Asia Knight jotted down the last two words human nature on her Philosophy 322 essay and finalized it with a hard, minuscule dot. She flung her head up causing her long onyx curls to fly back in waves. She grabbed the completely filled sheet of college-ruled notebook paper and blue scantron covered with pencil shadings resembling a slithering snake.

She scanned the bright room with doubtful eyes as she made her way down her empty aisle. She was the last woman, the last person, remaining on her row. Her study group was gone, finished. Her eyes shot over to the desk in the corner by the light switch and laminated poster of Immanuel Kant. Her eyes dimmed, he was long gone.

Of course, Thomas, know-it-all Tom Tom was gone. He knew philosophy; he could preach it on top of Mount Olympus. If you took a knife and sliced his skin he would bleed Plato's Allegory of the Cave. She passed by the second row and two chairs down, keg-stand Kara was still there bumbling over the multiple-choice questions. An assuring smile grew on Asia's round face. Cruel maybe, self-soothing, yes; she may not have an A but she wasn't getting a lowly D.

Asia sat her papers on top of the brown faux wood desk at the front of the room. Her professor, a sleepy man with half opened eyes behind red rimless glasses with black hair, and a burgundy Mister Rodger's sweater looked up from his book of American short stories with a blank face.

"Enjoy the break and stay safe," He whispered in a repetitive tone.

"I will and always!" Asia backed up with the smile of a two-year-old in a candy shop.

As Asia walked out the door the sun shone brightly on her melting away all the tedious studying, practicing, and important exams that have made up her life ever since January rolled around. She took off like a jet running down the sidewalk. She pounded her black and yellow Nike's on the pale gray concrete. Running was her way of life. It was the very thing that got her to college, paid for her tuition. It was the only thing she did better than anyone else. She was Allyson Felix, Sanya Richards-Ross, and Carmelita Jeter rolled up together to make the absolute runner.

She almost broke a sweat as she passed by the brick and mortar buildings that made up Rayford University. The sweltering summer heat nipped her uncovered skin. There was no spring here, a trace of fall, and memory of winter. It felt like summer three hundred and twenty-six days a year. Three hundred and twenty-six days of where's the shade, I feel my lungs overworking, blistering heat.

As she entered the quad the emptiness was unsettling. It was as if the apocalypse hit leaving a few poor, lonely, lost souls alone to fight for survival. Nearing the end of the quad her gait slowed down to fast-paced steps. Two cars, one a green Challenger with a black racing stripe and a silver Yukon sat around a cul-de-sac pumping, rambunctious, fast-paced rhythmic beats.

"Pump it track star!" Jordan Harris hung out the window of the challenger.

"Get in." Yasmin opened the door and pushed back the enthused boy and the seat.

Asia stepped off the curb, walking behind the hand-me-down SUV. The car she received after her mother upgraded and downsized to a Lexus coupe, awarding herself for getting four kids in college while her husband pulled double shifts to fund all their extra-curricular activities.

Leslee Reid with her straight black hair rolled up in a teal clamp matching her loose fitted tank hopped out the driver's seat.

"Les, you can drive" Asia pushed her back.

"Your car, you drive. I loaded it. Your baby's in the back." She jumped in the back seat nudging Asia with the fiberglass door.

Asia quickly pushed the door slightly catching Leslee's hanging flip-flop.

Leslee yanked her foot to safety, "Watch it, heiffah!"

Sure Asia was wrong but she didn't want to drive. Right, it was her car but then again it was the chosen car by default. It was the only one big enough for four girls and her baby to trek in. She pulled her long body into the driver's seat and held-down the small button on the bottom side of the seat adjusting it back to human specs and not hobbits. She slanted the rearview mirror slightly up to see the road and her baby. She tossed him a quick wave as he stood up wagging his long fluffy tail, his pointy wolf ears open wide waiting for her to acknowledge his presence.

Asia contoured around the seat like a gymnast, "Hey, Shaka!"

He snorted, shaking his muscular body full of black fur, wagging his tail enthusiastically.

"Thirty minutes flat, right. More like seventy-three." Ashlyn Green was folded up in the passenger seat watching the time tick on the digital dashboard clock.

"That test was nothing like the one Ethan gave me and there was an essay. I had to really think." Asia pulled the tan safety strap across her body.

"Who'da thunk, thinking on a test." Ashlyn stroked her olive skin trying to do away with the goosebumps taking over her body.

Leslee looked up from her phone, "Thou shall not cheat."

Yasmin Bloom frowned staring down the eager, social wolf hybrid. He opened his triangular snout letting out a sirloin rich yawn. She waved it away with orange nails like it contained particles of the black plague.

"Why are you bringing this damn dog?" Yasmin pushed the wolf's wet snout away with a rolled up magazine.

"He's my dog, in my car. He's not going to a kennel." Asia gripped the gearshift. "But I tell you this, whoever has a problem with it can walk."

"Yeah Yas, walk," Leslee smirked kicking off her flip-flops.

"She's not walking! Ashlyn turned the A/C down from Alaskan arctic to California cool. "So, let's just go before the boys leave us."

"I'm sorry. My germaphobic tendencies are getting the best of me." Yasmin stuffed her body in the crease between the seat and the door getting as far as possible from the living, breathing germ factory. "Your wolf, your car; let's go."

The challenger's backlights popped red then disappeared as the newly constructed muscle car took off. Asia copied and shifted the gear and applied ample force to the gas pedal. The SUV followed the car edging out the cul-de-sac; pass the empty buildings filled with the residue of drawn-out, zestless lectures.

Their cars rolled down vacant streets that weren't bustling with over-scheduled, over-worked, weary-eyed vehicle wielding drivers but by a flock of empty-bellied vultures looking for cankered rotting meat to devour. Their cars swerved around the death-defying beasts onto the freeway.

A high-pitch beat stroked through the trapped air of the truck followed by three beats of a bass drum. The backseat rumbled like an ocean current. Yasmin looked at her phone. She picked it up rolling her eyes, and then looked out the side window at the sea of gas stations with just a mere cent between them.

"Robert," Yasmin spoke under her breath. She placed the phone back on the seat.

"Don't answer it," Leslee ordered.

"He cheated on you" Asia reminded glancing at Yasmin in the mirror and then darting her eyes back to the road.

"With your roommate." Ashlyn clarified turning around looking into Yasmin's bister eyes to remove any thought of reconciliation.

Yasmin pushed the phone toward Leslee, "I know! He can go to hell for all I care."

What was the toughest exam you had to take? Would you answer Robert's phone call?