Novel & Cerita My Blood-curdling Campus Life

The worst part is the casualness of it all, the way they discuss my life like it's a television show they're binge-watching. My private pain, my actual choices, the complicated human mess of the last twelve hours - all of it reduced to campus entertainment. Delivered between sips of coffee and bites of dining hall bagels. Carried across Old Campus on exhale and footfall, spreading like a virus I can't contain. Like I'm a character in a story they're all watching and none of them are actually in, a protagonist they can judge without consequence. The thought makes me feel hollow, scraped out, like I've become less real to myself because I've become too real to everyone else.

The temperature steadily climbed under the blazing sun. The students on campus all stopped lingering outdoors and ran back to their dorms. A putrid stench gradually emanated from my body, attracting several of the campus' stray cats. My body lay there, unable to run or call for help. I could only watch helplessly as they gnawed and tore at my flesh. It truly hurt. My soul drifted desperately toward Dad's office, only to find him and Ms. Ritter chatting happily together.

Now I just felt… watched and exposed, like every step I took was broadcasted live. I hugged my bag closer and forced myself toward my faculty building. Same campus, same ground, same buildings, but nothing felt familiar anymore. I didn’t feel like a student resuming school, I felt more like an intruder who wasn’t welcome. The group chats weren’t helping either. During the break, my phone turned into a nightmare. Screenshots, memes, twisted stories people invented from boredom. They called it the “infamous spell bonding incident.” Some wrote threads explaining how “dark magic addiction” works, as if they knew a damn thing.

The sleeves were pushed up just enough to show defined forearms, veins faintly visible when he adjusted the books in his hands. This was ridiculous. I was ridiculous. I’d just had an emotionally catastrophic conversation with Rowan not even fifteen minutes ago and here I was mentally cataloguing a stranger’s bone structure like I was conducting an orthopedic research. Get it together, Isla! He was still talking. “…and I swear half of what people say isn’t even accurate,” he continued, shaking his head lightly. “Campus gossip is basically creative writing.” I nodded automatically, even though I had not processed a single word.

I pressed the issue while glaring at my reflection in the mirror. "The background noise is incredibly loud and you sound like you just ran a marathon." "I needed to figure out a way to pay for our groceries since my father froze all my accounts last night," Kyle started to explain while his words rushed out in a frantic pace. "I knew the campus dining hall would not pay me enough to cover our basic expenses so I walked off the main university property to find something better." "You walked off campus by yourself?" I asked while the panic spiked sharply in my veins. The neighborhoods surrounding the university were notorious for high crime rates and shady businesses that preyed on desperate c

Campus also had opinions. The Thornfield gossip machine ran on coffee and cruelty, and Rhys Maddox walking across the quad with his arm around Naomi Ellis was premium fuel. By Monday morning, it was everywhere – group chats, I*******m stories, a thread on the anonymous campus confessions page that had three hundred comments before lunch.

I will never regret being… Captivated by the Howling University. Captivated by the bullies. Captivated by Student Councils. Captivated by Grimson. Captivated by the werewolves den.

They didn't know their lives were completely exposed to jeopardy because of my existence. "Vivienne, you look as if you were watching a bunch of cannibals," Cammie said, jerking me to my senses. "No wait, that's not right. It's you who looks like a cannibal." she corrected herself. Alyssa gave Cammie a look, "How could you say that?" And then she turned to me. "Does Life Shock still have side effects?" "Nnno...no... not that at all," I said. "It's just...can we eat lunch outside today?" I asked, hoping they would agree to my desperate request.

It had only been a week, but already I was beginning to forget what my life out there was like in terms of living alone. Of course, I would never forget my experiences at school as a member of various different clubs, nor would I forget about my job, but suddenly living on campus again with other people around me, I suddenly couldn't remember what it was like to live on my own, to have meals on my own occasionally, and to not be wondering around in the middle of the night chasing after stray Strigoi. That kind of life, although I had only left it about a week ago, suddenly seemed so long ago and it seemed so far away from me.

The sounds of chaos echoed through the campus—the screeching, the distant gunshots, and the inhuman growls that made the hairs on his neck stand on end. It was pure mayhem outside. Luke witnessed betrayals of all sorts as everyone tried to survive. He witnessed a student pulling a deranged student biting at a student on the ground away only for the person he saved push him into the deranged student who tore at his throat spilling blood everywhere. A quick glance around showed Luke a lot he needed to know to focus on his self. “its really happening" Luke said, his voice barely above a whisper, panic creeping in as he glanced back towards the library. They had to keep moving; they couldn’t aff