Elliot

I ran back into my apartment, ready to tell Lex about what had happened only to see him glaring at me. 

"You were gone for five, maybe ten minutes. Didn't I tell you to never return?"

"Cut the crap, I ran into someone."

"Wow, that definitely doesn't happen every day of our lives." Lex padded across the table. "Who was it?"

"That's just it, I know him, Bleddyn, I know him from somewhere, I just can't place him." I ran a hand through my gelled hair.

"Maybe you saw him in one of those dreams of yours," Lex mumbled under his breath.

"Shut up you stupid feline," I growl back.

"I'm smarter than you, and you know it."

"I'm not having this conversation twice in one week."

"Then stop bringing it up. What was the original issue again?"

"His face!"

"Ah yes, his face. Maybe you went to school together?"

"No, he said something about getting to class so he is in school currently."

I walked through the kitchen, Lex continuing to spout new ideas of where I had seen him before. Falling down onto the couch, I groaned with the realization I have to go to work tomorrow. "Well, you are a supervillain, maybe this dude was a hero you fought."

"He didn't look like he wanted to kill me."

"He wouldn't have known it was you."

Erebus would have known it was me, that's just the kind of hero he is; always knowing what to do in order to save the world.

Bleddyn, now he was a mystery.

I needed to know more about this guy. He just gave me the feeling that I needed to keep my eye on him.

"What are you doing?" Lex nodded his head at me. I had picked up my ten-minute time travel pen. (I created it in grad-school when I needed more time to study-- or get over a bad hangover.) The mechanism gave you the ability to go back in time ten minutes and took ten minutes to recharge, thus creating an infinite loop. While back in time, one did not have the ability to speak or touch another human, thus not interfering with the past. It wasn't perfect, but I did make it in grad-school.

"Going to go back in time, I need to know a little more about him."

"Him?"

I didn't let him finish, for I was whisked away with the click of a pen. 

The instant but brief headache never goes away when time-traveling; that is expected, it goes against so many laws of time and space. I was in my apartment ten minutes prior, right after I would have left. Lex was asleep as I walked out the door and proceeded down the street towards where the incident happened. 

I watched it unfurl once again and focused my eyes on the man. I followed Bleddyn away, ignoring the past me. He walked all the way to the college and into one of the smaller buildings. 

I watched the scene play out, it was a classroom with only five or six other people in it, the walls were plastered with Latin sayings.

Great, he's a Classicist. 

Then the class began, and I had to sit through a majorly boring lecture over the intertextuality and reception from Alexandria to Rome. 

What the hell does that even mean?

The lecture was so boring I fell asleep, not being able to be seen or touched by anyone, no one noticed. I woke right as the class ended and saw that Bleddyn went up to the professor. I know ethically speaking everything I'm doing right now is bad, but I'm evil! I am supposed to do these things. I leaned against the front wall watching and listening to the conversation play out. 

"Listen, Mr. Bird, I understand that you have a lot going on right now with the disappearance of your family, but I still expect you to turn in assignments, you have been given an extra week on the paper, I cannot extend it any further."

"I know Doctor Hutchenson, and I am trying to get everything in, I just have so much to do and with my two jobs, I am already spread thin."

"You'll do fine, we will get that grade up, you'll graduate. Don't worry, just keep me informed."

The conversation continued for a little bit, but nothing major was brought to my attention. This guy did not seem as if he were anything special at all, so why did I feel as if there was more to him?

Why did I feel as if I could possibly figure out something big with him?

Those eyes, those dark mocha eyes, were all I could think about later that night. 

Bleddyn

Most may find the intertextuality and reception from Alexandria to Rome quite a boring seminar class to take, but then again, most people do not major in Classics. But then again, rereading Ovid's Metamorphoses every time you have a mental break down just to realize that you don't have it that bad is not even that popular in Classics majors.

I mean, in my experience.

Here at University, we don't have many classics students, there are probably only five or ten of us when you take out the students who decided to take Latin one freshman year of college instead of a tougher Spanish course and even fewer who are actually willing to take this class. I'm not complaining, we are a very tight niche of nerds here: making puns over certain Latin words and making mythological jokes that no one understands other than us. 

However, since the Classics program here is so small, it is obvious to say that we did not come here for it originally. In fact, most of us were originally going to major in Engineering, Biology, English, Pre-Med, or Law only to be sucked up into a vortex of "how to make a career out of a Classics degree."  

Do I regret anything? No. However some days I feel as if it would have been better if I did regret it, these episodes normally after talking with my parents, who wanted me to stick to my original Pre-Med track instead of diverting into the unknown, mystical world of Ancient Rome and Greece. 

I sigh in relief as I run into the classroom just before Doctor Hutchenson, my professor. It was Friday, meaning that there would be a quiz over the reading assigned on Monday. 

He did not greet the class, Doctor Hutchenson never greets the class, instead, he sets his stuff down on his desk, sits in the chair, props his feet on the desk and smiles at us.

"How bad is this one," Amy, a girl to my right, asked. 

"Oh, not too bad, Miss Smith," Hutchenson replied.

"That's what you said last week," she responded.

The class laughed over the argument that has happened every week of the semester so far. 

Doctor Hutchenson gasped, "Are you implying that I lie to my students?"

"Yes." The unanimous response was not unheard of, especially in the Classic's department.

Doctor Hutchenson rolled his eyes and pushed himself out of the desk. We all got papers out as he projected the questions up on the whiteboard. "Five minutes, starting now." 

For the first time in my time in this class, Doctor Hutchenson hadn't been lying about the difficulty level. I finished the five-question quiz in three minutes with relative ease, along with my fellow compatriots. 

"See, I told you." He smiled as we turned in our responses. "I thought I would give you guys a break since you all have mid-terms next week."

We groan, the one thing that we are trying to ignore thinking about was the mid-term, especially me. 

He continued into a lecture and gave us a rundown for what would be on the final and then dismissed us.

I stayed behind like I always do. He wasn't surprised, instead, he just smiled at me and motioned to come up to his desk as he slid a few papers back into his bag: "Listen, Mr. Bird, I understand that you have a lot going on right now with the disappearance of your family, but I still expect you to turn in assignments, you have been given an extra week on the paper, I cannot extend it any further."

We talked for a while and with his promise to help me with a few extra credit assignments I bid him adieu. 

He was a great professor and actually made the subject fun, I just wish I didn't have everything else in my life blowing up so that I could spend my time doing what I love.

But I don't have that luxury as Erebus, no, instead I have to fight villains every day and night, getting little to no sleep, while also keeping a 4.0 GPA, which this class might be the ruin of-- which Erebus might be the ruin of.

I head home, exhausted and not ready to face the world quite yet. Two-hour classes always leave me in a depressed state.

Sometimes I wish that Erebus could just die so that I could go back to being a normal grad-student without any major responsibilities.

I'm just so tired.