You hurriedly reach down and grab the pastel yellow sheet of paper that the shady character dropped. It reads:
“Roomates too noisy to study at home? Come to Walter Library, the best (quiet) place on campus!”
It is certainly quiet now, you think, when suddenly the guy who dropped the flyer struggles back through the lead front doors of Walter, panting and clutching his chest with a bloody hand.
“Get rid of … that sheet of … paper … don’t give it … to them,…” he manages to say, before collapsing in a thick red pool of his own blood in the doorway.
Before you can react, two badly dressed men step into the entrance with him and begin to violently rifle through his pockets and his stack of children’s books. They were obviously more concerned with finding this guy than picking out matching suits this morning.
In fact, you are so lost in their shocking juxtaposition of black and navy blue sport coats and slacks, that you’re taken completely off guard when one of them says, “Hey, that confused-looking guy’s got it!”
Quickly, you realize that he’s talking about the yellow Walter Library flyer you’re holding. You’re about ready to ask what’s going on when you see a glint of light flash off of a silver gun one of them is holding, and you decide to turn around and dash downstairs.
Hearing the footfalls of one of them close behind, you don’t look back as you enter the subterranean maze of tunnels beneath the library. You run through Johnston Hall, burst into the Northrop garage, and make a beeline for the tunnels to Williamson Hall. Running through those, you decide to try and lose them in the dirt-floored steam tunnels, which you notice an absent-minded Facilities Management employee has left unlocked.
As you dash through the smelly dirt hole, you hear the “clink” of someone locking the gate behind you. You run faster toward the spot of light ahead in the tunnel, which opens into a panoramic view of the roaring Mississippi.
Suddenly, you’re standing in the mouth of a tunnel in the side of the St. Anthony Lock and Dam, water crashing all of 20 feet below, when the men approach from behind.
“I didn’t do it,” you say, feeling the cool breeze from the Mississippi whip your back.
“I don’t care,” one of them replies coldly.
The last thing you remember is the bite of the icy water as you plunge to the end of your innocence below.
THE END