Darkness so dark and thick that it nearly gagged me surrounded me. I was wandering around in the woods near my home trying to get back. But every time I moved, I’d loose my place and go deeper into the thick wood. The sharp cracks of twigs and pine needles under-foot were the only sounds, but I swear once and a while I heard other things creaking in the dark, though I couldn’t see them.

Nervousness started escalating my heart, causing me to move frantically. I knew I needed to get out, before whatever was in these woods got to me. I didn’t know what was in the woods, but I knew that I’d be dead if it finally got tired of our game of cat and mouse. It seemed pointless to me to keep going in this mind-numbing darkness. A sharp snap of a stick sounded behind me, and I whirled around. All I could see was a pair of golden eyes, and the flash of fangs, though the figure slowly manifested to me. It was Damion, and relief instantly nearly buckled me. His skin was too pale though, whiter than I’d remembered it, nearly glowing in the pale moonlight.

His name slipped from my lips, and seconds later he was on me, his fingers curling gently around my throat.  I looked down at his hand and frowned in confusion. He just stood there, in all his pale beauty and I realized he was smiling, in a way he never smiled—his lips parted showing the long fangs that I’d seen before. I felt dizzy, the world spinning in front of my eyes. He pressed the softest of kisses to my lips and his grip on my neck tightened. I was suddenly choking, and tried to yank away. He just smiled, as if this amused him, and held me there with his long fingers. And, then he laughed, such a hideous sound coming from such a beautiful face.

I shrieked, and I think it was the sound of my scream that caused me to jerk awake. Sweat had dampened the blankets, and caused me to stick to the couch. The hazy dream faded slowly, and a voice from next to the couch said, “Jesus! Are you alright?” causing me to yelp, startled. I could have sworn no one was in the room with me a second ago.

I looked at Damion, who was standing there, in his uniform pants, his white dress shirt unbuttoned and slipping off a shoulder. His face was creased in worry, his eyes scanning me to check me over. His eyes returned to mine and they were his usual vibrant green, rather than the gold I’d seen in my dream and the gold I could have sworn I’d seen the previous night. “I’m… fine,” I replied, trying to calm my heart, and slow my breathing. “Just… had a bad dream is all,” I mumbled, looking him over. It wasn’t hard to get distracted by looking at him.  His skin was pale enough that it blended in with the shirt in the dark, though it hung open, showing off the porcelain perfection of his chest. The black dress pants were a startling contrast with his porcelain skin. I felt my cheeks burn red. He had deep circles under his eyes, as if he didn’t sleep very well and he held his body a bit ridged.  I frowned; he looked about what I felt, tired and worn.

“Oh,” he replied and sighed lightly, still looking at me. “You feeling any better this morning…?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. He started absentmindedly buttoning his buttons. He made quick work with that, his hands as graceful as the rest of him. I thought about that for a moment. I still felt like my head was about to explode, but other than that I felt okay, I supposed. I told him as much and asked if he had any ibuprofen.

He frowned and shook his head. “I can pick some up on the way to school. There’s a store nearby. Are you sure you want to go to school today?”

“Yeah. My mom’ll maim me if I don’t,” I replied with a chuckle and slipped from under the few blankets I’d managed to keep on me during the night. Most of them were tangled around my feet or lay on the floor, discarded from me in my sleep. “What about you?” I asked, frowning lightly. He’d stepped back, giving me a bit of room, as if he didn’t want to be too close.

“I’m fine,” he replied. “Didn’t sleep much, is all….” He trailed off, and continued, “Your uniforms been washed… It had a few tears in it, from the ice I’m guessing. I’m not sure. But, they’re fixed up pretty okay. If you want, you can borrow one of mine until you get a new one… Mine will fit better than my brother’s clothes, mind you,” he replied chuckling, glancing down. I followed his gaze, and noticed for the first time I wasn’t wearing my own clothes, but a rather loose fitting long sleeved jersey of some sort, and a pair of sweat pants, that were hanging rather dangerously low on my hips. I tugged them up, a bit startled, my cheeks turning crimson.

“Thanks… I’m sure I can manage though,” I replied, and I smiled at him. I was surprised at his helpfulness to me, seeing as he didn’t seem to know I existed in school.

“Well,” he paused, “most of the uniform made it… We lost your coat, I think… Not even Corey could fix it. I think it got caught on a broken piece of the metal from the bridge….” He frowned, a bit apologetic. “That one you’re going to have to borrow from me. And, I think we have some classes together, so we could probably share text books until….”

I stopped listening as yesterday finally caught up with me. It had all seemed like a dream. I’d nearly fell to my death in that damned river. But, Damion had saved my ass, and for that I was grateful. I sighed lightly, thinking of my lost textbooks. I was going to have to pay for those, or my mother was. My mood darkened drastically at that thought. She was going to be rather angry that not only had I managed to miss school yesterday, but I’d lost part of my uniform, and I’d managed to loose all my school supplies. At least I had a few spare notebooks in my locker….

He seemed to notice my mood going downhill fast, because he said, “I’m really sorry. I tried, and the teachers know what happened, I told them yesterday at school, and I’m sure they’ll understand your predicament.”

I nodded vaguely, thinking that I was pretty much screwed. I sat back down on the couch, nearly missing the couch entirely, and as it was I ended up sliding down to the floor, in my pile of abundant blankets. It was going to cost money of course to repay all the things that I’d lost. There was no way out of telling my mom. Unless I got my brother to help me, and I doubted he would want anything to do with the mess; bribery might work….

“Hey, there,” Damion said, and he was closer than he was a few moments before. I flinched at the speed he moved. I could have sworn that he was feet away, not inches. My lips curved down, and I looked up at him—I needed to start paying attention to him, so I didn’t get too spooked when he moved like that again. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a shrug. Then, frowning, I stood up again, arching a brow. “You’ve gotta give warning when you move like that, okay? You move too fast sometimes,” I chuckled, but the smile left my face as I saw his rather startled reaction. “What’s up?”

He shook his head, looking away. “You should get ready. It’s….” He glanced around, spotting the clock and said, “Late.”

I followed his gaze to the clock—just twenty minutes until school started. I gave him wide eyes, jumping back up to my feet, tripping on the blankets, grabbing the over-sized pants I was wearing that happened to chose that moment to start to slip down. Damion grabbed my wrist, pulling me back up before I hit the ground. “Careful now,” he murmured and there was a smile in his eyes. I pulled back from his chilled grip, and stumbled over to the pile of clothing he’d mentioned.

“Bathroom?” I asked, looking at him for an answer.

He pointed to the hallway. “First door on the right,” he replied.

I gave a short nod, and stumbled off to the door in question. If it wasn’t hard enough to walk for me usually, without tripping over something, I now had to worry about tripping over the oversized pants.

Eerie silence greeted me in the hall and I slipped into the bathroom, shutting the door carefully behind me, and fumbling around for a light switch. Flipping it, the lights came on and dimly lit the large bathroom. The first thing I noticed of the room was that everything was blue. Blue tiles, blue shower curtains, blue walls. Hell, there were blue towels and blue toilet paper. I blinked several times, glancing around the glaring cerulean room. It was done in a long L shape the toilet in the bottom hook of the L, a shower to the left and a long sink to the right.

I slowly put my uniform on, looking around the room, and then in the long mirror over the sink. Damion was right about the tears that his brother fixed. Some of them were completely unnoticeable. Though, others, he didn’t have quite as much luck on. I touched on of the sewn up holes, dropping my tie on the toilet seat cover. I bent and picked it up, noticing the line of clear blue that shown where my tie hit. I frowned, realizing the cover was dusty, my tie having wiped off the thin layer of dust. I frowned, glancing around. It didn’t look like it had been used in a rather long time. As if this wasn’t odd enough, the toilet paper was in the same condition. Yet the rest of the bathroom looked well worn, and obviously used.

I pulled back and looked around once more, before putting my tie on. Maybe they didn’t use this bathroom… They could always have another one, right?

I slipped out of the room, flicking the light-switch off. I glanced down the hallway—two doors to the left and three, counting the bathroom, on the right. I doubted there would be another bathroom down this hallway. It wouldn’t make sense with the building. That was… odd to say the least. Maybe they were mutant ninjas who didn’t believe in toilets. Or, they were secret spies who had their lair hidden, and to open it they just had to turn the handle of the toilet to get a secret door to descend to underground, and the dust was just so they could know if anyone found it out. I couldn’t help but laugh at the funny ideas my thoughts were thinking up.

“If you want I could show you around,” Damion said, standing at the beginning of the hall, watching me. I jumped and squeaked, but managed not to scream. I could have sworn he wasn’t there a minute ago. Maybe spy wasn’t so far off after all.

“Someone should put a bell on you!” I said, blinking at him. “You move like a ghost.”

He frowned. “You weren’t paying attention to me. You were looking down the hall. I could give you a quick tour now, if you’d like? But then we ought to go and start the walk to school.”

I nodded frowning. “Sure,” I replied, and looked back at the bathroom, with a frown. “Do you have another one of those…?”

“Another bathroom? No. Me and Corey share rather easily,” he chuckled smiling slightly. “I don’t think we have enough room for one, anyway. Why?”

“It’s… never mind,” I replied with a frown. “So, what else is in your fabulous house? What I’ve seen so far is pretty dang neat.”

“Oh? Thank you. Corey decorated. Down the hall to the right are the basement, the bathroom and the guest room. To the left; both Corey’s and mine. Corey’s sleeping right now, so we shouldn’t really walk down there right now. To the right are the bath room, and two guest bedrooms. The room at the end of the hallway is for my parents. Corey’s and mine, that is. They don’t come by often, though, always away on… business. Corey usually is the one to take care of things around here.” He shrugged, not seeming unhappy by this bit of information. I squinted, and noticed there was, indeed, a door that I had missed.

“What do they do?” I asked, tilting my head to the side and fidgeting with my tie.

“I’m not sure, actually,” he replied with a chuckle. I noticed again that he didn’t open his mouth much when he said anything or even when he laughed or smiled. He slipped down the hallway, opening that last door to the left, his room, and came back out less than a minute later, holding a coat. “Here…” he offered, handing the coat to me. I recognized it as the black wool trench-coat that he wore at the beginning of the winter.

I took it, and smiled slightly at him. “Thank you,” I replied, and forgot for the moment about all of the oddities he held. He handed me the thick coat, and I slipped it on. Beside it being a bit too long and a bit loose around the shoulders, it was perfect. I chuckled at him, and he blinked slowly at me, opening the door for me. “What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I replied simply, shaking my head. “It’s just… you’re so strange at some points and then you act completely normal, it’s kind of strange, y’know?” I explained.

“Strange?” he asked, and led me out to the snowy world. The sky seemed to be throwing down bucketfuls of the powdery white stuff, blanketing the world completely in the fluffy substance. We started trudging through the snow, me tripping over the things the thick layer concealed. He chuckled lightly, and slipped his hand in mine, helping me as I tripped.

“Yeah,” I grunted, hearing the snap of a tree-branch underneath my graceless movements. Cars drove by, and others were paused in traffic, their red tail-lights glowing dimly in the sunless day. “Strange. Like, you have some weird things that you do and stuff,” I finished lamely, beginning to despise the snow which now concealed puddles of icy doom. Damion, of course, had no trouble on this ground, helping me and not even stumbling when I rammed into him. I really wished I had decided to skip school.

“You really need to work on your footing,” he replied, with a snigger.

I glared at him. “Now you see how I somehow managed to fall off a damn bridge,” I replied.

He shook his head, sniggering more, the amusement plain in his eyes. “Unfortunately, yes, I do,” he replied, lips curved up, eyes twinkling in amusement. “So, what’s strange about me?” he asked, pulling me a bit tighter to him; better to keep helping me stay upright, I supposed. But, he went slightly stiff as he did, and his eyes shifted to the side. “So, this strange thing…?” he asked, and trailed off. “What am I doing strange?”

“Well… You look kinda… pale… But I guess that’s not different than usual. But, you’re not just regular pale, but super pale. But, you don’t look like an albino to me… Though, sometimes your eyes…. I swear they go gold sometimes,” I laughed. “Stupid, eh? I don’t think eyes go strange colors at strange times…. Your hand is fricken cold,” I rambled, and gently put both of mine around his, rubbing them together, trying to warm him up.

“Low blood pressure,” he explained, and chuckled. “Or poor circulation; or both… it’s probably both.”

I nodded. “You should get gloves,” I replied.

“So, what else about me is weird…?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Well,” I paused and thought. “You and your brother don’t use the bathroom,” I said dumbly. He blinked and looked at me, arching a brow. “Your bathroom was used, but there was dust… near the seat cover and on the paper,” I chuckled, and looked at him. I scowled at his amused look.

I recognized where we were, near the school but not near enough for having so little time to get there. And, then he started tugging me away from the direction I knew the building was in and I shot him a look. “Breakfast; I need to feed you. I heard about a good coffee shop in town, not that far away, and we can pick you up something there. I’ll pay, since I didn’t have much to offer you in the way of breakfast foods at home; Corey and I aren’t breakfast people.”

“Oh,” I replied, and nodded. “Thanks.”

He smiled. “Not a problem,” he replied.

“So, you don’t use the bathroom… Or, just don’t believe in them or what?” I grimaced, feeling embarrassed, but I really did want to know.

He looked stumped, his lips pursed, pausing where he stood. He looked slightly confused, but then continued our trek to whatever shop we were going to. I saw the building in question, a small little shop on the corner of the street nearby our school. I recognized it at once-I used to go there every now and then with my friend. A friend that turned out not to be such a great friend after all. He had asked me out and stupid me refused; I didn’t like him that way, and I didn’t want to ruin a friendship if possible, if it ended up going badly. Unfortunately, that was what had made it end badly, and he hasn’t talked to me since; though, he talked about me quite a bit, as every secret I’d told him wasn’t quite so secret anymore. It was a nice little shop, though, and had a lot of good food and drinks. Damion had a good taste.

“You don’t have an explanation of that, do you…?” I asked slowly, looking at him, taking my attention away from where we were heading, and more on him. He was staring strait ahead, walking us both in front of the moving cars, though the cars managed to halt before the crushed us. I stared at the Dodge, at the front of the line, brushing my legs, eyes widening. I looked at him. “Crosswalk. There is a crosswalk a few feet away,” I squeaked. “No need to try and get us both killed by cars.”

He gave a nervous smile, raising a hand to the cars in the line apologetically. “Yeah. Sorry,” he muttered, and then looked to the shop again. We reached the café with both ourselves intact, luckily.

“So,” I replied, glancing back at the angry drivers at the wheel, glaring at Damion’s back. “You… don’t have an explanation….”

He chuckled lightly, shaking his head. “No, not really….” He replied finally. “None that seems logical, that is.” He slipped into the building, holding the door open for me. I smiled my thanks and went in after him. The rich, warm aroma of coffee and sweets hit me instantly and I couldn’t help but smile; anything to get out of that cold, and the little coffee shop was little and smelled good which made it all the better.

“What’ll you have?” He asked, his lips quirking up.

“Uhm,” I replied; I hadn’t gotten quite that far. “Er, anything is good.”

He seemed to like that response, and smiled, stepping up to the counter and giving the lady standing behind it a charming smile. I glanced away, looking at the people meandering around us. A good portion of their eyes were on Damion and me, and I recognized a few people from our school. People who I’d be better off avoiding. People who of course were staring at the two of us. I grimaced, and felt Damion return to my side with a bag teeming with god knew what.

“Think this will be enough?” He smiled, looking amused.

“Uhm…. You trying to feed an army there?” I asked, grinning at him.

“Oh. Too much then,” he laughed, and I could see he was repressing a grin. He never did show his teeth. Maybe he had braces or something, and was embarrassed about them. “Shall we?”

I nodded, wanting to get out of the café as quickly as possible; the people from my school, the girls anyway, were glaring daggers at me, and I didn’t think it would do me any good to stand around to chat with them. Especially with the one I recognized as Amber Sullivan, the cheerleader who swooned over Damion every chance she got, and also the one who spread the most crap about me.

Again Damion opened the door for me and again I thanked him. He rummaged through the bag, pulling out a turnover of some sort and handing it to me, smiling. “Try that one, first,” he said.

I gave him a look, taking the pastry from his fingers. “You going to have any…?” I asked, looking from him to the bag and back again. There was no way I was going to eat even half of what that bag; it was too much.

“Nope,” he replied. “Not a breakfast person. And, I’m allergic…”

“Oh?” I asked, biting into the sweet pastry, the sweet taste exploding in my mouth. I couldn’t help but smile. Oh, how I had missed turnovers.  I hadn’t had one for ages. And it was one of the sweet things that I could eat.

“Yeah; I’m allergic to sugar,” he replied, watching me, seeming amused as I scarfed down the flaky pastry.

“Oh, jeeze, that has to suck. You beat my allergies hands down,” I replied with a chuckle.

“What are you allergic to?” he asked, crossing on the crosswalk this time, though he didn’t look both ways. One of these days he was going to get hit by one of the angry vehicles he forced into dramatic stops. I followed, grimacing at the angry signs the drivers gave.

“Milk. Lactose, actually. Lactose intolerant,” I replied, and frowned as he started rummaging through the bag again. “You don’t need to feed me anymore, you know. I’m okay. Better than okay, actually; I’m good.”

He smiled. “I will have to do something with this wide arrange of sugary substances, and I sure am not eating them. Though, I don’t think you can eat most now. Actually, I don’t think you can eat any of it. Is there milk in frosting?”

“Sometimes. Usually not. Probably from there, yeah,” I replied.

“Oh well,” he murmured, and shrugged. “Just have to find more things for you to eat. The confines of our school quickly approached and we were soon on the corner right in front of the building. He tossed the bag of food in the garbage, and we started up the stairs to the building. I gaped at him.

“Why’d you throw that out?” I asked, a bit startled.

He glanced at me, blinking. “You weren’t going to be able to eat it and neither would I….” he replied, as if it were obvious.

I shook my head, and said, “You could have given it to your friends, or something. Or saved it for your brother; there was no need to throw it away.”

He gave me a little bit of a smile. “Calm down,” he chuckled, “Don’t get all conserve-y on me. It would have been wasted anyway, just not wasted right here and now. My brother has the same problem as me, you know. And, I don’t really have many friends, actually.” He shrugged, amused looking.

I looked from him back to the garbage can, and then to the random people starting to run toward the building. “And, those people who you’re always with are what, chopped liver?”

“They’re not my friends. I think they’re more like my flockers. More annoying than anything else. Some of them are alright, but I don’t much like the majority,” he shrugged, and chuckled lightly.

“Oh,” I replied.

“Yeah. So, I don’t want to encourage them. Giving them food would be all the encouragement they need to keep gathering around me.”

“Alright, makes sense to me.” I smiled lightly, and went back to our previous topic of discussion. “So no explanation?” I asked.

He blinked slowly, and then he realized what I was talking about. “Erm… Well, that would be because....” he started, but was interrupted by the shrill sound of the bell ringing inside. He smiled, and opened the door, quickly. “Well, look at that. I really don’t want to be late. I’ll talk to you later,” he murmured, and I saw a smirk curve his lips. He was most definitely hiding something from me. Something that he really did not want me to know. He nodded quickly to me, and fled into the warmth of our cold-hearted school, disappearing into the crowds, leaving me standing there, confused. What was he hiding, and why…?