Feralynn and Miria did not meet on the terrace for lunchtime.

  Nor for the following classes. The absence was silent. The kind that isn’t announced, but is felt like an empty chair that’s far too visible in a crowded room.

  Cough. Cough!

  At first, they were coughs. Throat clearings, the kind that come when your throat itches or you swallow saliva the wrong way. Dry. Clumsy. Nothing that drew attention. Something normal in the middle of a long, monotonous reading during Bernt’s class.

  Chalk against blackboard, precise movements. The rough sound repeated with an almost hypnotic rhythm. Bernt was finishing drawing conceptual diagrams that explained the synergies of styles, and their origins. Clean lines, well-closed circles, clear arrows.

  He could have done it by enchanting chalk to do the work for him. He could have let magic take care of everything, like other professors did. But he liked drawing. He liked the simple gesture of the hand, the white dust staining the edge of his shirt. It was fun. Perhaps the most entertaining part of his job when he had to give theoretical lessons.

  “I should’ve gone to art school,” he murmured to himself, with a sarcastic smile only he saw. “Oh well, not complaining, though. They pay well here. And flirting with Romi is still worth it.”

  Constant heating, stable salary, medical insurance, and the best of all? His ex, as a co-worker. He couldn’t be picky.

  His students took notes without protesting. They came from a brutal Alchemy exam with Professor Beatrice, and exhaustion hung from their shoulders. They were far too tired even to whisper among themselves.

  Cough.

  This time, a bit harsher.

  Especially Annya, whose brow remained furrowed without her realizing it. Part of her was annoyed. Annoyed at feeling strongly overshadowed by Miria in Feralynn’s eyes. Another part, deeper and more uncomfortable, felt ashamed for being so selfish, considering the tragedy surrounding Fer’s supposed "friend".

  The girl with whom Feralynn faced the world wearing a smile that Annya never saw when they were alone.

  You’re not a fighter.

  You’re afraid of the dark.

  You scream at a spider barely bigger than normal.

  How can you compare yourself to the girl who, with a flick of her wrist, forms ice swords sharp as scalpels?

  That thought bit into her from the inside.

  At least her bitterness softened a little when, during the Alchemy exam, she had passed Feralynn the answers under the table, written on a ridiculously small piece of paper, folded to exhaustion.

  “Thank you, Annie.”

  That was what Fer whispered very softly, her voice hoarse, her warm breath against her ear, avoiding lifting her gaze or raising suspicion from the professor, who watched from her desk like a patient vulture.

  Annie.

  Not Annya. Annie.

  “You’re welcome…”

  She answered, with a proud and shy smile she couldn’t control. An unusual softness in her best friend. Almost fragile.

  Cough.

  Cough.

  Cough!

  "Hm?"

  And with the same softness with which she had smiled, another tragedy began right there.

  Bernt had turned just slightly over his shoulder. Not only him. Some boys had lifted their heads too. Everyone was now looking at Feralynn, who was coughing more than usual. Too often. Too deep.

  He raised an eyebrow, stopping his strokes of half-drawn arcane sigils.

  “That’s what happens when you smoke so damn much,” he muttered first, more to himself than to her, remembering having seen her lighting a cigarette in secret in the castle’s back courtyard… and punishing her for it. Then he raised his voice, still relaxed. “Yo, Blood Eyes! Everything on check? Looks like you’ve inhaled too much smoke from your own fire, huh?”

  He asked with a crooked, carefree smile. His voice echoed throughout the classroom, which had gone strangely quiet.

  Fer didn’t answer.

  She kept coughing.

  Each time more choked.

  As if something didn’t want to come out… or didn’t want to stay inside.

  “Fer…?”

  Annya, who sat beside her all the time, stopped writing abruptly. The quill hung suspended for a second before falling. She placed a hand behind her back, clumsy, not knowing exactly what to do.

  “Hey, are you okay? You’re… coughing a lot.”

  "Y-Yeah, cough! Haah, just a bit tired..."

  "Feralynn..."

  I told you, you should rest more often...dummy.??

  Miria, on the other side of the classroom, also stopped writing. She lifted her gaze, worried. Her serene expression tightened slightly, like a crack in porcelain.

  “Always calling the attention,” sighed one of the blonde girl’s companions, shaking her head. “When will be the day she doesn’t interrupt a class?”

  "She just loves being the weirdo, huh?"

  Mocking giggles, very low, rippled through the upper corner of the high-class girls. They remembered past accidents. Clumsiness. Explosions. Including the disaster of the first day of class with Romina.

  I don't think she's exaggerating.

  Annya blindly searched beneath her desk for the small bottle of water. She found it. But when she looked up—

  She heard drops falling.

  COUGH!

  Blood. Drops. Small. Red as her eyes.

  "HUH?!"

  Annya froze, eyes wide, watching how the rain suddenly grew, splashing the desk, the notebook, the floor, and also… her made-up cheek.

  Before she could open her mouth to call for Bernt’s help, Feralynn stared at her.

  So much blood. Nose. Mouth. And even eyes. Like an open faucet that didn’t know how to shut itself off.

  "Annie...?"

  "Annie..."

  "Annie...what's happening?"

  Miria dropped her pen. The dry sound against the floor was absurdly loud. Time seemed to stop. Or break into uneven pieces.

  Horrified, Annya stood up immediately to help her, but Feralynn collapsed onto her desk unconscious, her body giving in, letting the crimson cascade keep flowing.

  "Gah..."

  Annya was paralyzed by panic.

  She couldn’t think.

  She couldn’t look for her gloves.

  She couldn’t conjure a healing miracle.

  The last thing Feralynn heard was the sharp, horrifying shriek of her best friend, so loud it burned her throat, and she couldn’t even recognize her own voice. A sound that made everyone else react. By pure instinct, they stepped back a few paces. No one knew what to do. Everyone fixed their eyes on the fainted girl.

  A shriek that, in her already deaf ears, faded like a whistle.

  A long whistle. Hollow.

  Bernt let the chalk fall to the floor.

  With a hardened gaze, he put on his gloves in less than a blink.

  He was the adult. And he would not allow a child to be put at risk under any excuse. Not in his classroom. Not anywhere.

  “EVERYONE BACK!” he shouted.

  Everyone obeyed. Except Annya.

  “MISS OAK, STEP ASIDE, NOW!”

  “FERALYNN?! FER—FER, WAKE UP! FER, WAKE UP! FERALYYYNN!”

  "Gods, Blackwood!"

  Rose and Jax had to grab her and pull her away by force to make room. Bernt pointed a firm hand toward the girl, planting his feet.

  And he recited at the top of his lungs:

  “SORCERY STYLE: SOUL ATTRACTION!”

  A blue aura enveloped Feralynn’s body. She levitated first, as if the air hesitated to hold her. Then she shot at full speed toward her professor, who prepared his other arm and caught her against his chest.

  With her already in his arms, Bernt ran. He kicked the classroom door open without slowing.

  As he crossed the empty hallways, he tried to heal her in every possible way. Without wasting time reciting full miracles, his gloves lit up with a yellow miraculous light that, even so, failed to close the internal wounds.

  As if something inside rejected the spell’s light.

  Annya broke free from the grip of her two friends and ran out of the classroom, tears spilling from her eyes.

  “Annya, no!” Rose shouted. “Wait!”

  She and Jax followed her.

  Behind them, the classroom froze. A disaster. No one knew what to say. For them, it was the first time they had seen a hemorrhage of that magnitude. For some, the first time in their young and innocent lives that they had ever seen so much blood together.

  "SHIT, SHIT, SHIT! ROMINA MUST BE AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CASTLE!"

  “DAMN IT, BLOOD EYES!” Bernt gasped, rushing down the stairs toward the infirmary. “DON’T DIE LIKE THIS… AT LEAST NOT UNDER MY CLASS!”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  …

  …

  …

  Between gasps, Feralynn opened her eyes. Her forehead burned, soaked in sweat, and her gaze shot in every direction like a cornered animal, searching for an exit that did not exist.

  “ANNYA?! PROFESSOR?! GUYS?!”

  She was sitting. But not at her classroom desk. The seat beneath her body was upholstered, far too comfortable, soft to the touch. It smelled of clean carpet, of an order that did not belong to her. She tried to jump to her feet, but an invisible force slammed her back into the seat, ripping the air from her lungs.

  That didn’t stop her. She struggled anyway, grinding her teeth, tensing her muscles, fighting against something she couldn’t see or touch. It was useless.

  “DAMN… IT! UGH, SHIT!”

  Then she noticed. There was no blood. No dirt. No trace of the collapse. She wasn’t wearing her school uniform either. Her black hoodie was back, wrapping around her like a cruel joke, as if the world had mocked her by choosing the worst possible moment to return her favorite garment.

  She had to go back. She needed to go back at all costs. The darkness around her was suffocating her. Panic climbed up her throat. She ignited her hands in flames by reflex, but the fire didn’t illuminate a single centimeter beyond her fingertips. It was as if light refused to exist there.

  “HELLO?! HELLO, IS ANYONE THERE?! Fuck...”

  There was no echo.

  Not even dust suspended in the air.

  Then, in order, one by one, the lights began to turn on. Soft. Delicate. Far too careful. As if they were mocking the erratic pulse of her terrified heart. In front of her, a huge rectangle of dull gray slowly appeared in her field of vision.

  "What is this place?" A screen from a— “Cinema…?”

  "Wow, what the fuck?"

  It was a movie theater. She was trapped, against her will, in a completely empty movie theater. Of all the seats possible, only hers was occupied: right in the center, at that height people usually fight over because “the view is better.”

  Mouth agape, cold sweat sliding down her back, she didn’t know how to react.

  Minutes passed. Or maybe seconds. Space and time themselves seemed to hold their breath with her. She swallowed when the lights began to dim. Suddenly, the screen flared to life, allowing her to clearly make out the walls, the endless rows of empty seats…

  And her.

  She was not alone.

  A short-haired woman was sitting to her right.

  Crrrunncchh…

  Popcorn. The woman held a bowl of popcorn on her lap, eating with deliberate slowness, irritatingly calm. Feralynn immediately turned toward her.

  White hair. Pale skin. One eye covered, the other with a golden iris. She was dressed like a common office worker, pulled straight out of a Monday in the middle of an ordinary workday. The woman refused to look at her; she ignored her completely.

  Even so, Feralynn could make out a faint smile on her well-painted lips, a smile that was not meant for her.

  The counter appeared on the screen and began to race.

  Three.

  Feralynn felt that her ragged breathing gave off no heat, no wind, no life at all.

  Two.

  A final heartbeat echoed inside her ribs, heavy, isolated.

  One...

  In the last second before the film began, the woman raised a single hand. The counter stopped dead. The lights slowly came back on, until they fully illuminated the theater.

  Silence.

  An uneasy one. Dense.

  Feralynn didn’t blink. She couldn’t take her eyes off her. Off that colossal energy she felt emanating and enveloping everything without any effort. A shiver ran down her spine when she heard her voice: refined, educated.

  Coldly sweet.

  “Hi, Feralynn.” Just two words. Feralynn’s heart jolted violently, wanting to flee from there much faster than her legs could ever carry her. "It's been a while, you've grown up."

  "Haah?!"

  It was frightening. Far too frightening, the stillness, the absolute serenity with which that golden eye seemed to observe everything.

  "Who—Who are you?!"

  "That doesn't matter right now." she giggled, "Don't worry about it!"

  That mana...is strong as Smiley's, but...dark.

  “Where… am I?”

  “Between scenes,” Carmilla replied, with a casual calm, almost comfortable. “You’re between scenes.”

  “Am I… dying?”

  The question slipped out on its own. Instinctive. The last thing she remembered was her own blood, the desk, the world tilting before disappearing.

  Carmilla slowly offered her the bowl of popcorn, smiling with a kindness that was not reassuring in the slightest.

  “That depends on whether we let the movie keep rolling or not.”

  “…”

  Her scent. It's familiar. This woman is dangerous... Is she human? No, it couldn't be...

  The woman with the eyepatch erased her smile. She looked at the screen, ignoring the red eyes still fixed on her. She sighed sharply through her nose and sank into her seat, like someone finally sitting down after an endless line.

  “You really are a mess,” she commented, with softened disappointment. “You take after your father, clearly. I don’t understand how the two of you simply can’t… not self-destruct so much.”

  What?! You knew my dad?!

  Another silence. Carmilla barely registered the sound of the bowl of popcorn being thrown.

  “Where. Am. I,” Feralynn repeated, each syllable loaded with contained fury. “Answer me, now.”

  The woman massaged her temple for a second, treating the scene like a teacher correcting a student who didn’t even know she was being evaluated.

  “In a waiting room,” she replied, looking straight at her. “Where stories rewind before disappearing.”

  Feralynn swallowed.

  “Are you… Death?”

  Carmilla laughed softly, shaking her head, clearly enjoying hearing the same question over and over again.

  "I'm not my Mother, darling."

  The answer made every hair on Feralynn’s body stand on end, and she jumped to her feet in terror.

  “Sit down!” Carmilla interrupted immediately, alarmed at the possibility of the girl breaking the ritual. “Please.”

  She obeyed, because she didn’t know what else to do in a situation like that. Feralynn opened her mouth, but Carmilla raised a hand, stopping her. She knew exactly what she was going to say, and in what order.

  Who are you?

  Why am I here?

  Your mother, what?

  How… what?

  “Let’s not waste time,” her voice grew firmer. “Neither of us wants to remain a single minute longer in this place. So listen to me.”

  Feralynn took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, and stayed silent. Carmilla sighed again, heavier this time.

  “You’ve abused your body quite a lot recently. Between energy drinks, sleeping potions, intense workouts, and especially that,” she pointed to the girl’s abdomen, where the seal rested. “A sick body damages the flow of mana. Yours was suffocating. You don't chain such a feral beast like yourself, starve it, and expect it to not break.”

  "Tch..."

  "I can't believe how useless your human-mother is, letting you smoke, drink—"

  "HEY! Don't you dare speak about my mom!"

  Just who the hell she thinks she is? I don't need your lectures, old hag.

  Carmilla kept her gaze fixed on the exact spot where the seal pulsed beneath Feralynn’s clothes. There was no reproach in her eyes. Nor urgency. It was the look of someone observing a familiar crack in a wall she had already seen collapse a thousand times.

  “Mana is not infinite,” she continued, in an almost pedagogical tone. “It doesn’t flow just because. It needs a body that can sustain it. And yours…” —she made a small gesture with her fingers, like extinguishing a candle— “…was failing. You miss it, don't you? The action, the adrenaline of the battlefield—”

  "Shut up."

  "You do, my soldier. You miss breaking skulls and slicing throats—"

  "SHUT UP! I DON'T MISS ANY OF THAT BULLSHIT!"

  Keep lying, soldier. Keep trying to forget who you really are.

  Carmilla chuckled, satisfied. At the girl's obvious rage, she stood quiet, letting the fumes calm down.

  “So…” Fer murmured, her voice dry. “What? Did I collapse? Did I… break?”

  Carmilla didn’t answer immediately. With a flick of her wrist, she made a bowl of popcorn appear, materializing amid black mist. She took one, brought it to her lips with the same useless elegance, and chewed calmly. The sound was obscenely normal in the middle of that impossible room.

  “You gave up. Before you even started, you gave up.”

  She said it without judgment. Without cruelty. Like someone naming a meteorological fact.

  Feralynn clenched her teeth.

  “I didn’t give up.”

  “Of course you did.” Carmilla tilted her head slightly. Her golden eye observed her with clinical interest. “Your body did it for you. Because you never stop fighting with yourself.”

  Fer leaned forward, hands clenched on her thighs. Rage wanted to burst out, but there was nowhere to direct it. There was no visible enemy. There was nothing to burn. She knew attacking her would be in vain, or stupid.

  “Send me back.”

  It wasn’t a shout. It was a poorly disguised order.

  Carmilla raised an eyebrow, amused at pretending ignorance.

  “To where?”

  “To my body, damn it!” Feralynn’s chest rose and fell with difficulty. “To the school! To Annya! To—”

  She cut herself off. The name scraped her throat.

  Carmilla followed her gaze, as if she could read the hollow left by that pause. Her lips curved slightly.

  “Ah.” A single syllable loaded with dangerous understanding. “That explains why you insist in changing so much.”

  Feralynn snapped her head up.

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know more than enough.” Carmilla set the bowl on the empty armrest, crossing her legs with calculated calm. “I know you don’t take care of yourself because you don’t believe you deserve it. I know you use exhaustion as anesthesia. I know you’d rather break yourself first, than ask for help.”

  Each sentence fell like a domino. One after another. Without haste.

  “And I know,” she continued, leaning a little toward her, “that you were minutes away from not coming back.”

  The silence that followed was heavy. There was no music. No image on the screen. Only Feralynn’s irregular breathing and the distant hum of something that wasn’t electricity.

  Feralynn clenched her fists. She felt the weight of the room, the seat, the unmoving air. Each of Carmilla’s words seemed to settle on her chest like a slab of stone.

  “Don’t tell me that like it’s my fault, old woman,” she spat. “I didn’t ask—”

  “—to exist like this.” Carmilla finished for her, without harshness. Without mockery. She opened her golden eye just a little wider, assessing her. “No one does.”

  The screen in front of them flickered. A brief flash. Blurred images tried to form, like badly focused memories: fire, snow, a gunshot, blood against a school desk. Carmilla raised two fingers and the image froze again.

  “You see?” she said softly. “Not even your memories know whether to move forward or backward.”

  Feralynn swallowed. She felt a deep exhaustion, different from the physical kind. One that was born behind her eyes.

  “So… what am I to you?” she asked, voice low, tense, annoyed. “A mistake? Something you spy on for fun?!”

  Carmilla smiled sideways. A polite smile. Measured. Dangerous.

  “You are… an incomplete tragedy.”

  She leaned a little forward, resting her elbows on her knees, like someone ready to explain something important to a child too proud to ask for help.

  “And incomplete tragedies are irritating,” she added. “They leave loose ends. Wasted potential. And I don’t like wasting anything when I eat.”

  The silence that followed was thick. There was no music. No ambient sound. Only Feralynn’s breathing, which now finally felt real again.

  “If I let the movie continue,” Carmilla went on, gesturing vaguely at the screen, “your soul finishes giving up. Right here.” Then she pointed behind them, without looking. “And whatever remains… would no longer be useful.”

  Feralynn’s heart gave a hard jolt.

  “Useful for what?” she asked.

  Carmilla looked at her directly then. Without smiling.

  “Not yet.”

  She leaned back into her seat again, crossing one leg with elegance. She took a popcorn kernel and chewed it slowly. Very slowly.

  “But don’t worry,” she added with her mouth full, with a chilling calm. “I don’t plan to lose you today. Nor tomorrow.”

  She tossed Feralynn a remote control with three buttons arranged horizontally; the girl caught it with trained reflex.

  “The middle one, the red,” she clarified. “Go home, soldier.”

  Hesitating, Fer stayed still, thinking about whether to press it or not. She looked at Carmilla, who smiled and nodded.

  Click.

  The theater trembled slightly the moment she pressed it. Not like an earthquake, but like a deep breath taken by the place itself.

  “I’ll send you back,” she said. “Not because you deserve it. Not because you’re a good person.” Her golden eye gleamed for an instant. “But because you haven’t even started yet.”

  Feralynn felt a pull in her chest. As if something invisible grabbed her from the inside and began dragging her backward.

  “When you wake up,” Carmilla continued, as the world began to blur, “you’re going to feel pain. Confusion. And an absurd need to forget that all of this happened. Because it didn’t, really.”

  The room began to darken again. The seats drifted away. The screen went black.

  “Do it,” Carmilla said, already distant. “Forget. Run and hide, like you always do.”

  The last thing Feralynn managed to hear, just before everything shattered into white, was a sentence spoken without any emotion at all:

  “If this memory somehow survives, tell Smiley that I’m still waiting.”

  …

  …

  …

  Both woke at the same time.

  One, on the infirmary cot, surrounded by expert hands and urgent voices, being treated by the school’s doctor as if time were running out second by second.

  The other emerged abruptly from a large white bathtub, gasping, her body covered in a thick liquid. Purple. Dark. Cursed. It slid over her skin as if resisting being abandoned.

  Eight children around Feralynn’s age lay nearby, naked and lifeless. Their throats had been opened with ritual precision, and their blood had been carefully poured out to feed the twisted spell from which both had emerged.

  Gripping the metal bars of the tub, Carmilla let her gaze drift over the still-rippling liquid.

  “It worked,” she murmured, without enthusiasm, without relief, as if confirming something she had never doubted. "Feralynn, you're lucky I detected your pulse in time."

  She heard footsteps approaching. She barely lifted her head when the other woman entered the room: bandages wrapped around her legs, still stained, still damp.

  “Amon survived,” Elfrana reported, arms crossed, watching her mistress with a mixture of respect and boredom. “Doc says he’ll be able to fight again pretty soon.”

  "I see."

  "Gah—! Hss...!"

  The vampire felt a horrible stab in her chest when, by accident, she caught sight of Carmilla’s left eye uncovered. She immediately looked away and covered her face with one hand, as if she had stared directly into the sun. Then, without any shame at all, she let her eyes roam over the lifeless bodies of the children.

  “Wow… you really needed a couple for the ritual, huh?” she whistled, licking her fangs, hunger evident. “Can I eat them?” she asked with an eager puppy smile.

  Carmilla nodded in serenity without looking at her. She pinched the air with two fingers and, out of nothing, a patch of black fabric made of dark mist emerged, covering her cursed eye with unnatural docility.

  “I imagine the Grand Table must be furious with me for intervening.”

  Elfrana snorted, sticking out her tongue, shrugging with disdain.

  “Hey, it’s not your fault that bald bastard is a useless weakling,” she said, brushing it off. “Besides, he summoned you when the blondie kicked his ass.”

  Using the wall grips for support, Carmilla stepped out of the bathtub naked. Her slender, pale body was covered in dark purple blood, slowly dripping onto the floor. She wrapped herself in a towel without hurry, while her vampire slave whistled excitedly at the human remains.

  “That Feralynn Blackwood you like so much…” Elfrana tilted her head, smiling. “Is she really as strong as you say?”

  CRACK.

  Elfrana twisted the arm of one of the corpses and tore it off effortlessly. She chewed it like a chicken leg, savoring every bite with obscene pleasure.

  “I’m sick of you only having me capture blank kids so you turn them into your little demon pets!” she complained with her mouth full, innocent flesh being crushed between her fangs. “I want a real fight! I want to kidnap her already… and rip her orange-haired friend’s throat out right in front of her eyes.”

  Drying her hair with the towel, Carmilla let out a low laugh.

  “If it was hard to get close to her before because of Smiley’s protection, now, after what happened with Amon, it’s three times more complicated. Authorities will be alarmed, and his golden strings tightening,” she stared at her distorted reflection in the stained mirror. “Answering your question: yes. She is. Very much so. That’s why I came looking for you, Elfrana.”

  Squish.

  With a hungry gasp, Elfrana opened her mouth full of sharp teeth and chewed the heart of one of the girl's chest she had just torn apart, reducing it to pulp that ran down the corner of her lips.

  “No mortal is as strong as me!” she said, pointing at herself with a thumb stained red. “Much less a stupid girl with daddy issues! I am the strongest from my era!”

  You'll feel proud of me, Mistress Carmilla! ??

  Carmilla let out a low, almost bored laugh, without even turning her head.

  “You say that now.” A minimal pause. “When you face her, you’ll be grateful I warned you.” She adjusted the towel with absolute calm, letting the eye patch fall on its own. “Be patient. You two are going to have so much fun.”

  …

  …

  …

  They are savages.

  ?