Yay!!! Ch. 1 is up!!! As you can tell I'm gonna have Valerie involved and I'm gonna put her in the "Sarah" role in my little story. (If you want to know who Sarah is go watch the Crow.) Also, this chapter is going to center on her and how's life treating her. Don't worry Danny will have his own chapter and many others next time. I just wanted to introduce one of the main players.

I don't think I did this in the prologue but I have to say Danny Phantom and all related characters belong to Butch Hartman. I guess the cop sort of belongs to me. He's definitely based off the cop in the Crow. (holy crap! I forgot his name! The Crow hasn't been on cable in a while _ GAH!!!!) But with out further ado I give you Ch. 1 Reminiscent Crow of White Crow...

Enjoy... :}

Chapter 1

Reminiscent Crow

Valarie pulled back her frizzy black hair into a ponytail and slammed her fist onto her already cracked alarm clock. The cracks were from the other times she had to get up early for her job. A morning haze was spread across the sky making it seem like a lazy day. She climbed out of her creaky bed and slipped into her old bunny slippers. They were worn from wearing them almost every single day since her mother had gotten them for her for Christmas five Christmases ago. Though this was back when her mother was still alive and well. Unfortunately it would be the last Christmas they would spend as family ever. And to think that the Streets weren't as dangerous as they were today. Valerie would often try not to think about her mother's untimely death, but it would always somehow creep back into her subconscious. But this was no time for reminiscing about happier times, the African-American girl had to get ready for work.

She quickly showered and got dressed into her uniform. Valerie hated that uniform. Oh how she hated it. She hated it with a passion of three-thousand brightly burning suns. The dark-skinned teen had lost count on how many times she had wanted to torch it with a flamethrower. Her uniform consisted of black pants, a light blue visor, and an electric blue and lemon yellow button-down shirt, with a bright red name tag that screamed "HELLO MY NAME IS VALERIE GREY, HOW MAY I HELP YOU TODAY?!" Of course, this was the standard issue uniform given to regular employees at Nasty Burgers everywhere. Why someone would even think of designing something as awful as that, Valerie would never know. It's not like she had a choice in the matter anyway. This was the only way she could possibly even pay for college. Community college that is.

It wasn't because of her grades, it's just that her family didn't really have the money. Her family, being just her father and her. She couldn't even qualify for a scholarship, mostly because she barely had any extra-curricular activities. Valerie put on her white sneakers and walked by her father's room through the small, cramped hallway that connected her room with the equally as cramped kitchen/living room. When she arrived in the kitchen she found her father drinking a cup of coffee, and eating a danish.

"Morning Val." He mumbled a greeting to his eighteen year old daughter. If anyone had fallen on hard enough times it was the Grey family, especially Edmond Grey. Once, he was a high-paid security expert living happily with his wife and daughter in the wealthy part of town, but after his wife's drive-by murder, he had fallen into depression. Right after his wife's death, a security fiasco happened at Axiom, a weapons company that hired him to outfit them with the latest in security systems. But because of a little faulty wiring and because of a little heist organized by local gangsters, (low-level gangsters that is) a lot of money and advanced weaponry was lost. And Mr. Grey had lost his job and then had to move his young daughter to the cramped two-bedroom apartment in the slums that they now occupied. He was now an unimportant security guard with a low salary at warehouse by the bay.

"Morning Dad." Valerie answered back.

He watched his daughter pull out a cereal box from the creaking cupboard, and a bowl from another cupboard. Unfortunately after she grabbed the bowl, she closed the cupboard door and it fell from its hinges, dropping to the floor. Mr. Grey sighed and so did Valerie. She sat down at the unbalanced wooden table and poured herself some cereal, only getting up to get some milk from the fridge. Valerie started to pour some milk onto her cereal, but instead of a liquid coming out, disgusting solid chunks fell onto her cereal.

"Ugh! Oh great the milk's expired! I swear Jermaine at the 711 is marking the milk with earlier dates!" she exclaimed with disgust. "And it looks like I just lost my appetite…" she made a face at the revolting mess of milk chunks and cheerios.

"Why don't you have the rest of my danish, Pumpkin?" asked her father, "You need to eat something."

"Nah, I'm fine Dad. I'll eat something when I get to work. I'll sneak some fries on my break." Valerie assured her father.

"You know you should really eat something. Come on I got a pretty good tasting danish that I don't think I'll be able to finish." He tempted her with the flimsy pastry by waving it back and forth in front of her.

"Dad I told you I'll be fine, and anyway I lost my appetite from seeing that thing." She motioned to mess of a breakfast that was sitting in front of her. "I'll survive."

"But…"

"But nothing Dad, I'll survive until lunch. Look, its almost eight and I really need to get to work, so bye Dad," she got up from her seat, zipped up her black jacker and started to walk toward the door, "I'll see you later tonight…"

"Valerie!"

"What?!"

"Be careful, remember even though Devil's Night was yesterday, it's still dangerous out there." He spoke to his daughter in a serious tone. In Amity, the 30th of October was always called "Devil's Night". It was the night when criminal activity was at its highest and local gangsters would be running rampant throughout the city. Valerie looked at her father with a look of determination.

"Don't worry Dad. I WILL be fine." And with that she left her dingy little apartment heading off to work. When she left her father sighed and said,

"I hope so…"

Walking down the stairs, Valerie was alone in her thoughts. Yesteraday was Devil's Night, it's been a year since it happened she thought. She still remembered the headline "6 FOUND DEAD IN APARTEMENT COMPLEX". Finally she made it down the long flights of stairs and exited her apartment building, still lost in her memories of a family and friends she only started to get to know until they were gone in flash. The memories were painful at the end, where she only saw police lights flashing, ambulance sirens blaring, and their lifeless bodies being carted away…

****************************************************************************************************************************************************

Seventeen-year old Valerie Grey happily hurried toward the Fenton's apartment. Though she only had known the Fenton's and Sam and Tucker for only a couple of months, she had felt like she had known them for years. They were like a second family to her, they worried about her and cared about her like she was their own daughter. Mrs. Fenton was like the mother she never had and Mr. Fenton often reminded her of a big, soft teddy bear. Jazz, their daughter and eldest child was smart and studious and often helped Valerie and Danny, her younger brother with their homework. Though she was in college, the brilliant redhead still lived with her family. Danny Fenton was a shy, sometimes clumsy boy who was Valerie's age. He had bright blue eyes, and dark, ebony hair. He was like a brother to her, always laughing with her and smiling.

His two best friends Tucker and Sam slowly over time became her friends two. Tucker had extremely short black hair that he often kept hidden under a red beret, blue-green eyes, and dark skin. Valerie would often marvel at how good he was with technology and how he could take a computer apart and put it back together again blindfolded. Danny's other friend Sam was as Valerie often put it, very "anti-establishment". She was a goth with short midnight black hair that had a ponytail on the side, violet eyes, and extremely pale skin. Valerie often wondered how long it took her to apply all that makeup to her face. Sam would always wear all black like she was forever in mourning. Valerie had once asked why she even dresses like that. Sam had just replied, "I like dressing like this, it makes me feel different, like my own individual." At first Sam didn't like Valerie and she would often protest when she started hanging out with the three, especially when Valerie would hang out with Danny, but eventually she warmed up to Valerie and they became fast friends.

Now Valerie was almost at the apartment complex, but as she briskly walked she watched in amazement at the third ambulance that had passed by her, headed in the same direction that she was heading.

I hope something bad didn't happen…Valerie thought to herself. But who was she kidding. This was Amity, the city with the highest crime rate in all of Illinois. Even Detroit had nothing on this empty hole of a city. There may have been countless attempts to clean up the streets, but they never worked, and if they did, the peace didn't last for long. To tell the truth it wasn't the mayor who was in charge of the city, it was the drug dealers, the gangsters, the mob bosses, the criminals. This was their city, and they weren't going to let anybody else have it.

Soon another ambulance and another police car sped past her, sirens blaring. Something wasn't right, something was definitely amiss, Valerie felt it in her bones. Her brisk walk soon turned into a frantic run toward the Fenton's. She ran and ran until… she had arrived.

She tried to catch her breath, but couldn't with the sight before her. A whole mess of people were crowded in front of the apartment with reporters trying to get answers out of silent police officers. Valerie pushed with all of her might to push through the crowd of people to see what they gaping at.

"Let me through! Let me through!" she yelled at the people. But when she got there, she got the shock of her life. Behind police tape, on the cold, hard, concrete ground, surrounded by shattered fragments of glass, laid the bloodied broken body of Danny Fenton. It looked as though he had been stabbed and pushed out a window. His once pure blue eyes were now hollow and lifeless. On his body rested a peculiar playing card. It was the five of hearts, but the way the hearts were painted it looked like they were bleeding.

Valerie looked at the ambulances and saw four blanket-covered bodies being wheeled into them. Valerie frantically pushed through the crowd again to get the ambulances, leaving a second glance at Danny's broken body. Tears began to well up in her eyes, Why? she thought, Why them? She had feared that Tucker and Sam were probably dead too. Who could have done this? The salty tears began to cloud her vision and she wiped them from her red eyes. In the corner of her eyes she saw a fifth body being wheeled out of the apartment building. It wasn't covered like the others and various emergency response doctors were trying to stabilize her. Valerie immediately recognized her as Sam. Sam looked like she had just been through hell, her face was bloody, and she was barely conscious. They were trying to get her breathing, pumping air into her bruised lungs.

Valerie rushed to Sam only to stopped by a gruff police officer.

"Hey you can't go there."

"But I have too!" She pleaded. "She's my friend!"

"Look I'm sorry…"

"Please!"

"Well…okay…make it quick." He told her. Rushing past the police officer, Valerie went straight to the ambulance that held the suffering form of Samantha Manson, one of her best friends.

"Sam…?" she asked her convulsing friend, who looked like she was barely breathing.

"V-V-Valerie…" Sam coughed and blood spurted from her bruised lips.

"Don't worry Sam y-you're going to be all right, I-I promise, everything going to be all right…" She cried as she tried to reassure her dying friend.

"Valerie…I don't think I can hang on any longer…"

"Don't you dare say that Manson!!!"

"Miss, it's time to go…" the same gruff police officer who had been waiting outside the ambulance's door suddenly appeared.

"Don't worry Miss, I'll look after her." The middle-aged African-American man gave her a reassuring smile. With tears in her eyes, Valerie responded,

"Thank you…"

****************************************************************************************************************************************************

Valerie shuddered at the horrible memory. She hated it even more than her uniform. Why did all the people that she loved die? Why? She remembered that Sam never came out of surgery, and after thirty hours of suffering she just gave up. Valerie remembered all the tears she had shed that night and how she had cried herself to sleep, not even bothering to go to school for the whole week.

Walking down the empty street she stopped to tie her shoes. As she bent down she heard.

CAW! CAW! CAW!

Her neck snapped around to the source of the cry, and to her surprise a crow was staring straight at her. But not just any crow, this one was different. It was white as freshly fallen snow, except for its small beak that was black as midnight, and it had pale green eyes that seemed to stare right into her soul. For a few moments they looked at each other. The crow looked curious, yet impatient, like it was waiting for something exciting to happen. Valerie continued to stare in awe at the strange creature until the impatient thing finally flew off in a huff.

"Well that was certainly weird…" Valerie said to herself.

Far away in a rundown apartment, a figure huddled in the corner trying not to think about the painful, fleeting memories that penetrated his thoughts. Memories that he wished he didn't remember. Even the happier ones of the life he once had still pained him. Suddenly his face snaps up as a white crow flies through the shattered window. He utters one name, one name only,

"Valerie…"

Well that's it for Ch.1. Hope you enjoyed it. Ah yes, don't you love minor cliffhangers? (heaven knows I do!) Next chapter will be a rewind to the night before right after Danny escapes from the cemetery, and the story will continue from there.

Other than that...

~Review please!