A/N Sooo, this is my first chapter fic. Hopefully it turns out pretty good...

Review? :DDD

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End

Fire. Raining fire. Running, out of breath, had to get away…

Screams. Who was screaming? Didn't matter, keep running. Don'tStopDon'tStopDon'tStop…

Falling. Blackness. Cold, so cold, always cold… More screams; were those her screams?

"You can run, but I'll always find you Max. I'll always find you."

"Max…"

"Max!"

"MAX!"

Max sat bolt upright, her screams dying down into gasping sobs. "No no no…"

A warm, caring, worried voice shook her from her terror. "Max, look at me. You can do it. Stop hyperventilating, breathe, just breathe. In, out. In… Out…

Inhale… Exhale. She was okay. No more running… But why had she been running?

No, don't think about that. "I'm okay," she whispered, more for her own benefit than her mother's. She hiccupped, and then spoke again, louder this time. "I'm okay, Mom. Really."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Her mom asked. Worry marred her face. It made her look older than her thirty-nine years.

Max shook her head, hiccupping again. "No. I can't remember it." She never could.

"Well, okay. Do you think you can sleep again, or do you want to get some hot chocolate or something?"

"I want to go back to sleep. Thanks, though."

Her mother nodded her head, looking slightly relieved that she was allowed to go back to bed. "Alright. In that case, I'm going back to bed. You're sure you're fine?"

Max nodded her head, then tilted her head up as her mother kissed her cheek. "Goodnight. Sleep tight."

Max smiled at the old phrase, and then finished it. "Don't let the bed bugs bite."

Her mom left, and Max turned over on her side, sighing. She wished that she could remember her nightmares. She always had a feeling of importance, almost urgency, after she woke up from one of them. Almost as though there was something she needed to do, something the dream was supposed to tell her.

This dream was different though. She hadn't wanted to say anything to her mom, mostly because she hadn't quite figured it out herself, but she remembered something from the dream this time.

A man's voice. Deep, silky, evil.

Familiar.

Her body went cold with fear as she remembered what the voice had said to her.

"I'll always find you, Max."

She took a deep breath and shook her head, trying to shut out the words echoing in her mind.

"Always find you."

"Find you…"

Beep! Beep! BEEP! BEEP!

Fang smacked the alarm clock off his nightstand and across his room, where it smashed into the wall, effectively turning it off.

Whoops. He dragged himself off of his bed and over the the shattered alarm clock, bending over to begin picking up the pieces, hoping to be able to toss them out and buy a new one before his foster mother noticed it. This was his third one just this week, a new record for him, and Mrs. Allgood would kill him if-

The door burst open and smacked into the wall with a loud thud! Fang jumped up from the floor and put his innocent face on. Crap, crap, crap…

"ALEX!" Yep. That was what death sounded like. "Did you break your alarm clock again?"

Would you believe me if I said no? And why do you have to use my real name? Fang looked down at the obviously broken alarm clock all over the floor and then back up at his foster mother for almost three months. He shook his head innocently.

"Really. Then what, pray tell, happened to it? Did the mischievous fairies of alarm clocks break it?"

Seriously, where does she get this stuff? He shrugged, staring at the clock. She knew he had broken it. Why didn't she just get on with the punishing part of this discussion?

Mrs. Allgood sighed and shook her head. "Honestly Alex. That's the seventh one you've

managed to break since you got here! I'm not buying you a new one. You'll have to come up with the money yourself."

Fang just shrugged again.

"Oh, for heaven's sake. Get ready for school; we're leaving in forty-five minutes. And do try to be a little communicative, alright?"

Fang stared at the wall behind her until she finally shook her head sadly and closed the door. Try to be communicative? Him? That was almost funny.

Yes, he was mute. Not because he couldn't speak physically, but because he couldn't seem to force words past his lips. It was like there was a mental block in his mind. He thought about the last time he spoken, made any noise at all.

'"No! Mom! MOM! MOMMY! Please!" Alex screamed, his voice echoing off the too-white walls. A nurse moved towards him, to stop him from doing anything rash. The screams and sobs coming from the little boy broke her heart.'

He shuddered and shook his violently, trying to dispel the images from his mind. Time to focus on the task at hand.

He hated school. With every molecule in his body. Not because he didn't like learning, he actually liked that part somewhat. He didn't like being the new kid, which he usually was. More than that, even, he didn't like the constant stares and whispers of the kids around him, talking about "the poor kid who can't speak and has no family" or, his favorite, "the stupid kid who can't speak and whose family left him for dead."

In his sixteen years of life (that's right, he was legally able to drive now. Watch out-where was he now? Oh yeah-Denver, Colorado!), he'd managed to be passed around to five different foster homes. His record for his longest stay in any one of them was almost two years. That was his first foster home, when he was nine years old and still a cute little kid. Fang had actually liked it there, even –dare he say it?- loved it. That was before his foster parents found out that they were pregnant. Long story short, they had shipped him off to a new home, and he'd learned a valuable lesson: don't get attached.

Getting attached meant caring, and caring meant, inevitably, he would get hurt.

In his next foster home, he got kicked out for biting one of the other kids. Well, not just that, but it was the "last straw," as they had put it. In his defense, Fang was smaller than the other kid-Zeke, if he remembered correctly-, and the guy had been messing with him.

"Jeez, you've got some fangs attached to you, don'tcha?" Zeke had said. They had branded him with the nickname "Fang" after that, and it just sort of stuck.

The adoption agency told him that he was one of the luckier ones. He could remember his parents, could remember just how beautiful his mother had been and how much he'd loved her. He could remember his dad pushing him on the swing set behind his house, wrestling with him on the carpeted floor of the living room.

Fang wasn't lucky, though. He was cursed. Cursed with memories, nightmares… You don't just "get over" watching your parents die right in front of you.

It would be better if he couldn't remember anything.

He slunk over to his-the-dresser and pulled out some of the clothes that had been bought for him. He took one look at the shirts and immediately closed the drawer. Yuck. Yellow? Pea-green? Orange? They were trying to dress him like a rainbow!

He pulled his own duffel bag out from under the bed and pulled out his favorite T-Shirt; just a regular black one, nothing fancy. The jeans Mrs. Allgood had bought for him were all right, though he would have liked them a little looser.

Fang sighed and began preparing himself for his first day as a Junior. Look out, world.

So, first chapter! What'd you guys think? Didja like it? Hate it? Love it?

Tell me in a review :D

Constructive criticism is always welcome, but please, flames are not appreciated.