Word Count: 702

After giving a statement at the precinct, Jack had been left with the dilemma of where to hole up for the night. As a dorm-student, rather than a commuter, the few friends made over the first semester were also from the dorms. They were also all gone home for the holidays. There were no couches to surf. With no money for a plane ticket or gas to get home, there was certainly no money to afford a hotel room, even at questionable places advertising $39.99 a night.

I don't want to go back to the dorm. The maintenance team can't possibly be near finishing yet. There's going to be crime scene and lab s**t going on for the last two hours. If they'd even let me into the room. They might be checking stuff out in there. Just what I need, the whole world checking out what I did to that chair. I'm going to have to pay the school for that, I bet.

Where am I going to sleep? I guess...I could stay up. Am I seriously going to be going to sleep in the next couple hours? I'd have liked the option to try. Where's the churches being open all night so people could declare 'Sanctuary!' anymore? As proof they're just another business racket. I'd sleep on a pew, given the chance right now. Maybe a church would feel safer.

I can't believe some cop got mauled trying protect-serve for me. I mean...it's the job, but I'd rather it not have to go that far. they'd let Jack know that there'd been half a dozen other calls to the security desk. People had heard. People other than Jack had paid more attention to the rampant violence, 'terrorists', missing persons and comas that plagued the city. Two other students from another wing were actually in comas. That thing had already visited two rooms, and Jack was just the menu for dinner. The pound of the walls resonated with heartbeat on the walk to a 24 hour coffee joint- some hipster place with Grateful Dead posters and shawls pinned from walls to ceiling in an attempt to turn box rooms into tea caravan. Or Burning Man lodging- Jack wasn't sure, and hadn't been since coming to DCU and learning of the place as a study spot for finals. It was a splurge to buy anything, but the coffee came by the whole press and the tea by the pot at reasonable rates. In six minutes a french press and sleepy student were installed in one of the floor-rockers with a side table piled with trade paperbacks.

An attempt to read didn't last more than four pages. "This is madness."

That cat wasn't kidding. This is all real. That wasn't just something all made up in some finals-induced hallucination. People are out there getting hurt. Out there? ******** in my hallway. In my dorm. People I've probably seen in the kitchen or Commons. People I've had classes with. It is far away and distant and awful, and its really damn close and horrible. psssshhhhshshshshhhh-okay. Ook. How ...

How exactly is getting in a two piece and goth boots going to help me stop things that take guns to kill or melt or whatever all the ash was about? And that thing had to have been a Kusanagi chameleon, cause wow did I not see it in the hall. What am I realistically going to do with that? Tell it that's 'not nice' and to play fair? Seeking help of some sort, either from other people who were tossed pens and told to get out there was definitely in order.

But where do I find them? How do I find them? It isn't like there was an email list and tumblr linkslist handed out to go poking people like 'Haaay. Haaaaaaaay. I need to listen! Talk to me, man!' Jack curled forward, folding self in half to curls hands up over the back of head and hair whether it was an air raid or not. Well, when you get a better idea, you let me know self. Until then, I'm gonna hang out ....drink my coffee. Or something. Yeah.