Chapter 1

a snippet

There it was, that lamp. There was just something about it that was unsettling, at least to 23 year old Alyssa there was something just off about the lamp.

Her roommate who was sitting in the arm chair next to the new lamp that Alyssa had been peering at from behind the couch gave a heavy sigh.

"You know, I'd like to think that somewhere deep down, there is a VERY normal person in there that thinks this entire reaction to new furniture is complete rubbish."

"You'd like to think that wouldn't you? That normalcy exists, that's all lies imprinted to you from the public." Alyssa averted her gaze over to Leigh.

"Yes because the public has lied to me for 22 years and that this is all a ruse to get me to be a sheep."

"You know that lamp is evil somehow, it just radiates this aura of nasty."

"No, it doesn't. It radiates light which allows me to study easier seeing as the lighting in this apartment sucks."

"Evil lightning." Alyssa muttered.

"It's a wonder I hold up my grades with insanity constantly flowing out of you."

"You hold up your grades because you listen to me, it helps you focus."

Leigh waved her hand at Alyssa signaling that she was calling BS on that arguement.

"So when are we getting a different lamp?"

"When one of us makes enough money to buy a lamp, rather than dumpster diving."

Alyssa creeped from behind the couch to sit on it, the farside of the couch mind you. There was no way she was getting close to lamp that Leigh had fished out of the dumpster at the end of last semester when people moved out and never emptied them completely.

"See the lamp isn't evil, it's adding lighting so we can study."

"I still think it has some ulterior motive though."

Leigh sighed, closed her book and proceeded to bounce her forehead off of it.  How she managed to get a crazed interior designer as a roommate was beyond her, Alyssa had appeared very stable when she responded to the roommate for halfsies ad.

She had a solid job, was doing well with school and was intelligent, also neat and didn't have a history of bringing men or women home. All of this still stood today, it's just that her personality hadn't quite shone through that day. She was a bit of a conspiracy theorist and was a bit eccentric, it wasn't a terrible thing to be honest. But it was distracting at times, and time was needed if she was ever going to get through her physics class to stay in her honors classes.