A/N: Yes, I know I seemed to have fallen off the face of Fanfiction (maybe even the face of the Earth) for a while but, now I'm posting something new (which I probably shouldn't do, since I have so many other things I have yet to update). The reason I haven't been able to update or post anything is because my internet is horrible and didn't work for like... forever. :P Anyway, it's working now, and I am able to post stuff. Plus, I had state testing (although that was like a week ago) and it stopped me from writing in the middle of class. This is a lame excuse. (I managed to include magical PopTarts into one of the responses :3 ) The main reason is my internet. I'm sure you don't want to read this rant, so I'll get to the point:
This story doesn't follow the plot of Cirque Du Freak at all (that I know of yet), although Vampire Mountain and the trials of Initiation will be included (A lot of people call them the Trials of Death, but they are wrong. It's the Trials of Initiation, people!). If you have any suggestions, feel free to tell me, (although I have a lot of chapters already written out. Up to ten actually, but there will be a lot more) and if the main character (Felicity) is very Mary-Sue, please, for the love of Vancha, just tell me in a simple review or PM. (I worked too hard on this for it to receive flames.) The same applies for if any of the characters are OOC. (I really hope Felicity isn't Mary-Sue. Her personality describes my personality a bit, so that would mean I'm Mary-Sue... But this doesn't completely describe me. I do not look the same as Felicity, and not all of the things that happen to her have happened to me, but a few of them have. Most of them on the bullying part.) Thank you, come again. :) *bows*

WARNING: This FanFic may seem slightly sad and depressing. I hope that is okay. It gets happier as it progresses.

Disclaimer: I do not own Cirque Du Freak. Neither do you. Unless you are Darren Shan, but I'm pretty sure you aren't. But if you are Darren Shan... Why did Crepsley have to die! (Oh, yeah, this disclaimer has spoilers in it. :3)

Chapter One:

Felicity's POV

"None of your insults or jeers will get to me, you know. I have already grown accustom to them," I snarled as a group of girls decided to ridicule me about my weight. I wasn't fat. Two years ago, when I was twelve, I was. I had come a long way since then, and I wasn't as heavy. But I wasn't bone-thin either. I was right in the middle (maybe a little over, who cares?), but almost every other girl in the school was as thin as a twig, and being different never got you anywhere in that dreaded place.

My high school was the worst school in the district. Maybe the country. Maybe even the world. If only it were burned down to ash, the world would be a much happier place. Many kids in that school were smokers or drug-addicts, most of them only in the ranges of fourteen to eighteen years young, maybe older depending on who stayed back, which many did. A few of the older girls already had a baby on their hip, and hadn't even graduated from school yet.

School transfers weren't uncommon, I had lost a few friendships that way, but it never mattered to me. They were probably a lot happier that way, away from that school. Anywhere could have been better. I just wished I could have been like them, moved away when I had the chance.

See, I couldn't move away from my town. If I had, everything would fall apart. I lived just in that little place that was deserted, and none of the other schools were close enough to where I lived. And, we couldn't afford to move away. We could barely afford to live there!

Despite all that, I was sometimes surprisingly happy. Although it wasn't that surprising if you thought about it. I always tried to take everything lightly. If someone insulted me, as they often did, I ignored it, because I knew the things they were saying weren't true. I made the best of everything, as it's something you have to learn to do when you're in that kind of situation.

I was what some people would have called a "goodie-goodie". I was quiet, never speaking to anyone unless spoken to, if I could. I rarely got in trouble, and tried to avoid having to bash heads into lockers. Sometimes, it was unavoidable, but I tried, and that's what counts.

Ninety-eight percent of all people in that school had a rightful place. There were the jocks, the goth/emo people, the smart, sort of nerdy people, the weirdos that were popular anyway, and then snobs, who were the largest inhabitant in the school. Or shall I say infestation?

Some would say I was a natural born pessimist, but I thought I was more of a optimistic realist (if that was even possible). I hoped for the best but didn't think that a magical leprechaun would come to save us all. But if only one could...

"Oh, the fatty has a big vocabulary. You scare us with your big words," one of my verbal attackers said to me sarcastically.

"No, it's just that your vocabulary is so limited, that half the time, you can't comprehend anything." So, maybe, my word choice was a slight bit different than others'. But God gave me an intelligent mind, and I intended on using it to my advantage! I didn't think my vocabulary was all that big. That just goes to show how stupid people were at that school.

The girl apparently couldn't come up with anything after that and walked away, clicking her tongue in disgust. Oh how I wished to slam her head into the cold, already blood-stained, tile floor. That would lighten my mood.

This is what I had to go through. Especially in the girls' locker rooms, when I was changing into my gym clothes. Despite what everyone was saying about my weight and the moderate amount of flabbiness on my body, which was barely even noticeable anyway, I took my time changing. Because I didn't care. Because I knew that outer beauty was nothing. Inner beauty was where it counted. And, with all these people purposely ticking me off, I wasn't even beautiful on the inside. I was an ugly witch, prepared to rip their heads off!

I hated gym. Because I was a lazy person, I'll admit, or, at least I was lazy whenever I could be. I hated sports, although I fared pretty well in most of them. Especially dodge-ball. It was always easy for me. The only thing that made it worth while was being able to see my one and only true friend, the only one I thought I could trust, June.

June had been my friend since the first grade, and we formed an immediate friendship since the day we first met. We were inseparable. We were just like sisters, but with a stronger bond than I had with my real sisters, which I had three of. It was a if we were one person sometimes. If you thought of yourself best friends with someone, we thought of ourselves joined at the hip.

"Were they bothering you again, Felicity?" June asked me as we were walking laps around the field for gym.

"What do you think?" I retorted, sounding more curt than I had intended. I saw June's face sadden and immediately I frowned. "Sorry," I apologized. "I'm just getting fed up, is all."

"You don't mean to tell me they're actually getting to you, are you?" June asked, shocked, almost.

"No," I lied. The truth was, inside, I was ready to crawl into a hole and stay there, never to come out to face the world again. You could only handle so much before you'd snap, and I was almost at that point.

"June, I'm getting these laps over and done with. I'm running now." I started out down the field in a slow jog, then a faster gallop, then was speeding past everyone, but it wasn't before long that I got tired and lost my breath. I could run very fast, but not for very long. I just needed to learn how to control my breathing better.

I was hunched over, gasping for air. "Stupid asthma," I muttered, even though I didn't have asthma. I knew that, but I didn't want myself to think that it was my weight that was stopping me from running long distances.

A breeze came, blowing my long, soft, raven black hair around. The loose, bright orange and red leaves fell from the trees, and I reached out and tried to grab one. At this I failed the first time, but the second time, the leaf seemed to just land right in my hand.

It was a beautiful leaf, red, brown and orange, a little amount of green still there. I recalled when I was little, about four, I used to think that the trees would die in the fall, and that's why all of the leaves fell from the trees. I used to cry about that, then, in the spring when the leaves would come back, I would be overjoyed, I thought it was a miracle that the trees were so lively and green again. Then, ten years later when I was standing in a field at gym time, trying to catch my breath while examining a magnificent autumn leaf, I didn't believe in miracles.

I let the semi-dead leaf fall to the ground, and it landed in the soft, green grass. I decided not to run anymore, so I just walked. Everything around me looked blurry. I knew why. There was smudge on my glasses. I took them off my face and studied the lenses. They were completely clean. That's when I realized it was actually tears that were blurring my vision. I was crying at the memory of my younger years, when everything was a lot easier to deal with, and so much more simple.

I quickly blinked the tears away as a group of girls walked past and laughed and joked about me. As usual, I ignored them, but that same urge to trip them or cause bodily harm to them in any way came, and I resisted that urge. Hooray. I should have gotten a sparkly sticker.

They continued to throw insults at me and I started to sprint again, running away from everything. I couldn't take it anymore. I had enough insults for one day, more than necessary. I ran toward the woods surrounding the field, jumped over the fence and climbed a tree and stayed there. I didn't come down until I heard the sharp shriek of the gym coach's whistle as it blew, signaling the end of class.

I jumped out of the tree, bolted toward the rather short fence, hopped over it and ran into the school for the girls' locker room, not bothering to talk to anyone, not even June. If anyone noticed my absence while they were playing soccer, they didn't say anything to me about it.

In science, I got crumpled up paper balls thrown at me, and when Ellie was passing out the notebooks, she purposely chucked mine at my head. I expertly dodged it, as I was used to this happening. Sometimes, I wished she would be more spontaneous when it came around to what she threw at me and where she threw it.

Nobody talked to me the whole class, and for that I was thankful, because I knew it would only be insults if they did. We didn't have to pair up for a lab, or even discuss anything with each other. All we had to do was sit quietly and write notes on Darwin's theory of evolution, which I thought was a load of bull. I didn't know why people always bothered with the way things came to be. Couldn't they just accept that it happened, and that's that?

As I walked down the hall, more insults came my way, as well as random objects at my head. A boy, James, who was also picked on my a lot of people, looked at me knowingly. I was glad someone else knew what my pain was like, and I wasn't alone. There is no feeling worse than the feeling that you are alone.

At this I looked down and clutched my books tighter to my chest. When I couldn't see him any longer, I moved a lock of black hair out of my eyes. I always thought that people like us – James and I – could get along, become friends, but he didn't want to associate with me, in fear that it would make people pick on him more, if that was even possible. And it was. People could be mean.

I moved along swiftly down the halls, not realizing that I was nearly sprinting. "Got somewhere important to go?" I was stopped by a familiar voice. I was about to move around the person, or give a nasty comment back, but then I realized that it was June, and I calmed down. June was surrounded by her friends. Her very many, very popular, very skinny friends. June was one of the most popular girls in the school, and one of the skinniest, too. No one would think someone like her would hang around with someone like me, but June didn't care. She never judged a book by its cover, no matter how pathetic it looked.

Her haughty friends scoffed and walked away when they saw that June was talking to me. "No," I forced a weak chuckle. "Just want to get away from... it all."

June nodded. "Okay." June had never shown that she felt a giant amount of sympathy for me, even though I knew she was aching in her heart to drop-kick all those idiots that were picking on me, and calling me names, and throwing stuff at me. She knew that I would be offended, that it would make me think she believed I couldn't fight my own battles. I wouldn't let anyone help me, because I knew I could do it on my own. But, deep inside, I knew that was a lie.

We parted ways, and I was off to my second to last class, and my one and only favorite one, the class where I thought I could truly shine. Chorus. I thought– no, I knew I had a good singing voice, and I played the piano rather well. I hadn't taken lessons on singing or on piano. I taught myself, and practiced whenever I could.

The piano at the front of the massive room was desolate, so I sauntered over to it and sat myself down at the bench-seat. I began to play a tune that I taught myself to play, also composed myself. I usually wrote my own songs to play and sing.

I played a song that I wrote a few years before, when the teasing and jeering first began. I had never named it, just played it. It didn't have any words to it and it was a soft little melody. It was written a long time ago, but I think it was my best work.

"You aren't worthy of playing a song written by someone so much better than yourself," that same girl as in the locker room, Meredith said to me. I laughed. Inside my head at least.

"It's my song. I came up with it three years ago."

"Well, it's horrible anyway, so you should stop playing it before all of our ears start bleeding."

People are stupid. One, what Meredith said was the worst comeback in history, and two, I had stopped playing the song thirty seconds before. I got up and sat in a different seat on the risers, in the second of the four rows, the seventh seat to the right. Right in the middle. Just how I liked it.

"Good afternoon, class," came a man's voice. "Mrs. Mitchell is out on maternity leave for the next six months, and I will be your substitute for that time." He had a slight British accent, his voice was deep, and he talked a bit fast. His voice was slightly monotonous, but calming and smooth. The man was very tall, about six foot eight, and very thin, with a small waist and broad shoulders. He was wearing a red dress shirt tucked into black dress pants, and was wearing a black tie.

He was looking down at a document in front of him, so no one could see his face. The document was a music sheet. He put it on the piano and took a seat at the bench behind the piano and played a few melodious notes, going up and down the scale. He looked up and a smiled a wide, toothy grin. I gasped at what I saw.

He had a long, jagged scar running down the left side of his clean-shaved face, going from the corner of his mouth to his temple. His hair was bright orange, his eyes were a stunning jade color and his skin a unhealthy shade of white. I could recognize him anywhere. If I wasn't mistaken, that man was Larten Crepsley. Larten Crepsley, the vampire.

A/N: *Insert scary clap of thunder here* Now, who enjoyed that? Wasn't is so totally epic and unpredictable! That was sarcasm, my dear children. Now, do you see that button down there? It says review. You know what it means? Review. You know it wants to be pressed. Make the little button happy and just press the dang thing, write a few words, and click the other button. I promise, the world will not explode.