The Dean was calmly sitting in his office, taking a look at his propped-up clock. The day was nearly halfway through and he blinked as he felt the soft rumbling of a Large student strolling by the main building of campus. His fingertip tapped down on the wooden desk as he was reading through some papers he'd been handed earlier that day, pertaining to attendance and sign-ins. There were a few people whom had been absent that day, and he'd been on the phone, trying to find out where everyone was.

Four students were missing from the sign-in sheet, as well as one employee. The attendance sheets were divided into two sections, one with full names and ones with only first names. Since they didn't have a terribly huge amount of Larges in the school, they only included their first names on attendance sheets. Their full names were on file, but with no two Larges with the same name, it was easier to differentiate them with. He sat there, re-reading the list of Larges whom were missing, getting a little confused, especially at the first name on the list: Abby.

In the many years he'd been Dean of the University, he had never, once, seen Abby not report in for attendance at the beginning of the day. She lived on Campus, and she was always such a hard worker. The girl was a giver, at heart, and had always come to make her presence known. He still remembered the second month she'd been there. When she'd arrived, it looked like she was about to collapse where she stood. She had a terrible cold and was practically falling over when she'd gotten there. It took her blowing a group of Minor students away as she sneezed and a few of the other Large students, dragging her away.

The other students on the list were Fran, the overly emotional goth girl, Helen, the captain of the Cheerleading squad, and Emily, a new student whom had recently joined the cheering squad. The coach of the cheering squad had come to the Dean first thing in the morning, after attendance, speaking of Helen and Emily's situation. He'd gotten a call from Helen that morning, stating that Emily was sick and she was staying home to take care of her. Those two had excuses for why they weren't there. Abby, Fran and the staff member did not.

The staff member was Jim King, the recently-hired man to help with Cafeteria duties. The Dean had not heard from him since he'd left him with Abby to tour the campus and get into his new work environment. He'd called the cafeteria that morning, and the other chefs said that Jim did, indeed, get to the workplace the day before, but wasn't there long. The two other absentees, Abby and Fran, had something to do with him leaving. He was a little skeptical of why Abby would want to keep someone from their work environment, but he just didn't have the facts straight. He was planning to meet with the chefs later that day to find out what happened with it.

He sighed as he pushed the paper away, thinking about what he wanted to do about all of these seemingly-absent faculty and students. He had heard some of the students walking by the building, talking about seeing both Abby and Jim that day, but he had no way of confirming the rumors, not having left the building left to find out for himself. Finally deciding that he needed to get up and find out where all of them were, he pushed himself back from his desk. Halfway out of the chair, however, he went back down when the door to his office swung open, banged against the wall, as two people rushed inside.

The Dean blinked as he now saw two faculty members right up on his desk. The first was the head Nurse of the Infirmary, Ms. Sarah. She had slammed her palms down on the front of the desk and looked at him, the energy knocked out of her. Sweat was dripping down her forehead and her face was completely red, as if she had just run a marathon. Behind her was her assistant and secretary from the Infirmary, Melinda, whom had a calmer look on her face and stood behind her, a hand on Sarah's shoulder.

“Trouble...radio...Ruby...Fran...Abby...need to do something!” The Dean, not knowing what to say at first, blinked again. Sarah was completely wiped out and the sound of her voice stressed that something was bothering her. Upon hearing two names of absentees, he opened his mouth, trying to calm her down and find out what she wanted. “Ms. Sarah, please calm down. You sound like you've just seen a ghost. What about Fran and Abby? Did something happen to them?” The Dean's voice was calm and steady, but Sarah wasn't able to calm down. Her breathing get heavier and heavier as she fumbled her way through more statements.

Seeing that this was going absolutely nowhere, Melinda put a little pressure on Sarah's shoulder and pulled her back. Sarah's bad expression from trying to tell the Dean what was going on slowly disappeared as she felt Melinda's chest pushing against her back. The Dean couldn't see it, but she was blushing under all the red in her face. Moving to the side, Melinda stepped forward and made a soft bow to the Dean. “Dean, allow me to explain. We have a bit of a situation on our hands and need to make you aware of it.”

The Dean, calm, had nodded and allowed Melinda to explain the situation. She began to divulge information about the previous day's events, Jim coming to the Infirmary, Ruby's visit, and everything Sarah had told her and, incidentally, the radio that Ruby had brought with her. He sat in his chair, with a strange look on his face. “So...you're sure this radio had recorded everything Sarah had said?” With a quick nod, Melinda replied to him. “Yes, sir. We are certain that the radio was transmitted some sort of record. Miss Sarah had been very stressed out about it. We think it was the, uh...AL force.”

The Dean immediately got a knot in his stomach as she spoke of the AL. He remembered, all too well, the mourning and funeral that he had prepared when Abby had left the city and gotten attacked by that force, as well as what they'd done to her in the past. He was hoping he'd never have to hear that name again, since they'd since gone underground. If they knew about all of this, though...it could be very bad. “Okay...thank you for coming to me with this information. I'm going to contact who I can, in case they try to take this to the media.”

The Dean then got up and began to leave the office. Before leaving, though, he turned towards them, seeing the look on Sarah's face, and hearing an apology blurting out of her. “Ms. Sarah...don't worry about this. It was an accident. No matter what comes of this, it's not your fault and we'll take care of things.”

The Dean slowly walked out of his office and Sarah turned towards Melinda. The red was disappearing from her face, but the look of guilt was still there. Melinda took her arms and wrapped them around her friend, patting her on the back. “We should go find Abby and Jim.” Sarah nodded as she let her face bury into Melinda's embrace for a moment. She knew that, as optimistic as the Dean was, things could lead to be very bad from this. They had to be ready for anything.