Emily nervously exited the bus, dragging her suitcase behind her as she glanced up at the tall trees that lined the walkway to her new campus. The college was huge and the large old ornate buildings were as intimidating as they were beautiful. They seemed to tower above her, looming over her like judgmental guardians. Emily couldn't help but stare at the intricate carvings lining the walls and gutters.
Emily was so busy looking up that she didn't see the blonde girl. Well, until she walked right into her, that is. The girl yelped in surprise and turned to glare at her.
"Watch it!" she said angrily, her icy blue eyes seeming to bore a hole into Emily's very soul.
"Uh...s..sorry, I wasn't looking," Emily stammered, blushing with embarrassment.
The girl just huffed and walked off towards one of the buildings. Emily didn't know it yet, but she had just had her first encounter with Sabrina, the college Alpha bitch.
An hour passed and Emily was still hopelessly lost. She had already walked in on three different classes accidentally (and was amazed by each of them). Finally, Emily stumbled across her dorm, more by luck than anything else. She signed in and got her room key, as well as a leaflet about the rules of the dorm.
Emily lugged her suitcase up the long twisting stairs, silently cursing the lack of an elevator and her upper floor room assignment. By the time she finally got to the door to her room she was exhausted. Opening the door she was surprised to find that it was already decorated. Emily knew that she had been assigned a roommate, but she thought she had come to school before most of the other freshman. She had hoped to arrive before her roommate. Emily wondered if her roommate was an upperclassmen or maybe just an eager overachiever like herself.
Emily made her way to the bare side of the room which was clearly hers. She cast a wayward glance at her roommate's side of the room. Her wall was already decorated with posters, clothes were scattered across her bed, a large wardrobe was open, giving Emily just a glimpse of her clothes.
Emily didn't want to pry too much into her roomate's life. It felt wrong to look at her things without her permission. Instead, Emily busied herself unpacking. She placed her laptop on the bedside table, put her suitcase worth of clothes into her own closet and sat on her new bed.
After carefully checking to ensure she was alone, Emily pulled out her most prized possession - the big thick magical book she had been given as a high school graduation present. Emily had no idea who had given it to her. There was no card - she just found it inside a large box with her name labeled across the tag. None of her relatives claimed credit for it. Emily didn't understand why she had been given this gift.
At first she played it off as a joke. But then, on a boring summer afternoon with nothing better to do, she began to flip through it, looking over the different spells. On a lark she tried some of the simpler spells and was shocked to find that they actually worked. Since then she had been carefully studying the book. It seemed magic could allow you to do almost anything, from levitating to turning invisible.
Summer ended too quickly and Emily had not had time to finish reading the book, nor to attempt all the spells. She stopped on a chapter about transformation spells. They looked pretty amazing, offering the ability to change objects or even people into a wide variety of things, from animals to inanimate objects to even other people.
Emily was so enthralled with her reading that she didn't hear her door being unlocked. Or see the person who entered stand right behind her, peering over her shoulder to look at the book.
Emily slowly looked up from her book and turned around to see ...