"Jacob, nice to meet you. My name's Ivan—no last name," a tall, scrawny guy said to me. His Adam's apple pierced against his neck, seemingly wanting to escape. He let out his right arm.
"Nice to meet you as well, Ivan." I shook his hand. "Where am I going to be staying?"
This was my roommate, Ivan. I wasn't told much about him, besides the basics of how he looked. He had brown wavy hair that reached down to his shoulders, with a sense of style that screamed he was Gen-Z: baggy pants with a shirt that seemed to almost go down to slightly below his knees.
The dorm room was sizable, having two bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and a kitchen. My room was average, being the same size as Ivan's. It was blank, I guessed I would have to decorate it myself.
The sun was setting and I found myself wandering the grounds outside the school. We were in the middle of nowhere it seemed. Everything outside the school yards was plains, except for a small village in the distance. I couldn't make it out exactly, but it looked medieval with some buildings being slightly taller than others.
I couldn't find anything else to do outside, so I went back to the dorms and went to bed.
***
It was now Friday, I had been at the school for around two days and I finally grasped my way around the campus. There were hundreds of classes, each being specific to a species or field you may have wanted to go into in the future.
Damien had been nice to me, allowing me to catch up on any notes we took before I arrived at the school. He was a good guy, and I definitely classified him as a friend.
Outside of class Kallon and Daniel always wanted to hang out with me, and I did not have any objections towards them. We mostly went down to the cafeteria to get some food and then play some games. We never really left the school's grounds. That was until that day, marking the weekend.
"Are you ready to go to Loopenick?" Kallon said, looking inside an ivory bookbag.
Loopenick was the village I saw a few days prior. It was a local population full of mythological creatures, a central hub for those of non-humanoid appearance. It was much bigger than it seemed, and I was excited to visit.
There was a road that would take us to the village, and it would take around thirty minutes to drive to it. By flying as a bat, it would take fifteen.
We got into Daniel's car, a gray 2021 Toyota Prius. I was in the backseat, accompanied by Kallon. The person riding shotgun was Daniel's girlfriend, a blonde with green eyes, around five-foot-four inches tall.
During the entirety of the car ride, I felt myself getting progressively giddier, until eventually making it into the village of Loopenick.