Mythfits

5- Steve

Brrrrrrrrring! As everyone rushes to stand up, our english teacher, Mrs. Morris, held up her hand, attempting to halt the tide of leaving students. "Remember to research your family history, the essays are due next week!"

As I exit the classroom and head to my next class, I ponder how I'm going to write the 'Family History' essay, my family comes from a long and credible line of vampires, originating in San Francisco, but we have spread out considerably since the 1900's. They are one of the most well known vampiric family's in the San Francisco area.

Yeah... that'll go over well. While most book and movies make being a vampire seem glamorous and exciting, to me, it's more of a major hindrance on my social life than anything else. I may not have some of the more, well, life threatening, problems that most vampires have, (the inability to be in the sun, go near a church, or consume anything besides blood) but I still have to deal with the complications of coming up with ideas for projects like this or not being able to invite your friends over for dinner.

Suddenly, a kid rushes towards me, knocking me into the wall " Watch it! Oh, hey Steve." the kid, one of my friends, Grant, reaches out a hand and helps me up. "Sorry about that, my bad." he grins, "Gotta get to class, see you at lunch?"

I give a half-wave as he walks backwards down the hall, "See you at lunch."

As the bell rings, I duck into my civics class, buoyant from the proximity to my friends. A stark contrast to the rest of my family, I'm very much a people-person. In the same way that most vampires thrive off of blood, I gain strength and energy just by being around people.

If I had to, I could go without eating or drinking for months, surviving only off of the energy residue from my classmates. And in the same way that most vampires will become haggard and sallow when deprived of blood, if I am isolated from people for too long, I wither away. We wouldn't necessarily die, but imagine teetering on the brink of sanity, the only coherent thought in your mind the thirst for energy, the need to drink. not fun.

Once, in third grade, we went on a 'family vacation' to go visit our relatives, living in a remote vampire colony in south america. It may not surprise you to learn that vampires don't exert much energy, as we're not exactly human, so after about a week, I was rather energy-deprived. After dry retching in the bathroom for hours on end, my parents finally let me go on one of their 'errand runs' to a nearby village.

Unfortunately, this difference only isolated me further from my family and the rest of vampire-kind.

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At lunch that day, as I sit at my normal table and catch up with my friends on their summer. As Kevin entertains the table with a story of his trip to the caribbean, I glance around the cafeteria to for Ella. I spot her seated by herself at a table in the corner, working on the assigned worksheet from Algebra. I contemplate going and sitting next to her and see if she'd actually talk to me, but judging from her previous hostility, I can't see that going over well.

As I watch, Christine Chanteuse, the daughter of a siren and one of the 11th graders doing volunteer hours at the middle school, walks over to Ella and sits down next to her. I silently wince, preparing for Ella to do... something, But instead, Ella looks up as Christine introduces herself. I shouldn't be surprised at this, as Christine is a siren, and like all other sirens, she is able to manipulate other people's emotions, to a certain extent. However subtle the manipulation may be, I've seen Christine stop someone from committing suicide and and convince a potential attacker into a best friend, although Ella wasn't acting like herself, (although I barely know her and have only been around her for all of two days) she was still glaring at Christine and generally acting like she didn't want to be having this conversation. Her 'bug off' demeanor didn't change for a solid 10 minutes, until finally, Christine stood up and walked away, although not before writing what I suppose is her name and phone number on a napkin.

I was impressed, I had been observing Ella for the two days had been in school (okay, I know that's not nearly enough time to form a sound impression, but what am I supposed to do?) and I had never seen a person engage in an extended conversation with Ella and come out both emotionally and physically unscathed.

"Hey, dude, you awake?" Jake nudges my arm, "You're kind of zoning out."

I blink, startled out of my contemplation. " Barely, civics really took it out of me today, I mean how many times does he need to teach the three branches of government? On the second day of school too!"

Kevin grins, "Just be glad you don't have a sub! There was this one time..." he launches into a story as I turn my attention to my lunch and listen, bemused, to him recount the time a sub taught the same lesson for a week strait.

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When the tables were dismissed, I scan the mayhem of students pouring through the days for Ella, her black pixie-cut hair as well as quiet demeanor and almost-visible cloud over her head standing out next to the sea of perky blondes and brunettes surrounding her. And not for the first time, I wonder if this is how she always acts, or is she just new and shy? If she is, she sure has a strange way of expressing it.