xx

*

A week had passed since Louis and Harry's tree escapade. The boys had bonded more and more over the week, though Harry still couldn't figure out the mystery that surrounded Louis Tomlinson.

As he wanted to discover the secret badly, Harry had set his alarm at 2am each night so he would be able to check if the two boys disappeared mysteriously again. Against his predictions, he always found the two lads still sleeping peacefully in their own bed, doing nothing but breathing innocently in and out. Harry soon began to believe that he'd made up their first disappearance. After all, he had been having a nightmare that night. It really could be that he had just still been delusional, right?

When Thursday came, Harry had been so exhausted because of his broken sleeping pattern that he didn't think it was still necessary to set his alarm again, wanting a good night of sleep instead.

So that was already the early end of that habit.

His wariness didn't leave however as he discovered other things too. Apart, his discoveries would probably seem meaningless and innocent, but together they made Harry believe his suspects even more. He was almost sure of the fact that Louis, and his friend Liam maybe too, wasn't normal. Normal humans wouldn't behave like them.

Normal humans wouldn't be this cautious to touch him. It were subtle moves like Louis slowly withdrawing his arm right before the Cheshire boy wanted to sit next to him in psychology or French, but Harry saw them all. The way he held his breath every time that Harry came too close, increased the taller lad's suspense. The fact that he hardly sees him at lunch does that even more.

Harry is sure that during the whole week that he has known them, he has barely seen his two roommates eat. While the curly haired lad himself is always munching on some cereal or crisps to give his growing teenage body the calories that it needs, he has barely seen the other lads eat. It was like the boys didn't need the nutrition's and only ate when they felt like it. If a normal person would eat the small amount of food that Liam and Louis did, Harry thought, they would be nothing but skin and bones. Their bodies however, didn't look starved at all. It was more the opposite. The few times that Harry has seen them topless, right after a shower or P.E. course, he had noticed their defined biceps and abs. Not at all like the chests that you would expect from lads who barely ate.

Saturday, when the students got their day off, Harry wanted to trick them and invite the mysterious guys to Nandos with the official reason to finally introduce them to his friends, Zayn and Niall. Of course he secretly only wanted to find out how they would react to this large amounts of heavenly tasting, greasy junk.

Unfortunately Harry's plan didn't work out as he hadn't even gotten the chance to ask them along. They both had vanished even before the sun had set, leaving the boy to wake up all alone in his room, this time with the window still closed. They had left no note, no hint of to where they could have fled and reappeared the next morning like nothing had happened, leaving another item that Harry added to his mental list of mysterious elements about the lads.

Harry wondered why nobody else noticed those signs. From what he'd heard Zayn telling him, the blokes attended this boarding school for at least a year, so why was he the only one who questioned their odd behaviour? Were they that invisible, that no one noticed?

Or maybe, perhaps, normal people weren't as obsessed by them as Harry himself was. It was actually a bit pathetic that Harry analysed every odd move they made. Other people wouldn't be suspicious when they felt their cold skin if they brushed past him. Normal people wouldn't follow Louis down a corridor. Harry decided that he was unhealthily obsessed with his roommates, Louis particularly. But he didn't care, he must find out what he is hiding, no matter what it takes.

As Harry lied in his bed that Sunday night, he couldn't think about the good things, brilliant things even, that he had noticed out about Louis too. The stuff that had made him smitten with the lad in the first place, causing the corners of his mouth to turn unwillingly upwards when he thought about them back.

The crinkles that appeared next to his ocean coloured eyes, for example, clarifying that Louis genuinely smiled as Harry made stupid jokes.

And how the shorter lad never says Harry's real name, but calls him Curly instead, often ruffling his chocolate curls while doing so.

The way he seems to be a shy kid in class, but the moment you talk to him, he shows his mischievous nature.

Oh, and the fact that Louis always manages to surprise Harry by saying the craziest stuff and doing even crazier things. Once you start talking to the shorter lad, he doesn't shut his mouth, but Harry still doesn't know anything about his personal live, making him even more mysterious.

And the best thing, how his voice sounded an hour ago as Louis was singing in the shower. Harry had wanted to quickly brush his teeth before the blue eyed lad would notice, but after hearing such an angelic voice singing Coldplay's latest hit, he closed the door fiercely again, his heart beating in his chest and, for the millionth time this week, a heat spreading through his cheeks. That discovery had left Harry speechless for the rest of the evening.

With this last memory lingering in his mind, the curly haired lad drifted contently into a peaceful, dreamless

*

Louis' POV

It was already past 12am when the breathing of his roommate finally steadied, indicating that the boy has finally passed through the gates of dreamland. Louis had been waiting for more than two hours for that moment. He finally released the breath that he didn't know he was holding and tried to relax his tensed muscles again.

He should've done the same as Liam, who'd been hunting yesterday when they had travelled together to the nearest city, like they often did on Saturdays. He should've picked up a random girl too at a bar and taken just the right amount of blood so that she wouldn't have noticed after he had cleared her memory, but that his thirst would be gone nevertheless.

Yes, he should've done that, but he hadn't. He had been thoughtless and not in the mood for clubbing or draining another nameless body. While Liam had been bringing his blood level on the mark, he himself had wasted his afternoon in an old music shop, staring at old vinyls, his mind back in the glorious time of the 80's.

He had been under the impression that he still had enough of the dark red liquid in provision, not being really thirsty at that time. Louis had actually acted like a fool, because now he was lying here again in this too small bedroom with the curly haired torture only metres away from him, the fringed haired lad experienced the same troubles as he had only a week ago.

So the moment that he knew that his fellow roommates were spending time in the land of the sleeping, he opened the winding just like he had the previous time.

This time however he didn't wake Liam up. He really wasn't in the mood to get bawled out by his friend.

After quietly sneaking outside, he made sure that the curtains and window were closed again so the light or cold wouldn't wake Harry up again. Louis was a quick learner.

The vampire then took a big gulp of air, before sprinting in the direction of the woods, not wasting any time.

While running through the decennia's old trees, he couldn't help but inhaling an odd scent. The blue eyed vampire recognized the smell vaguely but couldn't really place it. However, Louis couldn't help but thinking that he should've remembered its cause, as he unconsciously felt that it was very important. The scent grew thicker and heavier to the point where he could almost taste it as he reached the deeper parts of the forest, before suddenly vanishing in the cold autumn air.

Louis kept running further, trying to find the trace back. He was already four kilometres away from his school when he smelled something else instead. Something different, but better nonetheless. Three humans, only a few trees away, with warm blood pumping through their veins. Just what he needed.

The vampire found them lying in a tattered tent, obviously in the middle of a trip in the woods. The ground next to it still felt warm due to a previous campfire. They were Louis' perfect victims for the night.

He silently undid the giant zip after making sure that the humans were in a deep sleep. Not wanting to make a mess with his fangs, Louis slit the wrist of the guy who was lying closest and immediately started to drink the vital liquid. Afterwards he licked the wound, leaving some of his spit behind so the spot would vanish. A new skin formed instantly, making the surface look like nothing had happened. He repeated the same ritual with the other person, a woman this time.

Satisfied and with a belly full of blood, Louis left as quietly as he had entered. No one would notice that he'd ever stood foot in the tent.

He just attempted to turn back, when his movements were interrupted by a howl sounding creepily loud in the night sky. Thanks to Louis' superior hearing, he could make out that the cause of the howl was situated really close, alarmingly close even.

"It couldn't, right?" Louis thought as he was thinking what could've made the horrible noise, "Well, there was only one way to find out", and he started to sprint in the direction of the suspicious sound.

He obviously arrived too late, because when he came to the spot no breathing thing was still there. The stuff that was left behind and the presence of a high concentration in the air of the same scent from earlier that evening, were enough for Louis to know what had happened here. He didn't like it at all.

He took a closer look of the bloody carcass that the creature had left behind and was glad that it belonged to a dead deer and not a human. Well not yet. Louis knew those creatures very well. In no time humans would dissapear and dead, ripped open bodies would be found. The beast was probably still young. The fact that the parasite wasn't happy with the situation was an obvious understatement.

But he didn't do anything else as he decided to discuss things with Liam and finally headed back to his dorm room. Once again he didn't sleep anymore that night, but who needs sleep anyway?