1

                                    

                                          
"Tom, can you not?" I said irritably, as I sat squashed in the middle back seat of the black Volkswagen Sharan. "I literally have no space."
                          
"Sorry." Tom replied, still trying to reach in his back pocket. He then sat back down in the seat properly. "Got it." He held his phone up triumphantly. 
                          
"What are we gonna do when we get back, then?" Jake asked, sitting in the front seat of the Uber. I frowned, realising it was nearly two o'clock in the morning. The night was calm and quiet, and the London roads fairly empty as we drove back to the flat.
                          
"Well, I'm planning on going to bed." I said. We'd just had a spontaneous flat outing at around ten o'clock, planning on taking a walk around some of London. It had to be the most adventurous thing I'd done since being at University- I mean, I'd been here a good few months. Christmas had been and gone. Still, it was enough time to get to know my flat mates. There were four of us who'd happened to get particularly close- besides me, there was Tom, Jake and Andy.
                          
Tom was the first person I'd met at Uni, seeing as we'd moved into the flat on the same day. He was from America, although was currently living in Switzerland, but that didn't change the fact that his American accent rang through strongly when he spoke. He was tall, and quite skinny, and his hair was short and a dark shade of blonde.
                          
Andy also happened to move in the same day as us, but not until later that day. He was from Birmingham, and unlike Tom, was only a little taller than I was. He had his hair cut even shorter than Tom, but his was much paler and didn't quite match the shade of orange hair that wrapped itself around his chin and jawline. It wasn't a long beard, but coated nearly half his face.
                          
Jake, on the other hand, was the tallest of us all. He was well built, and had neatly styled blonde hair that would occasionally take a ginger twinge to it, depending on the direction of the light. He was loud, outspoken, and would often say whatever was on his mind. I knew he didn't mean to sound offensive when he spoke, but I could tell some people didn't like it. One of our other flat mates, who we only spoke to when meeting in the kitchen, definitely didn't like it. I could see that Jake, even though he didn't say anything particularly mean, made her uncomfortable by the way he spoke loud and in her face.
                          
Still, I often found it quite humorous.
                          
"Boo." Jake moaned. "It's only two o'clock." He chuckled.
                          
"I think we're all planning on going to bed." Andy said, as the Uber driver turned the corner that would soon lead onto the road of the student halls. However, we were cut short when we noticed the road was blocked by an entire row of flashing police cars. The red and blue lights seemed to fill the surrounding skies.
                          
"You're gonna have to get out here." The Uber driver said, turning to face us. "Don't think there's any way of me getting through."
                          
"No worries, pal." Jake said, as we all got out of the car and watched the Uber driver leave. We then turned back toward the scene which we were going to have to get past in order to reach the flat, and for some reason, I had a bad feeling about it all. A sense of anxiety and dread filled me, but I couldn't quite figure out why. Still, I tried to shove it down, and ignore it.
                          
"Damn, what do you think happened here?" Tom asked.
                          
"Let's go find out." Jake said eagerly, before we made our way towards the flashing blue lights.
                          
A police officer approached us as we got closer, his blue eyes reflecting the bright lights of the surrounding cars underneath his hat. "I'm going to have to ask you to take a step back." He said, in a calm but firm voice.
                          
Jake, I could see, was peeking over the heads of the people and cars. I, on the other hand, was too short to do that. However, I did notice a man standing in the middle with his back to us, his whispy white hair a tangled mess on top of his head. I could see, even from here, that his grey fleece was a little too small, and his dark green trousers perhaps a size too big.