4Midnight Menace
The group reached the library ten minutes later. Irene and Jay lead them to a more secluded area near the back of the archives.
"Better?" Jay asked the smaller boy.
"Yeah, thanks," he replied wearily, sinking into a nearby chair with a sight.
"So?" Falcon turned to Jay for explanations.
'Let me try something first," Jay whispered.
He closed his eyes, concentrating, before he formed the thought 'What is your name?' in his head. Then he projected it as gently as possible at the boy.
The fifteen-year-old cracked open one amber eye, "Daniel, how about you?"
James, who'd just watched all this time, asked curiously, "What happened? I didn't hear anything."
"I think Daniel here can hear thoughts," Jay explained.
'I can?', 'Really?', and 'That's neat!' were the responses he got.
It was Jay's turn to sigh, "Oh come on guys, it's almost time for the library to close and Daniel will end up with another headache if he leaves."
"Don't worry about that," Dan replied, a lot more cheerfully now that he knew the problem, "I live near the university so I can go back home instead of staying in a dormitory."
"That's good," Falcon stood up, stretching, "we should get going before the librarian locks us in."
"She would do that?" James piped up.
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James was roomed with someone named Reyen and Jay's roommate was someone by the name of Daren. Irene groaned when she noted the name of her roommate. It was one of the squealing girly-girls from last year called Grace, though in Falcon's opinion there was nothing at all graceful about her.
"If you guys don't mind I think we should go to bed," Jay rubbed his eyes and sighed, "I have a major headache and we have classes tomorrow."
Everyone headed off in their separate directions.
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CRASH!
Jay was jolted out off a sound sleep by the sound of someone, or something, knocking over the nightstand by his bed. The pale blue lamp that had been perched on its mahogany surface smashed into hundreds of pieces and he shot up, staring out into the darkened room.
There was a boy crouching in the middle of the room. The boy looked up as Jay moved and what he saw tore a scream from his throat.
Black hair framed a pair of large, emerald green eyes that were slitted like those of a cat and blood dripped in thin streams to the ground from a shadow in his jaws. The limp form was that of a rabbit that had, apparently, only just been killed,
The boy blinked in confusion as he glanced around the room, as if unsure what was going on. Then he looked down at the creature in his mouth and dropped it and took a step back.
" .who." Jay stuttered, backing against the wall as far away as he could get.
"Sorry about that," the boy said sheepishly, " ."
His voice trailed off and an uncomfortable silence reigned for the next few minutes.
Jay finally mustered up the courage to speak and asked, " ."
The boy nodded nervously.
" ." unable to think of the right words he gestured at the dead rabbit on the floor and the blood on Daren's lips, asking for an explanation.
" .I.I was on my way here .let's just say I'm not exactly human."
Jay leaned back against the wall again, this time in exhaustion, "why don't we, talk about this tomorrow? .you don't really plan on eating that do you?"
Daren was sorely tempted, but he thought it probably wouldn't be wise. And plus, now that the instincts that had arisen at the sight of live prey had abated, he didn't find the idea very appealing anymore.
He shook his head, "No."
" you don't mind, I think I'll be going back to bed."
And hopefully, Jay thought as he lay back down, nothing else is going to happen and I'll wake up to find this had all been a dream.
A.N. Did you like it?