1 Departure

The morning sun had only showed itself as a radiant backlight in the broad and misty sky when Darren Blaque awoke for his first day of his junior year of boarding school. He had drawn the opaque velvet curtains of his window the night before, expectant of a brighter atmosphere, but now he was left in the dark as a result. Feeling blindly for the lamp at his bedside table, he pulled the cord and blinked a bit as the sudden change of scenery drowned him in glaring synthetic light. Upon doing that, his vision had then snagged on the clothing the servant had preemptively set on his desk the night before, having figured he wouldn't be of his right mind at this hour. There was a garment they had added that he didn't quite like, so he decided to fold it up and take it back inside his closet before going about the rest of his business.

When he stepped into the bathroom, he promptly engaged in a sort of staring contest with himself in the mirror, drowsily examining every inch of his discombobulated face. He stopped, his lips suddenly curling into a childish smile as he realized exactly what his exhaustion led him to do. Managing a sputtering laugh, he flicked off the bathroom lights as he went back into his room to begin the process of getting dressed.

~:~

At this time of year, the young prince had to leave his kingdom and go to Fassore Academy, a prestigious high school for royals and commoners alike. It was far from upsetting for him, as life as a royal, a human royal of a vampire colony at that, was all too exhausting for him.

"Father? You here?" he asked quietly as he paced the barren hall where the royal living quarters were. The lights of this particular hall were usually off, and any curtains were always drawn at day so the royal family could sleep, so Darren found it difficult to tell if anyone else besides the servants were still awake. It didn't help that he didn't have night vision like his father or anyone else in the kingdom either, so he was always virtually blind whenever he set foot outside of his bedroom. There was a woosh of someone utilizing vampiric speed, and a servant arrived in front of Darren, startling him.

He yelped and stumbled back. "You scared me!"

The servant didn't seem phased. "My apologies, Your Highness. Your father is busy. Allow me to escort you to the bus stop. I will inform him of your departure," he uttered, displaying a hand to carry Darren's suitcase. As expected, he thought. The prince held back the urge to frown and sigh from the distinct lack of emotion and gave a forced smile and a "thanks" instead, trailing behind the servant as he escorted him to the palace's bus stop.

~:~

His suitcase had been his companion for as long as he could recall. It accompanied him everywhere, from trips abroad for negotiating foreign matters, and simply visiting another District to do yearly checks on the civilians. The textured black leather handle beneath his fingertips was strangely sentimental, after all the same hand had perched atop it for a good portion of his life.

Especially with this nostalgic sidekick of his, the morning when he had to be back at boarding school was always the same. It felt the same, it looked the same--the air even seemed to have a familiar scent. As he waited, one of his legs bouncing impatiently on the bench, he was blessed with the amazing view of the late summer sun rising fully into the sky, the darkness straying away from the light. When he was younger he always used to imagine that there was a war between the dark side and the light side, and at first the dark seemed like it was going to win, but at what seemed like the last second, the light would come back and purify the last of the sky. It was like a story, and it entertained him when he didn't feel like being glued to his phone on those days.

Darren looked back at the palace, a satisfied smirk pulling at his lips. His home wasn't what you would think a castle would typically look like. It was more modern, with pristine black bricks and dark burgundy doors. A glass dome encased the throne room on the roof, and an observatory stretched even higher into the sky from it. In two years he would be moving out. Away from the kingdom full of emotionless creatures who constantly killed to survive. Cast away from his disappointed father, unnerving stepmother and his damned stepsister, who dared to flirt with her own step-brother almost daily. At least school meant he would be away from them for a little while.

He whipped out his phone from his pocket as soon as it chimed. Another text from Sal.

It read;

SR: anyway, can't wait to see u back at Fassore! :)

A smile crept over his face as his fingers flew over the keyboard to respond.

DB: yeah, i'll be safe from the fam. would rather not die :,)

A sudden rumbling whoosh from the distance roused him from his electronically-induced trance. He slipped his phone in his pocket and stood up, squinting his eyes to look for the bus that he had heard but not yet seen. It was mostly white, blinding to the nocturnal inhabitants of New Adelaide, so it sometimes roused angry yelling and cursing from those who were still awake. There was none yet, thankfully, but there was always a chance.

Before his mind could swallow him up once again, the view of just the road before him was replaced with a single black tire. Hot air exploded into the outside world with a deafening hiss as the bus halted before him. What had appeared before his eyes was his escape from his musty and generally uneventful world with his family. Darren trembled with anticipation as he adjusted his backpack straps and boarded the bus, letting the stone-faced servant load his suitcase into the storage compartments beside the bus door. He looked upon the driver with sparkling eyes expectantly. The driver turned to him and smiled, having sensed his gaze. It was always the same crinkled and loving smile before the same authoritative, initiating words.

"Welcome aboard, Prince Darren Blaque of New Adelaide."