The Variations by Jones M (iphone ebook reader TXT) 📕

It was the last week of April. The spring season seemed to be moving on quickly, but with it came the rains. The campus grounds were experiencing a wet climate that hindered movement to the buildings.

The students of the University of Charles Darwin did not seem to mind it. In fact, they preferred that to the heavy snowstorms that had brought colder temperatures in the area during winter.

Everyone was in their classrooms in spite of the ongoing rain outside the campus buildings. At that time, in the junior year IT class, Mr. Bernard was droning on and on about another unit for the course.

"And so--" he was cut off by a loud thunder that echoed outside the building. The lights immediately flickered off for a moment, eliciting sounds of displeasure from the students. A few seconds later, the lights came back on.

Mr. Bernard took that as a cue to continue with the lecture. No sooner had he started than his phone rang in the class.

"Hello," he answered it, and that action allowed the other students to murmur amongst themselves.

Kate turned to her left to talk to Chris, but she saw him talking to someone who had occupied the seat in front of him. He smiled at something the guy said, and her heart thudded at the sight of him.

'How did I get so lucky?' she wondered as she stared at him. She had never thought she would be in a relationship in her college years, let alone with him; a person who shared a horrible high school experience with her. It all seemed impossible.

But there she was. She was Chris' girlfriend, and she was loving it.

Kate looked at him, observing his blonde hair for a second. He had changed the haircut from the spiky look to a crewcut. It surprisingly worked for him. Her eyes moved down, spotting his eyes as he talked to the person he was facing. She even looked at his straining biceps hidden under the long-sleeve shirt he had worn.

Her mind wandered to the memory of Chris' naked torso, and she was reminded of what she had done with him at his place.

Marie quickly turned away as she blushed, surprised with the way she had been looking at Chris. She could not believe that she had let her mind wander to the weekend she had spent having sex with him. The memories seemed to be coming every now and then lately.

Could it be that she was crazed with lust?

Kate shook the thought away. It did not seem to be the actual reason. Her heart still thudded for Chris even without the sexual thoughts. So, could it be that she was falling for him hard? Was the crush she had developed for him turning into something else?

Her eyes widened at the realization.

"Okay, class," Mr. Bernard spoke, having everyone turn to face him. "That was the college administrators. They are canceling the lessons for the rest of the day."

A couple of hoots sounded in the room as every student rose to leave the class.

"Remember to switch off the computers!" the professor shouted. "Also, for those who still have their projects incomplete, do remember to turn them in before the end of the semester."

'Crap,' Kate thought as she walked towards the exit of the class. She knew the lecturer was right. A lot of time had flown by, and a few weeks were left till the exams that would lead to summer. She was not sure about how much work was left before the project would be done.

Marie soon found herself outside the classroom. She was leaning on the wall, waiting for her boyfriend to appear. She had left him to talk to a couple of people in the room.

A couple of seconds later, Chris was in her view.

"Hey, babe," he greeted, kissing her cheek. "We have a problem."

"What is it?" she asked him.

"It involves our project," he said, grabbing her hand and leading them to the exit of the school.

"Chris, what's going on?" Marie asked him.

"I'd rather tell you when we get to my place," he said, earning an annoyed look from her.

"I'm kidding," he said with a smile. "But anyway, everyone has completed their project."

"Oh. Okay," she replied.

Chris stopped walking right at the building doors, forcing her too to stop.

"No, Kate. Everyone has completed their project."

It took a while for her to get what he meant, even though he still meant the same thing he had just said.

"Oh crap," she said.

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"How could it be?" Kate stated, moving her bag into a room in Chris' house. "I mean, seriously?"

"Yes," he replied, bringing in her other bag. The two of them had stopped by Kate's dorm to grab her some of her stuff. They were planning to stay at Chris' place in the following days for the sake of their short film. Gwen had not even minded it, saying she would spend the days that would follow with Ben.

Kate hoped they wouldn't stay in her dorm.

"I spoke to John, and he told me everyone else was done," Chris added, referring to the person Kate had seen him chatting up with during class. "I even talked to other people, and they confirmed what he said."

Kate furrowed her eyebrows as she bit her lower lip.

"How far are we with the film?" she asked.

"I forgot," Chris said with a smile. "But I know we are almost done."

Marie wanted to smack herself. She and Chris had forgotten about their project ever since that magical night they had first made love. Even though they remembered their short film at times, the urge to touch each other won over their responsibilities.

"Okay, let's do this."

Kate and Chris took a short while to load up everything in the room. They switched on their laptops, phones, graphics tablets and everything else they would need to use for the project.

"Oh, now I remember," Chris said. "I had finished rendering all the 3D footage. We just have to merge the videos into one and then sync it with the audio."

Kate sighed in relief. They were actually close to finishing the project.

"Oh, fuck," Chris said, and it had Kate tensing.

"What is it?" Kate questioned.

"Oh. Never mind," he said. She gave him a puzzled look, and he replied with a sweet, apologetic smile. "A few scenes have a couple of rendering errors that we have to fix. It should be done in a few days."

Kate had been standing near the bed with her laptops on. She went to Chris who had been sitting in front of his computer.

"Whoa," she commented, seeing the rendered footage. The scenes looked perfectly detailed. There was even one that revealed a hill with a couple of vegetation around it, and it looked realistic.

"I know, right?" Chris stated with a smile. "And it only took a couple of days to prepare this."

"Days— Oh," Kate cut herself off, remembering that it was rendering. If it had taken a couple days to render the scenes for their short film, she wondered how long it took for the live-action Jungle Book.

Chris clicked away on the computer, going through some scenes that had been rendered. Apart from the few that had errors, they all looked good.

"I am so proud of us," Kate sighed at the sight of a detailed 3D model of a hyena.

"Okay. Let us just deal with the audio and the video files. Then we'll be done with all this."

Kate grabbed a seat in the room, moving it until she was seated near Chris.

For the next days that followed, the two dealt with the project. They looked for the errors, and fixing them had involved re-rendering a couple of clips. It was a good thing they had selected people to voice out the characters some weeks ago or else it would have taken longer.

Those days had been busy, but the two were done by the end of the week.

'We did it,' Kate thought. 'We actually did it.'

It was the Friday of another week, and the project she had been doing with Chris was finally being viewed in their class. 

They had approached Mr. Bernard on a Wednesday to inform him about the completion of the project. He was excited about the news, and he told the class about it on the previous day. And when Friday came, there was a projector with speakers all around the class.

Marie did not expect Mr. Bernard to make a big deal out of it, but knowing the whole class would watch the short film she had prepared with Chris made her anxious. Nervous was an understatement to what she was feeling. Her hand had formed a fist on the space between her and her boyfriend as they watched their finished product in front of the class.

"Relax, Kate," he told her with a small smile. She gave him a nervous smile back, slightly worrying about the professor's response to their project.

The film started with the project title and a list of all the people involved before going straight to the animation. It began with a conversation between a child and a father.

The short film revolved around a story they had planned. It was set in the eastern region of Africa near a couple of large hills. The period was ancient, and the main characters were Mwamba, his father Chief Mwadime, a girl named Wanjala, and a couple of others.

It was a twenty-minute short film, but it seemed longer to Kate. The plot of the film involved Mwamba being intended to wed the daughter of another chief. He is angry at first about the forced marriage, but he agrees with it for the sake of his village. But then, the wife gets kidnapped. Mwamba spends most of the film searching for his kidnapped intended wife, but he later realizes it was a ploy by the other chief to get him as a hostage. Then there comes a full-out war between the villages with Mwamba's community winning. 

Kate enjoyed the laughter of the other students when it came to some humorous scenes. She was even glad about the few frightened gasps some people emitted when they saw the creepy witches they had modeled for the film and the war scenes.

Finally, it was over.

"I must say," Mr. Bernard started when the projected screen showed a maximized version of VLC Media Player, having Kate tense in anticipation. "It was not a bad film. Unlike the people of the past, you've done better. Nice, unpredictable story, great audio, great visuals... I give you a B+."

The whole class applauded just as Chris turned to smile at Kate. He soon hugged her, and she shrieked in happiness with him laughing as he spun them around. 

They quickly remembered they were still in class. Kate observed everyone looking at them, and it had her blushing in embarrassment.

She was relieved they had gotten a good grade for their project. All those months spent on perfecting their short film had finally paid off, and she couldn't wait to tell her parents the great news. She also couldn't wait to go back to her college life that did not involve a lot of time on a college-year project.

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"Hello?" Kate struggled to get a proper network