Hey soooo... this is a new story that I have been writing. This story idea has been stuck in my head for weeks so I just had to do it.
I just wanted to say that just in case you guys are confused, this takes place in a small town, after the book series. I guess maybe its an AU but not really? I don't know. If anyone is confused, please let me know so I can change a few things in the next chapter to better set up the timeline.
Anyways, enjoy!
Chapter 1: Eyes
Cold. That's how she felt.
She was so very cold, and the rest of the room seemed to follow suit. Everything was so quiet, so still, that it seemed frozen in time. Frozen in the very moment that she herself could not escape. Somehow, she had gotten used to feeling cold, and even though her mind was in a frenzy because of the pain she was in, she found comfort in the cold.
Her body was on fire. Every inch was set ablaze by the pain that pulsed through her veins, igniting her nerves and sending her brain into a panic. She couldn't think with all the alarms going off on her head, with all its efforts to keep her alive. It was telling her to breathe, to keep her heart beating, to keep her systems from failing; but it was all too much, all at once. She could only think about how much she wanted those familiar set of ice-cold arms to wrap around her and seize her burning anguish.
She thought about him, even as she knew she was dying. Even as her breathing halted and her heart became numb in her chest. Even as her eyes were losing sight and she could no longer see a way out of her situation, she thought about him. She loved him, even after everything. He was her dying thought, something she would have never thought of a few months ago.
Her brain began to boil over with thoughts, hormones and chemicals reacting, trying to send her messages. Her eyes and ears began to register something, someone, trying to make contact with her, but by that time her brain has already began to fizz over, bringing her memories of the moments that lead up to this one.
Grandpa. Cousin. Best friend. Brother. Lover.
As green eyes scanned around the cafeteria, they could see all the different shadows of those still wondering around. They lingered, even though they hadn't been alive for days, months, some for years.
Whole families. Friends. Pets. Sister. Mother.
Her eyes were an unusual hue of green, one that matched the unusual hue with which she saw the world. She saw the world in a way that was much different than others, and this became clearer to her as the years went on. When she was younger, she believed that everyone to see the people hanging around other people. She used to think that everyone knew about the shadows that clung to them, sometimes even cloaked them so completely that it distracted her everyday life. Over the years, after losing many friends because of the way she saw the world, she learned that she was vastly different. She had since grown up and learned to keep quiet about being able to see the dead.
She watched as those who have passed still lingered around their loved ones, watching the dead whisper words the living could not perceive. She watched one girl in particular, a girl named Kaitlynn from her chemistry class, as she sat down. Kaitlynn's mother was the most prominent shadow to appear around her, clinging to her daughter so desperately that it was sometimes distracting. Her mother seemed to be guarding Kaitlynn, trying to parent her daughter in her afterlife the way she would have in her regular life. She had died in a car crash when Kaitlynn was younger.
That was something else that she had to learn to stop talking about. She could feel, see, and hear the same things as the dead if she met their gazes for too long. She could feel the moments they died, the things they heard and saw before they passed. She stench of death would make her sick every now and then, but so long as she didn't pay too much attention to it, it went away after a while. It was just another part of her life that she had learned to ignore as the years went on.
"Maha," she heard a familiar voice whisper, "look, over there."
She didn't look at the person the voice belonged to, mostly because there wasn't a person there at all. The voice belonged to a shadow, one that had followed her around since she was a child. Maha had once attempted to learn the origins of the shadow, but she was only met with closed doors and a lack of answers. The only things she did know about the voice was that he prefered to be called Ojwang, an ancient African name that Maha had never heard before he said it, and that she did not know him in this life. He was not a relative who died, he wasn't even a family friend. And still, he had been there since before she was born, waiting for her arrival.
Maha glanced in the direction that he gestured, her clover green eyes settling onto the table where the new kids sat. Her town was a small town in Oregon, where everyone knew everyone. The people that inhabit the town have a tendency to be born, live, and die there. So when an entire family moved in, all eyes were on them. They were treated as outsiders, all except for their father who took up the job as head doctor at the local hospital. Doctor Cullen. The town's need for good medical treatment far outweighed the need to treat every new person as an outsider. The same could not be said for his kids.
From the first day they arrived at school, no one dared to talk to the Cullen children, no one tried to interact with them. Maha assumed that everyone felt the same way about them as she did, aside from a few snide people who just liked to hate people. She felt as if they were on another level. They were absolutely all gorgeous, and they seemed to have an elegance about them that was far beyond their years. They almost seemed to glide across the halls, so graceful their presence would not have been noticed if their beauty has not already stolen the attention of all the eyes in the room. Maha thought that everyone could feel this tension in the air when they came into the room, and it didn't help that they seemed unbothered by the lack of contact outside of their sibling group. The Cullens reminded her of a secret society, one that only they knew how to get into, only they knew what Maha and the others did not.
From the first time she saw the group of siblings, and even now as she looked at them from across the room, there was one thing she was sure none of her classmates had noticed about them.
Death.
Maha was certain no one but her could notice the unnatural amount of death that followed them, wrapping itself so tightly around them that it made her sick to think about. There were so many shadows swimming around them, some speaking loudly, some drenched in emotions and desperation. She was amazed, terrified really, by the amount of dead that surrounded them. She had never seen so much, all in one area, and when she paid too close attention to that fact, it would overload her senses. There was lots of different stories and lives that were so tightly woven in the bundle of death they had buried themselves in that it would often cause her huge discomfort to even just be in the same room as one of them.
She tried to not pay attention to the fuzziness in her head caused by dead surrounding them, even though that was hard to do because of the sizable amount off them. She had more important things to concern herself with. When Ojwang told her to look at a certain person or group of people, it was never good. It meant that he needed Maha to listen to what the dead were saying, that they needed to get a message across. It always makes Maha slightly nervous when Ojwang draws her attention to a shadow in need, because she knew it would lead to one thing, every single time. The thing she dreaded most about her ability. The visions.
Ojwang called out to Maha again, this time telling her to pay close attention to a shadow that was almost looming over one of the girls. She was pretty, much like the rest of her siblings, but there was something vastly different about her. Her hair was auburn, long and wavy, and it complimented her rosy cheeks. Her features were so delicate it looked as though she might weep if one scolded her too harshly, but the way she held herself suggested a stronger personality than that. Maha couldn't help but smile when she smiled, and it seemed the girl's attitude was just as infectious on her siblings as well. Maha's smile soon faded though, as the shadow coiled itself around the girl, frantically trying to get her attention. It was a man, an older Native American man. He knew the girl, that much Maha could tell, but she didn't get the sense that the little girl knew him. Maha squinted her eyes in thought, not ignorant to the way another person's head at the table seemed to snap in her direction. She had more important things to worry about.
Ojwang reached his arm out to the man, delicately calling out, "Here. Over here, brother." Ojwang had a tendency to call everyone brother, sister, or child. "She can help you, she will listen to you."
It didn't take much for the frantic spirit to look her way, and when she locked eyes with him, her sight faded. She was overcome with the anxieties this shadow was filled with, the raw worry that forced a scene into Maha's mind. He was trying to show her something, a warning to the living. She could tell that he was a spiritual man in his waking life, as those who were tended to be stronger in the after-life. The scene playing out before her didn't make much sense, but she was able to piece out a few things.
First, the man did not know the little girl in his waking life. Instead, he knew another person at the table; a tan young man with cropped hair, his appearance making him feel the most wild of them all. The old man only knew the girl at the table by her association with this kid. Second, the girl was going to die. The scene that played out before her was a vivid display of the girl, running and running until she was trapped. Where she was trapped, Maha didn't know, and she didn't have much time to find out before the girl's neck was snapped and the scene turned dark. Those two things were clear, but everything else was a blur, and it left her with more questions than answers.
Though this was typical of the visions the dead would give her, this one left Maha feeling cold. Her skin erupted into goosebumps, visual representations of the instinctual fear brought on by the vision. Her heart was heavy and her mind was numb, the emotions brought on by the vision having been too strong for her. Too real. She knew that she had to do something about this, and suddenly she understood the frantic spirit.
Maha stood up from her seat, gathering her things. Her backpack felt heavier than usual as she put it on, the dread of having to go confront this girl about her vision setting in. It never really went well when she tried to tell people she saw their death. Still, she had to try, and that thought is what pushed her feet to move, to carry her across the room. She neared the table and noticed that more than just one person was staring at her now. There was the man from before, who was still staring at her since before she saw her vision, but now there was a girl. She was petite, and she reminded Maha of a fairy upon closer inspection. The look on her face was much more inviting than the look on the faces of the man.
"Hello," Maha greeted, though it was more directed at the girl. She was Maha's best bet at a good start. "I'm Maha. Sorry to approach you like this, I-"
The girl didn't let her finish, excitedly blurting out, "Don't worry about it! My name is Alice. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing you around before."
The way the Alice smiled made Maha much more comfortable, and she even managed to return the smile. She was easier to be around than some of the other Cullens, there wasn't much death around her. The shadows that clung to her seemed to have lost their minds in their waking life, for they didn't even seem to recognize Alice. Her voice was much like that of a bell, and it calmed her down. She allowed herself a quick glance around the table, noting that all eyes were on her now. She also noted that all their eyes seemed to be amber colored, something that stroke her as odd considering they were all supposed to be adopted according to the rumors around school. She noticed the man was still staring at her, but as soon as she thought that, he seemed to glance in the other direction.
Turning her attention back to Alice, Maha smiled warmly and said, "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you too, Alice. I actually haven't had the chance to meet you or any of your siblings." She turned to look at the rest of the table, offering a less confident smile than the one she gave to Alice. Usually she was more confident. "What are your names, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Emmett." The biggest man at the table stated, his grin and dazzling dimple not really matching his overall appearance. He had the least amount of death around him, in fact he didn't have any that seemed to know him personally. Maha couldn't help but smile at him, she was glad he wasn't as aggressive as she seemed. Emmett gestured to a woman that sat next to him, his arm draped around her shoulder. "This is Rosalie. Don't mind her, she's just a little... shy."
Maha could tell there was nothing shy about the gorgeous blonde woman before her. In fact, Rosalie practically oozed confidence, so Maha was sure the look she was getting was more one of disapproval than it was of shyness. Even the shadows that surrounded her seemed to cower before her confidence, they were shivering. Rosalie scowled at Emmett, who was grinning in what Maha assumed to be amusement, and turned her attention back down to the table.
Maha's attention was drawn away from the beautiful couple by another woman, this one just as beautiful as Alice and Rosalie. She was much darker in her features, her eyebrows were thicker and her hair framed her face in long, soft bundles. She seemed less excitable, less expressive, than her siblings, but still allowed Maha to see a soft smile. There was death around her, but not an abnormal amount. The man next to her, the one who had been staring at her, seemed to relax a bit.
"I'm Bella. It's nice to meet you, Maha." Bella nodded as she said her name, an unspoken question of if she got her name right. Maha nodded in response.
The man next to her readjusted himself to lean his elbows on the table, his eyes boring into Maha as he introduced himself. The shadows that surrounded him made it hard for her to concentrate. They seemed angry at him, for whatever reason. "Edward. Thank you for coming up to my family and I, not many others have done that."
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," Maha laughed, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear. The simple movement made her more comfortable. "We aren't a very welcoming community when it comes to new people. It's like this every time someone new moves in, though I can't remember the last time that happened."
Ojwang wrapped his arms around her shoulders, peering over her shoulder at the table full of people. Maha could feel his urgency even before he said, "These are not the people you are meant to speak with. Quickly, stop wasting time."
"We understand. It's hard to accept new people in such a close-knit community." The girl said, smiling as warmly as she was before.
Maha turned to face her, a smile dancing its way onto her lips. She was beautiful, but it was not like the mature way that Rosalie was, or the dark way in which Bella shined among the rest of the girls at school. No, there was something much more child-like in this girl. There was wonder in her eyes, which were a dark honey, not golden like the rest of the family. They shined brightly amongst the constellations of freckles on her skin, not unlike the freckles on Maha's own cheeks. The thought of the light dying from this girl's eyes like it had in her vision was enough to snap her back into reality, to keep Maha from getting lost in her beauty. There was no death encompassing this girl but her own. She didn't deserve the tragedy that would befall her. Maha needed to tell her and her partner, the man sitting comfortably beside her.
Maha blinked a few times, her smile faltering only for the second at the thought of her vision before it returned as she asked, "I'm sorry, what was your name?"
"Renesmee." She leaned forward, extending a hand, taking Maha's hand in her own to give it a warm shake. "And this is-"
"Jacob." The wild looking boy stated, never sitting up from his leaned back position in the cafeteria chair. This was who she was meant to talk to. "Or Jake."
"Jake!" The old man from before called out, his voice attacking Maha's ears. It caused her to flinch as he bellowed, calling out to Jacob even though he didn't hear him. He couldn't. "Jake! Jake, you need to listen. Jake!"
Ojwang stepped in to take care of the old man, grabbing him by the shoulder. The elder immediately calmed down, his head bowing and his eyes boring into the ground, and Maha wondered for a second if it was because of Ojwang's sheer spiritual power. She quickly shook the thought from her mind, allowing her eyes to scan over Jake once more. This was more important.
She cleared her throat, glancing around before speaking confidently, "Jake. I know this is going to sound weird, but I have something to ask of you." She rolled her eyes, rephrasing her sentence in hope that it would sound less strange. It didn't. "Well, it's not me. It's the old man."
"The old… man?" Jake snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. He licked his lips, letting his chin lift a bit, as if he was attempting to look down on her. "What old man?"
Maha quickly glanced to Ojwang and the old man. He whispered his name, far too intimidated by Ojwang to do much else. A spirit's name is important, and often times Maha didn't get to learn their names because the spirits wouldn't be powerful enough to grant her that information. The old man must have been quite spiritual, much more than she had originally thought. Her thoughts were interrupted with flashing imagery that ran through her mind. Trees, leaves, a blur of red, a massive being, and then pain. Deafening silence. It was his death, similar to the vision he had showed her before of Renesmee.
Maha opened her eyes, focussing once again on Jacob, speaking softly for fear of what came next. The next words to fall from her mouth would change the way of life for the Cullen family for a while, she just knew it. "Harry. Harry Clearwater."
The table became still, stagnant in the air. It was so tense that Maha felt she couldn't breathe. All eyes were on her, even the dead had ceased chattering in order to stare at her. It was a long time, hours it seemed, before someone moved. When they did, it was only to lean closer to Maha, as though they were preparing to defend themselves if they had to. It felt animalistic, instinctual almost. She felt as if she had ran right into a den of animals, just waiting to be eaten. Jacob was the only one to drastically change his position, quickly tossing his chair aside as he stood up to Maha, almost pressed right against her. His breathing became heavy, his nostrils flared as pure rage began to set into the features of his face, his brow furrowed and his jaw muscle jutting out. Maha looked up at him, looking into his eyes even though it caused the goosebumps from before to return and a shiver to run down her spine.
"What. Did you say." Jake questioned, though it didn't really sound like a question. It was a statement. He had heard what she said, which became apparent as he growled out the question he actually wanted to ask, "How the hell do you know about him? Who are you?"
Ojwang appeared next to Maha, whispering to her, trying to calm her down as he told her, "You can do this, my child. Show him. Show him what you saw."
"I…" Maha began, her voice shaking a bit, trying to force its way out of her throat through all the discomfort that had began to take residence there, "I know you won't believe me when I say this, but-"
"Don't try any bullshit with me," Jacob interrupted, taking a step closer to her as he continued, "you little-"
A hand appeared on his arm, and when they looked to see who it was, Renesmee smiled back at the both of them. She didn't say anything, she just looked at Jacob, her hand slowly falling from his arm. He was visibly more calm, and it was interesting to Maha to see the way Jacob seemed to be totally enraptured by her, even nodding in agreement when Renesmee said, "Sorry about Jake, he gets a bit worked up sometimes. I'm sure he'll listen to you now."
Maha nodded, and then breathed deeply. She reminded herself that she was in control of the situation, and that she had done this many times before. It was something she had gotten better at in recent years, and even though it was always hard, a sudden burst of confidence was enough to set her straight. With Ojwang at her side, she felt she could do anything.
"Look," she sighed, her new found confidence coating her tongue, "you're just going to have to trust me when I say that Harry himself told me to come talk to you. I know it's hard to believe, trust me, you and everyone else always react the same way, so let me get a few things clear." Maha cleared her throat, licking her lips before looking him in the eyes, making sure he got the message. She wasn't playing around. For Renesemee's sake, they didn't have time for games. "One, I see the dead. Two, no, I'm not crazy. And three, Harry came to me with a warning."
Jacob seemed to be processing her words, and she wasn't too sure he fully understood them, judging by the way his jaw slacked and his brows seemed to creep lower over his eyes. She was about to explain herself, but found that there was no need when Edward interjected, "Jake, she's telling the truth. She has a message for us. I saw it."
Maha glanced at Edward, watching as he stood up and walked around to stand next to Renesmee. There was something odd about him, even as she ignored the dead that seemed to condemn him to hell. His eyes met hers before quickly glancing away, and it was at this point that it struck her. The reason why he would stare at her wasn't because he just had wandering eyes, it was because he could pick up on something no one else could. Her thoughts.
He could read her mind. She smiled, butterflies loose in her stomach at the thought of this discovery. Maha had only ever met one other person who could read minds, but this seemed like entirely new ground to her; there was something else that made him special. Made them, the Cullens, special. Edward smiled at her, nodding slightly, to which Maha's eyes gleamed. This was an important discovery, but it was a conversation to have at a later date. There were much more pressing things to attend to.
"So... what's the message?" asked Rosalie, who was still seated next to Emmett. Though she asked the question, she seemed disinterested in hearing the answer from Maha, crossing her arms defensively in front of her. If looks could kill, Rosalie would certainly have more dead surrounding her that she did.
At the sound of Edward's soft chuckled, Maha suddenly realized how delicate this situation was. If she were to discuss the matter of her vision with the table full of people, it would drastically change their mood. Their lives. This was neither the time nor the place to talk about something so tragic. Not only would it impact them, but it would impact Maha herself. Her head was beginning to feel as though it was swimming in an ocean of information that she could not process. There was too much stimuli with all the dead around her. She needed to avoid being overstimulated.
Edward nodded in agreement before looking at his family, saying, "It's important. Very important, we should wait for a better time when we can-"
"Maha, why don't you come over then?" Alice suggested, offering another one of her brilliant smiles.
Though she was hesitant, she could see Rosalie and a few other members of the family tense up, Maha eventually smiled back. "Yes, I think that would be better for everyone. Then I can… explain myself a bit better."
"Well, until then, why don't you sit down and we can all get to know each other better." Renesmee suggested, taking her seat again beside Jacob. They suited each other well, Renesmee was so gentle and peaceful, yet strong. She was a force of nature, beautiful yet Maha had the feeling she could be just as devastating. Jacob was vastly different, rugged and wild. He was like an animal, and somehow Renesmee seemed to be the only thing he didn't lash out at.
Alice clapped her hands together, gasping softly as she exclaimed, "That's right!" She was moving around Maha now, an arm gently coming up to wrap around Maha's back, Alice's hand resting on her upper arm. She was oddly touchy for someone she just met, but Maha wasn't opposed to that. It grounded her. "You haven't even met the whole family, there's one person we've been leaving out this whole time. Maha, meet Jasper."
Jasper. That must have been the name of the person that Maha had been purposefully avoiding this entire time. She wasn't sure just how much death had come to surround Jasper, all she knew was that it was an alarming amount, and she was trying to ignore him in order to not risk getting overstimulated. The dead that clung to the Cullens seemed to mostly manifest around him, a thought that gave Maha the chills every time she had previously saw them. Now, being forced to come to terms with the fact that she was standing before him, she could feel her hair stand on end, every fiber in her being telling her to flea. Her fight or flight had been activated, as if there was a lion breathing down her neck. She her eyes trailed up to meet Jasper's own eyes, she realized her fight or flight response may have been justified in activating.
He was captivating, to say the least. Alluring. His eyes are slightly less golden than his siblings, they were more amber than anything, and they seemed to rake over her with curiosity, drinking her appearance in as they came back to her eyes again. A smirk found its way onto his lips, and Maha could feel her heart skip a beat. She ignored it. Instead of blaming it on his beautiful honey waves or his strong frame, or the confident way he tilted his head, she instead tried to blame it on something that soon distracted her from being able to be fully infatuated with him.
"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am." Jasper beckoned, his voice dripping in a sweetness so southern it could have melted her on the spot. Could have, but didn't. She was distracted, so much so that she was sure her jaw must have been on the floor.
Her eyes buzzed around, trying to capture the shadows that seemed to move around Jasper. They were like a fire, dancing and blazing out of control, completely cloaking him in death. It was amazing. No, it was terrifying. Maha could feel her senses begin to reach their limits with all the information the spirits around him carried, she knew she was walking a dangerous line, but she couldn't find herself caring about whether or not she became overstimulated. She was too scared to look away, frozen in time, caught in the madness that existed around him. There was enough death surrounding Jasper to last over a span of different liftimes, different decades, centuries likely. She couldn't even begin to process everything she was seeing, feeling, hearing before her, and the way her head felt like it was going to split open didn't help her concentration any. She needed to look away, she had to, before it was too late.
She was going to look away. Ojwang's cries for her to look at him were futile, though, when her eyes met those of a young boys. He was small, much too young to die, Maha thought. His eyes met hers and for a second, they just stared at each other. Then, the realization that she could see him set in, and the boy began to yell. He began to get emotional, to scream, to cry at her, and when visions of his death flashed through her mind, she understood why.
Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Jasper in her vision. It was him, but it wasn't him at the same time; it was a version of Jasper that sent her off the edge. She was already nervous, but the boys emotions of panic and fear sent her over the edge. She didn't even notice when Alice was calling out her name, when her lungs began to ache for oxygen, when her sight began to diminish from the tears that burned them. She was having a panic attack, but that didn't matter as the boy's death played out before her mind's eye. Sickness plagued her as she watched Jasper attack the boy, snapping his neck like it was nothing, leaving his body to crumble. Maha felt as if her own neck were going to snap, she could feel everything the boy felt. Hurt. Fear. Pain. Betrayal. Death. It was too much. She had reached her limit.
It was only when Alice shook Maha that she was able to come back to reality, that she was able to gasp for air again, able to feel the scorching tears that flowed down her flushed cheeks. All eyes were on her as her panic attack ensued, but her eyes were on Jasper.
The dead don't lie. They only speak the truth, they can only show Maha their truths. So, when they began chanting a word that they knew to be true, it was the only thing that filled Maha's mind. In her panicked, weak state, all she could do was think of that one word, even as Alice tried to get her to work through her panic. It was one the tip of her tongue, sat there like poison, and Maha was ready to spit it right at the face of the beast before her.
"Y-you…" Maha began, her voice wavering, not unlike the way her body was shaking. "You... are a murderer."
As her world began to phase, as she succumbed to her exhaustion brought on by all the emotions and her own panic, Maha could feel all eyes on her. The Cullens rushed to her side as she began to faint, feeling her world tilt before it collapsed around her. The dead, however, did not rush to her side.
Instead, they began to get loud. They were yelling at her, screaming louder than they ever had before. As her eyes closed and her world turned black, she could finally hear them. In a cacophony of panic and desperation, they were all yelling one word. One message.
"Run."