Nocticadia: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance

I should’ve been studying for my online physics exam. Definitely not Googling Dracadia University. Especially since it wasn’t a possibility for me. Being at a university that far away, with a full-time schedule, would mean not being able to cover half of Bee’s tuition. Not only that, but Conner would definitely freak out if I’d told him I couldn’t cover my share of the rent anymore. He’d undoubtedly throw Bee’s tuition in my face, and pull her right out of Bright Horizons.

Clicking on the images of the university hurt, though.

Nestled on an island, the school had once been an old monastery for clergymen–a place predominantly built for religious study. While it appeared that a few newer buildings had been added to the campus, it maintained the same overall look of the gothic academic architecture seen at old schools like Harvard and Yale. The enormous building I’d seen in Professor Wilkins’ picture sat on a steep cliff, as if the foundation itself had been built into the rock formation. It looked to be centuries old, with its lichen-covered stones and intricately carved masonry rarely seen nowadays.

A stone wall separated the campus from the surrounding woods, and what looked like a small town sat in the foothills of the cliff. The campus reminded me of something out of Dead Poets Society. Rich with tradition, opportunity.

A dream.

One too far out of reach for me.

For kicks, though, I entered the admissions address into the search bar and logged in with the temporary credentials provided to me in the letter. There, on the screen, was an account already set up for me, just as Dean Langmore had mentioned–a profile lacking an image, but a number sequence had been assigned, and all of my general information had already been populated. Below my name, a button to register for classes taunted me to click it. I checked the URL again against the one I’d Googled. Everything seemed legit.

Unfortunately, I had too much on my plate.

With a sigh, I clicked out of the search and eased back into my chair, staring up at the painting of the tree and the swing and the vast ocean beyond it. Somehow, it captured my sense of longing right then.

“I wish you were here, Mama,” I whispered to myself. “I could really use your advice right now.” When I wasn’t occasionally spotting ghostly visions of her, I’d sometimes hear her in my head. That soft-spoken voice which cracked any time she’d tried to yell at me and Bee. I smiled at the memory of laughing whenever she’d gotten mad at us and that gentle voice had failed to intimidate.

Leaning forward again, I pulled up the search bar and typed in Noctisoma. Now that I finally had a name, perhaps the internet might offer more information.

A few medical studies popped up through Medscape, but when I clicked, it only offered a brief synopsis–nothing in-depth, or accessible to me without the proper login credentials. I pulled up the CDC website and typed the parasite there. Only a data report for a Geneva conference had listed it amongst pages and pages of other parasites.

There was literally nothing.

To be thorough, I typed in black worms and Dracadia University. The first article to populate the screen was from a Dracadian Gazette, dated only a few weeks ago, whose headline read: Homeless Woman Assaults Provost With Intent To Kill. It went on to describe a woman believed to be named Andrea Kepling, who’d been living in one of the abandoned houses on the island and had broken into the home of a Dr. Lippincott, the Provost of Dracadia University. Armed with a pickaxe, she’d accused him of putting worms in her belly, according to Lippincott’s wife, who’d witnessed the attack.

I paused there. At the peak of my mother’s illness, she’d accused me of putting something inside of her, too. Infecting her intentionally. Those had been the times when her eyes had turned spacey, her pupils blown. They’d been the times she’d looked positively feral enough to kill me. I couldn’t imagine having someone break into my home in that state. With a pickaxe, no less.

Apparently, the woman had managed to wound Lippincott’s leg, but escaped before authorities arrived.

The associated police sketch of Andrea didn’t look like a criminal, though. In some ways, she reminded me of my mother, with her long hair and weary eyes.

At a knock on the door, I groaned and closed my laptop. “I’m studying.”

“Just need to chat for a second,” Conner’s muffled voice said from the other side of the door.

“Fine. A second.”

He cracked the door open and peeked inside before stepping into the room. “Hey, ah …” Rubbing his hands together, he cleared his throat. “I know that things have been pretty hard for you lately. And, uh … you know, you could’ve left a long time ago. But you hung around here and helped with Bee … and I know …. I know you didn’t have to do that.”

I didn’t like where this might be going. Conner rarely acknowledged my contributions. If anything, he often criticized me for turning down extra shifts at the hospital–shifts I’d reluctantly turned down to get some studying in.

“I want to make things easier on you.”

Definitely didn’t like where it might be going. That wasn’t Conner. Conner was a blue-collar who’d lectured me at sixteen years old that nothing in life was free. Something was amiss. “Okay.”

“We’ve talked about this before …” The moment his hand raised to rub the back of his neck and his gaze fell from mine, I knew exactly what he was going to say, and I breathed a sigh.

“I know. You want to rent out Mom’s old room.” I supposed it was out of respect for me and Bee that he hadn’t yet, and I’d appreciated that for a number of years. Struggling for the sake of her memory didn’t make sense, though. It’d been long enough. “It’s fine.”

“You’re sure, kid? I mean … you know, I could wait a little bit longer.”

“No,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “We need the money.” In the pause that followed, I glanced up to see him picking at his fingers, seemingly anxious. Maybe he’d been nervous to ask me about the room. I was nervous, too. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, shoot.”

“Remember after my mom died, I told you about–”

“The worms. Yeah. I remember.” Brows furrowed, he lowered his gaze. “I don’t …. I don’t blame you, kid, that was a pretty rough scene with your mom bleeding out everywhere.”

“You’re sure you didn’t see anything in the tub?” I’d always found it strange how vividly that visual remained in my head for something that hadn’t actually happened.

“Why are you asking me this?” An air of suspicion bled through his voice. “You read the coroner’s report, Lil. The autopsy. Multiple times. It’s all there.”

Sighing, I slouched back in my chair. I had, but Professor Wilkins had also said that not all physicians were aware of the organism as a human pathogen. Perhaps they’d missed it in autopsy. “I know. I just … thought maybe you’d seen something else.”

“Everything I saw is detailed in that report,” he said. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I just miss her.” There was no point in arguing with him. He supposedly hadn’t seen what I’d seen. Maybe the blood had darkened the water too much. Maybe all of the worms had gotten down the drain somehow.

“Yeah.” He let out a long exhale and cleared his throat. “So, uh. What would you say if I asked Angelo to come stay here?”

A turbulent dread curled through my stomach as my mood quickly shifted, and I shook my head. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“I just figured he’s over here all the time. And he’s living in that shithole down on Sumler.”

“No. No! C’mon, Conner! Seriously?”

“He’s my best friend, Lilia.” He ran his hands through his hair, the stress etched into his expression more apparent to me in that moment.

Fingers clutching the pillows around me, I stifled the urge to throw something across the room at him. “The guy’s a creep, Conner. You know he cornered me the last time he was here, and basically threatened to kill me.”

With a dismissive wave, he shook his head. “Nah. He wouldn’t do that. He’s just a dick, is all.”

“That is not a dick. That’s a goddamn predator!”

Hands splayed to the side, he shrugged. “’The fuck do you want me to do, Lilia? Huh?”

“Tell him hell, no! That’s what I want. He’s a freak.”

“Who could help with the fucking bills! I’m drowning here!”

“I’m not opposed to a roommate, but not Angelo. Please. I still have to live here and work!”

“And I work, too!” The way he thumped his finger into his chest gave off the caveman vibes I loathed. “I work, and this fucking apartment is in my name. So, I get to say who lives here!”

The one thing that I wish my mother would’ve thought through a bit more before her death. Not that she’d had a lot of choices–I’d only been sixteen at the time, and certainly couldn’t have had the apartment in my name. But adding Conner had made for some really tense and frustrating situations.

“It’d be a fuck of a lot easier around here,” he said.

“And what happens when Bee comes home for the holidays? You really want her around him? You think that’s good for her mental health?”

“Bee is fine! She doesn’t need a fucking quack school and therapists. She needs friends! A life!”

The rage exploded inside of me, and I shot to my feet, hands balled to tight fists at my sides. “She has a life. And friends! She’s doing better because she’s finally getting the help she needs! Someone is finally listening to her. And now you want to destroy that by inviting Angelo The Creep over for slumber parties! He’s a loser, Conner. You need to ditch him before he gets us wrapped up in something dangerous!”

“He saved my fucking life!”

Not that I’d been present for that, of course, but apparently some guy they’d gone to see a while back had pulled a gun on the two of them. It just so happened that Angelo had been quicker on the draw.

“Goddamn, you bust my balls like your mom!”

“Fuck you, Conner. Fuck. You! You never deserved my mother.”

“Yeah? None of you ungrateful shits deserve me. So, fuck you, Lilia.” He slammed the door on exiting, rattling my mom’s painting off the wall.

Pissing me off even more.

The rims of my eyes burned with the threat of tears. Don’t break. Angry heat rose in my cheeks, and I ground my teeth, wishing I could’ve blinked myself somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Like the tree and the swing and the open sea.

I plopped down on my bed and cradled my face in my palms. Do not break.

I couldn’t live in the same place as Angelo. I couldn’t. What little sanctuary I’d made of the apartment would be torn to shit by his presence. Hopefully, Conner would come to his senses about it. Otherwise, I’d have to make arrangements to have Bee stay at the dorms for the holidays. I’d make a point to visit her on Christmas, still a few months away. It wasn’t like we’d had wonderful Christmases at the apartment anyway, since Mom had died. It’d mostly been Bee and I sitting in our bedroom, playing Mom’s old Beatles records and drinking too much hot chocolate. Technically, we could’ve done that anywhere.

As for me? I needed to find a way to pay at least two months of Bee’s tuition up front. If I could do that, then maybe, just maybe, leaving this place wouldn’t be so impossible.

“Ever consider, like, an OnlyFans, or something?” Jayda peeled off a white sheet that bore an enormous yellow stain.

Still scrubbing at dried piss that’d somehow dribbled over the bed’s rails, I shook my head. “Definitely not.” Nothing against those who posted there. Hell, if I had the guts, I might’ve actually considered it. I didn’t, though.

“I can tell you, I’ve thought about it a few times myself. Shit. Be a whole lot better than grabbing up bedsheets, praying not to get stabbed by a dirty needle.” She tossed the wadded-up ball of sheets into a soiled linen bag. “A friend of my cousin’s did it. Was making a couple grand a month before she found herself a sugar daddy. Now her lazy ass sits by a pool all day long, reading romance novels.”

I didn’t know why I chuckled in response. Probably just needed something to laugh about, after the conversation with Connor.

“This is your chance, Lilia. The Lord put you on a path that you did not see coming, and you need to walk it.”

Sighing, I paused scrubbing the piss and tried to imagine myself walking the halls of an ivy league university. “I know. But …”

“But nothing. You took care of your mama. Now you’re taking care of your sister and her daddy. You’re done. The Lord is telling you, it’s time for you now.”

Even though I wasn’t all that religious, I didn’t mind Jayda’s Lord talk. I’d have loved to believe that all this turmoil actually meant something. “Why didn’t you become a preacher, if you’re so up on what the Lord has planned?”

“Because I like fucking too much,” she said, rubbing her hand over her rounded belly. “And Lord knows his daddy is good at it. So he didn’t put me on that path.”

Back to my scrubbing, I huffed. “Can I just come live with you and Quentin?”

“You know you can. You’re always welcome. But that’s not what you really want. You want to be some Harry Potter bitch living it up with all those pretentious, rich, white folk, and don’t tell me you don’t.”

I snorted and shook my head. “Actually, the thought of living with them kind of scares me. I don’t know that life. Covington is my home.”

“They don’t matter. What matters is your dream. You deserve to be wearing a lab coat, not some nasty, shit-stained scrubs.”

“Well, posting videos of myself on OnlyFans isn’t going to be good for my reputation.”

“Why not?” She set her hands on her hips. “Why the fuck not? Some girls strip to get themselves through med school. You do what you gotta do, Lilia.” Brow raised, she pointed a finger at me like a mother chiding a kid. “Don’t let nobody shame you.”

“Why do you always have to be so …”

“Right?”

“Positive, is the word I was going for.”

“Because I’ll be damned if I’m sitting here scrubbing floors and trash with you next year, when you have a full ride scholarship waiting on you like that. Go. Figure the rest out later.”

What if I did? My mother had always been spontaneous like that. Always throwing caution to the wind. She believed, wholeheartedly, that things worked out. Maybe I was just obtuse to all her struggles, but it seemed like we always ended up okay. We’d never starved. We’d never gotten kicked out, or had the heat turned off in the winter. We’d survived.

I wanted more than anything to study the disease that’d ultimately killed my mother, and Dracadia was my chance, as Jayda had said. I needed this. To know that I wasn’t crazy, that I had seen those damned worms crawl out of her and that it hadn’t just been a figment of my imagination, as I’d been led to believe.

I had to figure something out, anyway–whether I considered Dracadia, or not–because I had a bad feeling about the crap Conner was getting wrapped up in with Angelo lately. For my and Bee’s future and the sake of our safety, I needed to find a way out.