Night Class

It was a dark and stormy night, which was frankly mortifying.

I hate that line. It’s the literary equivalent of turning up to a funeral in a novelty tie. But there it was anyway: rain lashing the gothic windows of D-Wing, thunder grumbling over the university like an elderly professor with opinions about commas.

I tightened my cloak and muttered at the sky, “We get it. Atmosphere.”

The sky responded with a particularly theatrical crack of lightning. Show-off.

I, Dr Lucian Graves (PhD, undead, underpaid), had been assigned proctor duty for Nocturnal Studies 099: Orientation for the Recently Turned and Otherwise Damned. An academic joke with a budget. The senior vampires taught glamorous subjects—Ancient Lore, Advanced Transformations, Blood Magic Theory. I got Night Class.

“Because you have such an approachable presence,” the Dean had said. Being an approachable vampire is like being a vegetarian shark: possible, but pointless.

I unlocked Seminar Room 3C. The fluorescents stuttered to life, illuminating battered desks and a whiteboard still faintly haunted by last century’s message: DON’T EAT YOUR CLASSMATES.

The clock above the door read 23:58. Two minutes to midnight. Graveyard shift.

Perfect.

I shuffled the handouts: Feeding Ethics 101, Basic Concealment, and So You’ve Died: A Practical Guide. The latter had a coffee stain large enough to qualify as topographical.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor—one set dragging, one set oddly weightless.

The door creaked. In stumbled my first student, hoodie dripping, expression panicked.

“Felix,” I said. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” he panted. “I— uh— got lost, and then the staircase moved, and then she—”

He gestured wildly.

A ghost floated through the wall behind him, arms folded, expression carved from disapproval. Her seventeenth-century dress flickered at the edges; she hovered at the exact height required to look down on people.

“You’re dripping on the floor,” she said. “And your posture is an affront.”

Felix groaned. “See? She followed me again.”

I opened the spectral register. “Name?”

“Prudence Fairchild,” the ghost said. “Died 1624. Horse incident.”

Felix muttered, “Witnesses say she tripped.”

Prudence glared. “A squirrel startled me.”

I scanned her file: Unfinished business — correcting the slouching masses.

Of course.

“Hauntings require consent,” I reminded her.

“They require purpose,” she sniffed. “He slouches.”

Felix slumped even more.

We were barely five minutes in and already emotionally off-roading.

We were four slides into Consent, Coercion, and the Classroom Snack when the second student arrived.

The door flew open on a gust of rain. A werewolf student bounded in, shedding water like a retriever emerging from a lake.

“Marius,” I said. “You’re not on my register.”

“Dean’s orders!” he said brightly. “Apparently I’m addicted to missing deadlines.”

I sighed and pencilled him in. “Take a seat. No chewing the desks.”

He nodded solemnly, then immediately started chewing the end of his pencil.

By 1:30 a.m., we had established the basics:

No biting joggers.

No biting exes.

No biting classmates, even if provoked.

Prudence was not allowed to “correct” anyone with spectral force.

Felix, to his credit, asked thoughtful questions:

“What if you don’t know who you are without your bad habits?”

“What if you still want your old life back?”

“What if you go back to your flat every night and stand outside like a creep?”

This last one he said very quietly.

“You’re haunted,” I said.

He gestured helplessly at Prudence. “No kidding.”

“Not by her,” I said. “By yourself.”

That quieted the room. Even the storm paused.

“Do you miss her?” Prudence asked gently.

Felix shrugged. “I miss being someone she could ring.”

Ah. There it was.

Every Night Class student arrives carrying the same heavy thing: the shape of the person they used to be.

“And you?” Felix asked me suddenly. “Do you miss someone?”

I could have lied. Instead:

“I miss the version of myself who thought this job was temporary.”

Marius looked alarmed. Prudence looked sympathetic. Felix looked, for the first time, like he wasn’t alone.

The storm deepened. The windows rattled. The building began to… shift.

Older universities develop opinions. Ours develops labyrinths.

At 2:13 a.m., the lights blinked out. Total darkness. The kind that feels intentional.

“Remain calm,” I said. “Do not move. The architecture is… recalibrating.”

A voice crackled through the ancient intercom— the Dean.

“Routine spatial maintenance in progress,” she said. “Dr Graves, please report to my office after class regarding emotional-boundary concerns.”

Felix whispered, “Was that about me?”

“Almost certainly.”

The lights buzzed back on—older, yellow, like relics resurrected. The whiteboard had rewritten itself:

GRAVEYARD SHIFT PRACTICAL.

“Oh no,” I said.

A door appeared in the corner of the room. One that hadn’t existed ten seconds earlier. Beyond it: a narrow staircase spiralling into red light.

“Field trip?” Marius said hopefully.

“No,” I said firmly.

(Yes, the university whispered.)

Felix stared at the red glow. “What’s down there?”

“The Archive,” I said. “Records. Secrets. Things best left buried.”

Prudence murmured, “Digging up the past.”

The building tilted its metaphorical head, listening.

Felix swallowed. “If I go down there… can I see my file?”

Ah. There it was. His addiction. The thing he couldn’t let go.

“There isn’t a file,” I lied.

He gave me a long, level look. “You hesitated.”

“Felix—”

“I just want to know what’s written about me,” he said. “What she said. What anyone said.”

The door sighed open.

The building is clever. It learns your weak spots.

“All right,” I said. “Practical it is. But I’m supervising.”

“Can I come?” Marius asked.

“No,” I said.

He came anyway.

The staircase was steep, the air colder. Prudence’s glow lit the way.

The corridor at the bottom stretched into darkness, lined with shelves of files, jars, and relics—The Archive of Lives Once Lived.

“Don’t touch anything,” I warned.

“What happens if we do?” Marius whispered.

“It files you.”

We found F.

Felix hesitated before the battered cardboard folder marked:

WARD, FELIX – DECEASED.

He opened it.

Inside: hospital records, witness statements, the blunt report of his death. And at the back—a handwritten note from the ex-girlfriend:

I told him to stop. He wouldn’t. I hope he finds peace. I can’t help him anymore.

Felix’s breath caught.

He didn’t cry. Newly turned vampires don’t cry easily. The body forgets how.

There was a final page: the Dean’s summary.

Potential: high. Obstacles: attachment to mortal self, addiction, unresolved guilt. Assign to Dr Graves—he understands such things entirely too well.

Felix looked at me.

“You asked,” I said softly, “if the wanting goes away. It doesn’t. But it stops steering the ship.”

He nodded, slowly, painfully.

“Can I keep it?” he whispered.

“No,” I said. “But you can close it.”

He stared at the folder for a long moment…

Then closed it.

The corridor exhaled. Prudence dabbed her eyes. Marius peered at his own shelf hopefully.

“No,” I said pre-emptively. “You cannot read yours.”

The university rearranged the corridor as we walked back, smug in its triumph. When we re-entered Seminar Room 3C, the extra door was gone. The storm had quieted to a drizzle.

Felix sank into his chair. “I feel like I just read my own spoilers,” he muttered. “But… maybe I won’t check her street tonight.”

“That,” I said, “is spectacular progress.”

“Small. Pathetic.”

“Survivable,” I corrected.

The clock read 3:57 a.m.

“Homework,” I said, clapping my hands. “Do not haunt your ex. Do not smoke. Do not descend unauthorised staircases. And write one paragraph on something your old self wanted that you’re willing to lay to rest.”

Marius asked if he could write about punctuality.

Prudence approved everyone’s posture.

Felix scribbled slowly, thoughtfully.

As they worked, a memo appeared on the noticeboard:

FROM THE DEAN

Dr Graves,

Your students returned intact.

Please refrain from taking them into the Archive.

You know it encourages the building.

I allowed myself the smallest smile.

The graveyard shift ticked toward dawn.

Felix straightened in his seat. Marius stopped chewing his pencil. Even Prudence seemed lighter, less bound by old grievances.

Among the shelves deep underground, my own file waited. One night I would descend for it. But not this night.

Tonight, I had students to guide, ghosts to negotiate with, and essays to mark about letting go.

Immortality, for once, could wait.