text: &#x200B; Edward was by no means excited for his first day back in college, he had spent his entire winter break alone, happy in his room quietly reading his fantasy books and listening to the rain hit his window. He loved the crinkly noise it made as it tapped on the glass, it always gave him such a strange warm feeling he couldn’t quite describe. His family couldn’t afford many things, like the new ‘dreamcast’ that had just been released by Sega a few months prior. They always apologised to him, ‘We’re sorry Ed, we just can’t afford to get you one of those *Nintendo’s* this year’. Edward didn’t care though, he was always perfectly content reading, it was his favourite thing to do. He loved to lose himself in the magic of fantastical worlds. Even now as he got off the bus at dame street and slowly dragged himself to campus, he was away with the fairies, dreaming of the large arched doors at the front gates, he liked to imagine they could be some sort of gateway to another dimension, maybe another plane of existence? He couldn’t know for sure, but he hoped that one day he would walk through and find himself somewhere different. As he got closer to the campus, he noticed the students just passed the entrance, *pricks* he thought to himself, *all so posh and full of themselves like yeah we get it you got into college, who asked??*. He didn’t have much scholarly pride, and not many of these people were very nice to him. The one interaction he allowed himself to have ended with ‘Oh...so you’re from the northside? I couldn’t even tell!’. *What does that even mean, you can’t tell? Am I supposed to have a knife, or some tough accent?* He was letting it get to his head again, that conversation was nearly four months ago. Edward stood beneath the archway, he wasn’t particularly tall, but even to a tall person this entrance was big, like really big, like troll sized at least. He closed his eyes and took a step forward......He opened them again.. nope just the regular old campus on a freezing January morning and he probably looked like an idiot, then he continued onwards and into his first lecture, and then his second, and by six o clock he was done, Thank. God. Leaving college was his favourite part of the day, if you hadn’t guessed already, he really hated it there, but as he got to the bus stop and went to pull out his earphones and his dads old Walkman, he realised he had left them in one of the lecture halls *Fuck...That’s not good.* He ran back to the campus and searched through every hall until he found them, lying there on the professor’s desk in what was his first class of the day. He picked them up and put the headphones on, pressed play and closed his eyes once more, *what a shitty day* The tape started to play and he opened his eyes reluctantly. *That’s weird...* Now if you're still reading this story, you probably know what happens next and i truly wish i could tell you, you were right, Edward opens his eyes and realises he’s finally in that fantasy world he’s always wanted to find, maybe he see’s a painting on the wall that begins to move or beckon him towards it. Who knows maybe he goes on adventures and makes friends along the way, maybe even meets a nice girl who adventures alongside him? Or, maybe if you’re more ‘realistic’ you might think Edward just got sick of the life he was living and left his home, ran away. There was one man found all the way in Seattle who perfectly matched his description, and the weird thing is that guy was a fantasy author. Just a coincidence I suppose. But as I write this, I truly have no idea what happened to Edward, and I say this because when he entered that classroom it was the last time he was ever seen.