The morning rays shown through my window and nearly transparent blinds, hitting my eyes in just the right way to make it so I would have a hard time staying asleep. I groaned and got up out of bed to start my morning routine. Something I did not realize before I came here was that my fellow students could also go out into the sun. Interestingly, the sun only serves as a hindrance to their mental capacities, which is why they have day time school and night time school. The day time school is to make sure they can retain their knowledge as best as they can in the daylight, and the night time is when they actually learn new things that will apply tomorrow for the class in the morning. For pure bloods though, it is much more gruesome because if they stand in the sun rays directly for more than 10 minutes, their skin will actually start to burn, and it doesn’t heal instantly. It takes weeks, sometimes months to heal the sunburn. While it doesn’t actually kill them, if they stand in the sun rays long enough, they will die of the excruciating pain they will experience. That was one of the subjects of the common sense class yesterday, and it was far more interesting than I had anticipated. Although this school has been very intriguing to me since the start of yesterday, I had no idea where my dorm room was. I had to be guided to the campus lawn and forest to get to my dorm room. It was a ten minute walk, and was quite annoying to deal with on my first day. I tend to wake up early anyways so I just factored in the walk into my morning routine. After I had woken up at six in the morning, I spent about thirty minutes getting ready including a shower, getting dressed, and eating breakfast. After I had finished my food, I walked out of my dorm and made sure to lock the door just in case I get any uninvited visitors such as people, vampires, or even animals. I started to make my way to the school through the same annoying way that was shown to me, still having time to spare when I had arrived. It was about six fifty in the morning when I arrived, it took longer than expected to get there because I still didn’t quite know my way around the forest where my dorm was, but I had plenty of time to go to my locker and grab my gym clothes to get ready for class. The atmosphere was also extremely different compared to yesterday because my school mates weren’t looking at me like they were when I had first arrived yesterday. Everyone was keeping to their friend groups and to themselves, not wanting to incite the wrath of the dean. Also unlike yesterday, the dean wasn’t out here to protect me like he had yesterday. It made for an interesting walk through the front doors. I was just glad that I was being left alone. Although it didn’t last long. After I had walked through the doors, I noticed that the group of students that had sat with me at lunch yesterday were standing in front of the doors. That startled me but it wasn’t as bad as yesterday. Of course Priscilla was with them and when they saw me, they… smiled. It was a confusing sight, especially when you consider the whole sheep and wolves thing, but it didn’t feel like they were going to lunge at me. I smiled back at them and said “Morning. How was your night?” I was feeling a little more confident than yesterday, but It wasn’t enough to where I can be all friendly with them. They all were surprised at my confidence in talking to them first, but they “let it slide” according to them. They made room for me to walk on through their group so that I could make my way to my first class. I appreciated that but it felt extremely awkward as I walked because… they all wouldn’t stop staring at me. It felt weird to be watched while I walked through their group, and the worst part is, I still don’t know any of their names, except for Priscilla’s. They were the ones to make first contact with me, but I don’t even know their names, they only know mine. When I had gotten through the whole group, Priscilla was at the end and she smiled at me, much more genuinely than the others. I sort of brightened up at that but she pulled me aside and asked “You finish the homework from yesterday for anatomy?” I nodded and said “Yeah. What, did you not finish it?” she nodded and continued “When fifth period comes, could I copy your work? Don’t worry, I’ll change it just enough to where the teacher won't even notice I copied.” I sighed and said “Ok, but only in that class. Can’t give out the answers every time.” She nodded and let me go. I hadn’t noticed it, but she had an extremely tight grip on my arm the entire time we talked. So much so that I initially thought that my arm was going purple from her grip. Thankfully it was still in place and I moved on through the halls, saying my “farewells” to the group, even though we would see each other at lunch, assuming they would sit with me again. I made my way to the hallway where my locker was. Something else I hadn’t noticed was that there were a lot of lockers in this hallway, some had stains on the doors as well that were both faded, and had seemed to have been cleaned at some point, but very poorly. I grabbed my stuff first before walking over to look at a set of stains. On the locker was sticker residue from what I assume was a nameplate to designate who’s locker it was, but there was also a semi large red stain going from the middle of the locker to the floor, but the floor was cleaned very recently so there wasn’t a stain down there. I could guess what the stain was considering what this school is housing, but this stain seems old. Way too old for it to be recent. Before I get carried away though I remember that I have P.E. and I rush to get ready as I don’t want to change in a locker room full of vampires. As soon as I got in the locker room, I got changed, throwing my gym bag into the same locker I used yesterday. I made my way onto the track and field and waited for both the bell to ring and the rest of the class to come out. The teacher was just making his way out of the gymnasium from what I assume was his office, and when he made it over to me, the bell rang. In the locker room, I could faintly hear locker doors opening and closing, and then I could see the other students coming out of the locker room and standing next to me and the teacher. When the last student made his way to us, the second bell rang and the teacher blew his whistle and yelled “RUN A LAP!” We started running right after he said that and I was running like my life depended on it. The teacher was once again timing us, but it wasn’t a mile run like yesterday, it was just a lap to get… well I would say blood flowing, but that would only apply to me. We all finished the lap in under two minutes, the fastest doing it in under a minute. I didn’t push myself as hard as yesterday so I wasn’t dying of a lack of oxygen, but I was still breathing slightly heavily. The teacher blew his whistle and called on the student that was supposed to do his pull ups yesterday, but didn’t get a chance to because of the bell ringing. These sets of pull ups went a lot faster than before, only ten students were left to do their pull ups compared to the thirty that did theirs yesterday. When the last student finished with a score of a hundred and eighty six, the teacher shooed them away and said “Now that we are done with the preliminaries of this course, I will have all of you form teams of ten. Four groups, anymore groups than that and I will assign the extra groups to different ones to even out the people. Now, GO!” The teacher was a vampire, but his skin looked a lot more lively than others. I wasn’t sure why, so I just assumed that he had a big breakfast. The groups were formed faster than I had thought, so I decided to join group number three. When everyone had a group, the teacher brought out a fishnet bag of soccer balls, taking out two and tossing one to two groups. He set the bag down and said “For those of you who are wondering why we are playing a sport for humans, it’s to see if you have the control to not launch the soccer ball off the school premises, and to see how long your muscles can last in a few games. Pick your goalies and leaders! We start in a minute!” The teacher walked off the field to set up the goals rather quickly, grabbing two goal posts and setting them up in a minute. For groups three and four, the leaders and goalies were chosen, I wasn't in either of those positions. Our leader was actually a female vampire because she said so, and our goalie was the tallest of the male vampires, for both his height and arm length. When the teacher came back, he added “ALSO! There can only be six people on the field at all times! We have a smaller field due to two games being played at the same time, so not everyone can play at the same time! Pick your first six and get to playing! You have forty minutes of class left!” We all left at the same time and our respective groups chose our fields. Groups one and two chose the one on the left, and we got the one on the right. Our goalies took their places and our leaders chose who got to go on to the fields first. Surprisingly, I was chosen to be on the field first. I don’t know why, but I took it in stride. When the people were chosen, the game started. I was a midfielder defender, and the game was much more fast paced than what I was used to, but I was able to just barely keep up at the expense of expending a lot of my energy, so I was that one player that walked around the field whenever he could. It was about twenty minutes into our game when the other field had the teacher intervene. We heard a whistle blow go off, and could see a fight breaking out. It was getting so brutal that the teacher stepped in and kicked both players off the field and to go get their emergency blood to help them recover. Our game had stopped for a moment but when the two players left the field we went back to playing, and I actually had the ball passed to me. The score was two to seven in favor of group four, but considering my opponents, my smaller and much more nimble body was able to dodge them fairly easily. I had to pass off the ball though since I stood no chance of scoring against a vampire. So I found a group member of mine and passed it to them so they could shoot and score for us again. The enemy goalie could see what was going on, but he and I didn’t expect the person who I passed the ball to pass it back to me. I took it gladly though and shot the ball, scoring it into their net. I cheered with my group, making our way back to our half to get ready for another round of just kicking a ball around. Something I wasn’t expecting though was that one of the players had come up to me to spin me around and punch me in the face. His skin was much shinier than I expected so in the instant I had to size him up, I guessed he had on sunscreen to combat the sunburn. But I couldn’t think about it much more because he instantly knocked me out. When I woke up, I was in the infirmary for humans, and groaned as my cheek burned. My nurse wasn’t in the room when I woke up, but there was a glass of water and some pain killer pills next to the bed. I glanced at the time and had seen that it was already past lunch for me and was already halfway through fourth period B. I panicked slightly but stopped to rub my cheek that had gotten hit. I took the painkillers and laid down for a little while longer to let the pills take effect. The nurse came back into the room and asked how I was doing. I chuckled and said “Other than my cheek burning like it’s on fire, I’m fine. Surprised I wasn’t knocked out for longer though honestly.” She smiled at my comment but sat down and saw I took the pills, writing down that I took the pills onto a piece of paper. I wasn’t too surprised by her taking notes since they probably don’t want me to overdose, but it didn’t feel like that. I can’t think of why they made her take notes for how many pills I took but… I can’t really say it isn’t a bad practice. After the pills took effect, my headache and body pain just in general went away. I stood up to get back to class and the nurse just gave me a concerned look, wondering if I would survive much longer if I had to guess. I gave her a gentle smile, the first genuine I made since I stepped on campus. I turned back around to the door and said “I’ll be fine… I hope.” I walked out of the infirmary and then back to the gym lockers to get my clothes and get back to my fourth period in time if I could manage it. But as soon as I got to my locker to grab my materials, the bell rang. I sighed and grabbed my anatomy book and notebooks to get ready for fifth period. I hadn’t looked in a mirror since I woke up, but I guess there was an absolutely massive bruise on my face. Again, not surprising considering who punched me, but it didn’t make me feel the safest when walking around my peers. When I walked out of my locker hall, I could feel all of the stares on me as they looked from my neck to my cheek. At the moment when I felt their stares, I started to have a panic attack again and quickened my pace to get to class. I got to class quicker than yesterday and immediately sat down in my seat from yesterday. There were few students in the class at this point, but there was still the teacher to worry about. I didn’t want him to keep using me as an example for human anatomy, but I couldn’t really think of anything to say or to ask him to just stop because I was still having a panic attack. For a split second though, I returned to my senses to hear footsteps walk in. It was the click clack of heels that you would often hear women wear. I looked up and saw Priscilla making her way to me. I went pale thinking back to why she could even possibly be friendly to me, leaving the only hint of red in my skin where my bruise was, and it shown out like a beacon to all the other students in class. Priscilla sat down next to me like before and said “I would ask where you were, but I see you got pummeled.” Color slowly returned to my skin, making the bruise slightly less noticeable, but it wasn’t by much. I looked at Priscilla and said “Y-... Yeah. Some rando just punched me out of nowhere when we were playing soccer for P.E.” She nodded then continued “You should really wear makeup to cover that up. Bring less attention to yourself. You can also report that student to the Dean if he wasn’t reported already. It’s a big no-no to even hurt the human exchange student.” I brightened up a little at that fact and nodded, grabbing my things out of my bag and properly preparing for class. As soon as the bell rang, the teacher wasted no time and asked a general question “Who can tell me about blood?” I sighed at the question but went along with it since it seemed like I could give the best explanation of it, but surprisingly priscilla raised her hand up first and answered the question. “Blood is not only the life-giving liquid of humans, but also of vampires. Without which, Vampires would be just as weak as humans, maybe even worse. If a vampire does not drink blood for months at a time, they will be physically weak and their muscles will atrophy since the blood acts like a fuel for us, similar to an engine in a vehicle needing fuel to run. Just like blood gives life to humans, it gives life to vampires.” She finished with a matter of fact statement and the teacher nodded and said “Exactly right Priscilla. Textbook answer. Now, can anyone tell me why, if humans need blood so much, why do they experience things like bruises?” A bunch of hands shot up before mine, but the teacher was deciding to be a dick today so he chose me. He smiled as he saw it made me uncomfortable to answer the question, but I still answered. “A bruise to be precise is not only the injured part of the body bleeding internally, but also the capillaries leaking out, causing the purple blue color. Until the injury is healed, the blood stays underneath the skin, keeping the discoloration for days at a time, and depending on the severity, weeks at a time.” The teacher smiled again and said “Another fantastic answer. Now, Simon, please tell us what it is like to have a bruise. Many of us are either too old, or have never experienced this injury.” I gave a silent sigh and stated that the pain is highly uncomfortable, especially when the bruise is on the face in any way. I continue to explain how when touched or pressed that the skin and injury are extremely tender, causing even more discomfort, and pain to the bearer of the bruise. The teacher nodded and said “Thank you very much.” He then went on to talk about the basic structure of blood and the nutrients it holds for vampires and humans. While he was teaching and facing away from the class, Priscilla leaned over and whispered in my ear “You know… the teacher isn’t a pure blooded vampire. He could’ve explained a bruise just fine in your stead.” I looked over to Priscilla but she was already back to writing down the notes the teacher was writing on the white board. I turned back to my notebook and wrote down the notes as well, not wanting to get a bad grade on any of the curriculum. The minutes passed by in the class and soon, after forty nine minutes of non stop anatomy and me being used as an example, the class ended. As I was packing up, Priscilla leaned over to me again and whispered “I can help you out even more if you can trust me.” I was extremely confused about what she was talking about and why she even said that. I turned around to talk to her but she was already leaving the classroom by the time I turned around. I sighed in exasperation and tried to follow her, but she was already gone when I exited the classroom. I groaned in frustration to myself and made my way to my sixth period class, common sense. I still hated this class and wished I had slept through it when I was knocked out earlier. While the class itself is boring, the subjects are rather interesting. Today, we learned the famous figures of the past and who knew about the vampires and who was one. This was extremely interesting to learn as a human since some of the famous figures who were vampires, you wouldn’t normally guess. They only showed the pictures of the famous figures though, never their names. It was extremely odd considering the course was supposed to teach me the common sense of vampire and human culture. The class passed by rather quickly and finished much sooner than I had thought. When it did end though, I packed up my materials and went to my locker for the last time today. While a lot more happened today than usual, it wasn’t as long considering I had been knocked out for most of the day. I found my way to my locker and when I opened it up, I found a letter inside of my locker. It was written in the most beautiful cursive I have ever seen, with my name clearly legible. I put the letter into my front pants pocket and packed my things into the locker, making my way to my dorm rather quickly. It didn’t take as long as yesterday to get there, but it still wasn’t easy. Once I made it to my dorm, I closed and locked the door, sighing in relief that I was finally alone with nothing but my bruise and the letter. I pulled the letter out and began to read it carefully. ‘Simon, Meet me in my dorm if you want answers. Not tonight. Tonight is too dangerous since the teachers will be patrolling the campus grounds for any mischievous students trying to get a taste of your blood. Come during the weekend when the other students are away. -Priscilla.’ The letter didn’t make the night pass by any easier. I could barely even sleep. The silence was unbearable and I couldn’t handle the stress of doing makeup for the first time in the morning to hide my bruise. Slowly but surely though, the time dragged on and I began to drift off to sleep, falling into the nothingness of my mind.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.