I'll be the first to admit that I never had an eye for shopping, but Shannon had been bugging me all week to drive her to the mall. I could argue that she could just drive herself there, but that would leave me without my new car since she never replaced her old one. So I begrudgingly accepted to take her there that weekend.

Ten minutes of the usual traffic chaos later, we arrived at the Colonial Park Mall in eastern Harrisburg. The parking lot was relatively empty, so finding a parking space was easy. I preferred this one over the mall on the south side of the city, not far from downtown and just off the interstate (combined leading to a traffic nightmare).

The place was desolate, even more desolate than I expected. The rise of online shopping has really taken its toll on places like malls. Half of the stores were shut down, those that were open were mostly empty, and we saw only two, maybe three people wandering the corridors.

"Damn, this place is dismal as fuck," I heard Shannon say rather disappointingly.

"You see, this is also why I didn't want to come here. There's really nothing nowadays."

Another hour of searching to no avail passed before we retired to the food court, one of the few places open that had something of interest to offer. Although, it paled in comparison to the Buffalo Wild Wings right next to it, which was packed as usual with sports and wings junkies. It was set up in a way that even those in the food court could see what was on the several TVs. Being the summer, the only major sports that were in season were baseball and the domestic soccer league.

We each got something from the pizza joint, and sat down to try and salvage what was left of our afternoon. We were the only ones there, until I spotted someone ordering something from the same pizza joint we were at earlier. She looked to be around our age, with luscious golden hair and a bright orange shirt with a large "T" on the front, in a style I instantly recognized as signature of the University of Tennessee. Not only that, but she seemed to be walking toward us.

She had a beautiful smile on her face and spoke in an elegant tone. "Mind if I join you two?"

Shannon and I looked at each other. We had no clue who this person was, though she seemed nice enough. I elected to trust her.

"Sure, why not? We've had nothing to do all day."

"Oh, where are my manners? My name's Leslie. And you are?"

"My name's Colin, and this is Shannon." She waved and gave a little smile as I pointed her out.

"Such a pleasure to meet you both. I absolutely hate being alone to eat here. It's too quiet and lonely," Leslie said as she sat down.

My eyes once again were drawn to her Tennessee shirt. The same college my friend Rachel went to. I wondered if, by some chance, they knew each other.

We sat silent for a few minutes before I broke the ice.

"So, Tennessee?" I asked Leslie.

"Yeah! Just graduated from there last month!"

"Your major?"

"Biology. It was my favorite subject growing up."

"Interesting. You know, one of my friends went to Tennessee, too."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Her name's Rachel..."

Once I mentioned Rachel, Leslie's eyes lit up.

"You know Rachel? Rachel Harwood?"

"Well, yeah. She and I went to the same school. Why you ask?"

"She was my roommate!"

I almost choked when I heard that, and my eyes widened as well.

"Are you serious? There's no way, there's no way!"

"Well, here, let me show you." Leslie pulled out her phone and showed me her camera roll. There were multiple pictures of her and what was indeed Rachel.

"Oh my god. What are the odds?"

"I know, right?"

This whole time, Shannon sat there, listening to our conversation intently, before she chipped in.

"Yeah, in fact, Rachel was over at our house not that long ago."

"Is that so?"

"We threw a whole little dinner party for them, it was a lot of fun."

Meanwhile, I was in the process of texting Rachel that, somehow, I had run into her college roommate.

The three of us spent nearly an hour chatting away, and once our food was finished, I realized that I needed to get home to finish some business (which I will not go into detail with for simplicity's sake, but let's say it involves knives). For me, it hurt to end such a rich conversation, but then I had a bright idea.

"Say, Leslie, would you like to swing by our place tonight so we can finish this?"

"Really? But we just met, and I don't even know where you guys live."

I gave her my address and phone number. Shannon did the same. Leslie noticed that we had the same address.

"By the way, just curious, are you two in a relationship of some sort?"

Shannon, although this was truly out of curiosity, seemed shocked at the assumption. "N-no, we're just friends. We never got around to making this go further...yet." She flashed me a little wink.

"Well, I think you two would make a cute couple. See you tonight." We parted ways for a few hours.

Later That Evening

As if on cue, I heard a car pull in front of our house at 6 PM. It was Leslie.

We didn't have anything special planned, since after all, this wasn't really a formal gathering. She was still wearing her Tennessee shirt from earlier.

Shannon was the one to open the door and welcome Leslie into the house. She got settled immediately and we picked our conversation up right back where we left off.

I don't remember much from the discussion, though I remember laughing my ass off when I was told the story of how Leslie and Rachel were inadvertently locked out of their dorm building in the middle of a rainstorm and ended up soaking wet before they were let in.

After a while, though, I had to use the bathroom so I excused myself from the conversation.

What Happened While Colin Was Away

(Author's Note: This portion of the story is written from Shannon's perspective, again.)

The second I heard that bathroom door shut, I heard Leslie who seemed like she breathed a sigh of relief.

"I thought he'd never leave. Now, Shannon, there's something I would like to show you."

I was intrigued by this, especially why she wanted Colin to leave so badly.

"And what might that be?"

Leslie placed her hands on her cheeks and uttered a strange phrase that certainly wasn't English; I'd probably place it closest to Latin. Once she did that, she lifted up and off popped her head with relative ease, almost as if she was a doll. She set it on the table and her headless body sat back, arms folded.

She saw my look of perplexity, and gave a sly remark. "Oh, don't act all surprised. Rachel told me everything about that dinner party of yours, including that 'magic trick' you showed off."

"But, if you heard about it, then why didn't you say anything about it until now?" I asked, stunned by this sudden revelation.

"I didn't want to come off as a creep. We literally just met, an 'I know what you did' certainly wouldn't make a good first impression." Leslie was running her fingers through her hair as if she was stroking a cat.

"Well, if you're gonna do it, then I might as well." I proceeded to grab a kitchen knife and slice my own head off, sitting it on the table facing across from Leslie. However, this time, she was the one giving the perplexed look.

"Doesn't that hurt at all?"

"A little, but I've gotten used to it. Nothing more than a little sting, that's all."

"I've never seen someone do it that way before. I mean, it seems rather risky too. What if you-"

I anticipated this comment, so I stopped Leslie mid-sentence and grabbed the kitchen knife again. I took it and stabbed myself in the arm as quickly as I could. Just like it did before, the wound sealed almost instantly.

"Impressive," Leslie said glowingly.

"Very. I've never seen it done your way though. I probably wouldn't be able to do it right, my Latin...is it Latin?"

She gave a thumbs-up, trying not to interrupt me.

"My Latin isn't the best. Knowing that, I'd probably screw it up."

"That's fine, I wasn't great at it at first either. Besides, if you end up saying it wrong, nothing happens. It's not like if you screw up you turn into a frog or something." Leslie softly laughed at the last part.

"Does Rachel know about this?"

"Of course she does. If she didn't, she wouldn't have told me about...this." She gestured in my direction.

"And how does she feel about it?"

"She's actually pretty accepting. Initially, she was shocked, but then again, we found this out by complete accident.

Rachel was out at class and I had a free period. I found the Latin phrase online and I thought it was one of those joke phrases to try and trick you into saying something dumb or vulgar. It instructed me to say it with my hands on my cheeks for 'added effect'. After I tried it, I was disappointed to find that it didn't really sound like anything funny and I saw it as a waste of time.

Then I tried standing up and," Leslie placed, but did not reattach, her head on her neck stump to demonstrate, "my head slid off just like that!" Her head fell onto the table in front of her, and she groaned upon impact.

"Oh, I can imagine."

She continued her narration. "I panicked. I thought, 'What if Rachel saw me like this? Could this get any worse?' Right at that moment, Rachel opened the door and froze in place. I did my best to explain everything to her and keep my cool at the same time, but what surprised me more was how calm and understanding she was. And with that attitude, after a few tries, we managed to get everything back in order."

"Well that's great to hear!"

"Although, I couldn't help but do it again a few times as a joke."

"Gee, that sounds familiar..." A smirk came across my face.

"You've done this before to Colin?"

"Oh, you have no idea. Last weekend, I had a little fun playing around as his alarm clock."

"And how does he take this?"

"He tries playing along, but his initial reaction is always priceless. He's starting to get back at me, though."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, ever since he found out he is able to do things like this..." I never finished my sentence.

"Wait, Colin's able to do this too? I heard that only 5% of cases are male!"

"I know, it shocked me too. This one time, he-"

It was then I heard the bathroom door start to open.

"Shit."