A/N: Hello there beautiful readers of this fic. This is your author speaking. I know that some of you may be disappointed that this fic has not updated in such a long time. However, I am here to announce something pretty cool. I am re-writing this completely, and this right here marks the first chapter of the re-written chapters to come! Now, please note that this will not update very quickly, as I manage a lot of other things, and The Illusion of Fate has a bit of a priority over this, so please be patient! I hope you enjoy how I've re-written this!
Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck and it's characters or any aspect you may find of Little Monsters.

What was happening was nothing at all new to you. Hell, you could even argue that you'd moved around so often that you were pretty much tree that could walk, able to pick up its roots at a moments notice and up and leave. You had moved more times than you could count, your most recent move to Texas being the longest time you had stayed in one place. The fact that you were moving again wasn't that big a deal really, except that it was. It wasn't that you were sad to be leaving Texas for some dreary town in New York, not at all. No, you, Dave Strider, have been worried about the fact that this move had an aura of finality to it that loomed over you like your own personal cloud. As soon as you had stepped out of the car, you could feel the oppression of said feeling, and as someone who had grown up wandering, it makes your skin crawl.

You swear, whoever decided that you would move to New York in the middle of November of all times was a complete asshat in need of a good ass kicking. Oh wait, that was Bro, and there was no way in hell any ass kicking was happening there. After many trips out to the moving truck to bring shit in, trying to brush as much snow off of whatever you happened to be carrying before you got in to your new home, having your choice rump handed to you on a silver platter sounded god damn atrocious. And if anyone were to suggest it it would be met with a hearty hell no.

All you even think about doing when you've finished is microwaving some can of processed Christ knows what, eating said food, and trudging up the stairs to your new room. Which was strange for you to say, as living in a house as opposed to an apartment this time around was a first. And sharing said house with your biological sister and her (and, well, you guess your) mother was also new. Someone had brought up some shit about being together as a family and suddenly bam, you're sharing a house with two snarky broads. Completely your ideal living environment.

For some reason, you take care to close your door with as little noise as possible as you enter your room. The bed that's pushed into a corner and against the wall is messy, but that's nothing new to you. Just like wading through a sea of boxes was as common to you as the random onslaught of smuppets that you expected would occur once Bro had unpacked enough of the damn things. Albeit living with two new people and a change in location, you knew you would fall into the same patterns as you had before. Things like smuppet attacks and the eventual swords that would find there ways into places like the refrigerator were as close as you got to "home", and that in itself held more comfort to you than you would care to admit.

But then there was that feeling that you had. The one that told you that tomorrow you should start unpacking and putting things where you wanted them instead of just leaving most of your possessions in the cardboard boxes they currently resided in. The same one that told you you'd better get used to the snarky quips that both Lalondes threw your way, and to the near constant factor that your mother was perpetually drunk. And to the weather here, and on, and on. You shove those thoughts out of your head as you flop down on your bed. You would deal with that tomorrow when you woke up, because your only interest is in getting some sleep in a real bed after a few days of sleeping in Bro's car and loading and unloading the moving truck. And that's exactly what you do. As soon as your head hits the pillow your eyes close and exhaustion rolls over you like a steam roller paving a road. You are asleep in less than a minute.

'Hey,' came a voice through the darkness that surrounded you, 'turn around.'

So you do. Or, at least you think you do, it's so hard to tell with the lack of light. But you figure you must have done something right, because coming closer and closer to your line of vision is a figure. Dressed in all blue, and decidedly a male, he approaches you slowly and almost cautiously. When he gets closer, you can tell more about him, about the fact that he's got this dorky looking jester outfit on, that he has hair almost as dark as the darkness surrounding you, and that beneath the ridiculously nerdy frames of his glasses, he's got the bluest eyes you'd ever seen or had though possible. He smiles at you, but it turns to a frown quickly, as though he had realized something, 'Oh shit, you're not supposed to be here. It's not supposed to happen like this!'

You're about to ask what he means by this, but a glowing green light meets your peripheral vision, and it burns. The only thing you catch for a brief second is a flash of black within the green, and a flash of blue going to meet it. But the next thing you realize is that it seems that you're on your back, and you're in pain, more pain than you've ever known. You can't bring yourself to look to find the root of the pain, but you can look up. You can look up to see that boy, who looked so innocent with his pure, blue, eyes, standing over you with a large, comical hammer in hand. He has blood all over him, and you wonder if it's yours. But you don't have the strength to ask. All you can do is watch as he kneels down next to you and reaches out to stroke your cheek. There are tears in his eyes, and it makes you feel something strange.

You don't even know this boy, but you want to protect him. You don't know him, but you want to wipe his tears away. The pain that you had felt that was your own has left you completely, and all you feel is the pain he's feeling. He's not hurt physically, but you can feel something inside of him ripping him apart. And it's tearing you apart too. Summoning all of your strength you reach up and stroke his cheek as he did yours. You want to tell him everything will be okay, but you can't find the words.

Because you, Dave Strider, have just died without a single word, and possibly at the hands of a boy that you will never know. But you want to know. You want to, so bad.

You wake up from the dream with a start. You're breathing quickly, and it takes a few minutes to calm yourself down. Today marks a grand total of six days living in the joint Lalonde-Strider household, and every single night since the one you moved in, you've had the same dream. It's the same each time, every last part of it. Nothing changes, no matter how you will it to. And it's frustrating, more so than your normal dreams of too plush rumps and phallic noses. It's frustrating and no one understands. Not even you yourself.

Rolling over after figuring you wouldn't be getting back to sleep any time soon, you check your alarm. This time, you've woken up at a decent hour, four in the morning far trumping two. Especially today. Especially today solely because of the fact that today is the first day you would be attending school in your new home town. And you'd rather not have to deal with falling asleep in class and getting on your teachers' bad sides the first day. Not that you hadn't done so in the past, but this time you were bound and damn determined to make this move work for you.

A sigh falls out of your mouth as you get out of bed and stretch before making your way to the bathroom to grab a shower. Bathroom time, you had learned in the near week you had lived with the Lalondes, was very coveted, and if you found a gap in someone being in one of the bathrooms, you took it. There had been a time where you had thought that sharing a bathroom with Dirk was a huge pain in the rear, but the addition of the two women had shown you how wrong you had been. Sharing a bathroom with just Dirk had been a privilege. Now his nearly hour long showers seemed like nothing in comparison.
After your shower, you head downstairs to the kitchen and are quite surprised to find Rose and Mom seated at the island counter that served as a table, already immersed in breakfast and conversation. The moment you entered the room, the conversation dimmed down, at least until you had taken your servings of eggs and bacon and sat down with them. Mom looked from Rose to you and back, as if trying to give some sort of sign to one of you. Considering you had no clue what she was going for, you assume it's meant for Rose, which you find, it is.

"Dave, I don't mean to intrude upon your morning so early yet, but since you moved in we have been...for lack of a better phrase, noticing things." Says Rose with a bit of hesitation, "Now, that's not to say that you are indeed guilty of these things, but it is important to us to know if indeed it was you who were doing these things."

You chew your eggs thoughtfully for a moment before responding, "You know Lalonde, being cryptic when accusing a guy of something is kind of counter-productive. I have just about as much a clue about what the hell you're talking about as I do what the hell Dirk does in the shower for so long."

"Oh, well then. What I'm getting at is this: there have been instances lately where objects have been moving or disappearing completely and we were wondering if it was some sort of elaborate 'irony' thing of yours." She states.

"Nope," you state simply, "That's not my thing, sorry."

You get up to put your plate in the sink, not bothering to rinse it before you shove it into the dishwasher, ignoring the troubled looks of both of the women at the table. There was no reason for you to even care. You hadn't lied when you had said that it wasn't you, so it was no concern of yours if someone misplaced something and just didn't realize it. With that settled in your mind and another quick check of the clock, you decide that it is a completely legitimate time for you to grab your backpack and a coat and get the fuck out of dodge.

Trudging through the snow to the bus stop is not something you think you'll get used to any time soon. In fact, you hate it already. The snow is cold and wet as it falls down on your head, and you shiver. Seriously, you wonder why anyone would ever settle down in a place like this, but then, when you looked at it you could tell why. The snow together with the scenery did have it's own little charm to it, one that dictated that later you would grab your camera and go take some pictures. That idea alone would be enough to get you through your first day at a new school, and you're sure of it.

It takes you less than five minutes to reach the bus stop, where you find people already out in the cold. You wonder how they do it, but realize that they've probably dealt with it for most of their lives. Unlike you who stands shivering as you wait for the bus. And doubly so when you're hit with a snowball right in the neck where there's a gap between your hood and the front of your coat. Your head whips around trying to find who did it until you locate a giggling coat clad person looking as though they had just done something like throwing a snowball at someone. It made you growl in frustration, but that was soon forgotten as the bus pulls up to the stop.

You end up being the very last person in line, and nearly every seat was full. Even Rose who had gotten to the bus stop several minutes after you had managed to get on the bus and claim a seat with someone who seemed to be her friend before you had even moved from where you had stood. What a great sister, leaving you along to find a seat on your first day. You shuffle to the back of the bus to try and find an open seat, until finally you do. And that seat is occupied by the jackass who had thrown the snowball at you. With a sigh, you raise your voice so that he would hear you above the jabber of the rest of the bus's occupants to ask, "Can I sit here and not get bombarded with snowballs when I do, or is that gonna be too much to ask."
The person ( you still can't tell whether it's a guy or a girl, most of the coats make that hard) seems to laugh and gives you a definite nod. You take a seat next to them and bring your backpack into your lap. You take off the hat that had kept your head warm under your hood, and notice that the person you are sharing the bus seat with is doing the same. But when you look to finally try and figure out who the hell this is so you can avoid being in a half mile radius of them and any amount of snow, you find something unexpected, something you never in your wildest dreams had seen coming. Except that you had.
Black hair with beautifully blue eyes that shone even through thick, nerdy glasses? Holy fuck, you haven't even technically met the guy yet, but you know him.

He's the guy that's killed you in your dreams for the past six nights. And he is very, very real.

And that very, very real guy has noticed you noticing him. He smiles at you before finally you hear his all too familiar voice, "Sorry about getting you with that snowball earlier, hehe! I thought you were this one kid Rick, but obviously you aren't! You must be new around here though, because I haven't seen you around. My name's John, John Egbert. And you?"

Instead of being muted like a television when you're trying to ignore infomercials like you had been in your dreams, you find your voice after a few seconds, "I'm Dave, Dave Strider."
You're Dave Strider, and you can't even believe this is happening.