A/N: Thank you so much for reading my prologue, peoples. You know who you are! Hopefully this chapter isn't a crappy one!

I suddenly become more awake to the chilly wind and soft green grass above me since the last time I was ... conscious.

Where am I? My mind demands to find out the answer. Surely I hadn't been kidnapped or anything, and even if I had, I'd use my phone to call my family. Dying to see what this place is, I shove some kind of stony object up to get out, but it's no use. I'm gonna stay in this underground thing, whatever it is, for some period of time. However, my patience soon wears off after a few minutes, and I grumble inside my head, Get me out of here! I need to get out!

Suddenly, my body answers my pathetic plea, and I find myself standing behind a rock. Too confused, I examine the huge squared rock in front of me. No wait, that's not a rock. It's a ... it's a headstone. And ... that headstone has my name on it. What the ...? I think. Is this some type of sick joke? But I notice that there are headstones in front of me, headstones behind me, headstones beside me, headstones everywhere. So if this is some kind of joke, the person with the idea must have spent a lot of hard work, which is very unlikely. I frown, sigh, and accept the fact that I am in a cemetery.

As I scan the graveyard, a silvery glow to my right catches my eyes, so I turn towards it and gasp. Standing behind another headstone is another girl. She's pretty-if I haven't noticed-with long black hair that is wound up in a loose bun with loose strands, pale skin, mysterious dark eyes that scan me up and down as I scan her, and a gorgeous black dress. She seems to be my age, too.

Speaking of pretty, I just found out that I am also wearing a fancy black dress. My short, curly strawberry strands hang at my shoulders, and as I look down at myself, I see that I also sport the silvery shimmer around my body.

The dark haired girl breaks the silence. "Where are we?"

"I don't know." I reply, chewing my lip both in frustration and worry.

"Perfect." She sighs. "I don't know what I'm doing here in this graveyard. I remember falling into a river and going unconscious, but someone must've saved me, or else I would be ... well ... dead. Then I woke in some underground thing, and-here's the weird part-willed myself to get out, and I found myself here. Someone's got to be playing some sick prank on us. If I find out who they are, I will pull their teeth out one by one and rip their head off. Literally. Also, I have a feeling that everything I see seems clearer now."

"Did you happen to think that we actually might be dead?" An unfamiliar masculine voice calls off behind us.

We both whip around to see an older boy with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin. He's sporting a black suit and tie, and he has the same silver glow as me and the girl.

But before we can say, "What the heck?", another unfamiliar person asks, "What am I doing here?", and the boy, the girl, and I turn to our left and find ourselves face to face with another boy who has spiky blond hair, blue eyes, and a suit like the other one. He's probably as old as the boy with curly hair, but again, he's pretty tall. Like us three, a silvery color shrouds him.

We must have spent an entire ten minutes staring at each other when the black-haired girl says, "Okay, this is getting creepy. Can we like, just go home?"

"Good idea." I answer, picking up my long dark skirts and carefully maneuvering myself around the other headstones until I finally reached the huge black gate that opened towards the now empty dark streets.

Crossing roads and scampering across sidewalks, I reach the spot where a car hit me, and I shockingly survived. I wonder how that happened, I have to have been killed. Well, whatever. My family could explain once I get home.

Once I reach my apartment, I race down the long, dark hallway until I see my home. Pounding on the door, I grin, relieved to be back home again.

My little sister, Holly, opens the door. But her reaction is not exactly what I expected. Well actually, it is totally the opposite of what I expected. Holly's eyes widen into the size of saucers, and her mouth opens into a silent gasp.

Deciding to lighten up the mood a little, I joke, "What's with all the staring? Is there a clown behind me or what?" hoping she would crack up laughing and let me in. Instead, Holly's lips tremble, and she slams the door shut. I can still hear her frightened gasping from outside. Confused, I knock the door a second time, but no one answers.

Narrowing my green eyes, I head back to the cemetery, hoping the other people I met could help. Surprisingly, they were all standing among the gravestones again, whispering.

"Uh, what's up?" I ask awkwardly.

"What's up?" The raven-haired girl almost shrieks. "I tried to get home, but when my mom answered, she looked like she saw a ghost, and slammed the door shut!"

The curly haired boy with dark skin rolls his eyes. "Poor little baby. I'm so sorry such an unfortunate even happened to you, it's not like we ever experienced that before."

"Stop being so sarcastic!" The girl yells back.

"Just shut up and be quiet!" I try, annoyed, but the two just shoot me glares.

I send the blond haired guy a help me look, and he intervenes,"Seriously, stop it."

The girl looks like she's about to punch both boys in the face, but she stops, and the dark haired boy gets quiet as well.

"Okay, so did all of you guys go to your houses and get rejected one way or another?" I demand.

"Yup." The dark haired girl answers, while the others nod.

"So it's come to my conclusions," the dark skinned boy says, "that we are dead."

I nod. "That makes sense. I couldn't have survived that car crash."

"Yeah." The other girl agrees. "Cause how would I have escaped drowning? Yell for help, and then have Aquaman rush in majestically, grab my body, and then take me safely to shore? Sounds like a great idea. And then hopefully we get married, and have lots of little Aqua-juniors who spend all the time killing sharks and stuffing chocolate cake into their mouths like me."

To her left, the blond haired guy chuckles, and she sends him a smirk before he speaks as well. "True, I suffered a concussion and the odds of me surviving are like the odds of chocolate cake" At this he looks at the dark haired girl. "escaping her hungry jaws."

"That doesn't even make sense!" She cries, but is laughing.

"I died from electrocution." The curly haired dude cuts in. "'twas a little painful."

"Y'know, can we introduce ourselves?" The blond haired person asks. "I hate to call you" He looks at me. "Red, and I don't wanna call you" He turns to the curly haired boy. "Sharp tongue, and you" He nods at the raven haired girl. "Sexy."

The girl with long dark hair snorts. "I am far from sexy, but now that you mention it, we should be telling each other our names by now. I'm called Hazel Jiang."

"How old are you?" The blond haired dude questions.

"Sixty-five." Hazel returns. Then she rolls her eyes. "No, I'm sixteen."

"Cool, I'm seventeen." He answers. "Name's Alexander Grace. You can call me Xander, but I will literally kill you if I am addressed as Xandy, Alexis, or Alex."

"I'm Lily Woodland." I say. "And I'm sixteen."

"I'm older than all of you." The last guy grins.

"Yeah, you should be using a walking stick as well." Hazel half smirks, half smiles. Alexander laughs again.

He glares at her, but doesn't look too offended. "My name is Mark Williams. Eighteen."

Soon, we're chatting and talking like old friends. I learn that Hazel has a dog named Winter, Mark was studying to become an electrical engineer, and Xander was co-captain of his soccer team. However, we don't get to say anything else, because that is when I feel a sharp blade lining up at my throat.

Everyone else notices as well, and Mark helps me struggle away from my attacker, and we all scatter towards the forest at the back of the cemetery. The murderer, her knife gleaming in the pale moonlight, is still chasing us, though, and it is only when I sense something at the back of my neck when I realize that that was my own blood. Except it's gold. Whatever, now's not the time to wonder about this stuff.

Unfortunately, the forest is not completely endless. At one point, a black fence shows the border of this graveyard. We stare at each other, panicking on what to do. Suddenly, panic and pain fill into me and I think, I wish this didn't happen to me. I wish something else happened. I'd even like to be a unicorn instead of ...

I hear Hazel gasp beside me, and she points a shocked finger at me. Confused, I stare down at my feet, no wait hooves, no wait ... what? Then I realize it. I have become a unicorn, and I can shape-shift.

I nod at Hazel to show her that I know what's going on, then will myself to turn into a tiger. Hazel is still frowning at me, deep in thought, when she dissolves into thin air! And then I can see her again. Apparently, she can turn invisible.

The assassin finally stops in front of us, and her mouth stretches into a determined grimace. Hazel disappears, and I race towards the murderer in tiger form, growling. However, the sight of her wicked blade shocks me, and I morph into a human again. No! Turn into a tiger! So I'm now a tiger just like a few seconds below. I manage to give the attacker a vicious claw mark on her face. But before she can strike me with her knife, she jumps up a little and gasps for air. She looks like she is choking, and her white blond hair is being tugged by ... Hazel. Except she's invisible. Unfortunately, the murderer must have done something to Hazel, because she reappears with a bleeding golden gash on her left cheek. But Hazel and I lunge back at her, and she retreats, pulling some bottle with forbidding black liquid in it.

The assassin uncaps the bottle, and Mark's voice yells, "Watch out! It's got phosphide in it, with barium carbonate!"

The murderess spills out the liquid in one quick shake, and Hazel and I dart out of the way. I become a human just so it's easier to dodge whatever threats she carries.

All of a sudden, a tree in front of me lifts up from the ground, and I see Xander focusing on it intensely. The tree smashes to the ground towards the attacker, and she leaps backward.

Just when I think things can't get better now, the assassin yells, "I will be back!" And runs away, out of the forest, across the graveyard, into who knows where she is going. Although she is gone, her words ring in the air like the way a villain in those cheesy movies speaks before he or she leaves.

Mark, Alexander, Hazel and I stare at each other, shocked, when a warm, welcoming voice interrupts us.

"Well, hello. I've been waiting for you tonight. Come with me, we need to discuss something."

Standing behind us is an elderly woman who astonishingly looks like our attacker. She clears her throat, and pleads, "It's urgent. You need to follow me if you want to get rid of your murderess. And trust me, she needs to be destroyed. Take that fact from me, for I am her mother."