The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter two:

Clarity parked the car in the campus parking lot, the same spot she'd been parking pretty much since she'd arrived.

In the middle of the drive back, it had started to rain again. The water rushed down in huge, drenching drops. She wished that she had thought to bring an umbrella.

She braced herself for the cold as she stepped into the rain. She was pelted by raindrops so big that they soaked her to the skin by the time she'd run the short distance to the dorm building

She tried not to drip too much as she walked up the stairs and into her dorm. Jessie was nowhere to be seen, and a quick search of the small living space revealed that she'd disappeared again, as she tended to do when she didn't have class.

Clarity pulled off her wet clothes and put them in a bag to wash later.

As she was pulling on a dry t-shirt, she glanced at her holo-desk. She would have to finish that paper before she forgot completely and had to pull another allnighter.

She pulled on some dry sweatpants and sat down at her desk.

Even though she felt like a burnt out lightbulb, she managed to find a train of thought that kinda went along with the topic she was getting at. Who knew if it would make sense when she proofread it, but it would have to do for now.

She checked the word count, and though she was barely scraping by with the minimum, she emailed it off to her professor anyways. She was sure that some other slacking student would pull a stunt that would make her scanty paper look like a full-length novel.

All of her soon-to-be-due assignments had been taken care of, so she decided that she would organize her email inbox while she was at it. There had to be a load of junk mail to sift through by now.

One of the first files was indeed junk mail. It was clickbait for some stupid article. But of course, she had to accidentally click the wrong spot, and instead of just deleting the mail like she wanted, the article was now loaded up on the screen, ready to read.

Actually, it wasn't an article after all. There was just a short paragraph of introduction to a video. Not just a video, but a live news feed. She played it. After all, it could be interesting.

"-last week. We still don't know what to think about the strange disappearances." A blond-haired news lady with perfect teeth said, talking into a camera. She had been in the middle of saying something right when Clarity started watching. "Moving on, there have been several eye-witness accounts of a quote "hooded vandal" unquote, supposedly terrorizing local cities." At this, Clarity turned the volume up. She'd never heard of this hooded vandal character before. "As of yet, the man or woman under the hood has not been identified, but police are investigating several appearances in Mallva, Grange, and even Oakridge." As the news lady droned on, a blurry image of someone in a long, hooded coat popped up on the screen. "Most reports say that the person in question has displayed vigilante-like behavior, and all have strongly insisted that it is a male under the hood. So far, not much has happened with this story, but if a real story develops, Channel Two news will be the first to know." She gave an especially wide grin. "Now back to Jason for the weather."

Clarity closed the news feed. She had no interest in the weather.

She pondered on what the lady had said. Disappearances and strange hooded figures? She couldn't help but feel just a little bit thrilled.

Finally something interesting was happening! Nothing ever really happened in the small university town, and it wasn't likely that anything would.

But it wasn't far to Mallva or Grange, so if this really did amount to anything, she wouldn't be that far from the source. She was a bit more skeptical about the report from Oakridge. She wondered just how close she had come to encounter the strange hero.

She let the exciting thoughts slip from her mind as Jessie pushed her way through the door. She had a scowl on her face and her clothing was soaked through.

"What happened?" Clarity asked, shutting her holo-desk off and turning to Jessie.

"Mrs. Moors said that I couldn't take the day off tomorrow." She huffed and started changing into dry clothes. She angrily kicked her wet shirt, though that didn't accomplish much.

"Why? You didn't do anything wrong, did you?" Clarity asked.

"She said that I haven't been doing good enough on my advanced tests, and because of that, I have to stay here and study!" she threw up her hands with a scoff.

After she changed into dry pants, she sat down on her bed. She ran her finger through her soaked, dark brown hair. Because it was so curly, it was a complete mess. She crossed her arms.

The way she was sitting, combined with the crossed arms, reminded Clarity very much of Rachel. She felt a twang of sadness. Even though she had only known her for a short time, she missed Rachel, and all the rest of them too.

"I'm going into Glenrail tomorrow for some shopping. Do you want me to bring anything back for you?" Clarity asked, wanting to cheer her roommate up.

"No," Jessie replied glumly, flopping backward with a sigh.

Clarity glanced out the window. The sun was starting to set.

"If you say so." She said with a shrug.

She hadn't eaten any dinner, but she wasn't very hungry anyway, so she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

When she was finished, she went back into the room. Jessie had vanished yet again. She never did give any warning.

Clarity flicked the bed-side light on and settled down to get ahead in her reading. There was a huge test coming up, and it would decide if she passed, but the problem was, exactly what the test would be about would only be revealed a short time before they were supposed to turn it in. She just had to read her brain dry, and hope she remembered the more important details.

By the time she was done, the sun had finished setting, and twilight was settling over the sky.

She put her book down, turned off the lights, and snuggled deeper under her covers. The fact that she'd woken up before the sun rose had caught up to her, so she was able to fall asleep within a short time.

For some odd reason, she found herself dreaming of August King, the telepath that had helped take down the Organization. And not only that, she knew she was dreaming as it was happening, which never happened to her. It was as if the fact that she knew it was a dream made it extra fuzzy and unreal. Nothing stayed for longer than a moment, and everything seemed to shift before she could get a good look at it. The only thing that stayed was August.

She hadn't thought of August in a long time, except as a part of the group. But never like this.

In the dream, he was trying to tell her something. Something important. She got the sickening feeling that her life depended on it, even though she was well aware that it was only a dream.

She tried her hardest to hear what he had to say, but it seemed the harder she tried, the less discernable his words became.

She gave one last effort to hear the urgent message. Her concentration was partially rewarded, as she caught the last few words of the message. "-didn't die. You have to get out. Hide." From what she heard, the message made absolutely no sense.

After the words, the dream faded into blackness and the rest of the night passed uneventfully.