As the staff rolled back out the basketball ball rack, Zoe looked around to see her human classmates talking in groups. She had yet to make any friends and felt alone since she has been at the mansion. All the vampires seamlessly talked to each other, while the humans broke out in social groups of pairs and triplets, and one singlet. To remedy this awkwardness, Zoe was feeling she decided to approach Lily and Jackie, hoping to form a triplet.
“Hey, L … Lily,” Zoe stammered, interrupting Lily’s conversation with Jackie.
“Hi, Zoe, what’s up?” replied Lily.
“Well, I was wondering if I could join your conversation with Jackie?”
“Oh, sure, we were just talking about our boys and how they seem pretty mediocre compared to the vampires.”
“Yeah, they can barely keep up with the vampires athletically, making them unworthy of our attention,” Jackie quickly spouted.
“Well, at least they wouldn’t be able to kill you that easily,” Zoe reminded them.
“Oh, Zoe, it has been a long time since a vampire has killed a human, thanks to this system. If we are lucky, we could remain in the vampire’s social circle and live richer lives,” Lily pointed out.
There was no arguing with Lily, as she was set in her ways, but Zoe did agree that surviving this mansion, with a college degree no less, would set her up nicely. Talking time was over. Ms. Todd had gathered everyone around in the gym for their next activity. “Okay for the team exercise, we are going to have you play, what am I, humans versus vampires,” Ms. Todd exclaimed. “The topic will be animals, and everyone will get 1 minute to guess what animal their card says, while everyone else on the team offers clues.”
Zoe was astonished that this was the team exercise. This test was an ice breaker, and it was also the first time the vampires were working against the humans to win. “The team who has the highest successful guesses wins!” shouted Ms. Todd, indicating that the game was starting. The students chose one from each team to venture towards the front, turned to face them, while a staff member held their card up behind them. Gabe, a human boy, was first. His card was a cat, while the first vampire’s card was a dog.
“Um, it has four legs, it kills mice, it scratches you,” the humans yelled.
“A cat!” answered Gabe. The humans had one point.
Freddy was up next, and his card was not a super common household pet this time, it was a rabbit. Rabbit descriptions flew up, “It has floppy ears, a bushy tail, wrinkles its nose, eats carrots.”
“OOOh, a rabbit!” Freddy exclaimed. Plus one more point.
Jackie was next, having to guess for a hamster. “It's small, like a mouse, it doesn’t have a long tail.” She wasn’t getting it. “It's in the KIA commercials, driving the car!” Zoe yelled.
That helped it click for Jackie, “A hamster!” she replied. Now the humans had totaled three points.
Zoe’s card was a crow, which was an extremely unusual household pet. “Uh… it’s black?... and a bird.” ‘Um, what is that?’ Zoe contemplated as her mind raced to figure out the clues. Her time was running out, black birds were very common, and some people could describe brown birds as black too. At the last few seconds, Lily shouted, “They are always in the trees in parking lots!”
“Crows?” Zoe questioned. Another point added to the human totals. Zoe’s heart was racing even after she successfully replied to Lily’s clue. She felt relief that she ended up not losing a point for her team.
Lily was next, trying to figure out the easiest non-household pet bird. “PINK BIRD” rang out in unison from the humans.
“Oh yea, that would be a flamingo.” Lily giggled. Zoe knew Lily thought that it was fate for her to get a flamingo because its flamboyant nature fits right in with her disposition.
The next five humans, three guys, and two girls, also guessed their respective animals correctly. The vampires also found their clues easy to decipher and just as successfully determined the animals on their cards. In the end, both teams were tied. Ms. Todd found the results of this game satisfactory, nonetheless. She was more interested in not having to delay the blood draw any longer.
“Okay vampires, we will be setting up a single blood collection chair for the blood draw challenge. You all will have to stand behind that blue tape, during each blood draw. Okay,” directed Ms. Todd.
All the humans gulped. It was just seconds ago that they had a friendly competition with the vampire students. When Zoe, fanned the vampires for their reaction to the new test, most of them wouldn’t look at the human students, but two female vampires looked excited to see what would happen. It was clear from their wide-eyed grins that they wanted to know which humans would be to their taste. The chair was wheeled in. It was new and honestly looked like a comfortable chair you could give a blood donation in. It even could tilt the donor back if they feel faint during the blood draw. Zoe knew Kyle, the guy who was afraid of needles could use that tilt function if he faints.
With the chair set up, the blood draw challenge began. Ms. Todd called the names from her list. They must have been pre-randomized because the first person called was Kyle, who wouldn’t have been the first due to his last name. When Kyle heard his name, he cursed under his breath, before walking over to the chair. He didn’t even look at the vampires, he only focused on the set of needles on a side table attached to the chair. Kyle slowly slid into the chair, a phlebotomist who Zoe thought was a vampire, approached him and told him to look away. The phlebotomist swiftly placed a tourniquet and swabbed Kyle’s elbow pit, quietly grabbed a winged needle attached to a push button collector, and with a very brief warning, “You’ll feel a prick,” pushed the needle into Kyle’s vein. Zoe noticed that the phlebotomist knew he was in the vein. As soon as he pushed a red top vacutainer into the push button collector, blood poured out into it and Kyle turned pale but did not faint. Three tubes of blood were collected, then the needle was removed, and Kyle was free to leave, with his arm held above his head and gauze on his wound. Two tubes were stored in a container behind the chair, while the third was given to one of the staff members. This staff member opened the tube and walked with it pointing towards the vampire students. They all had little to no reaction to the blood, that Zoe could notice. Kyle’s face’s color returned, and he was able to hop off the chair and sit down with his classmates.
“Lily,” called Ms. Todd. Lily nervously slid into the chair. She wasn’t as scared of the blood draw but didn’t look while the needle was pushed into her arm. Again, the phlebotomist had no problems finding the vein and getting the blood. The three tubes of blood were collected, but as soon as the needle was removed from Lily’s arm some of the vampire students became agitated. These vampires were no longer trying to avoid looking at the humans, they were looking straight at Lily, but they weren’t moving towards her. Instead, they seemed to be studying her and when she was told to move her arm above her head, some of them took one step closer. At this point, the other vampire students that were not hypnotized by her blood tried to stop the activated vampires. They mostly just snapped and clapped their fingers and hands in front of them as if they were pulling them out of a daydream. It worked and many of those activated students returned to normal. Then the staff member walked towards the vampire students with an open vial of Lily’s blood, as Lily walked back towards her classmates. Those vampires, who were momentarily normal, became activated again gathering close to the vial, drooling over the chance of consuming that blood. A few others also became activated when the vial became closer to them, in total five out of the ten vampires had activated. Their activations included longer and sharper incisors, hissing, and bloodshot eyes.
The staff member recapped the tube and walked away, from the vampires. Some of their fellow inactivated classmates had to stop the activated ones from crossing the blue tape on the floor. As the tube became out of sight, the activated vampires slowly returned to normal. One of the two female vampires that looked excited about finding a human whose blood they want to consume became activated to Lily’s blood. Zoe knew that this could be dangerous for Lily, so she made a mental note to warn Lily about her later.
A few more humans went through the blood draw challenge and a few different sets of vampires reacted to each human. The current conclusion, forming in Zoe’s mind, was that both male and female vampires are attracted to human female blood. The other hopeful conclusion was that so far none of the vampires partnered with a human have been activated by that human’s blood. Zoe had paid special attention to Josh. She noticed when he activated, he was still in good control of himself. He never took a step forward toward the staff member holding the vial of blood, nor did he fall into that daydream state.
“Zoe,” Ms. Todd finally called. Josh briefly looked up at Zoe to see her expression. Zoe made sure that all he was going to get was as blank a face as was possible. Her hands were starting to sweat from the anticipation of the needle going in. It wasn’t that she was afraid. She had donated blood in high school before, three times to be exact, but the pain from the prick which depending on the phlebotomist's ability could be painful and during a donation could become uncomfortable. But she sat on the chair, facing the vampires, keen to learn who would activate from her blood. The phlebotomist briefly examined her left arm and found a scar from one of her blood donations. He then checked her right arm and found two more tiny scars. Then he asked her, “Where are these puncture scars from?”
“I donated blood in high school, three times,” Zoe replied.
The phlebotomist looked shocked for a minute. He called over Ms. Todd and a few other staff members and told them what I had told him. They also looked a little surprised, and maybe scared, but they still decided to have Zoe complete the blood draw challenge. The phlebotomist applied the tourniquet and sterilized the elbow pit, he didn’t ask Zoe to look away and Zoe didn’t. She watched closely as the phlebotomist pushed the needle into the vein with immediate success and very little pain. The three tubes were collected, and the tourniquet and needle were removed. The gauze was placed, and Zoe held her arm above her head. At this point, she turned to see all but two male vampires, Josh, and Evan had activated. The staff decided not to bring the blood closer to them, as there weren’t enough people to hold them behind the blue line if the vial of blood was brought closer to them. Zoe was quite astonished at these results, even more, she was scared that both of those potentially dangerous female vampires were attracted to her blood.
A minute later, Zoe, removed herself from the chair and walked back towards her human classmates. She noticed that the activated vampires were still watching her, studying her. Zoe wondered what was keeping them from attacking any of the humans whose blood they activated to. Maybe it was because they don’t have to hunt humans after generations of living side by side with us? The last few human blood draws had to wait until the vampires returned to normal, which happened to take longer for their reaction to Zoe’s blood, which was a few minutes after Zoe had sat down with her fellow humans.
The rest of the human blood draws were not as exciting as Zoe's. After all the blood draws were done, the vampires and humans were told to change back into their clothes and shower if they wanted to. Zoe felt that she wasn’t quite sweaty enough to shower before changing back into her clothes, instead, she chose to reapply some deodorant she found in her locker. Surprisingly, there were laundry baskets for dirty clothes that Zoe used to place her clothes in. When Zoe was done in the locker room she walked back out with her bag and joined the few girls who chose not to shower. Zoe didn’t participate in any conversations. She was contemplating the results from tests today. All in all, she concluded she needed to know what parts of the mansion were safe to be alone and which she needed to have Josh or Evan with her.
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