Dead to the World

## Content Information

Xander arrived back at the dorm room with his head swimming.  He had a report to write Thursday morning, a project he needed to get done by Sunday, a fencing competition the next day, and a lesson to teach in an hour.  Not to mention everything going on between him and Tamzen as of late.  Spring break was supposed to be a time of rest and relaxation, yet he was busier than ever.  He stopped though when he saw Joseph’s old, beat up laptop sitting open on his desk.  The screen was on, and flickering as always.  Xander sighed, and moved to close it, hoping to preserve what little functionality the machine had left.  That’s when he caught a glimpse of what was on the screen.

Joseph’s email account was open, and in it was a plethora of unopened emails - almost all of them from professors or TAs. One was even from his academic dean. They all told the same story: just from a glance, Xander could see that Joseph was failing all of his classes (except for Ethics, which he was somehow acing).

Unfortunately for Xander, the middle of his snooping was the very moment that Joseph decided to return to the room, towel tied around his waist, tracking water from the shower across the floor.

“Hey Xander, have you seen my shower shoes? I left them somewhere around here, but I have no idea where,” Joseph said, awkwardly trying to kick dirt and debris from the hall off the bottoms of his wet feet.

Xander’s nose curled at the overwhelming smell of freshly- (and generously-) applied generic-brand body spray. He had told Joseph that it might be a good way to cover up the mild smell of decay that was always coming off the ghoul, but, as with many things, Joseph was overcompensating.

Joseph looked up from his feet, an expression of disgust on his face. “Well, I guess I can’t really get athlete’s foot at this point anyway.” He paused. “Wait, can I? Anyway. What are you doing with my laptop?”

“Oh, well,” Xander turned to face Joseph, hand over his nose to block the smell, “I was going to close it, and save your screen from further decay.  Then I saw the emails, and I couldn’t help but look at a few.  Sorry for the snooping.”

Joseph, as Xander was saying this, was bent over in the process of drying his hair with a second towel that had been laying on his bed, getting droplets of water all over the floor in his vicinity. With a jerky motion, he stood up straight, flipping his hair back into the tightly-twisted towel. “Oh? I have emails?”

“Yeah dude… they’re from you professors, and one’s even from a dean.  They’re all trying to reach out to you about your grades declining this year…”  Xander showed the laptop to Joseph, “I thought you were looking at them, given you had the page open.”

Joseph looked at the screen, seemingly having difficulty focusing his eyes. He made a sound of what Xander guessed was mild displeasure, then shrugged and went to sit on his bed. Xander saw him pick up his phone, open an app at random, and begin scrolling. “Oh well.”

“Oh well… oh well!  Joseph they’re saying you might not graduate at this rate dude,” Xander gave a worried glance to his roommate, “Don’t you care about that?”

Joseph shrugged again without looking up from his phone. “I guess?”

Xander closed the laptop and walked over to Joseph’s bed.  “Do you want help man?  Like there are tutors around campus if it’s an academic thing.  I’m really good at math so I could help in that stats class you’re failing.  Or… or if it’s mental, there are counselors at the mental health center could help.  If you don’t want to go there you could talk to me about-“

“Xander, cut it out,” Joseph said in an unusually terse tone. “I get that you just got out of freshman orientation with an armful of pamphlets, okay? I used to be an RA. I must have given people that same exact spiel a hundred times.” He put his phone down and walked over to the closet and began rooting around in a pile of unfolded laundry for a shirt, feigning unconcern. “I’m literally dead. Like, what do you think Mental Health Services or the Academic Resource Center are going to do about that?”

Xander just stood there for a moment. He’d lived with Joseph for a while now, and he’d never heard Joseph speak with such certainty.  “Well, I, uh… there must be something that can be done though.  You’ve worked at this for four years. Why give up on it now?”

Joseph fixed Xander with a dead-eyed stare for a good fifteen seconds before responding. “Xander,” he said slowly, “I’m legally dead. Do you have any idea how hard it is to apply to jobs when you’re legally dead?” He pulled one of his many nearly-identical band T-shirts on over his head. “I don’t even know how I’m still enrolled in this school, man. What should I be working for? There’s no way for me to have a normal…”

Xander cut in, “Joseph I know there’s no way for you to live a normal life.  Trust me if anyone gets it...”

With that Xander slowly allowed his head to partially transform, a sleek set of black scales replacing his normal skin, his pupils narrowing and his mouth elongating, “...itsssss me man.”

Joseph didn’t even have the good grace to look surprised as he yanked his jeans on. “I give up, man. How is you being a snake supposed to make you more of an authority on my being undead?” He frowned, seemingly considering something. “Sorry, is snake the right term? I uh.. Well. Maybe I should have been a bit more sensitive about that.”

Xander just blinked at him, giving him a stare of disbelief.  “Josssseph, itsss like… I alssso can’t be normal, caussse I’m a fucking Sssserpent dude.  I know itsss hard for you to adjusst to being like thisss, but you can sstill lead a happy life even if you’re dead…”  Xander paused for a moment. “Ssserpent, the correct term iss Ssserpent.”

“Are you…” Joseph shook his head, looking bewildered. “Xander, you can’t be serious. Okay, you’re a Serpent! And you sleep, eat, feel emotions, and your hair grows. You don’t smell like rotting meat all the time. You have a sense of smell - I know you have a sense of smell, because you’re the one who told me that I smell like rotting meat to begin with.” Joseph put a hand to his chest. “Wow, this is great. It almost feels like my heart’s beating again. We should fight more often.” The ghoul licked his dry lips. “Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. You’re a good-looking, rich, smart, socially well-adjusted freshman telling a literal corpse three years your senior that things are going to get better. And you’re the one who acts like I’m the stupid one here?”

“Joseph I’m… you’re not ssstupid,” Xander let his head return to normal, “you’re smart. I’ve seen you playing chess - you’re a wizard!  I saw your grades from before. You were a great student.  I don’t know man, I just don’t want you to give up because of this.  It’s not some stupid little set back, it’s a huge deal but-“

“Don’t give me that, Xander.” Joseph slammed his laptop into his messenger bag. No wonder the thing was so broken. Xander couldn’t help but notice something like a smile flickering across the senior’s face, as if he was enjoying this on some level. “I know how you talk about me. I know you like to think that I’m too much of an idiot to keep myself out of trouble. Have you considered that I might just not care at this point?”

Joseph slung the bag over his shoulder and started making his way to the door. “Literally none of this is your problem. The only reason that you even have a roommate is that I fucked up so badly that they had to put me somewhere on campus, and this was what they could find on short notice. If I want to wallow in self-pity and - oh no! - fail a few classes after all the shit that’s happened to me, that’s my own fucking choice. You don’t have these problems. In fact, you don’t have any problems! You’re a freshman and you’re already telling me about the high-level job you have lined up at your grandmother’s company after you graduate - a job that you don’t even want! I wish I had that choice! All I have to look forward to is… I don’t know, skulking around graveyards and scaring passers-by.”

Xander, looking incredibly wounded and voice wavering, leaned up against his bed.  “Joseph, I’m sorry.  I… I didn’t mean to-“

The sharp sound of the door to the hallway slamming cut him off.

Xander crumpled to the floor, and just at that moment an alarm went off, he’d have to get moving soon or he’d be late to the lessons.  He slammed his fist into the wall, composed himself, gathered his equipment, and hurried out the door.