Life felt unreal.
Blurry and hazy, like a fogged-up filter had pressed over the room. If only what happened yesterday was fake, too.
Last night — or morning, to be precise — Jane'd dragged her broken body back to her dorm. Fighting the urge to collapse straight onto the mattress, she had scrubbed herself clean.
Every trace of blood, every smear of dirt, down to the tips of her nails. Water ran down from the showerhead, mixing with something salty on her cheeks before reaching her toes.
When Jane opened her eyes again, she saw only the void. Another restless night, another unnecessary fight.
"Get out! Get out! Get out," she screamed. "You sick thing, stop taking my father's form."
Jane collapsed onto the black surface beneath her, a dark matter that couldn't even show her reflection.
"But you call on me."
Jane stared back in silence. She rarely threw tantrums, not for something she considered only a little more real than a dream. That little scream she had made just drew all her strength.
"How could he even be there..." she mumbled.
Curling her body inward, Jane pulled her arms tight across her knees and pressed her forehead against them. Her eyes shifted frantically left and right. She gasped for air as though an invisible string was strangling around her neck .
"Let go and take a rest. You have been through enough already."
A small stream of tears ran down, soaking the pillow and slipped through reality. Twenty minutes in dreamworld was four hours in this ongoing nightmare.
Sleep was gone. There were too many things to clear.
This school was a vampire nest. That explained the weird schedule perfectly, not to mention the absurd number of attractive people walking the halls. But there had to be humans here too. Lots of them. They needed food.
And then there was her...
Jane jolted from the mattress. There was no strange condition — she was turning into a vampire. Strangely enough, after everything she had been through, this felt more easier to accept.
And the pins. That vampire had mentioned them. She had seen closely different colors and different shapes during the ball. Decoding what they meant was the only thing left to do.
And Father. How did he end up there? Maybe she imagined it, and he was still safe. He never told her what his job was, and she had never asked. Could it be a business trip nearby...?
She fell back onto her bed. Her body bounced slightly with a heavy sigh that sounded like a deflating balloon. She stared back up at the ceiling, arms and legs spread out, hanging off the edge.
Thinking led to nothing. She enjoyed living in her own head — it was easier than doing something. Until she couldn't anymore.
✦✧✦✧
The campus was filled with students today. Some sat on the benches reading books, some made their way to the cafeteria, while a few wandered around aimlessly.
Jane focused on their pins. It wasn't hard to see that most wore clear glass ones. The shape was similar to hers, except hers was red.
So glass stayed with glass; red surrounded themselves with red.The symbolism was as clear as day. Who else would find red appealing in this school?
She was labeled as food. One less mystery, at least.
Suddenly, the ground shook and the sound of something big echoed behind her back.
Jane turned around. From afar, a red dot was growing larger and larger until it revealed itself: all the students in school were running directly towards her.
Before she could run away, they swarmed around. Dozens of hands grabbed around her arms, their bodies forming an inescapable blocking wall, pulling her in their marathon. Their faces showed no expression, blank as paper, with hollow black eyes glued onto her, watching her struggle.
Trees rushed by so fast she could only catch a fleeting glimpse of their shadows.
She knew where they were taking her — the one place she least wanted to be right now. Jane closed her eyes, squeezing them tight to protect herself from the sight she was about to see.
The crowd parted, leaving only her and that hole. Jane straightened her back, raising her head just enough to see the… thing waiting at the bottom...
Jane snapped her eyes open, gasping for air. The back of her shirt was completely soaked with sweat, and her chest ached with every breath.
She looked at the clock. 8:40 in the morning. Exactly four hours of sleep.
Most of her dreams were direct. If they were too complicated, she wouldn't be able to understand them. This one, however, made absolutely no sense, merely a manifestation of her deepest fear.
But again, a dream within a dream was never to be ignored.
Jane quickly threw off the blanket, made herself presentable, and headed straight to the security office.
"Hi, can I borrow the desk phone, please? I need to call my mom. It's kinda urgent."
When Jane heard about the school's most fundamental rule — no phones allowed — she wanted to chase after her mother's car. This desk telephone, sitting right at the gate where they said goodbye to modern life, was the only bridge to the outside world.
"The line doesn't work today. Must have been the wild animals again," the security man said.
He looked significantly younger than the old guard at Jane's previous school. Had he worn black and hated the sun, she would have thought he was also a vampire.
"Come back tomorrow," he added. Jane must've been staring for too long.
"Thank you. I will be back."
Letting out a long sigh, she turned and walked in another direction. Of course, the easy way never worked. Or worse, had the hole already been dug by someone else?
Driven by her fear of being exposed, Jane hurried to the forest. She needed to return before noon, when the other students poured out of their dorm.
No blood. Not even a trace of fighting. In the dark of night, everything was ten times sharper, but now under the morning sun, the leaves lay scattered, as disorganized as ever. The ground was a perfect puzzle, leaving Jane no clue where she had buried her dad.
A pretty good job, she thought. No discoloration in sight.
Luckily, she had left a tiny scratch on one tree in case she wanted to visit his grave one day, though that would make her the typical criminal returning to the crime scene.
Jane started digging. Deeper…deeper… and deeper.
A cold chill ran straight down from her spine to her toes. If anyone had walked into the forest right now, they would've seen a statue.
She could finally see the end of her dream. Inside the hole she had just dug was nothing.
"Hah...."
Jane released a small breathless puff of air. With or without her dad, that vampire was wrong. She killed him to defend herself; she wasn't wrong, right?
She started to laugh. Tears fell from her eyes uncontrollably, bitter with joy and something she couldn't name. Taking a deep breath, Jane wiped everything off her face.
After digging enough holes for three more persons, Jane could finally know for sure how losing a lot of blood could make her see things. And how it made her hungry.
✦✧✦✧
Stepping through the door was an overwhelming experience. Groups of students rushed past in every direction, the smell of hot food hanging in the air while loud chatter bouncing left and right.
What a zap back to reality. Jane completely forgot how awful it was to be in the school canteen, alone.
Standing at the door any longer would only draw attention. So she took a plate, got in line and followed the others. It was easy. All she had to do was peer through the window and pick out the dish she wanted.
The food was freshly cooked, still steaming, and bursting with flavor. The ingredients were nothing out of the ordinary: chicken, beef, tomatoes, and things she couldn't name; cooked like a Sunday meal at home.
Eating without a phone was a bit weird. With no distractions, her only entertainment was the plate and the constant stream of students passing by... all while their eyes lingered on her for longer than normal.
Jane liked it when she was left alone, but why was everyone dodging her like she carried a disease? Was it the sweat from digging? Taking a quick sniff, Jane was sure it couldn't be that.
Or was Mom right and she looked too annoying during meals?
Jane caught sight of a girl walking alone. The girl, like everybody else, glanced toward her table, but she was less fortunate this time — Jane was ready to make eye contact.
The wind brushing past her face was the answer. A moment later she heard the girl's voice from a few tables over, asking a group of students for an empty seat.
Jane looked around again. A light bulb finally flickered above her head — she was the only one with a red pin on this floor.
She was the disturbance here. Jane sighed, dropped her gaze, and stared back down at her plate.
As much as Jane wanted to be unbothered, eating became more of a chore when there were so many invisible arrows hitting her back. Still, she finished her meal and grabbed a cupcake for Amelia, whom she assumed hadn't eaten yet.
With everything that had happened, Amelia deserved to be on her watch list. Her kind gesture of lending Jane that dress was appreciated, but the motive behind it was now questionable.
As expected, the sleeping princess had just woken up when the little dwarf returned from a day of grave-digging.
"I brought you cake," Jane said, stepping through the door.
"Really? Which flavor?" Amelia rose from the sofa, apparently her favorite place besides the bed, and hopped toward the treat.
"Chocolate, I think. They only serve this one." What did she want? Strawberry? Jane was confused.
"What do you mean?" Amelia asked with the same confusion. "Don't tell me you eat on the first floor?"
"Yes…?" Jane hesitated.
"I can't believe it. The first floor is for THEM."
She crossed her arms, clearly judging Jane for making such a mistake. Then, a realization hit her.
"Oh no. Don't tell me you are a new one."
"I thought you knew?"
"I knew you were new, but who would have thought you were THAT NEW. Look at your pin!"
Amelia started walking around in circles, her hair tangled and fingertips trapped between her teeth. Her pitch rose with every word: "Oh no... and I brought you to the ball... and introduced you to Ryan—"
She stopped mid-sentence and lunged forward to grab Jane's shoulder. The way her nails dug into Jane's skin said she would rather eat Jane alive right now.
Jane shoved her hands off, picked up the cake, and squatted down to meet Amelia at eye level.
"Listen. You've dragged me into a mess I didn't ask for," Jane spoke despite Amelia's look of kill.
"However, what's done is done," she continued. "And you don't want me wandering around making an even bigger mess, then everyone knows you fed a human to a vampire, do you?"
Amelia nodded.
"Good. Then help me adapt. After all, I am new."
"Your neck."
"What?" Jane took her first bite of the cake. It was good; she should have grabbed two.
"You were bitten."
The sweetness turned to bitterness in her throat — chocolate always did that. So did unexpected event.
Plans had changed.