First impressions

Celine walked away from Mr. Jackson's office a bit dumbfounded about the whole sequence of events that happened to her.

Just a few hours after she entered this university, she already encountered a vampire, almost got killed by a vampire, accused of murder, expelled, and re-enrolled again.

It was too much for a simple country girl like her. All she wanted to do now was take a deep sleep and recover her mental strength, which hopefully will delay her mental breakdown.

Thankfully, she didn't have a class until late in the afternoon. If she had to listen to a two-hour lecture about calculus right after this, her head would literally explode.

Celine quickly made her way back to the dorms, ignoring the swarms of students greeting and socializing with each other. She didn't have enough energy to deal with new faces.

Funny enough, Celine felt some stares coming her way as she made her way down the campus. She wouldn't have noticed them if not for her super-sensitivity due to earlier events.

Celine kept her head down and put on her earphones as she walked towards the girl's dorms. She raised her head as soon as she noticed the elevators lined with gold.

Last time, she chose the right-side elevator—the elevator towards the rich girl's dorm, which originated the whole situation from earlier. If she had not made that mistake, she wouldn't have met the vampire.

Taking a deep breath, Celine pushed the up button on the left elevator. She made sure of it this time. As the elevator transported her up, Celine leaned on the walls. This felt like the only time where she could take a break.

DING. Reaching her floor, Celine peeked her head out first, afraid that she had somehow made another mistake. Thankfully, this looked like the right dorm.

The rich girl's dorm was fully furnished with top-quality silk, state-of-the-art cooling systems, and everything that a five-star hotel room had.

This dorm, the dorm for the experimental 'charity' work, was not decorated at all. It was just the bare skin, with hardened cement as the flooring and walls. Some of the rooms don't even have doors on them, much less furniture.

It looked like it was made two weeks before in a rush, which by the state of the rooms, seemed likely. Of course, Celine wouldn't complain.

As long as it had a bed and bathroom, she was set. She would take this room over the rich girl's rooms any day, especially if she had to share her room with the mean blonde girl she slapped earlier.

She opened the door to the fifth room, which was her designated home. Surprisingly enough, her room was decently made.

One bed with sheets, one bathroom, one desk, and one tv. She was happy with this arrangement, especially since she could have been imprisoned earlier. At least, this room had a tv.

Celine didn't explore her room any further as she plopped down on the bed. She only had three hours of sleep earlier, and she can only sleep for five hours today till her next class.

Her eyelids dropped as she soon went into a slumber. Her mind wandered, replaying the scene in the dark room with the blood-drenched vampire looking at her with his malicious teeth.

He looked the same as before, except her was now earring a black leather jacket. He was smiling, grinning as he looked at something.

He walked closer, and he sat down on a bed. Celine furrowed her eyebrows, wracking her brains on why the bed looked similar.

Then, the vampire moved his hands, and a girl sleeping in the bed came into view. She looked familiar, Celine thought.

The girl had black hair, fair skin, and wore the same shirt and jeans that she wore...wait. No. That's-that's me! she screamed.

However, no sound came out of her. It was a weird feeling, seeing herself in the third person. It was as if she was looking at a doppelgänger, which would have been cool, except this wasn't a doppelgänger, but her. And she would soon be killed by a vampire!

How did he even find me, she thought. She didn't even give out her name to him, so how did he know?

"As if I'll ever let you go…," the vampire said as he grabbed Celine's chin.

Did he read my mind?!

This invasion of privacy wasn't enough as he mounted on top of her. He grinned as he caressed her face. "Beautiful…,"

The vampire opened his mouth wide and sunk his teeth onto her neck, depleting her blood. Celine couldn't do anything. All she could do was watch from the side.

NOOOOOOO!

Celine opened her eyes and sat up from the bed. Her whole body was sweating, and her heart was beating a thousand times per second. She quickly touched her neck and found no puncture marks.

It was just a dream. She sighed, relieved that she didn't die in her sleep. She looked at the time on her phone—4:50, just 10 minutes before her class.

Celine got up and fixed herself, ignored the nightmare that she experienced, and went to class.

She failed to notice a drop of blood on the bedsheets.

——————————

5:05 pm. Celine was five minutes late to class due to getting lost in the giant maze that is the Babylon academy. It was far too big for its own good.

After stumbling her way through the classrooms, she finally found her block. The sign above the door showed 1-A, her class.

She opened the door and saw her classmates sitting comfortably in their chairs. Some of them were wandering around the room with no teacher in sight.

Lucky, she thought. Being late on the first day of school would not have been an excellent first impression. She scanned the room for an empty seat, the seat at the corner opposite her, and made her way there.

However, she couldn't help but notice the silence as soon as she entered the room. They stopped talking to each other and started to talk about her.

Celine ignored it. She was a transferee here, and most students probably already knew each other from high school. They were just curious, she thought.

However, a group of women approached her, three of them exactly. They were laughing and snickering with each other as they did so.

Celine ignored them but kept a side-eye towards them. A short black haired girl raised her hands towards Celine, and Celine flinched away in response.

She thought she was going to be slapped as revenge, but nothing of the sort happened. The three girls looked at Celine awkwardly, and Celine fixed her uniform as an excuse.

"Congratulations!" the girl said, reaching out her hands towards Celine.

Celine frowned. "For what?"

"For dethroning the Mad Queen."

Celine's eyebrows were kept furrowed as she didn't know what the girl was talking about.

"Stacy Dubois. Blonde, mean body with a mean face, always sucking face with her boyfriend from another class? Heiress to almost half of Europe? Nothing rings a bell? I'm Pepper, by the way."

Celine shook her head while she shook hands with Pepper.

"You slapped her."

Ahh, Celine thought. She didn't know that the blonde girl was famous, which was bad for her since it looked like everybody knew that she slapped the Mad Queen.

"That's a good thing. She needed to be put to her place," a curly-haired girl said.

"And everybody knows this?" Celine hugged her bag closer. She did not want to be known for slapping a classmate.

"Yeah, you're famous now. Peasant girl stands up against rich evil queen. I can see the headline now," Pepper said, with her eyes shining like a reporter.

Celine went face-down on her desk. This day kept getting worse and worse for her. And it turned out that it would continue from now on. "Don't worry. You have your peasant friends, and a few of us who don't like Stacy, in your side."

"Well, speak of the devil."

And the rain became a storm. Stacy Dubois walked into the classroom with her eyes glaring at anyone that stood in her way. Nobody dared interrupt, especially since there was a jock behind her. "Stand out of my way, trash," she said.

Stacy and her boyfriend walked towards Celine like they owned the room. It was easy to see why some people congratulated Celine for slapping her.

"You. Kneel and apologize." Stacy pointed at Celine's face and chewed on her gum. She snickered when she saw Celine avoiding her gaze.

Pepper and her friends went behind Celine. They whispered to her, "go on. Slap her." The goading did not help Celine at all.

"Heh…not so arrogant now, are you? Come on, slap me," Stacy said as she showed Celine her other cheek. She was utterly confident that Celine wouldn't do it.

Seeing the silence, Stacy smirked. "I knew you were trash." She took out her gum and stuck it on Celine's desk.

Celine just glared at her, holding in her anger and impulsiveness. She was already mistaken for a murderer, and she could be a murderer if this continued.

"You can't do anything while my hubby is here," Stacy said as she rubbed her boyfriend's well-defined pecs. He only smiled and hardened them with pride.

"He's an alpha. Tell them, babe."

"Yeah, I'm an alpha. Nobody can touch my girl and get away with it. See this? These muscles can never be knocked down—" the jock said until a punch knocked him out instantly.

Stacy gasped and immediately ran over to her boyfriend. Upon seeing his mouth almost frothing, she looked up to see the perpetrator who knocked out her lover.

It was a man with slightly curly golden locks of hair. His face was cute and gentle. He didn't seem to be the type who could knock out a jock with one punch, especially with a charming smile like his.

"Are you okay?" he said as he took Celine's hand and kissed it.