The Academy of Exile

I

   The Void, they say, is a place of great terror and woe. It is obsidian and blight and all things festering in the shadows of the night. It is a place for those with black hearts to shiver in the eternal cold; left to rot away with their memories. Their fate, from the moment they're born is sealed. Destined to suffer forever. To see only black and grey and feel fear and sorrow. To look over their shoulder and see things they cannot explain, nor want to. The Void is the most terrible place man could ever imagine.
   They feed off of it; the living that is. A time when man has forgotten its enemy. Some call it hell. Some call it limbo. But no one really believes in it.  They're just stories to tell naughty children. If only they knew that there was a fate worse than flames licking at their toes. Worse than a devil holding a pitch fork and playing a fiddle. These are all fairy tales, a game of telephone passing generation from generation until it becomes a lie. Buried so deep under the ground it may as well be hell. The Void calls to a small group of humans. Humans that feel the darkness around them like air. They consume it and it consumes them. They share a deep, indescribable connection with death that corrupts their souls bit by bit. For their souls, the darkness compensates generously. They're given gifts in which no normal human could ever obtain. Once they were called witches. Then they were called vampires. Now they're called demons. 
   But, to a group of maddened teenagers, what they're titled doesn't matter. All they care about is flying, turning invisible and pranking classmates. What they should be focusing on is hand to hand combat, defensive spells, trapping enemies and learning ancient dialect; but there's always time for that... right?