“Yes?”

The daunting individual holding down the front desk of Admissions and Records side eyes a student wandering in with queries regarding their transcript. Shoulders tense as adrenaline floods into the blood of everyone who has heard the dreaded clank of the opening office door, the thud of its closing.

There is a student in their midst.

Visibly shaken, staff in cubicles warily peer through tinted glass at the interloper invading their quiet den of isolated splendor. What could this student possibly want?

“Um, hi,” ventures a biology major who’s come to discuss an introductory English class taken a year prior at another school, a credit that has not been transferred. “I wanted to go over my transcript about—“

A chill settles on the room as the Keeper of the Front Desk raises a hand for silence.

“Who sent you?” she hisses.

The visibly confused student looks around at the glowing eyes peering out from their canvas and glass caves. “Um, I’d been talking to-“

The Keeper of the Front Desk glowers. “No. This cannot be. This place is not for the likes of you.”

Stepping back from the desk and sea of cubicles, the student observes with horror that the entirety of Admissions and Records appears to be contracting and relaxing, as though the walls are made not of cement, but rather the heaving interior chest walls of some dread beast. The lights dim, the stares of employees take on frightened, yet hungry quality.

The student whispers “I was just looking for Trevor…” while backing towards a set of double doors, wondering if they will open again, will he ever see his mother again?

Also, he has a test today in less than an hour.

As his back hits the door, he hears the mechanism release. The door yawns open, allowing the distressed and confused student back into the comforting halls of Arapahoe Community College.

He was alive. Coated in icy sweat and breathless, he broke into a run, sprinting down the nearest staircase to find relief in a hot, strong coffee from Expresso Yourself Café. To start trying to forget.

Years later, he would report to his children the chilling final words he heard from the Keeper of the Front Desk, as she answered the purring ring of the telephone upon her desk. “Admissions and Records, can I help you?” she’d said. A lie, he knew.

Admissions and Records could help no one.