Food coloring, we think… He makes a point to have any food he creates look weird, but they taste amazing.”
“I remember the blood red lemonade he made last year.” One girl inserted to the conversation. “It was for Halloween and he somehow managed to make the ice look like actual body parts. You know; eyes, fingers, ears.”

“No way.”
“Oh, yeah… If he brings something normal looking, it’s unique in some other way. Like jalapeno lemonade or pine needle tea.” 

“Don’t forget the dandelion pizzas. Those were really tasty…”

“Everyone wants to take his classes if only for the food he brings in close to exam time.” The conversations were so engaging that Artemis almost forgot she was supposed to be having people sign her bingo sheet. Every once in a while, someone would say something that reminded her and she’d pull it out to ask the other person to write their name on the space that related to whatever they’d been talking about. It was super easy other than having to remember that it was a thing.

***

Why in the world was this so hard?

Abe was already begrudged about having to come at all, and add in this ridiculous assignment. Were this things that came up in normal conversations? Or was he supposed to just go around asking people about things from the bingo board? That seemed like the most effective method… But that required a ton of talking to other people.

He nursed a drink near the outskirts of the party, mostly just watching everyone else, as he tried to get up the nerve to just get it done and over with. 

“Not big on the socialized thing, huh?” A pale spindly feminine student with obviously dyed green hair casually leaned against a table near him. They looked like they had a few piercings and various jewelry, including flowers woven into their loose hairstyle. 

“Maybe.” 

“There’s always a few freshmen like that… FYS assignment, right? Just figure out one of the spaces that applies to you and then look for other people that don’t want to be here. Good chance they’re also just here to fill the paper out, so go up and offer to trade signature for signature. You’ll be done before you know it…”
“Oh, um… thank you.” Well, he could at least ask since they started talking to him first…. “Any chance one of these apply to you so I have one less to do?”
“Sure, Fresh meat…” They looked the sheet over. “Put down ‘Janan’ for ‘can write in cursive’.” Abe did so and ‘Janan’ seemed to have wandered off by the time he looked back up.

Abe looked over the bingo. Both ‘has older sibling’ and ‘from small hometown’ apply to him, so he decided to go do as that weird student suggested and offer to trade with other students who were also just here for the assignment. That guy over by the drink table looked uncomfortable and bored out of his mind…

He finished filling out his sheet in only forty minutes or so. Well, free food is free food. He might as well have something to eat before heading back to his dorm. He looked over the nearest food spread. Mostly desserts, it seems.There was a number of pies and a wider variety of cookies than he’d likely seen outside a bakery. Hmm, grabbing a few to munch on back at his room later wouldn’t hurt, right?

Walking around a bit, he found one of the less sweet laden food table and made himself a plate of finger food before retreating to a quiet corner. He silently observed everyone while he munched on the sustenance that was more flavor than nutrition. As one expects, the most active groups seemed to be the popular kids and groups of jocks. Though, he did notice a number of artsy looking people intermingling with the nucleus of the party.

It was just an adult version of highschool all over again…

***

Artemis was pleasantly surprised about how different college felt to highschool. In highschool, everyone had their own little cliques and it was expected for someone to fit a certain label even if one didn’t stick to a specific category of friends. But here, everyone intermingled without cliques or labels. Someone wasn’t a popular girl, jock, or nerd. They were all just fellow students. Sure some friend groups still had certain vibes to them… hell, she currently mostly hung out with athletic types since she’d made friends with her teammates first… but there was so much more diversity even within a group of friends.

There was a gothic clothed girl and someone whose style could only be described as ‘cotton candy’ casually chatting with a burly flannel wearing student about which classes they were liking so far. And a bro-dude was pretending to take shots (of what seemed to only be the provided soda) with a girl Arty would have assumed was quite mousy when they passed each other earlier that day. Oh, and there was the guy from earlier that week that she still wanted to apologize to, standing in a corner by himself.

She started to walk that way but was distracted for less than a minute by someone else greeting her. By the time she looks back, he’d disappeared. How did she keep missing him every chance she got? She had continuously seen him around but never got the chance to actually talk. It was like some unseen force was messing with her.  Frustrated, but unwilling to let it bother her, she went back to chatting with random people nearby. 

“No way that’s true…” One of the freshmen in the conversation Arty had been drawn into said with an eyeroll.

“Oh, it’s 100% real. Every year, at least one person catches a glimpse of it while out walking on a clear night… And that’s one of the least creepy things students have witnessed. The two weeks leading up to Halloween are some of the worst when it comes to the supernatural on campus, but it’s far from the only time unexplainable things happen. You’re a freshmen so you probably don’t know about it yet, but there’s this mini peninsula a five or ten minute walk into the woods where cigarette addicts and such sneak away for a smoke without getting caught. But no one goes anywhere near there on the night of a full moon because, without fail, whenever someone does, they report seeing creepy shadowy figures sitting on the water’s edge, just staring out towards the water. Two years ago, some guy thought maybe it was just some other students but… he disappeared. Officially, he dropped out and went home, but someone found a camera he always carried around in the woods and it had pictures of only vaguely humanoid figures. Oddly enough, even though the camera was super high quality, just those images were smudged and blurry…” Probably just upperclassmen trying to scare the freshmen… right?