Dead Week

It would have been infinitely preferable for Totality to skip her potions class and instead spend that time crying alone in her room, but now that she was suddenly free of relationship obligations, she resolved to make the most of the time left in the year and to always show up and always do the work. Unfortunately, Hazy Sheen not only had the same class, but the two of them occupied opposing sides of the same lab station.

Totality flipped through her schedule, largely ignoring the lecture as she was already well versed in what they were doing today.

“So sorry about that little mixup earlier,” giggled Hazy. “I just assumed that somepony that easy wasn't with anyone.” She shrugged with her forearms out. “I guess they just get really bored when you don't got the goods."

Totality said nothing, only gazed back with an emotionless, unblinking stare.
Eventually Hazy became uncomfortable enough to turn back on her stool to the lecture. "Freak," she muttered.

You audacious little skank, thought Totality. To think I nearly let you get away with a slap on the hoof. She silently opened the cabinet doors below her own counter space and scanned over the jars of various ingredients. You’re in the wrong part of town to be talking shit to me. She floated out two canisters of powder and set them quietly on the ground. Then she took about a spoonful of dehydrated ice beet and about half as much earth salts. She swirled them together with her magic and lifted the tiny pale blue pile up to the counter, obscuring it behind a stone mortar.

With Hazy's back still turned, Totality floated a pinch of the granulated mixture into nearly every single glass container and apparatus in her setup.

Today they'd be making an antiseptic painkiller potion which Totality already knew would have to be prepared boiling hot. When that liquid hit the grains it would melt the salt which would activate the ice beet, creating an incredibly cold spot in a large hot spot. The rapid simultaneous expansion and contraction of the glass would cause it to fail.

Everypony lit the flames under their little cauldrons and began measuring out the required ingredients. Things went routinely as Hazy mixed her boiling pot together and poured the bubbling mixture into an array of glass vials with a beaker.

The first break could not have been better timed as Hazy was in the middle of pouring the remainder of the mix through a funnel into her alembic. The bottom of a vial popped out, spilling the wouldbe potion onto the counter. Startled by the phenomenon, Hazy yelped and lost her concentration, dropping her pot on the counter, spilling a massive amount of liquid which cascaded onto the floor. Another vial cracked and by this time everypony was looking at her. Hazy turned away from the disaster in a panic. “Um, professor?” she called.

Totality took the opportunity to swap in a random ingredient canister behind her. She turned back just as the bottom of her alembic blew out, leaving no salvageable potion behind. Totality gave her a deadpan stare with a slow clop.

“Woooo! Go Hazy,” somepony shouted from across the room in put-on elation.

“What happened here?” asked Professor Nova, wide-eyed.

“I-I don’t know. Everything just started breaking.”

Potion Nova eyed Hazy’s lineup of canisters. “You’re not even mixing the right ingredients here.”

“What?” She squinted at the canisters confusedly and then off into space as she tried to recall a memory of what exactly she had done. Then she glared at Totality. She didn’t know how, but she knew she must have had something to do with this.

"Uh, I'm going to have to increase your lab fee for this," groaned Potion as she surveyed the devastation. "Help me clean this up."

“I can help too,” offered Totatality with a smile as she grabbed the nearby tub of absorbent pellets. “I already finished my potions." Then she turned to Hazy. "Because I did the assignment correctly and didn't destroy half the lab.”

Totality floated her tray of food along from the kitchen counter into the dining area. Automatically she began heading to the table where most of her friends convened. She stopped abruptly when she realized Comet Shard was included in the company. Of course he was. They always sat here. He looked up at her briefly and quickly looked away like he didn’t know her.

Totality’s eyes dropped to the floor and she turned quickly before any of her friends could greet her. It was an awful, unforeseen ramification of the breakup. Their circle of friends had a big overlap. He was with at least some of them most of the time. Since the thought of even being in the same room as Comet made her nauseated, she was probably going to be seeing them a lot less.

Maybe it was stupid, but the fact that they would still associate with him felt like a hurtful betrayal to her. But they probably didn’t even know what happened yet. They were probably asking where she was right now. What kind of garbage story were they going to hear from him?

Totality sat at a sparsely populated table near a few ponies she didn’t know. She stared forlornly into the wood grains of the table, picking slowly at her pasta salad. It wasn’t long before a food tray landed across from her.

“Hey, project buddy,” chimed Gamma Burst as he sat down. “Do you like ghosts? I’m ninety two percent sure there are ghosts in the kitchen and that’s the reason why all the food in the cafeteria is haunted, except for the carrots and the ketchup.”

Totality sighed and began to zone out, letting his words blur into a muffled warble punctuated by the snapping of carrots dipped in ketchup. What a time in the year for this to have happened to her. She’d invested and lost so much time in that relationship and now, even though it was over, it was going to sabotage the rest of her year if she let it continue to occupy her mind.

“Are you okay?” asked Gamma.

The question jarred her back from her thoughts. Her eyes flicked up to where his should have been, but they were both obscured by his mane. Because of this, she wasn’t sure if it was the shape of his mouth or her own projection that he appeared to possess a look of concern. She’d like to have this discussion, but not with somepony she barely knew. “I’m fine,” she lied, floating another rotini noodle into her mouth.

Gamma shrugged and opened his mouth to continue babbling.

“Did you think at all about our topic?” muttered Totality absently.

Gamma levitated a carrot, spinning it in the air like a marching baton. “Uh… no, I haven’t”

“Me either,” she sighed. “Let’s figure that out tomorrow, I guess.”

“I can’t believe you actually held it together through the whole class after that,” exclaimed Blue Moon, smearing lotion on her face in front of the mirror.

“In a way, I guess it’s my new greatest achievement,” replied Totality, pulling the covers up to her face.

“I’da slapped his shit, the second he sat down next to me.”

Totality laughed weakly. “I know you would have.”

"I'm sure Hazy didn't know he was with you."

She'd already said that earlier. Totality knew Blue was friends with Hazy Sheen, which was what made this conversation so awkward. It was hard to tell if she was venting to an ally or an informant. She'd spent the time conspicuously shifting blame from Hazy.

It was an utterly useless distraction. Totality had grown up with Hazy. She knew exactly who she was and how she operated. It was absolutely a calculated move, just the latest attack in a years-long assault. Totality hated how she always managed to bring out the worst in her and often wondered if she could stop the whole thing if she just played dead and took it for a while… but she couldn’t. That would be conceding defeat, but vengeance was merely a fleeting ego boost with a bitter aftertaste. This sort of childish vendetta war was something that made sense in high school, but they were in college now. The length and cruelty had long since outweighed the cost of entry. A normal pony would have lost interest by now. There was something seriously wrong with Hazy.

Blue yawned and let the light of her horn blink out before climbing into the top bunk. “You didn’t come here to find a guy, did you?” she scoffed.

“Well, no.”

“No one does,” she retorted, pummeling her pillow into a comfy puff. “It’s our first year. Everypony who’s away from home for the first time just wants to fuck around a little bit.”

“I don’t,” Totality muttered to herself. She didn’t do anything unless she was serious about it. That was sincerity. Why couldn’t everypony just act in the same capacity and not waste her time with stupid games?

The whole bed shook and creaked as Blue flopped on the mattress. Inspired by the sound, she began to rock back and forth, intentionally creaking the bed in a rhythmic sexual way. “Ever wonder how many ponies have screwed on your old mattress?”

“No,” droned Totality. “But I will now, so thanks for that.”

“That’s why I took the top bunk. Bottom is the default sex bed for both roommates.”

“But… you wouldn’t do that because you're a good roommate,” charged Totality.

Blue began to snore, pretending to be asleep.