Our elders told us of times when our kind were killers of the night, but now vampires are "sophisticated" as the humans say. I have to say that part of the legend was true and some made up to make us seem like the enemy. We never cringed at crosses or garlic and a stake through the heart could kill anyone. We were never invincible, but we are immortal to an extent. We age like humans but we never die naturally. Our skin is sensitive, but sun lotions protect us though most of us prefer the night when humans aren't around. And of course we suck blood. Some of us still practice this but many of us including myself take medication for this craving and fulfillment. Technology and modern medicine have come a long way since the beginning of time. They are made up of a concentrated blood substitute, but not as satisfying as the real thing. I still practice this ritual when I run out of my pills and am out of options.
I wish the humans could see us as one of their own and not as the bloodthirsty beasts are ancestors were. The have forgotten of our existence and we let them live in ignorance, not being brought up learning they are evil, but scarred by history fearing it will repeat itself. Vampires have evolved like humans and yet the only friends we have are our own kind. We must avoid contact as much as possible with humans and so every vampire when they go into level seven of the human school enter a special night school for our kind. Usually, if one does not fail a grade, a vampire's fangs start to mature at age thirteen. Baltimore, quiet and busy has their own little blood residents such as myself who walk the streets five nights a week at eight o'clock to learn like human kind. We are called the Morsis Night students.
8:00 and class started at nine. It was an hour walk to Hazel Street so I was running late to school and things were running through my head as I rushed to find my book bag. I didn�t know why I carried one because at Morsis Night School, the books are kept in the classrooms and there is no homework. If people knew what kind of school I went to we would envy me, and vampires aren�t human but people are human and can�t go to Morsis.
My khakis weren�t exactly clean and my hair wasn�t brushed (it actually was a big bush atop my head) but when I was late, none of those small things mattered. I put my favorite green over shirt over a white baby-t and ran out the door to head for Morsis. As I hit every corner and alleyway I needed to turn, I looked around. I hoped that no one in the street was going to pop out and ask me for money. I hate that, but when you live in a big city like Baltimore, you have to get used to it. As I hit the third alleyway something was tapping on the side of the building. It sounded like Morse code but it was too choppy to say anything and then it jumped out with a loud �BOO!� sending me back into the street.
�Ha! You should have seen yourself! It was so funny!� Nadine laughed, imitating me and helping me up. I laughed even though in my head I was just relieved no cars came while I was in the street. �Good one, but aren�t level 3 students supposed to pick on level 2 not the other way around?�
�Well think of it this way,� Nadine replied. �If we were still in a human school, you�d be a scum-of-the-earth freshman so I�d have the right.�
�Yeah whatever.� I laughed again as we continued to school. �But the point is we aren�t still in a human school and thank God for that.�
�Yeah I know, I�m glad we took us out and put us in Morsis just before the maturity stage or our fangs would mature and stick out like a green thumb.�
�Don�t you mean a soar thumb?�
�Wouldn�t a green thumb stick out worse? I�ve had plenty of soar thumbs and no one�s noticed.�
�I guess so.�
�I just got finished with someone. Put up a darn good fight but I managed to get what I needed from them.�
�Nadine,� I exclaimed. �You should go on the blood pill. It�s not as messy and it doesn�t affect the human world.�
�You got to be kidding me! I�m not taking a �concentrated blood substitute�.� Nadine made the quoting sign with her fingers. �I need the real thing. Besides scaring humans is half the fun.�
As we reached Hazel Street, school affairs came into their mind when we saw the stairs next to the light pole with the sign written in Latin above it reading �Enter in Silence.�
�So you got any new stories for the paper.� Nadine asked in her low voice. I blew on my nails polished green and wiped them on my white shirt.
�Nope, except Ms. Sunock�s retirement, but I am a busy journalist.� We laughed together as we ascended down the stairs to the wooden door. Inside, Morsis wasn�t exactly a pretty junior/senior high school. It looked more like a run down elementary school. Lighting was dimmed to almost nothing and the stairs spiraled downward to each floor. The art students decorated the walls with their gothic and exciting works, but no matter what we did, the underground building stayed dark and coldly gloomy. It was almost like home for the students.
Nadine and I split in the main hallway to different classrooms. I had English 3 with the dreaded Ms. Sunock and Nadine had Latin 2 but we both had Astronomy for their fourth class.
School that day was horrible, but it was worth seeing Ms. Sunock leave. Her retirement party was today and the whole school (especially the students) celebrated. I had a ton of work to do in the library on the computer, putting in about the party in the school newspaper. I pushed my dark rimmed glasses back up to my eyes and wiped my hands on my khakis. It�s hard to type when you get sweaty palms and eating Hot Fries at the same time. The people at the eye doctor place overestimated the size of my head and I never had time to get them fixed.
�In conclusion, I believe our rendition of Dracula was a smash hit for everyone to enjoy. Aston Durr did an excellent job as Dracula himself and Lila Merannan portrayed the lovely Ms. Lucy with a romantic twist of her own. Van Helsing, played by Kilyan Steel, could not have been more loved by the crowd. The low fog described a gloomy night foreshadowing Lucy�s doom. The lights were just perfect for twilight and the choreography for the dance scene was simply breathtaking. Once again, our theatre program proves we are the best in all Baltimore. I am eager to see their next program��
Cammina Kurtz.
My mind was going faster than my fingers could type. I was never a good typist. I am forever grateful to the person who invented spell check! I finally gave up at looking at the screen and looked at the keyboard as I typed to go twice as fast. The ideas and details were on the tip of my mind and were going to fall off if I didn�t get them onto digital paper. So many things had happened, and of course Ms. Sunock was retiring and the victory party was on Saturday at Yon and Tigra Kayine�s house. Adean had her baby girl, named her Caitlin, and she would be playing in the school nursery until Adean finished school so everyone could see her. The school play had gone fabulously well, and my newest article was a front pager!
�Dracula The Play; Our School has a Sense of Humor�
As I was tapping, I could not hear the foul creature come in the room and as I turned my head, the thing showed her evil face. "Hey, what you typing?" The thing drooled. I jumped out of my chair and held my heart. Nothing usually scares me, but she made me jump out of my skin.
"Del! You... demontress, scared me!" My friend Delilah was used to that reaction. She didn't make any noise when she did anything. When she screamed no one heard it. It came in handy when she fed. She was one that fed instead of took