Guest From the Future

Failed Compulsion

Then the crowd erupted into hysterical laughter, some students groaned while some cheered. The eye twitch returned to Ivie, her eyes trembled violently as she struggled to keep it open. Then she raised her head wondering why there was no hug from her teammates. She saw the digital display, Underdog Fountain 0- Half-elite Rangers 1.

Her brows furrowed. She had scored, Underdog Fountain should be scoring 1. She looked over the Rangers post to where she had scored the goal and her face became marred in confusion, there was no ball. Then she looked over at her own post, and she froze.

"Ivie," Gaga called rather too smoothly, standing over her. "Your eyes."

She dashed out of the field into the locker to grab a mirror. When she stared at herself, her hand trembled.

Her eye had turned a crimson vampire colour, but the other one was black, human black.

She couldn't believe what was happening, but with one fang gone, she seemed to be turning into a human.

"No!" She ran out through the door and didn't stop running until she got to the stairs that would lead her up to the Underdog Lodge, a dorm for Underdogs, turned vampires.

There was another dorm, Elite Hostel, for those who had been born vampires. It was further divided into Pureblood for those whose parents were both vampires, and Halfblood for those who had human and vampire parents.

The last dorm, Communal Quarters, was for the humans. It was the least in hierarchy, housing the humans who were unaware of the reality of Quainton.

The walk to her room was longer than the match itself. Every step felt heavy, as if the gravity of the school had suddenly doubled. Ivie kept her head down, her hair acting as a dark curtain to shield her face, as some of the students had watched the match for the dorm.

"Watch out!" someone barked, then retreated. "Oh, Captain."

She could feel the stares of the students that had watched from the windows of the dorm, it was suffocating. She should have listened to Gaga, she should have —

"Ivie! Wait up!" She heard JohnMary call.

She didn't turn. She couldn't. She broke into a jagged run, her boots clicking rhythmically against the floor.

She reached her door, her fingers trembling so violently she nearly dropped her key. When the lock finally clicked, she threw herself inside and slammed the door shut, leaning her full weight against the wood.

JohnMary raced back to the field when he saw Ivie run into the girl's section of Underdog Lodge. Gaga was handling a difficult Coach Kene who kept saying, "It was a splendid goal, only if the goalpost had been right!"

He pulled Gaga aside. "She refused to talk to me, she just ran to her room."

"I saw it, her eyes, it's becoming human, she lost her left fang. I told her not to play, it would have been better if we ended in a tie, or they scored instead, we're going to be laughed at until the next season!" She managed to say it all at once. "Coach doesn't want to hear any excuses, what was Master Dennis thinking giving us a human as a coach!"

"I feel bad for her," JohnMary sighed.

"Yes, me too. Imagine that, being a captain!" she huffed, exasperatedly.

"Alright girls, to the locker room," said Coach Kene from where he stood. "The stares are becoming quite provocative."

"Do you think she'll be alright, the girl!?" Agatha asked as the students started to disperse. Later there would be a small party at the Dorm Hall, the Half blooded Elites would be celebrating their first win, a forty points to their team. They always came in second place when the season ended, Underdog coming third while Communal dragged last. Agatha always wondered what sort of names the students were identified as, definitely only someone with a warped sense of humour would name students such.

"My thoughts are not a reflection of the lady's reality," Chi replied. "It was an enjoyable match, didn't you enjoy it?"

Agatha looked at him as if realizing something. "Do you also find the names enjoyable? Pureblood Elite, Halfblood Elite, Underdog and Communal."

"Don't you? I can't think of anything better. Pureblood, imagine that?" He grinned as though even the prospect of such names was exhilarating to him.

"Only someone with a warped sense of humour would. Well," she shrugged, "a warped sense of humour. I'm off to the infirmary. And tell Kene he needs to calm down."

"Oh, your lover boy?"

She glared at him and walked away, leaving him with the broken fang from the forest.

That evening, Ivie laid restless on the bed. She had spent the better part of the day pacing around her room and muttering, "I should have listened to Gaga," over and over again.

Would she lose her captaincy? Was the thought that continuously creeped to the back of her mind. She didn't open the door when Gaga and JohnMary knocked, she had locked her door and bolted it from the inside.

When she had exhausted herself, she pulled off her clothes and went into the bathroom. It was one of the privileges of being an Underdog, you get a bathroom inside your room, although only Elites had a room to themselves. Underdogs shared a room with one student while Communals had up to four students in one room. Luckily, Ivie had managed to frustrate her roommate into packing.

That evening, while the other students had dinner in the lunchroom, Ivie sneaked out of the dorm from the backdoor and ran to the forest. Her fang was still there. She knew it was impossible but what if she could, somehow, fix it back. She got to the forest and searched around the tree she was hanging from, but she didn't find it. She traced her tongue over her gum where the fang was missing to be sure.

She still didn't understand what had happened. One minute she was taking blood, the other she was losing her fang. Or had Chaplain Chi—. The thought of Chaplain Chi broke her into a cold sweat. It was then she realized what she had done—she had led a human into a vampire's world and she hadn't compelled him to forget about it.

That was even more grievous than losing her fang. Supposedly Master Dennis or Balthazar was to find out, she gulped, realizing the trouble she was going to get herself into.

The thought of finding the fang escaped from her as left the forest. She needed to get to Chaplain Chi immediately, if he tattle talked to anyone about what he had seen, that would only be more trouble.

She sneaked back to the dorm block, took a staircase up from the Underdog Lodge to the Elite Hostel and used the bridge, running over the lake, that connected the dorm building at the right wing to the left wing. The left wing started at the second floor from the bridge; the Headmaster's office and the staffroom occupied that floor. There were no teachers along the corridor.

She took the staircase that led down to the first floor where the library was occupied. There was another staircase that started at the floor level of the corridor and led underground, it was where the detention cellar was. Ivie had never been to the detention cellar.

She rounded down the stair that led into the detention cellar, the dim darkness of it starting to swallow her with each step downward. The cold in the dark room was icy, Ivie felt she could freeze if she spent close to an hour.

The detention cellar had small cell-like compartments confined by iron bars. It looked like a prison and the expression, locked behind bars, fitted here.

"Hello?" she called into the darkness. The compartments ran too deep into the darker part of the detention and one couldn't see the end from standing at the beginning.

The first few compartments that were not swallowed by darkness had desks arranged in it. "Hello?" she called again in a drawl. "Chaplain?"

In the dark she did not see the small creature leap into the air, its claws sharp and long, only saw a trail of angry lines at the back of her hand.

"Ouch!" she yelped at the pain.

The creature appeared into the dimly dark room to have two striking eye colours, yellow and green. It was a cat.

"I see you've both done the introductions," Chi's steps echoed lightly in the dark passage as the outline of his body began to morph into view as he stepped into the lighter part of where she stood.

She looked up from her hand. "Chaplain? Is it yours?" she was glaring down at the little devil as it snaked its way into Chi's arm. When it settled, it locked eyes with her.

"She," he corrected, staring into her eyes. He could see the change in them. "Her name is Amy, and she wants a pet," Chi said, his eyes looming over her.

"It scratched me," she said as though it was an obvious reason she shouldn't be petting the cat.

"She," he corrected again. "She's trying to get used to your scent." Chi chuckled. "Spectacular how the match ended. You should have given me a heads up or two in the forest."

At the mention of the forest, she forgot about the pain. "About what happened in the forest, wait—" It was then Ivie realized that he didn't look scared at all. For a human who had seen a vampire, he didn't look frightened. "You don't look scared," she voiced, the pain in her hand forgotten.

"Should I?" He c****d his head to the side.

He should, he had seen her drink blood from him, he should be frightened, all humans were.

She took a step forward and looked into his eyes to erase the memory from the forest. "Look at me. Forget what happened in the forest, you did not come there, you did not see me or my fang."

He waited for a while before asking, "Why should I?"

She halted for a short while that seemed like eternity, her brows furrowing into confusion, then— her eyes widened in disbelief; it did not work.