By moonlight's shadow

Chapter 1

It was just like another new day. Fresh, crisp and beautiful. All the starting of a new possibility. But maybe in some other world. Not here.

Here in this place, the days started after the sun had gone down. The classes began sharp at seven in the evening and continued until midnight. Except a few elite families all over the world, no one was aware of the existence of this world. This was a world where children were reared with great care and precision so that they would grow up to be perfect for the roles that they were actually supposed to take. The only bane was that they were never to come out in the fore-front, they would be holding the greatest positions in all the world but not as kings, unfortunately, as king-makers.

This was a world of the creatures who were termed as Nosferatu, rather named in colloquial language as vampires.

They were sent here by their parents once they were born. The Blood Veil Academy takes the children from the time they were newborns. The parents had great difficulty in parting from their children since they could conceive only once every hundred years. And the rate of the mortality amongst the babies were so high that the health of the pregnant mothers were almost monitored since the time they conceived. But that is a discussion for some time else.

We shall come to back to the Academy which was normally called as the Bloody Academy by the students lovingly. The schedules of the students was strictly nocturnal as was the necessity of their health until they hit puberty. When that happened the students had to pass through a ritual which made them able to live in the sunlight like any other mortal without any problem at all. But not now, it was seven and the students had all finished their supper and had gone to their respective classes.

They were all supposed to take the normal mundane studies like the normal human children so that they did not have any problem in mixing up with the human beings when they were back in the society. The vampires were a very conservative race who liked the way things were and did not actually welcome any changes. That is how they had been able to remain in secret for so long. Probably would remain so in the future.

It was the classroom of what we would call in human terms ninth graders. The children were all fifteen or were on the cusp of becoming sixteen very soon which meant that they had to undergo the ritual to make them able to see daylight once more.

There were only nine students in the class with their latest addition happening three years earlier on one rainy night when the Headmaster had carried in a sleeping girl who was wrapped in a blanket. There had been rumours of the girl being human and mortal and she was brought there to be a blood-slave like it was the ritual centuries ago but their suspicions were quickly proved entirely wrong.

No one knew the name or the identity of the girl but they knew one thing for sure that this girl was trouble. No vampire had hair like that, it was flaming red, as if her head was on fire and even worse it was streaked with white strands running down from the roots to the middle.

“Hey newbie? Wanna show how your blood tastes like?” asked one of her classmates as the new girl entered the room the first evening. But that comment did not bother her at all. She did not look at the vamp who had said it and took her seat at the front row. She had been a straight A student her entire life and she was not going to change that now even if her life and school had been changed completely.

“Welcome to the Bloody Academy, Newbie….so what about a little blood-letting huh? After all it would not be entirely appropriate if your blood was not tasted correct?” said the girl whose hair was a flaming pink but then she changed her hair colour every year.

Similar comments were thrown at her from every end of the classroom until when a boy came up and caught hold of her hand and then bared his fangs at her with a killer smile and bit into her wrist. The next thing he knew was his body was poised to be broken from the middle on her knee and that too from the front. Her fangs were bared and her eyes green with her irises slit like those of a cat so close to his jugular that he could feel his heart beating out of his rib-cage.

“Listen to me, pretty boy, and listen well,” whispered the red-haired girl,” I can stake you from inside even without using a stake and you will choke on your own blood before I drain you of your last moments. I can make immortality seem like a gift in one single moment the next time you try any of this bloody nonsense.”

No one in the whole class uttered a single word and they were so silent that her whispers seemed like a scream. The girl continued,” I keep my own way and you do with your own and we are not going to have any problem because the next time any one of you tries anything with me or behind my back I won’t give a warning.”

“That will be all Ms. White. You can let him go now. I think he has understood his lesson well, have you not Mr. Patrick?” asked the Headmaster who was standing at the front of the class. Probably he had seen the whole thing unfold as well.

The girl who was called Ms. White did not hiss at him but growled from deep inside her belly and the sound chilled the boy’s heart so much that he nodded so as to not break his neck. The girl with the pink hair came up to her and helped him up saying,” You are going to pay for this you nameless b***h. You will be an outcaste always. Shunned like a classless cad that you are. No one gets away with touching my brother.”

“That will be enough Ms. Patrick. She has only defended herself,” said the Headmaster as he came closer to the trio.

“If you are the queen bee of this school then I think I am better off as an outcaste. Please take away that thing away from my sight. The next time I am not going to be so merciful,” said Ms. White, with a bored look on her face, and her eyes back to green.

The students went back to their usual positions and the Headmaster continued,” So children, you have a new student amongst you as you have already noticed and she does not need any more introduction than the one she has already exhibited. I understand that this is a case which has been unseen to all of you and not usual at all but the circumstances in which she had been found were unusual as well. I am sure you will extend her the same courtesy as you do for your other classmates. Ms. Snow White is an extremely valuable addition to our community and clan and I am sure she will make us all proud in the same way like all of you.”

There were whispers all around the class once the Headmaster stopped speaking and Snow White smiled at the Headmaster. He did not smile but the look in his eyes that was directed at her was more than enough to make her heart flutter.

After speaking his part the Headmaster left the class as the teacher entered.

“You are never going to be one of us,” hissed a boy who was sitting two benches behind her.

“Who wants to be one of you?” thought Snow but she did not utter the sentence as the teacher had already started speaking. And that was three years earlier.

True to their word, the vampires of her class never accepted her to be one of them. The ones who were senior to her gave her the space she demanded and did not care about her. She was just another vampire at the end of the day but reputation had preceded her long ago and they did not want to be treated anything like that. The juniors were so scared of her that a few of the girls started crying when she crossed past them and the years that she spent here did nothing to alleviate her loneliness.

As it has been said earlier, the vampires were a very conservative race and nothing changed it at all, which meant that Snow White always remained an outsider and to her that was the best thing for everyone. She knew that she was not a native of this academy like the others and she had a history somewhere behind her but she could remember no part of it. She had tried a lot in order to find what was required to know her background but the Headmaster had said,” It is best that some things are better kept forgotten and left unsaid Ms. White. You are a student of the Blood Veil Academy and you are destined to do great things. Make your mark in history and future, just you need to let go of the past that you are trying so hard to find.”

“I feel rootless. I have no one to turn to at all. I need a family with whom I can connect,” said Snow.

“You will have your own family someday Little one. For now I am your family,” said the Headmaster as he left her alone to ponder over what he had said.

Coming back to the present times, the class was of history and the teacher was Ms. Robinson, the proverbial Cat Lady who had twenty-eight cats in her wing. She stood at the front of the class and said in her usual voice of no nonsense.

“It seems that all of you are very close to your coming of the age ritual. So do you all have any idea what you are supposed to do for this particular ritual which will give you the ability to go out in the sun like your elder brothers and sisters and parents are able to?”

“We have to be able to finish the three tasks that we are entrusted with,” said Snow from her seat.

“Absolutely correct Ms. White. As always. Now what are those three tasks do you have any idea about?” asked Ms. Robinson once more.

“The tasks are different for each individual depending on the role they are supposed to take in life but there is one similarity in the tasks which is the Hunt where everyone has to take part in,” said Snow once more and there were sighs of disappointment and other sounds from all ends of the room.

“Once again correct Ms. White but there is a catch behind all this and you are not going to know what it is until you face the situation. So I would be wishing you luck in order to pass your exams successfully and return back to my class with aplomb. Hopefully if you all are lucky enough then we will be seeing nine of you again.”

“We won’t complain if Ms. Know-it-all does not pass her test and gets hunted instead of hunting,” said Serena Patrick, who was sporting blue hair this time with three different shades of the hue.