Mia could only watch helplessly as Teacher Sefina’s cold, teasing smile drew closer and closer.
Despair and fear crashed over her like a tidal wave.
She wanted to struggle, but her body felt weak and limp from the unknown drug coursing through her veins, leaving her only able to let out faint, helpless pleas.
Yet Teacher Sefina seemed to have no intention of letting her off…
However, the anticipated touch never came.
“Ah!”
Mia suddenly jolted upright from the bed, her heart pounding wildly, cold sweat covering her forehead.
She gasped for breath, still shaken, and looked around frantically.
The familiar dormitory, the familiar ceiling, the faint light filtering in through the window. And on the bed opposite hers, her roommate Kefi’s steady, even breathing told her she was sound asleep.
So… all that terrifying ordeal just now… was only a nightmare…
Mia let out a long breath and wiped the cold sweat from her temple, though her heart was still racing.
After all… Teacher Sefina, though a bit strict at times, wouldn’t be the kind of terrifying, scheming woman she appeared to be in the dream…
It had to be her own mind playing tricks on her from the recent stress, filling her dreams with wild, irrational fears.
Ever since the night of the full moon, when the uncontrollable vampire bloodline inside her was unknowingly tempted by a faint metallic scent of blood from somewhere, exposing her whereabouts, Mia hadn’t had a single night of peaceful sleep since she was hunted by the patrol squad.
Every time she closed her eyes, she felt as if she could hear the footsteps and shouts of the patrol, terrified that the next moment she’d be discovered and dragged out from this only sanctuary…
For Mia, Oselenca Magic Academy was already the safest place on the continent and the best hiding spot she could find.
But even here, she lived like a startled bird, restless day and night.
Mia sighed, hugging her knees as she sat on the bed and gazed out at the moonlight.
In a daze, a faint, hard-to-suppress crimson shimmer seemed to seep into her usually clear pale blue eyes.
She felt the hunger again…
That yearning for fresh blood, rooted deep in her bloodline, silently surged once more, like tiny insects gnawing at her nerves.
She glanced cautiously at Kefi’s bed across the room, confirming her roommate’s breathing remained even and she was sound asleep.
Then, Mia quietly reached into the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a sharp little knife, its blade reflecting the cold gleam of moonlight.
She bit her lip and lightly cut a tiny slit on her fingertip with the tip of the blade.
A drop of bright red blood instantly welled up.
Mia quickly placed her finger in her mouth, tasting that faintly salty, metallic liquid.
As a vampire, the craving for blood was an instinct carved into her bones, impossible to eradicate.
But she had never dared to feed on living humans or even large animals. Normally, she just took a tiny bit of her own blood like this to stave off mild hunger.
Sometimes, she went through great lengths to collect blood from small animals and drank it in moments of extreme starvation.
It was all because she was careless that night…
Now Mia was even more cautious, making no big moves. The animal blood she had stored before was nearly gone.
Thinking this only deepened the heaviness in her heart. She silently climbed down from the bed again and carefully reached beneath it, pulling out a small glass bottle sealed with a cork.
Inside was a thick, dark red liquid—her last reserve of stored blood.
“Tomorrow… tomorrow I have to find a way to collect more… otherwise…”
She murmured softly, her voice full of helplessness and anxiety. If she didn’t, the next time hunger came, she wasn’t sure if she could still control herself.
Mia carefully placed the small bottle into the inner compartment of her Backpack, then lay back down on the bed, forcing herself to close her eyes and slowly drift into a restless sleep.
***
The next morning, the Elemental Magic classroom.
The class hadn’t started yet, and Teacher Sefina hadn’t arrived, but quite a few students were already seated, chatting in small groups.
Their conversations still centered on the recent panic caused by the magic bats and vampire incidents.
“I really saw magic bats last night! They were flying right at the edge of the woods behind our dorm! It scared me to death! Luckily the patrol squad showed up in time and chased them off with magic!”
“I think I heard some strange noises too, but I was too scared to open the window and look…”
“I don’t know where that vampire’s hiding. It’s so scary…”
“The academy’s still searching hard, right? Better not go out at night for now.”
“That’s right, safety first…”
Mia lowered her head and nervously stepped into the classroom. The buzzing chatter of her classmates stabbed at her ears like needles.
She hunched her shoulders as much as she could to minimize her presence and quickly made her way to her seat.
Although her usual gray hair and blue eyes theoretically made it hard to associate her with a “vampire,” her guilty conscience and overwhelming anxiety hung over her like a dark cloud.
Maybe it was her own nerves, or perhaps Murphy’s Law was once again playing its cruel hand.
Just as she was walking to her seat, lost in thought and slightly dazed, a classmate carrying a thick stack of books hurried past behind her, apparently rushing to get seated before the teacher arrived—completely oblivious to Mia in front of her.
“Thud—!”
A muffled crash— the classmate collided solidly into Mia’s back.
“Ah—!”
Caught off guard, Mia cried out, stumbling forward and falling hard onto the floor. Pain shot through her elbow and knee.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I was in such a hurry I didn’t see where I was going! Are you okay?!” The student who bumped into her was startled and immediately stopped to apologize.
But before she could finish, her words caught in her throat.
The classroom, once noisy with chatter, instantly fell silent as if someone had pressed pause.
All eyes simultaneously turned to the small glass bottle that had rolled out of Mia’s Backpack onto the floor.
More precisely, to the bottle that had been chipped at one corner from the impact, now steadily leaking a glaring dark red liquid from the broken edge.
That vivid, ominous red quickly spread into a small pool on the floor, emitting a faint… metallic scent of blood!
It was blood!
In an instant, the entire classroom went so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Everyone’s gaze was filled with shock, fear, and disbelief as they turned to look at Mia, still on the floor, her face suddenly as pale as paper.