The headache I had when I woke up the next day was otherworldly. I have no clue why I even passed out to begin with, or had that adrenaline rush over a panic attack, but that was a welcome change if it meant I wouldn’t be mortified of someone trying to drink my blood. The more I get used to this school, the more it seems like I’m just… On a “rollercoaster” or whatever that thing is. With today being a new day for the school week, I brushed myself off and got a shower, food, and clothing. Checking my cheek for the bruise that was, unfortunately, still present. I have been through so much that I forgot what had happened to the makeup on my face. I could still see some but it was a negligible amount. After getting dressed, I decided to reapply my makeup, not doing much better than last time. I can only hope this doesn’t become a recurrence throughout this school year. After my morning was situated and my backpack filled with notebooks and this journal, I headed out of my dorm to find it still pitch black outside. I wandered around my dorm, just on the edge of the forest, looking for something. I looked back to where my dorm should’ve been but… it was gone. Replaced with the bat monster that had the curly ginger hair. It snarled at me, but I didn’t back up or move forward. My fight or flight senses were gone. I wasn’t breathing. Thinking back to the mirror, the makeup was barely covering my bruise. I hadn’t noticed, but my skin tone had gone down a few shades. And my heart. I couldn’t hear my heart. I could feel it, but it wasn’t moving. Behind the bat, students emerged from the forest, each wearing the school uniform, drenched in blood. MY blood. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. Then I saw the teachers. The non-human teachers. I saw Rebecca. Her head still ripped clean off, but she was now holding it. Then I saw the dean behind her. His fangs bared. Then I saw Priscilla. But she didn’t look normal. She looked like the bat face I had seen only a few times now. She looked… like a monster. Before I could even think of what to do next, they started chanting in a language I had never heard of or spoken before… But it sounded familiar. Why did it sound familiar? When I looked down at the ground there was blood underneath my feet. I had been standing in a puddle of blood for who knows how long. And behind me, were my human friends. Dead. Their hearts ripped clean out of their chests. It was only 2 of my friends, but they were my closest ones. Derek, and Samuel. I fell to my knees and went to cover my eyes, but felt their still beating hearts thump in my hands. Before I could scream, drop the hearts, or realize what I had done, I woke up. On the floor, covered in dust. A raging headache still making my head pound. Whatever was happening to me at this school, I needed to figure it out, or else I may really end up dying. I turned myself onto my back and rubbed my head. After the headache calmed down, I grabbed this journal and wrote down what I saw. I quickly ran into the bathroom after writing and inspected myself, my bruise still there, with no makeup, and normal human skin. I put my hand to my chest and felt my heart thumping normally, or as normally as it could be with such a terrible nightmare still fresh in my mind. I set the journal down and found a place to sit and ground myself. I must’ve slept for a longer time than I would’ve imagined, but when I checked my watch, it wasn’t even 6:00 am. I silently groaned as I could’ve slept for another 30 minutes, but decided to just think about my dream and why I even had one like that. Especially with my human friends in it. I pondered for a long time in my shower, but found nothing to explain why that nightmare had even occurred. The only reason I could think of is because of the bat monster. Just because I found out who it was doesn’t mean their torture will end. All I have is a face. I don’t know who could help me with this, or if it was even possible to stop the fake ginger. Getting out of the shower, I looked into the mirror once again, leaning against the bathroom counter, I stared into my eyes and tried to see into them, see into me. Who was I? Was the dean telling the truth about my heritage? Why couldn’t this school be even remotely close toa normal human school? The last one is easy, it’s because vampires roam the same hallways I do when going to classes, it’s because they are stronger, faster, smarter, just… better in every single way. It’s because I… am mortified of who I would become if I joined them. Evidently, one of my so-called “Friends” had attacked me, but I don’t remember what happened at all. All I can remember of the event is absolutely nothing. I don’t remember why he attacked, I don’t remember where he attacked me at, I don’t even remember what I felt before, during, and after the attack. Who could tell me what happened? Maybe the dean? He’s unreliable. My friend group? I can’t trust their information, so they’re unreliable as well. Cameras? Maybe, but I need to figure out where I was attacked first. Maybe the nurse has some information to tell me about what happened. Why can’t I remember the attack but I can instantly remember a dream I had 30 minutes ago now? There is a factor of time of course, but one should be much easier to recall than the other. Shelving this train of thought for the moment, I got out of the bathroom and got dressed, making food, cleaning up my dirty dishes, and putting on makeup. All of this took up too much time and I was gonna be late for my first period. It was now 7:01 am, and I was sprinting out of my dorm, slamming the door closed, and just booking it to P.E. class. I was going to be winded in the class anyways, depending on what they were doing, but it’s good that I got some more workout in before class started. When I had arrived at the locker room, I was the only one there to get changed. Mainly because everyone else was already on the field, or getting to the field. I swiftly changed into my P.E. attire and sprinted out of the locker room, right before the coach had exited his office. Seeing him walking closer made me think of the dream again, but I shoved it away, out of my train of thought as he got closer. After he finished his morning class roll call, he told everyone to line up like the first day of class, telling everyone, “Now that the first week is over, I hope you are ready to go through hell! The first week is always warm up! For any class! But most especially for this class! Today, I want you to find a workout buddy and make your way into the weight lifting gym! Doesn’t matter who it is, just find someone who you know will push you to your limits! You got 2 minutes!” With that, everyone broke the line and found their partners. I was still searching, but saw a new face to the class. It was someone I did not want anything to do with right now. Fake ginger had joined our class, and he didn’t have a partner. He groaned when he saw I was in the same boat as him and begrudgingly walked over and held his hand out for a hand shake. I didn’t do anything other than shake it since I didn’t want Coach to be our partner. I stood next to him and he said “Don’t be a dud humie. You’re already dead weight.” I looked up at him and said “Might want to keep your hair in order. Don’t want it to spontaneously change color.” he huffed and asked “That's the best you can do?” I Shook my head and said “Nah. Just think you should get a thesaurus. It's kind of hilarious watching you try to fit your entire vocabulary into one sentence.” He turned to face me, his face pale, but angry. If he had blood for breakfast, it wasn’t showing. Wanting to poke the beast a little more, I turned to him, my heart thumping louder than ever, “If you're going to be two-faced, at least make one of them pretty.” He nearly punched me into next week, but Coach had other plans. Fake ginger straightened up, still fuming, but got his act together. Coach looked at him and asked “Is your drama going to have an intermission soon?” He looked down at his clipboard and then to me saying “Alright, Simon and Jason. Partners for the rest of the quarter.” Jason flipped out and asked “WITH THIS HUMIE!?!? No way. I want someone else!” Coach stopped and said “IF you wanted someone else, then you should’ve been lighter on your feet. Besides, you 2 are a good match for each other. Since you don’t give a care in the world for this class, Simon’s scores are better than yours. His pull ups are better since you tapped out at only 30, Simon got an 85. Your mile time was slower. You got 5 minutes, Simon did it in just under 4. His soccer team scored more points than yours too, he even scored against his peers when you didn’t do anything. So you have a lot of catching up to do, Jason. Now go!” Jason groaned loudly but started jogging to the weight lifting room. It was so weird to have both boys and girls working out together, but it makes more sense with vampires than humans. Everyone else had picked the workouts that were fun. That was nearly every other machine, except one set. The abductor machines. Or at least that’s what the coach calls them. Jason and I sighed and walked over to the machines, sitting down and seeing how it moved. It works your hips instead of your legs. It sucked. This machine seemed like it wasn’t going to do anything to help Jason at all. For me, it was difficult to work, but it was ok. No idea why we would want to work out our hips over our legs, but we did it anyway, getting the chance to use other leg machines since this was our leg day, even though it was forced onto us. This continued for another hour that felt like it would never end. But when it did, everyone was rubbing their bodies all over, giving a self massage to relieve any pain or tension. Something else I learned in biology is that even though vampires don’t technically get muscle fatigue or cramps, their bodies still react the same way to pain as humans. Not much happened during our workout session. The only thing that would be worth mentioning is what happened at the start of the class with Jason being a new face. And an ass. But with class over, hopefully Jason doesn’t have any other classes with me. I can barely handle him during this one. Walking back to the locker room before everyone else gave me a head start. When I was leaving, I got the same stares from the girls as the second day when I couldn’t change before them. Why were they so fixated on me? There’s the obvious of me being a human. But that should be somewhat normal right now. It’ll never be normal for me, but this is my first year here. They have to be in their second or third years. There had to have been another human before me. Right? Learning about Priscilla being a former human is bad enough, but why are they just… Let’s not dwell on it. Math class was a bit more challenging than the first week, mainly because I had actual work to do during class. Nothing really happened during the class and the teacher was unremarkable to say the least. The only thing going for him would be that he has a personality when compared to the common sense teacher. But soon the bell rang, ending my second period. History class is next and I am genuinely excited to learn more about my ancestors and the history they wrote. After I got my backpack from my locker and exited the hallway, I saw Jason in front of the doors, waiting for me. I opened the door and asked “Stop being a door. Just walked through one set, don’t need another.” He groaned and didn’t say anything, just stepping to the side, eyeing me as I walked passed. Just ignoring him seemed to have worked for me so I didn’t pay him any more attention than he needed. Walking into history was rather interesting because there was the distinct smell of old books. It was an unexpectedly pleasant smell, until I saw that everyone had the same book. I took my usual seat and inspected the book, the title reading NineteenEightyFour. George Orwell. A prolific and influential author for humans now long past. A dystopian future that seems the norm now. A government entity calling itself Big Brother. Other than that, there’s not much else to talk about. I haven’t read it personally but wonder if we will read it together today. The class itself wasn’t anything special today. I was correct that we were reading this book, but it wasn’t for the reasons I thought. This class was more about the comparisons between this fictional government, the human’s old government, and the current government. Find similarities, differences, and write which government has been the most influential. The teacher did specify that for the human government comparisons, it should be focused around the democratic system since humanity never conformed to just one ideology for how to govern their people. The democratic system being the most recent and popular being the logical choice, according to our teacher. I hadn’t paid much attention to him but he is a rather interesting teacher. He has salt and pepper hair, more darker color than white, a missing eye and a large scratch over the same eye socket. His one good eye has the eye color red. His sclera being the normal shade of white. His skin was pale, but the scar was much more pale. The teacher made for a much more interesting subject in history over this book. I’m not the best with names, but I think his name was something like Mr. Hunt. A simple name for such a complex looking individual. Before we could read more of the book in class, the bell had rang. We all packed up our school supplies that we were asked to use to make comparisons, namely just a pencil and paper, and the books. Mr. Hunt encouraged us to read the book on our own and to draw our own conclusions for if the author was spot on for his predictions, or how far off the mark he had gotten. I started to walk out of the classroom, looking for anyone I could recognise. No one was in my immediate vicinity, but I did see the purple haired girl from yesterday. I tried to make my way over to her and thank her for standing up for me, but she was gone before I could even say a word. Lunch had to be my favorite time of day, mainly because I could try and socialize with people I hope were genuine, but also because of the food they serve. Today was a simple egg fried rice. I got the normal amount of food I would get for myself, but today for a drink, I would get something called soda. I’d never heard of it before, mainly because it sounds like something that is a pain to deal with. But we never had the chance to drink it in human society because of the amount of sugar that was used to make it. There were other options for soda’s, like zero sugar options, but even then, the manufacturing process for the zero sugar soda wasn’t worth the outcome. At least to the vampires. They just didn’t want to waste the resources in order to accommodate the humans that wanted it. Having my first drink of soda hurt. Whatever they used to make the fizz in the drink was extremely uncomfortable. I continued to drink it nevertheless because the flavor was addicting. I sat down at the usual table and found the group of friends there already. Priscilla not being there today. I was confused by this but decided not to ask since I didn’t need to see her all the time. The purple haired girl joined us however and she smiled at me. She wasn’t with the group before so she must’ve been inducted into the group during the weekend or is a new student. After I had set my meal down, I looked at her hair and her piercings in her ear, specifically her right ear since part of her hair was covering the other side. I gave her a polite smile back and asked “So, haven’t seen you before. Mind if I ask for your name?” She shrugged and said “I don’t mind. The name’s Angelica. Pleasure to make your formal acquaintance Simon." She went back to her food and the guys of the group started acting like school children, picking on the both of us, but especially me since they thought I had a thing for Priscilla. They weren’t technically wrong, but I have no idea what they were meaning by “thing.” I half heartedly laughed along with them and ate my food, just wanting to eat. The new leader looked at everyone and then to me and asked “So, how do you like the school, Mr. Popular?” I looked up to him and was confused by the popular comment. I swallowed what I had and asked “What do you mean popular?” He waited for the punchline and said “Seriously? The only human in a vampire school, and you don’t realise you’re the talk of the student body?” I shrugged my shoulders and said “Other than the obvious, I don’t see anything wrong with me attending here. Have there been students, other than Jason, who hate my guts just for me being here?” Everyone nodded emphatically and Angelica said “Well yeah. To them, you aren’t one of us and should be gone, sent back to the cattle farms.” She had some more of her drink and said “We don’t care because humans reigned over the earth for a long time, way longer than we’ve owned the earth. And yet you’re treated like garbage. We don’t agree with the laws or rules that encourage the discrimination. Main reason Jason was a part of the group was to terrorize you like he did on Saturday night. Maybe to get your blood too.” She drank some more like she hadn’t just dropped that bombshell. I just sat there confused and asked “So… Do any of you hold the same reservations or are here for the same thing?” All of them shook their heads no. Someone at the other end of the table said “I’d joined with Jason for the same reasons, but decided against it after a couple days of hanging out. If you don’t hold a grudge against us, why should we give you a reason too?” I took a moment and nodded in agreement to the sound logic, taken aback by how mature these students were acting. It was still disconcerting since they all could be lying, but for right now, I didn’t care. I was just to have some friends. After having some more food, I looked back up to the group and asked “Were any of you around when the… the other guy attacked me? The original leader I suppose." It took a couple seconds for people to actually respond, but no one spoke up. I looked around at everyone and asked “How many of you saw it?” The new leader shook his head and said “Don’t worry about what happened. It’s probably a bad memory for you.” I leaned back a little and scoffed. I rubbed my eyes and said “I’m asking because I can’t remember what happened. I keep a journal, but I didn’t write anything down for that.” Everyone stayed quiet and didn’t say anything after that. Why were they hiding this from me? DID I get turned and go crazy or something? Or did the dean force them to stay silent? Why was everyone here so secretive with me about stuff I was a part of? Before I could ask anymore questions, Angelica piped up and said “Oh come on, now I need to know what happened. Brayden, tell us.” Brayden was the new leader. I guess I didn’t have to ask for his name… this time. Brayden just rubbed his eyes in response and said “Fine. But not today. Or at least, not during lunch. Find me after your sixth period Simon and Angelica, then I’ll say.” Before we could whine about him being stingy with the information, the bell rang. I groaned as I didn’t eat all of my food and was still hungry. Taking maybe another minute wouldn’t hurt, so I finished the food and made my way to my fourth period class. Music. Ms. Tylin looked very lovely today and I couldn’t immediately tell why. She was wearing the normal type of clothes she always would, the normal smell of perfume filled the air, her jewelry was… different. Instead of wearing a bright gem necklace with matching earrings, she wore pearls. I’m not sure why it stuck out to me, but it felt off. Like she wasn’t completely normal today for some reason. I walked to my normal section, percussion, pulling my sheet music out and reading it over to get refamiliarized with it. After every student found their seats, instruments, and music, Ms. Tylin started. She was extra harsh today. Again, seemingly out of nowhere. Did she have a good or a bad weekend? Or was it just because it was the start of a new week? Not wanting to continue this train of thought, I set those questions aside and played as best as I could, occasionally getting some measures wrong, but not getting chewed out for it. Whatsoever. Whatever was going on was not only noticed by me, but a couple of other students. No one was able to ask about what was going on because we were just bombarded with playing the music with barely any rest. Before long, class ended and we all tried to ask some questions, but were ignored, told to leave for our fifth period class. Not able to get any answers, we all left, everyone confused about what was going on. I didn’t have much to do between music and biology, but with how music ended, I was wanting something interesting to take over my mind. Unfortunately, I forgot that my previous teacher was fired and replaced by Mr. Arronov. Why was everything in this school changing so that it confused me? Mr. Schreiner was honestly captivating with his knowledge of both human and vampire anatomy and biology. He was the perfect teacher for this subject, yet he was fired and replaced by someone that was, as far as I could tell, completely insane. Walking to my biology class was more of a chore than before, but for different reasons. Mainly because of Mr. Arronov. But I arrived nevertheless and took my usual seat. Priscilla wasn’t here either though, and that made me worry about her even more. But like music, I wasn’t given much time to think about that because Mr. Arronov walked in and everyone became silent. He snickered at our obedience to the rules and said “Morning class. How were your weekends? Eventful I hope, especially for one of you.” He sneered in my direction and just continued on like nothing happened. He started writing on something behind him, drawing the human body proportions, twice. They were identical. Once both were finished being drawn, he turned back to us and said “Now, Mr. Schreiner before he left should’ve told you about how humans and vampires are virtually identical, but what he failed to mention is that while humans have a lot more cons than the vampires by comparison, the cons that humans have are a lot less harsh than a vampire’s cons. Firstly, humans can contract a multitude of diseases throughout their lives, but can still recover and go back to their daily lives like nothing had happened. Sometimes at least. Vampires however, don’t get sick. There are rare cases, such as a half human half vampire being born, and if a vampire drinks bad blood, but other than that, nothing else can infect a vampire. The only disease that we get naturally is a sickness of too much Vitamin D. It can be fatal in large doses, but if you’re a pure blood, even tiny doses can be fatal. But humans only get a sunburn if they absorb too much. Genetics are very intriguing to me personally because, what can humans survive that vampires cannot? Something I’m sure most of you expected me to talk about would be the sun, but something else that humans can survive that vampires can’t are broken bones. A human’s body heals at a very slow rate, especially when compared to a vampire. But it’s because of this that humans survive it. Just because you heal quickly doesn’t mean everything goes back to normal. If a vampire breaks one of their legs or arms,” He put a slash through an arm and a leg of one of the drawings and continued “they would most likely die from blood loss because their body healed around the broken bone. The sharp and jagged edges would cut up too much skin, using most if not all of a vampire's natural surplus blood supply, forcing their body to break down. There are always cases of vampires surviving such wounds, but it is still rare. Mostly because someone has to give fresh blood so the vampire can keep healing, but even then, the pain doesn’t end. Even in cases where someone was helping throughout the night, the vampire with a broken bone still has a high chance of dying. Humans can still experience a tremendous amount of pain, but because they take so long to heal their wounds, They have a much higher likelihood of surviving a broken bone. Something else a human can survive that a vampire can’t are the loss of a major organ or several. It is still deadly for humans, but for vampires, it doesn’t matter what we do, they have a 100% chance of dying. Even if they are a half and half, they die. And it’s for the same reason as a broken bone. The faster healing is both a massive blessing, but a fatal curse if given the right circumstances.” Mr. Arronov was very engaging with his examples, even if what he is saying is morbid. He did get lost in his talking a few times but always found a way to tie it back into his lesson. About ten minutes before class ended, he handed out homework for us to do. It was basic questions that basically reiterated talking points that he had mentioned today. He was a lot more informed than I had given him credit for. But soon the class ended, ringing for the last time today. For me at least. I packed up my materials and assignment, heading out for common sense. Nothing really happened during my walk. The only thing I can say happened was I was getting less stares. I was a presence people were getting used to. And I was getting used to them. While I was still being paranoid about everything, I was getting comfortable with my life here. It was annoying me how quickly I was adapting to this school. Sixth period was more boring than usual. No interesting subjects to talk about, no people to talk to, and the teacher was even more monotone. I have no idea how it was possible, but even with the subject of human civilizations throughout history, I just wasn’t interested. Even when the class ended, the teacher didn’t hand out any assignments for us to do. Class was over, but it didn’t come early enough. Everyone left in a hurry, me especially since I still wanted to talk to Brayden about what happened. I walked around the school for a little while until I found him at our lunch table. Apparently, young vampires need another lunch during the day to help deal with the sun. Our usual group was sitting like normal, but weren’t talking at all. Not used to their solemn nature, I walked up to them and said “Hey guys.” Wanting to be the social one for a change. They all looked up at me and were not exactly surprised by my appearance, just shocked I spoke to them first. After a few seconds of shocked silence they all just laughed at each other. Angelica patting the seat next to her for me to sit. I took it and looked at them, scanning their faces since they had to remember why I was here. Brayden smiled as he looked over at everyone, eventually landing on me and said “Should we get started? Cause there’s a lot to talk about.” I nodded along with angelica, waiting for Brayden to explain what happened. Brayden sighed and started, “So, Jake was acting weird the whole day. He and I shared a number of classes, mainly our first three before lunch, but throughout the day until lunch, he was just acting so… weird. He was growling at everyone that tried to talk to him, except for the teachers fortunately. But when lunch came around, and he saw you Simon, he went… Feral. He was a rabid vampire and clawed his way to you through the crowd. I’m sure you’ve noticed Mr. Arronov around or have his class, but he was the one to stop Jake before he got to you. It was a little late though because Jake had gotten some of his mouth around your neck. You screamed in pain obviously, but… When Arronov arrived, Jake was already off of your neck. You were passed out already, so we all thought you were dead. But when Arronov picked you up, you groaned, so we thought you were unceremoniously turned. Then everything was normal the next day. Which never should’ve happened because… you were supposed to be turned or dead Simon. Not be completely fine. Whatever happened, I’m not too sure since no details were shared but… As you are right now Simon, you shouldn’t be like this.” The information hit me like an old time freight train, forcing the memories to come back to me. Jake lunged towards me through the crowd, but he didn’t pierce my skin. He had been knocked out before he did anything. The only pain I remember was pain in my head, specifically my forehead. Whatever I did not only incapacitated Jake, but also knocked me out. Considering the pain, I think I head butted him. Before I could speak up, Mr. Arronov appeared and pulled Brayden away. They spoke in hushed tones, so quiet I couldn’t hear them. But seeing Brayden’s reaction, he probably got chewed out by Mr. Arronov. For what reason? I couldn’t say. When he finished berating Brayden, Mr. Arronov turned to me and said “This is why you need to leave school as soon as your last class ends Simon. I’m not berating Brayden because he told you, you have a right to know, I was doing that because he was being incredibly inconsiderate in my class today. I didn’t want you to see that, so why don’t you go on and get some rest or process what clearly was a revelation to you.” He left and I stood up, needing some air. I said some quiet goodbyes and made my way to my dorm room on auto pilot. After the door closed, I did my usual routine of sitting on the ground. I held my head in my hands and tried to process the events that came back to me and tried to figure out just who Mr. Arronov was and why he seemed to be so bipolar in his attitudes. I groaned loudly and stood up, walking to the kitchen to get some food. Should’ve ate while listening to Brayden. Made some sandwiches and laid back in my bed, trying to figure out what I should do with what happened. Should I ask what Mr. Arronov did with me after picking me up? What happened to Jake? If he went feral, did he die or sent to rehab or something? Why was I only getting situations that made me ask more questions rather than give me some answers. I set aside my plate of sandwiches and looked underneath the plate. The book I found during the weekend lay underneath my food. The story of Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. Why was this book set behind me? Why was it this book specifically? Was someone leaving me a message about something? What was the message supposed to be? I finished off my food and picked up the book, opening to the first chapter, reading the book for the next several hours to try and find something to relate to anything. A person, place, the supposed message or even who the messenger could be. All I found was an intriguing tale of a man and a sperm whale. Before long, I set the book aside and went to bed, head still reeling from resurfaced events, people acting differently than what I had previously witnessed, and questions from throughout the day. Before I drifted off to sleep, my last question of the day was ‘What happened to Priscilla?’

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