This is impossible!” Tiffany wailed

This is impossible!” Tiffany wailed, throwing down the apartment listings and burying her face in her hands.    “There has to be something,” Sunny chimed in unhelpfully from the couch that Tiffany was leaning against, “People are always renting out apartments to college students. This is a college town. You’ll find something.”    “This is all your fault,” Tiffany whined, the sound muffled by her hands, “If you weren’t going abroad next semester, I wouldn’t have to move!”    “I’m sorry,” Sunny apologized for the millionth time, “But you’d go to Paris too if you were in my position.”    Unable to deny the fact, Tiffany just let out another whimper of frustration and flopped back onto the hard wood floor. In exactly three weeks, their lease was up and they both had to be out of their apartment. Of course Sunny wasn’t worried at all since she was flitting off to Paris. Tiffany, however, was staying in Korea to complete the second semester of her junior year of college. That is if she could find a place to live.---    “Sunny!” Tiffany called from her bedroom, looking up when her roommate shuffled to her door in a big sweatshirt and a pair of boxers, “What do you think of this?”    Sunny walked over to the computer and read over what Tiffany was pointing to.    “I told you!” she gloated, standing up straight and playfully shoving at Tiffany’s shoulder.    “But what’s the catch?” the taller girl asked, looking quite distressed, Sunny thought, for someone who’d found an apartment listing for so cheap.    “Catch?”    “There are two other ads up for rooms in this building but this one is half the price. There has to be a catch,” she explained.    “Maybe it’s just smaller or something,” Sunny shrugged, ever the optimist. And while Tiffany was fairly optimistic herself, Sunny was just ridiculous.    “That’s what I thought, but I called the management office and the guy who owns the building said that all of the rooms are the same size.”    “So did he tell you why that one is so much cheaper?”    “He didn’t know,” Tiffany sighed, “It’s an ad for a roommate, so whoever is renting that apartment is the one who made the ad and listed the rent that they want.”    “Hmm…” Sunny paused, tapping her chin and scratching the back of her calf with a sock-covered foot as she thought, “It seems a little shady, but you should at least go look. It’s a good apartment at a good price. It’s worth a try.”    “But what if like…a rapist lives there or something?” Tiffany fretted, “And he’s not really renting out a room at all! He just posts ads with tantalizingly affordable prices to lure poor girls to his door!”    Sunny was staring at her, open-mouthed, when she had finished theorizing before the shorter girl just shook her head- turning to leave the room.    “You watch too many movies,” she called over her shoulder.    Tiffany wasn’t convinced that her theory was as unlikely as Sunny seemed to think it was. But the apartment was affordable. And she was running out of time.    So, despite her misgivings, she responded to the ad via email and set up an appointment for that Saturday afternoon.---    Tiffany was surprised to come face to face with, not a creepy man, but a girl who looked to be around her age- blonde hair, side swept bangs, delicate bone structure. She was actually quite beautiful; the opposite of what she had been expecting.    “You must be Tiffany,” the blonde woman said, smiling and reaching out to shake her hand.    Hesitantly, Tiffany reciprocated the action, nodding to confirm that she was, indeed, Tiffany.    “I’m Jessica,” the other woman said, releasing her hand and stepping back to let Tiffany pass, “Come in. I’ll show you around.”    The first thing that Tiffany noticed was how bright the main room was- big windows on the back wall while the rest of the walls were painted white and white furniture with colored accent pillows filled the space. Part of her wanted to spend the rest of her life relaxing on the couch and reading a book while the other half feared that she’d surely mess up the careful decorations somehow.    Not that it was impeccably clean like a show room; there was enough clutter to show that someone comfortably lived there- piles of fashion magazines on the coffee table, DVDs stacked on shelves next to the TV, various photographs and trinkets on most horizontal surfaces. It was homey and Tiffany had a good feeling about it.    “It’s really nice,” she said, looking around as Jessica closed the door behind her, “It’s bigger than I expected.”    “I’m glad that you like it,” Jessica smiled, leading the way to the kitchen which was also mostly white with new looking stainless steel appliances, “This is the kitchen. Obviously.” She giggled and Tiffany found herself smiling in response.    “This is twice the size of my kitchen now,” Tiffany marveled, running her fingers along the brushed steel of the handle of the refrigerator.    “Follow me and I’ll show you what would be your bedroom,” Jessica instructed, walking over to a closed door and opening it to reveal another all white room with just a bed frame, mattress, and dresser in it, “It isn’t very exciting now,” she admitted, “But you can do whatever you want with it.”    “I have lots of posters,” Tiffany supplied, feeling stupid as soon as the words had come out of her mouth- she sounded like an eight year old! But Jessica didn’t seem bothered, just ushering her out and leading the way to her bedroom.    Tiffany immediately noticed that the other girl’s room was the only room in the apartment not white- instead the walls were painted a charcoal grey and the drapes were a deep pink, the same pink as her bedding which was covered in a vintage looking floral print. But it was the fact that the drapes were drawn that made the room so dark in comparison, not the color scheme.    “This room is the same size as the other one,” Jessica was saying, “So it’s obviously possible to make it look more like a bedroom and less like a hospital room,” she joked.    “It looks good,” Tiffany nodded, noting with some relief that there were posters- prints from vintage Vogue magazines, but still- on the wall.    “So do you think you’d be interested in renting the room?” Jessica asked, “I don’t mean to pressure you or anything,” she quickly added, “If you want to go home to think first, that’s fine. But if you are, we can talk about it now. There are probably a few things that we should go over before you decide if you want to sign anything.”    Tiffany paused, considering her options. Although she’d been wary coming in, this was just what she’d been looking for. In fact, it was better than what she’d expected to be able to find. It was spacious, aesthetically pleasing, close to her college, in a safe area… Plus, Jessica didn’t seem to be a creep. All in all, it was safe to say that she wouldn’t find a better place even if she had a year to look.    “I’m interested,” she smiled, seeing Jessica’s face break out into a grin in response.    “Alright, let’s sit go sit on the couch and talk about payment then.”---    Tiffany walked back to her current apartment in a daze. That…had not been what she’d been expecting. She almost wanted to congratulate herself for having the instinct that it was too good to be true. But was it really? The reality of the situation wasn’t…that bad. Or maybe it was.    Tiffany shivered as she recalled what Jessica had said to her- those three words that had made her heart nearly stop with shock and, quite frankly, panic: I’m a vampire.    It’s not that Tiffany hadn’t known that vampires existed. Of course she had- she’d learned about them in school and how they weren’t something to be feared since the government had come up with a safe way to manage them and allow them to eat without any humans being harmed in the process. But that had been a long time ago and it had never affected her life so she’d barely given it a second thought. Now though…    Tiffany tried to recall what exactly she’d learned about vampires. She knew that most of them lived in government run facilities where every citizen eventually had to go and be fed off of. According to her teachers, the vampires would get to choose from a group of humans and then they’d feed off their choice before the person was allowed to go back to their daily life no different than before they’d gone in. And while that sounded pretty terrifying, even if it was something that everyone had to go through, Tiffany hadn’t given it much thought. She hadn’t yet been summoned and it kind of felt like one of those things that happen to other people and wouldn’t happen to her, even if she knew that it would eventually.    She also recalled the teachers saying that some vampires found other means of acquiring a food source if they had someone willing to let them feed, but that they shouldn’t worry because every vampire had to register with the government so they were kept track of. Though the teachers never went into much detail on that.    Now, however, Tiffany had a really good idea of how those vampires who chose not to live in the government buildings managed to survive.    “You’re probably wondering why the rent is so cheap,” Jessica had said, suddenly looking a bit nervous.    Tiffany had nodded.    “Well, I offer to pay more than my half of the rent in exchange for a favor from whoever moves in here,” she’d said, “You see, I’m a vampire.”    At that point, Tiffany was fairly positive that she wasn’t breathing. She felt like her heart was no longer beating and that her blood had frozen in her veins. Which was quite ironic, honestly. Part of her wanted to jump up off the couch and run home without looking back, though it seemed that she was too shocked to actually manage this. But another part of her reassured her that it didn’t seem that she was in any danger-