World War T is a series of independent, vaguely interconnected stories about different tentacle monsters invading Earth, very much an erotic homage to World War Z. These very short stories do not need to be read sequentially.
Thanks to Tara Cox (organizer) and Rachel Sprite (muse) for their encouragement to participate in the
Survival Revival Challenge
- a thousand published words daily through the duration. Stay safe and sane everyone!
I wished I was at home.
There were distinctive disadvantages in being a legacy. Though I would never really know the costs of student loans or working a part-time job, great expectations came with their own grating sacrifices.
Made all the worse by the gnawing knowledge that I really didn't have it that bad.
Most of my friends, even those destined for top private schools based on Daddy's donation, would have killed to make the kinds of connections available at Chi Omega. Given my grades, my family, and my looks, I could go far...
Sure, my skin was a little fair, my hair too lightly blond, but I was pleasant to look at, small and petite, still keeping my hair mostly in these long, elaborate braids.
But I had dreaded the end of high school, imagining a life of hazing and humiliation, only to find the girls so unlike...
Well anything I anticipated.
Except for the newest incoming pledges, every girl was the model of pristine fastidiousness, polite and charming almost to a nasusating fault. Just being in the same room with one gave me this uneasy shiver up my spine, like they were examining me, looking for pieces of me to polish out.
Or maybe they were just really super nice and pretty, and here I was being jealous, bitchy, and homesick. I'd only been there a week after all, and today was my first chapel with the chapter president.
They said it was more like counseling.
But every day they picked a pledge for personal mentoring with Regan Vanderbilt, the tall blonde goddess who seemed destined to run more than Chi Omega.
Admittedly, I didn't notice at first, but each one came back a little more like the rest of the sorority...
A little too sunny...
I remembered Becky, kind of a sullen, mousey girl, who complained since day one. And then yesterday her entire demeanor lifted, gone after this miracle therapy session.
It was my turn...
Her office was ornate and rustic. The centerpiece was an eerie fountain, a misshapen octopus head carved out of something like sandstone. The softly bubbling water flowed from the distorted impressionist face, monstrous and cruel.
I stood in front of her desk, several other seniors standing at the door, almost like guards, the whole process suddenly making me uneasy even as the questions came out like a perfunctory survey: what's your major, career goals, hobbies...
She moved to sit on her desk, swinging her long leg in front of me...
"I think Chi Omega can offer you all that, and more," Reagan said seductively. "But to do that we need to be able to see each other, truly for what we really are. There can be no outsider here, no boundaries."
