Chapter Four

Found

Chapter Four
Found

Throughout the school was an assortment of er, one would suppose, interesting rooms and classes. One of which was spells and rituals. Really they were just praying for things to happen and they did. Some spell. They also had their own church where they forced worship on all the students. Mark snorted up at the goddess's statue. He couldn't help feeling that what he was doing was wrong, and that he should love the statue woman, and that pissed him off. He didn't like the stereo-type white-people god when he was human and he didn't like the vampyre god now. There was also a cafeteria which housed some of the most healthy, yet tasted good, foods he'd ever seen. Too bad he couldn't eat any of it.

Numerous halls and classrooms lined the walls of the castle-like building. He found the female dorm as well as a rec hall and a creepy old tree by some kind of trap door. He took care to remember where the trap door was, he might find use for that.

Along his exploration, he found near ridiculous amounts of cats. They were everywhere, following kids around, laying about the castle, or even bothering cats in class. No one seemed to care that people's pets were roaming around like they owned the place. It was possibly the only thing he really didn't like about cats. Among a few other things involving his shoes and some rather unpleasant looking cat vomit.

He sighed, slumping into a chair in the cafeteria at lunch. He glanced at the doors and found them labeled 'dining hall'. Sounded like something out of prison or a prissy finishing school.

He'd been debating about getting some food just to look normal when a small group of teens walked over. A few of them had a woman on a chariot on their chests with a bunch of stars, some had weird wings, he assumed that meant what year they were in. His own was some stupid maze.

The leader was a girl with incredibly long brunette hair. Her eyes were a warm chestnut colour, and he really couldn't ignore the very lovely curves of her body. She wore a smile full of warmth and confidence, and a sapphire crescent moon adorned her forehead. Behind her stood ice- the girl. She had white blood hair a the palest blue eyes he'd ever seen, couple that with milky white skin and you had a god damn ghost teenager. She looked small and shy, though she held herself sort of like a ballerina, her crescent was also sapphire. The last was a male, he was tall, strong, and attractive, he supposed. He sure did look like someone who should be on TV. His own hair was strawberry blond, his eyes a lighter, pale brown, his mark, unlike the girls, was red. He and the brunette had the woman on a chariot and the ice-girl had the wings. Understandable, she did look younger than miss confidence and mister chiselled handsome-butt.

"You're Mark, right?" Brownie started, swinging her hips to a stop in front of Mark, who nodded. "Well, I'm the leader of the Dark Daughters and Sons."

Mark felt like he should probably know who they were, so he just shrugged and muttered, "Cool." Hoping they wouldn't start a fight or something stupid. Did vampyre schools have gangs?

It seemed, however, that miss confidence didn't really care, as she gave a haughty swish of her hair with a laugh. "Very, these are some of the council members, Drake," She gestured to pretty boy, "And Lynn" She gestured at ice-princess. "I'm Celeste."

Oh, fuck she sounded so stuck up. Mark sighed as he stood, sticking out his hand to shake her hand. "Awesome, good to meet you. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm really not a people person. If you want to know more about me and how unpleasant I tend to be, feel free to talk to my teacher-baby-sitter thing. Stevie-Rae." He waited for her to grab his hand, but she just stared at it.

Slowly, a smile returned to her lips before she gently pushed Mark's hand down. "Aha, you don't seem very familiar with the way things are run around here. Do you even know what the Dark Daughters are?" She asked.

Mark supressed another sigh, running a hand through his hair as he shrugged, "No, not really. I assumed it would have been best just to let you drone on about how awesome you were instead of getting yelled at for not knowing something."

The smart ass known as Drake snorted. "It's a group of upstanding students who follow the rules of the five elements. Authentic for air, faithful for fire, wise for water, empathetic for earth and sincere for spirit." He explained.

Since when was spirit an element? He brushed the though off as he smiled, "Well that sounds like a nice place for people who like other people." He shrugged, "I suppose it's like… a school council thing, right? You have to greet all the new kids?" He paused, "Or… are you interest in my weird mark?"

Celeste nodded, "It's our job to make everyone feel at home, but yes, we were curious about your mark as well."

Well at least they were honest, he thought with a frown. "Well I don't know what the fuck is up with it other than your goddess is playing a really shitty joke." There, technically not a lie, everything sounds believable if it's not a complete lie.

Celeste didn't seem to feel that way when she placed her hands on her hips. "Yeah, well, my mentor thinks it would be a good idea to invite you, so I'm inviting you to join the Dark Daughters and Sons." She waved her hand through the air as if she couldn't care less.

"No." Mark stated firmly, sitting back in his seat. "As I said, I'm not really a people person and I'm not going to join a social group bent on making everyone's day a bit brighter just because some jumped-up old bat decided it was 'a good idea' to have me join."

The brunette seemed to puff up with rage, making the dark marked boy smirk. She opened her mouth several times, most likely to tell him off, but couldn't seem to think of the right words.

"…What, cat got your tongue, darling? I'm afraid you won't ever find it, there's way to many fucking cats that might have it." Mark purred.

The girl gave an outraged, "OH!" before she stomped off, calling insults and unfriendly words to the air as her groupies followed, making Mark laugh to himself. He hoped more people like that would talk to hi-

"Hi Mark!"

Mark sighed, turning to his ever-happy roommate. "Hi Harry." He muttered, glancing at the bag the fledgling was carrying. "…Playing meals on wheels again, huh?"

"Yup! You know, you should really get used to taking these with you." he leaned over, whispering to the dark haired teen, "What if you get really hungry and go crazy like the red fledglings?"

"Maybe someone will put me down if I off a couple other fledglings in my raging hunger." Mark smirked, making Harry gasp and pull back.

"Don't say things like that!" The older teen huffed, "I don't want you to die!"

"At least one of us does." Mark chuckled as he grabbed the back and hid it in his own shoulder-hung bag. "Don't carry these around. I don't want people to think I'm weird, on top of rude."

"You aren't rude, you're just a cat." Harry grinned foolishly.

Mark felt his eye twitch again. Geez, this guy was irritating. "Stop it."

"Stop what?" Harry asked, his blond head tilting to the side as he sat opposite to Mark.

"That." Mark frowned, "Stop being so… gay. You act like you stepped out a rainbow candy waterfall."

"That would be cool, though." The blond pouted.

"No it wouldn't!" Mark huffed, making his roommate laugh. "How do you even function acting like a little kid all the time?"

"I dunno." Harry smiled, "I just like being happy, it feels better than being sad."

"…If you weren't so full of shit I'd say that was pretty deep." Mark snorted, rolling his eyes. "So what's with the Dark Daughters and Sons? Celeste and her band of misfits came to invite me into their in group."

"What?!" Harry burst, "Really?! They almost never invite… ah, well… um." He shifted, looking embarrassed and shy. "…People who aren't like them…"

"So, weird anti-social teenage boys with retarded marks on their forehead?" Mark asked with a smirk. "It's alright, I turned her down. Like I'd ever want to be part of some spazz group of stupid teenagers. I wouldn't even get along with them. They like drugs and booze and parties. I like sitting in my room blasting Colours of The Wind and writing fiction."

"…Disney music?" Harry frowned, "That doesn't… really seem like something you'd be into."

"We were all kids once." Mark shrugged, "I just watched certain movies too many times and now I can't stop listening to the songs."

"I like Hakuna Matata." Harry smiled.

"My god, if you weren't around I'd be the dorkiest kid here." The dark haired teen laughed.

"Wait, you said no?" The older fledgling frowned, "Why did you say no?! This could be a perfect way for you to accept your new life!"

Mark flinched at how similar Harry was sounding to the goddess in his dream. He frowned and stood, looking away from his roommate. "I'm going out. Thanks for the blood." He hurried from the room, not bothering to look back at Harry's confused expression.

He felt kind of stupid for leaving without a reason, but… he felt like that… woman… was doing this on purpose. He was sure people would think, 'oh, well, she just loves you and wants to help' but constantly nagging someone to stop thinking a certain way wasn't love. He had to get out of there, escape, even if only for a few hours.

He ran into his bathroom, slamming the door as he looked at himself. He cringed at his reflection. The mark seemed to be a stain on his face. Like waking up with a rainbow penis tattoo across your face after a really good party. He opened the mirror to find an assortment of makeup. He frowned, not expecting this from Harry before he took a closer look. He'd never seen students outside before… maybe they had to wear this makeup? It was certainly thick enough, and there was two, one of Harry's skin ton, and one eerily close to his own. He could be a normal human again, if only for a few hours.

A bit of hope took his features before he slathered on the makeup, concealing his mark with much more than normal, as his mark was far darker and harder to hide than the normal, blue coloured marks.

He stared at the mirror, stared at what used to be his life. A weak, almost sad smile tugged at his lips as he watched the pure, blind desire in his eyes. He couldn't accept what he'd become, not even the threat of becoming a real monster would convince him that being this… this thing could be… acceptable. He wiped his eye with the palm of his hand before he hurried out, grabbing his duffel bag of things he liked to have with him, pencils, notebooks, deodorant, a book, hairbrush, pocket knife, and all sorts of little things he might need.

He hurried out of the dorm and toward the front gates. He moved at an incredible pace, almost running as he got closer to the entrance to the school.

Once he got passed the boundary, he ran. He wasn't sure why, maybe he was trying to run from his problem, but it felt right to get away from that place. So he ran and ran and ran until he reached the mall, where he finally calmed down and leaned against the wall of a local clothing store.

Panting, a soft laugh flitted from his lips as he slid to the ground. He was gone, no one would know he was a fledgling. He was Mark, that weird dark kid that lives alone once again. Maybe not even that. Just a random human sixteen year old. He pulled out a small mirror he kept in his bag for whatever occasion, primarily for looking around corners to see if an ex, or enemy was there. He once again looked at his human-looking face. Sure, he was a lot more attractive than when he'd been human, but he could ignore that. He could ignore a lot of things so long as the boisterous, very showy mark wasn't on his face.

He was staring with such intensity into the mirror that he didn't notice a pair of teens walking along that had spotted him.

"Wow, someone must be narcissistic." A girl laughed. Mark looked up to finally notice the twosome.

One girl was very short, looked about fourteen years old, wearing a loose shirt with an anime girl on it, one of those swag-hat things decorated with adventure time characters, and skinny jeans. She also had straight blond hair that framed her face decently. Her blue eyes were amused and kind of childish, as if she always wanted to play the role of the cute girl. Her petite hand were wearing fingerless gloves that were bright pink in colour. He was not impressed.

The other looked very much like his own age, and shared a similar face to the other girl, perhaps they were sisters. This one was a brunette, with clearly artificially curled hair, though it did look pretty as it bounced around her face. She looked a lot more confident and was wearing much less… themed clothing compared to the first girl. She also had a hat on, but it was one of those strange hipster hats where it was almost like a doily that bunched around your hair so they didn't fall off. It was light brown and complimented her hair pretty well. She also wore a green, vine-pattern vest over a long-sleeve, v-neck shirt. Her green skirt was perhaps a little more short than any parent would prefer, but it showed her lover, knee-sock clad legs very well. He smiled at her, his good mood making him feel a bit more sociable than usual.

"You would be too if you just started to look like a normal kid after moving schools." He chuckled.

The younger girl gasped, "You just moved here?!" She burst with a very enthusiastic giggle. "We did too! It's the first weekend we've been here so we're exploring around Tulsa!"

"When did you move here?" The older girl smiled.

"Er, well, I lived here before, I just… lived a bit farther away." He pointed far off into the distance. "I lived by myself way out there for a long time. I graduated through an online government course so I didn't have to leave the house expect to get food and stuff." He shrugged, "But I ah… had an accident that landed me in a… private school." He sighed, "It's… a stupid, long, painful story that I don't really like talking about."

The brunette nodded, "I completely understand. We had to move here because of stupid family bullshit with our mom. We're actually from Canada."

"Canada, huh?" he chuckled, "That's a lot farther than a cabin in the woods."

"I should think so." She smirked, "Since you kind of know this place, how about you show us around?" She asked, biting her lip slightly, as if to look hopeful and cute.

A little pessimistic voice in the back of Mark's head screamed at him that he should tell them to fuck off and leave him alone, but some part of him wanted to cling to them. They thought he was normal, and seemed to believe him about the private school bullshit. He could come back, hang out with them, be human again…

He smiled, "I'd love to show you around." He jerked his thumb behind him, at the mall. "I can show you were to get all the important stuff like pillows, blankets, food, and stuff, but if you want to really In stores for the popular kids, well…" he laughed, "I couldn't help you there."

"We can go on an adventure together to find them, then." The brunette laughed, "I'm Lily, and this is my sister Caroline."

"Just call me Carry." The blond giggled.

"I'm Mark." The fledgling nodded, "Nice to meet you guys."

Lily linked her arm with Mark's and her sister's before leading them down the sidewalk humming 'We're Off To See The Wizard', making Mark laugh.

REVIEW CHALLENGES:

What did you think of what I did with the Dark Daughters?

What about Lily and her sister?

Do you have a theory of what might happen with the Dark Daughters/Lily/Anything else?

How does the story feel in general? I'd love a bit of feedback. (And I mean a bit, I'm terrible with harsh critics.)

How do you feel about Mark now that you know a bit more about him?

AAAAWWWWW MAAAAAAANNNN...
Shits gettin real, characters are being introduced and my friends dog is sniffing my armpit while I write!

I'm getting really into this story and I hope you guys are too. Though, honestly, I think I only like writing this story so much because of a comic on smackjeeves called Transfusions. GO READ IT NOW. IT'S FUCKING AWESOME. jaghreghsnjignrtjk
-more heavy breathing-

GODAMMIT GUYS I STILL DON'T KNOW IF I SHOULD ROMANCE/PORN OR ADVENTURE/LESS PORN.