Incident #1 - The Devoid Dormitory

College has officially started. You moved in a week ago, got your stuff arranged, dividing up the dorm with your roommate. You took the tours, learned how to get food at the various cafeterias, generally got the lay of the land. Then classes began. It was a bit of a whirlwind through the week as assignments and activities started to pile up. After the first week, you were given a few days to relax. Parties sprouted all over campus, mostly confined to Greek Row, the houses the sororities and fraternities used, but a few smaller shindigs at the different dorm buildings were available.

A loud banging knock wakes you up with a start. "Hall meeting starting now! First floor. Everybody needs to be there. Attendance is mandatory!" You recognize the voice you're Resident Assistant (R.A.), one of the non-freshmen who live in the building. They are older student students paid to serve as a point of contact for any questions or concerns students in the dorms may have. They lead your floor around the other day on one of the tours. As you wake you take in your surroundings. Something seems off

You know your roommate was planning to stay out late on Saturday. In the brief time you saw each other on Friday morning they told you they planned to go a little wild before settling in for the rest of the year of study. Greek Row was their destination, but specifically which one was unknown at that point, leaving up to "vibes" of the moment.

Then it hits you...your roommate is gone. Not only was their bed empty of a body, their side of the room is empty of all their stuff. No posters, no bedsheets, no desk lamps, no laptops, no stuffed animals. A quick look around the room shows their toiletries are missing and their closet is empty. Nothing remains to show any evidence that another person ever occupied this room with you. You may have gone out partying as well, but you didn't party so hard that you would have missed them packing up and leaving in the time since you fell asleep. It would have taken hours to do and not been a quiet job.

After dressing you exit your room and join the throng of students making their way to the stairs. Most of them are bleary eyed and seem confused. A few whisper to the person next to them, their own roommate you guess.

Once you are downstairs in the lobby you see Paul Bauer, the Resident Director (R.D.) of Gainer Hall conversing with the R.A.s off to one side. They all look concerned. Students take places on the couches, squeezing in where they can, but eventually it's standing room only. Once most of the residents appear to be there, Paul turns and addresses the gathering.

"Hello everyone. Thank you for coming down. I'm sorry to wake you so early on your first weekend, I know the first week can be stressful but we might have an issue here. This morning a few of your fellow residents came to my staff..."

Paul indicates the gathered R.A.s behind him.

"...with some disturbing claims that we need to get to the bottom of. They claim...that their roommate has vanished, as if they never existed. The thing is, we have no record of anyone with the names they have given us being assigned to this building, or even enrolling in this school. At this time we are asking if anyone else has met a student going by the name Brant McCormick, Jeremy Holt, or Sheri Stewart?

Clad in a beige crop top sweater (yes, to flaunt the abs) and faded pastel-blue jeans, Jun enters the lobby well after all the seats have been taken. She finds the spot in the room least crowded with boys.

The looks of concern make her wonder about why Concetta left… and she undoubtedly has a similar wide-eyed expression when unfamiliar names come up.

"I’ve not heard of ’em," she says with a slight quiver in her voice. "What about me roomie, Concetta DiGeranimo? Might her name ring a bell, anyone?"

She suspects not. But her eyes roam the faces in the room to see if anyone reacts in some way to the name ‘Concetta.’

Paul looks over at the gathered R.A.s as they flip through a pile of paper on a clipboard and scroll an iPad. They both look at each other then Paul shaking their heads in the negative.

"Well, add it to the list I guess."

Taking only the time to slip into her black hoodie, pink sweat pants, and her Jack: the Pumpkin King bedroom slippers, along with a black wig, Sia proceeds down to the meeting. Even though there are some seats available when she arrives, the slender teen instead finds support against one of the several square wooden, support columns of the large room so as to not be brushing against others.

Folding her arms beneath the slight swells of her barely noticeable breasts in the oversized hoodie, which completely hid her hands in the long sleeves, she watches and listens from the slight shadow of her hood. Her green eyes take in everything in her surroundings; especially the room full of strangers who are only of recent becoming or to become her classmates.

As Mr. Bauer revealed the reason for this early Sunday morning interruption, Sia raises a brow in curiosity. "God nog aan toe!" She utters in a near whisper. Could it be that her problem has been solved? Was Miss Piggie really gone and no one but she remembers the existence of a Becky-Jean Tuttle? Perhaps her prayers to whatever is up there or down there, as the case may be, has bestowed a gift to her. If she stays quiet, maybe no one will realize she has a room to herself. There will be no one barraging in at the wrong time, when Sia is online and well...

Jun isn’t ready to give up on Concetta. "She’s on my contact list!" She holds up her phone.

Of course there’s a contact with Concetta’s full name. But no number. And the photo?

🅒

"Well okay, we never exchanged contact info but… it’s what? First-dot-last-at… or last-dot-first?"

She attempts to send Concetta an email using the address the university would give to someone named Concetta DiGeranimo.

Hey, Concetta. If you get this message, call me.
~🩵, Jun

Dispite linking her number, Jun doesn’t expect a miraculous fanfare in the form of her ringtone. She’s checking to see whether she’ll get an automated Message-Not-Delivered email.

Ainsleigh is one of the last students to show up, and appears in the habitually peculiar turnout - a three-piece suit, with no tie and a partially unbuttoned shirt - and stands in the doorway for a few seconds. There is a whisper or two among those present for a few seconds, but those are interrupted as the newcomer walks through the crowd, past the middle of the room, and approaches the RD, not bothering with greetings or introductions, and addresses him abruptly, yet in a gentle tone of voice.

'If you already happen to have a sizeable list of missing people, and a list of people who saw them, it might be productive to create a sheet with all the local residents - along with registered or alleged room numbers - with registered residents in the first column and the missing ones in the first row. Speaking of which, I can add another name to the list.'

'Then you could quickly quiz those present to see how many people remember each of the missing ones, do a roll-call to see who might be missing among registered students, and you can check both against your database to see if any rooms filled by missing students have been wrongly registered as housing someone else. Overall, such an approach should help spot any noteworthy irregularities . . . or noteworthy regularities for that matter. Surely you could not have had too many rooms where one of the beds is unused, right?'

Initiating rise and shine protocol...
Power save mode deactivated...
All systems ready...
Battery = 100%...
Good morning Chloe...


Chloe suddenly sits up straight in her bed. Wide awake. She turns her head and pipes up cheerfully
"Good morning Emma..."
to an empty bed.
"Oh... Emma... Uhm... Now where did she go? Geez. She is not the early bird usually. Hmmm.... where is all her stuff?"


Probability that Emma dropped out of education without telling.... 99.62%
Probability that Emma was a bug in my programming and never existed.... 0.87%
Probability that Emma has been kidnapped by space aliens who cleaned up after themselves.... 0.001%
Probability that ....


Chloe shrugs and gets out of bed. She puts on her regular pink hoodie, jeans and sneakers. Her hair into a practical ponytail and she is ready for another great day. But first, let's see what this meeting is about. If attendance is mandatory, it has to be important right?

Chloe gets to the lobby and mingles in with the crowd. She listens too Paul. Vanished roommates?


Probability that Emma belongs to this group of people.... 99.972%


Chloe steps forward to Paul. Best inform him about her vanishing roommate.

"Uhm! Excuse me! Yes... Paul... please..." she tries to get his attention quite timidly. "The odds that my roommate is.... I... I mean... I think the same thing has happened to my roomie. Emma Davidson."

Sai tried her best to shrink herself below notice but can't help but feel like people are looking at her. Scanning the crowd she gets a little relief because everyone is looking at everyone else. This is the first time since the tours that this many of the students have been gathered. If anyone is specifically staring at her, she can't pick them out of the crowd. The other thing Sai notices among the group is the nearly palpable miasma of arousal. Not too strong, not directed in any particular direction, and probably to be expected in a group of young adults like this. It has been sort of a lingering issue all week but it's very noticeable with everyone gathered in one place. She does note that most of the girls are dressed like her, bulky hoodies or sweaters. A few came down wearing sports bras and yoga pants, as though they were about to head to the gym. The guys on the other hand are overall showing a lot of skin, the athletic ones anyway. About half of them aren't even wearing shirts and cover their lower half with basketball shorts or gray sweatpants. A pair of boys shift to one side, leaning in to whisper to another set of students, and Sai sees something that makes her look twice. At the back of the hallway near the exit from the southwest stairwell stands a mousy looking girl. Her hair is the yellow-brown of harvest ready wheat, and hangs straight and unadorned barley concealing her overly large ears that stick far out from her head. Huge round lenses, too large for her face, perch on her tiny freckled nose. Her lips are thin and lacking color, but their rosebud shape would be cute if it weren't for the large buck teeth visible between them. Her hair frames her face like curtains stopping just before her freckled shoulders.

It's at this point Sai notes her entire body is dotted with freckles, a fact she knows because the girl stands at the end of the hall completely naked.

The boys move back to their original position, blocking Sai's view momentarily. As she cranes her neck to look again, the girl seems to have vanished.

Jun looks through her phone and does actually have a picture of the girl she knows as Concetta, right next to her phone number. A few moments after sending the email however she does get a "rejected" notification. Double checking the format, it seems the address matched her own.

Paul looks a little put off by Ainsleigh's abrupt approach, but chokes down his initial reaction and adopts his authoritative, but friendly customer service voice. "Right. That is exactly what we are doing here this morning." He gestures to the two students holding the clipboard and iPad.

"Danny has the resident list printed out with room assignments. Jocelyn is connected to the administration data base to cross reference the names we are collecting to see if these so-called "missing" students have any record of attending or even applying to attend Willowveil. So far we are 0 for 4. Every student claiming to be missing a roommate is misted as having a single room assignment...which of course is odd because we have don't do single room assignments in Gainer Hall. But you have another name to add? And your name and room number would be?"

Chloe manages to make it to the front of the group just as Paul asks his question of Ainsleigh, and finds herself standing in the only open space in the lobby. Right out in front of everyone. For a few seconds everyone is staring directly at her, this girl who seems to have put herself purposely in the center of attention just to claim her own missing roommate. It takes a moment but everyone soon goes back to their own conversations. The yoga pants wearing gaggle of young women do continue to glance at Chloe with disdainful expressions and whisper behind their hands back and forth.

"And your name and room number? Both of you actually, the girl who spoke up first. I forgot to ask for your name and room number." Paul replies after everyone goes back to talking amongst themselves.

Jun is pleasantly surprised that she does have an image of Concetta. And her number!

"Jun Ama," she replies to Paul. She gives her room number as well, and also shows him the picture on her phone. "Seems I’ve a photo o’ me roomie after all."

If this is another American prank…

She taps Concetta’s phone number…!

'Oh, you don't remember. That's . . .' the fresher is puzzled for a second, but then smiles slightly, 'That's a relief actually, in a way. Ainsleigh Grosvenor. And the name of the missing student is Sarnai Myagmar. We're from-' Ainsleigh takes a step forward, hand reaching out towards the stationery on Paul's desk, 'Actually, let me write it all down for you.'

'There. Also, I don't think I remember any of the other names mentioned so far, but I'll try to think some more. Maybe some descriptions and other details will help me rack my brain a bit.'

While a flock gathers around Mr. Bauer to register their various names and supposed non-existent roommates, Sia remains put leaning against the column. She glances about to see if anyone appears to have noticed the naked girl.

'Interesting. I didn't know nudism was allowed in Gainer Hall. This place may be more progressive and accepting than I thought.' She thinks to herself.

Chloe does detect the yoga girls whispering behind her back. But she thinks not much of it.
Her attention for now is at Paul. She is not focussed on whispers or mysterious naked girls.

Query: And your name and room number?
Reply: Chloe Coleman, room 317. Add flavor.

"Oh. I am Chloe Coleman, and I am in room 317. That's Emma's room as well of course."
she says excitedly.

"And I don't have a picture of Emma at hand, but I can surely describe what she looks like. I have stored her appearance in great detail in my datab... brain..."

Ainsleigh glances in Chloe's direction, curious.

'Great detail, hmm? Can you draw people realistically? Or perhaps at least assemble a composite on a computer? Perhaps that might be helpful.'

While Sia is scanning the room for reactions to the naked girl it seems no one else noticed her. Granted, Paul is drawing all of the attention in a whole other direction, no appears to have seen what Sia saw. Before she can think of doing anything else, the Resident Director calls out.

"Okay, that just leaves...." Paul turns to Danny who shows him a list, "Sia Abschied..Absch...Sia, are you here this morning? You are the last single occupant room we haven't checked in with?" He scans the crowd, clearly unsure of who he is looking for. "The Campus Security would like to speak to all of you now in the office, so if you're here we can just get that over with."

Jun calls the number she has for Concetta, but it immediately goes to an automated message from her carrier apologizing that the number is not activated.

Jun glares at her phone, like it’s its fault her imaginary friend doesn’t have voicemail.

She gladly starts toward the office, expecting a smaller crowd as few had mentioned roommates. Noting the two girls talking to each other, Jun says to them, "Chloe and Ainsleigh, is it? Jun Ama," she says, in case they hadn’t been following names. (Jun had, but she’d paid no mind to numbers.) "Are the two o’ you from the same floor? I’m on the seventh meself."

Sia rolls her eyes and raises her hand. "Here. Sia. I'm here Mr. Bauer. Room 719." Without waiting for anything further, Sia arights herself from leaning against the column and turns toward the office.

'No, I'm from the first floor,' Ainsleigh points a finger upwards. 'So if I heard it right, at least one of you can provide an image of one of the missing people. Maybe two if your detailed memory can be leveraged into producing one, Chloe?'