Faith and The Vampire ✔️

Chapter One

It was a warm day in late June. All fruits should ripen by now, the view that the year makes as late spring thinks about becoming summer. But instead of enjoying beautiful day like this, I was forced to walk the street at 7. This was the day why I've been practiced for. I couldn't fail this preparatory language test. Just imagining another year, full of training on how to read, write and speak fluently in Romanian, felt like an entirely different kind of horror. This was it. The big day.

"Chill." Aisha told me gently. "Everything's okay. We got this, Melody."

" I had a bad feeling."

"Yeah. I can see that on your face. But, it's just a test, right?"

She was a genius. It was just a test for her because she basically mastered everything she learned only in a couple weeks. Which was insane. And for the record, it was not just a test. This test kinda decided our future in Romania. If we failed this test, we should take another course for the preparatory language class. And if somehow we failed again, well, they probably sent us back to our country. And our scholarship would be cancelled. I never wanted any of that to happen.

I sighed. "Yeah, still, I don't want to mess this up."

"You won't."

She made it sound simple. She always did, even though there was nothing simple about being on the way to a test that basically had the ability to erase our scholarship awardee status. But, she was right, we didn't have time to hesitate.

Aisha and I had been best friends for almost a year, when the student housing board had paired us together as dormitory roommate. Usually they paired up two or more students who came from the same country to be roommate. Somehow I ended paired up with a jade-green eyes girl who came from Turkey. She was the more reasonable one, I was the reckless one. This was the way it had always been between us. Aisha and I had been inseparable ever since.

After a long slow walk, here we are at the Transilvania University of Brașov. My futre campus, if i managed successfully passed the test. This campus wasn't as old as everything else in Europe, but it had been built in the same style. The buildings boasted elaborate, almost churchlike architecture, with high peaks and stone carvings. Wrought iron gates enclosed small gardens and doorways here and there. After living on a college campus, I had a new appreciation for just how much this place resembled a university more than everything I saw in the past.

We were on the secondary campus, which was divided into several buildings that named in alphabetical order. Each was built around a large open quadrangle decorated with stone paths and enormous, century-old trees. We were going toward the A building's quad, which had academic buildings on one side, while Aula and the gym sat opposite. Rectorate sat on one of the other ends, and opposite them were the administrative buildings that also served the lower school. Most of the faculties on the primary campus, farther to the west.

Around all the campuses was space, space, and more space. We were in Brașov , after all. The air felt cool in my lungs and smelled of pine and flowers.

As we walked into the main part of the A building, I ran up to my Indonesian friends.

"Hey, guys!"

They all looked worried, as much as I did. When a bunch of other students entered the examination hall, much quieter than usual, I could see the tension in everyone's eyes. I could smell and feel the cold air adding more to the already stressful environment. I realized I was breathing heavily and my heart thumped as we slowly sat down at our individual desks. No one even bothered to look at each other as they tried to remember all their notes. I felt a slight sense of confidence as I saw most people were nervous.

Finally, one of them managed to saiy, "How'is your sleep last night, Mel?" . His name was Ramdhani Maulana, but us from Indonesia used to call him Kak Dani. By the way, 'Kak' is short for 'kakak', a word that used to call your sister or brother who older than you in Indonesian.

"You know last night had to be a nightmare and I haven't even closed my eyes yet. It was horrible."

Everyone was laughing at my answer. Glad to know that i could be some kind of an ice-breaker in the middle of panic attack.

"I think we should-"

My words faded as our language lecturers led us through a set of doors-straight into the examination room. I exhaled. Our walk ended, and the room had nothing to calm us down. One of our lecturer told us to sit down. He was sharp-nosed and gray-haired. He was tall and slim, and had always reminded me of a vulture. We called him : Domnule Alexandru.

Most of the lecturers left us once all of us were seated, and I felt a little less like a prisoner. Domnule Alexandru explained all about the test and how important it was for us to pass the exam. And then, the test started. As the sheets were handed to everyone, I started as soon as I was given mine. The air around me turned warm and I concentrated even more. I looked left and then right and seeing everyone with their head down motivated me to work harder.

The test is split into two sections: a written part and an oral test. The written part is considered the most difficult one because it had four sub-sections: listening, reading, communication constructions, and, of course, writing. After that, the lecturer would interview us one-on-one for the speaking section. The maximum number of points you can get for this exam is 100.

If you want to get a degree in a subject only offered in Romanian-more than half of the degree programs offered at the Bachelor's level at the biggest universities are in Romanian-you'd better prove your worth with a language exam. Well, since all of us here were the scholarship awardees, and clearly we weren't natives of Romanian, we took "Romanian Preparatory Year" for two semesters' worth of courses to get to the B2 level. If we lucky enough to pass the test, we would get the certificates and started our college life.

The pressure was upon us . I could feel the fear lurking across the room. I shivered like a fish out of water, unable to breathe. I panicked but held myself tight while whispering to myself, "You'll be alright Melody. You have been preparing for this". Alas, the moment I had dreaded had finally come; I was stuck on several questions.

"Oh, what do I do?", I thought. "God, I hate writing and reading part!"

My mind suddenly went blank, and all I could think of was how I was going to manage my time and answer some of the questions. I got worried if I was even going to finish the exam. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself and everything around me was not so bad anymore.

The silence in the room did not helped me to cool down and regain control at all. I was not able to gather my thoughts and forced to finish the test because the time was over. The test seemed pretty easy at first but gone extremely hard the more i did it. By the time I finished the exam, I was still breathing irregularly, though it was because I rushed out to submit the exam paper.

When I left the examination room, I ran across the hallway towards Aisha, my dormitory roommate. I drank water and it felt as if it cleansed my entire body from the inside.

"So? How was the test?" she managed to ask.

I didn't answer.

"Melody? Are you okay?" She seemed worried.

" I think I screwed-up"

"No, you didn't. Oh, come on, I heard your speaking part with Domnule Ionescu, you were great!" She hugged me. "Let it go. Let's go home"

Eventually, I found myself relieving but keeping fingers crossed for a great result. But honestly, I couldn't shake the feeling.

I was feeling weary and beaten. Had only been one year gone by? Surely the happy excitement I'd felt before announced as one of the Romanian Government Scholarship awardees from Indonesia had been months ago and not this morning. I sat quietly, up on my bed, thinking how long am I going to work to make my dreams come true?

I supposed, the best answer was- as long as it takes.