A/N: I took this story down earlier due to tech issues I had, but revised and decided to repost it.

Prologue

o-o-o

You have fangs and you're running, not for your life, but for the lives of everyone you've ever loved. You're running so you don't hurt them, kill them maybe, all because you were stupid enough to trust someone.

Because you are now trapped inside a monster.

It's funny how, when you look back on life, it sometimes resembles a vaguely familiar DVD on the shelf you might have watched at one time or another, but you no longer remember the exact plot. It's a stranger's tale. You find it impossible to believe that the person in your memories was actually you, worrying about mundane things like friends and grades and some evil cheerleader's next move. It just seems too surreal when compared to current reality.

I was that girl, the girl who never seemed to fit in with her in-crowd best friends, the girl who'd much rather curl up with a Kit-Kat and a copy of Dracula than hit some party. I worried about my grades and about how calculus was going to be my downfall.

But it wasn't my downfall. My insatiable curiosity was.

It's rather amusing when I glance over my proverbial shoulder and remember the introverted school newspaper editor everyone knew as Emmy. I gaze at myself in a mirror now and want to laugh when I see my elongated teeth, the dormant strength in each limb, and I think about how utterly easily I could kick the butts of half the basketball team. Sweet irony always did love me.

And I can't admit that I don't like it. Even though I wasn't the happiest when I came to and realized what they had done to me. Felt those two bumps against my neck. The two bumps any other girl would've taken as a hickey.

Because I knew that they were the herald of my new life. The life I already despised. The life of a vampire.

But is it wrong of me to want such power after the frail human I had been? There were no laws governing us. No one said I had to be a killer.

Yeah, that would be me, the stereotypically misunderstood villain who actually wants to do some good. I'd always been a goody two-shoes back when I was a human.

I can at the very least protect my family and friends. Even if this entails their never seeing me for what I really am. Luke is the only one who knows and I trust him with it more than I trust myself near him.

Because I'm no longer Emalyn Archer, his passive (and non-cannibalistic) best friend, after all. And nothing can reign in natural instinct for very long.

I guess I should explain how all this came about. I don't really blame Alan. He was doing what he thought was right. But I do sometimes wish he'd never turned up to school that fateful day back in October.

I'd have actually had a hope of graduating with a spotless record.

o-o-o

A/N: Hey, guys. This is my first near-completed novel. Yes, I'll be uploading this rather fast 'cause of that, and I'd love to know whether I should continue this or not?

- HT