Chapter 6- Presley's Accident

Mitchum's Point of View;

It was a great first day of school but all classes ended earlier than usual for some reason. Not that I'm complaining. I didn't have any plans after school. Maybe I'll hang out after class with Lucas and James tomorrow. As I unlocked my door and walked back into my apartment I remembered what Presley told me this morning. It's not like he'd know I was wearing shoes or not cause he wasn't here. So I walked continued walking in to go in the kitchen. I didn't know where Presley was but I knew where he left his phone and map. Right on top of the kitchen counter holding down the map. It also had his ID pass. Well, at least I wasn't the only one having to ask their professor to sign in for them all day.

I didn't know about the importance of the passes so I intentionally left mine behind. But seeing where Presley left his, he clearly forgot it along with his other stuff. Honestly, I can't see how a person can be so forgetful. I just hope he remembers the way back up here. Since the first day of school is always the most tiring, I decided to lay on the couch for most of the evening. I had the TV on while I was scrolling through Instagram while finishing the rest of the pizza in the fridge. I'm sorry that it came to that but I'll make it up to him later. When I became conscious of the time, I noticed that it was 6 pm. Presley still hadn't shown up yet. Did he really forget where we lived?

He doesn't have his phone so he can't reach me if he is lost. Maybe I should go around campus and ask for him. I took up the phone to take with me. As I got out of the apartment I saw Gail come out of her's also. As I was closing my door I said, "Hi Gail, have you by chance seen Presley?"

"Not since lunch, why? What's wrong?" She answered as she turned on hearing my voice. That was a little troubling but I didn't want to cause any unnecessary worry. As long as he didn't leave the school compound he should be fine. The school was one of the safest places in HIDCA.

"Oh, it's just I haven't seen him either and he hasn't come home yet or had his phone with him," I said as I walked closer to meet her and she seemed to be thinking about it.

"Hmm... OK, I was going for a walk around campus to get more familiar with the surroundings. Why don't you join me and we'll look for him together."

I agreed with her since I pictured Presley in my head wandering around the campus like a stray. I knew my friend, he would rather do that than dare ask for help. As we toured the campus it seemed bigger than I remembered from this morning. It could have been because we took the longer routes because certain parts were now off-limits for some reason. But it was scenic, especially in the gardens. The setting sun seemed to make it look somewhat tranquil and there were fewer students around at this time. I described Presley to the few that we did meet on the grounds. But none of them had seen him around.

We got to the house that I had seen earlier and saw two people driving a blue large van out the gates. I only got a quick glance at the two people inside and they were wearing green coveralls with two yellow horizontal lines on the sleeves. The van had a trademark of what looked like a drill on it. So my best guess was that they were a maintenance crew. They were followed by a woman who had a fair skin complexion and wore glasses. She was Asian and possibly around the age of forty-five. She wore a black pants suit with black framed glasses. Her appearance was one I had seen all day. She clearly was a professor but what of, I didn't know. She locked the gate to the building and continued walking in the opposite direction from us.

I would have to look up this place on the school website if I'm ever going to see what it looks like. Because the gates were so large all you could see was the top where the school crest is.

As we saw the professor-type lady go on her way, I asked, "Why do you think this is here?"

As we stopped in front of the gate Gail answered pointing to it, "See the school crest above it, it has sentimental value cause it's one of the first buildings the school had classes on. If you read the school history book online, where our dorms now are, it used to be where classes were first held."

That made sense since it was history but I still asked, "Is anyone ever allowed to go inside? Do they like, give out tours?"

Gail shook her head no as we continued walking saying, "Well when I was touring the campus when the repairs near the dorms were finished we passes along this area. I asked the tour guide and they said no. Then he told me to search for it on the website if I wanted to know more. But it's really just some old pictures of it before the gates were put up."

I found that strange, going through all that trouble to maintain it and no one is even allowed inside. As we continued making our way around the grounds we made it back to the main entrance of the college.

There still was no sign of Presley anywhere. I wanted to thank Gail for walking around looking with me. But before I could, she drew my attention by pointing to a scruffy-looking person coming in through the main gate. I immediately rushed over when I recognized who it was. He was still wearing the white dress shirt from this morning. The shirt was now really dusty with what looked like rubble from a construction site. But the sleeves were rolled up so you could see the bandages on both his hands reached up to his elbows.

Gail followed behind me when I exclaimed, "Presley! Where were you? What happened to you? Were you in some kind of fight?"

On hearing me he looked up to face me with an expression showing how surprised he was to see us. Then he seemed to want to downplay everything by saying, "Hi Mitchum, hey Gail; I hope you all had a better first day of college than me."

Gail responded with an expression of concern, "By the looks of it yeah, but why do you look like you've been run over by a bus?"

Presley then seemed to be conscious of what he looked like as he made an attempt to smoothen his hair with his hand. "Now that would have been less painful but let's just say that I had an accident."

I wasn't leaving the conversation there so I asked him almost immediately, "What type of accident caused you to have both your hands bandaged up to your elbows? What were you doing out there, to begin with? We're not supposed to travel alone but in pairs at least."

He seemed to not make any eye contact with us anymore as his eyes dropped to his feet. As he fiddled with the bandages on his hand he said, "It was a lab accident in school. My class was watching some senior students demonstrate a project we would have to work on. Then some idiot messed with it and it blew up."

The way his demeanor changed in saying it, I had to ask, "You weren't that idiot, right?"

He got really offended and exclaimed, "Of course not! I was just standing closest to it and used my arms to block the explosion!"

It's very rare to hear him raise his voice cause he usually is very soft-spoken. It could be he was still in pain and I had struck the final nerve. "OK! OK! I'm sorry." I held up my hands to hopefully show him that I meant no harm in saying it.

He seemed to calm down after I apologized and thankfully Gail backed me up on it. As she put his hand on his shoulder and said, "Yeah I'm sure he didn't mean it like that Presley. But it does explain the loud noise that was heard on campus earlier today when I was walking to my next class. Then certain sections of the school were closed off and my class was canceled while others finished earlier."

I know she said that last part to me and it was new information. "Really? I didn't hear anything."

Gail then took her hand off Presley's shoulder as she asked me, "Were you in English literature at the time?"

When I told her that I was she nodded and then said, "You don't really hear anything from that side all the way over there. Plus those classes are soundproof. So where are you now coming from Presley?"

"They sent me to the nurse's office until the ambulance came and took me to the hospital cause of the third-degree burns."

After listening to how Presley had to go to the hospital himself I felt really bad for saying that to him. I should have waited to hear all the facts first before assuming anything. "That sounds terrible dude, I'm sorry you had to go through that on your own."

He let out a sigh and said, "Me too, those doctors ran all sorts of tests on me. They were poking, pushing, and injecting me before they gave me these bandages. On top of that, someone was crying and screaming all through it making their job even more difficult."

Gail asked the question before I could, "Who was doing that? Was there someone else in the room with you?"

Presley then bit his lip before saying, "Well that turned out to be me, I didn't realize it until the doctor told me to stop or he'd duct tape my mouth shut."

Only he would then say something like that. I guess that was his way of saying that there were no hard feelings about the earlier assumption. "Well, that was rude."

Gail then chimed in saying, "Agreed but what caused the explosion? They weren't very clear on the details."

Presley then with what sounded like enthusiasm in his voice as he said, "They're blaming the senior students but I'm not so sure. If I get to examine the machine more carefully-"

I interrupted him because he seemed to have forgotten that he just came from the hospital. "Wait a minute, don't you think you should go home and rest this off first?"

He looked as if he seem to be thinking of what I said. Then he looked away back toward the entrance as if avoiding eye contact saying, "They would clean up the lab by then."

With that, I already knew that he was determined to find out more about the explosion. There would be no talking him out of it at this point.

So I said something similar to him as I did this morning, "OK well suit yourself, I'm going back home. By the way here's your phone, you left it in the apartment."

Presley then exclaimed as I turned to leave, "Wait! I can't do it by myself; I have trouble finding my way around during the day. It will be much more so when it's getting dark. And you just said that we should travel in pairs."

That last part only applied outside the school. But I knew he was right and I would have to go with him because of his directional problems.

"I can go with you, Presley," Gail spoke up instead. He seemed somewhat ok with that suggestion.

"Oh um well thanks, Gail, assuming that they have not cleared out the aerospace lab yet; we might have to search through the garbage cans. If you're ok with that, we can go," I guess he did make a friend on his first day after all.

"Well, good luck to both of you with that," I said as I continued to walk away.