Darkness, pressed around me… it was too warm… shattered glass… evil laughter… shadows, eating someone's arm… who was it? I don't… he looked familiar… I couldn't move, couldn't help… there was blood, and the man was screaming… why-couldn't-I-move!?!

I felt waves of dread and shock run over me… those shadows, they were almost fondling that man, twining around him like cats. But he was still yelling, still bleeding… the shadows were surrounding his arm! I couldn't see even the smallest bit of skin… they were twining, and blood dripped from them… behind the curtain his jet black bangs made, I saw a glimpse of sharp, golden eyes… why was there…? What the-

"-AAARRRRGGH!" A hoarse cry woke me, and only after a long moment of panic did I realize it was me who was yelling. I couldn't stop, though… that terrified me so mu-

Wait… I remembered the fear, but what had I been I scared of? I couldn't remember… wait, there were shadows, and blood… or was there? All I could remember clearly was the black hair and gold eyes, and even that was getting fuzzy.

Gah, I hated dreams anyway. I stood up, but my legs promptly buckled under me. I supposed I'd forgotten how long I'd been crammed on that windowsill… carefully, I tried again.

"Heh…" I muttered aloud, scratching the back of my head and probably blushing, despite the fact that I was the only one in the room to see myself look so stupid.

"You looked really dumb right there, you know."

After I'd fallen on the floor for the second time in as many minutes, I realized that I was not the only one in the room. A man I'd never seen before stepped out of the shadows. Literally. And, as his face came to light, I only saw gold eyes and hair still black in the shadows. So, me yelping and scrambling away was a completely normal reaction..

"Yah!" As I scrambled away, he just looked incredulous.

"They want you?" I heard him mutter. I just barely recognized a faint Irish accent before he was moving closer and offering me his hand.

Glaring up at him in the best way I could, I growled and brushed it aside, standing up on my own. Thinking back on what he'd just said, I realized how suspicious it sounded.

"Who wants me for what?" I snarled, a little harsher than I'd intended. I'd just realized that my hair had fallen out of its braid while I was asleep and was hanging down, probably making me look like a girl. And I defiantly didn't want that to be the first impression that guy got. I turn around quickly, cursing to myself, to find my hairtie. I was stomping around the room blushing like an idiot when that guy cleared his throat loudly.

"Ah, do you have short term memory loss or something?" He knocked on my head.

"Hey!" I yelped, jumping away, but he'd already continued talking.

"The guy I work for and that woman who runs this place… er, Carly or something?"

"Karla," I interrupted him, remembering my earlier question.

"Right," he replied, waving his hand flippantly, "her. Well, anyway, they're the ones who want. As for where, downstairs. Where all the other kids rushed to when that bloody bell rang." Here, he rubbed his ear and winced. That thing was pretty awful… I nodded sympathetically. I guess I was more used to it than him, though.

"Yeah, the guy who made it must have been deaf or something," I said flatly.

"Heh. Probably. But back to the point, we've gotta go." And with that, he'd grabbed my wrist and started pulling me after him. I pulled away from him quickly.

"Hey, wait a second! I don't even know who you are; for all I know I'm being abducted right now!" I squeaked in a very indignant way. He turned back to me, an incredulous look back on his face.

"You're kidding me, right?"

I huffed, but decided to follow him anyway. Who knew? There couldn't be anything much worse than the orphanage, really.

As we went, I saw some of the other kids filing back towards their rooms dejectedly. They gazed at me, looking… envious? Spiteful? Jealous? In any case, they looked menacing, and almost feral. Not that that's unusual. The guy, however, didn't seem to know this, and kept glancing back at me surreptitiously. I rolled my eyes at him, still dashing towards the staircase. When we reached it, and I saw his red cape flapping behind him, I realized that I didn't know his name.

"Matthew," he answered, grinning, when I asked. We'd reached the bottom, and he halted in the middle of the hallway. Without any warning. I think he realized his mistake when I rushed into him and knocked him flat on his face.

"Hey, ow kid," he muttered into the floor. A moment earlier, I would have jumped off him in milliseconds, but kid?!? He didn't look much older than me!

"Hey!" I screamed, kneeling on his back, "No way in hell you're any more than 2 years older than me, so don't call me kid!" I put a bit more pressure on my knees to emphasize the point.

Before I knew what had happened, he'd grabbed my ankle and flipped me over and off of him, pulling himself upwards in the process. How did he do that?!? I was the best at fighting in the orphanage…

Acting on instinct, I shifted my weight and twisted into a standing position, hooking my leg backwards and catching his ankle this time. He started to fall, I saw it, but then I was on the ground right on top of him.

I-would-kill-this-bastard.

"Ah, Matthew?"

I blinked. He blinked. Slowly, we both realized how that must have looked. I was sitting on top of him, my hands pressed against his chest, one of his arms still wrapped around my waist.

That did it. He was doubly dead.

I sprung to my feet as fast as I could, with him following shortly after. A blonde woman, looking to be about 35, was standing in the front doorway. Behind her was a mauve-haired man with a long scar running across one eye who looked like he was in his twenties.

The mauve-haired one smirked. "Looks like you scored, Matthew boy," He teased, gazing at me appraisingly. I gulped, noticing just how… attractive… this man was. Tall, slender, faint outlines of muscles showing through his skintight dark clothing… I was sure I was blushing again.

Matthew, meanwhile, seemed to have gotten over any surprise and had draped his arm around my neck casually. "Yeah, he's gotta come, neh?"

A bronze-skinned girl stepped from behind the blonde woman. Her red eyes glinted, and she grinned at me ferally. "Hell yeah."

EDIT: Review, I'll love ya and update more and all that! I just retyped this chapter so that it's in the right tense, too. Hope the transition was okay… seemed fine to me, but who knows?

(That was a hint for some feedback :P)