Ever since my cold shower this morning, strange things have occurred. I would like to recant the details to the denizens of this forum.
The first thing I noticed upon exiting the shower this morning was a continual presence of cold that followed me through out the day. The air around me felt slightly more frigid, and it seemed that the shadows held shapes. Passing this off as a result of sleep deficiency and stress in regards to my exams coming up, I ignored these occurrences. The only word for it was unsettling, it was as if I could sense a gloomy, impending winter.
I then arrived on campus after a bus commute, and felt a strange presence observing me as I walked to the library. Again, my attention was drawn to the shadows. What looked to be pale, blue, malevolent eyes watching me turned out to be the reflections off of the glass window panes, so again, I shook it off and proceeded about my day of work. I remained acutely aware of these queer apparitions, and began to prepare myself mentally for any further abnormalities.
It was then, as I sat down in an abandoned, fairly dark section of the library, that the strangest yet happened. The air conditioning in the building kicked on full blast, and I shivered violently. Currents of conditioned wind ruffled my hair, and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. As I stoop up to attempt to find a librarian to question about the AC, icy, pale, rotting fingers grabbed my shoulder. A chill entered my core, and I turned to face the attacker.
Again, there was in reality nothing there. I began to think the upsetting of my daily routine with a cold morning shower had imparted severe mental shock onto my person. I walked into the bathroom, turned the sink onto the hottest water it could produce, and enveloped my face in its warm embrace. As I sat there, enjoying the heat, another student walked in the door and immediately stopped in his tracks to stare at me.
"How are you doing that?" he questioned incredulously, to which I just gave him a puzzled look. "That water is near boiling, man. Christ, the entire mirror is fogged from all the steam."
I looked up into the mirror, and sure enough, he was right. Somehow, the skin of my face and hands displayed no signs of burning or even irritation. The other student put his hand under the tap, screamed, and immediately withdrew his limb, to reveal a massive patch of red, swelling by the second from the scalding that the water imparted to him.
Completely baffled and feeling deranged, I walked back to my side of the library and began to study once more. I began to work on my coding project, but not without frustration. Angst and doubt filled my mind, occupying space I otherwise needed to focus on my methodology. I believe it was for this reason, that my first attempt failed. I produced thirty lines of code for what was to be a simple assignment, placed my work onto a flash drive, and walked across campus to deliver it to my professor.
I arrived in his office, and beheld what appeared to be a feast. Roast duck was on the table, smothered in honey. Smoked salmon steamed on his desk, garnished with plums and dressed with a sweet glaze. Pigeon pies were stacked to the ceiling, and in the corner were lemon cakes abound. Most perplexing was the huge roast aurochs turning on a spit in the corner. Surely, I had to be delusional. I presented him with my flash drive. When he first plugged the device into his computer, the project I had made appeared, but did not function. The coding appeared to have fallen apart.
"This is not acceptable work, but I get the impression you are the one student I have who will be able to complete this assignment. Redo your work, and return to me later with it revised" my professor stated.
Dismayed, I returned to the library and began work anew. This time, I produced fifty lines of code, yet somehow I had the impression this assignment would still not be acceptable. In my mind, I heard howling winds, and in my body, my core was slowly chilling. I had to complete this task once and for all, so that I could return home to rest and return to normality. Leaving the library, a thought came to mind. To ensure that this project would work, I captured one of the hundreds of squirrels on campus, and plunged my flash drive into the beasts heart, hoping to temper my work with the life blood of a creature. The bloodlust I experienced in the killing also helped to warm my body, but I still felt a presence watching me from the trees on campus. I produced tissues from my backpack, and cleaned the flash drive of the gore. The metal of the flash drive shimmered in the sunlight, and in the reflection, I glimpsed a looming, immense figure behind me, with chilly azure eyes staring at my kneeling self. Whirling around to confront the figure, I was again greeted with empty air, with wind that blew fierce and cold and kicked up autumn leaves from the ground.
I sprinted to the professors office again, and presented the flash drive.
"Here professor, I know this program will work. I've revised it, and it should be perfect." I stated.
"Words are wind," the professor replied.
He plugged the drive into his computer for the second time, and again, the program would not open.
"Maybe I was wrong about you. Perhaps there is truly no body who can complete this assignment. I'm willing to give you as many tries as you need to get this right, but my faith in you has dwindled."
Infuriated, I returned to the library, and I could sense that I was descending into insanity. I worked furiously, determined, I would not give up. I had to finish this project, no matter the cost. The final product was 100 lines of code. But I was not satisfied. I knew another sacrifice must be made, in order to complete my work. It was at that moment, that it seemed like a heavenly voice imparted instructions to me. They made perfect sense, I now knew exactly what must be done to achieve completion of my task.
Intently, I marched to the office. Behind me, shadows grew, temperatures dropped, periwinkle almond shaped eyes watched me from the branches of trees, and harsh, scraping, guttural languages filled my ears and head. Opening the door, I observed my professor gorging himself on the feast. Wordless, I approached his person, procured my flash drive, and stopped.
"Have you completed..." he started, but before he could utter another word I slammed the drive through his breast, cracking his ribs, and causing warm blood to spurt from the newly made cavity. My drive found his heart, and in it plunged, soaking in his life blood.
Barely alive, gasping for breath and dripping blood, my professor watched as I inserted the flash drive into his computer, and a glorious display of a working program appeared. On the screen flashed the words, in colors red, yellow, and orange as fire "Azor Ahai has been reborn!" and the 3D printer in the office forged a sword the likes that have never been seen. Light rippled inside its edges, and an immense heat filled the office that melted all the electronics.
With a smile on his face, the professor faintly whispered "It was always you, it had to be. Go now, and cleanse the computer engineering department of the eternal winter that has befallen it."
And with that, I called it a day, returned to my apartment, and am currently resting.
I cannot recommend that anybody else takes a cold shower. We cannot possibly know the mental impact it will have on any given person.