Snippet #1987269

The rolling suitcase jumped a little as its tiny plastic wheels caught for an instant on an uneven stone. Though Cesare barely noticed the handle jolt as he walked down the large bridge that ended at the gates of the sun dorm complex. The evening light had long since faded away, though the transfer student had little trouble seeing thanks to the light posts spaced in even intervals along each side of the bridge. As he approached the entrance to the complex he stopped and the sound of the small plastic wheels behind him stopped. He could wait no longer.

Cesare looked at the entrance to the complex, a large gap which sat between two walls extending to the right an left. He glanced into the compound and then behind him, seeing no one. Stepping over to the corner of the large bridge, he sat his duffel bag down and his suitcase to the side. He had been ecstatic since passing through the main building filled with night students. After digging through the duffel bag for a few moments, he picked out a small black leather bound notebook that had a pin snugly tucked into a pouch on the spine. The notebook was new, showing virtually no wear, he had only recently gotten it.

As Cesare stood up, he turned the small bound notebook over in his hands a few times, looking at it. He had bought it the moment he had decided to attend cross academy. It would be his logbook, a journal of his experiences and observations. All good investigators and scientists kept a log of their observations so valuable data would never be forgotten. Cesare did not intend to break that rule. Ever since he had walked through the main building moments earlier, he had been itching to record the exciting experience. He did not want to forget any moment of the experience.

Cesare quickly unbound the notebook and flipped through the first few pages. They were filled with information about the school and what little reliable information he had been able to uncover about vampires from the church library. Falling on the first fresh page, he leaned back against the railing of the bridge and began to detail his first experience of being in close proximity to vampires. Though the information did not flow as swiftly as he might want on to the page.

The information that was being logged into the notebook was not of regular form, it could be easily absorbed by no one but Cesare. The young man was encoding the information with a cipher. When he much younger he had discovered the term in a book. Within a month he had developed and memorized his own cipher. Using them to write secret notes to himself and laughing secretly when the churchgoers found them, having no clue what they meant. Based in Latin, the letters on the page bore resemblance to written language, but beyond that seemed gibberish to anyone who did not know the method. Cesare had used the code since his childhood anytime he needed to write something that was only meant for him. Which, given that the night class’s true colors were intended to be a secret to the day class, he could not afford someone finding out what he knew.

The problem with Cesare’s cipher was that it took him more time to dictate onto paper than regular words and took the majority of his concentration. So as he excitedly detailed his arrival to Cross Academy he stood under the bridge light post and leaned his back against the railing. He was almost entirely unaware of his surroundings, scratching with the pin into the notebook.