The light stung, and I didn’t understand why. Wasn’t ‘the light’ supposed to be warming and caring when tu die? At least, that’s what I was told…
    Oh, but wait, there was a shadow…
    “What the hell were tu thinking, dammit?!”
    I staggered my eyesight into view, squinting at the strong light before I was able to adjust. The voice was a lot like mine, and I focused on the shadow above me. There was long, brown, straight hair… bronze eyes… curved heart-shape face…
    “Hey, Mom, is this...

“Okay, Nikolai, make a choice; the garlic powder o the cebolla powder.” I held up the small shakers, leveling them with his eyes.
    Nikolai smirked. “Either way, it is going to be a joke.”
    I sighed. “Dammit, Nikolai, just pick one.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Are tu damning me now? tu realize what I am, right? o do I have to remind you?” He teasingly looked at my throat, and I rolled my eyes, choosing the garlic powder and placing it in the basket. Nikolai followed me as I headed over to the isle that was rowed...

I woke up with a yawn, curling my toes. I turned my head over, blinking at the sunlight peeking through the drapes, watching the specks of dust float around the area. I planted my head in, groaning before my mind went into a sleepy state again. I tried thinking about something that would get me into my sleeping mood again, but then I gave up when a massive migraine appeared into view. I rolled out of my cama and kneeled on the floor, gazing at the white plush carpet underneath me. There was still some marks of dirt from where my shoes hit last night, and I clumsily wiped them away. I staggered...

~Marissa's story (hopefully she doesn't get mad at me for telling it on here, i just thought it was really good)~

Marissa: "Me and my dad were going to Giant one day. He wanted to get Jalapeno peppers."

*We all lean in to hear the good story*

Marissa: "So we walk in, and we head into the isle where they have the Jalapeno peppers. No big deal, right? So Dad's standing in front of where the peppers are...and he..."

Clare: "Spit it out!"

Marissa: *laughing* "He starts canto his own tune of Jalapeno peppers, dancing up and down the isle while shaking his butt! I was standing there and going like this:"...

“I may be a vampire, but that doesn’t mean I particularly appreciate these places.” Cress grumbled, stepping carefully over burial grounds. “Nikolai’s going to be pissed when he finds out that we’re not at the hotel.”
    “Don’t worry. We locked up tight.” I replied cheerfully, grasping a gravestone so that I didn’t fall over a árbol root.
    “It has nothing to do with that…” He sighed. “You still didn’t tell me what the note said. I’m not that dumb to not know that the note has something to do with sneaking out and bringing...

The instant I woke up Tuesday to the smell of tocino, bacon and eggs, I knew the time had come.
    School.
    I trampled down the steps and almost tripped over my pajamas to get the plate of comida resting on the table, and I was stunned to see not Nikolai making the food, (which por the way, he was a pro in the kitchen) but Sam. He had his backpack snug sitting on his chair, and he was shifting around the cocina like Faela had done a while back when I woke up to her cooking. He smiled when he saw me. “Bedhead.” Nikolai was sitting there however, but his attention...

It was día Four of the rain, but the relief was that there was hope for sunshine por Saturday. That left three más days of depressing downpour, something I was neither regretting nor cherishing over.
    No one could concentrate today, but in the hallways there was the same fraction of chat about the weekend plans as there would be any normal day. My mind could care less about anyone other’s plans; even my own plans were stored at the back of my mind to focus más on Meredith and how she was handling her pressure of the mountain-load of weight that she was now carrying,...

Another día of rain passed, and it didn’t edificación, aumento en el nivel my mood. Meredith wasn’t avoiding me, per say, but más edging to her independence, thinking thoughtfully at all times. I wanted to ask whether she would be okay, and if there was any way that I could help, but for the time being, I had an idea that the best thing to do would be let her do this on her own. If she needed me, she would ask; I knew that already; she wouldn’t have came to me and let me be the first witness to the news if it were otherwise.
    Besides the drama of life, my schoolwork took up its’ whole...

Simon walked in, his laptop snug in his bag as he took his asiento in front of the monitors. The screens buzzed with life, and they didn’t react until he laced his fingers into a wanted code before the screens vanished from their normal blue to a display of many windows. Simon placed his bag under the desk, then wheeled himself over to the right to check on the holographic globe that floated above a small metal platform. He squinted at it for a brief second, checking the obvious locations before snapping the earpiece into his left ear. He fumbled with the small button connected to the attachment....

I stared, blinked, stared some more. His words didn’t digest until the sickening image filled my mind. He was stuck to the chair, and the scientist’s elbow his just the right place to… to…
    “You’re dead.” I whispered.
    “That wasn’t me.” Dad said, shaking his head. “This is such a disappointment…I’d thought tu would have figured that out por now. But you’re such a rebellious child of mine…can’t seem to come to the truth. Not as bad as your mom, though, huh?”
    “Shut up.” My body quaked with...

When I met Sam at the back parking lot, I was scratching at my uniform uncomfortably. Since it was a sweater and it was like the old ones that little kids complained their grannies made, it was bugging the hell out of me. The fabric was like a freaking leech against my skin.
    “Keep scratching at your neck and Nikolai will come and suck your blood.” Sam greeted happily, laughing at his joke.
    “Nice. Maybe he will change me.” I dicho sarcastically, hefting my backpack over my shoulder as we started walking home. Even with the uniforms, we stood...

I didn’t know what Nikolai was planning, but I also didn’t have time to worry about it, either. The only guidance he had for me was to ‘dress casual’ and ‘be polite’. Did he not think I was polite? Was there something about me that seemed rude?
    Of course, getting a decent reply from Sam was pointless.
    “Well…” Sam hesitated, pulling notebooks, binders, pencils, and a new backpack from the bags on the mesa, tabla that he recently got from a lonely Walgreens. “In some ways, tu are looked on as…a bit sassy, so tu can seem a bit startling...