This doesn't follow the plot of the webseries exactly, and no knowledge of Carmilla is required for this to make sense.

Chapter 1

"Hello whoever is out there watching this," the pale haired teenager speaks solemnly into the camera, dark red eyes serious. "My name is Gilbert and I'm reporting from Silas University." Gilbert takes a moment to contemplate what to say next. "This may sound crazy, but something seriously wrong is going on here. I guess I should've have realised that seeing this place is in the middle of the English countryside, with no other sign of civilisation for kilometres around, and the professors here wouldn't be out of place at Hogwarts. But hey, weird staff, buildings never being where you thought they were, the library catalogue seeming to read your mind, all just part of being a new student, right?" Gilbert picks up a card off the desk in front of him. "At least that's what I thought until my roommate disappeared and I found this by his bed." He waves the card in front of the camera. "It's a 'official' withdrawal card, which is ridiculous because there's no way Mattie decided to leave in the middle of the night without any of his stuff, and also this thing is multiple choice." He begins to read the card.

"Dear student; your roommate no longer attends Silas University because:

A) He/she has lost their scholarship and decided to go home

B) He/she has decided to withdraw due to your extreme incompatibility as a roommate

-really?

C) He/she has suffered a mental breakdown that has left them unfit for student life

Exit procedures have commenced, there is no need to take action on your part."

Throwing the card back down, Gilbert looks back at the camera. "That's just ridiculous; a guy doesn't just go to a party then suddenly decide to leave," he takes a deep breath. "Look, Mattie might have liked to party too much and never cleaned the room without me telling him to, but people are acting like he never existed. No one seems to know who he is, and neither Student Services or Campus Security give a damn." He looks almost pleadingly into the camera. "So if anyone out there knows how to help, my contact information is in the info box. And if by some chance you're hungover and watching this at a random stranger's house, Mattie, text me or give me a call so I can stop freaking out over this." Gilbert's mobile phone rings and he looks across the dorm in surprise. "I hope that's Mattie! I'll keep you updated if it isn't." The video ends.

Gilbert scrambled for his phone after clicking to pause his webcam recording, grabbing it from his bed before returning to his desk, picking it up and tucking it between his ear and shoulder as he uploaded the video.

'Hello?' His voice trailed off as he realised the voice on the other end wasn't Mattie's. 'Yes, I'm Gilbert Beilschmidt, the guy with the missing roommate.'

He almost dropped his phone as the Student Service Adviser on the other end spoke again.

'What? No! I don't need a new roommate! I already have one! Who. Is . Missing. You need to get me in contact with Campus Security or the Dean of Students!"

The Adviser didn't listen, having already hung up in the middle of Gilbert's tirade.

'Fine!' Gilbert flung his phone back at his bed. 'If no one's going to help, I'll find him myself, and this will save me from having to think up a topic for my journalism assignment!'

Picking up a pen and a notepad, Gilbert was halfway out of the door before he remembered his phone and retrieved it from his bed again with a huff.

Three hours later he was back in the dorm, mulling over a pile of notes that didn't make sense. What he'd say earlier still held, it was as nobody was aware the Mattie had ever existed, everyone he'd questioned looked at him blankly before saying something along the lines of "yeah I think I remember a guy like him in one of my classes, but I don't remember seeing him last night". Even with the pages of strange anecdotes about the previous night's mixer party, from the fog released by the Alchemy Club to the Glee Club's creepy chanting, Gilbert was drawing a blank. There was absolutely nothing he could connect to Mattie's disappearance. Chewing on the end of the pen he was holding, Gilbert glared at one of the sheets of paper in front of him.

'Even Roderich couldn't remember who Mattie is, and he's our floor don! Why didn't I just go to that party with Mattie?'

At this point the door creaked and Gilbert swung around in his chair, hoping to see Mattie at the doorway. Instead, a boy with messy dark blond hair dressed entirely in black strode into the room, throwing his backpack onto Mattie's bed.

'Hey!' Gilbert exclaimed indignantly. 'Who the hell are you?'

The intruder with the decidedly punk styled clothes rolled his eyes.

'My name's Arthur,' he said, plugging his phone into the speaker dock so loud punk rock music filled the room. 'And I'm your new roommate.'

'Oh no,' Gilbert recalled the phone call he'd received and elected to ignore what it meant. 'I have a roommate.'

'Well don't you catch on quickly,' Arthur retorted with an expression somewhere between amusement and annoyance.

'What I meant was I have a pre-existing roommate, who isn't you,'

'Oh? Where is this "pre-existing roommate" then?'

'Mattie is…' Gilbert grit his teeth, knowing what he said next would sound stupid. 'Missing.'

Arthur opened the room's fridge and examined its contents, acting like the room was already his, which was getting on Gilbert's nerves.

'So you can't produce this roommate of yours,' he said with a mockingly deliberating tone while closing the fridge. 'But you want me to leave?'

At this point Gilbert decided he seriously disliked Arthur, with his superior attitude and the condescending way he said everything.

'That isn't exactly what I meant,' he squeezed his eyes shut in annoyance only to snap them open again a moment later. 'Hey! What are you doing? Those aren't yours!'

Arthur was picking through the various belongings Mattie had left on his bed.

'Oh sorry,' still speaking in the same condescending tone, Arthur lifted a jacket off the bed to take a better look. 'You may have a "missing roommate", but I have a letter from the Dean of Students stating that I live here now, and these things happen to be on my side of the room.'

Gilbert stood up from his chair, nails digging into his palms.

'This isn't your room!'

Arthur walked up to him until they were face to face, Gilbert swallowed a gulp. For someone who was half a head shorter than him, Arthur sure was intimidating. There was something about the glint of his deep green eyes that meant business.

'Fine,' Arthur hissed. 'You find this "Mattie" of yours and I'll leave, but until then I'm staying right here.'

Looking smugly at Gilbert's stunned expression, he turned around and went back over to Mattie's bed and made himself comfortable on the pillows.

'You know what?' Gilbert said as he recovered. 'I'll do exactly that. I'll find Mattie and then you'll be out of here so fast there'll be scorch marks on your clothes! If you can even see them against all that black you wear!'

Arthur scoffed but for the most part just ignored him. Fuming, Gilbert returned to the desk, angrily picking up the useless pages of information he'd gathered, reading furiously as he heard chuckling from Mattie's bed.

A few days later and Gilbert was recording another video, thankfully alone in his room. He was at a dead end with finding clues to Mattie's disappearance, and there was no way he would let Arthur know that. He wasn't giving up however; he would get his old roommate back, and besides this was doubling as his journalism assignment now.

'Hello people of the internet,' he began, looking into his webcam. 'Sorry for not updating earlier, but there still aren't any clues of Mattie's whereabouts. Not to mention he's been replaced by the roommate from hell.'

Gilbert figured he might as well vent about Arthur if there was nothing else he could do.

'Let me tell you a bit about Arthur; he's keeps wearing Mattie's clothes, which doesn't quite fit in with the "all black wearing emo punk rocker" thing he has going on so I have no idea why he does that. He never cleans the room even when I politely ask him to and really doesn't do anything except for eating my chips and stealing my ginger beer. Oh and he never gets up before noon, like seriously, does this guy not have classes to go to?'

Having revealed this much pettiness already, Gilbert decided to go a little further.

'I figured it's time for me to get some revenge,' he held a soy milk carton with "Property of Arthur" written on it up to the camera. 'Here's Arthur's super special soy milk that I'm not supposed to touch because apparently he can take whatever he likes of my stuff and I can't do the same with his. Well fat chance, he's not in the room right now, so I'm going to take his fancy soy milk and eat my cereal with it.'

Gilbert poured the carton triumphantly, not caring whether anyone would think he was childish. Then he stopped; dropping the carton and pushing his chair away from the desk.

'Holy shit! That's… That's blood! I'll update later, but right now I need to talk to the floor don!'

He ended the recording and hit "upload" before running out of the door to find Roderich.

Roderich Edelstein was not the most easy person to talk to, with the way he tried to shrug out of everything, Gilbert wondered how the bespectacled third year ever even got into his official position.

'That's blood, Roderich. Blood in the milk carton. Clearly my roommate has something creepy going on.'

Roderich hummed and adjusted his glasses.

'Well it's a little odd, but I'm sure there's some normal explanation for this,'

'Are you even listening to me?' Gilbert asked, beginning to lose patience. 'That's blood. This is some sort of death threat, or at the very least a health code violation. You would know, what with your policies on hygiene and all. Arthur has to go, right?'

'I suggest you ask your roommate for an explanation,' Roderich looked queasily at the red stained carton Gilbert was waving at his face. 'For all you know it could a protein supplement.'

'For what? Severe haemoglobin deficiency?'

'Look, I'm just saying this could possibly be solved with some communication,'

Gilbert resisted the urge to either smack himself or Roderich in the face, carefully setting down the soy milk carton and sighing.

'Clearly this is a waste of time. Maybe I should just talk to the Dean.'

'Oh no,' for the first time in their conversation, Roderich looked alarmed. 'You don't want to do that—'

'Why not?' Gilbert demanded.

'You'll draw unwanted attention to yourself and, uh, get an even worse roommate,' Roderich explained hurriedly. 'Besides, your old roommate will probably come back and then Arthur will have to move out. That's what happened with all the other students who disappeared.'

'Whoa whoa, back up a bit there. Did you just say other students that disappeared? Why didn't anyone say something?'

Roderich looked owlishly at him over his glasses.

'Well it was during prosh week,' he shrugged delicately. 'It's completely normal for people to get carried away from all the drinking.'

'Okay, never mind that very flawed logic,' Gilbert looked at Roderich incredulously. 'What happened to all these students?'

'They all disappeared for two days then returned to their dorms or showed up in class with no memory of how they got there. As I said, perfectly normal symptoms of excessive alcohol consumption.'

'You know what, I don't care about your "perfectly normal" explanations for everything. I need to talk to those students right away!'

'I don't think that's a good idea,' Roderich sighed as Gilbert glared at him. 'Look, you're obviously on a mission, but those students have been through a traumatising event and I don't think they'll want to deal with your level of intensity.'

'Why don't you ask them if they're willing to do an interview then?' Gilbert was not about to let the only lead he had slip from his hands just like that.

'We'll see about it,'

At this point Arthur trudged through the door and tossed his bag into Mattie's bed, before proceeding to scroll through his phone, not acknowledging either of the other people in the room. Roderich frowned, then smoothed out his expression into one of default hospitability.

'You must be Arthur,'

'Must I be?' Arthur spoke without looking up from his phone, he made his way over to the speaker dock, having found the song he was looking for.

An expression of pained annoyance flickered across Roderich's face before he spoke again.

'It's nice to have you on this floor,' he then turned to Gilbert. 'I'll leave you two to sort things out by yourselves.'

With that Roderich exited the room, closing the door gingerly behind him. Arthur took a glance at the closed door and set his phone down beside the speakers, before going to open the fridge. Having poured the red soaked contents of his cereal bowl into the bin, Gilbert looked across the room at Arthur.

'You're not going to find your soy milk in there,' he said archly, before looking pointedly at the milk carton on his desk.

Arthur closed the fridge door and sighed.

'It was just a prank,' he spoke as if he was addressing a small child, and Gilbert rankled at his tone.

'What kind of prank involves blood in a milk container?'

'Relax,' Arthur rolled his eyes. 'It was red food dye and corn syrup.'

Gilbert's retort was interrupted by a knock at the door, which slowly opened to reveal a dark haired young man and a petite blonde girl.

'I hope we're not interrupting anything,' the male said politely.

'You're really not,' Arthur scoffed, taking half a glance at the pair before picking up a book and throwing himself bodily onto Mattie's bed.

'Ignore my roommate, I'm fairly sure he's a sociopath,' Gilbert shot a glare at Arthur – who merely scoffed again, before returning his attention to the visitors. 'How can I help you?'

'I'm Kiku,' the dark haired student began. 'And this is Lili. The floor don said someone called Gilbert wanted to talk to us.'

'Oh that's me!' Gilbert was surprised Roderich had managed to get back to him this quickly, but excited at the prospect of continuing his investigation. 'Come in and sit down!'

He gestured them over to his bed and pulled his chair over as they sat awkwardly, setting his pen and notepad on his lap.

'So earlier this year the two of you disappeared—,'

'Stellar journalism right there,' Arthur commented, interrupting him.

'I didn't ask for your opinion,' Gilbert shot back, turning halfway around in his chair before deciding it wasn't worth the effort. He turned back towards Kiku and Lili and looked at them expectantly.

'That's right,' Lili chewed on her lip and tugged at a strand of her chin length hair. 'One moment I was at the Athletic Team's get-to-know-everyone party and the next I was waking up in my bed with seventy missed calls from my brother and my roommate telling me I'd been missing for two days.'

Gilbert jotted down some information onto his notepad then turned to Kiku.

'And the same thing happened to you?'

Kiku nodded, looking troubled with his own memory.

'I was at an informal dinner hosted by the Chess Club, and then I was sitting in my Mathematics lecture a day and a half later. I don't remember a single thing that happened in between.'

'Are you sure you don't remember anything? Anyone suspicious at the parties you went to?'

They both shook their heads.

'I can't remember anything from when I was gone,' Lili affirmed. 'I guess the fruit punch was stronger than I expected.'

'Likewise, I may have had a glass or two of wine with the dinner,' Kiku agreed. 'I don't remember anything from the time I disappeared either, but I did have some strange dreams before it happened.'

'Oh yes,' Lili's eyes widened. 'The dreams.'

'The dreams?' Gilbert looked up from his notes with a frown, though with strange incidences that happened on a daily basis at Silas, he supposed he couldn't entirely rule out the supernatural.

'The same dream over and over,' Lili looked over at Kiku to see if he agreed, then continued. 'A dark figure looming over me, or some sort of large animal prowling beside my bed.'

She shuddered, pausing in her description to fidget with her rather old fashioned dress.

'And then there was a suffocating darkness that muffled all the senses,' Kiku supplied.

From the other bed, Arthur laughed.

'That all sounds like a load of bull to me,' he turned the page of his book loudly as if to prove a point.

'Can you shut up!' Gilbert whirled around in his chair, not noticing that Lili had begun to shake.

Arthur ignored him and began to whistle, flicking another page over loudly.

'I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a paper cut doing that,' Gilbert growled before resolving to continue the interview.

'I'm sorry about that interruption— Are you alright?'

He looked at the trembling Lili in alarm as Kiku tried to comfort her.

'I can't do this anymore, I'm sorry,' Lili whispered. 'I hope none of this ever happens to you, but I need to go,'

'I think the dreams really affected her,' Kiku said quietly. 'I'll take her back to her dorm, I'm sure I can supply you with more information another time.'

Gilbert nodded and escorted them out of the room.

'I understand, thank you for your time,'

The door had barely shut when Arthur spoke up again.

'Wow, those two sure were boring,' he said dismissively with an exaggerated yawn. 'No wonder whatever's out there kidnapping students threw them right back.'

Gilbert was glad he hadn't been holding anything, because he was fairly certain he wouldn't have had the self control not to hurl it at Arthur.

'What is wrong with you?' he snapped. 'Those were actual people who'd had something terrifying happen to them, and you just decide to make fun of them? How messed up are you? Because you don't seem capable of caring about anything!'

Arthur slammed his book shut.

'Do you really think you can help them? Help your poor, missing roommate?' the mocking tone that Gilbert so detested was now laced with something more bitter sounding.

'Well, at least I'm doing something,' Gilbert retorted, crossing the room to sink back into his chair and turn away from Arthur.

'Oh, I'm sure if you keep playing at Sherlock Holmes everything is bound to work itself out,'

'As if your lounging around acting cool and disaffected is any better,' Gilbert tried to focus his attention on the notes he'd just made. 'I bet you're just miserable and alone.'

He heard mattress springs creak and steady footsteps as Arthur walked up behind him.

'Do you really think what you're doing will have any effect? Do you know anything you didn't know before Mattie vanished?'

Gilbert tried to ignore him, staring at his papers until the words blurred together, feeling angry and confronted.

'You are a child,' Arthur sneered, voice full of spite. 'And you understand nothing. Not about life. Not about this place. And you certainly don't have the brains to survive the real world. You know, you'd be a lot better off if you decided to stop playing detective.'

The words stung, especially because in some ways Arthur had been right, there were a lot of things he was yet to understand. Gilbert curled his fingers into fists, blinking away the moisture at his eyes, trying not to let his emotions show. Behind him, he heard Arthur walk away, evidently satisfied at the effect his words had had.

'Maybe you're right,' Gilbert began shakily, then continued before Arthur could say anything. 'Maybe the world doesn't work the way I expected it to, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to sit back and accept that. You can't change the world unless you decide to do something it. And I'm not going to just give up. Sure, this university is creepy as fuck, and nobody seems to care that students just go missing. But Kiku and Lili deserve better. Mattie deserves better. I deserve better. Hell, even you deserve better.

'You know what? I've been putting all my videos from my journalism project up online, someone out there is bound to be able to help me.'

There was silence for a few moments, and even as the adrenaline from his rant wore off, Gilbert regained his confidence as Arthur was seemingly at a loss for words.

'The Dean isn't going to like that,'

Gilbert blinked at the unexpected response, then composed himself.

'Are you talking about the videos? Because if the Dean doesn't like bad publicity, then he should maybe do something about the fact students are going missing.'

Before he could say anything more, the sound of an air raid siren rang throughout the campus, permeating into every room. Gilbert covered his ears, then realised it was a wasted effort as the noise kept going.

'What the hell is that?' he demanded as Arthur smirked knowingly. 'Is the campus on fire? I didn't realise we lived on the set of a war movie.'

'Oh you're in trouble now,' Arthur replied cryptically as the door burst open.

Roderich ran into the room with a mildly panicked expression on his face, his usual aristocratic aura all but abandoned.

'They've called a town hall,' he panted. 'You have to hurry, we have five minutes.'

'Just a moment, Roderich dear,' a woman with long chestnut hair brushed to the side to reveal an undercut spoke as she strode into the room. Gilbert recognised her as Erzsébet Héderváry, leader of the Summer Society and a well known figure around Silas. 'I have some business to settle first.'

'You,' Erzsébet said accusingly, pointing at Gilbert. 'What have you done?'

Notes:

For those who have watched Carmilla, most of the character's counterparts should be obvious. Prussia is Laura, England is Carmilla, Austria is Perry and Hungary is a portmanteau of the roles of Danny and LaFontaine. As for the Dean, feel free to take a guess at who he is, I'll probably reveal his identity in the next chapter.