Adele rushed to his university on his bicycle, but was still ten minutes late by the time he stood before the lecture hall and heard the Professor's crisp voice drifting from inside. He winced slightly remembering that this particular Professor was not so fond of late comers, so he wisely decided to step back instead of attending the class.
"Adele, you too?"
A familiar voice spooked Adele who was still convincing himself that he was not bunking for fun, as he turned around to find a young man with sharp haircut and body built like professional gym rankers tapping his shoulder. Upon recognizing him, Adele smiled as he slapped his hand to complete their clapping handshake.
"Brian, yo what are you doing here? Aren't you in Calculus?"
Brian chuckled as he peeked inside and instead of answering Adele prompted his own teasing question,
"What about you, fearing the anger of Miss Dan?"
"It'ssss Professor Dan, please…" Adele interrupted in his best mimicking voice of his irritated Professor, like she used to do when someone calls her Miss Dan instead of Professor Dan.
Both laughed as they began to walk out towards their spot for passing time that is University Lunch canteen. They weren't exactly best of friends but still rather close friends compared to the rest of friendly classmates and acquaintances. It was most due to their completely different set of interests that prevented them from spending all time together and somehow that is also the reason they were good friends even if they meet once in a while.
"I skipped Maths today. Basketball trials are coming and this year I am thinking of participating. What about you? Woke up late due to yesterday night's hangover? Going wild on the last night of Summer break. "
"Heh" Adele snickered as he replied knowing well that Brian was aware of his weak alcohol tolerance, "Yeah really woke up late but not because of alcohol but I did sleep late yesterday night. I had ....quite a grounding experience after watching a horror movie which I wasn't able to enjoy."
Adele told a lie as naturally as he breathed, a skill honed by his identity as a young college student and…some of it was also due to the fact that he was from a paranormal reality of the world who loves to live normal life, and especially taking care to not mix both of them.
Kidding! The skill of expert level lying was all due to him being a young college student.
"Cool. Hey, I just remembered Cray and his buddies were saying some mean sh*t about you. I gave them some peace of mind, but they bolted as soon as the matter of confrontation began like they always do."
Suddenly the expression on the face of Adele changed from happy to shock but he quickly pressed down his annoyance to bring his most serious expression out as he stopped and placed his hand on the shoulder of Brian. Feeling the sudden shift in atmosphere Brian too stopped to look at Adele with a questioning gaze.
"Brian, I want to be honest with you. Don't pi… Don't engage with Cray and fellows if you can. In Fact you should ignore them, even if they says anything. They aren't… ugh…clean people like…umm.."
"Clean?" Brian raised his eyebrow, "like drugs?"
Adele immediately caught on to that, "Yup, Drugs. They are heavily abusing some substances which are not even dangerous but also make them highly aggressive and feral. You don't want to quarrel with them. It will only ruin your mood. Just ignore them."
Brian immediately widened his eyes, "Oh so that's why they look all the time so heavily…you know. Don't worry I won't. "
Brian agreed easily and was about to walk away but Adele still held his shoulder and pressed some more seriousness into the matter,
"No, I mean you have to promise me bro. Just ignore them no matter what they say. Don't engage with them, okay."
Brian felt little weird but before he could say something, a loud shout interrupted their conversation,
"OI BRIAN… come for practice, on the court."
Adele smiled and patted his shoulder as he pushed him towards the court,
"Go go…He is calling for you.
Ohh! So that's why you skipped math class. I am gonna grab some food at the canteen. See you. "
"Okay, see you." Brian put back his thoughts as he waved to his friend and then after saying goodbye began to jog off to the court for his practice.
All the while Adele looked silently and shook his head after some time,
'I didn't say 'Don't pick up a fight with them' clearly as it could have the opposite effect on Brian who is too young to resist his anger. I hope he takes my advice seriously.'
Adeke sighed and put the incident at the back of his mind. In his opinion, he had already warned Brian sufficiently and even if he ended up in a scuffle against Cray and his minions he hoped they would restrain themselves from exposing themselves so blatantly. Or it wouldn't be so bad to tattle them to the Umbra if they did anything untowards Brian.
As for himself taking care of them, please don't joke. They were Vampires, literal monsters in human skin with heartbeat so low that even human corpses sometimes look more alive than them. Even with their young age they can…and they will not hesitate to kill a human if pushed too far. Though they are restrained by unsaid laws of the city, still who in their right mind would bet on the integrity of these bloodsuckers.
And Adele, no matter how aware of the supernatural world, was still a normal human with more than average theoretical knowledge about Shadow weaving, nothing else. He will die just as quickly as a normal human if they fight, that is in one slap. And he wasn't even officially part of Umbra so his backing also amounts to nothing. Therefore what he advised to Brian was exactly the same advice he himself follows against Vampires, especially them.
Cray and fellows, this particular group belongs to some new vampire family who had migrated to the city just last year. They were still pretty much alienated to the supernatural circles as outsiders. Only thing confusing was why these Vampire Young Ones were attending normal university by disguising themselves, even going so far to put makeup on to mask their paleness. Because resident vampires of this city remain quite separated from normal folks. It is quite natural for Vampires to stay away from such mundane places as per their habits and culture only this family appears to be weird.
Adele's day passed as typically as any young college student, with a mix of boring lectures and some time spent with friends. He was already looking for the end of the last class of today, which was at 4 PM, by which he can run back home to check on Uncle and clear out some details about yesterday night's incident.
While he was walking to the hall where the last lecture of the day of his course was scheduled, he was stopped midway by his History Professor. Adele knew the old man as he was a well liked Professor of the college among students with a nice temperament and keen passion for his subject. But except for some general lectures Adele was largely unfamiliar with him due to him not opting for history subjects.
Therefore he bowed his head slightly in greeting as he found Professor stopping him in the empty corridor.
"Hello Professor, Good afternoon. What can I do for you?"
Professor took a moment to respond as he stared at Adele for a second and then responded,
"Adele, I have a message for you from Umbra. It is from your Aunt."
Adele was too stunned to speak, as several thoughts began to stir into his mind. His mind was boggled with several explanations but all of them vanished as he heard the next words of his Professor who suddenly introduced himself as denizen of the supernatural side of the World just like him.
"Don't go back to your apartment. Your Uncle is…Infected, taken over by some evil entity. Umbra is also compromised so you should also not head to any Organisation safe houses or headquarters. I am very sorry, dear Adele but Aunt can't come for you as we are tracking the source of this attack. Please be safe. "
Lights shut off in the mind of Adele as he found himself shocked to the core by seemingly disturbing contents of the message just told to him by the random old man in his college. With a passage of a few blank moments where he was unable to catch the weight of the situation due to initial shock, panic was about to set in when his Professor lifted his hand and knocked on his head with his knuckle.
With physical pain, he somewhat managed to get a hold of himself to look up to the grave face of the old man, who apparently was not finished.
"Due to fear of Message leak, she didn't say anymore but only instructed you to seek shelter at your second Uncle's house. You have to decode that by yourself.
And secondly, as your Professor, let me add some personal warning to you. Stay inside for the next few days, the situation is going to deteriorate too quickly as factions are going to kill each other left and right.
Supernatural world is going into a serious blood conflict in the near future, and though civilians will be major collateral casualties, the main targets will be us people of the supernatural world. Stay alert and seek shelter where your Aunt said as soon as possible. Umbra is hit first but they won't be last… It is going to rain blood in the next few days."