A Steady Stream of Moonlight

It never took a lot for her to wake up, especially when the sound of a hairdryer nagged in the fuzzy background for over an hour.

Slapping around randomly, she sought out her glasses, face still engulfed by the lumpy pillow she slept on. Slapping the metal frames she pried her face away from the comfort and blinked a few times to wake herself up, before putting them on as her vision sharpened.

She got up, combed out frizzy, tangled locks of hair and rubbed at dark eye circles, hoping that doing so would make them go away. For a donneur, she was completely boring, insanely normal and on the grand scale of things, horrifically ugly (in a sense, considering how everyone else was gorgeous). 

Her roommate stuck her head out of the bathroom, long hair just glittering in the light. “Morning sunshine!” she chirped, pulling on her blazer. “You should change, and quickly. We always-“ “Want to look as good as possible. I heard you, Tracy.” She smiled awkwardly and slid into the bathroom, carrying out the normal boring routines.

They walked out of their room together, like they always did. She was raving about some beauty product, like she always did. Her hair refused to conform to a braid, as it always did. And everything was in its set motion. Everything fell perfectly in alignment, and that was the way it would be till she graduated. Which was very, very far away.

“Kayla. Pretty name, ugly face.” The sneer came (like it always did) with a new, refreshing insult. She turned to face the only person who kept her life from being mundane- Amber. And her name was Amber for a very good reason- the colour of her hair, draped in an astonishingly provocative manner (“After Shag hair,” Tracy said. “More powerful than her hormones.”), her skirt so short people swore they caught glimpses of her knickers while she walked.

“Thank you, and good morning” Kayla eased out gently, before turning and walking away from a horde of giggles and insults from behind. It really didn’t matter, after a while. She still remembered the first day, and she was pretty sure it would last till the very last day. She stifled a yawn and lazily followed Tracy into the hall.

Kayla froze.

She had forgotten the day of the week. She whispered out “I’m not feeling well.” And made a mad dash out to the courtyard, an entire 4 blocks away, to hide under the oak tree until the hour was over.  It was Monday, and that meant feeding day. The feeding day that she plainly refused, or excused herself from every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Taking deep breaths, she settled under the tree, hidden from view. Prescott Academy was a beautiful place, sprawling grounds, well-maintained gardens and state of the art facilities. The only problem was that it was a school for Vampires and the chosen “donneur ”. As cliché as it sounded, that was the way the world worked to keep other humans safe. Of course, any Vampire Wannabe wasn’t going to get turned easily, or even become a donneur easily. It was all about the blood.

It didn’t matter what the type was- it was about the scent, the smell, the erotica (that was just gross, in Kayla’s opinion). A blood drive was what got her into this mess, because somebody out there liked her smell, singled her out and sent her the letter of acceptance into the academy. Her parents were delighted at her “self initiated” step to independence. She was far from happy when she found out how things worked.

Everyone who came knew what he or she had gotten into and they were all extremely happy for being chosen. Kayla wanted to shrivel up and die, as she reeled in shock, confused and panicky. Eventually, the routines she set up fell neatly into place, and hiding from the feeding session was part of it.

Feeding itself was pretty obvious. Vampires found their donneur (all the donneurs worked on rotation) and drank from the wrist. Nothing higher, nothing lower. Any of that was limited to the future intimacy between the vampire and their chosen ‘donneur –for-life’. As they years progressed, those who were confident enough would seal themselves to one vampire or donneur for eternity, and that was that.

Both the male and female donneurs belonged on covers of magazines, all of them except Kayla. She absently mindedly scowled at the hair she twisted around her finger and drew her knees to her chest tightly. All of them would walk out later in a state of euphoria, or utter bliss. The only one dampening the mood was Kayla, because she just couldn’t bring herself to letting anyone- or anything, do that to her.

It was intimate. She’d never had a boyfriend; she’d never had kisses like that or...bites like that.  Above and beyond, she was afraid of feeling attachment to the person that would be the first to bite her, but there was going to be rotations. It wasn’t going to be easy if that was the case. Tracy was fine after her first bite, she was in a giddy euphoria, giggling and blushing. She didn’t seem to find it significant, or special after that. She detached herself from feeling for whoever bit her before her “vampire-for-life”. Kayla couldn’t do that- she wasn’t just a donneur. She was a human too.

She waited out the hour, like she always did. Plucking at the grasses by her feet, looking up into the sky and seeking out stars- it was just slow, soft, bliss. The change in time was madness for her, and she still had to sleep with the heavy curtains drawn. Changing her sleep cycle was strange, but that too fell into place. Looking into the sky, she pushed herself to forget, to let things go, to pretend that nobody would stare at her as she walked away among the other ‘high’ donneurs