The first thing Tori learned about journalism is news travels quickly. By the end of the weekend, every guy in Alpha Sigma Omicron knew about how Friedman had “scored” with a freshman. By the end of the day Monday, so did the rest of campus. On Tuesday, Tori was snubbed by every person she encountered. They called her names and threw food at her in the cafeteria. They said she had broken the sacred tradition between the team quarterback and the head cheerleader. On Wednesday, she lost her job with the school newspaper and stopped going to class. The angry stares she got and the threats against her were too much.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when she arrived at one of the houses across the street from campus. She probably would have arrived sooner, but she took the long way from her dorm, hoping to avoid contact with as many people as possible. She had kept her eyes glued to the cement for most of the walk, but now looked up at the large brick building that stood before her. In a way, it looked like a small castle, with rounded pillars, pointed towers, and a slanted black roof over the letters ‘KT’ and the great oak door. There were plenty of windows along the front of the house to let in the faint October sun, but none of them were transparent from this side. If not for the great landscaping and the remodeling that had clearly been done within the past five years, the house might have looked abandoned. As it was, though, the Kappa Tau sorority house was one of the nicest buildings on campus, and Tori was in awe staring up at it.

Remembering to breathe, Tori pushed open the iron gate and started up the steps. It was much cooler in this part of the country than she had imagined. The leaves were all shades of colors and crunched loudly beneath her feet, but she kept her eyes forward, on the door of the house, as if she expected it to suddenly swing open and something horrific to jump out and frighten her. Her muscles tightened.

The path to the house wasn’t long, but she stopped when she reached the porch. For a while, she simply stood there. In the back of her mind, she wanted to ask herself what she was doing here, but she already knew the answer. For the first time since she had decided to go into journalism, she had run out of questions. This was her only option.

“You can do this, Tori,” she told herself, and she quickly reached up and knocked on the door. The rapping of her knuckles against the wooden frame was much louder than she had expected, but she was not startled. Her mind was clear. She knew what was going to say. She had rehearsed it a million times on the walk over here.

“What are you doing here?”

Tori jumped. The door hadn’t opened. She spun around, throwing her back against the door, and found herself face-to-face with Kate Munroe. The senior cheerleader, whose face was gorgeous enough to belong to a model, was wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt that was damp with sweat and a pink headband that was holding back a curtain of blonde hair.

“H-hi, I’m Tori.”

“I know who you are.” Kate reached up and removed her ear buds before tucking them into the collar of her shirt. “You’re pretty popular for a freshman.”

“We need to talk,” Tori said, pleadingly.

Kate shrugged and opened the door. “Then talk.”

Tori followed her inside.

“I didn’t mean to sleep with your boyfriend,” she said, before the door was even shut. Kate gave her a strange look on her way to the kitchen. “I mean, I didn’t sleep with your boyfriend! Honest. I was writing an article for the school newspaper and I had to interview an athlete and they told me I should consider somebody on the cheerleading squad but there were already so many articles about you and how great your team is going to be this year, and I just thought if I could spark some interest in the football team, maybe your team would have something to cheer for and we wouldn’t have another losing season. So I asked Joss to do the interview and he made me carry his dirty gym bag and buy him dinner and then he forced me to eat a hamburger when I had already told him I was vegetarian and I got sick and threw up over my really nice outfit and then I went to take a shower and he was goofing around with his buddy and they knocked down the door and saw me half-naked and so did everybody else and I ran away as fast as I could before things got any worse, but now everybody thinks we did something and nothing happened at all, I swear!”

Tori started panting while Kate grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and opened it. “Oh.”

“Wait a minute… You’re being awfully calm about this.” Tori covered her face with her hands. “You don’t believe me, do you? I knew it. I’m going to have to drop out of school and move back to California with my parents and I’ll never be a world famous journalist…”

Kate put the bottle to her lips and took a short swig.

“…Joss is an ass,” she said, setting the bottle down on the granite countertop. “You think this is the first time he’s cheated with another woman?”

“Cheated? No, we didn’t do anything! We just… Wait… He cheated on you?”

“Look, uh…” Kate stared at her for a moment. “Tori, is it?”

“Yes…”

“Tori. I believe you. You’re the sweetest little thing.” Kate sighed and leaned against the counter, looking distantly out the window. “…Truth is: Joss has always been like this. We started dating a month BEFORE he broke up with his last girlfriend.”

“Oh, my gosh. That’s terrible! When did you find out?”

“I’ve always known.”

Tori tilted her head to the side, confused. “But why would you…?”

“Stay with him? You should know, Miss Reporter. The head cheerleader always dates the first-string quarterback. That’s school tradition. And it would be wrong to break tradition.”

“But he cheated on you.”

“Back when ESU had a winning football team, people would tuck socks into the back seat of their pants to mimic squirrel tails. Was it stupid? Yes. Was it uncomfortable to sit on? Yes. Did it help them win games? Probably not, but it became a school tradition, and we all did it.”

“So…it’s okay to walk around with a sock hanging out of your pants as long as everybody else does it?”

“Yes.”

Tori raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t believe me? You came here with a ridiculous explanation to an already ridiculous situation. Why should I have any more reason to lie to you than you to me?”

Tori thought about that for a moment, a bit perplexed, and then sighed.

“You’re just trying to get me to dress up like a squirrel, aren’t you?” she asked.

Kate laughed. “No. I think you’ve been through enough already, don’t you?” She hid her face behind the water bottle again—this time, taking a much longer, more thoughtful sip—and then casually lowered her hand to her hip. “You know, there are other traditions at this school. Like every Halloween, the guys in Alpha Sigma Omicron try to sneak into our sorority house and steal our panties.”

“And you just let them?”

Kate smiled instead of giving her an answer.

“Oh, come on! I have to know.”

“Let’s just say we Kappa Tau girls have some traditions of our own.” Kate screwed the lid back onto the water bottle and set it on the counter before grabbing another from the fridge and handing it to Tori. “Of course, we can’t share our secrets with outsiders, but we might be willing to make an exception if a new recruit came along and wanted to join.”

Tori continued staring at her as she wrapped her fingers around the bottle.

“Are you asking me to join your sorority?” she asked.

“You want to get back at Friedman, don’t you?”

The look in Tori’s eyes told her all she needed to know.

“I’d love to,” she said. Then she quickly added, “…Just as long as nobody gets hurt.”

Kate lifted her water bottle, bumped it against Tori’s as if she was making a toast, and her smile grew from ear to ear.

“You’re going to make a great Kappa Tau,” she said.

--------------------

“I still don’t see why I have to be blindfolded.”

It was a day later—Halloween night, to be exact—and Kate and a couple of her senior sorority sisters were guiding Tori down the basement steps. Kate was leading the way, while the girls each had a hand on Tori’s shoulders to keep her from falling over. Tori couldn’t see them through the thick wool fabric over her eyes, but one of the girls was dressed as Zatanna and the other as Batgirl.

“I mean, I already know where your house is,” Tori was saying. “I was even inside before. Remember? It was only yesterday.”

Kate reached the bottom of the stairs first and sighed. “Just go along with it, Tori. We’re trying to do a secret initiation ritual here.”

“Oh. Right… Another of those tradition things…” Tori felt the hands slide away from her shoulder and she looked around. Everything was still black. “Can I take off the mask now?”

“Sure.”

She did so, but it took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were no windows in the basement and the only source of light was from the few flickering candles that Kate began to light on a table on the opposite side of the room.

Tori caught sight of Kate’s face first—all decked out in makeup like Harley Quinn—and then noticed the two costumed girls who were standing on either side of her.

“Aw, nobody told me I could dress up,” Tori said with a frown. She looked down at her faded pink t-shirt, gray sweatpants with colored strips over a single thigh, and tennis shoes. They hadn’t even given her a chance to change out of her evening relaxation clothes before dragging her out of her dorm room. “Do I get a costume too?”

“Once you pass the initiation, you can put on a costume,” Kate said. There was a quiet eeriness to her voice as she motioned to the girls to walk Tori over to the table. As they did, Kate turned her back to them for a moment to grab something off a shelf and then placed a rather large walnut burl jewelry box on the center of the table. The top of the box had been carved into with a knife, with the letters ‘PANDORA’ clearly visible across the finished surface.

Kate left her fingers on the edge of the box for a moment and then slowly drew them away as she looked up at Tori.

“I don’t get it,” Tori said. “I thought we were going to catch the guys before they sneak into here and raid your panty drawers. Why are we hiding in the basement?”

“She sure asks a lot of questions,” the girl dressed as Batgirl mumbled. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to bring a reporter here?”

“She’s not a reporter anymore,” Zatanna said, paying no heed to Tori, who was rather offended that they were talking about her without even acknowledging her presence. “They fired her. Heartless fiends.”

“One screw-up and they’ll toss you to the wolves.”

“It’s not like that here.”

“Here, you’re one of us.”

“Here, you’re family.”

Tori was getting a little creeped out, so she took a step back, but a sudden hand stopped her. She followed the arm up to Kate’s face.

“You want to be one of us, don’t you?” she asked.

“I-I’m not sure…” Tori admitted. “What do I have to do? And what’s in the box?”

“I sensed a lot of fear in you yesterday. Fear of what I might do to you if I caught you with my boyfriend, fear of what Friedman and his friends might do to you if they saw you in the nude, fear of what the kids on campus would think of you if you were labeled a whore or a slut…” She pushed back a single strand of Tori’s hair that had fallen over her eye and smiled, only inches away from Tori’s face. “I sense fear in you right now. Are you afraid, Tori?”

“M-maybe…”

“Boo,” Batgirl whispered into her ear and Tori jumped. Zatanna burst out laughing and it took all of Kate’s power to keep Tori from running up the stairs and leaping out the first window in sight.

“If you’re going to be one of us…” Kate grunted. “…You’re going to have to face those fears.” She finally managed to calm Tori down with the help of her friends. Exhausted, she moved around to the other side of the table and slid the box closer to Tori. “Inside this box, you will face the thing you fear the most. Its contents change depending on the person who opens it, but only YOU can see what is inside and only YOU can face it. If you truly want to be a Kappa Tau…that is what you must do.”

Tori’s eyes fell to the jewelry box with the strange carvings. She swore she could hear voices inside. Their horrible screams echoed through her mind. Was it her imagination? Were those the sounds of her inner demons? Or could it be something far, far worse?

“But first,” Kate interrupted, causing the voices to scatter from Tori’s thoughts, “you must drink this potion. This will enable you—and only you—to see the manifestation of your greatest fear once you open the box.”

As she spoke, Batgirl picked up a pitcher and began pouring a dark purple liquid into a cup, which she handed to Zatanna, who in turn handed the cup to Tori.

Tori stared at the purplish tonic. A part of her still wanted to make a run for the door. She wasn’t afraid of these girls like she was when she was at the fraternity house with Friedman and his friends, but she wasn’t sure why. Friedman hadn’t blindfolded her and taken her to a dark basement and offered her strange potions with possible hallucinogenic side effects. He had only tricked her into eating a hamburger when she thought she had made it clear that she didn’t eat things that were once alive, but this was something different entirely.

Still, Kate was the first real friend she had made since she enrolled at Eastern Shores University. And Kate was everything she longed to be: beautiful, popular, smart, successful. Sure, something was different about Kate now than when they had their conversation the day before, but she probably didn’t always act like this. This was just tradition. And tradition was important.

Tori put the cup to her lips, tilted her head back, and drank the whole thing in one gulp. It left a sweet, tingling sensation on her lips. She handed the cup back to Zatanna, who joined Batgirl on the other side of the room.

“Pour me some too,” Zatanna whispered at Batgirl, who had already partaken in the extra grape soda that was left in the pitcher.

“The effects of the potion are instantaneous,” Kate told Tori, directing her to the box once more. “Now, if you are ready to face your fears….open the box.”

Tori pressed her palms against the sides of the box. Her fingers trembled but she kept them firm as she slid her thumbs along the underside of the lid and popped it open.  Slowly, she pulled the lid up and let out a horrific gasp.