When Kenyon announced that I, a junior, could not return to campus in the fall, a singular benefit came immediately to mind:

I would no longer have to dodge the “benevolent” members of Delta Tau Delta, who are always seeking the blood of Kenyon students.

Gone, at least temporarily, was the crushing fear that gripped me as I walked past the Peirce atrium tables, where an unassuming fraternity brother sat bright-eyed as if everything he was about to do was okay.

“Hey Sarah,” he would call, as I surreptitiously turned up the volume on my headphones. “Can I have your blood?”

Clammy-handed and thick-tongued, I would mumble and stutter my response: “No.” Then, quick as I could, I would disappear into the servery for my post-3:10 cookie, heaving a sigh of relief as I had managed to keep my blood inside my body for another day, unharvested by those pernicious Delts.

I thought I would have at least a semester without having to undergo this harrowing experience. But then an allstu made my still-flowing, precious blood run cold.

Against all odds, these frat boys are hosting another blood drive. They insist it’s “going to the Red Cross,” but that claim has gone untested.

I’ve been told that maintaining a routine is important. So I guess that’s why even during a global pandemic, the Delts are still doing the only thing they know how: taking all our blood and haunting all my nightmares.