Only as Bright as You Wanted Me to Be [open]

[Bridie A. Brom]

For you I am blinded.

There’s something holy about heated swimming pools. Especially when they were indoors and away from the winter weather outside. And floating in said pool was the best thing that happened to her all week. It was so comforting and peaceful, extremely relaxing. Her mind drifted, almost feeling dazed and sleepy. But she wasn’t at risk of falling asleep and drowning, it was more a meditation and her arms kept moving ever slightly to keep her afloat.

It was afterhours and she was probably not even supposed to be there. In fact, the sign on the door specifically said that she wasn’t supposed to be there. And the lock was somewhat uninviting, but since when had locks stopped her? Brom had picked up the habit while in Chicago and since has let very few locks get in her way. Besides, part of the fun of a midnight swim was not getting caught, or perhaps the opposite.

As she floated, her eyes flickered open. She thought she heard something, footsteps. But she wasn’t sure. The place was dark because she didn’t want to attract attention by turning on the lights and she had closed the door behind her. So on the off chance that someone was wondering about, the janitor or another teacher, as long as she didn’t make any sudden movements everything would be alright.

Slowly she floated to the deepest part of the pool and then moved upright in a position where she could tread water, but also in a position that if someone were to open the door and check inside, she could sink down to the bottom, hold her breathe, and hide in the dark until whoever decided there was nothing interesting there.

Her eyes, already adjusted to the dark, stared at the door. She could still hear something beyond it, but for all she knew it could just be her mind being paranoid.

[Lawrence Grimmel]

I am no gentleman. I can be a prick.

“Staff members should not use keys on their individual rings for non-scholastic purposes. Any offenders will be punished accordingly and may have their key-ring privileges revoked.” Lawrence hummed pleasantly as he snuck about the hallways, jingling his keys pleasantly in the silence. It wasn’t until he realized that the jangle could alert an observant janitor or security staff member that he stopped shaking them to the fullest extent of his amusement. Slipping said keys into his jeans pocket, he found himself at his secretive destination and was shocked to find that the lock on the door had already been opened. Lawrence stood in front of the indoor swimming pool in the athletic department and reconsidered his dip in the heated pool for a moment, wondering if he should, indeed, abuse his administrative luxuries. The professor brushed it off absent mindedly, figuring that a late night pool patron had left it open by accident and walked through the door, tugging at the scarf he had wrapped around his neck for the walk between buildings.

The teacher couldn’t see in the darkness of the pool but could feel the warmth of the heated water already. Pleased with himself and with the temperature, he began to strip away the layers of clothing over his swim trunks, removing his striped hooded sweatshirt, his worn-in, paint-splattered jeans, and his gray canvas shoes. The Italian man didn’t often mind the weather at the Institute, but tonight something cold had seeped into his bones and he had known that nothing but a swim would warm him up. His strange hours often kept him up throughout the night and left him tired in the morning, so a midnight swim was something that didn’t feel too terribly strange to him. Shucking off the cuffs of his jeans, he gazed at the dark water of the pool and got ready to ease into the shallow end. Many people had told him it was much more efficient to simply jump in but he preferred to let his body adjust. As he guided himself down the stairs at the lowest end of the pool, he stopped short and held his breath, his body slightly hunched in an awkward position. The professor’s hazel eyes narrowed, squinted as he tried to ascertain what exactly that shadow was at the end of the pool. A superstitious chill ran up the length of his spine, a certain supernatural suspicion that he had never shaken. A ghost? His mind echoed with a childish question, which he answered quickly.

Certainly not.

Lawrence was embarrassed for even thinking that way as he continued his movement and submerged himself in the water and shook his gaze from the dark shadow. It was his nearsightedness playing tricks on him – a grown man should not let his mind jump to conclusions, especially not those that involved the dead. He let out a long sigh as the water moved around his body, disturbed by his movements. As soon as he became acclimatized, he would begin swimming laps, but for now he was content just to let his body relax. The water around him settled down when he stopped moving, simply standing in water up to his elbows. Unfortunately enough for everyone involved, it was then that Grimmel felt the current stir up again, the movement of something else in the pool. He wanted to squeak, to swim like the dickens for the shallow end and hop out of the pool like a frog, but instead he choked through the lump in his throat. He was nearly thirty, for God’s sake, and a big enough boy to take on anything that came at him. Well, almost anything.

“Is someone in here?” Lawrence questioned in a voice that he thought sounded menacing despite the way his heart was quaking. His slightly accented words echoed around the room as his eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. The words were answered by a few drips of water and the humming of the pool filter, and then, silence.