Right direction
"I can't believe I'm finally here," Celine said as she twirled a strand of her long black hair. She looked up at the castle-like exterior of the university campus and patted her chest.
This is the University of Babylon, an ultra-prestigious, extra exclusive, and elitist school where the students are either royal blood or heirs of conglomerates—completely out of reach for Celine Dacker.
She was from a middle-class family in the suburbs; good grades, but working part-time as a barista could never pay for a millisecond of tuition here.
Luckily for her, this year, the university launched a "Charity Work," where even ordinary people like her could attend this supposed school for the wealthy.
Of course, she wouldn't complain—at least, not now.
"Huh, it's eerily quiet out here." The campus was completely out of reach from the city, with a luscious pine forest surrounding the whole university.
Celine's long black hair swayed left and right as she looked around her potential classmates. It felt like looking at a filtered social media post.
'Why do they look so beautiful?!' she thought. Not only were they rich, but they were pretty too. How lucky can they get?
She followed most students and walked towards the giant wooden double doors wide open leading to the campus.
A glimmering reception area welcomed her with a red carpet leading her directly to the well-dressed woman smiling at her.
"Welcome, ID?" said the woman with her hair tied to a bun.
Celine gave her an awkward smile while she rummaged through her notebooks to find a black metal card she received with her acceptance letter. "Oh, here it is. You can never find these things when you need them hahaha…,"
The receptionist's unchanging face quickly stopped her attempt to socialize. The woman took her card with both hands and started to type on her keyboard.
Tap…tap…tap…
"So, any tips for a newcomer like me?" Celine asked, but the receptionist only stared at her as if telling her to shut up. Of course, Celine got the hint.
The receptionist gave back her card and pointed to the left where the marbled walls stopped and became a glass tube leading towards another building.
"That's your dormitory on floor 8, room 5; your class schedule is emailed, and make your way towards your classroom right after your dorm," she said with a superficial smile that was practiced thousands of times before.
Celine performed a slight bow of thanks towards the woman before she dragged her luggage away from the reception area.
However, before she could get out of earshot, she heard the receptionist shout towards her. "Don't walk alone at night, or you'll end up dead with no blood from your body!"
Celine's knee-jerk reaction was to laugh at the apparent joke. However, the woman's deadpan smile and the slight glint of red in her eyes gave her the chills.
She was stunned and couldn't move as her brain processed what had happened. Before she could recheck with her eyes, a student moved past her and blocked her vision.
When she looked at the woman again, she was already looking away and greeting the next student.
"Weird," she said as she rubbed her eyes. "No matter how excited I get, sleep is still important."
Ignoring the first clue that should have told her to run away from this university as fast as possible, Celine walked towards the girl's dormitory.
'Feels like I'm in an aquarium,' she thought. Except there's no water nor fishes, just weirdly shaped plants that always seem to be looking at her.
After a minute of walking, she finally reached the dormitory. Two elevators on both sides of the wall greeted her, lined with real gold. 'A bit excessive,' she thought, but what would she know about rich taste.
Left or right. Celine looked around and saw nobody she could talk to and no warning signs plastered on the walls. There was simply a rectangular plate that had up and down buttons.
She went towards the right elevator without much deliberation. Both led to her dorm, she thought. However, Celine didn't know taking the right elevator would change her world forever.
She pushed the up button, and the doors immediately slid open for her. She stepped inside and brushed her fingers on the buttons on the side until she found the number 8.
Then, she waited. A satisfactory DING accompanied each floor she passed until she reached her floor. As the doors opened, she could hear chatter getting louder and louder.
A wide hallway opened up to her, with women talking and socializing in front of their doors. They all hugged each other with glee like everyone knew each other already.
She was an outsider. She knew that the moment she got the acceptance letter, and once again reminded when she saw alienating eyes staring at her.
Celine kept her head down and walked briskly towards the door, which had the number 5 sign chiseled under the peephole. She was surprised to see two women standing in front of it, discussing while caressing their hair.
'They're going to be my roommates?' she thought. The woman facing towards her had slightly curly brown hair, while the one facing say from her had bright golden locks of hair.
"I heard there's *someone* in our class."
"Ugh, it'll leave a bad taste in my mouth."
"Even worse than when we visited that cheap Starbux?"
Celine's eyebrows widened as she heard the familiar coffee place she worked during her high school days. It was a shallow connection she had to cling to if she wanted to connect with her new classmates.
"Starbux? I worked at that place," Celine said as she slowly approached them with a thin smile.
The two women looked at Celine up and down. They noticed the lack of elegance in her clothes and her apparent pride in the poor man's coffee called Starbux.
"Who are you?" the blonde girl asked.
Celine reached out her hand. "I'm Celine. Celine Dacker. I'm a transferee."
The two girls looked at Celine's hands with disgust when they heard 'transferee.' She was one of the experimental 'charity work' they disdained.
"Ew, get that dirty hands away from me," she said. The chatter along the hallway immediately stopped to look at the sudden commotion.
Celine's ears reddened with embarrassment. "What's wrong with you?" Celine said, raising her voice until it squeaked.
The two girls in front of her crossed their arms. "The problem is you, dirtying our hallway with your cheap sneakers!"
Celine's jaw opened, speechless. However, the mean girls weren't done berating her.
"Didn't you know this floor is reserved for us heirs? You should have taken the other elevator leading to the charity dorm," said the brunette.
"This is why our doors shouldn't have been open. Girls without dads who can't buy them a jet plane shouldn't stink out the whole floor with her cheap perfume!"
Celine gripped her fist tight. She could have taken any other insult, but insulting her dead dad only a few months after his death? That was something she couldn't handle.
"Say you're sorry," Celine said, with her head down and her voice soft.
The blonde girl laughed. "Oh, did I hit a sore spot in your fragile little heart? Sorry, not sorry. Live your pathetic little life elsew—"
SLAP
A resounding slap silenced the whole corridor. All the women watched as a red hand-shaped mark appeared on the blonde's right cheek.
It wasn't even a millisecond later that Celine felt regret slapping the blonde woman.
"Babe? What's happening?" said a man who walked towards them. He and his friends all wore this school's varsity jacket.
"This bitch just slapped me! Get her!" the blonde girl shouted as she immediately ran towards her boyfriend's side.
The group of men all looked towards Celine, intimidating her. What can she do? Run.
Celine let go of her luggage and bolted as fast as she could away from the group of men. Running made her heartbeat fast, but hearing the loud footsteps following behind her almost made it go burst.
She reached the end of the hallway with only one door that led to the stairs. She braced herself and shouldered the door to force it to open.
However, it didn't budge. "What!" She looked down and saw that there was a doorknob. She twisted it open and went inside just as a hand was about to grasp her shoulder.
She closed the door behind her, pinning the man's arm in the door. She heard a scream as she went down the stairs until she reached the floor below.
When she opened the door, she saw that she could only go left or right. When she peeked in the left hallway, she saw a group of men with the same varsity jacket looking around.
When she looked at the right hallway, she only saw a door that had a big red sign that warned, "KEEP OUT AT ALL TIMES!"
Celine didn't know where to go. The loud footsteps echoing behind her signaled that she didn't have any time to choose.
Without hesitation, she chose the right door and immediately twisted the doorknob open. She closed the door behind her and held her breath.
When she put her ear against the door, she heard the sounds of footsteps fading away. The men went the other direction, which meant that she was safe.
However, she couldn't be more wrong. She looked forward and saw a man with his eyes red and his mouth dripping with blood.
What's worse, a dead girl was lying in front of him with two dots on her neck bleeding.
Celine and the mysterious man locked eyes.