Do vampires exist? And if they did, where could one find them? Tyler pondered on this as he sat at his desk, scribbling his thoughts behind his notebook. He had heard stories about vampires and what they could do, and he always thought that maybe he was, or even could be one of them, he had never met one, but he knew somewhere in his heart that they existed. Although he didn’t have all the characteristics of a vampire, he shared some similarities between them like the affinity for blood, enhanced speed strength and agility, enhanced senses

he could hear and sense things from a mile away

, and many other special abilities that other humans around him did not have. And although he was not affected by sunlight and did not have fangs like the vampires did, he still thought that his special abilities could make him related to them in a way, sort of.

“And can you tell me the last thing I just said, Tyler?” Mrs. Milberg, the science teacher asked, yanking him out of his thoughts. He didn’t even notice when she walked into the classroom and started teaching.

“Can I see what you are writing there?” she asked again as she walked over to where he sat and snatched the notebook off his hands, shaking her head upon seeing what he had drawn.

“Tyler, I don’t know what happened, you were so brilliant when you started attending this school but your results keep on regressing, and now this, drawing vampires in class!” She held the notebook up to him before dropping it back on the table.

“I could have expected that from anyone else but not you, Tyler. You seem to be getting distracted a lot lately, and let me remind you that if you fail to keep up with your grades this term, you’ll not only have to quit the football team, but you’ll have to come to summer school.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Milberg,” Tyler said apologetically.

“Please do not let it happen again, bring back the former Tyler here, the one who took his life and education seriously.”

“He can’t do that,” Nelson, the school bully interrupted. “And you know why? Because he’s a freak who thinks he’s a vampire!”

Upon hearing Nelson’s remark, the whole class burst into laughter, Tyler then felt like crawling into a hole at that moment.

“That’s enough!” Mrs. Milberg said sternly. “One more word from you Nelson or anyone else and it’s detention for you!”

The whole class retreated into silence upon hearing Mrs. Milberg’s threat and she returned to the front of the class to continue teaching. Tyler felt bad for what had happened, but even felt worse for what she said about him probably having to leave the football team.

Before he joined the team, he had always been known as the vampire dweeb, because vampires were all he cared about. It got to the point where it even affected his grades as he spent more time researching about vampires than he did studying. His parents became concerned about this obsession of his, so they made him choose an extracurricular activity. Something better to spend his time on according to them, he chose football.

He had great agility and reflexes, more than that of a normal human being. He could go from one motion to another effortlessly, he could effectively dodge attacks, he could sprint easily, and do numerous other athletic implements with little effort, making him the perfect candidate for the game.

The next thing he loved after vampires was football, and he didn’t care that football failed to make him famous like the way it did his elder brother, Jake, or that everyone in school still hated him not minding the fact that he was the best player. By the way, he never chose football for any of those reasons.

When he joined, he thought it would be a way to put his special abilities to good use instead of just sitting and doing research all the time, and if people could see what he could do, maybe it would change the way they saw him but it didn’t. Spending more time on football did help lessen the vampire obsession, much to the delight of his parents but it turned out that his abilities were too great for the tender game as he had caused a severe incident during one of their practice games for the interstate championships.

He had pushed away one of the opposing players who was blocking him while trying to score a touchdown, it was no normal push from someone like Tyler as the impact from the push threw the kid into the air and out of the field. He landed in the sitting area, breaking his back. They were lucky that this had only happened during one of their practice games as the school had been able to avoid a public scandal. But it didn’t make things better as the injured boy’s parents had threatened to file a lawsuit. How can a kid get so severely injured just by playing football? And even with his protective gear on!!! It made no sense to them. It took a lot of pleading from the coach, the school principal and Tyler’s parents to calm them down. The accident happened about three months ago and Tyler had been suspended from the team since then but wasn’t kicked off permanently. The boy was recently discharged from the hospital and things were beginning to get back to normal. Coach Martin had requested to see him after his classes today. He knew that the coach would bring him back on the team since the boy was ok now and everyone had forgiven him. He had missed playing, as he had gone back to his vampire obsession during the time he was suspended.

On his way to see the coach, he met Nelson standing in the hallway along with his popular clique. He then wanted to pass through but Nelson stood in his way, blocking him from going any further.

“Out of my way Nelson,” Tyler warned.

“Hey guys, do you smell some vampire farts?” Nelson asked, turning to his clique who began to laugh at Nelson’s joke.

“Hey Dracula, anyone ever told you how much you stink?” Nelson said to him, pushing him against a locker, while the clique continued to make fun of him.

Before Tyler knew what was happening, Nelson swung a punch in the air and hit Tyler’s face. The impact from the punch made Tyler begin to bleed from his nose. Tyler looked back at him scornfully while Nelson watched the blood coming from his nose disappear and then the wound healed in seconds.

Nelson, seeing what had happened became scared and released Tyler from his grip. Tyler could have sworn at that moment that he did everything in his power to refrain from hitting Nelson back. Ever since the incident on the football field, he had done all he could to stay away from any fights or physical activity that would lead to him hurting anyone again. He didn’t want to ruin his chances of getting back on the team. He thought of it and realized that he would only be giving Nelson an upper hand and a chance to humiliate him more by fighting back, besides, Nelson would never be able to survive a blow from him.

“What a freak!” Nelson continued to insult him and call him vampire names and the others kept laughing.

Tyler ignored their jokes and continued going his way, he had better things to think of, like how he would be able to play football again very soon.

When he reached the boy’s locker room, he opened the door and walked in. Coach Martin was already sitting on one of the benches, waiting for him.

“Hello Tyler, I’ve been expecting you, have a seat,” he gestured towards the bench opposite where he sat.

“Hello coach,” Tyler greeted back before sitting down. Coach Martin then continued to speak.

“This is really hard for me to say, but I’ll just get straight to the point.”