Rachel Davis, College Lesbian Goth Girl

20-year old Rachel Davis rolled her eyes, listening to her dorm-mate droning on and on about her social life, as if it were the most important thing in the world. Really, if Samantha wasn't so good looking, she'd really be unappealing. It's the only reason that Rachel hadn't up and left. Okay, maybe she just didn't want to go through all the hassle of finding another girl who could put up with her. Most people tried to stay away from Rachel, thinking she was some kind of freak. Not because of her sexuality (though she wasn't sure if anyone actually knew about her being a lesbian), but because she was a Goth, the only one on campus. Was she unlucky or what, being sent to a white-majority conservative college like this? There was just no one like her here. She was literally a social outcast.

"So don't expect me to come back until sometime tomorrow morning," Samantha said, apparently thinking that Rachel was listening to her the whole time and actually cared about what she was saying. "The frat party is going all night and is going to be, like, killer."

"Sure, whatever," Rachel muttered.

Samantha giggled, then practically hopped out of the room.

"Ugh," Rachel uttered. How could someone be that happy all the time? It was almost sickening. She turned and looked out the window, onto the quad. It was late afternoon, so the sun was still up. Outside, students milled about, some still heading to classes, some just hanging out. Rachel groaned again. Everyone was so plain here. Practically clones of one another. And if they weren't clones, then they were perpetual bimbos like her dorm-mate. People who were so happy that she was sure their heads would soon explode. Her head felt like it was about to explode just thinking about it.

But at least Samantha was gone. That meant that she finally had time to herself. She reached under her bed and pulled out a large leather-bound book. She had bought it about a week ago and had only occasionally looked through it. Unfortunately, her dorm-mate was around too often for Rachel to actually cast anything. Yes, that's right. It was a spell book. And a pretty rare one, she had discovered. She was really lucky to have gotten her hands on it. But looking through it, she wasn't able to find a spell that would fix her life here at college. What she wanted was for people to accept her, without herself changing at all. Apparently, it was much more difficult to change everyone else and not yourself, instead of just yourself. But Rachel was a smart girl. She had figured out a way to combine a bunch of spells together to give her what she wanted. She wasn't sure if it would work. She wasn't an expert in the occult, really. But being at this college was tormenting her. This was her only way to change things for the better.

Little did she know, combining spells like this was extremely dangerous. It could, in fact, create a crack in reality. And as it turned out, that was exactly what it did.

After finishing the last of the combined spells, Rachel waited for something to happen. For a moment, she became ticked off. She really thought this was going to work. What a fool she was!

But then suddenly something that looked like a frozen lightning bolt appeared, floating in the air. It was only about an inch long, but it was very obvious that her spell-casting had done something, though it wasn't what she expected.

She extended her hand towards it, and tried to grab it, thinking that that was what she was supposed to do. The pain was awful, as she felt the palm of her hand getting zapped by it. And then the floating lightning bolt was gone. Except that it wasn't.

Looking down at the palm of her hand, she saw a branding that looked like the lightning bolt she tried to grab. "That's it? What's the point of this?" she asked aloud. How was this supposed to help make her life better?

She groaned, realizing what a big waste of time this was. She slammed the book shut and tossed it back under her bed. It was kind of hot in the dorm room, so she decided to go outside to cool off a little, maybe give her some time to think over what just happened.

Once outside, she kept to herself, and everyone kept their distance, not wanting to interact with the creepy Goth girl. Was she really that repulsive? She was fairly thin, had C-cup breasts, kind of attractive. So what if she wore black leather and nylon, had piercings, tattoos, dyed black hair, and black make-up too? That was her style. Why did she have to change? Why couldn't others change to be like her? And could it really hurt to have a bit more ethnicity around here? She was white and fine with that, but the high school she came from wasn't an (almost) all-white school. They had Hispanics, Asians, Africans. But not here. And it'd be nice if there were some lesbians around too. Maybe there were, but they were in the closet? Perhaps. But given the overall attitude at this school, she figured it was far too conservative for that to be true. No, Rachel was sure she was the only one at this school who wasn't straight.

She was so lost in thought that she had accidentally wandered over towards a group of girls gossiping with each other (probably about boys), walking right into them.

"Hey, watch it, freak," one of the girls (her name was Katherine) said.

"Get outta my way," Rachel said, putting her hand on the girl's arm and pushing her out of her way. Unnoticed by her, though, when she removed her hand, the branding that was on her hand was now also on Katherine's arm.

Katherine blinked, then looked over at the Goth girl who walked away in a huff. It was strange, but there was something attractive about that girl. Katherine most definitely was not into girls, that was weird, but still ... she couldn't stop thinking about Rachel for some reason.