The real estate agent showed the young couples through the luxurious accommodations where they would be spending their remaining term at university. The agent explained that this four bedroom, two story property was owned by a health farm property magnate. "Wow!", gushed Maggie, "We could have some wild parties in a place this size, unlike the other place where you couldn't even swing a cat!"
"The dining room, lounge room, and entertaining area are all open plan, allowing you to designate as much or as little space as you desire to each", the agent explained of the gigantic and empty main room. "The fishtank windows are mostly self contained, with a contractor that comes around once a month to refill the, er, ugh, feeding units, and dispose of any deceased fish. Natalie noticed how the agent kept her distance from the fishtanks.
"Let me interrupt your enthusiasm for a 'wild' lifestyle by pointing out rental termination clauses 7, and 19, which refer to 'No Parties', and 'No Pets'.", the agent interrupted. "That's fine, Maggie doesn't even own a cat.", Natalie said rolling her eyes at Maggie who had to press her hands to her face to suppress a giggle.
"The
in-pool bar area has a large selection of health drinks and various
fruit juices, there is a spa, a water slide, and three diving boards.",
the agent continued trying to sound enthusiastic. Natalie didn't need a
vision to see that the agent was clearly hydrophobic. All eyes turned to
the nifty sunken bar.
"The unusual kitchen has all modern facilities and plenty of food preparation space, but including a wood fire pizza oven, this room also doubles as the laundry", The agent droned on.
Natalie looked to the rest of the group and shrugged her shoulders, they all nodded their heads enthusiastically. "I think this should sufficiently meet our basic requirements for appropriate accommodation, while we complete our time at the local educational establishment." Natalie said, being wordy as possible in imitation of the agent.
The agent rushed through an abridged version of the remainder of her spiel before answering. "Each of the bedrooms has an en suite with shower,bath, mudbath, and sauna facilities, there is ample parking provided on the lot, and there is a fully equipped gym upstairs. You need to sign here, here, here and here, everybody else needs to read this, and sign that!", said the agent, finally stopping for air.
The agent scooped up all the paperwork and bid them farewell. "This place is seriously fricken awesome!", Dominic exclaimed, staring at the monster TV, "Its almost as big as home, and the pool is way cooler, even if it is outdoors!".
Natalie investigated the large and simply decorated bedroom.
And then onto the massive en suite.
The upstairs gym got regular workouts with random usage during the week, and an organized group workout on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The roof was loaded with musical instruments and painting easels that the real estate agent hadn't mentioned.
While Natalie, Dylan and Dominic had loved their indoor pool at home with its glass walkway...
This one had a bar
Despite the attraction of lazing around in the water all day, a lot of studying was actually completed poolside, or at the bar, or on the inflatable loungers. "I think I'd be happy to do a dozen degrees if I could stay here!", Maggie told Dominic.
While studying for a mid term test, Natalie had a sudden vision, Casey and Lil were having a heated argument about something and although there was no sound, Natalie could clearly see that her
mother was not happy, and her father had a shocked look on her face.
Natalie thought about the vision for a few minutes, she scrutinized their faces and the clothes they where wearing. The vision was definitely close to the present, Marcus, Casey, and Lil all looked the same age as when the kids had gone off to uni, and Nat recognized all of the clothes everybody was wearing. There where no other clues as to when the argument in the vision had occurred, or would, or did, or was happening, and if it hasn't yet, and she interferes, would it still happen or not happen, and would the world be a better place for it.
Natalie's brain pummeled her train of thought with random strings of logic until said train was derailed, upside, and spinning on its head. Natalie had never had ant in depths conversations with her parents
about her visions, mostly going to Lil for advice, or to discuss the images in her head,
but if Lil was the cause of the argument...
Nat dropped all thoughts of the universe exploding or time going in reverse, she had acted on a few
of her visions in the past without the world ending, and dialed her mothers phone.
"Hi Mum, how's everything going there?"
"Mum, I had a vision about something at home, and I'm a little bit worried!"
"You and Lil had or have an argument, a really big one!"
"You did?"
"Just now?"
"Why?"
"She did what?"
"She said what?"
"Well, that's still hardly fair!"
"yeah, but!"
"So what are you going to do?"
"Yeah, uni is great, everyone is doing really well!"
"Yeah, OK, yup, yup, yeah, will do, OK Mum, love you Mum, give my love to Dad."
Natalie had never really had any big secrets to keep, and now she had a monster, she felt she should tell her brothers, but her mother had asked her not too. It wasn't easy to stay quiet and not blab to her siblings.
She plunged into her studies and read everything psychic related that she could find in the libraries.
Nobody really noticed Nat's distance over the next semester, as they all were studying for final exams.
They studied as a group, as couples, and as individuals.
Pouring every available minute that they weren't in classes into preparing for the final exam.
Except Dom, who was so confident he would nail the final exam,
that he found time to practice the drums.
Authors Note:
This was originally stretched out over three chapters, but I accidentally deleted all the uni photos, and I'm getting impatient to move onto Gen 3.
The one sided phone call... I've heard a few of these lately, and decided rather than give up the plot for the next dozen chapters, (Yes I actually have a plot for the moment), I'd tease it in using this method, revealing a bit more in each chapter.
Yes there really was a lot of studying around the pool area, the bathrooms, not so much.
