Walking the empty halls of the dorms again, Kuria took a moment to pause and think about how long it had been since she had been here. The willowy girl had decided to immerse herself in her studies and apply herself, discouraging any friendships and not involving herself in any of the life outside of the school. It had been long now, and all she felt like she was doing was giving her all and everything to her books. It was time to go on strike, she had thought earlier that evening, shutting her textbook and refusing to do anything else.

Which is now why she found herself wondering the dorms, simply enjoying the sense of being able to do nothing whatsoever and feeling no guilt about it. She ran a hand through her long-ish raven hair, debating about whether she should have it cut or not. She quite liked the silken feel of the dark locks caressing the back of her neck. It was a warm evening, a cool breeze blowing and felt through the thinness of the black linen slacks she was wearing, the material clinging to her sleekly muscular legs as she walked. Her arms wrapped around her curved torso, clad in a slinky black top that marked the rise and fall of her breasts as she walked, almost a bounce to her step despite the lonely atmosphere of the halls.

“You do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts.” Kuria sang softly as she walked, her feet whispering softly across the cold floors. Her bright green eyes almost seemed to glow in the dim light of the late evening, the dorms silent aside from muffled sounds coming from behind closed doors. Kuria had a vague idea of what went on behind those doors but preferred to turn a blind eye to it. For the last while or so she had been left alone and as far as she was concerned, anything else that happened was not her issue. There were big girls around here. They should take care of themselves. And so she sang with light-hearted freedom as she walked.
“You do it to yourself. And nobody else.”

Monica was going stir-crazy! She had only been at school since Friday, but it already felt like years. She wanted to be back in L.A., driving around late at night with her friends or dancing at a club. She had never been very interested in school, and now that there was nothing else to do, she felt like she was going to explode.

She hadn't explored much of campus yet, and knew that wherever there were college girls, there had to be some kind of fun going on. She had on her most comfortable and stylish jeans and a low-cut white blouse. The outfit was a welcome relief from the uniform she had to wear all day - she hated skirts!

She gathered her thick and curly black hair into a loose ponytail, slipped on a bracelet and a necklace that she hadn't been able to wear all day at school, and practically ran out of her dorm room -

-and crashed straight into another girl!

It was unfortunate that Kuria’s mind was elsewhere. She might have sensed the girl had she been paying attention but she was not. As a result, she yelped and almost lost her balance when the girl ran in to her. Luckily, her body’s instinctive reaction saved her from falling. Must be all that fighting, Kuria thought as she shook her hair and turned to appraise the girl with sparkling green eyes.

Kuria was the type of girl who was comfortable with her emotions and the reactions she had to certain situations and so she was not surprised by how attractive she found the girl. It was a basic sense of appreciating what she was seeing. And she did like it indeed. She grinned at the girl.
“Running around in these dorms is a hazard to your safety.” she quipped, humour evident in her voice and twinkling in her eyes. “Although I should probably have been paying more attention too. Sorry about that.” Her voice was a husky purr, smooth and silken at the same time and softly lilted with the accent of her home. She was about to continue on her way when she realized that she did not know most of the people from here and would like a friend, or something. And so she held out her hand and smiled.
“I’m Kuria Savoy. Pleased to meet you.”

"I'm Monica. Monica Castillo."

Monica shook the other girl's hand warily, still panting hard from the surprise of crashing into her. Monica looked her up and down the way she was accustomed to back in L.A., making the snap judgements that had served her well growing up in a tough neighborhood. This girl was tall and slender, a stark contrast to Monica's shorter and curvier frame. Kuria couldn't be called a stick, though, and so Monica didn't have her normal instant hatred for the anorexic girls that plagued her home in Los Angeles.

"Sorry about bumping into you," Monica said, speaking slowly. When she was excited or nervous, she tended to make slips in grammar and pronunciation that marked her as a non-native speaker, and she was always embarrassed when that happened. Noticing the way this girl spoke, she asked,

"You're not American, are you? Are you, like, British?"

“Nice to meet you, Monica.” There was an open, friendly air about Kuria that was not normally there. If anything, Kuria was a reserved individual and so she was not normally the social type. However, she rather liked the sense she was getting from this girl, even to the point where she lost some of her cool politeness and loosened up a bit.

At Monica’s question she grinned, her eyes twinkling with some of the ‘magic’ supposed to run through the Emerald Isles. Nothing more than the strong force of her personality. “Not British. I’m Irish, straight from Dublin, although I grew up in the countryside, much to my eternal disgust.” she said, her tones dripping with humour and the slightest tinge of cynicism.

“I was about to go back to my room and make something to drink. You wanna come with? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” she assured hurridly, knowing she was making a fool of herself. “But it would be nice to have a bit of company, what with most of the girls around not really making their welcome known.”

"Oh, right, Ireland," Monica mumbled lamely, feeling stupid. She didn't want to let on that geography was always her worst subject, and all that came to mind when she thought of Ireland was leprechauns.

"Sure, I'd love to have a drink," Monica said a little too eagerly, accepting Kuria's offer. The tall slender Irish girl and the short curvy Mexican fell into step with each other, and Monica took the opportunity to give her companion another glance. With the girl's hair style and lip piercing, Monica took her for some kind of punk or goth girl - not Monica's natural clique back in Los Angeles. But she was up, she was social, and she apparently had alcohol, so Monica was prepared to call her a friend.

"How long have you been at this school? This is my first day of classes - I got here on Friday. This place seems a little...weird."

Kuria was in no way a goth or punk, or anything else that lame that had run around Dublin and just plain annoyed her. She had only gotten the piercings so that people mostly stayed away from her and the people who did approach her were well worth talking to. And also, she rather liked the way her lip ring looked and felt and her tongue ring was… well… another story altogether.

She thought Monica and herself might make a striking pair as they walked down the hallway and she was right. One of the more preppier girls who were at the school rounded the corner, took one look at them, squeaked and made herself scarce. Kuria swallowed a laugh at the little fool and focused her attention on Monica’s question, which was making her feel uneasy.

“I’ve been here a while, although I’ve kept mostly to myself and to my studies. You only got here on Friday? Then welcome to Shokushu.” she said with forced cheer, her features taking on a strained cast. How could she even begin to explain the nightmare that was this place?
“It is a little weird. I don’t know if I should tell you know, or over the drink. I’m choosing the latter option. It’s not pretty news. You might need more than one drink when you here about all the shit that goes on inside this place. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

The harder side of Kuria could be seen with these words, and it became obvious that although she might pretend to be a good girl, and was not necessarily a bad-ass, she was not afraid of much. And even as she spoke, they had reached her room and with a shake of her head to emphasize what she was saying, she opened the door.

The room was large, but only one side of it seemed to be occupied. It was obvious the girl needed a room mate, though she said nothing of it when she walked inside. Standard bed, desk with laptop, it looked like any school girl’s room. Only an ashtray full of cigarette butts perched on the edge of her desk, and the chilled hip hop that pumped from her ‘top, The Pack no less, made it clear why she had struggled to find a roomie. Not that it bothered her. She was waiting for the right girl.

The bed was rumpled, the dark blue covers bundled into one corner and the two pillows scattered across the mattress. Other than that, the room was pretty neat. Kuria turned to Monica and grinned. “Welcome to my room, girl. Now…” Taking a few steps to her closet, she opened the door and bent almost double as she rummaged around in the box she had hidden further towards the box. “Make yourself at home.” she said.

Through the clothing that she kept in the box to hide her little stash, she felt the cold glass of the bottle. She pulled it out with a shout of triumph. A half-full bottle of Jamesons glinted in the low lighting of the room “Found the little bugger! Now just…” She bent over again and moments later emerged clutching a box of cigarettes. How she had managed to smuggle them into Shokushu was another story. Blow jobs all round, Kuria thought with smug superiority. She grinned at Monica. “Silk Cut. Goes perfectly with a double of Jamesons and the horror story I’m about to tell you.”

She moved to the bed, swiping two glasses off a counter that was behind the door and setting them on her desk. Opening the bottle, she poured a rather large measure for herself before the mouth of the bottle hovered over Monica’s glass. Green eyes studied the Spanish girl.

“Double or single, love?”

Monica had thrown out the question about Shokushu casually, but it was clear from Kuria's response that there might really be something important to learn about the school. Monica was quiet for the rest of the walk, thinking about what could make the seemingly bold girl so quiet.

They entered Kuria's room at last, and Monica stepped in, taking a look around. It seemed like she lived by herself - lucky her, thought Monica. She had barely spoken to her own roommate, and it seemed like the girl only wanted to study. The room seemed like a very personal space for the pierced Irish girl, and Monica felt a little strange, but also glad, about being granted access to it.

As she nodded her head unconsciously to the music and waited for Kuria to find the alcohol, Monica's nose twitched a familiar odor in the air. She looked around for a few panicked moments, then saw the source: "Cigarrillos!" Monica said, her shock causing her to slip into Spanish. She would have been annoyed at the embarrssing gaff, but before she could think about Kuria had turned around and was offering a pack!

"How? How did you get these?" Monica said, taking one with a thankful nod and trembling fingers. She had smoked her few smuggled cigarettes during her first few days on campus, and had been suffering from withdrawals for much too long now. As she lit the cigarette and took a pleasant puff, she almost wanted to kiss Kuria for helping her feel so good. The last ones she had smoked had been tainted by the taste of her own sweat, having been smuggled into the school in her panties and bra.

"And I'll have a single, for now," Monica said. She decided to go conservative with the drinking for now. When she got too much alcohol in her system, she tended to get more ghetto than she was comfortable with. She sat down on the edge of the bed with her drink, waiting for Kuria to tell her the big secrect about the school.

Kuria nodded and poured the drink, grinning at Monica’s reaction to the cigarettes and handing the glass to her. She knew how it felt to not have any, and as such had smuggled cartons into the school over the last couple of months, when people thought she was applying herself academically. And she had. The way Kuria saw it, top marks meant less suspicion. She achieved in the class room and in the gym, and kept low for the most part.
Should she want to, she could get away with murder.

She lit her own cigarette and inhaled deeply. “The method of attaining smokes this side of the school gates is one I would rather not elaborate on. Just keep the fact that I have them to yourself, okay?” She was not too keen on getting busted, and also not keen on sharing with the entire school. She chose to share… sometimes. Lifting her glass to her lips, she loved the slight tingle the whiskey brought as it touched her lips and burned down her throat. The sip was hefty, but the Irish girl did not feel it at all. She had been drinking whiskey since she was eleven and had had lots of practice.

Moving, she slid onto the top half of the bed, her slender body curving as she leaned against the headboard. “The thing about this place… the really terrifying thing… is that it is fucking crawling with aliens.” Her voice had the same huskiness, but beneath that real fear and a fury that was scary in itself could be heard. She sighed softly, taking another sip of her drink and dragging on her cigarette, leaning forward to flick it sharply above the ashtray.

“Rape demoralizes a female. So I’ve always been told. They are so bloody right. Safety in numbers is another one they also told me. Second time they’ve been right. Basically these tentacled freaks prey on the student body. Rape is a very real part of school life.” she said with the calmness of someone who had accepted it as the way things were. “So, wise girls always stick together. Wise girls also don’t find themselves alone in nooks and crannies, or basically just about anywhere at night. It’s a blatant invitation. What sucks is… no matter what you do, you can’t escape it. Best be watchful. The shite thing is, no one believes us.”

Kuria fell silent then and shrugged in Monica’s direction, smoking just a little faster now. Just talking about it made her think about her own experiences with the aliens and she shuddered, drinking until the bottom of her glass was parallel with the ceiling of her room. Leaning forward, she refilled her glass and returned to her original position.

“It’s pretty fucked up.”

Monica listened to Kuria without comment, her large brown eyes growing wider and wider as the story continued. Her large lips wrapped around the cigarette in her mouth as the other girl spoke in a fearful and angry voice. Monica was so entranced and horrified by what she was hearing that she forgot to smoke, and didn't realize it until she felt a trickle of ash fall into her cleavage.

Her drink sat next to her, and Monica awkwardly set her cigarette aside, took a drink, then picked her cigarette back up. She did not know at all how she was supposed to react to what Kuria was telling her. The girl had seemed so nice and fun so far, and now this? She was lying to her? Trying to trick her? Tricking the dumb little Mexican girl, was that it? That must be it, because otherwise this girl was actually insane!

Monica grew silently angry. She smoked rapidly, wanting to get as much good as she could out of this strange girl before speaking her mind.

Finally, the Latina looked up, She moved on the bed, her large ass causing the springs to creak embarrassingly as she sat up straight and looked into the Irish girl's green eyes. Monica was angry.

"You know, I think this was pretty fucking rude. Why bother even talking to me if you're just going to make fun of me, and lie to me, and try to make me believe foolish things? Do you think I'm some kind of idiot, because I don't come from the same place as you?" Her voice was getting louder now, and her accent was becoming thicker. "What's your problem, huh? What are you thinking? What did I do to you? Why you got to lie to me like I'm some kind of stupid girl, huh?"

Looking up at the now angry girl, Kuria shrugged and drained half her second whiskey in one sip. Seemingly nfazed by what Monica was saying to her, the Irish girl slowly slid off the bed and stood up to her full height.
“Don’t believe me. It’s so ludicrous I didn’t expect you to.” Her voice was quiet and cold as ice, showing that she was a lot angrier than she let on. Her eyes glinted dangerously as she moved across the room, smoke from her cigarette trailing her like a shadow.

“And if you think I’m taking you for a fool, then here’s the door.” She leaned against the doorframe and pointed at the empty corridor with her glass, the amber liquid rolling around in it. “Be my guest.”

And then she let Monica know how truly angry she was.
“But if you think for one second that you are going to come cry here once one of those monsters has fucked you into submission then you are seriously mistaken. Rather hear if from me than learn from experience. Like I had to. Because if you think you are going to hate it, you are so wrong. You’ll love it. Sex is sex. It’s afterwards that is the worst…” Her voice softened from the hard clipped tone she had been using.

“Afterwards when you realize you enjoyed every minute of it, no matter how much you screamed you didn’t. Eventually the screams to stop become screams for more. And you hate yourself for it.”

She moved to her desk, putting out her cigarette and lighting another one almost immediately, her hands shaking with anger and something else. Kuria never let on about her sense of self-loathing, even though it had been months since her last encounter. But she still despised herself for it. She inhaled deeply and seemed to calm down, straddling the chair that matched her desk.

“But I’m not your keeper. Do whatever the hell you want. And don’t worry, I’m not one to say I told you so.”

Something about the girl's confrontational manner made Monica pause. Could it be possible that this girl was telling the truth? Could her stories actually be true?

Kuria was more than a few inches taller than Monica, so the shorter girl stood back a few feet, to avoid having to tilt her head back. Shestood with her arms crossed in front of her, still looking angry. Inside, though, she had begun to believe that this girl wasn't trying to trick her. It was still too much to believe, but perhaps this poor Irish girl had some sort of mental problem?

The Latina was tempted to leave, but curiosity, and the prospect of losing her only cigarette connection, forced her to linger.

"If you aren't lying, then prove it to me. Show me proof, or tell me exactly what happened to you. I will know if you are lying."

The hip-hop music continued, filling the tense silence between the two girls.

“Fuck!” Kuria swore loudly as she finished her drink, almost throwing the glass onto the desk, sending it spinning to a halt. She ran a hand through her dark hair, breathing slowly as she considered what Monica had just asked her to do. She stood up, green eyes flashing as she looked at the smaller Latin girl, taking a long drag of her cigarette and blowing out in a few circles as she considered it. “Anything I tell you now stays in this room, you got it. Breath a word of it to another person and I swear to God I’ll…” She left the threat hanging but it was very clear that Kuria did not like opening up about herself at all.

The Irish girl threw her slender body across her bed, shifting till she was comfortable, her top having rode up a little to expose a tanned, concave midriff. The delicate fingers of her left hand, the nails painted a deep metallic purple with a blue star on each nail, moved to trace and circle around her navel, which wasn’t pierced. Kuria hadn’t had the guts at the time.
Her eyes were shut tightly and in a calm, dead voice she began to speak.

“I was lost one night, back when I first arrived here. Unlucky for me it was dark, the dorms empty. Like I said, an invitation if there ever was one. He or it, pushed me into some room nearby and I was basically a goner. Another girl walked in, and she was toast as well. A third girl, trying to save us for some reason, was its sex toy in a matter of moments. I had had sex before, some of it rough no doubt. But this was rape, from every angle. All three of us were broken in, so to speak. And when we finally came, and come we did, we loved it.”

Something inside Kuria was beginning to ease with the telling of what had happened, something she had refused to do. Silent tears seeped from behind her thick lashes, but she continued to talk. “But it was nothing compared to how I felt after that. You have no idea how much one person can hate themselves. I do. There was a point when I just wanted to end it all. But I realized that if I do that, then those monsters win all over again.”

She sat up suddenly, eyes wide open, the green depths blazing with… something. “And I tell you, Monica, I fucking refuse to let that happen. I won’t… let… it… happen. I remember something my mother used to tell me, even after my dad would beat her until she could not walk.” She put out her cigarette and lit another, tossing the pack at Monica, before laying back down, smoking with trembling hands.

“They can have my body, but they can never have my soul.”

Monica stood perfectly still, clutching her drink, as Kuria related her story. As she listened, the Latina's inner defensiveness crumbled, although her outside appearance remained frosty. Her big brown eyes were locked on the Irish girl's delicate finger as it traced around her navel.

The story Kuria told chilled Monica to the bone. The shadows in the room seemed to darken, and she shuddered a little, the ice in her glass tinkling musically. Monica knew now that Kuria had been telling the truth all along, and she felt awful about how she had reacted. She was so used to girls being mean to her whenever she went someplace new, she had let her defensiveness get the better of her.

She didn't know what to make of the whole idea of "aliens" or "monsters," but Kuria's story convinced Monica that the school was not safe - not at all.

Her story finished, the Irish girl threw the cigarettes at Monica. The dark-haired girl was so startled that she jumped, and spilled her drink all over her pants!

"Shit!" she swore. She spent a few frantic moments looking around for a towel or something to clean up the liquid, but it was already to late: the strong-smelling alcohol had soaked into her favorite jeans! She was relieved that none of it had gotten on Kuria's clothes or floor, but she was also quite upset that her jeans were going to reek of alcohol!

"I have to change," Monica said, not making eye contact with Kuria. She was embarrassed about how rude she had been earlier, not believing the girl's story. The Mexican girl moved to the door, but as soon as she opened it a crack, and saw the long, deserted hallway that stretched into the distance, she froze. After hearing what Kuria had to say, there was no way she was going out there.

She closed the door awkwardly, looking at Kuria. She didn't know how helpful the girl would be inclined to be right now, and she'd rather not push her.

"Um...I've got to take these off, if that's okay." Monica wanted to ask for something she could wear, but right now she wouldn't be surprised if the girl hated her, so she kept quiet.

“Jesus! I’m so sorry!” Kuria leapt up off the bed, her slender body dipping low so that she could scoop a towel off the floor. She handed it to Monica, though the girl was already halfway out the door. Kuria opened her mouth to give some kind of warning, but was stalled when she heard the sound of the door shutting again and Monica turned around to face her.

Kuria considered herself rather adept in reading people, and from what she could see, her story had turned Monica into a believer, and one who was rightly scared of being alone at that. It was a constant thing here at this place, Kuria thought as her green eyes sought Monica’s dark ones. The Irish girl had never opened up like that to anyone, and she thought it a special occasion.
She offered a shy smile.

“Listen, if you need something to wear, I have a pair of slacks here that would fit you.” Kuria was more slender, and taller than her new friend, but she had a pair that would work. Without waiting for an answer, she hurried to her open closet and began searching through the clothing that threatened to pour out in a tangled wave. Kuria loved her clothing, and she had lots of it, the only perk of being rich it would seem. After a moment, she pulled out a pair of black pants, which she threw over her shoulders.

“I wouldn’t beat yourself up about what happened earlier, Monica.” she started saying, turning around and running a calm hand through her hair. Moving closer to the Spanish girl, she offered her the pants. “The story is so fucked up, I can understand. I threatened to hit the person who broke the truth to me. Your reaction was tame.” She was grinning again, emerald eyes twinkling, some of the Irish charm that had vanished earlier, returning.

“And besides, don’t go yet.” she added, picking up the fallen cigarettes, taking one and offering the box to Monica. Kuria was a chain-smoker that would die young, not that she much cared. There was very little she did care about, really, and her health did not feature at all. Her other hand snaked out, pushing keys on her laptop, and the rather funky hip hop changed to a more mellowed out sound, no words, just instrumental. Kuria visibly relaxed and grinned again at Monica. “Come on, in a place like this, we need to stick together. Or else we are both right fucked. Literally.”