“What's taking him so long?” Trisha asked, picking up a smoothened pebble from its cluster—on the ground, and throwing it weakly onto the graveled asphalt that spread out in front of them; a route for Golden Lake's professors to drive past to their offices—in their cars.“I can't tell but our dorm is not too close to here, so of course, it'll take him some time.” Wilkes said. He turned his left wrist to its fore side; the part that concealed his veins, and stared at his black wristwatch that was given to him by his mother on her deathbed; “Many say that time waits for no man, but in reality, we are the ones going. Time waits. It always has and always will.” That had been her last words before pushing the watch into his trembling hands.“He's been gone for a little over nine minutes,” he said still peering down on the wristwatch that was strapped to his wrist and in response, he got a nod from Trisha who pushed her glasses up her nose for

“What do we do now?” Wilkes asked, trotting alongside Harold and Trisha on the asphalt, away from the bleacher where they were sat minutes ago.The sun had retrograded into a snug compromise between afternoon and evening and a fairly golden filter—the shade of fresh honey, had laved Golden Lake's land territory and all that were in it.“What do we do now?” Trisha repeated. “We wait for patent proof that Prof. Ericson—or anyone else bearing the name, had been the one that sent the letter to Harold. That's what we do now; wait.”They strolled past a carpark that edged the entrance of three sky-high buildings and out of a Mercedes came a tall man with hair like cotton balls and an old-fashioned suspender that hugged his shoulder to his seedy shorts. He stared at Harold through his unclear eyesight as they walked past his blue vehicle but they didn't notice him; not for a nanosecond.“The contest

It was the first workday of a new week; Monday, and like a worm slithering sluggishly on the mouldy soil towards its home burrowed deep in the earth, the contest, ‘Vestige of the Aptest’, drew nigh.The morning sun soared above the faint umber-stained skyline East of Golden Lake and its pleasant warmth sprinkled over the students—who were going about their morning businesses, and the dewed meadows, pastures and buildings, too.That monday morning wasn't as glorious as the ones the students had grown accustomed to over the weeks but still, it was more magnificent than average morns around the world and that was enough.Golden Lakers, though, (on an average) weren't too perturbed about the weather conditions as they had a lot on their plates to deal with—which was customary to Mondays, and one of the many people who didn't was Harold Girard who presently had Religious Studies in the Lycanthropes Division before Geography i

The clouds right above Golden Lake University; hostels, buildings, cafeteria, pool, too, and everything that fell into Golden Lake's territory were ruddy and as the clouds stretched towards the skyline, they gradually faded like an old piece of clothing that had become a rag to a shade of pale brown; the kind of brown found on maple leaves during autumn. Harold lay coiled on his bed like a millipede under attack with his wooly blanket that knocked off dawn's chilly weather stretching from his curled toes—that touched the end of his bed, all the way to his neck. His eyelids were closed in a slumber and he snored gently in a calming rhythm.All of a sudden he jolted up, gasping for breath, like a swimmer who had held his breath under water for hours, his eyes failing to blink as he looked all around barely able to make out the grotesque raincoat—that hadn't come to any use so far, hanging from a nail drilled into the wall beside the door, or Wil

Trisha McLeon and Wilkes Milton sat on the cold ground that reeked of urine in a very small and dark room with their hands uncomfortably fastened behind their backs with thick horsewhips that dug into their skins.Neither of them remembered how they had gotten there. One moment they were on their beds in their different rooms—at dawn, and the next moment they were in a mysterious room in the middle of nowhere, tied like rams who'll be slaughtered for a feast. “What... What is this about, Trisha. Any idea?” Wilkes whispered, fear having overrode his sense of reasoning.“None. Not a single idea,” Trisha replied then paused to relive all that had happened to her and Wilkes in the forty minutes they'd been in the sullen room before speaking again.“I'm scared,” she confessed. “All this makes no sense. I mean, Harold in all sincerity, has a very very low chance of surviving the contest,” she paused again and tried to co