Chapter 2, Dracul Academy

OHHHHH Finally it's done! I can't say how much I've been wanting to continue this but life gave me a few too many obstacles! At last it is here. As always, R&R and enjoy

A vampire.
Had Thomas heard that right? His body felt paralyzed after the girl before him had supposedly drank from him like a fountain. His palm clasped around where her mouth had been and he immediately felt tiny bumps. His fingers ran over them feverishly, his eyes wide glancing wildly back and forth from his hand to her. She didn't appear overly surprised by his reaction. In fact, the expression on her face was one of guilt.

"Thomas I'm…a vampire."
Confusion. Disbelief, fear, bewilderment. Thomas felt himself cycling through these emotions faster than twister. His vision clouded up, becoming blurry, his eyes now fixated on Carol. He felt himself give out as he fell forward, not unconscious, but heavy as lead. Carol rushed forward and caught his upper frame as it slumped against her torso.

"Thomas?" She asked quickly, panicked. "Thomas, are you ok? I'm so sorry please wake up please!" She shook him repeatedly, careful to withhold her strength. When he didn't respond she breathed in sharply, her mind in a tizzy.
"He's not dead, think Carol…think!" She muttered in frustration. With little options she reeled her jaw open and nipped at his ear with the tip of her fangs. Thomas jolted awake from his anemic daze falling out of Carol's hold and onto his butt, staring at her with newfound horror.
"Thomas?" Carol questioned softly so as not to frighten him further. "Are you…are you ok? I, I'm sorry for…drinking so suddenly I…I missed breakfast so I…" Explanations spilled from Carol in a jumbled mess. But at the same time Carol had to wonder…when she'd bitten him she felt something…strange.
His blood was…different. Unlike any time she'd taken blood from another monster, his somehow tasted, off.
Somehow, it tasted, human

"Did you…" Carol heard Thomas's voice snap her from her thoughts. She turned to him. He stood slowly, knees shaking ever slightly. "Did you just…drink my blood? For real? That actually just happened?" His tone was growing almost angry and Carol dished out the best answer she had at the moment.

"Y-yes I did…" She confessed, licking a small drop from her bottom lip sheepishly. "I'm sorry I, really are you ok?"

"Yeah ok, I'm fine." Thomas answered still dizzy. "Why…do I feel tired though?"

"Side effect…" Carol muttered stepping closer to him to which he took a few centimeters back. Carol cringed at his reaction. "Please don't be afraid I…I don't do that to everyone all the time I swear! This time I just, well, I was just so hungry…" She picked up the things she had dropped, her eyes avoiding his. As soon as she had collected herself she stood in front of him a bit awkwardly.
"So um, do you, want to walk with me?" Thomas stopped.

"What?"

"To the Academy" she replied. "Aren't you going there?" Hesitantly Thomas nodded despite the feeling in his gut that told him to say no. As they both started to walk side by side, Thomas went over the events in his mind.
He'd been dropped off by a driver who seemed to know more than he should. He'd met Carol, a girl who by his standards was physically perfect in all aspects but also a vampire. He still hadn't got past that. A vampire, as in the creatures he'd read about in legends and heard about in books and movies? The walk to the Academy was longer than he had expected so this gave him plenty of time to assault Carol with questions. Most of them being the fifteenth or twentieth repeat of one previous. Carol herself was no less plagued with a slight confusion. Something about Thomas was throwing her off and she wasn't sure what. While she was positive he wasn't human, his blood begged to differ.
The sensation it gave her was primal, an urge that she only felt when she experienced true satisfaction from a meal. And true satisfaction was hard to come by unless she was willing to make a dangerous journey to a side of the world where her kind was highly unwelcomed.
"Great, we're here!" Carol's cheerful voice shook Thomas from his mind as he looked up at the Academy.
In his mind, it may as well have been Dracula's Castle. The place was monumental, just the front entrance alone was grand. It was a large Courtyard surrounded by at least a 20 foot stone wall. Atop the highest point Thomas could make out a bell tower with an enormous clock situated above it. Despite the Academy's somewhat gothic architecture it had plots of rather pleasant greenery planted all around. Thomas noticed others walking towards the front; Students of all different skin colors, heights, styles.
'We're they all like Carol?' He wondered as they melted into the growing crowd of students. His eyes scanned over as many people as he could. It was almost instinctual though he wasn't sure why. Though he made a guess it had something to do with the first student he had met did sink her teeth into his jugular without so much as a warning. Thomas was surprised at himself for taking that experience so calmly. He wasn't use to strange things happening, coincidences maybe. Perhaps it was his interest in myths. Unlike most High school students he spent most of his time with his nose stuck in a book. And he never dropped one until he'd finished it. This gave way to him learning quite a lot. Well, about myths anyways. And the more he read it almost became a separate reality to him. Anytime in English he was ever forced to read a realistic story it took his entire being just to complete a chapter. Thomas often questioned why he would never read something grounded in reality. His mom told him it was because he inherited his father's daydreaming habit. But Thomas rarely daydreamed. But whenever he picked up a book he could stay lost in its pages for days.
He still remembered when his classmates teased him about this. Reading. All the other boys were doing things like playing video games or sports or, for a reason still unknown to him, being an absolute ass to anyone they could; even if it wasn't necessary. He would never understand why and nowadays he found it useless to think about it. He'd moved on from high school, moved on from all the cliques and stereotypes of his younger teen years.
And possibly into something a whole lot worse.
As if by a horde mentality, Thomas found himself and Carol strolling into a…gym? At least that's what it looked like. Safety floors, stacked bleachers on either side of the room and the slight scent of rubber and sports equipment. Again, for looking so archaic on the outside the interior sure was modern. This gym however made him feel like an ant in comparison. The ceilings towered above him like a monument and it seemed to stretch longer than a few football fields. Once the rest of the students had filed into the room the doors shut behind them making Thomas jump.

"Greetings everyone!" Echoed an older voice from the front of the group. Thomas had noticed that the once large group had been splitting off into small factions as they went further down the gym, each with a presumed leader at the front. And now theirs was addressing them so Thomas looked ahead. He could make out an older woman with skin almost as pale as Carol's gesturing to them. She wore a long red coat that caved in around her waist and draped to cover her booted feet. Her head was a mass of long, curly black hair that fell down her back in waves of noir. Long red sleeves covered her arms and Thomas could make out a sterling silver Pentacle wrapped around her neck by a black cord.
"Congratulations first off to you all for making it here in one piece." She started out, "I am Ms. Blackmoore and as I'm sure your aware I will be your teacher this first half of the year." Ms. Blackmoore spoke with a slight gentleness that made Thomas relax slightly but what she went on to say sucked that feeling away.
"And as you all were informed before arriving this is Dracul Academy. And it's sole purpose is to educate young monsters like yourselves how to coexist alongside other monsters and…humans." There came a muffling of various sounds amidst the group. Most consisting of annoyance or frustration. Then, another student from the front raised their hand.

"Ms. Blackmoore?" The student said as she looked to them. A grin stretched across the students face. "Why can't we just eat all the humans?" Grumbles of approval joined after their question but were quickly silenced by Ms. Blackmoore.

"I think you know very well why we can't." She replied looking over all of them, her eyes briefly settling on Thomas. "Unless you wish to live in constant war with monsters and humans of all kinds breathing down your neck; I suggest, you keep those ideas to yourself Raven."
Raven didn't utter another question for the remainder of the Orientation. And she immediately registered in Thomas's mind as someone to avoid. But now Thomas had even more making his bones tingle. An Academy for Monsters? As in, Mythological Monsters? Thomas couldn't explain the overwhelming heaviness rising in his chest but if he hadn't left the gym sooner he might've had a heart attack. Carol caught up to him just outside the doors.

"Hey! What's wrong?" She asked. Thomas took a second of breath before responding.

"Was she serious? Ms. Blackmoore?" He asked Carol. "About, this being an Academy for monsters? Real Monsters?" Carol seemed almost taken aback by his question.

"Well, yeah she's serious. Didn't you read the application? It said so at the bottom." Thomas mentally cursed himself for not reading the whole thing. He'd deemed reading long documents useless after the countless times pamphlets served him little help. He took a few long breaths of silence allowing Carol to break it.
"So where do you want to go?" Thomas knitted his eyebrows.

"But, aren't we going to class?" Carol chuckled a bit.

"No today was just orientation. We're allowed free roaming for the rest of the day until tomorrow." Carol didn't voice it, but she was very curious about Thomas. Curious, frightened, excited, mixtures of contradicting emotions were swirling about in her head and she was eager to answer them all. Thomas thought for a moment. Should he take this chance? The opportunity to hang out with possibly the prettiest girl here? He didn't have to ask and she was offering! And the whole discovery that she was a vampire gave Thomas a strange feeling of security and at the same time danger. With a racing heart Thomas agreed to spend some time with her and the two set out down the long hallway having no real destination in mind.
All Thomas knew for now was he was okay.
At least for now.


Just on the outside of the school near the south end of the building a girl stood leaning against the Academy's black brick face. Her tall well built frame was hidden by the shadows of the wall, puffs of smoke trailing from her lips though no method of smoking was present. Her auburn eyes trailed up and across the ash grey sky as if searching for something, or contemplating a deep thought. From the moment she'd stepped into the Academy she had felt something strange. An offset in the feeling of the atmosphere. Almost as if the Academy was a clean and healthy body and a virus had infected it. And this virus was pungent in it's smell, like rotten food. She only wondered why no one else had sensed it but her.
She scoffed. Perhaps they were simply to dull in their senses to know better. What else was she suppose to expect from bottom feeders like them? The commonality that graced these hallways sickened her. This school had been built from the ground up by a very prestigious monster. In his Regime no one else dared to oppose him. He was a king amongst monster kind, feared. And now his spirit sits idly while lower stock grace these hallways?
Disgusting.
Pushing herself up from the wall the girl glared from under her crimson tipped bangs as the sound of crunching footsteps approached her. Until a figure stopped before her, stooped low almost as if bowing and speaking in a hurried tone.
"So?" She asked, her voice low and calm.

"I-it's true" the figure said. "Th-there's a h-human h-here..." The girl's fingers pinched together so quickly the wind snapped against them in heat. She knew it. Even before stepping inside, walking up to the academy there was a poison following. And now it was here, walking amongst them as if belonging. She stepped out from the shadows revealing her clad in dark colors form. She stared stoically down at the figure who was mumbling inaudible words in a tone so meek one might think they were praying.

"Go and tell the others to keep their eyes open." She ordered. "Seems we have a pest on our hands." The figure left in a scrambling hurry. From under her long dark hair a small grin tugged at the corner of her lips.
"Not so easy to hide here human..." she whispered blowing tiny orange sparks from between the crevice of her lips. "Only one question left...which one of us, is you?"
Even as she departed back around to the entrance of the Academy she thought to herself. How did a human make their way here? On all accounts it should have been impossible. There were centuries upon centuries of barriers erected to prevent humans from ever ending up in their world. Whether it was on purpose or on accident. The possibility alone made her quiver with fear and zestful urges. But for a human to actually come here?
That was a risk that she would correct. She would stamp out this pest slowly, painfully and grind it's heart under her heal.
The human may not be afraid now but she would remedy that.
They would know to fear this place, to fear her. And if they were already afraid? Good.
They should be.

End.

I know this chapter is short but there was a lot of rewriting due to my computer f*cking up. But either way I hope you enjoyed it and stay tuned for chapter 3!