I wander through the halls, once more. I make sure to look at all of the art this time, even reading all of the captions. Some speakers have already performed their presentations. There are three theaters, two equally large, and one that is easily double the size of the other two. I've been assigned the first one of these options. I don't want to speak in front of too many people. I've already been to two speeches, both of them on the main stage. There were no more speakers today, so, rather than going to little classes, why shouldn't I just wander the halls of a palace?

I turn the corner that led to Vlad's spikes, and go to look at them once more. If these pegs could talk.

Suddenly, I feel a hand come over my mouth. I inhale sharply, preparing to scream- "Shh..." Somehow, he cuts me off. He lowers his hand, and I turn around to see Mikah. I can't help but furrow my eyebrows a little bit.

"What the-"

"Shh, come with me."

"Why should I-"

"Yes or no?"

"Would you please stop cutting me off?"

"That's half the fun." Mikah half smirks.

"Where do you want me to go?"

"With me. Don't you trust me?" He extends his hand out to me.

"Have you given me a reason to?"

"Have I given you a reason not to?"

"Touche." I reply. "So, what do you want?"

"Well, I just figured you didn't want to wander the halls all day, did you?" Mikah asks.

"How is it your business what I do with the rest of my day?"

"I like your resistance, but not now, come on. Let it be a surprise."

"How do I know you aren't taking me to some sort of chamber where you'll murder me and my family?"

"I promise you I won't, now come on." He extends his hand once more. "Please?" I grab his hand, and he pulls me forward so we're both walking in line.

"Any hints at where we're going?"

"Nope, not yet." Mikah says, nonchalantly. We round another corner, and the materials suddenly change. The color of the walls shift from their stoney-pattern to what looks like the hallways and what looks more like a hallway in a mansion. The walls are faded, dark yellow, and only mirrors line the walls. No art.

"Where in the world have you taken me?" I ask.

"Chillax, it'll be fine."

"How old are you?"

"174."

"I don't think I've ever heard someone over the age of 30 use that word, let alone a person close to two centuries old."

"Hey, I'm full of surprises." Mikah throws up his hand a little bit. "What were you looking for yesterday, in the library?"

"Nothing, just wanted to browse."

"Well, I'm sure that you found what you were looking for."

"I wasn't looking for anything."

"Everybody's looking for something."

"Well, maybe I'm not looking for something that can be found here."

"Maybe you're not. Maybe you're something really special." I look at him, and his smile grows nearly ten fold.

"What are you smiling about?"

"I don't ever really mean maybe. I either mean yes or no."

"Well, am I special, or not."

"Canada, you are more special than you could ever know."

I feel my cheeks grow a little warm.

"Aw, do I got you blushing?"

"No, you don't shut up. It's the cold."

"Yep, sure, well, we have arrived at our destination." He gestures to a door that sits to my right.

"Oh." I let him open the door only to see that it leads to another hallway. I follow him down, until we reach, yet another door.

"This one's the last one, I promise." He slides open the door, and I follow him inside. Inside, it just looks like a really fancy dorm room for two. Two closets sit on one wall, and the other, a door sits. Another boy walks out of the door that, seeing the tiling on the inside, is probably a bathroom.

"Oh, so this is the girl you've been talking about." The boy smirks. "I'm Edmund, pleasure to meet you."

"Same to you." I say.

"By the way, Ghost Hunters is playing Mary's episode again."

Mikah lets out a hearty laugh. "For real?"

"Yeah. They just did that contact thing."

"I love that part." Mikah says gleefully.

"What?"

"Mary's one of the page's here, and they say she passed away at that Waverly Hospital. But, what actually happened was, she knew she was about to face the next world, and didn't want to go yet, so, she sent a few letters to the right people, and was bit then and there. They left the previous night's snack there, which looked close enough to her, and made it out of there." Edmund explains.

"Oh. Anyone else have one?"

"Heck yeah, Mr. Mikah over here has one. Pretty good one at that."

"Shut up, Edmund."

Edmund throws his hands up in mock surrender. I feel my phone buzz in my pocket, and I pull it out to see that Gayle has sent me a text.

GAYLE
Hey, just had our Christmas Party, here's some pictures. Wish you were here!

He attached some pictures, and I start scrolling through them, only to have my phone snatched out of my hand. I look at Mikah who's holding it above his head.

"Mikah! Give it back!" I say, reaching for it as he pulls it farther away from me.

"Anyone ever tell you that it was rude to be on you r phone when you have company? Or am I just that old fashioned?" He asks. "Who is even texting you anyways?"

"It's just a friend from back home." I say.

"Uh huh, sure." He says, pulling it down and scrolling through whatever picture Gayle had sent me.

"Hey! That's an invasion of my privacy." I say, finally grabbing it out of his grasp.

"My bad. I apologize." Mikah says, sincerity running through his voice.

"I'll let it slide this time, just don't let it happen again."

"Hey, I brought the things, just tell me when-" A girl with ebony hair and cornrows cuts herself off as she enters the room. "Madam Canada."

"Just Canada." I say.

"Hi, just Canada, I'm just Alexandria. Born in 1432, and I despise Columbus." She extends her hand, and I shake it. "Alright, is this who the snow gear is for?"

"Yep."

"Why do I need snow gear?"

"What? Do you want to be the one to find out if it's possible for a vampire to die in the snow?" Mikah raises a brow at me.

"I guess not, but why are we going outside?"

"It's fun, come on." Mikah encourages as he begins to slide on his snow gear, and I do the same.

"Why couldn't I have just brought my own coat?" I ask as I slide on the one that Alexandria brought for me.

"We can't have anyone identifying you. We're lucky enough we, as the pages, are able to do this, let alone invite someone else." Alexandria says, pulling my hair up and tucking it underneath a thick hat.

"Why can't people see me?" I ask.

"Can't have an esteemed speaker having fun, can we?" Mikah asks.

"I mean, I'd be having more fun if I knew what-" I'm quickly shut down as Alexandria covers my mouth, and everything else below my nose, with a scarf.

"You can still talk, I didn't make it that tight." Alexandria says. "And I think that should be it, what do you think, boys?" Alexandria says.

"Unrecognizable, which I guess is pretty bad since, she is quite pretty."

I feel my cheeks flush a little underneath my scarf. We hear what sounds like mounds and mounds of footsteps coming down the halls.

"It's go time." Mikah says.

"For what? I still don't know what we're doing!"

Edmund swings open the door and what seems like twenty vampires are mounding down the halls, using their accelerated speed.

"My time to shine." Edmund sings. We all take off into the hallway, feeling the still air feel like wind against us. Edmund quickly zooms to be at the front of the path, and we all round corners so that we're quickly at a set of large steel doors.

"Get ready for the tundra!" Mikah calls out as the doors slowly open. When they do, we're back out in the snowy, cold air.

"Mikah, I'm tired of wondering. What are we doing?"

"The Cullen's had baseball, we have snow ball fights." Just as Mikah finishes his sentence, I get hit square in the stomach with a flying ball of frozen water. Mikah laughs at me, harder than he did before.

"Shut it." I say, quickly picking up a snowball and throwing it at him.

"Oh it's on!" Mikah says, quickly picking up a piece of snow himself to throw it. We run across the middle of the stone court yard, hurling snow at each other. I wonder what this would feel like if one of us were human? What if I was doing this with Gayle, showing off all of my abilities? Would I have to throw lighter because I could cause serious harm if I throw it this much?

It doesn't matter, now though. Right now, I'm just chucking things at another vampire who can also absorb blows like nobody's business. I throw one, it lands, and he quickly flops to the ground, and Mikah cries out in pain.

"Oh my gosh! Mikah!" I quickly run over to him. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry."

"You throw really hard." His weak voice says.

"I know, I shouldn't have."

"Canada, has anyone ever told you that you're really gullible?"

"Huh?"

I look over to the giant oak tree and see Alexandria standing on top, holding on of the branches. Mikah quickly runs away, but I don't have the time to do the same. Alexandria unleashes the snow that sits on top of one of the branches, and now, I'm covered in snow.

I cry out a little in surprise.

"Ha ha!" Mikah teases.

"Oh shut it!" I say, throwing an even bigger chunk of snow at him. We keep on throwing the snow at each other.

"Here, I'll help you out!" Edmund says, joining alongside me.

"Thanks." I say.

"Anything for a newbie." Edmund says, picking some more snow off of the ground.

"Hey!"

"What? I want you to lose, and I want her first Vlad's Point Snowball Fight, of VPSF, to be fun!"

"Whatever!" Mikah says.

A butt load of snow later, Mikah's jacket, and possibly ours, are covered in snow. "Hey, Alexandria, can I get a hand over here? It's 2 to 1." Mikah offers as the girl passes.

"Nah, I think I'm good." Alexandria replies as a smirk dances on her lips.

"Why not?"

"Because, for once I'm beating Hector, so stop distracting me." Alexandria quickly runs to a different direction.

"Oh come on!"

"SORRY!" Alexandria hollers back.

"Ugh!" Mikah rolls his eyes, and keep on throwing.

When the old, loud, bell rang, everyone was inside in a flash. We're all back in the halls ways, and I feel warm again. Only when I start to feel warm, do I realize just how cold it was outside.

"So, what'd you think?" Edmund asks.

"I liked it. It was honestly a lot of fun."

"I look forward to having many more with you." Edmund says with mock formality.

"More?" I ask.

"Yeah, I thought you were becoming a page."

"Umm..." I slowly turn my head over to Mikah.

"You know when a great time to talk about this is? Later."

"Yeah, like when we get back to the room, and I get this gear off me. Then." I didn't know that I was that hostile until the words came out of my mouth. We make the rest of the trod back to the room, I take my gear off, and drag Mikah by the wrist out into the hallway. "What the heck was that about?"

"Okay, fine, so I told people you were going to be a page, so what?"

"So what? Mikah, I'm not going to be a page! I want to go home after all of this!"

"So you don't like the castle?"

"No, the castle is wonderful, and lovely, I just-"

"You just what?" Mikah asks.

"I have friends back home."

"You can make friends here!" Mikah throws his hands out a little bit.

"But they aren't my friends at home, I-"

"You what?" Mikah asks after my silence.

"I just... these friends mean the world to me, and so does my family, and our home there. They're really special to me." My brain wanders to Gayle. "Not to mention my education. I still haven't finished high school."

"That shouldn't be an issue. The castle is well equipped to provide any sort of education you should so desire."

"Mikah, I really appreciate the offer, and while I'm flattered, I just, I can't."

"You won't."

"No matter how you phrase it, it isn't going to happen. I'm sorry, okay?"

"This is about that boy isn't it?"

"Why are you bringing Gayle into this? What does Gayle have to do with any of this?"

"Even his name is obnoxious. Here, you don't have to hide from anyone."

"I am not hiding."

"Oh, really? So does you entire town not know that you're a vampire?"

"I don't hide, I just don't reveal that part about me to people. I follow all of the laws that have been set up by the council."

"But you have to hide part of who you are. Wouldn't you like to always run free?"

"One day, maybe, but for now, I'm happy where I am. Thank you for the offer." I turn on my heel, and walk the other way, focusing solely on my room, waiting for my instincts to kick in.

"So you're just going to leave me then?" I snap back around to face him.

"Excuse me?"

"After all we've been through-"

"This is our second time hanging out!"

"But we're still great friends!"

"Sure, yes, and we can have a long distance friendship, if it really means that much to you!"

"It means nothing to me if I can't see you every day!"

"You know what, this is a little toxic. I'm leaving. I'm sorry." This time, I turn on my heel, and start walking down the hallway. I wait until I'm beyond the closed door to turn on my instincts. When I do, I'm dragged across the castle the same way Mikah and I took when we went to his room in the first place. I finally pull out my phone, and look through the texts Gayle sent me. I look at all of the selfies, all of the landscapes, everything. All of the pictures of Leah decorating the tree, and Jordan dominating everyone at Twister. They're having so much fun. Finally, I decide to text back.

CANADA
That looks like so much fine. I wish I was there, too