PAST

The trio walked slowly past homes and inns, each shutting close the minute they did. They definitely were not welcomed in these parts and that made it worse for them, being Vampires.

The stories of their ruthlessness spread from town to town like a widespread fire. Percival was the tallest and quite brawny, Trillis was more ruthless with a heart devoid of love and he despised his human life. Then there was Olin, the wittiest and the voice of the group.

Trillis mocked with a grin. "We are famous brothers, see as they scurry in hiding before us." They all laughed making their way to the only open tavern. It belonged to a middle aged bartender dressed in a butcher's clothing and his daughter who wore a sleeveless gown.

" We would like your strongest whiskey to calm our nerves." Olin mentioned as they each took a seat. Trillis' gaze never left the nape of the bartender's daughter while she served them, collecting the pennies that Percival placed on the wooden table.

"I would like something tastier and more lasting, like say your damsel of a daughter over here," Trillis grinned maliciously watching the bartender's face shrink in undisguised dislike.
The middle aged man ushered his daughter behind the counter before turning to face the trio. "Over my dead body." He spat out to a very amused Trillis who feigned defeat while Olin and Percival watched with heightened curiousity; both very aware of how spontaneous he could be. They watched him as he flitted towards the bar at unnatural speed but ricocheted just as fast, as if off an invisible barrier. A grunt followed as his body shattered a wooden table into splinters.

"For want of a girl, his pride was lost," Percival joked with a line out of an old fable while they watched their fallen comrade remove wood splinters that pierced his skin, and making his way to the barrier while banging at it.
Olin walked majestically, each step bringing him closer to the impenetrable counter at the same time observing the thick powdery line that laced round the counter. "Mountain ash," Olin mentioned with an impressed face. "Extremely rare. Which begs the question as to how you managed to procure it."

"There is more where that came from, even others that more dangerous." The bartender threatened while Trillis flashed his silvery white fangs menacingly. Olin peered at Percival then at Trillis before motioning to the exit as they turned to leave.

"What?! Olin, we are just going to let them go free," Trillis argued with a raspy voice. Percival just looked from vampire to vampire with his usual calm.
"Temper, temper Trillis," Olin said his eyes fixed on a stable some few metres from the tavern. "We do not have to do all the dirty work ourselves, at times we let nature work for us." Olin's statement made more sense when Olin's eyes became mere red dots, his fangs slid out and his claws were outstretched in a predatory stance and he hissed loudly. Several neighs confirmed the scared horses at the stable had broken free and were stampeding towards their direction.
"Of course, the horse trick." Trillis exclaimed as they counted the seconds in their minds before they were knocked down by the horses.
"Now!" Olin ordered as all three held hands, fading into a thick fog and screams echoed from the tavern.
_

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PRESENT
The air felt tensed as he crawled on the ground covered in blood, blood that wasn't his own. His breathing grew raspy almost seizing as he rolled onto his back, gazing full at the night skies. The veins crept around his eyes up his forehead and he groaned, all while keeping his eyes shut. He could feel the pull of the aquamarine moon and his body strained from shifting form. He finally opened them letting out a growl revealing yellow eyes.

"Logan, Logan.... " His eyes shot open as he awoke in between pants. He looked around him taking in the view of his room and realized he was back at his aunt's home. Such an awful dream, it felt so real.
"...You'd be late for school again Logan!" His aunt called.

Within several minutes, he had dressed up, worn his sling bag and was out the glass panelled front door. He moved briskly down the front porch while jangling the keys to his convertible between his fingers, inserting it into the keyhole, he turned on the ignition.
The air suddenly felt dead to him and he couldn't help but perceive the horrible stench in it. He could also smell blood, a lot of it. He abandoned the keys at the keyhole while dropping his bag on the ground, running, jumping and sniffing his way round the neighborhood.

"Shit!" Logan exclaimed, gagging at the sight of the carcass of a deer which had its insides ripped out. Several lacerations and claw marks were visible on its body. What had happened out here and why had no one noticed.
He was running late for school. The clicks of his phone's camera followed his taking of double pictures of the deer.

His ears suddenly crept up like a fox's and he could hear the distant rumbling of a moving vehicle.
He only had a few minutes to run but he choose to stay.
"Hello Jones," He called to the attendant in a baseball cap who drove the vehicle. Logan wondered how he'd known it was Jones' disposal truck before it had even gotten there.

"Logan sonny!" Jones said coming out of the truck and approaching Logan who just kept a plain face. "Whatcha looking at?" The dead carcass became visible to him as he just turned away and muttered 'Christ! '.
"How did this happen?" He questioned while Logan just shook in the negative.

"I really have no clue. All I know is I'm on my way to school and there was this awful smell and I found this." Logan stated. Jones took out some rubber gloves from his passenger seat and wore them clinically. Logan checked at his watch, he only had ten minutes to make a fifteen minute drive to Madison High. "I gotta go now." Logan mentioned with his hands in his pockets while moving backwards before facing the direction he was going.

"Hey sonny, you live eight blocks from here. How in the world did you smell this?" Jones asked in surprise while Logan reasoned the question, thinking up a reasonable answer.
"Guess I have a strong affinity for bad odour. I'm running late for school."
The run back to his car didn't take more than seconds and he had fired up the engines and was riding away.

____________________________

Each screeching sound the board pen wrote made a word which was incoherent until Mr Carl Sinzky, the Geography teacher had written out the entire sentence. He placed the board pen on his desk.
"Rocks; definition, formation, classification and domestication." He read out aloud while peering with his trademark look; a grin that never reached his eyes and a slight smirk his mouth made. He wore a new tartan tie on blue folded sleeves and black trouser pants. "That's our topic for discussion for this week."

Jasmine and Cassandra exchanged a knowing smile and then jotted away in their notes. Mr Sinzky walked through all four rows of the classroom before stopping at the seat of an Asian-American,
Tommy Hungwei.
"Tommy would you like to help us out with Rock classification?" Tommy who was a geek found this question easy enough.

"Well classification could be based on formation due to heat, continuous accumulation and fossilization at different pressures..." Tommy rattled on while Logan and bunch of other classmates sighed and took lazy positions. "...Three known forms include Igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic, according to research."

"Oh Christ!" Max exclaimed under his breath in between scrawling on his notebook. He kept sketching with his pen unaware that He'd been caught. Mr Sinzky had placed a palm on his desk before bending to peer into his eyes.
"Any contributions you'd like to share with the class?" He questioned while Max shook his head in the negative.

A hand flew up in an instant as Mr Sinzky noticed.
"Yes, Maggie?"
"Can we find Igneous rock types in the Arctic circle since their formation is based on larva and heat and stuff." She asked innocently with the sweetest voice she could muster.
Mr Sinzky replied mimicking her voice tone. "Well honey, why don't you take a trip to the North Pole and see for yourself."

His sarcastic tone cut through the entire class and Logan wouldn't have it.
"She can't. She's got asthma," Logan shot back then added like a Marine, with a coy grin playing at his face. "All due respect Sir." His statement incited giggles from everyone including Maggie who had awkwardly sat in her seat earlier.

Logan let out a sigh when he peered at the silver paneled clock in the library. It read Two-Fifteen; exactly after school hours. Mr Sinzky arranged some books in alphabetical order, obviously taking his time. He tried scrawling words into his notebook and it sucked to know he had almost an hour more to the end of his detention time.

"...of course, I'll just make a stop at the gas station and I'll be on my way," Mr Sinzky's voice over the phone stated as Logan saw him approach. "Uhm, you've several minutes left so be a good student and shut the doors, don't even think of leaving because I'll know." He said motioning to the security cams along the corridors while taking his leave as Logan groaned inwardly.

An idea suddenly popped into his mind as he walked into the main section of the library where the shelves stood. Each shelf dealt with various subjects and courses but a particular shelf stood afar off; almost desolate.

"Wonder what subject matter that shelf deals with?" he mumbled swiping some dust off the old shelf. "Mythical creatures, sounds interesting." The book he had seen was in a section four layers too high and twice his height. A few breaths of air and he leaped high up, grabbing a hold of the leather bound book and was down in seconds. He felt dazed at the feeling of leaping so high but shook it off almost as fast.

"Vampires, witches, dream catchers. Same old gibberish." He flipped through the aged pages. "Lycanthropes; half-man and half-wolf. Control is tied down to the lunar cycle of the moon. Possess improved senses, strength and agility. Ability to transform into a wolf like nature. Susceptible to silver and rare breeds of Monkshood popularly known as wolfsbane." Logan read aloud while easily reading out an illegible writing in red at the bottom of the page. "Transformation is triggered at the first kill."

He had been able to hear Mr Sinzky's call from a distance, see the tiny blotches of grease on a shopkeeper's finger at a convenience store and smell blood from eight blocks away. Super agility; how else could he explain leaping six feet off the ground or crushing a basketball from several yards away. He slipped the book into his slingbag and approached the door as the clock struck three. A familiar pang struck his head but it faded just as it had come each hour when the clock struck, even as he exited after shutting the doors he had an idea of what he had become. He wasn't so sure but still the similarities were there. Max! He had to warn him.