Since I was new to this place, I wasn't familiar with it, and I didn't know how to navigate the campus. Minutes passed as I wandered through the halls, trying to find out where exactly my first class was.
As I stood there lost in my thoughts, a sudden voice shattered the silence from behind. "Hey, you!" The words carried an urgent tone as their speaker rapidly closed the distance between us. An unusual touch followed—an unexpectedly soft, squishy sensation, reminiscent of touching a water balloon or a gelatin dessert. I spun around, intrigued and perplexed, my gaze falling upon a woman with an otherworldly appearance. Her skin was a lively shade of lime, reminiscent of fresh leaves, while her cactus green hair cascaded around her like an enchanting, verdant waterfall.
Her vibrant colors held me in a mesmerizing spell. "I... Yes?" My voice faltered, stumbling over words like a clumsy stumble in a dance. "H-How may I be of assistance, miss?" I managed, though my words emerged with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty.
Her gaze briefly shifted to her wrist, where her attention was captured by a watch. "It's 12:50, and you're not in class?" Her voice held a mix of curiosity and authority. The notion of her being a hall-monitor flitted through my mind, though her youthful appearance, seemingly around my age of sixteen, raised an unspoken question. Shouldn't she be in class too?
"And what about you?" I inquired, my brow furrowing in a gesture of perplexity. My hand instinctively found its way to my forehead, a physical embodiment of my bewilderment.
"I am the hall-monitor stationed within this portion of the school—did you already forget?" she seemed mad, and I couldn't help myself to speak up. "It was hung up in the main hallways near the dorms just yesterday!"
"I-I'm new here… I don't know my way around, and Count Valerius never gave me any directions…" I stumbled through my words, seeming like an infant just learning how to form sentences.
"He never told me about a new student coming in," she mumbled. She placed her lime hand against her chin, causing a jello-like sound to ooze from where she had placed it.
This is awkward!
I hate this so much.
"Alright, I'll start over." She took a deep breath, "My name is Silf. Silf Palmer. I am from the noble Palmer family."
"Noble? Kinda like Arian?"
"W-W-W—Don't you dare say Sir. Gigamona's name with such ease!" she yelled, flailing her arms in the air as if she was a baby throwing a tantrum. "What if he hears you? The Gigamona family has slaughtered many people for using even familiar terms about them!"
"Me and him are chill, so it's alright," I tried to reassure her.
Well, we just became chill.
Silf Palmer had a dumbfounded look plastered upon her fluorescent face. She looked down to the ground, seemingly lost in thought. Then, after a few seconds she looked back up at me with a stern look.
"Whatever the reason may be, he is still above first name basis with a person who isn't even a brother," she calmly stated.
"Uh, okay?"
"Now, can you please tell me what class you have?"
"I honestly don't even know," I said with a shrug.
She sighed. "What's your name, and what species are you?"
"I'm Jacob Lavua, a vampire."
Feels kind of weird to say I'm a vampire to other people…
"Jacob, huh…" she hummed as she dragged her finger through the air. "Ah, there you are! Hm…looks like you have 'Vampiric Powers: Basics' class for your first period. Actually, that seems to be your only class…"
"My only class?"
"Yeah, from 9-12."
From 9-12?! What the hell?
"That's one long class…"
"What are you talking about? That's the average length of classes."
Average?
Um, no?
"Okay… Well, can you show me the way to class?"
"Of course, Mr. Lavua," she said with a slight smile.
I stepped into the classroom. The room was vast, looking to be about thirty meters in length, and stretching about fifteen meters upward. There were multiple layers of seats with a small area used for writing and taking notes, each leading more and more toward and up the wall.
Standing in the front of the room, next to the podium, a woman looked at me, an annoyed expression across her face. "You're late," she said with a stern voice.
"I'm sorry," I tried to say. "I am ne—"
"I do not care. Sit down in any open space you see."
Not wanting to argue with her, I walked in the direction of the seats. They didn't reach too high into the room, but just enough to be able to barely hear the teacher when she spoke, I assumed.
There weren't many open seats. All of my newly appointed peers stared at me in confusion, as this was their first time seeing me.
I walked up each of the stairs, I looked left and right, trying to find a seat that was open. It wasn't until the fifth row that someone spoke to me.
"Hey," a masculine voice whispered to my left. I turned my head and saw him waving his hand, indicating for me to sit next to him. Complying, I went up to him and took a seat to his right.
"Alright, now that everyone is here, let's begin. Pull your textbooks out to page 10," the teacher said after a few seconds of me adjusting to the seat.
Next thing I heard was the sound of pages flipping. Unable to do it myself, I sat there awkwardly.
"You're new here, aren't you?" the guy who ushered me over here asked in a whispered voice.
"Yeah," I said, following his lead into a whisper. "I don't have any of the textbooks we need, as it was short notice."
"No worries, man, I got you." He slightly passed over his VampireBasics textbook, which was displayed with bold printed letters, and a small figure of a mouth with four large fangs protruding from each of the canines.
He opened it, swiping through each of the pages until it reached ten. He grabbed his notebook, a classic black spiral notebook.
"Why isn't the teacher teaching?"
"What do you mean? All we need to learn is in this notebook, and we are seventeen, we can read," he responded. "Also, nice to meet you. My name is Damien. Damien Magra."
"Magra?"
"Oh, yeah. I guess it would be surprising if someone of royalty talked so casually… I probably shouldn't have said my last name…" he sighed. "Forget I said that, please. It'll just be awkward."
"Uh…alright?"
"Wait, aren't you surprised?"
"Not particularly, honestly. Do all royalty not speak with respect?"
"Ah…that's what you mean. I mean, not really. Only those with professions that need it."
"Oh."
"Yeah," he said with a slight cough.
"Why does Silf Palmer speak with so much respect?"
"Oh…her," he gave a sigh. "She always has a stick up her ass, honestly. It's probably because she is from a noble bloodline—she feels like she is needing to do the utmost to try and make her parents proud of her. Dunno though, but usually those who are annoying and too good at school are trying to impress their parents."
"Makes sense."
Not much happened during the rest of the class. Even while reading through the textbook, I could not figure out what was being talked about. Essentially, it talked about how a vampire's fangs are one of the strongest parts of a vampire, excluding that of bloodthirsty nails; it also mentioned that blood is like a drug to vampires, where we do not necessarily need it, but it does help affect our attacks, and help control and calibrate the potency of our abilities. Those abilities being Shapeshift, and Recon—the two vital powers for a vampire to have when hunting prey.
That was all I learned through that textbook for those last three hours. Might not sound like a lot, but the amount of notes that Damien had to take through all of that was extraordinary. Better than anything I could ever do. I would definitely have to ask him about anything I had trouble with.