Chapter 5: Noah

In her mind, Lucy just kept thinking of a dark, gothic dungeon full of coffins and chains, maybe guarded by a moat filled with crocodiles. But as 3:00am came around, they were simply walking up to a normal looking house down the street from the campus. It seemed like any other college party she had gone to except there were no snack foods or food of any kind. Simply blood bags, kegs of blood, and humans willingly letting vampires drink their blood.

“Well, nothing like a good dose of immersion therapy to help me overcome my issues of being a vampire,” Lucy mumbled as they walked inside. Veronika ignored her and instantly started waving at people she knew. Veronika greeted them and squeezed Lucy’s arm before she wandered off towards the other people. Lucy pursed her lips and tucked her hands in her pocket.

“What a nice friend you got there,” called a voice from behind her. Lucy turned around to see a striking man with spiked hair and piercing green eyes. They seemed like they held some kind of secret that they would never reveal.

“Yeah, she’s just a bit more social than me.”

“I’m guessing parties and things aren’t really your scene?”

“Not really. But I’m having a difficult time ‘normalizing my new reality’ as she says, and hopefully, this helps me see vampires as more normal now.”

“How long since your transformation?” he asked, crossing his arms.

“It’s been about a month, and it wasn’t something I wanted. I was… um.. I was attacked. I guess they called it a ‘rogue vampire’.” Lucy lowered her head and tried not to let the intriguing man beside her.

“Oh, my god, that’s horrible. No wonder you’re having such a difficult time. The rest of us choose this life. It’s an important and detailed process, and not everyone is selected. I can’t believe that happened to you,” he replied, reaching over to touch Lucy’s arm. “I’m Noah. What’s your name?”

“I’m Lucy. It’s nice to meet you, Noah. How long have you been here?”

Noah chuckled a bit and moved a tad closer to her.

“It’s been about seven months since I was approved. I’m still just a fledgling, like you,” Noah answered. “Do you want to go get a drink?”

Lucy looked at him in a brief panic.

“Um sure, from bags or … um, or people?”

Noah smirked again.

“We don’t have to try people, if you’re not ready for it. There are some fresh bags in the kitchen we can heat up.” Noah put his arm around her shoulder and guided her towards the kitchen.

“Can I ask you some questions?” Lucy whispered. “They might be kind of stupid and ridiculous.”

Noah chuckled again as he moved to the kitchen and pulled a blood bag out of the fridge.

“We are in a secret, secure facility, learning and training to be vampires. I think it’s all a little weird and ridiculous on some level. I mean, we are all fledglings.”

“See, that’s my first question. What is a fledgling? Why are there different levels to being a vampire? I’m sure they explained some of this in my earlier classes but I was a bit disoriented and distracted. I don’t really remember.” Lucy took her freshly heated blood bag and sipped carefully, doing her best not to spill.

“Yeah, I’ve always found that a bit interesting as well. But yes, different levels to being vampires. Fledglings is just the name for new vampires. Vampires a year and younger. This is mostly the time of adjusting, learning, and mostly adapting to drinking from humans. That’s why we are in this training school and isolated from other people. Then there are advanced vampires and elders. I think you have to be something like a thousand years old to be considered an elder.”

“And what are the rules of, um, like, dating people not in your class of vampires?” Lucy asked, keeping her head down looking at the edge of her blood bag.

Noah looked at her curiously and smirked with a raised eyebrow.