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UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK — This Sunday, UMD students and administration alike were deeply alarmed to find the gates of the Eternity Vault open, its guardians slain, and its former prisoners—a strange sect of inhumans known for killing and impersonating others—missing. An on-site assessment indicated that these creatures had likely scattered around campus, taking on the guises of others in the community to hide themselves. Soon after this, a state of panic emerged as administration began to worry at the impossibility of determining who was or wasn’t a skin-stealing alien, unsure how they were going to contain such a deadly and elusive threat.

That is, until it was found that they were targeting STEM professors.

“I mean, it’s like they weren’t even trying to blend in,” said pre-med student Jen Ericnaym. “First day of class after the escape, my chemistry professor walks right up to the projector and just turns it on. In seconds! Then later on, when he put an equation up on the board, he actually told us what the variables meant. Someone even asked a question about it, and instead of getting angry or ignoring them, he just explained the answer!”

Many others across campus had similar experiences. “At first, I was worried,” said Aydi Kay, a CS major. “But when I actually got to class, all that went away. One of my ‘professors’ held an exam, and the average was above a 60. Right away, I knew something was up. Nice try, skin-stealer.”

It seems that across campus, more and more of the creatures are being discovered and caught as they make easily-identifiable mistakes that no real professor would, like “avoiding 10+ minute rants about the academic dishonesty policy” or “remembering a student’s name.” Most of the escapees have been caught in the first few days of searching, with campus administration confident that they’ll have found the rest by this weekend. That said, some students are not so pleased with this development.

“This could honestly be a good thing,” said Isa Cathies, a mechanical engineering student. “Even if they are bloodthirsty monsters in disguise, they’re so much more understanding. I feel like I’m learning the content better now, and I’m less stressed. Sure, they’ll sometimes eat a student or two, and I’ve heard them mutter about ‘the blood of the Star Herald’ a couple times, but in the end I think the benefits might outweigh the costs.”

Cathies is by no means alone in her sentiment, with a growing number of students refusing to cooperate with authorities who attempt to take the body snatchers away. UMD administration, while initially disgusted by the idea of letting the creatures remain, has begun to reconsider after negotiations with some of the protesting students. After all, none of the doppelgängers have yet requested to be paid for their work.