Someone was much more energy conscious than I was. I noticed it even before I walked into my room that something was off. It was probably around 11:30 when I went back up to my floor. The lights were already dimmed seeing as some of the kids were already in their curfew hours. I couldn't see the light through the crack under my door, and my handle was sitting slightly lower than where I'd left it. When you walk into a room enough, you can tell the difference. Walker's was more my home than the one back in Arizona, and I could definitely tell that someone was in my room.

My brain was turned off, I wasn't thinking about my new roommate. I was thinking about Iggy's roommate and how pissed he was going to be when he came back to a mysterious problem with him gaming console.

I cautiously entered the room, looking around the dark atmosphere. I hated the dark. It's stupid, I know, but I've always hated it. If there is a dark corner somewhere, then it's a place for things to hide and go undiscovered. And then, when you're least expecting it, they attack

I rapidly flipped on the light, breathing deeply as the darkness vanished. I crossed over to my bed and sat down, eyeing the suitcase that sat, still unpacked, beside me. Yeah, that was a mistake. No one wants to unpack their suitcase when they'd rather be sleeping. But I could either unpack it or sleep without pajamas and covers. Jeans or flannel? Put on sheets or don't? Decisions, decisions.

I started to move the bag off the bed before hearing a sink turn on and off inside the bathroom. I paused, listening as footsteps shuffled around. And then the doorknob started to turn. I leapt up and stood in front of it, waiting to see the intruder.

It really wasn't as bad as I thought.

It was way worse.

It was a boy, like I would've expected if I had been thinking straight. But that wasn't the worst part. Everything about him was dark. Dark black hair, dark black eyes, dark olive skin, and dark black clothes. It was like a damn walking nightmare. What am I supposed to do when I wake up and I just see a dark figure in the bed next to mine? But I wasn't a kid anymore, and I don't show fear in the face of, well, my fears.

"Um, hey..." I couldn't think of anything less stupid to say. He didn't really look like he had much to say either. I opened my mouth to say something else, but his hand flew up to stop me.

"Can we do this whole awkward introductions thing tomorrow?" He asked. There, his voice was dark and a bit too. This was going to be hell.

"Pfft, awkward how?" I asked, shrugging. Smooth Max, real smooth.

He looked me up and down once. "I thought you were going to be a guy."

And then there was silence. He was right; this was going to be extremely awkward.

When I didn't say anything else, he slid past me and sat on his already made bed, grabbing a headset from off his nightstand. He didn't get under the covers or anything; he just lay on his bed with his eyes shut and the headphones on. Without knowing what else to do, I went to my own bed and pushed the suitcase under the ground. Sleeping in my jeans just became my first option.

I shut off the light before slowly making my way to my bed, lying down on the mattress. It was thin and uncomfortable, but not like the ones in a hospital. Unlike those, Walker's actually tried to set a decent level of comfort. You know, when you weren't on treatment. Nudge for example got to be pricked and poked with needles about three times per months, not counting all the times her medication changed.

Then there was me. At least once a week a nurse would take me to her office and make me lie face first on a tilted bed before pounding the mucus out of my lungs. Its way more fun than it sounds, at least for the nurse. I think it reminds her of being in the military.

I try not to think too much about other people at Walker's, but for some reason, this guy was still on my mind. I was almost desperate to ask him what he was in for, but I usually didn't ask that kind of thing. People told me, or they didn't, but it was usually the former. Was the diagnosis part of the introduction? Well he was only on the fourth floor, so it couldn't have been that bad. I just hoped he didn't get treatment in here. Those were the worst kind of roommates to have. It was one of the reasons I asked to have my treatment done in the medical wing. That and I didn't need anyone looking when a nurse was beating on my chest like a rabid gorilla.

But eventually, I shut my eyes and hoped sleep would come. I didn't need to be up any later and be drowsy later. But I spared another look at the boy across from me. His hands were folded over his stomach and his eyes rather than relaxed gently were more squeezed shut, a small line was intruding between his eyebrows. I couldn't tell if he was asleep or not since his breathing patter didn't really seem to change. In fact, it sounded more like he wasn't even breathing. It would've looked more like he were dead if every so often I didn't see his chest rise and fall.

Yeah it was creepy, but then again, at Walker's, who isn't creepy?

"Max? Max? Open the fucking door, I know you can't still be sleeping!" Wrong Nudge, so very wrong. I was practically growling into my pillow as Nudge banged over and over again on the door. I had gotten probably about seven hours of sleep, which does seem like a fair amount, unless you fell asleep at four thirty and it was just barely eleven when you woke up. I don't know what it was last night, but apparently my brain decided it would be a good night to not let me sleep so I could sound even more idiotic during awkward introductions.

Oh god, that guy would still be here.

I slowly sat up, trying not to blind myself in the light trying to burn its way through my curtains. I saw a dark figure cross the room through my blurry eyes and heard footsteps, and because my brain was turned off I just decided to let him answer the door while I flopped back down onto my pillow.

"Max! Open this door!" I turned my head to the side and watched as my roommate flung open the door as Nudge was in mid-shout. From the side I could see the sharpness in his features that looked like they were carved neatly from stone. Even just his finger were long and and a bit boney, but we saw a lot of "boney" here.

Nudge's shouts immediately stopped as the door swung open and I saw here eyes widen for only a second before a small smile snuck onto her face. "Damn, you sure aren't Max but I could wake up to you every morning."

That woke me up.

"Nudge!" I practically screeched at her and shot up like a rocket, my eyes burning from the sun as Nudge smiled mischievously. She blatantly ignored me and turned back to the guy. I could see one of his eyebrows raised as he stared her down.

"You must be Fang. Some guy on my floor wouldn't shut up last night about you coming here." She said, starting a conversation like she hadn't just made the most forward first impression I'd ever heard from her.

'Fang's' eyebrow raised higher. I didn't even think that was possible. "Some guy?"

"Yeah, David, or Decklan, something like that."

"Great. Excuse me." Fang brushed past her and into the hall, heading for the stairwell. I would've watched him from behind a little longer but Nudge shut the door behind her.

"Why didn't you tell me he was hot? God, Max! I wasn't even prepared." She snapped, still smiling as she came forwards collapsing into a bean bag chair by the window. I glared at her as I stepped off my bed, heading towards her.

"I cannot believe you said that to him!"

"Why not? It was true." She said blatantly before raising an eyebrow, looking at my head. She reached into her bag and pulled out a large brush and handed it to me. "You have some serious bed head. Tame that unruly mane." I groaned impatiently but still took the brush and went into the bathroom, grabbing an elastic band from my drawer. Without brushing my hair, I threw my fuzzy blonde stands into a bun above my head and grabbed my toothbrush instead, globing on disgusting toothpaste my mother had bought that was supposed to kill germs. Wasn't all toothpaste supposed to do that?

"I said brush it, not hide it!" Nudge snapped peering into the room as I held my mouth over the sink, getting rid of the disgusting taste in my mouth. It really was disgusting, but instead of normal morning breath mine got to go along with the faint, metallic smell of copper. Charming, right?

"Oll ush it ayer." It was supposed to be "I'll brush it later," but that's definitely not how it came out. But Nudge got the gist and rolled her eyes before turning away.

"The cafeteria is already closed and making lunch so come to Iggy's room, we can snack there. Bring soda money." She called as I spit into the sink.

"Sure, give me two minutes." I told her as she left the room. I quickly threw on a fresh pair of sweatpants and a baby blue tank top. Wasn't my most attractive outfit, wasn't exactly my worst. It's not like I was going anywhere.

It had been about a minute when I was leaving my room, my hair still up in a bun. Nudge would care, but she wouldn't bother to comb it, knowing it would probably be up again by the end of the day.

I pulled open the door to the stairwell quickly not wanting to face the wrath of Iggy, or you know, not get there before they ate everything, but I ran into someone on my way down. Someone with a lot of black clothing. Hah, time for awkward introductions.

I stared at Fang for short time before shaking my head, holding out a hand. My head only came up to about his shoulder, something that always pissed me off, and I had to crane my neck back to look straight at him. "Max Ride." I said simply, mostly because I couldn't think of anything else to say. It's not like we just walked up to anyone and said, "Hey guess what, you shouldn't get close to me because I probably won't live past thirty, and that's if I'm lucky." No, we were just normal people, with normal brains (well, most of us) and normal personalities. Oh, and terminal illnesses.

Fang took my hand, shaking it firmly. His fingers were much longer than mine and just his hand in general was larger. I thought he could hide my fist in his if he tried, but he didn't. "Nick Walker."

"Nick, not Fang?" I asked and he gave a small shrug. I was expecting a response, but that was it. And with a nod of his head, our conversation was over. Except we both just stood there... for a long time. Our hands eventually dropped and we stopped staring each other, but neither of us made the move to leave first. It seemed kind of rude to just walk off, but we'd said about seven words, well I mean I said more than half of them, and he shrugged, but that was it. It couldn't really be called a conversation. So we just stood there, not making eye contact. God it was awkward, just like he said it would be. Was he so quiet with everyone? He seemed like the type to be cocky and have a disgustingly big ego.

"It's a nickname." He said suddenly and I looked up at him. He wasn't looking at me though, more like over my head and a couple inches to the right. I nodded. I never realized how bad I was at carrying conversations, unless it was him, not me. Yeah, it was him. Everyone knows I'm soo perfect.

"I gotta go unpack." F-Nick said suddenly and brushed past me. There, now our conversation was over. I could've walked away just like that, but no, I had to turn around, open my big mouth and talk.

"I like Fang better." I said bluntly, shutting my mouth quickly after I said it. He looked back over his shoulder, but I didn't wait to meet his eyes and scrambled down the stairs, not slowing down until I heard the door slam and echo throughout the stairwell. It was stupid that I couldn't even talk without there being something wrong with me. I mean, you'd think with all the free time I had being home schooled that I would be good at something. Nope, I'm just good at being awkward, and maybe a tad insane. Maybe a bit more than a tad, more like a pint probably. Hello, crazy people, Max Ride joining you.

That's not the worst part. The worst part was I forgot the soda money, in my room, also where Nick was unpacking.

Idiot, idiot, idiot, IDIOT!

Anyway, as I contemplated asking Nudge to pay for drinks instead, I realized she probably paid all of yesterday and it wouldn't be an option. Iggy didn't had to save money since he was going to have to repay his roommate for the game console, and Gazzy and Angel were to young for me to take money from, especially since all Angel had were bills from the tooth fairy our therapist gave to kids when they lost teeth. He was kind of like a second mother, as disturbing as that might sound, trying to give the kids here a fulfilling childhood and what not. But some of these mothers were actually crazy enough to drive to Walker's themselves to but a dollar under their kids pillows. My mother definitely was one of them.

I had already started to walk back to my room and was nearing the door. I had a bit of money saved up from when I was actually at home and worked. Yes, the ice cream store hired a terminal kid part time during the summer. It's not that surprising and I've yet to know whether it was my interesting handicap story or my work ethic that dragged me into work, probably the former.

But when I went to open the door, my hand on the door and everything, it swung open and collied with my nose. I was dying with pain but my reaction had already kicked in, meaning I kicked the door full force and it went slamming back to a close position after I heard it collide with something on the other side. Crap.

Idiot, idiot, idiot, IDIOT!

I heard a small thump before I opened the door, the bottom hitting something against the ground. The opening was just big enough for me to stick my head through. And then I looked at what was blocking the door. "Oh shit."

You know, I've had roommates and they've complained about countless things before. But killing them has never been a problem, at least until today.