Midnight Manor

A bit of a cliche title, but that's o.k. Then maybe no one will steal my story. I know I've been all gruff and buff the last couple of posts so I thought it was about time I got back to my CREATIVE WRITER side of me.

So for my final I've had to write a short story. I like it a lot and I could see my self flushing it out for a Young Adult audience. It's in the revision process right now, but I thought I might as well post a portion of it anyway. Enjoy

Midnight Manor

(Note: This is the journal of a girl who was shipped off to a new academy by virtue of a free scholarship her mother won in an obscure magazine. Turns out that the academy is full of myths and monsters and she must find a way to survive or be eaten alive. Her waking nightmare is embodied by three of the most powerful students in the school, a banshee, a witch, and a werecat, who call themselves "The Three" and all take great delight in tormenting her. Meanwhile students have been going missing from the academy. If there's something that hunts monsters out there our heroine isn't so sure she wants to find out what it is!)

Day 23: Operation: SURVIVE!

I know it’s been a while, but you won’t believe the horror I’ve gone through! First of all, my own parents believe I’ve gone completely mad. They won’t believe that this school is full of monsters and are convinced that I’m just being an ungrateful twit after being offered a free scholarship. All I hear from home is how lucky I am to be in a brand new school (tell that to the mice!) and how fortunate it is that I’m here for free. So I just have to survive the term, then I’ll run away to Aunt Norma’s for my own protection. She’s a bit of spiritualist so she at least might believe me. It’s a pity I can’t remember her address.

I’ve been able to mask my scent thus far with a compound of witch herbs and other ingredients. It’s a bit musky smelling, but not too bad. Besides, that’s not the worst of my problems. The so called Three have pitted me as a target for their amusement. They found it hilarious that on the first day with Professor Vald Tepes (the one and only a.k.a. Dracula!) that my last name happened to be from an obscure family line and that I had openly admitted to having no monsterly talent whatsoever.

Quinn gets quite a kick out of waking me in the morning with his wailing screeches. But being a banshee that wasn’t all he could do. I’ve been tripped and trapped by his magic on numerous occasions, and apparently it’s funny when breakfast oatmeal turns to slugs in your mouth. Adela is worse. She manages to make me feel like a dust mite just by looking at me. She does this combination of glaring and ignoring that I’ve seen before in previous schools, only her glares are usually followed by some kind of misfortune. Misplaced pencils for example, or the words on my homework assignment rearranging themselves into complete gibberish. Manu mostly ignores me. He seems limited to turning into a tiger even though he’s supposed to be a first class sorcerer. He just stands there, big as a mountain, and ignores everything and everyone with a grumpy expression, when he’s up to it though he’ll creep around and scare the daylights out of me. He’ll appear out of nowhere when I leave the loo, or jump at me from around a corner, or yell one of his terrifying roars from right behind me. It’s all very exhausting!

One last strange item of interest, the student body seems to be decreasing. The number of tables set up at meal times is getting smaller and smaller. Not that I don’t mind the decrease of potential threats, as the Three aren’t the only ones who’ll bully me, but it is slightly unnerving. No one has said why any of the students have stopped coming or if they had just gone home. The teachers don’t seem too worried about it, but still…it makes me wonder if there is a bigger threat out there, bigger than the monsters themselves. Oh, it makes me shiver just to think about it! I should stop writing now. That is the last thing I want to think about while I am here! I get enough nightmares as it is. Usually about pranks the Three will pull. (Sadly, these pranks usually come to pass.) How I wish I could just go back to my comfortable safe Delta Academy!

Later…

I just had the most terrifying fright of my life! This evening, after a particularly nasty prank by a nasty siren creature, (she had the audacity to sing my hair into a frightful knot that I couldn’t untangle!) I had wandered out to a secluded part of the estate to let out some steam. The nerve of them all! Treating me like filth just because I didn’t have a noble title or could juggle a rock with my mind! I paced back and forth in an angry stupor, imagining crushing their skulls beneath my heels. I hated them all. I hated this school. I hated my parents for forcing me to remain here, and most of all I hated the Three!

I gasped and whirled around. Something, something very large had moved out near the edge of the woods. I couldn’t quite make it out, but I could hear its breath hissing between large jaws. I grew very cold. I’d lived among monsters long enough to know that whatever I imagined could easily materialize from those woods and devour me whole. Slowly, a massive sinuous head snaked out from between two trees with a low rumbling growl followed by a long body with two chicken-like legs inching it forward slowly. The rumbling growl turned into a massive roar and I felt hot breath and sticky spittle spray across my body.

It looked like it was about to charge when there was a blinding flash of light, a loud high piercing screech that rang in my ears followed quickly by pained roar and a whooshing of a fierce wind. I don’t know when I had fallen over or closed my eyes, but when I looked up again, completely breathless the monster was gone and in his place stood another monster crouching over me (of all people!) Quinn Byrne, leader of the Three.

“What the heaven were you thinking?” he demanded, “A weakling like you wandering near these woods at night is dangerous! That Jabberwocky nearly had you for dinner! You brainless, idiotic, half-witted, human!”

“Uh…what?” I said stupidly.

“Which part of brainless, idiotic-“

“I get it alright!” I growled, “Get off me!” He moved away and didn’t offer his hand to help me up. Despite my oddly grateful feeling toward him for saving me, my gut still clenched in fear, and it wasn’t only because of the weeks of torment I’d suffered from this ghoul, he had just called me out as human. I must have looked paler than Tzeital because Quinn laughed,

“What? As if we couldn’t tell that you were a human from the start. It’s going to take a lot more than mothballs and demon awful smelling witch herbs to fool those of our blood line.” Out of the shadows behind him stepped the rest of the Three with knowing looks in their eyes. I should have known they’d be nearby. The Three were inseparable.

“Y-you knew?” My knees nearly gave out from under me, “How?”

“Apart from the smell?” said Manu, “not even witches want to smell that offensive all the time. Plus you didn’t behave like a proper whatever you were trying to be. You just acted like a scared little rabbit all the time!”

“Thanks a lot.” I said, “S-so, what now? Are you going to eat me?”

“I only eat humans on holidays,” Manu growled, “What kind of weretiger do you take me for?”

“Besides,” said Quinn, “You possess certain qualities that we monsters prize in humans. In the past, you would have been elevated from stock to private slave.”

“Is that supposed to be some kind of compliment?”

“Prophetic dreams, the ability to see ghosts, the ability to mask your identity from the weak sighted, being able to sense what you can’t see, these are all traits of a first rate psychic.”

“That’s...great.” I said. I didn’t personally notice these gifts they claimed I had and I certainly didn’t like the look in their eyes. The more they talked the more hungry they seemed to look with a lustful glint at the corners of their shinning pupils.

“Here is my proposal,” said Quinn, “you help us solve the mystery of our missing classmates, and we’ll protect you from our teachers and anyone else who just happens to find out about you. Anyone would leave you alone once they find out you’re the property of the Three.”

That’s what I thought. It’s like they said, I’d be a glorified slave. Then again, the Three were powerful, and teaming up with them could help save my skin until the end of term when I could get out of this crazy place. And, strangely, I was also curious about what had happened to the others. If powerful monsters could disappear without a trace, so could one lowly human.

“It’s the perfect combination,” said Adela in her superior snooty voice, “A breed, a sorcerer, a witch, and a psychic, we should have this case wrapped up by noon tomorrow.”

I wish I had that much confidence! I don’t know the first thing about using my powers or even if I have them at all! However, it was true that there pranks didn’t fully surprise me, and I was beginning to almost predict whenever Manu would pop out around a corner. But that could be just paranoia built up over time. It’s too much to think about now. And even at this school, there is class to worry about tomorrow.

(AAAAAaaaaannnnddd that's all folks! Just kidding. There's more but I'm slightly paranoid about putting too much of a story online. I still have a lot to go on the literacy department, but an imagination is something just as valuable. I'll probably flush this story out someday into a novel or several short novels and adventures. It all really depends.)