The Old Officer

"Hey! James!" yelled a voice from behind, echoing loudly in the narrow slab-paved alleyway between adjacent dorms. Despite clearly being able to hear, James continued to walk, even speeding up slightly - an action not unnoticed by his pursuer.

"James! Are you really going to try and avoid me? Don't be like that man, you didn't even give me a proper goodbye on the track!" they continued.

James cursed his bad decision making to himself silently. The university campus was split up into 5 distinct zones: two residential zones on the north and south sides; a zone comprising lecture halls, various labs, and seminar rooms in the west zone; the east zone contained nearly every sports facility imaginable from small standalone dojo buildings, to a multipurpose stadium with a 10 thousand seat capacity; finally, the central zone consisted of a green zone - not to say the campus wasn't green already, it was quite on the contrary with nearly every large walkway lined on both sides with a grassy verge and neat birch trees.

As James regretted his choice of not taking the scenic route through the central zone, and instead cutting diagonally through to his dorm in the north zone, he remembered a key point. 'That bastard definitely followed me, so it wouldn't have even made a difference!'

Dan jogged up to James with a smile plastered across his face, the latter having stopped at this point, realising his poorly thought-out plan of pretending not to hear his friend in an echoing alleyway was not the wisest of plays he'd ever made.

Looking at Dan's gentle smile, James simply sighed and started to rant, "Look, I've known you for about a year and a half, and every time you tell me some crazy story like that, I know you're going to say the same thing - 'let's check it out James, don't worry we won't get into trouble James' - and every time it's a bad idea. You still remember the time in the club when that dude was acting creepy around that girl? I had a black eye for 2 weeks after you physically pushed me into fighting him! I was going to try and ask if she was OK, but no! Your plan just had to involve me being barred from that club for 3 months didn't it!"

Dan responded by looking back at James' now slightly reddened face with a look of contemplation, after which there was a small pause. A few seconds of the final remnants of the rant echoing in the alley, as the pair continued unbroken eye contact.

Dan broke the ensuing silence with a single question, "Are you going to come check it out or not?", seemingly ignoring his friend's complaints entirely. Anger bubbled up in James' mind for a split second before subsiding in a wave of helplessness - he knew this was coming, and deep down he was curious too, but the hesitation stemming from his poor luck in these situations made him think twice.

"Fine." responded James, hesitation rife in his voice before quickly interjecting his own words, "But. And this is a big but for you. No. Stupid. Shit. No picking the lock to the building, no shenanigans!"

Mirroring his friend's response to his own question, Dan begrudgingly acquiesced to the demands with a noncommittal grunt of "Fine… You used to be so much less boring…".

Whether intentionally or not, Dan had prodded at James' recent sore spot: he really had become boring. After ignoring his work the first year of university, James had a close scrape with losing his bursary - a big deal considering his family wasn't the richest, and he wasn't exactly planning on giving up an extra £3000 a year. After that point, with a more than small verbal boot up the arse by his university tutor, James took his university work a lot more seriously, or at least doing it on time which he justified to himself as "a step up at least".

A small 15 minute stop at Dan's dorm later, the pair marched on forwards to the now reopened dormitory building in the south zone, where the new drug was supposedly used. Along the way, James remained relatively silent, pondering something that had been bugging him ever since Dan had brought it up to him: 'Is this drug even real?'.

Naturally this piqued the interest of the loudmouth walking next to him, seemingly discontent with the perfunctory "mhmm"s and "yeah"s he was receiving in response to the riveting recount of his latest series of drunken escapades.

"What's on your mind? Could it be more interesting than when I did shots with Rex Orange County after their show the other night? I know you love those guys!" chimed in Dan, subtly trying to steer his friend's attention back to reality.

They continued to walk for a few moments, down the wide path in the central zone. The only noises coming from the rustling of the bitch trees lining the path and the gentle whistle of blossoms being buffeted by the crisp spring wind.

James turned his head to look at Dan, who turned his head to look back at the former. James finally said some words, breaking the silence, "Don't you find it strange?" to which Dan chuckled lightly and jabbed back at his friend, "What? You, or something else?", clearly still slightly annoyed at the previous ignoring he had received.

With this little joke, the tension between the two eased up significantly, "Neither." replied James, looking up at the steps from the central zone to the south zone. "This whole drugs thing. I'm not usually one for superstition or whatever, but something just feels, off, about this whole thing. We should turn back." he continued, a look of worry glinting in his eyes as they slowly walked up the empty staircase.

Dan just laughed to himself, stopped walking, and turning to face James, with a voice of complete confidence said, "There's nothing here that can hurt us!"

Puzzled by the strange and over-the-top reaction, James just shook his head and kept walking up the stairs, the Gregorian architecture of the dormitories coming into sight as they reached the top of the stairs.

Just as they reached the top, a police officer turned around the corner from out of sight and put his palm out in front of him, gesturing for them to stop. As this gesture was made, James felt an uncomfortable urge to stop instantly, nearly tripping over his own feet in his hurry.

The police officer looked to be quite old, a neatly-kept long white beard, plaited by wraps of leather, dangling from his chin swayed in the wind. His bald head and shockingly steady stature giving him an imposing air, despite his old age, making him look anything but frail.

"There's nothing here that can hurt you eh?" questioned the old officer, turning his head to face Dan, raising one of his eyebrows with his palm still facing out towards the two. As soon as this question was posed, the usually 'cool as a cucumber' Dan began sweating bullets. "That was, uh, just an expression, sir. Just, an expression." he quickly responded.

"Good. It isn't wise for youngsters to continue to believe they're invincible, especially in a place they, ahem, don't belong…" continued the old man, turning his head back to face them both, but giving a quick side-eye to Dan after clearing his throat.

During this entire ordeal, James noticed that despite the many questions in his mind, and the things he wanted to say, he couldn't bring himself to utter a single word. It was as if the pressure of the entire world was resting a finger on his lips, hushing him like a child, as if this wasn't his place to speak in the slightest. All from the simple presence of the increasingly unfathomable old man in front of him.

The old man's face immediately betrayed a look of sudden surprise as he turned to look at James, seemingly dazed for a moment and unable to look away. Regaining his composure, the old officer turned around and walked away, leaving a final strange set of words: "Now now, head back to where you belong, children".