So that's why, when I saw something new, something I've never seen before, I was able to immediately differentiate them from everyone else.

And I saw the different ones.

I saw them.

And I also saw what was above their heads.

Or rather… the lack thereof.

Chapter 2: The Blower's Daughter

Five people.

Five people were sitting at table. They had trays full of food in front of them, but none of them were touching them, let alone eating. I could see them very clearly, even though they were across the cafeteria. They were beautiful. All of them. So perfectly beautiful to the point of inhumanity. They were all different, but had a single, common feature, pale, white skin. There were too girls and three boys. They were barely even talking to each other. At first glance, you might think they were statues.

The two girls were like night and day. There was a taller one, her height obvious despite the fact she was sitting down. She had long blonde hair and was so unbelievably gorgeous, it almost hurt to look at her. She made my self-esteem immediately plummet. The smaller girl was pixie like. She had short, spiky black hair and dressed in designer clothes.

One of the boys was big and muscular, like a weight lifter. He had curly dark hair and was very handsome. Another one of the boys was tall, lanky, but still strong-looking, with shaggy blonde hair. He too looked like a male model, as if he just walked out of a photo shoot.

The last boy was of course, utterly gorgeous, and something about him, I didn't know what, intrigued me. He was tall and muscular, but it was not as obvious as it was with the weight lifter. His hair was in a casual disarray and was the most unique bronze colour.

Their unbelievable beauty was enough to make anyone stare at them.

But that wasn't why I was staring, of course.

They didn't have numbers.

For them… I couldn't see anything.

I saw nothing.

I froze, staring at them. I said I didn't need to be looking straight at the tops of their heads to know if they had numbers, and I knew they didn't. My eyes flickered, as par usual habit, to the spaces directly above their heads anyway, just to make sure.

Nothing.

Just empty space.

That was impossible! How the hell could that be? My mind was practically screaming profanities at me, being unable to comprehend the numberless group.

How could this be? I blinked a few times, like if I opened and closed my eyes enough times, the numbers would suddenly appear.

Impossible.

Or… improbable?

I couldn't wrap my mind around this ridiculous concept. What was different about those five people? I could see numbers on every human, and from what I could tell, they were definitely human.

I squinted my eyes. Maybe their numbers were just really, really tiny.

No such luck.

As I stared, and stared, and stared, the incomprehensible slowly sank in.

My breathing was coming faster as I stared in disbelief. I'm sure I looked like I had seen a ghost. If I didn't calm down now, I would start hyperventilating. Not. Good.

All of a sudden, the bronze haired guy whipped around and his eyes met mine. I stifled a gasp at how… piercing they were. I couldn't see the colour, but I felt like he was trying to look right through me. I couldn't look away.

As if my mind was still in denial, my eyes flickered once more to the space above his head, just to make sure. Nothing.

This had to be some kind of mistake. Some kind of flaw.

And it was seriously freaking me out.

I needed to get out of here. The weirdness and just plain disability of my mind to grasp this development, was suffocating me. Pressing down on me, trying to get me to collapse under the weight of it.

I stood out of my chair abruptly.

"Bella?" the J-girl said confusedly. My eyes still impossibly wide and glued on the five people, I took a few steps towards the doors. "Bella, what's wrong? You look totally creeped out."

Because I am, I thought. "Um, I don't feel well," I said pathetically, and fled from the cafeteria. Call it an overreaction, but I couldn't help being scared out of my wits. You don't go seventeen years of seeing the same thing, and then suddenly see something impossibly different, and not get freaked out.

I went into the girl's bathroom and locked myself into one of the stalls. My head was pounding with this… this… thing!

I rubbed my temples, trying to soothe the pain. Great, I go to Forks for some peace of mind, and end up getting the exact opposite. This was worse than the huge, bustling crowds of Phoenix. I didn't know if you could understand just how impossible this was.

There were only two instances in which I could look at a person and not see their numbers.

1) If I was looking at myself. For some weird reason, I couldn't see my own numbers. I was grateful for that actually. I would hate seeing when I would die. It would've made me majorly depressed.

2) If I was looking at a dead body of a person. I had been to open casket funerals before, and the bodies of the dead person had no numbers. How could they? The numbers showed me when a person would die. If they were already dead, well…

Wait, 'if they were already dead'… Was it possible that…?

Puh-leese, my mind thought sarcastically. Already dead, my ass. They were clearly alive. One guy freaking turned around and looked at me! If that wasn't proof enough that he was alive, I didn't know what was.

Okay, now that that stupid impossibility was out of the way, what was the real reason?

It was just so… ARGH! It was so frustrating how impossible this was! Every human had numbers. It was a simple fact.

So why didn't they?

Why was it only them?

What made those 5 people so special?

As much as I would have liked to, I couldn't stay in the bathroom forever. Still confused, and with my head still aching, I quietly unlocked the stall and walked up to the sinks. Gripping the edge of the sink, I took deep breaths to try and calm my heart. There was probably a perfectly logical explanation for this. I just had yet to figure it out.

The door of the bathroom opened and I heard footsteps, but I didn't look up.

"Are you okay?" a high soprano voice asked.

I turned around and froze.

The two girls from the 5 Wonder People, as I was now calling them, stood before me. The smaller pixie one was the one who spoke. She looked at me curiously, her head tilted slightly to one side. The taller blonde one looked at me coldly, her eyes hard, as if I were an annoying fly she'd like to swat away.

My gaze, again, flew with amazing speed to the tops of their heads, then back down to their faces. Even though I already knew there wouldn't be anything up there, it was automatic. When I looked at the empty spaces above their heads, I couldn't help but feel a little shock go through me.

It was just so bizarre.

I then realized this was the first time in my entire life I was looking at someone who was alive, other than myself, and didn't see any numbers. It was so strange. Was this how normal people felt like? Was this what it was like for Renee and Charlie and the J-girl?

To just look at a person, and see nothing but the person…

It was just so alien that I felt like running from that bathroom, screaming the whole way.

When I looked back at the pixie girl's face, it was even more curious than before, as if she saw my little eye-to-the-head routine. I knew she couldn't have though; I was too fast. I purposely looked away from the blonde one; she was too intimidating.

The pixie girl extended her pale, slender hand to me and I stared at it as if it were an extra terrestrial's. I heard a tinkling laugh and looked up. The pixie girl was looked very amusedly at me.

"Ever seen a hand shake before?" she asked in her light, musical voice. It sounded like chimes.

I blushed bright red, embarrassed at my apparent rudeness. They probably thought I was mentally handicapped. I slowly, almost cautiously grasped her hand with my own. I jumped ever so slightly when our skin did come in contact. Her hand was icy cold, as if she had stuck it in an ice bucket. I looked up at her eyes, surprised. She smiled apologetically at me. For someone so tiny, her grip was firm.

"I'm Alice Cullen," she said, releasing my hand.

"Bella Swan," I said quietly back, trying to discreetly put my hand in my pocket, for warmth.

"It's nice to meet you, Bella. This is my sister, Rosalie Hale." Sister? But they didn't look anything alike. And how come her last name is different?

Reading the confusion on my face, Alice quickly explained. "Rosalie and I aren't related by blood. All of us are the adoptive kids of Dr. Carlisle Cullen."

"All of us?" I asked, quickly glancing at the top of her head again. The empty space was just so new to me and very fascinating.

"The five of us. Me, Rosalie, and the three other boys in the cafeteria."

"Oh…" So all five of the Wonder People were part of the same family, eh? And the plot thickens…

"You never did answer my question. Are you okay?"

"Huh? Oh. Uh, yeah. I'm fine," I said, snapping out of my trance. "I, uh, gotta go."

I rushed past them and out of the bathroom without stumbling once. New record.

The bell rang as I walked down the hall. I stopped at my locker and pulled out my books and schedule. I had Biology next. As I walked towards my classroom, I kept glancing around me, keeping on the lookout for the Wonder People. After my weird behavior at lunch and the mini confrontation in the girls' bathroom, they probably all thought I was some phsyco.

The classroom was almost full when I arrived. I walked up to the teacher to have him sign my slip.

"So… Miss Swan, welcome to Biology," the teacher, Mr. Banner, said, bored. Like always, I peeked at his Numbers. 81 years old… that was pretty good. "You can take the empty seat over there, next to Edward Cullen." Cullen? One of the Wonder People?

Mr. Banner pointed to somewhere behind me. I turned around, and sure enough, the seat he was pointing to was right beside one of the Wonders. The bronze haired Wonder to be exact. He was even more gorgeous when not being looked at from across a cafeteria.

I walked forward and seated myself slowly. As soon as I sat down, his body stiffened. It became as still as a statue, literally. His white hands gripped the edge of the table so tightly, I thought he would surely break the table. He leaned away from me, as if I were something disgusting. I peeked at him from the corner of my eye and saw that he was staring right back at me. No, not staring, glaring. He looked at me with such a fierce glare, full of animosity, that if looks could kill, I would've spontaneously combusted then and there, no matter what my numbers said. His hate filled eyes were coal black and so full of revulsion, I had to stop myself from whimpering and cowering away like an idiot.

His pitch black eyes stared at me for a few moments longer before he averted his face, probably repulsed by me. I felt annoyance and a twinge of anger.

I took the time he wasn't burning holes in my head to gaze once more at the top of his head. Still nothing. I had to resist the urge to feel the air above his head. I knew the numbers weren't solid and my hand would only go through them, but still…

I tried to stop looking at him, but throughout the long and dragging period, I found myself constantly peeking at him, hoping each time that his stiff stance had relaxed somewhat. It never did.

The bell finally rang, making me jump. Faster than I could have ever imagined, Edward Cullen practically sprang from his seat and flew from the room. I stared at his empty seat shocked.

"Isabella Swan?" I turned around to face a blonde, blue eyed boy my age. He had a slightly baby face and seemed like the generic popular boy. He wasn't nearly as handsome as Edward Cullen, but he was cute. I recognized him as one of the people sitting at my lunch table. What was his name again?

"Bella," I corrected, trying to remember his name. After another second I gave up. My eyes flickered to his numbers. 77. That was pretty normal. I looked back to his face to see him smiling at me.

"I'm Mike Newton. I sat with you at lunch," he said. I nodded.

"I remember…" Mike was in my next class, Gym, so he walked with me. He liked to talk a lot. He was very friendly, but seemed like the overly eager type. Not a bad guy though.

Luckily, I didn't have to participate in Gym on my first day, so I stayed off to the side, sitting on the bleachers. I doodled pictures on my paper, not really paying attention to what I was drawing, as I thought again about what I saw today.

It puzzled me. Confused me.

All I knew was that something was different about those Cullens/Hales. My head was still aching as the insanity of this entire situation rolled around in my mind. Ugh, it was just so frustrating!

The bell rang once more, signaling the end of the school day, and possibly the most confusing day of my life.

The next day wasn't much less peculiar.

People didn't stare at me as much as they did the day before and I was remembering their names better, the ones I sat with at lunch. The J-girl, who I now remembered as Jessica, was as talkative as yesterday, while Mike Newton was starting to remind me of a Golden Retriever, the way he would follow me and carry my books seemed very doglike.

I had been dreading lunch the entire morning. When I woke up, I had thought for a moment that I'd dreamt the whole thing. That the Wonder People didn't exist, or that they did, but had numbers like everyone else. I was kind of hoping that it was all a nightmare; that my first day at school hadn't happened yet.

Of course my hopes were dashed when I pulled into the school parking lot, and Mike waved hello to me from across the lot. If he knew who I was, then yesterday was not a dream.

Damn it.

Lunch time rolled around and I felt my stomach do flops as I walked to the cafeteria. It wasn't only the abnormalities called the Cullens and Hales that I dreaded seeing; I vividly remembered Edward Cullen's hatred of me, and I was really not looking forward to seeing him again.

I bought my lunch and sat down beside Jessica, who was babbling away. I turned my head and took a peek at the Wonder table. I stiffened in surprise.

Four heads.

And none of them were bronze.

I counted again and sure enough, there were only four people sitting there. Nice. So I repulsed him so much that he couldn't come to school? Did he hate me so much that he couldn't stand to spend one period sitting next to me?

"Bella?" I heard Jessica say.

"Huh?" I snapped my head back to her. She looked at me with knowing eyes.

"Staring at the Cullen table again?"

I shrugged and took one last look at the table. Yup, still only four people.

"Who exactly are they?" I asked Jessica. Maybe if she told me some more stuff about them, it'd help unlock the mystery of their numberless heads.

"Dr. Cullen and Mrs. Cullen's kids. Not real kids. Adoptive kids."

"All of them?"

"Um, no, only three. The Hales, the blondes, are twins, and they're their foster kids. I think they're actually Mrs. Cullen's niece and nephew. Her and her husband are too young to have teenage kids; they're only in their twenties, maybe early thirties."

"What are their names?" I asked, despite already knowing three.

"The blonde guy is Jasper and his sister is Rosalie. The tiny girl is Alice, and she's really weird, by the way. And… the big dark-haired guy is Emmett. The guy who's not here today, he's Edward Cullen. He's single, but don't waste your time on him. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good enough for him." I wondered when he had turned her down.

When I walked into Biology, just as I suspected, Edward Cullen wasn't there. What was surprising was that I almost felt… disappointed. Sure, I hated the way he glared at me, but I guess I found the empty space above his head so fascinating, I wanted more time to investigate.

By investigate, I meant stare.

What disappointed me further was that he wasn't in school the next day either.

Or the next day.

Or the next day.

Make it the whole freaking week he was absent.

Call me crazy, but I somehow felt responsible for his absence at school.

And I was a little miffed about it. What the hell did I do to him that made him need to drop out of school?!

By Monday, I had gotten used to him not being here. The disappointment I had felt that first day of his disappearance was short lived and I was now semi-comfortable here. Of course, he still stayed on my mind, much to my annoyance. I couldn't seem to get Edward Cullen out of my head. His coal black eyes were burned into my memory. As much as I wanted to push them away, they were always there, staring at me from behind my eyelids.

I didn't tell anyone this though. I tried to act normal, despite how I've never been normal in my life. No one here seemed to notice my weirdness though. They didn't care about the fact I only wore black, white, and gray clothes. They didn't care that I didn't speak much, or freaked out the first day of school.

For once in my life, people waved and said hello to me at school. I was so used to not having friends, it was alien to me.

And everyday I looked at the Cullen table at lunch.

And everyday they didn't have numbers.

When Monday morning rolled around, the water from the rain froze over, creating lethal ice. I drove extra careful to school that day, and as I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed the silver Volvo parked at the other end, but wasn't bothered by it.

That is, until the doors opened.

And five people walked out. My breath hitched and I froze. Five people?! I clearly saw Edward Cullen getting out of the driver's side, talking with his siblings. I gulped. Great. Looked like he was back, and that meant so were his hate-filled glares. Just great. I watched as all five of them and their numberless heads went into the school. As soon as they were out of sight, I let out a sigh of relief. I was always less anxious when I couldn't see them and their lack of life spans.

I checked my watch and noticed there was still some time till I had to head to class. I pulled out my iPod and started listening to music. I figured it would've been a good distraction from the thought of Edward and Biology. "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice started playing.

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off of you

Ugh! This was not what I needed! I was well aware I couldn't stop thinking of the Cullens, more specifically Edward, thank you!

I frustratingly put my iPod away and stared forward. I heard loud laughter and turned towards a group of guys. One of them slipped on a patch of ice and was half lying, half sitting, on his ass. His friends were laughing at him.

I looked sympathetically at the guy's face, knowing what it was like to slip and fall a lot.

And that's when my eyes glazed over and I had a flash vision.

Of his death.

SPECIAL SNEAK PEEK OF CHAPTER 3

"Somebody save him!" I screamed as the car skidded across the ice.

So, what did you guys think? Did I change too much if you've read it or is it still ok? Please leave your thoughts in a review! Also, any new story ideas are appreciated!