Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of the characters in it

Chapter 1- The Awakening

Trees, trees and outlines of more trees loomed the distance at which Gracie could see. She spun around slowly, taking in her surroundings. Her brow furrowed in confusion. Where was she?

Gracie took a few steps and stopped abruptly. She decided to retrace her steps. "Yes…" she said aloud to herself, agreeing. She thought back, and the last thing she could remember was pain. Horrible, excruciating pain. She shuddered at the thought. She never really did have a high pain tolerance.

She remembered back to when her and her best friend, Jewel, had one of their friends pierce their eat cartilage. Gracie, of course, went first. She was the braver of the two. She remembered the pain as the girl, Tally, shoved the not so sharp earring through her poor, tiny ear. She ran her finger over the other ear piercings that resulted after that. Absolutely none were done professionally, that was their rule, stupid as it may be.

Gracie shook her head; she needed to focus on where she was.

Suddenly, she heard a sound, a loud crack almost, thunder maybe, and people laughing and cheering. She took off to the sound. Not noticing the blur of trees whizzing by her, the fact that she'd never been able to sprint so fast didn't even cross her mind.

She slammed to a halt when she reached a clearing. Stopping so fast made her lose her balance, and topple over. She rose quickly, wondering why her fall didn't hurt in the slightest. She looked forward and saw eight pairs of eyes staring wondrously at her.

"Um, hello." Gracie said awkwardly. She was normally an outgoing person, but not so much when you had eight random strangers staring at you. She walked towards them.

"Who are you?" a man who looked to be around twenty-eight asked her stepping forward.

Gracie finally reached them all and stopped. She eyed each one individually. They were all ghostly pale, but it somehow worked for them. They were all beautiful. The farthest one on the right had shoulder length, wavy, dark brown hair.

"Bella." Gracie said aloud. The girl looked taken aback. How had she known her name? "Oh," Gracie said, her eyes widening when she realized she hadn't answered the gorgeous mans question. "I'm not Bella. I mean, obviously, my name is Gracelyn Ashburry…" She stopped. She couldn't remember her last name. "Gracelyn Ashburry…" she tried again, no luck. She sighed. "I can't remember my last name." she said softly. Her bright eyes dimming and lowering.

"Are you a vampire?" the hot blonde man asked, eyeing her with pity.

"A what?" Gracie asked incredulously, her eyes wide and bright again, with astonishment. And she was worried that she was the weird one. That made the boy next to the girl named Bella laugh.

Gracie looked at him rudely. "It's not polite to laugh at someone when you just met them," eyeing him coldly. Then her infuriated expression turned to one of shock. "How'd you know what I was thinking, Edward?"

"How did you know that my name was Edward?" he said defiantly.

"It's rude to answer a question with a question." Gracie said nonchalantly.

"Welcome to my world." Bella said playfully, looking at Edward the way people only looked at each other in movies, when they were getting paid huge amounts of cash, and even then not that intensely. They had to be in love. "Aw." Gracie said. Then she threw her hand over her mouth. "Stop that…" she whined to herself out loud.

All eight of them eyed her curiously, as if she were a freak: something she resented being called. She couldn't remember a time in which she never felt like an outcast. Gracie was much in tuned to people's feelings. Almost like she could tell what they wanted, but never to this extensive level. She cleared her head quickly and noticed they were all still staring. 'I'm not a fucking circus freak…' Gracie thought to herself. Edward laughed again.

The older, yet still sexy, man stole a quick glance at Edward, who also was amazingly handsome, he nodded slightly. One never would have noticed it if they weren't paying extremely close attention. The man's eyes soften and he stepped closer to Gracie.

"Gracelyn," he started.

"Gracie." Edward corrected. Gracie gave him an odd look, cocking her head to one side. He laughed again.

"Gracie, would you mind coming back to our house to talk? I'm Carlisle by the way, this is my wife, Esme." he motioned to a beautiful woman with wavy auburn hair. She smiled at her sincerely. She wanted Gracie to join their family.

'What the fuck…' Gracie thought. It was an affectionate gesture, really, but she'd never actually been wanted by a family before. It was, different. Edward smiled at her warmly.

"This is Alice and Jasper." Carlisle continued, gesturing to a cute, pixie like girl and a rugged, scruffy, also cute boy. The girl was excited about having a new sister, who loved shopping, and the boy was happy simply because Alice was. 'How cute!' Gracie thought smiling to herself. They must be in love too.

"Emmett and Rosalie." A perfectly built boy with kind eyes, and the prettiest girl Gracie had ever seen. Both wanted to know more about Gracie, and why Carlisle had invited her back.

"And you know Edward and Bella." Carlisle finished. Edward stared intensely at her wondering how she came to be. 'What an odd question to think…' Gracie thought to herself, which made Edward, again, laugh. Gracie then turned her attention towards Bella, who gave her a shy smile and she then looked up at Edward, dying to know what he was thinking. "Apparently, I'm funny." Gracie said answering Bella's question and crossing her arms. This made both Edward and Emmett bust into hysterics. The blonde, Rosalie rolled her eyes at them and walked over to Gracie. More like glided though, Gracie had never before seen anyone as graceful as this Rosalie.

"Come on, let's go to the house." Rosalie said kindly. Alice popped up and took Gracie's hand, and suddenly they all took off, trees whizzing by.