This morning was different than yesterday though. I couldn’t put a pin on it until… I puked my guts out. I hadn’t been noticing it lately, but my bruise from earlier last week wasn’t going away, and I wasn’t sure why. Now that I experienced this feeling, I remember that I have had this before. It was well before I even thought about going to this school, let alone if I wanted to pursue junior education. I was around seven or eight at the time when I first experienced this. I was being picked on in my youth for being… different. Even back then I was trying to be unnoticed, but I just couldn’t stop striving for excellence. No matter what I wanted to do, my brain wouldn’t let me be normal. The other kids felt that was a threat to them for some reason. I’m still not sure why they decided to pick on me. It could’ve been a multitude of issues they were having, but that didn’t matter to me as much as it should’ve. After a while of being picked on, I noticed that my bruising wasn’t going away. The swelling was gone after a couple of hours, but the blood lingered just below the surface of my skin. This was fascinating to me because it’s what ultimately got me interested in biology. There were very little things I could learn about at the time, but as I got older, I found that even modern day humans had very limited knowledge about situations like what I was experiencing. Something that humans did know about that would’ve been hard to forget is something called cancer. While I didn’t think I had that at the time, with throwing up and the lingering bruise, I couldn’t hide my… excitement. I was never allowed to view the treatments for other patients that had the same condition, but they typically threw up after the treatments were over. I always thought it was because they were getting better. I had no idea what they were going through in order to get better. The treatments felt so barbaric once I had heard of it, but I couldn’t say anything about it because they wanted to do anything to get rid of this sickness. For me, I wanted to know more. Wanted to know how this affected the rest of my body. I wondered what treatments the vampires had to get rid of this. I wondered if the only treatment that the vampires could offer was to turn me into one of them. If that turned out to be the only treatment, then I would say no and try to find a more, much better cure, if it could only be that simple. I was still just a student and had very little knowledge to go on. I’m still not certain I even have cancer. I was definitely getting ahead of myself, but this just felt fascinating. Before long, I realized that I was taking too long to get ready. No matter what I had, I knew that I was sick. The dean somehow knew I wasn’t at school. It was already lunch time after all. He gave a solid rap against the door, waiting for me to answer. Thankfully, the door was almost fully glass. I made my way out of the bathroom and sat in front of the door, looking like a ghost according to the dean. I gave a thumbs up for him to come in and he didn’t wait. This situation wasn’t ideal, but what could I do? Will myself better? I saw the dean come in and check my pulse. Normally, I would be terrified, but I couldn’t stop smiling. My imagination was running rampant with what I could have, even naming a disease after myself just in case it was something previously unknown to our modern day. The dean didn’t look too panicked after knowing I was alive for sure, and still human, but he also didn’t look very happy. He rubbed his eyes softly and said “Do you feel strong enough to walk Simon?” I shook my head and before I knew it, we were running towards the school, my body going limp and my brain slowing time down. I wasn’t sure as to why this was happening, but I knew of a certain system in my body that made it appear time was slowing down. The name escaped my mind at the time, but I was later informed that I had an unusual amount of adrenaline in my system. The closer to the nurse’s office we got, the more I knew eyes were on me. Afterall, the local vampires had just lost their potentially private blood bag. With me being sick with whatever I had, no one would dare come close and even try to drink my blood, not wanting to catch whatever ailment I had procured. If it was something fatal to them, I bet the flavor would be worse than the actual side effects. While it shouldn’t be surprising, I couldn’t help but think that they were just being scared for no reason since they were essentially walking corpses. The only thing they would have to care about with a sick person’s blood would be the taste. Maybe they were right to avoid me since they had no idea if it was a normal sickness, or a plague. The dean didn’t seem too concerned with my well-being as he left me in the nurse's office to go back to work. The nurse however, looked ready to go into any sort of problem. She was dressed in an unfamiliar outfit that made it hard to gauge her reactions to whatever I was saying, or looked like. It was probably a good thing to not see her disgust, even though I could feel it. The nurse gave me something that put me to sleep really quickly. This was the best sleep I would ever have in a long time too, so it was a blessing to me as my dream danced through my mind. While it seemed like a continuation from last night’s dream, it was just a rehash essentially. I went through the same motions as before, going from a war torn London, all the way back to the vampire lord getting killed. Before the dream had faded to black, and assumedly I would wake up, the killer of the vampire lord had their face much more visible this time. The face was still unreadable, but I could see much more defining features, such as long flowing black hair, piercing eyes, the color of which I couldn’t make out underneath the shadow of her hood, and a well proportioned face. The main features were unknown to me, but I couldn’t help but feel a familiar presence inside this dream. Before I could see more of the new vampire lord’s face, the dream ended, and I woke up to some prodding from my friends. Priscilla was in the back of the group just messing with some doctor’s equipment. The prodding continued as I opened my eyes. Feeling annoyed I groaned and swatted the hand away from my body. I opened my eyes and breathed deeply, sitting up slowly to look at the group of misfits. I rubbed the back of my neck and stretched my body. Looking at the group, everyone seemed to be changing their hair colors, or the group was ever changing. It was hard to tell right now. The only one I knew of for sure was Priscilla, but she looked dejected, like she was mortally wounded by something. Even while I am writing this, it’s extremely difficult to tell why she was so separated from reality. It could’ve been because of me being sick and not being in class, but I couldn’t understand her mind. The group was quick to dissipate with some of the vampires sighing in fake sadness that I didn’t die and come back as a vampire. I wasn’t quite sure why until one of the last students to leave had mentioned “Part of the turning process is getting unprecedentedly sick. Puking out your human side so to speak. You were doing fine the time we were here, and the nurse even said that you didn’t throw up while you slept.” The rest of the students left, Priscilla as well. Not sure of what to do or what time it was, I got off of the bed I was laid on, trying to walk out to my dorm. The nurse came back and pushed me back down saying “You’re not magically better Simon. You’re not even fully healed of your bruise from not that long ago. I see that it also hasn’t lost any of its intensity compared to when you first got it, it should have shrunk at least, but it’s the exact same as before, which is worrying, but not as much as you seemingly trying to die.” The nurse shook her head and left me alone. To rest as she put it. Tonight, the nurse’s office would be my bedroom, but I didn’t feel comfortable in this. My clothes needed to be washed, I needed food, I needed to be washed. I had a routine to everything, but now that has been royally thrown off balance by… me. Rubbing my face, I called out to the nurse and asked about food or refreshing myself. She sighed and went to get me food first, but didn’t mention any other accommodations I could use. I felt like a prisoner in my own body rather than in the school. Whatever I felt like tomorrow, I would definitely get to my dorm. Even if I have to run for it. The nurse returned with what my lunch was supposed to be today, and I hadn’t noticed how she looked before. As she handed me the tray of food, I looked at her arm and hands, seeing that she was either malnutritioned, or she was being fed upon. I didn’t think much of it to be honest since… she had less rights than I did. This was a vampire school after all. The only luxuries I had in comparison was hot food, free clothes, and a higher education. And being able to choose who drinks my blood. That was always a big difference between me and the other humans. But that wouldn’t last long the way things were looking. The nurse at least looked healthier than the cooks who prepared our meals everyday. She was also much older than me. Having greying, almost white hair. I was still unsure of how old I was, but I couldn’t be that much younger than her. If I was, just how young was I in comparison? Even my music teacher looked younger than her. How long had this nurse been here? Before I could ask, and after the food was delivered, the nurse left, most likely to get rest herself. Shaking my head, I decided to let things rest, but not rest myself yet as my stomach was rumbling and begging for some nourishment. The food was delicious as always. While I could’ve had more if available, I decided sleep was a better alternative than catching the nurse’s ire. I wasn’t sure what my dream, if I would even have one, would be about. I’d hope for more information about who’s memories these were. I also wanted to know if the memories were of the same person, the vampire lord that gets killed at the end. If it is his memories, then how old was he before he died? He had to have been at least a couple thousand years old considering the war that engulfed the war in the 1940s and his death in the late 3800s were so distant to each other. Was he a forgotten vampire emperor? One whose reign was so short that they cut him from history. Who was his murderer? How long did they reign for before being dethroned? I at least had a general Idea of when the vampire lord died, so I could consult the history books later in my class. Maybe even ask my history teacher or common sense teacher who any candidates around that time this lord could be. But that would wait til some other day. My mind slowly turned off, making the faculties of my brain wind down and go into healing mode. My eyes fell closed, and a dreamless night would greet me before the moon or the morning sun could.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.