The night air made the tears gliding down Liliana Parker’s face feel like beads of ice leaving trails of biting cold down her cheeks, light pink sneakers kicked at small loose rocks in the dirt road as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her thick light pink hoodie... she should have known better honestly, cover-girl looking chicks like that didn't usually befriend mild mannered quiet bookworm orphans on scholarship like her, part of Liliana felt like she'd practically asked for this...

To be fair though, even her worst thoughts and reservations never would have anticipated that as soon as she arrived with her 'friends'... she'd find six other freshmen there in the barn with what appeared to be a variety of jocks and all the cheerleaders... something was definitely off... especially since there didn't look to be any snacks, drinks or any method of musical entertainment... plus the smirks of the popular folks versus the worried scared looks of the freshmen… she had instantly known something was very wrong… pity she was too late to high tail it right back out the way she’d come in…

**A little earlier**

"What's going on?" Liliana had asked Gwen warily, the girl that invited her in the first place "This doesn't look like a party to me..."

"Funny thing is, I never said it was a party intended for YOUR enjoyment..." Gwen had replied, chuckling with a dark amusement "Now, you just behave and you'll make it back to the University in one piece, you worthless waste of a scholarship"

Panic bloomed in Liliana's chest when she looked into the barn at the muscular jocks inside with sadistic looks on their faces and it hit her... all these freshmen were scholarship recipients... this was the rich students hazing students they felt didn't belong at Rockdale! Weeding the weak and unworthy from the strong. How utterly revolting and barbaric!

The abandoned location in the middle of nowhere suddenly made an ass ton of sense!

She looked back at Gwen then and the skank’s equally skanky little friend Tracy... she didn't waste another single moment before she threw her full weight at them as hard as she could, knocking them on their trashy asses before scrambling to her feet and speeding off into the darkness... she felt awful leaving the others, but what could she do all by herself? She would call the police once she was safe, she could give them practically every damn name in that barn!

They apparently didn't chase her too far before deciding she wasn't worth the energy… at least, she assumed that was the train of thought on their end.

**Present time**

All of this brought her to where she was now... her hand squeezing her phone in her pocket... she wanted to call the police for the other scholarship students, but... as she thought about it a little more… those rich kids and their rich mommies and daddies could make life really hard for her. She knew the connections and pull these particular rich families had in the small opulent university town... her part time job, her scholarship... she could lose everything with a few clever moves and some fudging she could never prove was fudged… and so could everybody else in that barn... everything they'd all worked so hard for... they'd wind up hating her instead, blaming her for not just keeping her trap shut and letting them just forget what happened tonight, so they could get their education, get a good job and get the hell away from here...

Liliana raised her arms to wrap around herself as she shivered against the cold October wind, even her hoodie wasn't enough anymore, she sniffled as she wiped her right wrist across her nose, still runny from all her crying.

She pulled her phone out to check for service, hoping at least she could call a taxi or an uber to get home to her dorm and out of the frigid cold, never did a mug of hot chocolate sound so great, that along with crawling into her blankets and hiding for the whole rest of the weekend, she just wanted to pretend the world didn't exist, even if just for a little while.

"No bars... fuck my life..." Liliana whimpered, shoving the useless phone back into her jeans pocket "Why me? Why can't I ever catch a break? Even just one, is that so much to ask for? It feels like every good thing that happens, something terrible always has to come out of left field and hit me like a damn train!"

Liliana sniffled as she wiped a wind chilled tear off her cheek, she felt like she'd reached an all time low of gullible stupidity... she reckoned she'd likely be beating herself up over this for a week straight… perhaps more… she had really been very stupid…

"I know better... honestly, I do... people like them, made entirely of shiny plastic, more concerned about manicures and gossip instead of the education they are there for in the first place... they're never up to any good" Liliana lamented miserably "I let myself get duped... but it won't happen again! I'm just going to keep my head down from this point on where the popular folks are concerned and just focus on my scholarship. Maybe I'll even ask that cute math tutor out, he at least seems genuine and nice... but, the first order of business is to get back to my dorm without freezing my ass off..."

In the next moment, quick as a finger snap… a beam of blindingly bright yellow light fell over Liliana, she raised her arms to shield her eyes in her confusion, "What the hell is that?!"

The light shining from above grew brighter and brighter... Liliana felt her feet leaving the ground, panic set in as her feet kicked in desperation to feel ground beneath her feet, the light far too bright to uncover her eyes "What is happening?! Someone help me!! Please!! Help!!!"

As if her body had invisible strings attached, she felt herself rising higher and higher... the sound of metal scraping against metal filled her ears, a rush of warm wind hit her as a scream broke past her lips, the sound cut off as Liliana's body passed through a spherical opening...

She opened her mouth to scream again, just in time to get blasted in the face by foul smelling powder substance... her head got hazier and hazier by the second, until she ultimately lost consciousness...