The blaring of an alarm woke Tara Winfield from her slumber as she pushed her messy black hair out of her eyes and groggily swung her feet over the edge of her twin-sized bed. Directly across from her, her dorm mate, a shorter, ditzier blonde, was already straightening her hair. 
     The clock on her nightstand read 12:00 a.m.
     “Christ,” Tara grunted as she slapped her alarm clock into silence. “Why are they doing this in the middle of the fucking night?”
     “Well if you read the—”
     “I didn’t,” she cut her off, retreating to her closet to put on some clothes.
     “Well, if you did read up on the history, you’d know that Omega holds all their initiations at one in the morning. Keeps things more secret.”
     “Keep things more stupid.”
     Amy ignored her, very aware of her friend’s reluctance to rush for the Omega sorority, one of the most exclusive on campus. They held their own parties…no outside members ever. None of them were in relationships. And they only had ten members every year, no more and no less.
     What was most mysterious, however, was the initiation process.
     Ten girls were selected to compete after an initial round of interviews wherein up to a hundred sat in a small room answering questions about life and philosophy, and then only one was selected from those ten. And the other nine? They’d all drop out. Every one of them. Withdraw from school without telling a soul, never to be seen again.
     But at the end of the day, it was still just a stupid sorority, Tara often thought. One she had no interest in joining and had only interviewed for to appease her overly enthusiastic dorm mate, whose head Tara was convinced contained a hollow cavity rather than an actual brain (she once spelled “around” as “erown” in Words with Friends). She tried to get kicked out of the initial screening by answering all the questions in one word, with a monotone befitting an automated message. Miraculously, though, and much to her chagrin, she had made it to the second cut.
     And now, she found herself walking across campus on a dreary fall night to the auxiliary gym at the twelve-thirty in the morning on a fucking school night. Amy may not have been sharp enough to cut melted butter, but Tara was smart, and her focus was on getting into med school and becoming a doctor, not paying to have friends.
     When they went inside, they found the eight other members of their pledge class already seated quietly at desks lined up near the front of the gym. Tara knew most of their names, but didn’t really know them. Jessie, a bubbly brunette with long hair and huge front teeth with some overly sweet southern accent. Sara, a skinny German exchange student who spoke in broken English. Nikki, a dirty-blond party girl who had this fake badass thing going on, as evidenced by her flat-brimmed hats and nose studs. Lindsay, another student from abroad, an Aussie who almost looked biracial. Melissa, the token diva girl with long, very curly blond hair who was constantly smacking her lips with gum. Zelda…who had pink hair, and that’s all she really needed to know. Bailey, a brunette with an upturned nose that made her look like a Who from Whoville. And finally Erin, an overly bubbly redhead who’d be the first to die in a horror movie simply based on the fact that she never shut the hell up.
     Tonight, they were all quiet. The smacking of flip-flops echoed in the vast emptiness of the gymnasium as Tara and Amy made their way to the last two empty seats, all eyes following them as if they’d just committed some great crime.
     Especially the sisters.
     Sitting at a long table facing the pledges like judges before defendants, the nine sisters of Omega sat with gold-plated name plaques. Each one was different, unique, and beautiful. In the middle sat Spencer, the de facto president of Omega. When Tara and Amy took their seats, she coughed, sighed, crossed her arms and addressed the group, “So, tonight you’ll all be participating in the final selection. In a few hours, one of you will become the newest member of Omega. But first, we just need all of your information.”
     One of the other sisters, Jenna, went around and passed forms out to the pledges. Jenna was a thicker girl, but not fat. She played on the school’s soccer team and it definitely showed; sure, she had a little bit of muffin top, but her powerful arms and legs, long, flowing blond hair and bright blue eyes made her goddess-like, a true All American girl.
     The pledges started filling out the forms, which were just basics. Name, height, weight, address, relatives, whatever. Tara didn’t know what they needed some of the information for, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to get the night over with as fast as possible so she could concentrate on more important things.
     Amy was in the middle of filling out her form when she caught one of the sisters staring at her with her finger in her mouth. It was oddly seductive in a way, and she wondered if that’s indeed what she was trying. Using her peripherals, Amy stared back. The sister’s name was Hailey, one of the quietest members of the group. With hair somewhere between dark red and dark brown, freckles dotting her face and two nose studs, Hailey was easily the punkiest of the group. But she never spoke. Ever. Amy had never heard her utter a single word and, as a result often forgot about her.
     Until tonight.
     Why is she staring?!
     Amy couldn’t take it anymore. She glanced up, being as casual as she could, and examined Hailey. The sister was still staring at her, her shoulders lazily dropped, her right leg crossed over her left and a flip-flop swinging off her bare foot.
     That’s when Amy noticed something peculiar.
     On the sole, up front right at the ball, behind the toes, was a tattoo on the underside of the sister's foot. Amy squinted across the room to see it, and after a few seconds, was able to make it out clearly, the words written in girly cursive: “Bye Bye,” with a little red lipstick print.
     “Bye Bye” tattooed to the ball of her foot? Weird, Amy thought, trying to figure out what it could have meant. Maybe she was a kickboxer or something?
     The answer eluded her for now, but it wouldn’t be long before she wished she’d never found out…


When everyone had filled out their forms, they were led into a locker room, where they found white bikinis waiting for them. They were instructed to put them on and wait. Tara thought about leaving right then and there, since they were probably going to make them run around the campus in swimsuits until the last one who hadn’t died of embarrassment was deemed the winner, but she figured she’d humor them.
     After a few minutes, once they were all dressed, their clothes neatly tucked into lockers, the pledges were immersed in darkness. There was a brief spout of panic, before Tara felt her head go light, her body go limp, and then, she closed her eyes and felt nothing at all.