What were the odds that the first person she spoke to turned out to be her roommate?
"Maybe I'm not unlucky after all," considered Rain. "I think we can be friends, Otis. You fit in so well here, and being around you might calm me down too."
With the intimidating vampire just standing there, the mounting awkwardness of the situation crumbled her barely surviving smile, pursed her lips, and extinguished her small hope.
"I'm 16 and a second-year," she continued in response to Aster's question. "But my father had always taught me at home, so this is my first time in a public school, and being around vam-"
She stopped herself, lest she sound like she was judging Aster for being one.
"I mean, I-I have my first class now, but it was nice meeting you!" she settled, standing up suddenly. She glanced between Aster and Otis, excusing herself with a quick nod and hurrying out of the cafeteria. The girl had finished her lunch and concluded the conversation rather distantly, a cold wrap, in more ways than one.
~~~
Rain was a mortal human, but the five minutes between the end of lunch and the start of her class felt like an eternity. There they were again: pale necks turning her way, desirous fangs peeking through bloodsucking mouths, and vampiric eyes peering into her back. Every now and then, a student would bump into her as she passed the crowded hallway, seemingly on purpose.
She was trying to keep an open mind, do what Otis had told her and imagine vampires as humans. But from the subtle behaviors she noticed, the girl was convinced that her fears were not unfounded. The creatures that burned in the light saw her in a different one, appearing as if they were out to get her. How could Rain treat them equally, if they didn't do the same to her?
"Excuse me, Rain," asked the teacher, interrupting her in-class reflection, "why is the slope of the production possibilities frontier negative?"
Searching the room for shreds of confidence with her bright, blue eyes, but finding none in the disapproving red stares of her peers, she began uncertainly. "The PPF curve..."
"The PPF curve is downward-sloping because, as we move to the right on the x-axis and produce more of that good, we move down on the y-axis because we're producing less of another good."
"Right. And what is the underlying assumption of the PPF?"
"Full utilization."
"That's correct. We're already using everything at our disposal, so if we want to increase production of one item, we're going to have to reallocate more and more of our existing resources away from another. That's the principle of opportunity cost. Choosing one thing means we're losing a quantity of something else."
Rain released a measured sigh. Thankfully, she'd constructed an answer from the bits and pieces of macroeconomics that entered her space, dodging what might've been a silver bullet for any vampire classmate in her position.
