#omng

“Sorry sweetheart, I’ve got a big-“

“Project and the deadline’s coming up,” Carmafe finishes for her with a sigh. That’s the problem with half of your friends being contracted engineers and the other half being engineering consultants- someone always has a project and there’s always a deadline. Getting even 2 friends together for a lunch date was a 2 week affair. Of course she shouldn’t complain- how often had she rejected plans for the same reason?

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll take the day to think about where I want to go and then make the calls to see who’s free.” She rolls out of bed and steps into her slippers before heading out the door, “Call me back if you want to play hookie.”

“I’m literally working with explosives, I can’t!” Carmafe laughs at her friend’s distress before snapping her phone shut. She walks downstairs, pointedly looking away from her home office and goes straight to the kitchen.

“Water, soda, lemonade, y agua de jamica. So many options.” When the pantry turns out to be equally barren, she digs out a frozen lasagna she had prepped last week. “Really need to pick up groceries today, gonna be eating lemonade ice cubes for dinner if I don’t.”

While the lasagna bakes, she takes a minute to dust off her social media sites and check up on her other friends. As always, she goes to each page and scrolls down, liking every single post. No deaths, a few promotions, and a handful of photoshoots to honor the new season. After her little role call, she goes to aimlessly scroll through videos for a while but upon opening the app is immediately met with a girl crying about how she hadn’t been chosen and that there must be a bias because her essay was perfect. Carmafe checks the tags and then had to double check the date.

“Wow, they’ve already picked out the exchange students huh? But how does she know she didn’t get in?” Carmafe mulls over the video and decides to watch the promotional videos as she ate her lasagna.

The Royal Academy of Diavolo is proud to present its esteemed student council. It is our honor to open the doors of our school and welcome in a new generation of demons and humans alike to-

For as much as the video hyped up the program and intrigue of going to school in a different dimension, it didn’t say much about the school and kingdom itself. Everyone that went and came back was sworn to silence but had given generally positive reviews. Most of the negative ones were over petty shit like food preferences and the amount of walking and studying you had to do, but isn’t that just every college campus? The thought of returning to college and getting to study topics like magic and deadly toxins sent shivers up her spine, and Carmafe wonders for the hundredth time if her essay had been good enough.

As the leader of the “Fuck Around And Find Out” club, of course she had applied. Nothing on earth could compare to the thrill of just imagining going to live in a place with magic and demons, the moon looming over you for eternity. Another shiver of excitement course through her as she threw her plates into the dishwasher and scrolled back to the video of the crying girl, checking her comments for hints on how to know if you’d gotten in. Almost every comment was some kind of whine or complaint about not getting in, and those that weren’t were condemning everyone who applied. She switches to her email app but catches her breath form steam in the air. In under a second the room had darkened and she was chilled to the bone, a large purple portal tearing itself open in front of her.