~Chapter 1~

The first chilling wind of Autumn sent shivers racking throughout Sam's body. She ignored her parents' advice to wear a jacket; now she was paying the price. The breeze was crisp and cool, and quite refreshing. Even the scent of the air seemed to change. Falling leaves left traces of bright reds and yellows all around the trees from which they fell. Few of them were brown; it was only the beginning of the season, after all.

As she rounded a corner, she felt a strange sensation, as if someone was watching her. Figuring it was simply Danny trying to pull a prank on her, she shouted, "Danny, I know you're there!"

Only a few rustling leaves replied to her. If it wasn't Danny, maybe it was Tucker... "Tucker! Is that you?"

This time, not even the leaves would speak back. Nothing moved. It as as if the entire world was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen that, for once, wasn't its doing. The wind wouldn't blow, the leaves wouldn't budge, even the brick buildings seemed more lifeless than ever.

Not normally one to be scared by silence or stillness, the teen shrugged it off as nothing and continued walking down the sidewalk. A dead leaf was gently whisked up by a whistling gale. This caught her attention somewhat, but she didn't even glance in that direction. Instead, she put her hands behind her head and yawned, beat from a long day of school.

A twig snapping, however, ushered her to stop and look. There was nothing there. Only two insects crawling leisurely across the cream-colored pavement, probably to escape the frigid air.

She cast a cynical glance, her imagination starting to wander about, trying to distinguish what had caused the twig to break. Two insects surely couldn't have done it; it would've taken something alot heavier. Eventually, she thought nothing of it and assumed its weight had been too much for it to support.

She turned back around and resumed walking home.

But as soon as she was five feet away from the insects, a dark shadow loomed over her. It wasn't the shadow of tree, it was a person. A hand slapped itself over her mouth, preventing a scream from escaping.

Instinctively, her hand reached to try to pry the larger hand off. Fear and adrenaline started take over, and she kicked and struggled. An arm, one that didn't belong to the appendage covering her face, slipped itself around her stomach and she became physically restricted as a result.

A man's deep voice soon followed the actions, "Quit squirming, and I might let you live."

Ignoring the threat, she licked the man's palm and jerked her head sideways, her lips now slippery enough to escape. "DANNY!" she screamed.

Before the man's hand could manage to find its way over her mouth again, she bit down as hard as she could on his fingers, causing him to yell out in pain. His arm, by a lucky accident, let go of her to hold his near-bleeding fingers.

Sam wasted no time and tried to run, only to be tackled by the large man. The both of them fell down, but it was the man who scrambled to his feet first. He squeezed her shoulders so hard it hurt. The expression on his face told her he was infuriated.

"DANNY! DANNY! HELP!" she screamed, hoping he'd hear her.

"You're pretty stupid to call out for your friend. Look around you; no one's here. You're all alone." he said gruffly.

"DANNY!" she continued to scream. "HELP, DANNY!"

In an effort to stop her noise-making, he backed her up against the side of a building. The bricks used to build it were scraping against her skin, and this made any attempt of getting away painful and difficult.

However, she persisted and could only hope he was on his way, "DANNY!"

"Shut up!" he commanded. To prove he meant business, he used most of his weight and probably half of his strength the pull the goth down, scraping her back against the bricks.

Pinning her down, though not without difficulty due to her struggling, he climbed on top of her. Now she couldn't escape no matter how hard she tried. Unfortunately, the girl's pain wasn't over with.

Her screams could be heard throughout the entire vicinity. Sadly, no one was around to hear them. Her shrieks of pain went on for at least twenty whole minutes, and in that time only two people could hear the sound: Sam and the man who'd taken her captive. Not many people usually took the route she'd chosen to take, so it was highly unlikely anyone would hear anything.

It ended when the teenager spied a mistake, a weakness, in his form. He was on top of her, and he was surprisingly close to her face. Again, her teeth might save her. But she needed to time this right for it to work.

She waited an excruciating thirty more seconds, and then struck out. Her teeth drove into the man's neck, right where his voicebox was, and stayed there.

The man howled in agony and rushed to get off of his attacker. It was only when he stood up that the girl's enamel came out of his neck, leaving small but extremely painful wounds where they'd been.

Sam didn't hesitate to scramble to her feet, even though her insides felt like twenty-five butcher knives were taking turns stabbing her lower abdomen. Right now, all that mattered to her was making it out alive.

She proceeded to run at top speed. Her house should be just around the corner, so...

In juat a minute, she stood in front of her fumbling with the house keys. It was a good thing her parents were out of town for a few days; if they learned what just happened to her...

A click brought her out of her thoughts. The door opened and she burst inside, slamming the door shut again and locking it.

Then she shrunk to the floor and began weeping. Her mind replayed all the events that had just occurred. It had happened so fast, but it was so painful. Like a blurry nightmare, she'd been taken advantage of. Never would she have thought this would happen to her, but it did. And it was shocking that an offender lurked so close to her, and all the while she hadn't realized...

These things happened every day on the News, so one became desensitized to them. But what people failed to understand was that these things could happen to them in a flash. This was the realization that had just hit her.

A/N

Okay, so that was the first chapter. I'm hoping for five reviews, but less is fine. However, please! If you liked the story, review. People look at the number of reviews a story receives and often judge it based on that. If it's good, it'll have a good number of reviews, if it's bad, it'll have a bad number. So if you think the story was good, review. Tell me what you think could be improved. Tell me what you liked and disliked. And, of course, I'm always open to ideas for the next chapter! Also, it's fair to tell you that I may discontinue this story if it can't bring in many reviews.

The reason this chapter was so short was because it was a prologue. Prologues aren't usually very long; mine's no exception. But rest assured, other chapters (starting with the next one) will be much longer. Probably by another two thousand words. (this one was only one thousand words long)