Pain.

Bianca simply cannot stop thinking about pain as she stands alone in the middle of the night, staring at the huge, brick wall before her.

She can’t sleep. There’s just too much on her mind.

She flinches when the cold, night air stings her pale skin, causing parts of her body to turn a bright shade of purple. She’s aware that the night is hellishly cold and she knows she shouldn’t be roaming outside once it’s past seven in the evening; however, she has an objective tonight— defeat pain.

She reminisces the words of her teacher—

“If we let pain get the best of us, one hit in the belly throws us into misery, making us unable to fight back. Then, in a split second, our necks are being snapped or our hearts are being ripped out by the Vampires. We need to withstand pain.” Her teacher’s words exactly.

Bianca is a weakling. She cannot resist pain but she wants to, because that’s the only way to fight against the Vampires. And that explains her attempt to stand in the painful cold until she feels absolutely nothing. It is impossible but her desperate mind cannot think properly at 12 am in the morning.

She lost another fight a few hours ago. Her opponent, Reece —the best fighter in the academy— practically destroyed her in front of the whole students. It’s embarrassing. If she can’t endure the pain inflicted on her by a human, how can she protect herself from the real threats?

The hairs on Bianca’s arm stand when she hears a sudden noise behind her. She quickly turns away from the brick wall with her hands shaking in fear. A second ago, she thought she was alone on the school’s field. Squinting her eyes, she spots two boys standing a few feet away from her.

Soon, she relaxes.

However, the space between her eyebrows crease when she notices one of the boys standing in an offensive way. Her frown only deepens when she recognizes him.

Speak of the devil. Reece.

“What else do you want, Reece? I’ve done everything you asked. Aren’t we done?” The other boy tells him but Reece keeps on pushing the poor boy on his shoulders, causing him to stumble across the field.

The two are oblivious to her presence, probably thinking they are the only ones vacuous enough to go against the rules and come out to the fields at midnight— past curfew.

“We’re done when I say we’re done.”

Their voices are loud enough for Bianca to pick up on their words. From what she’s witnessing, it looks like the academy’s glorious fighter is up to no good… yet again.

Bianca braces herself and calls for their attention, trying to save the bullied kid.

“Reece, Reece, Reece. Always the bully.” She sings, shooting him a dark look. “Let him go.”

The two snap their heads in her direction and it takes them a full minute before they recognize who she is. Yes, she isn’t that popular in the academy and that’s because she’s ranked 283 out of 300 fighters.

Reece scoffs. “Is that you, Bianca?”

“No, it’s Santa Claus.”

He laughs, the sound suddenly making the night colder and sending dangerous chills down her back. “That attitude, of course it’s you.” He then tilts his head, causing his brown hair to fall to the side. “You know, you shouldn’t be out here at night. You know the rules of the other-world.”

She ignores him. “Let him go. You don’t need to be an arsehole, Reece.”

The boy who’s being gripped by the collar shakes in fear, glancing uneasily between Reece and Bianca. “No, you don’t get it. Don’t say anything rude to him.”

Bianca frowns, taking few steps closer. “I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need it.” He trembles.

The wind suddenly picks up and it sends strands of Bianca’s silky, black hair flying over her face.

Reece’s deep and menacing voice pierces into the air. “She clearly doesn’t understand what’s going on.”

She scowls at how tightly Reece grips the poor boy. “I understand enough. Now, let him go—”

“Fine,” Reece curtly says and she jolts a little, getting scared by the vicious look that appears in his dark eyes. “I’ll let him go.”

A feeling of content and fulfillment courses through her veins when he says that.

“…after I’m done with him.”

In a split second, Bianca watches Reece open up his mouth, revealing his perfect set of white teeth before he latches himself onto the boy’s neck. It takes a few seconds for her to register that those aren’t teeth but fangs.

The girl with black hair freezes in her spot, watching blood gush out of the boy as he screams loudly into the night. Her heart stops beating the moment she witnesses the boy dying right in front of her. Her skin turns pale and it feels like her blood suddenly disappears out of her body.

All of a sudden, she realizes she can’t feel the cold anymore as fear grips her hard.

Her eyes widen a fraction, hearing the growling noises coming from Reece as he continues to suck on the boy’s neck. The boy tries to fight back, throwing his arms out to push Reece off but nothing seems to stop the hungry creature. Unable to peel her eyes away, she watches helplessly as the boy’s eyes slowly start to close up; his screams getting weaker.

Tears prick at her eyes when Reece dumps the dead boy onto the field.

Shaking in her spot utterly confused, Bianca squints her teary eyes at the scene.

“W-what what i-is going…” She stutters. “H-how?”

When fits of laughter erupt from Reece’s mouth, she averts her gaze to him.

The sight makes her tremble and for a moment, she loses all of her senses, forgetting how her legs work. Blood drips from his mouth down to his white long-sleeve shirt and onto his black trousers. His once brown eyes are now pitch black, resembling darkness. The dark veins covering part of his pale skin makes him look more dangerous.

“There’s no need trying to wrap your head around all this.” He licks his lips, casually pointing at the dead body like it means nothing. “Because you will be dead in a few seconds.”

She staggers backwards when he takes a step closer.

“Now, I wish I wouldn’t have to kill you, Bianca.” He wipes the blood off his jaw with the ends of his sleeve as the dark veins in his eyes slowly disappears, making him appear human-like in a matter of seconds. “Your life means nothing to me. I can’t even remember where I’ve seen you before. But I can’t leave you running around, trying to expose my secret.”

Her lips quiver, her body shivering a second after and it isn’t because of the cold.

She has only been told stories, shown pictures and taught to fight in preparation for the future but she has never met a supernatural being face-to-face before. Actually, none of the students in the academy has.

Shaking terribly in fear, Bianca makes a mental note that if she happens to survive this and is fortunate enough to become a teacher, she will teach her students how to overcome fear rather than pain. She hasn’t even started to fight him and she’s already losing.

She glances at the dead boy behind Reece. “Stay away from me.” Those are her first actual sentence after five minutes.

Reece smirks and the next thing Bianca knows, he materializes in front of her.

With one move, he swings her down to the ground, recreating their graceful fight earlier this morning. He climbs on top of her, his dark veins reappearing with his fangs on full display. Her teeth clatters and she has never been so scared in her entire life.

Fumbling with the back pockets of her jeans, she pulls out a small knife and stabs him in the thigh.

His pale, scary face winces on impact but he quickly grips her hand, pulling the knife out. He lifts the tiny, metal knife covered in blood and twirls it in her face. “Even at the final moments of your life, you still manage to be pathetic and weak. Such an embarrassment.”

She grits her teeth, hearing the same words he said to her after the fight. Getting consumed with anger, she opens her mouth and spits on his face— it is a childish thing to do and it doesn’t cause any harm when facing a vampire but to Bianca, it felt good doing that. If she’s going to die in the next minute, she may as well do the one thing she has desperately wanted to do since the beginning of the year.

Reece’s black eyes glares as he curses. “You bitch.”

Reece then raises his head higher, the wind blowing his brown hair around his face. He opens his mouth wider, aiming for Bianca’s neck.

Shaking in fear, she lets out a piercing scream but the very moment Reece lowers his head to her neck, an invisible force pushes him off her.

With a fast-beating heart, she scurries up to her feet, staring at Reece’s body. Her emotions are all over the place as she frowns at the weird-looking arrow stuck to his chest. Her brown eyes squint when blue flames circulate around the arrow before disappearing into thin air. She stands there confused for a moment, unsure of what just happened. She peers at Reece’s eyes to find them resembling the color of stone. He lays there on the ground for a few more seconds, his skin turning dry and dark.

He's dead— well, officially dead.

Still confused, she reaches for the arrow and pulls it out of his chest.

Someone shot this arrow and saved her.

She turns around, peering fearfully into the dark. “Who is there?” She screams into the dark but it seems like there’s no one on the field. She spots a movement at the very end of the field but soon, the movement’s gone. “Who are you?”

Suddenly, the fire lights on the field turn on, blinding her temporarily. She hears yells from behind her and she turns to see the academy’s guards running out of the building. In fear and shock, she hides the weird arrow behind her before they can see it.

She watches the four male guards holding fire torches run up to her. It seems they heard the screams from inside. Well, they heard a little late because the academy just lost two of their students in one night.

“What are you doing out here? You should be home!” One of the guards scolds her.

Two of the guards run past her, toward the dead boy’s body and the last one kneels down beside Reece’s body. Shocked at what he finds, he looks up at her. “Did you kill him?”

She’s still not over the emotions she felt just a second ago and her heart’s still beating crazily against her small ribcage. She isn’t even sure what she experienced or why she experienced it. All she understands now is that all along, there was a vampire roaming amongst the students in the academy and no one knew. The thought only scares her the more and suddenly, she finds herself refusing to trust the guards.

If Reece could deceive everyone into thinking he was normal then, anyone could do the same.

“Isn’t that one of the best fighters?” The guard who scolded her asks, trying to recognize the face.

“Did you kill him? Answer me.” The one on his knees asks.

When she hesitates to answer, they ask again. “Did you kill him?”

She doesn’t even know what killed him. The ways she has been taught to fight a vampire sure isn’t with arrows that emit blue flames.

Unsure and scared, she lies through her teeth. “Yes… Yes, I killed him.”