Chapter One – Nothing I can't do

My eyes flickered open, and I was immediately amazed and shocked at what I saw. Everything.

I could see everything.

I raised myself from the ground, and looked about my person, if that was what I was anymore, anyway. I was dressed all in black, but the clothes I wore were nothing more than rags, dirty and torn.

Then I felt the burn, the ripping, tearing, scorching fire. My throat was on fire. I instinctively sought water, liquid, anything to stop the horrendous blaze. Suddenly, my vision was cut off, and I was momentarily shocked, until I saw images before my eyes.

There was a row of stools, and a bar, but I saw nothing other than the stunning, striking, handsome young man that sat there.

I knew his name was Jasper Whitlock, that he was 20 years of age and that he had no idea that he was waiting for me.

I also knew that he was a vampire, and as much as that fact shocked me, I had no fear whatsoever, but a lure, an attraction, a pull towards this one person, the heart of existence.

He was tall with honey blond hair, and was muscular yet lean, and his eyes were an odd shade of burgundy, with thick lashes framing them.

Alarming me somewhat, the vision changed to a pair of bright, golden eyes. Then it flickered, and disappeared.

I blinked, disorientated by the sudden change in view, and found the motion uncomprehendingly pointless. I drew breath, for what I realised must be the first time since I had woken, yet was surprised yet again as the relief tied to this action did not come.

I looked around myself, realising that I didn't know who I was, where I was and what I was.

Behind me was a tall, thick wall of brick and stone that I'd been slumped against upon my awakening. I turned and reached out to touch it, expecting it to be hard and cold, but surprisingly it was remarkably soft, and not cold in the slightest.

I whirled in panic, wondering what had happened to me, at which point I caught the smell of something in the vast forest behind me, and the burn in my throat was realized again.

The movement I made turning round threw me off balance – did it take any time at all?

I inhaled my third breath, and smelt the odd fragrance again, and began to head into the forest opposite the wall, yet was overwhelmed again – surely I couldn't run this fast, walk this gracefully. I saw a deer, dancing through the trees and wondered again at the strangely…tangy smell emanating from the creature.

It was almost repulsive.

I was just staring in wonder at the foliage around me, when those same, gold eyes came into my vision again, only this time, they belonged to the body of a man.

His hair was only a shade or two lighter than his eyes, and he looked to be over 6 ft in height. The information granted with the image was that his name was Carlisle Cullen, and that he was a vampire, too.

I was astounded to know that he didn't drink the blood of humans, but the blood of animals, explaining the golden colour of his eyes.

The vision went away again, and my entire concentration was returned to the burn in my throat. I shut my eyes, and listened to try to hear a stream or a river anywhere.

I could not only see everything, I realised, I could hear everything, too, not to mention smell everything as well.

The brushing of the lighest wind against the tree-tops, the scurrying of small rodents and insects, and as I spun my hearing range out to the point where I was certain of my limits, I heard the sound of water running through a creek.

I breathed a sigh of relief, yet my sense of smell told me that there was something wrong.

The smell that went with the water, was foul, even worse than the tangy aroma of the venison.

Driven wild by the pain in my throat, I growled, and was disgusted and amazed by the low, guttural snarl that came from my lips.

I ran at an exhilarating speed into the midst of the forest, and stopped when I heard the heavy paws of a lion thudding in the dense foliage.

It was not nearly as repulsive a smell as the river or the deer, and without thought or reasoning, I tensed my body and shot toward the place the thuds were coming from, and the warm aroma of the beast.

I leapt at it, and, sinking my teeth into it's neck, began to drink from it.

When I had finished, I realised what I'd done.

I realised what I'd become.

I realised that one day I would join Carlisle's coven.

I realised that I was a vampire.

I ran, if you could call it running, it was more like flying, like being shot from a revolver, to the place where I'd heard the water before, the creek.

The water flowed clear, and as I approached it, I could see everything of myself in the reflective shimmer that was the surface.

My face was shocking, but by no means in a bad way. It was the most beautiful thing that I was sure I had ever seen, besides of course, from Jasper Whitlock, the man sitting in the bar, who turned out to be the same species, the same creature as I was.

Vampire.

Vampire.

I looked back to my face, and with horror realised that my eyes were a vivid crimson colour, almost glowing and the most prominent feature on this face, my face.

I gazed at my reflection, and on noting the way that my clothes seemed to be even more ripped than before, I assumed that the lion must have unleashed the power of his strength and claws against me, but apparently to no avail whatsoever.

I looked skyward, and saw the dull, grey clouds above me that gave me no assistance at all in helping me know the time of day, the month, or the season. I felt no cold, yet no heat.

I thought back to touching the stone wall against which I'd been lying, and the expected chill not being there. My body temperature must be low then, and as I also remembered the soft texture of the wall, I assumed that I must be as solid as granite, as marble, too.

I thought back to my eyes again, and my thoughts were returned to Carlisle Cullen, and his coven of vampires. He had gold eyes, did he not?

Then if I had just fed from an animal, not a human, it only made sense for me to have gold eyes as well.

The burn in my throat was returning again, distracting me from my train of thought, and I knew that I must not have had enough from the lion, and was rather disgusted with myself. Nevertheless, I headed for the forest and when I entered, became still.

The stillness momentarily shocked me, for I had never been able to stay this still before, and wondered how long I could stay like this.

I spanned out my senses and, finding nothing, I shot through the forest in search of new prey. After a time, the forest began to thin and a dim light came through the trees. I broke through the trees and towering in the distance I saw a mountain range, though I was unaware of my geographical positioning.

I stilled again and this time when I spanned out my senses, there was much more of the warm aroma like the lion's and I crouched, and prepared myself for the hunt.

I did this another two times before I was finally satisfied with the amount I'd had. The burn was not gone, but at least I could now concentrate on other things than it.

I took this time to actually look upwards, and around me, and for some reason I could not comprehend, the feeling of being free without boundaries seemed an entirely new concept to me. I tried to think back to my life before I woke up, but as I searched through my memory, I came up blank.

I couldn't remember a single detail from being human. How odd.

My mind was yet again distracted by a realisation that I had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep, nothing to wear, nothing, no one, nowhere in the entire world. I thought that over again.

Sleep.

Would I need to sleep? I'd been hunting at top speed for quite a time, yet I felt no sense of being tired or needing rest of any kind. Well, maybe I didn't need to sleep.

One of the perks of being a vampire, I told myself, with mock enthusiasm, though I was starting to feel a little excited at the prospect of not having anything I couldn't do.

Nothing I can't do.

The phrase was very true. What with this speed and strength, there were no limits in the physical world. My brain seemed to be endlessly large, so I guess that I didn't really have any limits in the intellectual world either, really. Although I obviously couldn't remember my life before, I somehow remembered that in my experience, being as beautiful as I was, or merely pretty, could get you to a lot of places.

What did I know of anything other than the experience of what I'd been doing for what couldn't be more than a few hours? Could I go out in public? Was there a rule which deemed me unable to do that in this life?

I had never seen any amazingly beautiful people as far as I could recall, then again, I could hardly recall anything from before.

But that was my last life.

This is my life now.

As a vampire.