Despite the horror of what happened that morning, Eli strolled to css. He arrived half an hour early. He preferred it that way. Eli walked into the cssroom and discovered that Rachel was already there.

  “And here I thought that I was here early.”

  “I always make sure to get to css an hour early at least once a day for extra time to study.” Rachel looked up from her books and saw Eli’s tired expression. “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah, just didn’t sleep well.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  Eli could only look at Rachel with confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Amy texted me and told me what happened, she mentioned her roommate Eli in first year and since you are the only Eli i have met in first year i assumed it was you.”

  “Wait, you know Amy?”

  “Of course, we are best friends. We were even roommates in my 2nd year. Though I am curious, why are you in the girls dorm? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Eli could only look at Amy awkwardly. “Um… I’m not… I’m in the guy's dorm. Amy is my roommate though she said that the head of the housing committee was pissed at her.”

  “That son of a bitch! He knows that Amy is trans and yet he still did that!” Amy smmed her hand against the desk, now armoured in intricate and smooth articuted ptes, as the wood cracked under the impact.

  “Eep.” Eli jumped in shock as he made a very manly noise. Though he was curious, what had Rachel meant by Amy was trans?

  “Sorry”

  “No worries, you just surprised me. Um… can… can I…” Eli was fiddling with the zipper of his hoodie. He had had it for years. He bought it when he was 13 or 14 and made sure that it was a few sizes too big so that it was nice and baggy on his gangly and weird body. It helped to obscure his shape and made him feel more comfortable.

  “You know Amy was right about you. You are super cute when you are flustered.”

  Eli could only blush in response, trying to sink deeper into his hoodie. “Imnotcute.” Why did these people insist on calling him that? He couldn’t be cute, and guys weren’t cute. They couldn’t be.

  “Aww, adorable. So what did you want to ask me? You clearly had a question for me.”

  Eli wrung his hands as he found it hard to look at Rachel. “Can… can I see?”

  “Oh, is that all? Sure.” With that, Rachel held out one of her arms towards Eli. It was now covered in smooth, bck, articuted ptes of chitin that covered her hands and up to her elbow.

  “Wow, they are so… pretty,” Eli whispered under his breath. He couldn’t believe what he saw. The armour seemed rigid and yet soft enough to flex as needed while it provided protection. “It’s like”

  “Armour” Rachel added as she looked at the rge smile on Eli’s face. He was lost as he stared at her forearm as he poked and prodded it.

  “No, it more resembles the articuted ptes of an armadillo, as it is clearly made of some form of chitin or keratin structure, you can tell my the feel of the material as well as how well it flexes while still providing protection,” Eli talked more to himself than anyone else as he stared at Rachel’s arm.

  Rachel waved her hand in front of Eli’s face. “Hello, Earth to Eli, you there dude.”

  Eli flinched at the word dude, his attention now focused on Rachel once more. “Sorry, I was lost there for a second, Xenos biology has always fascinated me.”

  Rachel noticed Eli flinching but didn’t say anything. She decided to be more careful with her forms of address around Eli going forward. “Oh yeah, Amy asked me to ask you if you are going to the party tonight.”

  “I mean, I’m not really a party person. They have always been a cause of bad memories for me.” Eli pyed with the zipper of his hoodie again as he thought about the few times he had gone to parties in high school. They had always turned out awful.

  “Don’t worry about it Eli, me and Amy will both be there as well as our two friends so there will at least be two friendly faces. Will you at least consider it? We will be meeting our other friends at the party but there are only two others.”

  “I… I guess… as long as you and Amy are there, it can’t be that bad, right?

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  Css that day was a repeat of the previous day. The professor continued calling Eli by his full name and berating him whenever he answered wrong. Rachel was there and helped, but every time he heard his name, it was like the professor had spped him in the face. It hurt, so much, and Eli didn’t know why. Eli was on edge, and by the end of css, Eli was ready to bolt. An armoured hand nded on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks as he stood at the end of css.

  “Eli, are you alright? I can tell that what the professor is doing is bothering you, do you want to talk about it.”

  “No.” Eli tried to shrug off Rachel’s hand, but it held firm to his shoulder. “I’m fine Rachel.” Eli didn’t want to talk about his feelings. Men didn’t do that afterall. He had to be a man, just like his father wanted.

  “Are you sure Eli? I know some people who are really good at listening and know the kind of stuff you are going through.”

  “I’m fine, Rachel.” Eli finally escaped Rachel’s grasp and exited the cssroom as fast as he could. As Eli exited the css, Rachel’s st words drifted through the air. “Liar.”

  Csses for the rest of the day passed in a blur. Eli was focused on the party that night. His mind was spinning at 100 km/hr, and he couldn’t seem to focus on anything. What was going to happen tonight? What if he met that girl from yesterday? What if Amy’s other friends didn’t like him? What if they forced him to leave the party? He would have to walk home on his own in the middle of the night. What if he got mugged? Or worse kidnapped, he couldn’t get kidnapped. He had just started college. He knew that if he were kidnapped, there would be no one to save him. Two warm hands cupped his face for the second time that day.

  “Hey, calm down Eli, it’s going to be alright.”

  With a lurch, Eli realized that he was standing in the middle of his apartment. How did he get here? How long had he been standing there?

  “Eli, focus. You were shaking, I could tell that you were spiralling. Is it the party? Is that what has you so worked up?”

  Eli looked into those deep emerald eyes before quickly looking away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.” That was the second time today that Amy had had to help him out. What was wrong with him? He was supposed to be a man, damn it. He was supposed to be able to deal with this stuff just like any other dude. Bottle everything up and pretend the problem doesn’t exist.

  “What are you apologizing for?” Amy looked at him with concern. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “But I have. This is the second time today that you have had to deal with my bullshit because I can’t keep a lid on my emotions.”

  “Eli, there’s nothing wrong with expressing yourself or relying on other people for help.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just the only memories i have of parties are bad ones so i just assume that this one is going to go poorly and then i start imagining all the ways it’s going to go wrong.”

  “Don’t worry Eli, me and Rachel will be there, she told me to look out for you today, that you weren’t feeling your best. I promise, you will have a good time it’s just going to be the three of us plus Maddison and Amber, we normally also have Jennifer but she couldn’t make it tonight, said she was avoiding someone but we think she is just being paranoid.”

  “You don’t have to be so nice to me all the time. I know I will just get in your way tonight.”

  “Eli, I am offering because I want to. Not only do I want you there, but Rachel does too.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Really.

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  As Eli and Amy walked towards the CALEB house, cars lined the street. Lights from the building and music could be heard even though they were a block away.

  “How many people are coming to this party?” Eli could only look on at all the cars as people walked towards the party.

  “I mean, this is the biggest party on campus, they are hosted twice a year and have a variety of activities avaible. The house was built by an aberrant so it can easily contain more people than it appears to have space for.”

  Eli perked up “an Abberant? I have heard of them before, but details are sparse at best. It’s like nobody knows about them, or what is known gets removed.”

  “That’s because they are, aberrants value their privacy. They can warp space time around them and are basically eldritch beings, removing information from the internet is not that hard of a job.”

  “True enough, I would love to meet one though.”

  “No you don’t.” Amy quickly cut Eli off, a distant look in her eyes.

  “What have you seen one before?” Eli looked up at Amy with expectation in his eyes. He rocked back and forth, hoping for an answer.

  Amy could only smile at Eli. He looked like a puppy waiting for a treat. “Yes, i have met an aberrant before. It was more luck than anything else. These are constantly moving as they twist and distort. They seem like they are in reality but also outside of it simultaneously. They are hard to look at and have even harder names to pronounce. Whatever they discover about themselves when their Xenos gene manifests, it is not something that mortal minds can handle. Even having a conversation with one can be very strainful.”

  Eli looked on in fascination, not wanting to miss a single detail of what Amy was saying as they finally rounded the corner and could see the CALEB house. It was a small, quaint, single-story log cabin nestled between a row of trees, set back about 20 meters from the road.

  Eli was confused as he saw people continuously pouring into the cabin. “That’s it?”

  “I told you it was built by an aberrant. The best way to describe it is that anything that an aberrant makes is under no requirements to make sense to you. Everything will make more sense when we get inside.”

  As they entered into the Caleb house, they walked through the doorway into a massive foyer. Looking up, at least four floors wrapped around the foyer as if the foyer was in the center of a rge building instead of the entryway. Moonlight shined down into the foyer, illuminating the entire room in an eerie purple hue. Eli looked closer at the moon and realized that there were two of them, one red and one blue. The combined light being emitted is what gave the room its distinct purple colour. A mass of people walked towards a single greeting desk before branching off into several staircases, some leading up and some leading down. Eli saw how many people were there, swiftly spun on his heel, and tried to walk back out the door. This attempt was foiled as Amy quickly hoisted Eli into the air and pced him back on the ground in front of herself.

  “Hey, it’s going to be okay, alright. I told you I would stick with you and wasn’t lying. I know it looks like a lot of people, but once you get inside, you will see that the partygoers are spread out alot more than the initial impression. The Caleb house is a very weird pce, but trust me, as long as you behave and follow instructions, you will always get to where you need to go.

  After waiting for 15 minutes, the two finally made their way to the receptionist. In front of them stood a tall, guy? Wearing a nice white shirt, blue jeans and a yellow, white, purple, and bck bee-shaped pin on his chest.

  “Hello there, welcome to the Caleb house. Here for the party I assume?”

  “Yep, I have been here before, but you might want to go over the standard procedure with my friend here. This is Eli, by the way.”

  “Hello there Eli. My name is Riley, and welcome to the party at the Caleb house. While it may look a little crazy, as long as you follow the path, you will always reach your destination. Rest assured, it will not get rowdy like other parties, as we have ways of making sure everyone stays, civil. A number of events are being hosted throughout the building. There is a sign board posted beside every stairway allowing you to know where to go for each event.”

  “Um… excuse me, sir… where are the bathrooms?”

  Riley’s face was a mask for a second, their eyebrow twitching slightly. “I can assure you that as long as you step onto one of the staircases you will get to the bathroom, eventually.” Riley bent down and made a small note in his ledger on the table. Eli tried to look at what he was writing, but the words were all scrambled, some of the letters appearing and disappearing at times.

  “Eli, why did you say that, they are clearly wearing an enby pin on their chest. Love that by the way.”

  “Thank you”

  Eli slowly started walking backwards as he tried to put some space between himself and Amy, he’d done it again, ruined another friendship with his stupidity. Maybe he could at least make her not hate him? “I’m sorry, I don’t know what an enby is. Is that an LGBT thing? While I have some knowledge of the topic it is still quite limited. Truly I am sorry, I never meant to offend anyone, especially after they have been nothing but courteous.”

  Riley walked around the desk and pced their hand on Amy’s shoulder. “It’s perfectly alright Amy. Clearly, Eli was acting in good faith and was merely ignorant of these things. I am quite masc presenting afterall. Eli, I am what is known as non-binary, which means I do not truly identify with either gender and use neutral pronouns like they/them, though some prefer other neutral pronouns. Either way, this is not a night for a lecture on queer identities and such. It is a night for a party, so off you go. You are holding up my line.”

  “Alright Riley.” Amy grabbed Eli’s hand and pulled him towards a stairway to the left-hand side. It led down into the ground.

  The two had been descending stairs for a few minutes before Amy came to a stop. “We should be good here.”

  Eli looked up at Amy in confusion. Why had she stopped?

  “Sorry about earlier Eli, I am normally much more understanding when it comes to this topic, I just had a bad day and I took that out on you, so, I’m sorry. I should not have snapped at you like that.”

  “It’s fine Amy, it’s admirable that you would jump to someones defense. By the way how does one get to stay in the Caleb house anyway?”

  “To stay here you need to maintain a minimum grade of 92 percent in all of your csses, which is just insane.”

  “Wow, that’s nuts. Maintaining an average grade of 92 percent would be hard enough but to maintain a minimum grade of 92 percent is so far outside of the realm of possibility for most people.”

  “Apparently it’s because if you are not smart enough staying here long term can wear down your psyche.”

  “Good thing I don’t live here then, that’s the st thing I need” Eli was still feeling a bit awkward from the conversation but was trying to add some humour to break the tension.

  “Alright we should go meet up with the others soon, they are probably wondering where we are and why we are te.”

  “Are you sure that your friends don’t mind me imposing on them like this?”

  “Oh, hush. There are only three of them, and I am sure that they would be willing to accept you. You will still have me and Rachel there to help out, as opposed to talking to random strangers on your own.”

  This girl understood Eli far too well for her own good, quickly removing Eli’s escape routes from the eventual conversation with these mysterious friends of hers, but she did have a point. At least she would be there as moral support.

  “Well, if there are only four of them, it can’t be that bad, right?