Disclaimer: Characters from the Twilight novels / movies are the property of Stephanie Meyer. All original characters are my property.

Also, I appreciate any and all reviews / proposed edits, so long as they are presented in a respectful manner. Thank you in advanced for your support and input.

Update 1 (7/28/12): Edited some verb tense and diction problems.


Chapter 1

Turn

The desk I sat at was gouged up with faint hints of writing on it. The smell told me that the janitor had tried some pretty strong chemicals to remove it. The door creaked open and "they" walked in. The Cullens. Well, two of the Cullens that is, Alice and Bella. Gorgeous, for sure, but strange. In fact, their entire family was strange; all six of them. The other four being Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, and Edward. The Cullens have to themselves and taken night classes since they moved here halfway through last semester. Alice and Bella strode past and took their seats behind me in the auditorium as I pulled out my textbook.

Art History was not exactly my first choice for a class, but it's required; though I'd much rather be sitting in one of my advanced engineering classes. A short, chubby lady with her hair up in a bun, sauntered in five minutes late. She stopped at the desk in the front of the classroom, dropped off her briefcase, and traded it for a clipboard. "Hello everyone. I trust you are all ready for tonight's lecture?" she exclaimed with controlled excitement. "Janet Appleyard?" Mrs. Klien called out. The girl two rows in front of me shot her hand into the air. "William Brant?" I lazily lifted my hand. "Eric Carver?" she continued going down her list, but I quickly faded out and began undoing the janitors attempts to clean the desk.

"We are going shopping downtown tomorrow night and that's that." I overheard Alice say with her quiet, pixie-like voice.

"I thought that you said I didn't have to go." Bella replied with outrage.

"No, I said you didn't have to go if you had something more important to do, and since there is nothing more important than shopping for a Fall wardrobe you're going."

Bella let out a sigh of resignation. So the Cullen's would be downtown tomorrow too, small world I thought to myself, but then again, we weren't exactly in the largest of towns. I quickly lost interest in their shopping plans and went back to pretending to pay attention to the class.

A couple hours later, the bell finally rang, much to my excitement. After gathering my things, I damn near sprinted out of the class. Nearly knocking down Jasper and Edward as I, practically, fell out of the classroom. "Sorry!" I choked out as I picked myself up and hurried off to the lunch room.

Even at night, the lunch room was packed and there were only a few open seats left; the Cullens' usual table and several right next to theirs. After grabbing my lunch, I sat at one of the open tables, alone, like usual. I pulled out my laptop and started working on my designs for a miniature particle accelerator for one of my other classes. It would work in theory, but I'm was still in the designing phase.

I heard the chairs behind me squeak against the floor, the Cullens had arrived. I glanced over as they sat down and noticed that they all had salads and a piece of fruit to eat. I wasn't sure if they were all on diets or just didn't really eat because I could never remember seeing them eat more than a bite or two out of their food.

"Hey Jasper, can you hand me a fork?" Edward asked his brother only a moment later. He dug into his salad, almost in response to my thought. Just another reason I found these people weird. I noticed Alice looking at me for a split second before she rose from her seat and walked out of the lunch room, with Edward and Bella soon to follow.

They didn't come back for the entire lunch break. After the bell rang the rest of them ran out so fast I barely caught it. Those Cullens just got stranger and stranger. I wondered why Alice left so suddenly. Did I do something? It would just be perfect if the Cullens thought I was the weird one. That could not be a good sign.

The next night, as I headed into a movie, I spotted the entirety of the Cullens heading into a store across the street together. I had never seen their parents before. At least that's who I was assuming the other two were because they looked so much alike. Mr. Cullen was apparently some sort of doctor at one of the local hospitals. Which is great because I thought his entire family suffered from some rare disease. They were all so pale and I couldn't figure out how no one else seemed to notice. "That's seven fifty please," the cashier announced, pulling me back to the task at hand.

I went to pull out my wallet. "One second." I patted myself down and came up empty. Where was it? I could have sworn I put it in my jacket pocket! The lady at the ticket counter's expression had begun to shift from happy to annoyed. "Sorry, I must have left my wallet in the car," I explained, then hurried off towards my car. I had parked several blocks away and while approaching a bend in the second alley, a muffled scream erupted from ahead.

I stopped dead in my tracks, certain that the screaming was coming from just around the corner. Slowly, the screaming faded out, leaving only the sound of someone shuffling around. I used my trembling hand to brace myself against the wall and carefully peered around the corner. As I poked my head out, I saw a knocked over dumpster, some trash, and someone's body lying on the ground. I wasn't sure if they were still alive, but it looked as though they had been mauled by some sort of animal. Before I could get a good look, a noise reverberated though the alley. My head snapped back behind the corner, eyes shut, in response. Was that person dead? What happened? And where did the thing that did that go?

Suddenly, the world was a blur as I was ripped around the corner. I let out a howl of pain, which my attacker quickly silenced with a hand. Glancing down, I saw a woman, her face buried in my neck. My hands struggled to rip her off of me. Her skin was hard as stone and no matter how hard I struggled she didn't budge an inch. My head started spinning. I could feel myself slowly losing consciousness. The strength in my limbs began to falter and my hands slowly lost their grip on my attacker's jacket and fell to my sides. The assailant was the only thing holding me up. We remained like this for a few moments when I caught the sound of someone crying out, "It's coming from over here. I can smell it!" The pressure on my neck was violently released.

My mugger vanished instantly. As I fell to the ground, my insides began to burn like someone had torn my chest open and forced a blow torch inside. I tried to scream, but my voice was broken and all that came out is a raspy, drawn out wheeze. My body twitched and convulsed in response to the overwhelming pain that I felt coursing through my veins.

"This one's dead," someone exclaimed as I attempted to open my eyes and see who it was. "Check the other one," the voice commanded. My body was quickly restrained and my head swiveled left, then right.

"He's been bitten. What should I do Carlisle?" a woman's voice questioned.

I felt another set of hands start moving my limbs around. Just call a damned ambulance! What are you... The heat in my chest was abruptly magnified one hundred fold, right where my heart should have been. Only now I was certain that my heart was nothing but a pile of ashes, consumed by the torturous fire that built in my chest. My body writhed in agony, forcing my spine to curve and my chest to rise. "Damn. The venom's reached his heart." Carlisle called out in frustration.

"What do you want to do with him Carlisle?" called another man.

"We'll take him home with us. Get the car."

"He's not our problem to take car of," another woman shot back at Carlisle with an irritated tone.

"He will need our help to understand what's happening to him, Rosalie. Besides, if we don't help him it can only mean trouble for us. Now get the car!" My body was lifted off the ground, into someone's arms, and a split second later the pain finally overcame my senses and I lost track of the world around me.