The following morning, Krysten climbed out of her brother's car, waving goodbye to him and jogging through the front doors of Raresyde High to get out of the chilly autumn air. She headed down the hall to the cafeteria, where students typically hung out until the bell ever-so-rudely told them it was time to go to class. She could do without the crowd, really; generally she'd rather go straight to her first classroom and not have to socialize. But, today was Halloween, and she liked to see the school's festivities. Raresyde allowed students to dress up--provided the costume wasn't too revealing or gory--and there were always a few that went out of their way to outdo everyone. Even the teachers would don costumes, some becoming the witches and warlocks they actually were for a day. She stopped walking for a moment to take in the assortment of costumes, spotting a grim reaper, a Frankenstein's monster, and a rather convincing mum--

"Boo."

Despite the lack of enthusiasm in the scare, Krysten jumped anyway. She turned around to address the monster, who turned out to be a freshman.

"That didn't actually scare you, did it?" Marten asked, arching an eyebrow.

Krysten simply frowned at him.

He frowned back, then laughed. "Alright, fine. No more pathetic scares."

Krysten's expression melted into a smile. "Thank you. Do you like Halloween?"

"Sure," Marten replied. "Who doesn't?"

"Move it, you costumed freaks!" they heard suddenly from down the hall, followed by someone stomping in their general direction. "Stupid holiday," Mitch grumbled as he passed, thankfully not noticing Marten.

"...He doesn’t seem to," Krysten said after he was out of earshot.

Marten rolled his eyes. "Somehow I'm not surprised. He probably hates Christmas too."

Krysten giggled. "That's terrible."

"Mitch is a terrible person," Marten stated matter-of-factly. "Or whatever he is." At Krysten's questioning look, he shook his head. "Nevermind. Anyway, I have to go find my friends. Would you like to come?"

"Umm..." Krysten began, unsure. "...Okay," she decided, smiling.

"Good," Marten replied. "Come on,” he said, and she followed him through the crowd.

After some maneuvering through the mass of mostly-festive students, they managed to locate Kody and Raina sitting in the back corner of the cafeteria.

"Hey guys," Marten greeted as he and Krysten approached. Right away, however, he noticed something. "Where's Kat?"

Kody just frowned, not looking at him, and Raina shrugged. "No idea," she said. "She never showed up."

"That's weird, she's usually the first one here," Marten said.

"Maybe she's out sick?" Raina offered.

"I thought she had some perfect attendance record to maintain," Marten replied.

"No idea, then," Raina said. "I guess you don't know, either?" she asked, turning to Kody.

The blonde boy shook his head, still sullenly staring at the table.

Raina and Marten exchanged confused glances, but otherwise let the behavior go.

"Anyway," Marten continued. "Kody, Raina, this is Krysten," he said, stepping aside to reveal the girl, who had managed to more or less hide herself behind him.

They both looked up now, and Krysten shrank back a bit. "Oh yeah," Kody said. "The girl from the ski club. Hey.” He offered a half-smile.

"Howdy," Raina said with a grin.

Hesitantly, Krysten waved, trying her best to smile. She knew she must've looked nervous. Why was she always so nervous?

Marten took a seat at the table. He looked up at Krysten. "You can sit, if you want," he said.

She almost declined the offer as she normally would, but something stopped her. There was something about these people that she liked. That she felt safe around.

Maybe because they were all like her.

Regardless of the reason, she managed a small smile, and took a seat.

~~~~~~~~~~

Kat sat in her room, curled up on her bed. She couldn't bring herself to go to school this morning. Forget her stupid attendance record, she just couldn't do it today. Couldn't handle seeing him, or anyone really, after the previous night.

Her mind was still a crazy jumble, caught somewhere between fear, anger, and a host of other emotions she couldn't quite identify. She might have thought she'd dreamed it all, if she'd actually slept.

Vampire. How was that even possible? Vampires were fictional creatures. Made up. Not real. And certainly not her friends.

Besides, she hadn't seen him do anything, well, supernatural.

And yet…she couldn’t come up with a better explanation. At least not one she was willing to accept. There was just no way Kody was just some…murderer. Sure, he was a little odd, but not a killer, right? ….Right?

She didn’t know. She just didn’t know. And until she did, she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to get anywhere near him.

Kat closed her eyes, sighing. For once in her life, she had absolutely no idea what to do.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the bell rang, Raina and Krysten exited the cafeteria, now chatting animatedly. Marten, however, hung back, waiting for Kody, who was gathering his things in a rather slow manner. "Alright," Marten said when his friend finally looked up. "What's your deal?"

"What?" Kody asked.

"Come on man, I've only known you for a few weeks and I can tell something's wrong. What's going on?" He paused, regarding Kody curiously. "Where's Kat?"

Kody stared at him, surprised, before looking away guiltily. "I don't know," he admitted. "Probably at home."

"Why?" Marten asked, positive he would have an answer.

Kody didn’t respond right away. "I...think I kinda scared her,” he said eventually.

"And how did you manage that?" Marten pressed.

This time Kody looked directly at him. "You know what I am," he said matter-of-factly.

Marten raised his eyebrows, then shrugged and nodded. "More or less. And you know what I am."

"Sort of," Kody replied. "I'm unclear on the species. Therians are a little hard for me to figure out exactly."

"Cottontail rabbit," Marten told him. "Thanks for the other night, by the way."

Kody raised an eyebrow. "I thought that might have been you," he said. "So who was the bobcat?"

Marten’s face contorted in disgust, and nodded towards where Mitchell Kang was tormenting some underclassmen.

Kody almost laughed. "Well, that confirms that suspicion. How suiting."

"You're telling me," Marten said flatly. “That guy’s just plain got it out for me. So, just to be sure, vampire, right?”

Kody nodded. “Dhamphir, technically.”

“Blood or energy?”

“Blood.”

“Thought so,” Marten said. “What about Krysten? Which one is she?”

“Energy,” Kody told him. “Come on man, she smells like fancy soap, not death. Even you shoulda figured that out.”

Marten rolled his eyes. “You don’t smell like death,” he said. “Just like…well, blood.”

“Close enough,” Kody said. “So, finally, what does that make Raina?”

“Werefox,” Marten replied.

“Ah,” Kody said. “The bushy red hair suddenly make sense.”

“You know, therians don’t look like their animals just because,” Marten pointed out. “We’re not born this way.”

“In that case, it’s just ironic,” Kody said with a grin.

Marten rolled his eyes again. “Anyway, now that we’re clear on who’s what, what exactly did you do to scare Kat--who, shockingly, is the only normal one of us--out of her perfect attendance record?”

Kody scratched his head, frowning guiltily. “Well…” be began, then recounted the story of Katarina’s accidental discovery.

“…Well, that’s kind of unfortunate,” Marten said after he finished. Kody gave him a withering look.

“Thanks for the sympathy,” he said flatly.

Marten laughed. “You’re welcome. Anyway, so she caught you. So what?”

“What do you mean, so what?” Kody said. “She’s obviously freaked out. I’m just praying she doesn’t call the police, much less, you know, talk to me again.”

“Ah, give her a little while, she’ll be fine,” Marten assured him. “Kat’s smart. She approaches everything logically. You caught her off guard, is all. Once she wraps her head around it and accepts it as, well, normal and kind of necessary, she’ll react accordingly.” At Kody’s skeptical expression, he added. “And if you want, I’ll talk to her.”

Kody let out a half-laugh. “And what, tell her you’re really a bunny-rabbit?”

Marten shrugged. “It is less intimidating than vampire. Anyway, she's going to find out that pretty much none of her friends are entirely human eventually. We might as well just tell her, and it's probably the least scary coming from me," he reasoned.

"You're still probably gonna make her head explode," Kody said.

Marten laughed. "I guess that's a risk we'll have to take. Would you rather let it go and have her just be afraid of you?"

"I don't see how telling her we're all monsters is going to help," Kody said skeptically.

Marten sighed. "Just trust me. I'll get it across to her."

Kody remained silent for a few steps, then said, "Alright. Good luck."

"Pff, I'm a rabbit, I have four lucky feet," Marten said almost pompously.

"Actually, you only have two feet at the moment," Kody pointed out.

"Whatever. They're still lucky."

"I hope you're right, Marten," Kody finally decided. "I really hope you're right."

"I'm also a genius. I'm always right."

"Oh, stop bragging.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Halloween is so worthless," Mitchell muttered as he sat in class, half-listening to his teacher do a special lesson on the history of the holiday. "What kinds of morons want to dress up and run around asking strangers for candy, anyway? What a waste."

In truth, Mitch had made some attempts at trick-or-treating in his childhood. It generally hadn't gone well. His neighborhood wasn't overly kind about it. If anyone gave him candy, it was cheap and often stale. And that was when they gave candy instead of just...colored paperclips or something. Of course, most people either shut their lights off and pretended not to be home, or chased the trick-or-treaters off. Mitch had given up at about age seven. "So worthless," he repeated to himself.

He shut his eyes, tuning out his teacher, and Halloween, for good.