The Smell of Blood
I slowly opened my eyes as the bright morning sunlight hit my face. I felt the warmth of the sun caress my small body as the blankets that hugged me during the night, were peeled off by my slender fingers. The French window was slightly opened on the left, between me and my roommate’s beds. I rolled out of my warm bed, and let my two feet hit the dark hardwood floor. I felt the coldness of the floor touch the bottom of my feet, and the cold chill of air hit my skin; it sent shivers down my spine. I rapidly got up from where I was sitting, and took everything I needed to take a quick shower. When I was finished, I put my black uniform on, in record time, and I took a quick glance in the mirror to adjust my skirt, my knee socks, and my hair, then hung up my towels. I left the bathroom, and saw Yori adjusting her hair. She noticed that I was ready, and we both grabbed our books for class, and made our way outside the dorm. Zero was waiting for me outside the building. His silver hair messy as usual, and his back was leaning against the cold cement wall, with his arms crossed, and his red tie hanging loosely around his neck.
“Hey Zero, you know that you don’t have to wait for me every morning right?” I said as I lifted my head in his direction.
“Yeah, whatever Yuuki”, Zero replied with the same expression on his face. “Let’s go”, he added. Zero has never really been talkative to me, ever since four years ago when the chairman brought him home. You’d think that after four years of living with someone they’d be more open with you. We went to almost all of our lectures of the day, and it was almost the end of our last one. This lecture was boring today, I just took so many notes on math; I sucked at it. I don’t even know what our sensei is speaking about half of the time. The clock hit three, and class was now over. I got up from my bench that I shared with Yori, and I turned to face her.
"I'm glad that's over", I said to her.
"Miss Yuuki Cross, you know I can still hear you eh?” my sensei said. My body froze, and I immediately felt my blood rise to the surface of my face.
"S-sorry sir", I said facing him.
"Next time, keep your comments to yourself", he said with an unpleased look on his face.
"Yes sir", I replied fairly quickly.
I quickly grabbed my books, and headed out the door with Yori and Zero by my side. Yori started laughing at me, her chest rising, and falling quickly as she giggled about what I just had done. Her smile lightening up the dark brown hallway. Her ginger hair moving, with her short loosely curled locks that were flowing with the slight breeze in the room.
"You're an idiot sometimes, you know that?" Zero said to me, as we walked outside. I just turned my head, and gave him a glare.
"I'm gonna head back to the dorm now, it's getting late, and the rules are that the day class aren’t allowed outside after all the lectures are over for the day, plus I'm tired", Yori said to me, as she gave me a quick smile, and walked away.
"Okay, see ya!” I shouted to her.
"You know, you're probably not doing so well in math, nor any of your classes to be honest, because you don't get enough sleep", Zero said to me in a serious tone.
"Well I have to stay up at night because it's my duty as a school prefect", I said with my chest rising, full of pride.
"You can ask the chairman for a break once in a while you know?" Zero said, stopping.
"Zero, I know you're worried, but for the sake of the students from the day class, we both need to keep them out of trouble, and away from the vampire students of the night class", I said, looking into his gleaming purple eyes.
"I know", he said, continuing to walk down the campus.
I realized I was in a daze, and snapped out of it. I started running to catch up with him. My black leather combat boots hitting the grey brick path, as I ran towards him. My left foot stepped on a rock, and as I pulled my body forward to take my next step, I stumbled on to the cold hard ground. My ankle twisted, and my knee slid across the brick. My hands flew in front of my body to catch myself. I made a quiet whimpering sound when I fell. My hands got scrapped, and luckily my face didn't touch the ground. That familiar red liquid was now smeared all over my right knee, and my hands. I sat up, and examined my cuts. There had little rocks of different colours stuck to my blood, and my injuries were beginning to sting.
"Yuuki, what happened are you okay?!" Zero shouted, running towards me.
"I-I fell", I said pointing with my trembling hands to my knee.
"We have to get you out of here before they smell your blood", Zero said, grabbing my pale legs, and my back to lift me, but as he tried, I felt a tug coming from my calf area holding down my right leg, which didn't help one bit for the scrape on my knee. I felt the skin on the top of my knee separate, and pain immediately rushed to my cut; my knee sock got stuck to the corner of a brick on the ground.
"Oww, it hurts Zero", I said with a whining tone in my voice. He tried tugging on the sock in attempt not to rip it, after a few attempts of trying to unhook my sock from the brick, he had to tear it.
“There, I got it off”, he said whilst smiling. He looked up at something behind me, and his beautiful smile slowly became a frown.
“What is it?” I said. I turned around to see what he was looking at, the sun had almost set, and that means the day class students were no longer allowed to be outside their dorms. The pink sky was so beautiful at this time. The clouds were separated unevenly throughout the sky, the wind was brushing by the leaves of the trees, and my delicate porcelain skin, like when a blanket is being pulled off of you. It made the most relaxing sound to my ears. It calmed me when I got stressed, I could just breathe, and forget about all my problems, like a sort of release. I saw two tall figures standing in the way of what was left of the little sun we had. I squinted my eyes to see who it was, they were wearing white uniforms, which only means one thing, the night class. Zero rapidly helped me stand up from the ground, and I quickly grabbed Artemis from the strap I had on my leg, under my skirt, and extended her. The two figures who were standing there were Hanabusa, and Akatsuki. attentiveness
"We smell blood", Hanabusa said while grinning. I could see his fangs sticking out while he grinned at me, and I held on tighter to Artemis, hoping that I wouldn’t have to use her. I placed her in front of my body diagonally, even though I could feel my palms throbbing, and the little rocks sinking deeper into my skin as my grip on my weapon increasingly got tighter.
“Hanabusa-kun! You know the school rules, no drinking someone else’s blood on school grounds!” I shouted at him.
“But your blood Yuuki, it smells of a great treat; the blood tablets are so bland, I’m craving fresh blood”, he said, not even hesitating that I was holding a weapon that could seriously injure him. He grabbed my arm, and looked at my hand that was covered in blood. I couldn’t rip my hand from him even if I wanted to because he was much stronger than I. He bit down on my hand, and started drinking my blood; it hurt, I tried pulling away, but I couldn’t, I looked away scared. I heard a click, and he stopped. I turned my head, and saw Zero had cocked his gun, and pointed it right to Hanabusa’s temple.
“Filthy vampire, you can’t even control your craving for blood”, Zero said. “I’m going to have to report this to the vampire hunters association, and your dorm president Kaname Kuran.”
“Please don’t, he’ll punish us badly”, Hanabusa said with his eyes pleading.
“Us?” Akatsuki chimed in, from leaning against a tree that was beside the path I had tripped on. “I didn’t do anything.”
“And that’s exactly why you’re also guilty, you didn’t try to put a stop to this”, Zero said while lowering the silver weapon that he possessed. “Now leave, and I might or might not say anything about the events you two partook in tonight.” They left in a flash, and all I could say to Zero was sorry.
“It’s not your fault that filthy vampires can’t control themselves, and that’s why vampire hunters like me exist to kill them all”, Zero said working himself up, as I attached Artemis back onto my strap. He crouched a little, and signaled me with his hands to jump on his back.
“Let’s go bandage you up”, he said lifting me, and giving me piggy back ride.
All I could think of was how bad I felt about being weak, and not being able to rip my hand out of Hanabusa’s grip. It probably gave Zero some sort of flashbacks of four years ago, when his parents, and twin brother were murdered by a vampire. I couldn’t even imagine what he saw. He grew up with vampire hunter parents, and that means he was born to be a hunter too, and I’d imagine that he already disliked vampires, but the whole situation that occurred, increased his rage against vampires by plenty. My arms were placed around Zero’s neck, and I could feel that blood was still dripping from Hanabusa’s bite marks on my hand, and making a mess on Zero’s uniform. “Good thing our uniforms are black”, is what I thought about saying, but didn’t. I felt that if I stayed silent, the situation would be better.
“I can get the blood out, don’t worry about it”, Zero said. It’s like he knew what I was thinking.
“How’d you know that I was thinking about that?” I asked pondering about how he knew.
“I’ve known, and lived with you for four years, apparently I know you better than you thought”, he said, and chuckled lightly. I kicked his leg with my left leg playfully.
“Do you want me to drop you?” he said, still taking his sweet time walking.
“Zero, can I ask you something?”
“Yeah sure, whatever you want Yuuki.”
“Well, I was just wondering, do you really think that all vampires are filthy creatures that can’t ever control themselves? I mean, I was saved by one when I was five years old, doesn’t that just mean there are good, and bad ones, just like people.”
“Here you go again thinking like a child.”
“Hey! I’m just wondering!”
“I know, just like Yuuki to question the bad, and trust everyone.”
“Stop acting like you know everything about me, and answer me already.”
“Yeah, all vampires are evil, they’ll all try to drink your blood, and they’ll never be satisfied. You’re never safe. That’s why I have a burning passion in my heart to exterminate them all, but as you know I can’t kill a vampire unless it’s self defense, or if they’ve become a level E.”
It was now late in the night, and everyone was either already in bed, or getting ready for it. Zero had brought me to the empty infirmary room, it was late so no one was currently occupying it. He plopped me down on the soft white infirmary bed, he sat on a white leather rolling stool that was placed near the bed. He lifted my leg to see my knee up close, there still had little rocks that were stuck to my blood, and scattered all over my knee. He got up, grabbed a white cloth, and started pouring hot water from the stainless steel farm sink over it. Once he was done, he twisted the cloth with his long pale fingers to drain the water. He brought it over to me, sat back on the stool, and began wiping my knee.
“Ow, it hurts”, I said with a frown on my face. I grabbed his hand, and told him to be gentler. He stood right up, and threw the cloth on the ground.
“Shut up, idiot!” he shouted at me. “You’re the one who was being stupid, and tripped. Plus you didn’t even try to stop Hanabusa from drinking your blood!”
“What the hell are you getting mad at me for you stupid teme!” I got up from the bed, and yelled in his face. He turned to the side, and walked up to the nightstand, and knocked the silver lamp with a plain white shade on the floor. It made a shattering sound when it had hit the floor, glass flew everywhere.
“What did you do that for?” I shouted. My internal instinct kicked in, and I thought that I had to clean the mess up right away, just in case someone were to walk in. I squatted to the ground, and made an attempt to pick up the shattered glass of the light bulb. I slid my fingers across a shard of glass, and I immediately whipped my hand up in the air, and started waving it around because of the pain. My fingers started pouring blood, and I got up to search for something to wrap it up, so blood wouldn’t pour everywhere. I walked up to the first drawer I saw, where the white quartz counter was. I opened the drawer quickly, and scrambled for a Band-Aid. All of a sudden I couldn’t see anymore, the lights were turned off, and it was pitch black, except for the little light of the moon that seeped through the enormous French windows that were placed on the left of me, a few meters away. I felt something pull me from behind, its grip on my triceps was tight, squeezing tighter to spin me around, and slam my back against the wall. Two hands held my wrists above my head, and for some reason I felt paralyzed, maybe my body was in shock, maybe I forgot how to use my body. Right away, I felt a sharp pain pierce my neck, warm liquid poured down from where I felt the pain. My eyes immediately went wide.
“Z-Zero?” is all I managed to breathe out, barely over a whisper; stuttering. I heard him gulp down my blood, my legs became faint, I felt dizzy, and nauseous. Everything suddenly became black.