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University of Detroit. Other than the mattress and several blankets, the dresser was the only other piece of furniture in the room. Various garments and books were scattered across the floor, the only bit of real personality in the room. Any person would take one look and conclude whoever lived here was messy, lazy, but appeared to be well read. It was a great disappointment that I couldn't carry my entire collection of books from home.
    In all honesty, I just slept here. It wasn't even worth assembling a full bed in the modest space. I wasn't even sure if I would be staying at University Towers next semester. Looking back, I wonder if it was a subconscious decision to stop myself from creating new personal attachments. That wouldn't last long. Even someone who had turned as anti-social as myself wouldn't be able to continue forever alone.
    I got dressed slowly, my body still aching and mind weary. The jeans I wore the night before, with a different shirt of muted color. Slightly different clothes, same theme, same person.
    With a shaky breath, I stared around my meager, sad little room. Its sparse contents felt like a reflection of the emptiness I felt in me. I had left and lost so much before coming here. A home, family, friends, all gone because of stupid mistakes and greed. It wasn't all my fault, but I could have done it differently, trained harder, said something… done something.
    Now it felt like I was just piling on more mistakes.
    The repercussions of last night weighed heavily on my mind. Barring nearly killing someone and my run in with the cops… that 'User' knew my name. He knew who I was and where I lived. Not only that, he was stronger than me by a margin, and I wasn't even sure how much.
    I was afraid.
    I had felt it in the air within the shared confluence last night, the difference in our abilities. If he was the magical equivalent of an artist, then I had been comparable to a house painter. In a situation like that willpower was everything. The one better able to control the ambient magic around them would win the fight, plain and simple.
    Though, along with trepidation… I felt excitement. That kind of ability was exactly what I had sought when I came here. Covens were the backbone of the magical society. There had been no noticeable one where I had come from, which had been one of the reasons learning to control my abilities had been such an uphill battle. I came to Detroit with the belief that there was a magical presence in the form of a coven at UD.
    A coven was a distinct and present group of mages that had formed sometime in the past and gathered untold riches in the form of magical knowledge. People who could actually teach me how to use my skills so I wouldn't have to just bungle through everything with clumsy enthusiasm. I wanted to learn, but I'd never had anyone but my friends to teach me. They had been just as ignorant.
    More than that, I wanted safety in that kind of group identity. Covens were powerful, once accepted they protected their own. It was almost like joining a very exclusive political party- if you had something to contribute to the group you were accepted, but the group ideology would have to become your own.
    I wasn't really considering that little fact, at the moment.
    Once dressed, I ran an unnecessary comb through my short black hair and glanced at the small mirror attached to my dresser. Dark circles ensconced the bright hazel eyes that stared back, more haunted than I would like to admit. I poked at my nose, which had once been broken and healed quickly afterwards, giving it a defined bend in its curvature, not extremely noticeable. My face was thin with visible cheekbones and the short beginnings of a bristly beard poked out from my otherwise clean jaw.
    Could've been worse, I guess.
    I turned away from those eyes with a heavy sigh, moving with a slow gait towards my room's door. I only stopped to gather my backpack and jacket into my hands and then stepped out into the