Rain

Rain. It could express his mood in a way words could not. Why did the sound of those heavy drops, falling rapidly from the grey sky, take his thoughts to their own world and muffle all other noise into a pleasant buzzing in his ear? For this, Tyler held no answer, but he kept staring out the window of the high school classroom in which he found himself located. It wasn’t that he never paid attention in class but today, English was unable to peak his interest the slightest. Hell, he wouldn’t mind looking at the rain for the rest of his life for all he cared. Then he wouldn’t ever have to face the rest of the world.
The mild sting of a pencil poking him gently in the back dragged him back to reality and he turned around, facing a dark-haired boy he’d never noticed before.
Tyler looked at him questioningly as the boy stared back suspiciously, his hair falling in his just as dark eyes.

“Can I borrow your eraser?” said the boy, appearing sort of shy.

“Sure,” Tyler responded and handed it over with a polite smile.
The boy was seemingly taken back by this and stared at him, wide-eyed, making Tyler mentally shrug at that odd behavior. He turned back to the window, once again spacing out, completely lost in his own thoughts, and unaware that the strange boy was still gaping at him. Nor did he know his life was about to change.

Tyler walked to his locker, carefully avoiding the pool of blood on the floor that the janitor had started cleaning. It still made his gut churn vaguely, but he’d gotten used to it by now. Loads of vampires were attending the school after all.
The halls were flooding with the hardcore, don’t-fuck-with-me Doms that would rip your head off if you dared looking at them the wrong way, and then the submissive Fertiles, who couldn’t hurt a fly but whose mates would fucking kill you for even thinking about them (a relief that vampires couldn’t read minds), and then of course the humans, who were nothing but scum in the eyes of a vampire, cattle that you surely shouldn’t have any respect for, whatsoever.

Tyler was one of the humans. He kept his head low, hid his blue-grey eyes under the sandy hair, keeping his gaze on the floor, but making sure he wouldn’t bump into anybody. The least he wanted was to piss a Dom off and getting his skin ripped to shreds and being drowned in acid. Vampires had a thing for being creative, oh yeah.
He saw some jocks trying to look cool, pretending that they could handle the toughest of vampires.

In Tyler’s eyes, you could put humans in three categories:
The ones, who tried to rebel against vampires having taken over the world and hated them for it. They usually ended up in with beating up a Fertile and suffering a horrible death involving loads of agonizing screams from their parts.
The there was the wannabies. People who admired the vampires and dressed like Fertiles, hoping to one day get a Dom to love them. They often ended up as Toys; fake vampires that were only there for the Doms to get rid of their sexual frustration. And then they’d too late realize that they would never be loved.
Third, there were people like Tyler. Humans, who’d accepted their place, kept their heads low and tried to make the best of it. Some could even pretend that vampires didn’t exist and lived their lives as normally as possible.
Tyler, though, simply wanted to avoid being killed.

He dialed the combination, opened the locker door, realized that he’d forgotten some of his books in the classroom, and hurried back.
He didn’t look up as he pushed the door open and therefore did not see the person he ran into. They collided and fell to the ground. Tyler saw that it was the boy from before that he had ran into.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry! You okay?”

The boy did not respond, but stared from Tyler and the hand he offered. Finally, he accepted it, although hesitantly. Tyler got the boy to his feet and started picking up the books from the floor, repeatedly apologizing.

“It’s okay,” the boy spoke so quietly, that Tyler wasn’t sure he’d heard him right. He handed over the books and headed to his seat to find his own. The boy was still standing by the door.

“What’s your name?” he asked, not looking up from his feet.

“Tyler. Yours?”

“Anthony.” And with that he spun around and disappeared through the hallway.

“Weird kid.” Tyler thought, but hurried to his next class himself.

At lunch, Tyler found himself looking for the strange boy, Anthony. He tried to spot him between the many tables, but didn’t succeed. The school was pretty huge, even when looking only at the humans’ side of the cafeteria. Of course, he dared not to glance to the vampires’ side where the Doms and Fertiles had lunch.

Tyler sat at his table with the usual companions. A guy, who never, ever talked and a morbid girl, who’d stare you down if you said anything she thought was mean or even vaguely criticizing. So that didn’t make much of a conversation which none of them minded.
After school, Tyler went home, all thoughts about Anthony forgotten. He did half his homework before deciding he’d done enough, and just laid himself on the bed, thinking. That was his daily routine; get up, go to school, go home, do homework, sleep, eat dinner and then staying up half the night. It might sound boring, but it was safe. Safe from psychotic vampires, wanting to kill the likes of him.

The next day at school was eventless. Well, at least until P.E. in the last periods. Tyler had just slipped his shorts on and taken off his shirt when he heard someone yelling. He hurried over to the source of the shouting, which came from behind some cupboards.
There were four changing outside the gym; one for humans boys, one for human girls, and the two others for Doms and Fertiles (if they even had P.E.)
Tyler rounded a corner of the cupboard and saw one of the tough jocks holding a boy, way smaller than him, a boy, that Tyler recognized as Anthony.

“THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN’ HERE?” shouted the jock in Anthony’s scared face.

“I… I have P.E.” came the studded reply.

The smaller boy tried to remain standing on the ground, which proved more difficult than you’d think.

“Oh, yeah? Then why haven’t ya changed yet?!”

Anthony kept quite. The jock shook him violently.

“I haven’t seen you before… Why were you sneaking around?”

Another silence. The jock scowled.

“Were ya peeping at us? You little perv!”

Anthony’s face went a deep, red color and his hair covered his eyes.

“N-no, I was–uh, I… I tried to… get out of P.E… y-yeah.” He said, blushing even more over that vague excuse.

“Oh, yeah? Like hell I’d believe such a–“

“Wait. He’s new.” Tyler interrupted. They both turned their heads to look at him, who’d seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Tyler could finally see Anthony’s eye-lined eyes, which were now fixed on his bare torso, making him look even more embarrassed.

“Wha’?” the jock said.

“He’s a new kid. Mrs. Greensberg told me to look after him, show him around and stuff. I kinda lost him when the bell rang and he came to find me here, I guess,” Tyler lied.

“Oh,” the jock said, (I think his name may have been Dean) and looked from Anthony to Tyler and back several times.

“Right,” he said, and proceeded back to the benches. The funny thing ‘bout these jocks was, that they may pretend to be tough but as soon as someone got past the border of their privacy, they freaked out.
He turned to Anthony.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Y-yeah,” Anthony’s cheeks flushed once more, and he fixed his eyes at the ground after another glance at the other guy’s chest. Tyler felt too exposed and out his T-shirt back on.

“What were you doin’ here anyway?”

“I–uh, I was trying to find… the m-music room.”

”That’s down two halls in the other building.”

“T-thanks.”

They stood in silence for a moment, and then the stranger of those two turned around and hurried out the door like he’d done previously. Tyler felt taken back again, but quickly went to the gym with the others.
At the end of the day, he was walking down the soon-to-be empty halls, and suddenly found himself being yanked back by his arm and dragged into a closet room, the door slamming behind him.
He turned, bewildered, and noticed that it was Anthony, again.

“Wha–?“ he tried to say, but the smaller boy silenced him by pressing a finger to his lips.

“I just wanted to thank you… before… for standing up for me. I–uh,”

A sudden shyness washed over the boy and he scraped his feet together.

“Uhm, yeah…”

He tried to get past Tyler and out the door but he was stopped by the one next to him, carefully grasping his arm and turning him around, which brought their faces dangerously close. He went the deepest red he’d ever been and for the first time, Tyler could finally see his eyes properly. They were a green, so dark that they were almost a black, fluently color and on the edges they transferred into a dark brown, unusual for eyes. The long, black lashes curved slightly, the black eyeliner sat perfectly on the lids, accompanied by black eye shadow. They recalled memories of staring at a the stars, reflected in the still water of a black lake at nighttime.
Tyler found himself lost in them. He blinked a couple of times and withdrew from Anthony He seemed different now, Still strange but awfully familiar.

“Uhh, will I see you in Math tomorrow?” Tyler asked, not sure why.

Anthony didn’t answer. He leaned close, painfully close, shutting his eyes and parting his lips. Tyler didn’t stop him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. But then, millimeters apart, Anthony froze and withdrew in the glimpse of an eye. And in a second he was out the door. Gone. Tyler had no idea of what just happened. Neither did he know of the horrors about to arrive.