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MID TERM WEEK IS HERE

As the Holiday Nightmare vacation ends, it is time for schools to settle in and face the horror of mid-term exams. Amityville had a very specific requirement: that all mid-term exams were generic, meaning mid-term exams also involved writing something on paper in the middle of the Amityville Gymnasium when it came time for the exam of that particular class.

Oh, and also of course, that once exam week started, the school gates were locked, so no student could escape and run away from the horror of mass paperwork.

There were whispers, a rumour this year that the exams were part of the career test coming up, though that was just a rumour, as since the last fireworks fiasco ten years ago, the career aptitude agents had somewhat blacklisted Amityville from most touring school lists.

The studying part of midterms was also very, very versatile. Some chose to study, some chose to go to class and listen to the professor's reviews, and some people just decided that the right answer would always be there for those who needed it, and that what they really needed right now was a party.

[Meixiang] [Home Ick Kitchen]

Oh man, why had she decided to take this class? Meixiang was horrible at cooking. As if the pile of take out boxes in the corner of her room weren't evident of that. But...well....one day she'd be on her own and some sort of adult thing and that meant being able to cook for herself. Or maybe it would just be better to hire a cook that could cook for her. Or a room mate....that could cook.

No. No no she had to learn something right? Something practical among all the not so practical. That could be applied to every day life. Can't live on take out...or could she? Its not like she was having any ill effects of that sort of living. She didn't really gain weight so there was no worry there of getting fat. That and she exercised.

Ok, so there were a lot of pros to not learning to cook.

But on the other hand it was something out of her comfort zone. Way out of her comfort zone as she nearly caught her apron on fire by turning on one of the burners absentmindedly before setting anything on top of it. Yea fire bad. The ghoul squealed as she put the fire out, if her heart actual beat it would have been racing a million miles an hour. No burners.

She would...she would bake. That required less fire. But as she thumbed through the book she had selected from the book store in town she merely got more and more discouraged as there were many terms she did not understand. Fold in eggs? Whip into high peaks? "A tisp? What's a tisp?" Placing a finger to her bottom lip, the Jiang Shi looked at the ceiling as she seriously pondered just what a tisp was. It was obviously a unit of measurement but what kind?

Leaning over her large bag of supplies she had brought with her, the ghoul reached into it and rummaged around. Pulling out various cups and spoons. A blender. Baking pans. Pots. Knives. A cutting board. Again she thumbed through the book, licking her thumb as she went. Brown eyes scrawling across the pages as she tried to find something relatively easy and yet complex enough to make an impression on the class mid-term. It wasn't like a regular writing test, they actually had to make something and so far she hadn't been successful in anything.

This was the pits. Stinky, sweaty, school gnome pits.

[Rojo] [Library]

Scaring. It was what he had come to Amityville to master, though it seemed he had made it through an entire year without learning much about the art at all. Not that what he had learned instead—how to schmooze, how to throw parties, how to make better friends, how to make worse enemies—wasn't valuable, the skeleton just longed for a little more. Besides that, there also happened to be an upcoming midterm on the subject, which seemed a little unfair actually. Maybe he could mention the problem to the Council when he had the time.

For now there was no use crying over spilled blood. He would play to his strengths and do the best he could. A larger, more imposing skeleton might have been better at the old "boo" scares, but he was too small to make anyone jump that way unless they were deeply distracted. Fortunately, there was a whole building full of distracted creatures right on campus! Unfortunately, he had to be just as quiet as they were inside or he'd be kicked out.

After sneaking between the shelves, the undead assessed the student situation. Most were seated in small groups, but there was one rather intimidating boil off by himself. He would start there. Rojo squared his shoulders and left his hiding spot, boots clicking softly as he made his way toward the demon's booth. He crouched low before he got there, just his empty eyes and the top of his bony skull peering over the edge of Uru's table as he passed, staring all the while. And then, he was gone.

[Uru'baen] [Library]
[298 words]

His leather jacket hung over the back of the chair, creaking under his weight as he leaned back, fingers laced behind his head. It has been a while and he had re-written his notes for the forth time. Honestly, if any student wanted his notes, they could just have them. It was easier for him to remember things after writing a couple of times if practice wasn't an option. Unfortunately, he couldn't exactly practice what he was taught and the fundamental ideas behind the lectures was also imperative to know to draw conclusions and such. However, this was becoming a drag. Looking up at the ceiling, he was wondering what the monster was up to at this time. Was he studying too or was he just goofing off? Sighing, Uru stood up to take a brief walk around the library. Gotta get himself circulating again. Sitting in one place for too long did not bode well with him.

[Sacha] [Outside the Demon dorms -> Dorm room]

There was absolutely no way that Sacha was going to be seen taking a Fear Cooking class. Teaching it maybe, but not taking it. So when he'd had to sign up for classes, and knowing it was so close to midterms, he might have taken a few courses to stack the odds in his favor.

Because a Certified Flying Beginner's Class License would be so incredibly difficult he'd totally need to take it.

His studying was flying down from his room and landing on the grass outside the demon dorms, then taking advantage of the unusually warm day for first October. He settled on the grass, spreading his wings to absorb as many rays of the feeble pumpkin sun as possible, and then proceeded to get out his eyePhone and open up Instagram. He flicked through the images idly, liking a picture of some macaroons and then commenting on something Antoinette had posted.

Then he checked his email.

And his texts.

Several minutes later had him bored and hungry, so he flew back up to his room to make a snack. A quick pot of soup with some homemade rolls later (only a few hours) and he realized that his time he'd allowed for studying was almost up.

Almost, not quite. Taking out his phone he fired off a few texts, asking his mummy some inane question that was really just to prove he was still alive, then asking Antoinette if she'd tried out the newest cake shop near their house. Finally his fingers hovered over a new contact in his phone, and he opened up a new text.



A few seconds later he sent another text.



Because really, this was his first time at a regular school, and he had no idea what to expect. He could do all his basic flying, and he could even do a few aerial tricks, not that he had really practiced much. Would they expect more than that out of him? Probably not, it was a beginners level course.

Then he remembered that he actually had other classes and groaned. First aid had seemed like a good idea at the time, he had dealt with small knife cuts a lot in the kitchen. He had not expected all of the different things that would be thrown at him. To say the least it was not the easy class he'd expected. With a glare at his textbooks he finally opened one, trying to keep his eyes open as he turned pages with one hand and spooned soup into his mouth with the other.

[quote-"Nerpin"]Elly got texts

[Rojo] [On the Roof of the Undead Dorms]

When scaring in the library didn't pan out, Rojo moved on, taking to the roof of the undead dorms to think and reflect. He couldn't recall having ever frightened anyone when he had meant to, so he tried to remember the times he had done so by accident. Coming around a sharp corner in his slippers, breaking the silence with a shout when he'd finally beaten the final boss in a difficult video game, and...

"Falling off of the roof."

Leaping from the top of the ghost dorms after getting stranded there hadn't been the first time he had taken such a plummet. Once before he had done so at Chio's urging. His mother had been terrified then livid, in fact, that might have been the moment Rojo and the other skeleton had become mortal enemies. It was perfect.

He scooted to the edge of the roof that hung over the front entrance, looking for the most unlikely victim and finding her soon after. A growling nosferatu, broad shoulders hunched, crept out of the building and paused, taking a cleansing breath that turned into a scream as a skeleton dropped out of the sky.

[Rojo] [Outside the Undead Dorms]

The shrieking vampire ghoul was long gone by the time he got his bearings, but surely her reaction proved that she had been overcome with fright as a result of his antics. Maybe scaring wasn't such a big deal after all. He wanted to lift his skull and watch her go, but he couldn't at the moment. It might have been a mistake to aim for concrete this time.

Rojo pushed his face away from the pavement, slowly at first, but with a great deal more speed when he realized just how intact he had remained. All that was missing was the entirety of his right arm and his right leg below the knee, and the latter was only a few feet away! He sat up, unaware of the thin crack that ran from the top of his eye socket into what would have been his hairline, had he had one.

"Yes! I am fine, friend! A-okay!" The skeleton reached for his leg, snapping it back into place one-handed. "Though... I guess I don't know where my other arm has gone." He glanced at the cinox, hoping that hadn't been an invitation for the minipet to fetch his appendage. The slobber...

Rojo suppressed a wince.

[Rojo] [Outside the Undead Dorms]

"I..." Rojo paused, a strange sensation passing through him as Skrakson found his arm and playfully nibbled it. It was a little like goosebumps on a person with flesh, but it was unlikely the skeleton would ever know that. He wiggled the fingers of his absent hand as he rose, chuckling when his fingertips brushed fur.

"I was trying to find a new way to scare," he replied. "Nothing in the textbook works very well for me and with midterms coming..." He stood straighter, so clearly struck with an idea that a light bulb might as well have appeared over his head. "Do you want to study with me?"