I'm trying something with a friend of mine: Thursday prompts. Every Thursday starting this week, we write something based on a prompt. This week was "The Middle of the Night." I know I promised I'd put some of my own writing up here, so I think I'll use the prompts to do so.

---

Darkness never meant to me what it does to vampires. I waited in my dorm room for the dailies to be sent to bed for the night, watching them bustling around the courtyard below my window, my forehead pressed to the glass.

I sighed and watched my breath fog the glass like a mist spreading over the lake.  I turned away from the window and sat cross-legged on the carpet, facing the door. For owls like me, I waited until the doors were unlocked from the outside before I could leave my room.

For my own safety, they said.

It wasn’t for my safety, not really. It was for the dailies safety. Most of the owls are dangerous to the ordinary humans around here, but we were here to control ourselves. Where else are we supposed to go when our parents drive us out?

There was a knock on my door. “Kyrie, you’re free to go to the mess if you’re ready.”

I waited for a moment, listening to the nightman move down the hall, then stood. I wore loose-fitting clothes that would survive through my classes, but I adjusted them anyway. I needed nothing, so I opened the door to the hall where others were already trailing away in ones and twos to the mess.

I walked alone tonight.

***

I sat quietly for most of the meal, until the students restricted by true darkness trickled in. My eyes flickered from face to face, assigning names to them when I knew them. I didn’t know many, as we stay with our own kind for most of our time here.

Someone sat down across from me without a word. I glanced to them, then away again. I knew who it was. I’d met him before. I just didn’t feel like talking to anyone today.

“Good evening, Kyrie.”

I turned to him, eyeing him casually. “Cy-ell.”

He smiled, a little glimpse of fangs in his pale face. “You remember me, I’m pleased.”

I grunted and move the remainders of food around my plate with my fork. He opened a bag of crimson liquid and dipped a spoon in as if he were eating soup. His smugness rubbed me wrong, raising the hair on the back of my head like a hand up my neck.

“I need to go to class,” I whispered, knowing he would hear, and left my food behind. Damned vampires, I thought.

***

My self-control instructor tapped my head with his staff as I meditated. “Control is difficult for you today, Kyrie.”

“Yes,” I answered without opening my eyes.

“Why?”

“I am meditating, sir…”

His staff moved from a gentle tap to a harder thump against the side of my head. “I asked you a question, Kyrie.”

My already short temper started to fray and the mental image of my inner beast flared to life, a flash of fangs and rusty fur. “I am meditating,” I growled, forcing back the beast, locking it down inside of me. It was more than difficult as the staff moved from my head to my shoulders and back.

“You will not be able to keep this up.” He started prodding me in the back, between my shoulders and against my lower back. “Change, Kyrie, you cannot resist it for much longer.”

I growled, grinding my palms into my knees, but nothing could hold back from a shift now. The change hurt, everywhere burned with the worst fire imaginable. I’d scrambled from sitting to crouching, baring massive fangs at my instructor.

He nodded at me and I knew I had been dismissed for the night. I stood and watched him leave the courtyard, furious with myself, trying to regain my calm. I felt someone watching me and turned to see the vampire from dinner.

“Hello again, werewolf.”

I tried to ignore him, but when I turned away I found him beside me.

“You do well with the beating you endured.”

My lip curled back in a silent growl as I examined my clothing. Everything seemed fine and in a couple hours, I could shift back.

“If you are done with classes for tonight, would you like to come with me?”

I looked down at him with the black-and-white sight of wolf’s eyes. “You want something?”

“Possibly,” he smiled at me. “There’s no freedom quite like that of the night. Come with me.”