• Biology, not a very exciting subject. Sure a few lab experiments that make chemicals change color and bubble could hold a person’s interest, yet after living a century, it gets old. Gwen was my lab partner, that practically the only reason I went.
    Unwillingly, I entered the room. A few of my classmates were already seated at their tables, chatting quietly. The familiar set of light brown hair and glasses came into view, Gwen. As I sat next to her, a sense of calm rushed over me, being friends with her made my life seem almost normal. Yet I knew all too well that it was far from that. A vampire . . . living amongst humans, enrolling in a human school, possibly might even found a soul mate; whom she’ll have to fight her own sister for. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to be the same. As time went on and mankind advanced, me and my family stayed as ourselves physically and for myself, mentally. I was living in a rut that continued for too long, now when I met Aaron, my world got flipped upside down. Perfect! My sarcasm was getting the best of me these past few days. Everything just turned to crap in just a short forty-eight hours.
    My head slumped into my hands on the lab table.
    “Hey,” a nudge on my shoulder, “Are you okay? You don’t feel sick or anything, do you?”
    With some effort, I raised my head to see Gwen and pasted a weak smile on my face, “Yeah, I’m fine.” Lie. “Just a little tired, didn’t get much sleep last night,” that was partly true, but it wasn’t the real reason.
    “I know, I hear you,” She pushed her glasses farther up to the bridge of her nose. “Teenagers weren’t meant to wake up this early to go to stupid school,” Gwen babbled on and on about all of us getting fatigued during class and not trying our best. My head fell onto my folded arms and I stared silently at my friend while she complained. The corners of my lips tugged into a smile. It was truly amazing that I had made such fast friends with the wonderful girl. She always brought a smile to my face and lightened my mood. Who would’ve thought that in less than twenty-four hours, I could’ve already made a friend as nice as Gwen? Most people steered clear of me for the whole time I was attending, very rarely I would find companions, even with my extraordinary beauty.
    The bell rang and everyone, including Gwen, shut up. Our teacher, Mrs. Kingsbury walked in, so I attempted to focus my attention on what she was going to teach. Yet my mind wandered else where. The one object that kept popping into my head was Aaron. His chiseled features and especially his smile were glued into my subconscious. Another thing that came up was what I read last night. In a dusty, fairly old book a little journal was kept by this Eliza Peterson. She was a vampire around my age and she was experiencing the same thing I was. Her twin was Jane, they were both very tight, and that is, until a stable boy named Caleb worked with their horses came into the picture. Eliza was the first to see him, the same symptoms of feelings happened to her as well. She decided to confide in her sister, only to prove her point; she brought Jane with her the next time she visited Caleb. I re-read the entry over and over again until it was burned into my memories:

    [June 24, 1875
    Dear Diary,
    The new stable boy, Caleb, holds a particular interest in my sister and I. His bright blue eyes and flowing chestnut hair are extremely attractive. Our stomachs flip and we feel tingly every time we lay our eyes on him. Lately, we’ve been starting to feel like each other is competition for his love. We turned to Papa, to see if he has any knowledge on the matter. “Ah yes, I knew this day would come, I was very scared that it would. But now it has arrived.” Jane and I exchanged a scared look, Papa never worried. “What do you mean?” He leaned forward in his chair, and motioned for us to sit in front of him. “Daughters, in every set of vampire twins, a soul mate comes along and unfortunately since the two are so alike, they both share the same amount of affection for the person. Thus, it becomes a competition for the person’s love. A battle, only one soul mate can have one twin. In the end, only one twin is remaining, the other has fallen. The winner gets to spend the rest of their life with that person. One ends living happily ever after, the other gets caught in the jaws of death. And so, my dearest Eliza and Jane, you will compete to the death for the boy. It is the fate of all vampire twins. Always.” With that short amount of words said, he left. Jane and I stared at each other with pain and shock painted on our faces. This could not be! I could not fight my own flesh and blood, my own sister! Especially for a mere stable boy! But . . . the way Caleb makes me feel, I know he belongs to me and NOT Jane. As much as I hate to admit . . . I would have to kill my own sister for my happiness. In all my life time, never would I have imagined that I would have to turn against Jane, I loved her so much. As I write this, I realize that . . . she does not deserve him; Caleb loves me and not her. She could stand in the way of that, Jane must go. So this is what it must come down to--sister versus sister in a battle a love. Much blood and tears shall be shed tomorrow, for only one Peterson twin will be standing . . .
    The passage explained so much in so little, it broke my heart to think that poor Eliza and Jane would have to fight each other for Caleb. Yet what really struck home was that, if Aaron is our soul mate, then Violet and I too will have to kill one or the other for him. A silent tear slipped down my cheek.
    Apparently, my eyes must have glazed over because Mrs. Kingsbury stormed over and wacked me on the head with her pointer.
    “Charlotte, I don’t know how the other biology teachers taught in your old high school, but that was the past and this is now. And I for one do not allow sleeping in my lessons!” Her tiny nose scrunched up in anger, yet when I looked into her small brown eyes that she truthfully didn’t care. I was new and didn’t know the rules.
    That tap on the head didn’t faze me in the slightest, but her voice sure did. I sat slowly up and pretended to rub my head where she hit me as if it hurt. “I’m terribly sorry; it’s just that I’ve learned this already.” That was very true, and it got uninteresting after the third time, but I still knew it.
    “Oh really?” She leaned in and inspected me, what the heck? Are all teachers this strange? “Then you wouldn’t mind if you taught the rest of the lesson would you?”
    A few giggles and almost laughs sounded in the room. Was her small, ignorant threat supposed to make me embarrassed? I would gladly go up and give the presentation on molecules and bacteria, show her up, probably even do a better job than her. My legs straightened and were ready to advance to the front of the classroom, but I stayed put. Proving I was far smarter than the teacher might raise suspicion and show that I have an attitude. Plus, it wouldn’t do anything beneficial for me. Be a good stupid student and back down! I sunk back and tried to look ashamed and in my small voice answered, “Uh, no thank you.”
    Mrs. Kingsbury straightened and gave a smug smile. “That’s what I thought.” She retreated to her place at the front and continued to teach.
    Gwen leaned over and whispered, “Its ok, she’s just crabby, probably PMS or something. No worries, all of us get bored with her lectures on this stuff.”
    “I think we get dumbed down instead of actually learning something,” I snickered back. We broke out in a fit of silent giggles. Mrs. Kingsbury eyed us and shot a nasty look, yet I had more confidence than before; I sat up and stared right back, only with a more frightening gaze. She gulped and turned, she knew I wasn’t to be messed with after that. I wasn’t one of her usual petty students; I was better, smarter, and more willing to fight back. Figuratively, I was a predator; ready to spring on anyone who pissed me off, no teacher would stand in my way. In fact, every one should watch out, unless they want to see what I can really do.

    Sitting through that boring class of what they call biology nearly left me brain dead. Good thing I only have two very long core classes before lunch. Had school always been this terrible? Maybe it was because deep in the pit of my stomach I wanted to see Aaron. Study and confirm if he was or wasn’t my (or Violet’s) soul mate. The lunch bell finally rung, I nearly sprang out the door with Gwen’s hand in mine. I practically was dragging her down the hall way.
    “Geez! What’s the rush, Charlotte?” She asked from behind but I didn’t quite hear her. We reached the destination: the cafeteria. “You must be really hungry to run down the hall that fast,” Gwen wheezed behind me. She was breathing awfully hard, yet she barely did any short of jogging or sprinting.
    “No, I just wanted to get away from her,” my tone was fairly playful and it put a slight smile on Gwen’s face. For the first time, I noticed she was far more pale than usual, like a ghostly white, she looked so . . . fragile. It made a shiver go down my spine. She held up a thin finger, “Excuse me for a moment.”
    I nodded and set out to sit at our usual table while she walked to the girl’s bathroom. My fingers tapped the top lightly, then after about five minutes I started to trace invisible patterns in the design. What was taking Gwen so long? Something didn’t feel right . . . I immediately started to rise, but then I retreated. What could happen in a bathroom? So I sat and waited. Alicia, Kayla, and Ruth took their usual spots, each saying hi. My cheek was lying in my palm and my impatience level was rising. That’s it; I’m going in to get her. The others at the table simply stared but continued to eat. When I got to the swinging door, Gwen stepped out, looking better as if nothing happened. There was color in her cheeks and the sickly look had vanished. Weird. Oh well, as long as she was fine, so was I. A part of me wanted to press the matter on why she took so long, the other respected her privacy.
    Together we walked back and sat, Gwen instantly started up a conversation with the three other girls and me, yet I didn’t really want to participate. My eyelids started to feel like lead, the past two nights I had no sleep whatsoever. It finally caught up to me. A sigh escaped my lips, Alicia noticed.
    “What’s wrong?” Her caramel colored eyes bored into mine, I stared and thought that her black curly hair went very nicely with those eyes and dark skin.
    “Oh, it’s nothing, I think I’m going to go outside again and get some fresh air,” faking a stretch as I stood and left.
    The December air was cold and it felt good on my skin, slowly approaching the statue I cocked my head to one side; studying this piece of stone. Fairly interesting, the face looked very distraught as if the angel was pouring something other than water. I walked backwards and sat on the same bench as yesterday. Examining the jar it was holding, I noticed a Greek symbol that meant ‘souls’. So, she was pouring souls into a river, maybe the famous River Styx in the Underworld. I knew, as a vampire that my soul would never be put in like the other mortals and decent people. Mine was damned for all eternity, nothing could change that. Another sigh, I got comfortable and my eyes started to shut. Then, before I knew it, I had drifted into a light sleep as snow started to gently fall once more.