Special.

I stared out at the dark sky from the car window wishing I hadn’t agreed to this, but it was too late now, beside I had to do it-for the sake of my parents.

“The nerves are going to disappear, don’t you worry,” My mom told me as she cut off the engine and took out the keys from the ignition.

“I know,” I mumbled, but I couldn’t help but to feel more nervous than ever.

“You don’t have to do this, you can come back home and we’ll find another school.”

I sighed, school wasn’t the problem. I was the problem.

“No, I want this, I know I’m going to love it here,” I turned to look at my mom with a fake smile, she was staring at me with a hopeful smile, her brown and gold eyes fixed on me.

She sighed and patted my head, “that’s the spirit,” she said and got out of the car.

I breathed in deeply and got out of the car taking my tote bag in the process. I walked to the back of the car where my mom had successfully taken out my two packed bags filled with clothes, shoes, books, and other essential personal belongings.

“I’ll help you,” my mom said reaching for a bag but I stopped her.

“No, I got it, besides the sun is going to start rising soon,” I told her and gave her a hug.

“Okay,” she sighed and I could tell she wanted to cry, this was going to be the longest period of time being apart from each other.

“If you need anything, whatever it is don’t hesitate to call.”

I nodded; I didn’t want to speak because I knew if I did I would start crying.

“I really hope you like it here Zilia, your dad and I know you’re going to fit right in.”

I smiled and stared at my mom, I knew she was right; this school was for special people.

People like me.

“I’ll call you,” I told my mom and took a bag in each hand and walked to the front of the school.

“Miss. Keystone I’m glad you made it on time.” Lucille exclaimed as she opened the front door for me.

I had met Lucille, the school’s secretary for the first time last week, when my parents and I had come to talk to the dean about the possibility of me attending here, he of course was delighted and gave my parents a step by step overview of how things were run at “Seagate Academy”, before I knew it Dean Williams was congratulating me on becoming the newest student at Seagate.

Lucille has also been excited and couldn’t wait to give me a tour of the school; it seemed as if they hadn’t had a new student for some time now.

My parents of course were completely ecstatic, my mom beamed excitedly about how cute the uniforms were and my dad could not stop talking about what a great curricular the school had.

All I could do was smile and nod.

I breathed deeply and greeted miss. Lucille, she hated being called by her last name.

“Where are your parents?” She asked as she took one of my bags.

“Thanks, I wanted to do this on my own.”

“Oh of course, I can almost remember how I was when I was seventeen, wanting to do everything on my own.”

I smiled at her wondering how old she really was. She didn’t look a day over 25, even with her short blond lose curls that bounced on her shoulders every time she took a step, and her eyes were a dark blue with a gold ring around her pupils, but I could tell in the way she dressed and acted she was a lot older than what her physical age suggested.

As we entered the school building I could hear students chatting away, some were laughing and other were complaining, probably about a school assignment.

“It’s breakfast time, classes start in an hour.” Lucille told me as she noticed I was starting at the cafeteria doors.

“Right,” I said in a low voice and continued down the hallway following Lucille, she then turned to the left where she stopped in front of the elevator.

“As you know from last week, this building is where all our students reside, girls are on the third floor, and boys are in the second. The first floor is the cafeteria, the library, the kitchen; you know in case you need a midnight snack, we also have a game room. Of course you’ll also have-” she paused as the elevator made a beeping sound, she signaled me to walk in and then she pressed the number three button.

“Like I was saying, there is also a lounge room in your floor; there are two television sets, some couches, some computers so you can browse the web, unless you have a laptop we of course have wi-fi all over the campus.”

The door opened and we stepped out onto the third floor.

“Each room has their own bathroom, and typically there are two people per room, there are some years when we are overwhelmed with students that we add a person to each room, and there are some years when we don’t have as many and there are some students who get their own room.”

“This year we actually do have quite a few students, so you will be sharing a room, I believe your roommate is Vanessa, yes Vanessa Wright.”

Lucille stopped at a door that read “32”; I couldn’t help but to think of apartments.

She unlocked the door and opened it; I was taken aback from the actual size of the room.

“Wow,” I blurted out.

“You like it?” Lucille asked with a big smile.

“Yeah, it’s a lot bigger than I had imagined.”

“We here at Seagate want our students to have a comfortable environment; we don’t want you guys to think you’re in prison.”

I walked over to the bare side of the room; the walls were painted in a light blue color with black stripes at the bottom. Our school and uniform colors.

“You’re allowed to decorate your side of the room however you wish; of course we have provided you with your own closet, a dresser, a desk and a night stand.”

I placed my bags at the foot of my bed that was against the wall and sat on the bed, it was comfortable, and I knew I would have a good night sleep here. I touched the ivory colored comforter, it was soft and it felt nice against my skin.

“So what do you think?” Lucille asked after a couple of minutes.

“I think I’m really going to like it here,” I told her smiling sincerely for the first time since I had found out I was going to be attending Seagate academy.

“I’ll let you freshen up and change, I’ll be back in forty minutes with your class schedule and I’ll walk you to your first class.”

“Thank you Miss. Lucille.”

“You’re welcome-”

“Zilia,” I told her before she could call me Miss. Keystone.

She smiled and walked out closing the door behind her. I stood there for a couple of minutes staring around the room; I walked over to Vanessa’s desk and noticed a picture on it, from what I could see she was around my age, long wavy brown hair, brown eyes to match, she was pretty, very pretty.

I sighed and walked back over to my bed taking out my uniform from my bag, a black skirt and light blue polo shirt; I changed and traded my sandals for some black flats. I made my way to the bathroom making sure I didn’t touch any of Vanessa’s things.

I opened the faucet and splashed some water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled.

“It’s going to be a great day, I’m going to love it here, and I’m going to fit right in.” I told myself feeling the nerves going away.

I put my wavy brown hair into a messy bun and moved my bangs out of my eyes.

I stared at my left eye, the green eye, it was exactly like my dad’s, the golden color around my pupil seemed to shine more than usual. I looked at my right eye, the brown one, just like my mothers, except this one didn’t have the golden color around the pupil.

At my previous school people used to make fun of me because of my eyes, they thought it was freaky and weird, so some people began calling me freak, among other names, and before I knew it seemed like everybody in the school referred to me as the freak.

My eyes weren’t the only thing that caused people to call me freak, people thought my name was weird as well, they thought my parents were crazy for calling me Zilia, and they would make fun of me because of how pale I was, and for the fact that I hated being out in the sun.

I was also considered a freak for the fact that I lived with my “sister” and that my parents were supposedly dead and it was strange for them that I didn’t ever talk about them nor had a picture of them. The truth was that my “sister” was in fact my mom except she didn’t look like any other mom, she looked like a college student, and so did my dad. I rather them think it was strange than them knowing the truth about my parents being vampires.

“Zilia?” I heard Lucille call as she knocked on the door causing me to come back to reality.

“I’ll be right out” I called out and walked out the bathroom. I took my binder and pen from my tote bag and opened the door.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as I exited my room and saw Lucille standing in front of the door.

“No worries,” she told me with a smile and then led me back to the elevator.

We went back to the first floor, which happened to be crowded with similar dressed students; some were walking and talking with their friends while others were speed walking.

Lucille led me the opposite way of the entrance.

“Classes as you know are held on the building behind this one,” she told me as we stopped and I noticed that there was no door just a wall.

“There are two ways to exit, you can either take the tunnel which covers the sun, or you can just walk outside, the tunnel is to the right,” she said turning and I noticed a big door, and then I watched somebody open it and saw some stairs leading down. “And to the left is the door that leads you straight out.”

“For obvious reasons we will be taking the tunnel today,” she tells me with a smile and we head to the right door.

I follow her down the dark stairs and then I see little lamps against the wall illuminating the tunnel.

“Your first class is home room, which basically is for morning announcements.”

“My previous school had that as well.”

“Perfect, the students in the class are people who are in your same grade and you will most likely have classes with some of them, there are about 3 or 4 home room for each grade depending on the size, for example our first grade, or what others would call freshmen are our biggest class, they have about 200 to 250 students, your class, third class is about 100 to 150.”

“How many students are in the home room?” I asked.

“I believe it is 35 including you.” She tells me, and then we walk up some stairs, she opens the door and leads me towards my first class.

“Nice to see you on this side of the campus Miss Lucille,” a tall brown haired man in his late twenties spoke as he saw us walking towards his class.

“Good morning, Mr. Peterson, I bring you a new student, this is Zilia Keystone.”

“Nice to meet you sir,” I spoke with a small smile.

“Nice to meet you as well Miss Keystone,” he said turning to look at me, I couldn’t help but to look at his eyes, they were blue and as I had suspected they had a gold color around the pupils.

“Go on in, and I would like you to take the left seat on the front row,”

I nodded but before I could walk into the class Lucille handed me a piece of paper, “good luck Zilia,” she told me, I thanked her and walked in. I sat were Mr. Peterson had told me and I waited anxiously for class to start, I could hear students murmuring behind me back.

I looked down at my piece of paper and noticed it was my class schedule, I also noticed that I had Mr. Peterson for my last class: Language.

A bell rang causing everyone to stop talking. Mr. Peterson walked in with a smile on his face, he clapped his hands together.

“The first announcement today is that we have a new student joining us,” he spoke as he looked my way, I could hear people whispering behind me.

“Miss. Keystone will you please come up here and introduce yourself?” Mr. Peterson asked me as he sat on one of the unoccupied chairs in the front row.

I gulped but did as I was told. My heart was racing fast, and I had to put my hands behind my back to prevent them from shaking.

“Um… I really don’t know what to say,” I said in a low voice.

“How about you tell us your name? Things you like to do, anything you want to tell us.” Mr. Peterson said with a smile.

“Um… well my name is Zilia Keystone. I’m from New York, and I’m seventeen.”

“And how long have you been seventeen?” He asked staring into my eyes, well actually just my left eye.

“My birthday was last month, so I guess I’ve been seventeen for a month.”

Mr. Peterson as well as some of the students stared at me as if what I had said had been in a different language.

“But your eye, it has the gold ring.” A guy spoke causing some people to murmur in agreement, and then I understood.

I looked around and I located him sitting in the back of the room, he had dark hair, and from what I could see he seemed to be very tall and skinny.

“Oh that,” I mumbled, I had a weird feeling that this was not going to be good.

“I’m not a vampire if that’s what you guys think, well at least not completely.” I whispered the last part but I knew it wasn’t low enough because I heard people gasping.

There was a long silence before Mr. Peterson finally spoke out.

“Not completely?” Mr. Peterson questioned.

I nodded. “I guess I’m considered half human, half vampire.”

That response caused a lot of students to whisper things.

“So your mother-” he paused “is human?” as he finished asking I could feel the tension in the room grow.

“When I was born my mom was human and my dad a vampire, when I was a couple of months old my dad turned my mom into a vampire.”

The whole class was silent and I had a feeling that even here something like that was not normal at all, and soon I felt like my heart was going to drop.

“Thank you Miss, Keystone you can go ahead and take your seat,” Mr. Peterson told me and stood up without looking at me.

As I took my seat I heard someone behind me whisper “freak”.

A knot appeared in my throat and I felt hot tears filling my eyes. This was going to be hell all over again.