by Camille Maker
contributor
“I saw it with my own eyes, and I still couldn’t believe it.”
“It came out of nowhere, roaring like the monsters of your worst nightmares, you know? Like, really scary.”
“I’ll never forget the glint of moonlight on its fangs. ‘Hashtag freaky,’ if you know what I mean.”
So say three real Millsaps eyewitnesses to a recent scandal that has blighted our typically casualty-free campus. And in the name of safety and security, it is the duty of this publication to inform the school of a new and very real danger: Squirrelicus, the fearsome mutant, is no myth.
According to the studies which the Mississippi Department of Mutants performed on a captured specimen, Squirrelicus is a product of intra-species genetic experimentation. Likely carried out in the dead of night, nocturnal students driven to the brink of sanity by a desire to prove their excellence (and powered by a substantial number of 5-Hour Energy shots) have been breeding a Super Squirrel as a deranged honors project. The experiment was originally intended to do good but has clearly gone awry. Through covert efforts, researchers discovered that the Squirrelicus species has a proud lineage—mothers from the Northside endowed with natural intellect far above that of the average squirrel, and fathers who hail from the Southside, a more brawny, less brainy group. Squirrelicus, according to one inside informant, was intended to be a combination of the mothers’ benevolent wisdom and the fathers’ physical prowess. But science is never that simple, there are always unseen variables.
“Cunning and savage? No one saw that coming,” our informant moaned, clearly regretting her scientific misadventures.
In the meantime, a veil of mourning has fallen over our recently beflowered springtime campus. Due to the recent uptick in prospective visitors, Squirrelicus has grown restless and violent: moving up in the world of evil deeds from spooking late-night Rueben’s cravers, it has ventured from the cover of night. This past Friday at approximately 10:57 a.m., a horde of young hopefuls were making their way toward the Christian Center when the monster leapt at them from the flora, seized an underclassman around the ankle and proceeded to drag him away to the shock of the rest. The student has yet to be found. JPD and MDM have been working tirelessly to find the lair of the crafty Squirelicus, but as yet to no avail.
The public is requested to report any further sightings of the monster immediately, but to remain calm in the meantime: “We advise that students move in large groups armed with clubs, bats and mace, as Sqirrelicus could attack at any time and we are really not sure how strong it is or what, if anything, can harm it,” an MDM representative suggested. “You’re a smart bunch, you Millsaps kids, you really are. But who thought squirrel science was a good idea?”