“Class Dismissed”, the somewhat overweight professor at the front of the large hall called out, causing a cascade of murmurs to break out. Avelina, much like most others in the room, had already finished packing her notes and writing utensils.

“We're going to the Retreat, you coming?”, A young man who had been sitting two seats away from her addressed her. Johannes. He wasn’t the type of person that Avelina considered to be a friend, but they got along well enough to be on good terms when it came to coursework and utter such things. A friend in university, nothing more.

“No.”, She replied with a tired sigh. “I slept through my first alarm and wasn’t able to prepare a meal to eat during the last lesson switch so I’m going to fetch something.”

“Yikes-”, He grimaced, putting it on for a bit of comedic effect, “Wasn’t that like two hours ago? Why didn’t you just grab a snack or something with you?”

“I might have also forgotten to go shopping-”, She silently admitted as she zipped her purse close, slinging it over her shoulder, “Not a word about it. I went to Lita’s party yesterday and I feel horrible.”

Perhaps, it was fair to admit that her hatred for Thursdays also came from a rather simple thing. One of her friends always seemed it fit to hold a party on Wednesday and she wasn’t the type to miss out on something akin to that. She worked hard, so what if she from time to time also played hard?

“Lita? Didn’t she ya know-”, his voice trailed off as I let out a soft groan.

“No. That is just a rumour and I’d like it if you didn’t spread it.”, She raised her chin as she glanced down at the young man in front of her. If there was one feature of herself that she was happy with it was her eyes. They were sharp and piercing blue, giving her quite the glare. It was perfect for glaring down annoyances, even if it gave her somewhat of a resting bitch face, “Please?”

Despite the fact that Avelina added the ‘please’, Johannes still shifted on his feet, scratching the back of her head. Avelina didn’t have a reputation for being verbally ‘pleasant’. This also translated into letting him pick up on the fact that the ‘please’ was filled with sarcasm. Johannes was correct. Lita did sleep around with everyone who made eyes at her, but the trick to lying properly was acting as if even the suggestion of it being true was causing you grief and annoyance.

She didn’t quite care to convince Johaness of it not being true, but she simply didn’t want to talk about it for the fifth time in a day’s worth. Really, did no one have something better to do?

“Either way, I’m going now Johannes, I’ll see you in Neuro.”, And with that, she turned around and walked off.

Avelina was a medical student. Had been for quite some time. Her first year at university she spent doing philosophy, but halfway through she realized that if there was one thing she disliked more than cramming facts into her memory, it was cramming opinions of long-dead people there as well. Thus, she changed a year late, not that it was that uncommon an occurrence. Then there were some struggles in her third year, but all by all things were going rather properly.

Neuro, or well, perhaps calling it Neurosciences part II was a more accurate way to address it, was one of the most boring and interesting topics at the same time. After all, who wasn’t interested in how the brain worked, well her professor apparently. He was a burned-out man who barely gave any information that wasn’t already noted down in her textbooks and somehow gave it even dryer than it was written.

Naturally, she had ended up disliking the subject.

To then learn that she would have the same professor giving the second half of the subject this year again had almost been horrible enough news to make her consider changing degrees. Sadly a small and rational part of herself won out and forced her to keep going, after all it would be silly to throw years away because she couldn’t deal with one professor.

As her boots tapped against the ground, she reached for her phone in her back pocket. It was a bit of an older model as she didn’t believe in spending too much money on new pieces of technology when she could use them for other leisure activities. With a swift tap of her finger, the screen came to light. Her eyes darted down and glanced at the time as her pace hastened.

She had about ten minutes to fetch something to eat and also eat it before her next course started.

Thursdays. She couldn’t believe it. Who planned a course to go from a bit before noon to well past noon! Especially when she hadn’t even been able to sleep in and was running on entirely too little sleep after the party from last night. The fact that she was presentable enough to actually leave the house was quite the achievement that had taken a small miracle to come to pass.

“Ave-”, A voice came from next to her. Angela. An actual friend of hers who was currently studying classical history and due to her love for it enjoyed addressing her as ‘Ave’, using both a nickname and mimicking a roman greeting. Avelina paused for a short moment, glancing up as she wasn’t the tallest of women and finally let out a deep sigh.

It had taken quite a bit of self-control to not return with a barbed insult. “Angela.”

“You always sound sooo gloomy-”, the taller brunette laughed at her as Avelina didn’t have the energy to properly respond except by letting out another sigh. Normally she was thorny enough to deal with most annoyances. Not Angela. Somehow this girl could shrug off any insult or remark that Avelina made and simply annoy her through it. It was a superpower. It had to be. No one could be that socially dense.

“Perhaps I wouldn’t always be so gloomy if you didn’t keep using the same joke when you use my name,” She ran her hair through her somewhat messy blonde hair, pushing it back and out of her face, “For the last four years.”

“Come on, you love it!”, She proclaimed as she quickened her pace to keep up with Avelina who was attempting to run faster to avoid the woman. As much as she loved Angela, she didn’t love her when she was hungover, running on four hours of sleep and while her stomach was crying bloody murder because she hadn’t had any meal yet today.

Avelina, the peak of verbal wit, simply flicked her friend the bird, causing the girl to break out in a fit of laughter.

“One day.”, Avelina murmured.

“One day what?”, the response came.

“One day I’m going to shove my fist so far down your throat that Eric is going to complain about it being too lose the next time you go down on him in the middle of a p-”, Angela suddenly leaned forward and flicked Avelina on her forehead as the blonde was mid-sentence, causing the woman to freeze up.

“Have a Snickers, you're not the same when you are hungry.”, she replied in all seriousness, reaching into her pocket.

For a moment Avalina’s eyes widened as she couldn’t believe what had just happened before bursting into laughter. Laughter that only got worse the moment that the history buff actually pulled one out of her pocket and offered it to her.

“You-”, she took a moment to recover from her laughter as she snagged the piece of candy from her friend, “How long have you been carrying that around to make that joke?”

“Just today. You always forget to both eat breakfast and prepare something to eat at noon on Thursdays. You are more predictable than you think you are, Ave.”

The blonde rolled her eyes at the dramatic statement and gave her friend a quick and brief hug. After that, she took a few steps back and pocketed the piece of candy for later. As she stepped back she laughed, “I’ll see you later tonight, I do need a bit more than a candy bar if I want to not choke my professor today!”

“Don’t miss your course again!”, the brunette called out with a sigh as she watched Avelina take a longer route than necessary. She really was predictable.

A few minutes after she was waved off by her old friend she stepped out of the shop with a nice chicken sandwich. Normally she wasn’t a fan of too meat-heavy dishes, but she had a craving for it when she was running on no sleep. Before she started to chow down, she glanced at her phone once more and realized that lesson had already started a few minutes ago, causing her to let out a sigh.

Just another Thursday.

Instead of hurrying back, she decided that she might as well take her time and just eat her meal slowly. She didn’t need an upset stomach on top of all the other issues that she already had. Without thinking much about it, she slowly started to walk on her usual route. It said quite a lot about her that she always missed this lesson due to her desire to go party. She had to be honest, maybe she could have made it if she had rushed to get it and then rushed back, but she really didn’t like that course.

As she walked back to the campus she passed by quite a large street and paused in front of one of the larger offices in the area, her meal already having been as good as done by this point in time. She let her eyes trail up the side of the building. Whenever she passed by this place she never could help but stare at it in awe.

After all, not that many companies had windows that dirty.

Really, it always baffled her and was something small to look forward to each Thursday. Each time she took a little detour on her way back to come and check out if the windows had been cleaned this week. And it seemed that this week was the fourth week in a row that they hadn't been cleaned. Just one more week and they’d have reached a new record.

She didn’t understand what drove her to admire this level of incompetence. She had actually gone and looked into the financial situation of that company on a rather superficial degree and they seemed to be doing fine. There seemed to be no proper reason why the windows on that floor were never clean.

Watching it was one of her guilty pleasures, weird as she knew it was.

There was just calming in seeing that even the ‘professionals’ enjoyed cutting corners when it came to the little things. It made her feel a bit better about her doing the same things. Small vanities, watching someone else do the wrong thing made most people feel better about themselves and Avelina was many things and vain was most certainly one of them, so vain in fact that she had gotten fully absorbed into her own little amusement at watching the building in front of her that she didn’t even notice-

-The way that all noise behind her had died down.

-The silent screams

-The horror on the face of the man standing next to her.

-The light approaching from behind.

Initializing culling phase 1. Creating Subroom-523523, Type, Arena.

Thursdays.

She hated them so much.