𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 ᵏ.ᵇᵃᵏᵘᵍᵒᵘ

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟎𝟗 ꞉𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

᪥ ┊ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟎𝟗 ꞉
𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

——– ┊⁀➷ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 exchanges between the students resonated from the classrooms down to the bustling hallways; after hours of endless lectures, it certainly felt like a breath of fresh air the moment the school bell chimed denoting that their day ultimately came to an end. Yet a particular student was unlucky enough to tarry after school.

"Are you sure? I can stay with you."

"It's fine. I won't take that long anyway."

Kaori gave Ochako a reassuring smile, assuaging her friend's distress that she, for the umpteenth time, will be needing to stay and hopefully not too long this time. Though she could use a company, Kaori knows for sure that a particular being will show up before her againーwell, not that she wanted him to.

"Fineーbut please, be careful. I'll see you in the dorms."

Ochako soon left along with their classmates, leaving Kaori alone. She then briskly shuffled to the vicinity of the lockers that were situated at the back of the classroom and unbarred her own the instant her hankering fingers landed on it. Her jittery hands fumbled through the heaps of her textbooks and whatnot; with eyebrows knitted and utters of perturbed suspires, she nibbles her bottom lip, trying to evoke where she could've left it.

Could it be in my room? I don't even remember bringing those damn materials with me.

Kaori always knew how feckless she can be, and deeply detested it, but she wouldn't be so displeased at her self right now if it wasn't for their stringent teacher who chose to have their assessment the very following day and out of all her classes, it was the damn calculus.

Her eyes incessantly sought under her desk, but all she discerned was nothing, but a handful of crumpled candy wrappers from her discreet masticating in the middle of their lectures. Kaori hastily shifted her gaze towards the ticking clock and felt fortuitous to the time she has left to desert this placeーbefore night classes begin.

Feeling fret and bushed from the long day, she tossed her bag over her shoulder and vamoosed the room apace.

She was not unvexed to find herself alone in the hushed hallway because following that morningtide's matter that not once had forsaken the loquacious mouths of the students, their school instantaneously reinforced a precept that daytime students will have to vacate the campus right away as dorm curfews had gone more meticulous and rigorous.

She could only roll her eyes at this.

Yet, a mounting unsettling sensation rose to overwhelm her, inducing Kaori to pick up her pace as she curses under her breath. She abruptly discerns that she is ill-fatedly at the erroneous corner of the edifice, where such beings are descried.

As she turns to the next hallway, her arm was suddenly grabbed, ceasing her from leaving the place.

"Who the hellー"

"Blood...Give me blood..."

It was a voice of a man; clearly not that boy.

Kaori, with all her might, readily shaunted this away from her, but it wasn't enough. It once again clasped her arm as its claw-like nails perforates through her skin, hurling her body down to the floor; it induced a searing twinge in every place of her body as she yelps with the fluent cerise from her arm.

It was arduous to scrutinate around the tenebrous room, but Kaori sensed this climb on top of her as it relentlessly pins her down; she began to question in her mind why she seems to invariably end up like this. Luckily, her eyes abruptly caught a sight of two sharp fangs and she knew where this will be leading to.

She quickly dislodged her right hand from the strong grasp and an excruciating throbbing pain came over her. Kaori's voice was absent from the agonizing sentiment, and with the being still gnawing persistently unto her palm that could nearly tear her skin off, she heaved her foot between its legs, and peculiarly enough, it was cast across the room.

Her knees felt frail, but she still pushed herself on her feet, and with a stroke of luck, she caught a sight of a gleaming object not too far from her; with no wavering, she shuffled towards this. It was perniciously serrated on its edges and she could almost cut herself just by holding it alone.

She turned on her heel and began to trudge towards the man; taking deep gulps of air as she totters on her feet. Kaori's thoughts were kindling a tumult in her mind each step she takes, but she was blinded with utter odium that brimmed her.

And with a sentiment of impetuous and ire, she raises her hand without averting her maddened eyes.

Murky claret swilled from her trembling arms down to the cold floor with an ear-splitting shriek that induced an unpalatable memory to rouse from her deepest hushed anamnesis.

Just one more.

Yet, she was rooted to the spot with her hand still raised as thoughts began to sicken herーsicken from herself; the riotous thumping of her chest, and the body enfeebled from what just happened; it wasn't helping her at all.

But before she could put an end to the man before her, a hand instantaneously grasped unto her arm; hauling and ceasing her from the repercussions of her deed. Kaori's thoughts were absent, and as if they had a mind on of their own, her still trembling hands gripped firmly unto whoever it was.

Kaori's shoulders jolted when a hand firmly held the back of her head, keeping her from heeding the sickening grisly she made with her own hands. Yet, for once, an unprecedented feeling came unto her, utterly disparate from the madness inside her; it was a solace that she desires to linger in perpetuity.