Masqued

1. Remain Nameless

Chapter 1

There's something about being that girl that everyone just has to pick on.  Well, I've been that girl since about the second grade.  I think some people are just born with the gene that makes them that kid in school.  I don't think that I would have been, though. 

Truthfully, I thought I was getting the short end of the stick since I was just like the popular people.  I had the looks (when I didn't hide behind my - nonprescription - glasses) and I had the money (well, technically it was my grandmother's money, though I was sure to be inheriting it from her since we were the only family each other had).  Who knew why it had to be me?

Well, after ten years of teasing, I was used to it.  It didn't even bother me anymore.   I just ignored their jabs and the names they called me and went on my way. 

So you might be wondering just what happened to my parents.  Well, the truth is, they weren't even married when my mom got pregnant with me.  I was actually a love child.  You see, my dad was in a band.  My mom had gone to a club they were playing at one night and - cue angels singing - they saw each other from the other side of the room and instantly feel in love. 

And I'm guessing you can just imagine what happened after.

Well, nine months later, I came along, Danielle Elizabeth Sinclair.  I didn't have my dad's last name, Miller.  My grandma wouldn't let my mother do it.

I'd never met my father.  He actually died before I was born from a drug overdose.  That's what partying a little too hard after gigs got him.  Then, when I was six, my mother died of an aneurism.  I was there when it happened, just a few minutes before my grandma had gotten home, but I didn't remember it much.  I just remembered her dropping to the ground, not what had actually happened. 

At least I looked like her, though.  My grandma told me that every day and I knew by the picture I had of my parents on the nightstand beside my bed.  I had the same dark brown hair and brown eyes as her, though I had my dad's darker skin complexion.  My mother was a beautiful woman and my grandma reminded me of that every day when she told me I looked just like her. 

Now, I was in my last semester of high school and still living with my grandma in her penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park.  Our apartment building was for the super rich, which was I guess what we were.  We had a doorman named Paul, who had been there since I was little.  He called me 'Miss Danielle' anytime I went through the door and to the elevator or left the building. 

I think the music gene was given to me because I'd always had some song or beat in my head.  I was constantly thrumming out a beat with my fingers on tabletops or tapping my feet against the floor.  Music was like another world to me.  I could escape into it and not have to live out in the real world for however long I wanted. 

I first got the idea of becoming a DJ when I went to check out an illegal rave when I was sixteen.  There had been a lot of people talking about it in school and I wanted to check out what everyone was going on about.  The rave had a masquerade theme to it so I had bought a black and purple sequined mask so no one would know it was me if they saw me. 

Who knew that was the night that would change my music world forever and my alter ego, DJ Masque, would be created. 

I'd actually played with a few beats on my Mac in the few days before the rave.  And when I got to the warehouse, the bass thumping under my Converse, I watched as all of the people in colorful masks danced on the makeshift dance floor of the abandoned warehouse.  There were different colored light flashing with the beat and tempo of the music and it was simply hypnotic. 

Since I played with some beats on my Mac the night before, I created one song where I took a violin piece and mashed it with song that had been popular in the weeks before.  When I had listened to it all the way through the first time, I was laughing at how awesome I felt for knowing that I created it.