The sun was still shining brightly, but Kyle felt as if the world had become a lot darker.

Hope led him into a cafeteria where there were many students gathered, having lunch with their friends.

Hope sat him down at an empty table. "Just sit here for now, I'm going to go up and grab us two trays."

Kyle nodded his head, but Hope was already gone. Kyle felt afraid. Never had he been so afraid in his life. He had to get out of here!

But the thought of what Hope had done stuck in his mind. What she had become. He looked at the other kids around him. Could they all do this? She had said there were werewolves and witches…

…and vampires.

Kyle felt his body shiver. He was going to be sick.

"Hey man, you alright?" He heard a voice say. It took him a minute to realize it was talking to him.

He looked up. A boy about his age. This new person standing over him was white, with a curly mess of black hair on his head, holding his own lunch tray.

"Huh?" Kyle said. That was the best he could do right now.

"I said, are you alright? You look kinda shaky. You new here?"

Kyle nodded his head vigorously. The other boy laughed.

"Yeah, it's like that when you're new. So what are you?"

Kyle's face must have shown confusion. The other boy repeated. "What are you…vampire? Werewolf? Something else?"

Shaking his head Kyle said "I'm nothing. Just…human, I guess." His voice was almost as shaky as his body was.

The other boy laughed then. "Hey, so am I!" He set down his tray and held out his hand.

"I'm Landon. Nice to meet you."

Kyle stuck his hand out and the two shook.

Just then another boy appeared. "Yo, this where we sitting today?" He was tall, African-American with short cropped hair, and had an easy confidence about him.

"Yeah, man. This is Kyle, he just got here. Kyle, this is Rafael."

Rafael dropped his tray on the table and stuck his hand out. "Welcome aboard, man!"

Kyle shook his hand, and then Rafael blurted "So what are you?"

"He's human." Landon said, heavily emphasizing the word.

"For real?" Rafael asked. "They don't usually let humans up in here."

"Wait, who's human?" Another voice asked. This time it was female.

Kyle saw a cute brunette girl walk up behind Rafael. From the way she got close to him he could see they were together.

"His name's Kyle." Another female voice from behind him. One he recognized. He turned to find Lizzie standing over him, the bare flesh of her shapely, toned thighs right next to his face. He looked up to focus on her eyes as quick as he could, but again he was caught. And again, she smirked.

"Dad brought him in last night. We met this morning. Kyle, this is my sister Josie." Lizzie fired off each sentence in the rapid-fire staccato he remembered from earlier in the morning. She set her tray down next to him and plopped herself down on the bench.

"H-hi, Josie." Kyle stammered. Who knew what they could all do? Were they vampires?

"Um, are you all werewolves?" Kyle was almost afraid of the answers.

This elicited an outburst of laughter. Each one in a rush to declare themselves.

"No man, I'm human remember?"

"Yeah, I'm a werewolf!"

"No heck no I'm not a smelly wolf! I'm a witch!"

"Me and my sister are both witches."

Kyle thought he got the gist of it. He didn't know what to say, so he just looked down.

Lizzie would not let the silence go. "I can show you around, you know. Did Hope ditch you already?"

"No, Hope did not ditch him already." Kyle knew that voice. His whole body stiffened, and he turned slightly to see Hope standing there with two trays of food, each one loaded with a variety of food and drinks.

"Well, I just found him here sitting all alone, so it looked like he was forgotten about." Lizzie snapped back quickly.

"I was just going to get us some lunch." Hope and Lizzie were staring daggers at each other.

Lizzie jumped up and grabbed one of the trays from Hope. "Thanks Hope, I'll give this to Kyle and you have yourself a great lunch…somewhere else." Lizzie slid the tray over in front of Kyle without turning from Hope.

Hope didn't miss a beat, though. She walked over to the other side of Kyle and set her tray down. "Oh I will, Lizzie, thanks for your help."

Now Kyle realized he was sitting in between two feuding witches. He tensed up…and he noticed Landon was also remarkably tense. He was sitting right across from Hope.

He refused to look at her.

Kyle stole a glance at Hope, and she was staring almost into Landon's soul.

"Hi Landon," she said purposefully, "long time no see."

Landon fidgeted, and every person there, except for Hope, was visibly uncomfortable.

"You know, I should really get ready for my History of Vampire Lineages class." With that said, Landon plucked a burrito and a bottle of Pepsi off of his tray, clumsily rose from his seat and then power-walked out of the cafeteria without a backward glance. It looked like Raphael wanted to go after him, but Josie grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"Wow, you sure can keep a man." Lizzie said under her breath.

"You know I'm a werwolf right, Lizzie? I can hear you." Hope said flatly. She had not taken her eyes off of Landon until he was 100 percent gone from sight.

"Yes I know you can hear me, I was counting on it!" Lizzie snapped.

"Guys, can we not today?" Josie said with the same frustration Kyle had heard from her father earlier.

Kyle suddenly felt extremely hungry. He saw Hope had loaded up his tray with burritos, hot dogs, potato chips, some kind of soup and a bottle of water, plus a bottle of Sprite.

The bickering around him faded into the background and he tore into the food.

No one seemed to notice him as an apparently age-old rivalry played out yet again for its usual combatants.

Just then another boy appeared. He was African-American, and had a huge afro.

"Hey, the same old argument?" He said.

"Pretty much." Said Rafael.

"Who's this?" the boy asked, clearly meaning Kyle.

Lizzie broke off her verbal assault on Hope. "He's Kyle. He's human. Kyle this is MG. He's a vampire."

MG smiled then. "Hey man, nice to meet you." Kyle shook his head in the affirmative, eyes wide and a little wild.

Lizzie didn't notice this. "Kyle, why don't I show you around tonight? You'll be safer with me, trust me."

"Your dad said I was supposed to show him around!" Hope said, stiffly.

MG broke in. "Lizzie, I'll come with you and we can show him together—"

Both girls whipped their heads around in one synchronized movement. "MG, NOT NOW!" they barked.

Kyle saw MG, apparently used to this treatment, shrug his shoulders and begin to sip on a juice box.

Wait, Kyle thought, that's not a juice box…it's a juice BAG.

Then Kyle saw that there was no food on MG's tray, only several of the bags, filled with red liquid.

Ugh, Kyle thought. He wasn't very hungry after all.

He sat there and stared off into space as the group snarked at each other, wondering what in the world was going to happen next.