After Eden [Book #1 of The Fall Trilogy]

Six ☾ ☽ Existence

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." - Oscar Wilde

Six ☾☽ Existence

So far my time at St. Peter's consisted of running into a sporadic girl, whose mouth moved at the speed of lightning, and meeting a promiscuous librarian who happened to be a succubus. She also claimed that I'm a "goner", and I haven't even made it to first period yet.

"W-What do you mean?"

She sighed, lowering her glasses to the tip of her nose. "I mean exactly what I said. You won't survive a second in this place. You're already dead."

"I-I don't understand, ma'am," I stammered.

"I guess I'll have to give you another lesson of Supernatural 101." She leaned back, resting against a bookcase. "All supernaturals descend from one woman- well one woman's mistake- and her name was Pandora. To humans, she is known as Eve, but I'm not going dwell into origin stories right now."

She studied her nails as if she had repeated the story over and over again and grown bored. "Anyway, I'm sure you've heard the myth of Pandora's Box. Well, when Pandora was overcome with curiosity and opened the cursed box that was gifted to her, she released all the evils and diseases into the world, including plagues and ancient beings that would later lead to what are today's supernaturals. Well. All except one."

The room began to spin.

"Vampires have a complete different origin story and if you ever come around here again, kid, I might tell you. All you need to know is that vampires came into the world as monsters and are known as nothing but monsters to both humans and other supernaturals. You're known as selfish, greedy bloodsuckers with the incapacity of compassion or love. You're the true monsters."

I felt sick. I was a monster among monsters. My hands clutched the forgotten papers of the girl in the corridor, crinkling and crumbling them. Miss Sage watched my every move curiously, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth.

I let out a shaky breath. "What does that mean for me?"

Miss Sage glanced at a clock perched on the wall. Her fingers began to nervously tap against her arm. "I'm sure you've gotten to meet Headmaster Vodovatov, so he's probably told you the certain dilemma in the vampire world."

Yeah, we're slowly dying out.

"Vampires have moved themselves to live in isolated parts of the world where the order of St. Marcellus won't be able to hunt them down. You're the first vampire in a long while to attend St. Peter's." Her eyes found the wall clock once more. "Your time here won't be to pleasant, kid. You're not just gonna find trouble with the students here but quite possibly with the Supernatural Council itself."

I swallowed thickly, a burning sensation igniting in my chest and singing itself through my body. I felt as if my blazer was trying to squeeze the life out of me. Everything was so hot.

The Supernatural Council. Headmaster V hadn't said much about them, but I was already picturing a whole bunch of old guys in black gowns, performing ancient rituals and speaking dead languages.

"Why the Supernatural Council?" I spluttered. "Who even are they?"

Miss Sage grew impatient; her eyes began to continuously flicker over towards the clock and her foot tapped lightly against the carpet. "The Supernatural Council outlawed the turning of humans into vampires, and you're obviously a newly turned. You're blatant proof of defiance to the Council. The least that will happen is that they keep you under heavy surveillance."