As the bell rang signaling the last class of the day was out, Navi had barely just closed her mouth about Ophelia's misogynistic struggles with Hamlet before her students shot out the door. She sighed audibly as she watched the last teenage straggler trip out the door after his friends. It was Friday, so of course they were all in a hurry to go hangout with their friends at the arcade or roller rink or mall or wherever it was the kids hungout these days. A little part of her felt sad in the fact that she'd never really had that growing up. No friends to simply run off with at a moment's notice.<br/><br/>With another more resolved sigh, she packed up her own things and pulled her bag over her shoulder as she too left Hawkins High for the weekend. Chucking her bag into the shotgun seat, she pulled the seatbelt over her shoulder and sat a moment staring out into the teacher's parking lot while watching the kids greeting their friends and hopping on their bikes or getting into cars. The sight of their camaraderie made the idea of going home to an empty house much less appealing. And she was knocked out of her reverie when one of the kids banged on her hood as a solute.<br/><br/>Pulling down her window to speak with him, "Steve, don't forget that extension on your paper is due Monday!" she shouted as he passed her by with a slick hand through his hair.<br/><br/>"Yeah yeah Ms. Khatri, I'll get it to you. On time. Promise." The cheeky senior even winking as he skidded off towards his car while Nancy waited for him.<br/><br/>She sighed in resignation at his nonchalance. Shaking her head, she rolled the window back up and decided she wasn't going home to an empty house today. Pulling out of the parking lot, she drove about fifteen minutes to town where her favorite little cafe stood.<br/><br/>She smiled as she opened the door to probably one of the only few friendly faces she knew in town. Waving, she sat at the counter. "Afternoon Harlow, how's the day treating you?" She relieved herself of her coat and placed it gently on the seat beside her as the cafe wasn't that busy this time of day. "Could I have a hazelnut latte please?"<br/><br/>—<br/><br/>It'd only been a morning, but already the news was spreading like wildfire among his classmates. Professor Durhast had been reported missing. In truth it'd been a few days already since he hadn't been attending his classes, and Edward wasn't even in any of them. But his business major friends were buzzing about the unlikelihood of such an event. According to them, Professor Durhast was a fuddy duddy old fart who only tended the garden in his backyard on his days off. He was a pretty boring older man, with no wife and no kids to speak of. Just living that singleton life on the edge of town in his lonesome little house.<br/><br/>It was a wonder that someone like him could be teaching the young folk about business models and what not, but he supposed that's what tenure was for. They said that the house was totally unlocked and no one knows where he's gone, car still in the garage. It was a mystery that the sheriff's department weren't exactly making too much of a fuss over. Leave it to the kids to start gossiping over it though. Making up wild stories about where he'd gone or what he was doing right that moment. But Ed didn't care that much, even though the news hadn't sat right with him for some unknown reason.<br/><br/>The situation was strange, of course. But something tickled the hair on the back of his neck every time one of his friends mentioned it as they lay there on the campus grass. They were enjoying the chitchat, but not being able to stand it any more he got up to their surprise. He was all for cutting class, but he needed to be alone for a minute and told them he was gonna take a walk around the school to 'clear his head'. They shrugged it off easily and left him to his own devices.<br/><br/>The community college campus was actually not too far from where Professor Durhast's house was, now that he thought of it. He lived just over the hill on the other side of the library, maybe a twenty or thirty min walk? Not exactly wishing to get back to his friends' nonsensical chatter just yet, he decided it was worth a trip for his curiosity's sake. Pulling the corners of his jacket's collar up a little, he headed down that way in the brisk afternoon sunlight. It was a beautiful day, with something odd in the air.