Blood Lines

1. Donation

It was the Spring Blood Drive. Claetta Lomond bit her lip as she walked by yet another cheerful red heart sign in the Academy hallway proclaiming, "BE A CHAMP, SUPPORT OUR VAMPS!" She always felt nervous on these events. They always felt tense, as though the "bats" as they were sometimes colloquially referred to, looked hungrier on these days.

"Oh man, I'm donating after class," Clae's roommate Jessica Maron moaned, stretching her arms as though preparing for exercise. "I'm gonna be so tired afterwards. It always knocks me out. I won't be able to go to the lab tonight at all."

"I already donated, I feel fine," Jordan Scolland said, shrugging from Clae's other side.

"Yeah but you're like a giant! I'm a pixie compared to you," Jess complained. It was pretty true. Jordan was an athlete, on both the Cellof Academy basketball and football teams and she towered over both of her fellow girls by at least five inches.

"What about you Clae?" Jordan asked.

"I'm waiting until this evening too," she said, shrugging. "That way if it takes a toll, I don't have to feel sick in class."

"Wow, very considerate of you Clae," Jess said, raising her eyebrows conspiratorially. "The bats always say the sweetest blood is given after dark."

"Oh come on they do not!" Jordan scoffed as Clae felt her stomach squirm slightly.

"I heard it from Victor," Jess said, smirking. She was referring to their classmate, Victor Sheil who was a vampire.

"Whatever," Jordan said. "Victor is whack."

Their dashing vampire peer had always been a bit of a lore peddler. He enjoyed spreading rumors about vampiric myths and ideas to gullible humans as a joke.

"Come on, we better get to Alchemy Class or Professor Lindor will be pissed," Clae said to break up the discussion.

In truth, she disliked giving blood. It always made her feel vulnerable and slightly queasy. She would have loved to skip it but it was socially expected of each human student to give blood if they were physically able to. That was just one of the pillars of cohabitation with vampires in this school, the community blood pool. It was also probably the most important act that the human students could achieve. Most vampires had to consume a minimum of 1 ounce of blood in a week to stay both physically and mentally healthy. It took a lot of donations to keep that quota up. Though the Academy's population was only 35% vampires to 65% humans, it was still necessary to donate as many times as possible for a human. Clae would do her duty for the cause, if only to stop the hungry eyes of the bats from haunting her nightmares.

Alchemy was a particularly sparsely attended lesson today, although their classes were always small. There were only 12 students in their year of the Botanical and Herbal Research (BHR) Department at the Cellof Academy, 9 human and 3 vampire students. The field was largely understudied and underappreciated, especially in the realm of vampirical research, but the Headmaster and Headmistress of the Academy had ensured that the program continued, despite being small and having minimal funding. It was the only program of its kind in the entire country.

Today there were seven of them in the lab, including Clae, Jess and Jordan. They were continuing the previous lesson on hyssop-based salves for skin ailments that vampires could develop if they spent too much time in the direct sunlight without a block. The recipes were complicated, ingredients had to be prepared properly to achieve the desired effect. As Clae carefully boiled the cypress resin that would be the binder of the salve in the later steps, she glanced over at their only vampire comrade of the day. Lydia Chelly was a second-year student with large protuberant black eyes, hair the color of mahogany and a seemingly permanent lethargic manner.

"Why is this class so early?" she yawned as she passed her lab partner, who was Jordan today, a cup of hyssop leaves.

The yawn was so wide it was just possible to discern two sharp fangs protruding a little longer than the average human canines would have. It was 5:30 PM. This was the first class of the Evening Session, though for their vampire comrades it was quite early in their "day". The schedule had been designed to encompass the habits of both species, so that classes went from 5:30 PM to 10:30 PM on the one end and then 5:30 AM to 10:30 AM on the other. In this way both species were more or less content with their natural cycles of wakefulness and sleeping, although the edge classes could be a bit extreme.

Clae liked Lydia, she was a very approachable vampire, and some of them were absolutely not. Anyone might have thought that Lydia was just another human, sometimes it was hard to tell. She was kind, at times overly enthusiastic about her love for plants and botany, and was quick to laugh, characteristics not too typical of most vampires.

"My dad is human," she explained to Clae one time. "He works as an elementary school teacher. I think I adapted a lot from his personality, you know?"

Like most vampires these days, Lydia was a redblood, or only part vampire. Sometimes the redbloods acted so similarly to humans, it was difficult to remember that if they didn't drink blood periodically, they would die.

After Alchemy, Clae was done with classes for her day. Mostly she attended morning session so that she could work in the lab and greenhouse in the evenings. She and Jess bid Jordan goodbye and traipsed to the infirmary where they would be giving their donations. There was already a small cue, they hadn't been the only ones to plan for giving blood in the evening. While the nurse checked them in, Clae and Jess nattered about random topics from classes that day. Their fellow BHR student Sherman Henderson was already giving blood so they headed over to him while they drank their liter of electrolyte water to prepare for the donation. They chatted idly for some time about their upcoming midterm assignments before Sherman was done and was handed his red heart sticker which read, "proud donor."

"Ok ladies, we have two chairs open," the attendant called, ushering them over. Clae held Jess's hand as the IV went into her friend's left arm and then readied herself for the poke. She was used to it by now, although she still felt a little shot of adrenaline when the needle entered her vein. She disliked the sensation of being able to feel her blood pulsing into the bag to her left. Jess always closed her eyes tight and listened to music through her earbuds while she was getting her blood drawn, so this left Clae to gaze around vaguely at the other donors, the nurses and the attendants. A large blood drop shape on the opposite wall was colored red about three quarters of the way to the top, denoting 214 donations so far. "We're almost there!" read the slogan above it.

Clae started to feel a little drowsy after a while and mentioned this to the attendant from the Vampire Nursing Department. "You're just about there," the smiling student said, checking her pulse at her neck. "Are you feeling dizzy at all?"

"Not really," Clae said. "Just a little light."

"Ok, just let me know if you feel dizzy, sick or faint and we'll stop right away."

But she made it to her obligatory pint, as did Jess, although she looked a bit pale. "You girls both just supported one of our blood-needing students for 16 weeks!" the sticker lady announced in a congratulatory tone, popping their blood drop badges onto their sleeves. "Way to go!"

~~~~~

Footnote. Cellof Academy, which was founded by human Xavier Cellof and his vampire wife Magdalena,  is the only interracial (vampire and human) institute in the country. During its inaugural year, it had only three departments and a total of 37 students. Now in its 20th year, it boasts 20 different departments and hosts 381 students including undergraduates and graduate students.