This is a REWRITE of "Just Beyond My Reach, My Assassin"
which, yes, I give myself permission to do so.

-So, I realized that my fanfiction could use a few tweaks here and there. And since I'm bored in college (God forbid that I don't party), I decided to start a project to basically...well, rewrite my fanfiction. Why try to fix something that's not broken? Because I started writing that fanfiction back in sophomore year of high school. I think I can update it a wee bit.

-I plan to make things run a bit smoother in this version—maybe answer a few unanswered questions. Now that I know how the whole story is going to happen, I can write it easier and better.

-I'd like to thank all of those who have supported the old Story and I appreciate you for looking this one over! If you're new to this story, WELCOME! :3

-Like I have pointed out in the older version, this story is not your average "girl falls into game" story. Please give it a chance! I hope the writing is more appealing this time through!

Chapter 1

Impossibilities

Tad was turning 18. It was strange to consider that we were all growing up so fast all of a sudden. Somehow, I felt like the years had passed by far too quickly. And things had changed. High school had put us through hell and back, our friendships torn and worn from the wear of time. It was strange to even consider that Tad wanted us to hang out for his birthday—he had plenty of other friends. But, perhaps he too felt the strange slip of reality and was trying to grasp a hold of a past that had long passed.

I sat in the passenger side of Natalee's car, my best friend driving me across the valley we lived in to go to this party. Devin, Libby, and Mitchell sat in the back, all of us planning on going and sitting with Tad one last time. Life was going to change so fast, just like the fall was changing to winter. Change was hard. I never liked it.

The party was sad, almost as if it were a goodbye to the childhood we were all so close to losing. We ate ice cream and watched a movie. As the sun set against the mountains, Tad pulled out Rock Band so we could all join in and play together.

One or two songs into the game, Tad answered his phone and quickly agreed to something over the line, setting down his guitar.

"That was Nick," he mused, looking up at us. "He's throwing a party over at his house—we all in?"

I glanced at my friends. I wasn't much for drinking—it caused problems. I had always known that, it seemed, like I had learned a lesson far in my memories. The rest of them all reluctantly agreed, shuffling towards the door. I stood a moment, seeing everything suddenly slipping through my hold, like broken glass falling from the window sill. As I stepped towards the door, I looked back over my shoulder at the couches, TV, and the abandoned video game—looked back at my innocence, my childhood.

Couldn't we play this game forever? Never leave? Never have to say goodbye and make any other decisions than what song to play?

Among the game cases that lay scattered, abandoned on the floor, I saw the familiar red and white title, "Assassin's Creed II", the game that both Tad and I had been in love with years before. I wasn't entirely sure why I loved it so much—the story line intrigued me, although I knew deep inside it had been tweaked and morphed into a total facade. A facade of what, I'm not entirely sure. Wouldn't we rather play that game? Kill some people? Live in some other life for a while, in make-believe?

"Kay? C'mon, let's go," Natalee called to me from the front door.

I looked up at her, away from the games.

Please don't let it fall out of my reach.

My sight went blurry, like tears had filled my eyes, so I blinked to try and hold them back, but instead, I found myself crumpling under my own weight, falling to my hands and knees. My mind was suddenly reeling and a sharp bolt of pain ran down my spine, making me gasp out in protest. My consciousness fluttered like an old film; soon, I couldn't concentrate on anything. Before I knew it, I was out.

Strange images flooded to my senses, some I couldn't even comprehend. It hurt to see them, like it tore a hole in my heart every moment they floated before me.

No.

Stop.

I don't want to remember.

Not now. Not ever.

Stop.

My eyes fluttered open.

I was laying flat on my back, staring up into a dusty ceiling, where a huge hole was allowing sunlight to stream in and land on my face. Small dust motes floated about, sparkling in charming glitters in the buttery light. Gazing about in my limited position, I saw that I seemed to be in an abandoned house, the room all empty except for a few broken crates and chairs, along with broken beams up towards the ceiling. Through the jagged hole, I saw a flock of birds fly by in the light blue sky, and everything seemed to flood over me then. The smell of foul waste and trash came to me, and I nearly gagged. Voices floated through the hole in the ceiling, some lost, foreign words that I couldn't quite understand. As if the thought triggered to fix a glitch in my brain, I suddenly could understand the words, and realized that it was Italian.

What was I doing here? What happened?

...Who was I?

My own name was foreign—I couldn't quite remember it.

I shifted, sitting up as I rubbed my head. An aching pound resonated at the back of my skull, telling me I had whacked it against something. Humming under my breath, I pushed myself so that I was standing up, gazing about more intently. Something caught my attention. I was sitting in a pile of broken tiles and wood. Had I been the one to crash through the roof and make that hole? I was wearing a dress—a summer dress, so the fabric was much lighter and was a deep blue. The skirt was covered in a thin layer of dust, and I brushed ineffectively at it, trying to make it look a little bit better.

Through the hole in the ceiling, I heard loud, angry voices, footsteps running across the roof. I jerked my head up, staring up through it to try and see what was happening. Some form of fear knotted in the pit of my stomach as I waited. When a mans face appeared through the hole, I took in his features, his harsh, dark eyes, deep frown, and nearly shook in fear. He was going to kill me—I didn't know how I knew, but I did.

Gathering my skirts into my hands, I looked for the nearest exit. There was a door across the way that was nearly falling off of its hinges. I bolted towards it, pushing it open more so I could squeeze through. At my push, the door creaked loudly and its rusty hinges snapped, the door falling backwards into the empty room. I squeaked, barely dodging the heavy piece of wood before it dropped loudly to the ground, making dust erupt under its fall as it banged loudly against the floor. I couldn't give it any more consideration. Stepping over the door, I began to run down the nearly empty street. As I reached a good thirty yards away, I heard a man scream "There she is!". I looked back over my shoulder, seeing three men—the one I had seen before, another who looked very similar to the first, and another who wore something akin to a headdress and I couldn't make out his features—jumping off of the building I had just been in. The fall seemed like nothing to them, and they were standing upright once again, running straight at me.

Fear took a firm hold of my heart, thrumming it loudly inside of my chest as I looked forward and continued to run harder than I had before. Why were they chasing me? Why did they want to kill me? No. No, they weren't going to kill me. But I had a sickening feeling that it was something far, far worse than death.

As I ran, I began to find more and more people around, standing at stalls and walking by. Perhaps if I could find a big enough crowd, I could lose myself within and get the men off of my back. The rhythm of my feet pounding against the stone path below me, my eyes darted across the tall buildings and alleyways to try and find a perfect get away.

I turned my head to gaze back over my shoulder. One of the men was right behind me, reaching out to grab my shoulder. I cried out, and bolted to my right, dodging his grab as I ran down an alley way, squeezing through the narrow path as I climbed up and over the boxes. Watching over my shoulder, the men seemed to have no trouble of simply jumping over the obstacles, their athletic skill so much higher than mine. I wasn't going to be able to get away, was I?

When I gazed back forward, I saw a crowd gathering at the end of the alleyway, excited voices humming in a low tone, though I couldn't make out any of the single words. I saw it more as an opportunity to get away, so I ran a little bit harder, pushing into the crowd. As soon as I was in the swarm of bodies, I began to duck and weave around people, trying so hard to remain undetected. I made sure I took weird, jagged paths so that the men chasing me couldn't follow so easily. After I traveled through the excited crowd, I found myself standing next to a very tall man, who didn't even notice me, his eyes locked on whatever was in front of him and the crowd. I hid by him, my tiny body hiding perfectly behind his. I held my breath, hoping silently that I wouldn't be found.

"What's going on?" a man next to the tall man asked."Un'altra lotta? (Another fight?)"

"They're all idiots! Spero che siano puniti dalle guardie! (I hope they're punished by the guards!)" The tall man responded, gruffly grunting and folding his arms.

I must have taken note of the conversation to try and keep myself from panicking, my heart still racing fast from the run. In a sudden split second, the crowd shifted awkwardly, and then every one had turned and was leaving. My hiding spot disappeared in the flow of the crowd, and I was nearly swept away. I pushed against the crowd, know that if I followed them, it would be the end of me. I had to get out of here as soon as possible.

Finally, I broke free from the crowd, finding myself standing at the edge of a bridge. On the stone bridge were several people, all on heaps on the ground, groaning and clutching at their stomachs. The few closest to me had bloodied noses and swollen lips, a fight having really just taken place. My attention was brought back to the middle of the bridge, where a man actually stood. He held another man by the collar, spitting in the unconscious man's face, before throwing him aside. The standing man was tall, lean, a young man, maybe around eighteen or nineteen. His face was strong, and his hair was dark, pulled back into a low ponytail with a red ribbon. Maybe I made a noise, or moved a little bit, but something drew the attention of the man towards me, his eyes landing on me. He had the most beautiful golden eyes, almost like an eagle's gaze. There was blood on the right side of his face, a gash running through his lips that bled down his chin, dripping down onto the white collar of his shirt.

In that moment, I knew I could trust him. There was something...eerily familiar about him. Something that told me he was my friend.

Then I heard the men pursuing me call out again, and I quickly looked back over my shoulder. With the crowd gone, they had easily found me. One was swinging a cloth around, something weighted at the end of it. Fear ran through me, and I quickly ran forward, prepared to run once again. I made eye contact with the dark haired man again as I took one, two, three steps away, before something whacked into the back of my head, making my consciousness scatter, and I was down, falling to the stone bridge, becoming something akin to the beat up men all about me.

It was sad to say, but out of all the things I didn't remember or know about myself, I knew it would all be over far too soon.

My mind fell into nothingness.

Okay! So rewritten chapter one is done and over with! I decided this time through, I'm not going to do the whole "chapter zero" thing because that caused some problems along the way.

I hope that this time through some things will make more sense and will flow better. The first time through when I wrote JBMRMA, I didn't really have a plot in the beginning—that came much further down the road, so things were a little...weird. That's the awesome thing about finishing a story—you figure out all these ways that you can write it better. I tried to make this one sound more mysterious, giving more questions in the beginning and everything. Maybe my writing has gotten more crap than it was before...if so, I apologize.

I didn't want to spend too much time on the beginning with all the friends. I wanted to emphasize that she was scared about losing her past, which is basically the main point of this entire story.

I'm in College, as I said before, so don't expect these to come so...well, swiftly. I haven't gotten much homework yet, so I will probably be loaded here in a few weeks.

Thanks for reading and please review! :)