"Jesus Christ!" I turned on the light. "Where have you been?"

"I-...I don't know," Nia whispered. She was wearing a white night gown (god knows why she still wore those) and with her pale face she had a touch too much of undead.

I jumped up to pull her into a tight embrace. I could feel her heart beating heavily and she was shivering. "Do you remember anything?"

"No...yes. There was a figure. It kept rushing from one side of the hallway to another,"

"It was just a dream." I tried to comfort her by pulling her onto her bed, not letting her go.

"No, Perse! It wasn't. I thought you out of all people would understand! You get these too, don't you?"

"They're just dreams," I tried to keep my voice steady and calm.

"No they aren't!" She shrieked, pulling herself out of my arms.

"For me they are," I got up to pull the blanket over Nia's shivering body. "Read a little. It helps to calm down,"

"It was no dream!" Nia exclaimed one last time hefore letting herself get pushed into the pillows by me.

Usually, Nia was an angel. She would never do anything to hurt anyone and was the kindest soul I'd ever met.

But, I am speaking from experience when I say that the quietness of the night can bring out the worst in us. It can bring out all the monsters and all the ghosts we try, and manage, to keep at bay by day.

"I'm here. You won't get hurt," I said, brushing her hair out of her face before I went back into my own bed.

/ / / / /

When I opened my eyes, Nia was already up. She was sitting on the table humming to the tune of her headphones while doing some work.

"Morning," I said while stumbling to my wardrobe to pick up my toiletteries to head to the bathroom.

I rolled my eyes when Nia didn't hear and since I didn't want to scare her uneccessarily I waved my hand around next to her face until she noticed me.

"Oh, you're up!" She said happily. I didn't know how she did that, usually she forgot nearly everything that happened the night before which I envied her for. I was not so forgetful when it came to my dreams. Of course it was all a blur, but I remembered most of it.

"Yep. I'm gonna go shower," I said and grabbed my towel.

"Hurry up, classes start in an hour," She reminded me.

"Yes, mom," I said with a small smile before leaving our dorm room.

In the hallway I nearly ran over a guy. A hot guy, to be honest. I collided with his lean but muscular chest and a strange pain shot through my neck into my head.

"Watch where you're going!" He snapped, his dark hair falling into his face perfectly.

"Why don't you?" I shot back before just walking away from him and into the bathroom.

I could have sworn that I heard him mutter 'humans'. Great, another crazy nerd that thought he was living in Hogwarts, A galaxy far far away or Narnia.

It was always that way; good looks, shit personality. Nice personality, terrible acne and no socializing skills.

As I scrubbed off the terror of last night under the beam of hot water these and other thoughts went through my mind.

Fourty-five minutes later I was done and ready to go to class. I hadn't chosen a major yet, hence I could basically attend any course I wanted to.

Today, I was trying out french for my possible choice of linguistics.

I was bad at french. And when I say bad, I mean bad. I'd missed three years french during a certain phase as a teenager and now I was in Uni, wanting to study languages but only able to speak two fluently and a few words in others.

I tried to listen, but with a D in french on my final exam I was pretty fucked.

So, as I lay my head on my arms my eyes slowly dropped, definately an impact of my lack of sleep.

A strange noise caused me to jump up and my eyes darted to the door. I could feel someone's gaze on me, and when I looked around, the amphitheatre-like room was empty. Except for someone I could only see the eyes of. The perfectly dark eyes were familiar as if I'd seen them just a second ago and they pierced through me. Another thud on the door caused me to run away from my seat and jump out of the window.

It was just the first floor, so no broken bones. I ran away from the building, always feeling those piercing black eyes on me. I glanced back, telling my feet to keep moving, and saw a car door flying shut.

It's got a car.

I ran faster, but I could feel the car getting closer and closer and when my breathing was paining me more than I could have beared, I tripped over the pavement. It was always trying to make me trip over my own feet and this time it succeeded.

I had the opportunity to push myself up before the car would hit and J decided that I wanted to die bravely.

I was going to look death straight in the eye, so my gaze was fixed on the car until it was just a few metres away from me.

I couldn't help myself and tried to shield my head with my arms. My legs became jelly and I dropped to the floor.

But just before it could hit me, it was flung to the side by something and after it spun around a few times, it crashed into a tree and exploded.

I darted up, breathing heavily. I glanced around to see that nobody had noticed me. So I hadn't screamed, good. Nia said I never screamed but I wasn't sure if I believed her or not.

This was the first time I'd had a nightmare in class. Usually it only happened at night.

Weird.

When the lesson finished and I left the classroom, I could still feel the presence watching me. I blamed it on the dream, having me all creeped out.

I made it through another two unwanted lessons (always trying to keep myself awake) and then it was finally lunch break and I was done with school for today.

I met up with Nia in the cafeteria and we had a pretty good lunch. I was so glad that this University could afford good and non-dog food. Well, we paid enough, didn't we?

"How were classes?" I asked Nia and took a sip of my water.

"It was okay. It's always better at day,"

I hated her for always having to bring the past night's events up. I tried my best to forget and here she was, always reminding me of why I hated to go to sleep, why I attended every party here on campus and why I often drank a little more in hope of being able to forget.

So I just nodded and took a spoonful of my tomato soup.

Later on that day, Nia wanted to go out to watch a movie (Twilight, sigh) so I picked her up after he last class and we had dinner before we grabbed our blankets and pillows and a few snacks and found a nice spot in the theatre. Summer Movie Night was probably the best thing about NYU, at least if you asked me.

"Oh my god, look at Edward!" Nia exclaimed excitedly.

I rolled my eyes. Thanks to her I'd watched the whole Twilight series about a hundred times and I still didn't like it. I mean, it was super unrealistic and ew, who'd choose Edward over Jacob?

Sure, Edward had that whole mystery thing going for him, but Jacob. Full stop. I just had nothing else to add.

"Do we have to be here?" I groaned loudly. A few other girls around us (without doubt fellow hardcore fangirls) glared at me. One of the girls must have taken her boyfriend who was staring uncomortably into space.

I feel ya, dude.

"I watch Star Wars with you, don't I?"

"But Star Wars has class! This is pure bullshit!" I complained while gathering my things.

"See you," I said and walked back to the dorms.

Maybe I should have waited for the movie to finish and I was debating whether I should go back and wait for Nia but then I told myself to cut the crap and just walk through the barely lit corridors.

The presence was back, making me feel as uncomfortable as ever.

My pace fastened and as soon as I got back to our room, I switched on the light and locked the door behind me.

Deciding to watch something with class, I took out my old laptop and put on Dirty Dancing. Class, I tell you.

When Nia finally got back I was ready to go to bed.

"Where were you?" I asked, anger evident in my voice. I had been worried.

"I fell sleep, I'm sorry! Corinne was the one to wake me up and I rushed back here as fast as I could," Nia looked scared. Was it the fear about a possible fight between us or something entirely different?

"I'm not mad. Can we please just sleep, though?"

"Gladly," Nia yawned before walking to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

I was reading in a novel Nia had given me to borrow when she got back.

"Goodnight," She said before crawling under the covers of her bed. That was unlike Nia. She'd always read before sleeping. Always.

"Sleep tight,"

"Beware of the bed bugs' bite." She smiled.

"Cause they might!" We finished together and I switched off the lamp next to my bed.

/ / / / /

This time, it wasn't Nia getting back that woke me up. It was the thud the door made when it fell shut. Nia must have just left.

Not today!, I decided, got up and slipped into a pair of comfortable trainers. I took my keys and put them into the pocket of my pyjama pants before also taking a torch. I didn't remember when and why I got it but I was thankful that I did.

In the light of the torch I could see Nia take the hallway left and rushed to follow her.

I tried to my best to keep up with her but, damn, she was fast when she's asleep. And even though I had a torch I was still afraid that I'd trip over a dead body or something similar.

When I finally caught up with her, I grabbed her by her arm and spun her around. Her eyes opened and immediately widened, but she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at something behind me.

Her squeal caused me to turn around, only to lay eyes on the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. For a moment I couldn't breathe

It was a black shadow of a male figure surrounded by red flames. I couldn't see his eyes but I knew he was staring at us.

The second before it screamed seemed to last forever, but when it did both Nia and I screamed too. I dropped the torch and was about to run when something grabbed my hand, out of the corner of my eye I could see the same thing happening to Nia, too.

I was trying to shake it off but I came face to face with another University student. Johan? Or Albert? I remembered it being a pretty old fashioned name.

Maybe-Johan started running, pulling me with him and when my body was functioning properly again I gladly followed his example. 

I freed my hand out of his and wanted to ask where we were going, but then decided against it. Better not to waste any energy on talking. Who knew how long we'd have to run?

The guy who'd pulled Nia with him gave her to the other and obviously considered going back there.

"Don't." I tried to put as much emphasis on the word as possible, but probably failed miserable. Yet, something caused him to not go back immediately.

He glanced at the other guy a.k.a. maybe-Johan. He hesitated so I grabbed his hand and pulled him with us, a second later the maybe-Johan was running again, too.

I let go of the guys' hand but he held onto me, leading the way.

We ran down the side of the Uni building and finally reached a gate that lead into a hidden alley spiked with a few bags filled with rather smelly trash.

The guy didn't bother to open the gate further and just slithered through it, but I opened it wider after a glance at Nia and maybe-Johan.

He pulled me further down the alley and pushed me through a door.

It took my eyes a second do adapt to the warm light of the room and I realised that this must have been where they lived. In a hidden room only reachable from the side of the University.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice shaky from the lack of oxygen.

"What did you see?" His voice was deep and had a serious ring to it, somehow he reminded me of a predator.

"Who are you?" I repeated.

As soon as maybe-Johan and Nia entered the room the guy closed the difference between the two of us and I had the opportunity to finally see his face.

He had a sharp jawline and dark hair, but the most captivating about his rather handsome face were his eyes. They were ice blue. 

"Sit," He demanded.

"No," I mimicked his tone.

He looked confused for a moment, he probably never had anyone disobeying him, but then he had his facial expression back in control.

His hands shot forward and pushed me onto the bed.

Too sexual, Mister. Too sexual.

"Don't touch me!" My voice came out higher than I'd intended to.

On the other bed sat Nia, her gaze strictly fixed on a point on the floor. I pushed myself up and as quickly as I could walked over to her. I put a hand on her shoulder but she didn't react.

"Come on, let's go," I mumbled, trying to keep my voice calm. I turned to the two men. "Thank you very much for whatever it is you did, but we should go,"

"Go? Go where?" The dark haired guy raised an eyebrow at me.

"Back to the dorms," I said determinedly.

"Do you want to repeat what just happened?" The dude snapped.

"Damon!" Maybe-Johan warned and then turned to me. "I don't think your...friend is in the condition to walk,"

Maybe he was right. Nia was still sitting on the bed, staring into space aimlessly.

But from what I knew we could be in the company of rapists, so no thank you. "We'll be fine,"

"No you won't," Damon said nonchalantly.

"But with you we will?" She shot back.

"Yes," Maybe-Johan said calmly.

"I am repeating my question, who are you?"

"I'm Stefan." Ah, Johan was close. "And that's..."

"Damon," He replied.

"We're..." Damon got a scary glare from Stefan. "The Salvatore brothers,"

"And we're here to help you," Stefan said.

Right.