Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, Stephenie Meyer does. I only own my original characters.

Note (February 2015): The entire story has just been fully re-edited. I hope I didn't accidentally delete someone's favorite part or something, but I really felt like there were a lot of flaws to the story and therefore changed rather a lot. The beginning scene, for instance. I haven't changed the major plot points, though, so no worries. Happy reading!

Prologue

It was a last period on a Thursday, and the class' attention span had reached a new low.

While the history teacher, a conservative man in his mid-fifties by the name of Mr. Devinton, desperately tried to coax his students back into a quiet state, chaos was all around. Paper planes polluted the thick air, and some of the popular girls at the back of the room played on their smartphones, laughing artificially in an obnoxiously loud manner while their male counterparts turned their backs to the teacher, snickering loudly, a particularly trivial pop song playing in the background.

All in all, a day just like all its previous ones.

"Kids! Kids! Would you please listen just one last time-" the teacher began, but he was interrupted when Louïs, a tall, athletic boy with blond hair and strikingly empty eyes, threw a paper plane at him.

"Dude, I've got news for you: nobody cares!" he yelled across the room.

The two popular girls, Marlena and Alexis, exchanged their fake laughter for full-face grins. Laughter errupted from all sides of the classroom and I rested my head on the once white plastic table, staring out of the window in an attempt to tune out.

I hated them and their premature attitudes. I had had enough of it to last two lifetimes.

Mr Devinton, astonished as he was at Louïs' spontaneous outburst, quickly caught himself again and tried to somehow carry on with the lesson. Naturally, he was unsuccessful.

"Ever heard of living in the present?" Alexis demanded, a smirk on her lips. "Nobody gives a damn about what some dead people did ages ago. Except of dead girl, maybe. Obviously. But seriously. All we care about right now are the holidays."

Yes. The holidays. Only one more day, and I could exchange this hell for my own, personal one.

Oh, joy.

I turned my gaze back to the classroom. Mr Devinton was shooting Alexis an incredulous look, but she did not seem to mind in the least. Quite contrarily, she seemed to be boasting with pride.

"Young lady, watch your language. And your attitude. Another outburst like this and I will send you to the principal's office. Same applies to you, Louïs."

"Wow, well aren't I afraid now. What are you gonna do about it? I'm just telling the truth, that's it, and you're umcomfortable with it."

Alexis and Louïs were giving Marlena approving nods.

Mr Devinton's answer came instantaneously. "Leave the room, you three."

"We'll see about that," Louïs replied smugly. "I don't know about the others, but I'm not moving a single inch."

"Yeah! You can't drag us into the corridor, can you?"

"No," the teacher said, "But I can call your parents."

"Boohoo, aren't I scared now," Marlena commented. "It's not our fault that your lessons suck."

"I...I-" Mr Devinton desperately searched for an answer, yet even after several seconds of intense thought, he found none. Instead he sighed sadly, obviously as tired of this as I was, hiding his face behind his hands in exertion.

Smug looks appeared on the three's faces as they saw the defensive position they had managed to put their superior into.

I don't know what it was — if it was the hopeless situation Mr Devinton was in, Alexis' so called 'argumentation' or simply that in that one moment in time, I could see myself in my teacher's pained expression; all I knew was that then, there was only one word on my mind:

Enough.

"Just go," I said, feeling completely invincible in this one invincible second. "I know it might be hard to understand, but some people actually care about history."

I froze after the words had left my lips, now irrevocably spoken, realizing what dangerous situation I had put myself in. I gulped as I saw Alexis', Louïs' and Marlena's heads slowly turn towards me in anger.

"Who do you think you are, bitch?" Alexis broke the silence. "You're dead."

Ironic, I thought to myself. According to the nickname you have chosen for me, I already am.

Just as I was about to give her some sarcastic reply, the gong went off, rendering the lesson finished. Marlena and her gang hastily packed their supplies into their bags, all of a sudden overly zealous to exit the room.

Someone really had to explain the concept of irony to them.

Everybody else hastily followed after them as they entered the corridor, running off into the freedom of a planned break. Like wolves following their alphas, I thought and a smiled emerged my lips at the fitting comparison. Just as I was about to leave, too, the voice of my history teacher called me back.

"Ruby, is it?" I turned around and nodded.

"Yeah," I replied awkwardly. "Ruby Jasmyne Brown."

"Thanks, Ruby" he told me. "I know how hard it is at your age to stand up against the popular kiddos."

"Don't worry about it." I said. "It's not like I've got a reputation to lose, anyway. I've just been the weird outsider girl here for as long as I can remember."

"I'm sorry 'bout that."

I rolled my eyes. "Why do people always say they are sorry? It's hardly your fault, is it?"

He shook his head.

"I don't mind, anyway. It's not like I'd want to be friends with Alexis or Marlena."

Mr Devinton nodded sympathetically. "Enjoy your holidays, Ruby."

"Thank you," I smiled.

I waited until I was certain I couldn't hear their voices in the corridors before I left, closing the door behind me.

.oOXOo.

I let out a sigh of relief as I reached my room without running into any of the three people that were currently ruining my life, and even better — without finding them within it.

I let myself fall onto my metal-frame boarding school bed, letting out a content sigh. God knew where they were at the moment, but once they were finished doing what they were doing, the real terror would begin.

At least for the moment I was still safe.

.oOXOo.

Let me tell you my story. It is not a happy one, but it is mine. The story of Ruby Brown. The story of a girl that is so isolated, odd and obsessed with what was unrightfully taken from her that she is commonly referred to as dead girl.

I did not choose this name for myself. It was given to me. I detest it, both the name and its creator. But like all unfortunate things in my life, I did not have a say in it. This is how life is for me. I get dealt a bad deck of cards, and then I lay low so that it does not happen again.

But it never stops. It just keeps on happening and happening and happening, again and again and again.

Most recently at the start of this wretched school year. You see, by some twisted trick of fate, my home room teacher, Ms Witt, had assigned none other than the creator of my nickname herself, Marlena Canterbury, to share a room with me during the past school year. Why? I did not know to this day.

All I knew was that with that suggestion, Ms Witt had irreparably changed my life for the worse. Marlena, Alexis and Louïs had made it their goal for the year to terrorize my life as much as possible. And it didn't exactly make things better that I could not do a single thing, even in my own room, without Marlena's evil comments.

Oh, you think. So this is a bullying story. But no, my friend. That is only the tip of the iceberg.

Because, have you stopped to ask yourself why I was even worthy of being their victim in the first place? What qualified me for that position?

It was more often than usually, lately, that I replayed the memory that had changed my entire life for the worse. It had taken place over eight years ago, now, but I still remembered every little detail, every little sound. As if it was burned permanently into my mind.

.oOXOo.

I heard my sister take a deep breath. What was that for?, I wondered.

"Ruby, I..." she began, but she suddenly fell silent as there was a knocking sound in the background.

"Just a minute!" Amber yelled, her head turning away from the phone. I could barely hear her. "Now Ruby, I was going to say that-"

But she did not come any further. There was a loud, sudden sound, comparable to that of a door being kicked open. Everything went very quickly from then.

"F-ck" she whispered, and I grinned, imagining how Mom would scould her if she heard this.

"Ruby, I love you" she said, a tone of the utmost desperation in her voice. The grin faded immediately. Then the phone flew through the air, and, from the sound, crashed into a wall. Hard. I backed away for a second. The sound hurt my ears.

It was then, and eventhough the phone was no longer next to my ear, that the horrified scream of my beloved sister sent me into a state of panic and fear. It was like my most shocking nightmare had come true; only much, much worse. My sister was screaming in terror and I could not help her. In a dream, I could at least wake up. But this — this was reality.

"No! No...! Amber!" I screamed into the phone, tears streaming down my face. "Amber!"

A few seconds after the screams had started, they died down. Did she...? No. It simply could not be. I heard the faint sound of a door opening, then closing in the background. I let out a sob. They're gone. She's gone.

But I was mistaken.

A deep, husky-like voice pulled me from my thoughts.

"Your sister," it said with a sadistic tone to it, seemingly enjoying every word and the damage it was doing, "is as good as dead. Forget her. This conversation never happened."

Then the line went dead and I was left on the floor, sobbing.

.oOXOo.

Okay, you think. So this is a bullying story and I have a trauma from when I was a child. But sadly, that's still not quite it.

You see, when I had told my parents, they laughed at me. They thought I was telling them a story. I was in shock, devastated, frightened, freshly traumatized and so, so much more. But they did not buy it. I yelled at them, tears streaming down my face, insisting I had told the truth. But they did not believe me. And they did not until this day.

Here's why.

There had been no proof for my version of events. The unknown number that had called me had not been recorded by my phone. To Mom and Dad, this had only been proof that I had been lying. But I, I knew I had told the truth. It had just been too real, too vivid, too surprising for it to be a dream. Even if the evidence was against me.

No, I am not insane. No, I do not hear voices. Please believe me. Please hear me out, unlike everyone else. Please.

We had flown to Volterra the same day; the place were Amber had been scheduled to stay with her friend, Phoebe, who had been found murdered in the forest two days earlier, and the tour guide. Whoever it had been had obviously done a miraculous job of taking care of the girls. When we arrived, the tour guide was missing and nobody claimed to have seen an Amber Brown. Even the receptionist at the only hotel of the little Italian village had told us she had never seen her.

We had returned home empty-handed and Amber had been declared missing. Even then, Mom and Dad thought that what I had told them was nothing more than an attempt to gain their attention.

Obviously, I had changed after it had happened. I felt like my own parents had betrayed me, and I had grown not to trust people easily. I told myself that people were just like Amber or my parents; eventually, they would either leave or misunderstand me.

Yes, to answer your unspoken question, I was an incredibly stubborn child.

As a result of this philosophy, I did not even bother to talk to anybody for several years. After all, all they would do was hurt me, not?

Eventually, my parents worried enough to send me to a psychiatrist.

I did not talk to her, either. She had long, ginger curls and wore a pair of brown horn glasses. She convinced my parents that I had schizoid personality disorder and was simply not programmed to socialize.

I knew better, but nobody believed my words anyway.

Often, when I had enough of her diagnosis and its consequences, I talked to Mom and Dad, insisting that there had been a call and that I wanted, no, needed to talk to the police. Two years after the incident, they had enough of my begging and sent me to the police station. The chief had listened to my statement silently, nodding at intervals.

But when I had finished, he had asked the same question as my parents: Are you sure that this is what really happened, Ruby?

He did not believe me, either.

And this is where it gets complicated. Because one disagreement, however big it may be, can not possibly change a person's entire life for the worse, can it?

Yes it can.

Because, let me tell you, it never stopped. It carried on for years and years on end, with no side even halfway willing to give in. I said there was a call, my parents said there wasn't. My parents said there was no evidence, I replied that that was irrelevant. Imagine this, day after day, like a big fat metaphorical elephant in the room, disturbing the peace.

Nobody ever believed me.

Four years ago, at ten, my parents sent me away to the same boarding school they had sent my sister to— Southham Grammar School, a little boarding school a few kilometers south of London. The kids were fine, but I had not even tried to gain friends. All that mattered to me —now and then— was my sister, and what had happened to her.

In the summer holidays of my thirteenth year, I found Amber's diary in a drawer in her room. I took it to school with me in secret, knowing Mom would not approve. All these years, she has been quite the pessimist. The police has told us that we should not give up hope, that they were looking for her. After one year, though, Mom told us that Amber was most likely dead, and that we should get accustomed to the fact. Dad got accustomed to it just fine.

I never did.

Back at school, I read her diary and found how she was very like me, concerning her way of thinking and reacting to different situations. She was, too, logical, witty, but also shy and unpopular. And she had a friend — Phoebe Evans.

I never had a friend.

Over the lonely days I spent reading her diary, I told myself that she was my friend. Amber was simply so entirely alike me... and one day I would find her. She simply could not be dead.

And this is where, unfortunately, the different pieces of my story fall together, creating the irrevocable mess I live with to this day.

At that time, Alexis, Marlena and Louïs started bullying me because I was an outcast. At first, it was harmless and they, too, grew tired easily. I tried to ignore them — and at that time, I managed. Only that that peace did not last forever.

One day, volleyball practice was cancelled and Marlena and Alexis walked in on me. They took the journal from my hands, flipped through the pages and immediately recognized it for what it was; my dead sister's diary.

From that moment on, I was not known as Ruby anymore. I was now known as the dead girl, for talking to somebody who was probably already dead for all my classmates knew. For convenience, they shortened the dead girl to dead girl, or simply DG.

And this is the story of how, slowly yet inevitably, I grew to live up to my nickname.

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