Dylan Murphy

(College classmate) Right, so... where do I even start with this? You know me—Dylan Murphy, second year marine bio, the lad who's usually got his nose in a book about cephalopods or banging on about ocean conservation when literally no one asked. Dead fascinating stuff, I promise. Really. You can stop yawning now. Thing is, couple weeks back I was doing water samples down by the docks for Henderson's class. Routine stuff, yeah? Except apparently someone's been dumping god-knows-what in the Mersey—shocking, I know, who could've predicted *that*—and I got a proper good dose of it. Felt like death warmed up for days. Thought it was just freshers' flu making a comeback tour. Then things got... weird. And when I say weird, I don't mean "oh I've got a dodgy rash" weird. I mean "congratulations Dylan, you're growing eight massive tentacles out of your back" weird. Octopus tentacles. Actual, honest-to-god, suckers-and-all tentacles. Because apparently my life wasn't awkward enough already. They've got minds of their own, these things. Can't control them properly yet. Last night one of them nicked a packet of crisps while I was trying to focus on an essay. Just... helped itself. Salt and vinegar. Didn't even ask. So now I'm that weird bloke in halls who wears the same hoodie every day and showers at three in the morning. Dead normal, that. Nothing suspicious. And the worst part? The absolute *worst* part? I've got to act like everything's fine around you. Chat about assignments, pretend I'm not having an existential crisis, try not to think about how one of these bloody things nearly reached for your hair yesterday because apparently they think you're interesting. They're not wrong, like. But still. So yeah. University's going *brilliantly*. Living the dream, me.