This is only short because it is an intro. Future chapters will be longer. This is Alice's POV and it follows her life from being hunted by James to meeting Carlisle and everything in between. PLEASE review—reviews are the only reason I continue to write.

DISCLAIMER: Anything relating to Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

PREFACE

Dark. It's such a small word for something so powerful, so overwhelming, so lonely.

The first time it happened I was thirteen. I was in the yard with Mercedes, one of my closest friends at the time. We were talking, laughing, and imagining what life would be like after the war ended.

"I'm going to buy so many candies that we'll be sick to our stomachs after eating them all." Mercedes smiled.

But there was a feeling tickling the back of my mind, and I realized that something strange was happening. And I suddenly knew that someone was about to fall out of the tree at the front of our house. Something whispered in a breathless voice "Cynthia." I realized it was my own.

"Mary?" Mercedes questioned.

But I was gone, recklessly pushing past the gate that enclosed our backyard. Cynthia was on the ground under the tree, lying on her back. "Mary! Help me—I fell…" Her eyes squinted shut with pain.

But that wasn't my greatest concern. What had happened? How had I known that she would fall? Something weird was happening.

I helped Cynthia to her feet and walked with her inside, Mercedes trailing behind. My father was fighting in the war, and my mother was never home during the day. She was always making calls during the day, wanting to keep up a good reputation for anyone worth any importance.

I wet a rag and wiped it over the scratches covering her arms and legs. "I think you'll be all right. Why don't you go rest in bed for a while?"

"I have to go, Mary, but I'll see you tomorrow at school, right?" Mercedes was frowning. She was probably wondering how I knew that Cynthia had fallen. I would tell her once I figured out what was going on myself.

After Mercedes had left, I took Cynthia upstairs and tucked her in underneath her quilt. I sat on my own bed as I pondered what had happened. And it was while I was wondering if it would happen again soon that a strand of thoughts penetrated the others: Rain. Tomorrow.

Somehow, I was able to know pieces of the future. I couldn't stop smiling. Maybe mother would pay more attention to me, now that I wasn't as boring as she had always thought.

I would tell her as soon as she came home, I decided. It was a horrible mistake to tell.

It's been years—I don't know how many—since the day I told that I was able to see things that would happen. At first, my mother had thought it was a new game. She had been annoyed that I was taking up her time. But I persistently tried to make her believe, predicting things that would soon happen.

Eventually, she had decided I was losing my mind. The day she told me that I would me sent to an asylum was one of the worst of my life. I remember the look of disgust on her face, the pools of tears in Cynthia's eyes, the warmth of the sun overtaking my senses…

I haven't seen light since. Dark is all that I've come to known.