The Twilight Saga Winter Solstice
Renesmee's Tale of Woe – Four Years After Breaking Dawn Part 2
Chapter 1
I walk barefoot through the forest as I hear the wolves howl at the moon in the distance. It's a full moon night, and the frigid air blows through my nightgown, sending shivers up and down my spine. My hands are frozen through, and I can barely feel my fingers anymore.
I don't know exactly how long I've been wandering through the woods alone. All I know is I'm ravenous. The fire in my throat blazes hotter with every second that goes by, and I can feel the searing pangs of thirst rearing their ugly head.
One desire alone drives me forward, and I can think of nothing else.
I have to feed.
As I arrive at a clearing, I see the bright glow of a campfire. There's a car parked nearby, and upbeat music blasts on the stereo. I draw near slowly, taking refuge in the shadows cast by the trees around the clearing. There are tents pitched a few feet from the fire.
I can hear people laughing, so I move a couple of steps closer to hide behind one of the tents. And it's from there, that I can finally spot them. They look like college students eager for adventure, so they've come to the right place, seeing as that's what I intend to give them.
The boys are drinking beer, chuckling amongst themselves as they watch some girls dance around the fire. The girls sway their hips to the music, and their silhouettes twirl graciously against the backdrop of flames, reminding me of gazelles with their long, spindly legs.
My mouth waters in anticipation as I pick up on their vibrations. I can sense the beating of their hearts and imagine the blood. Oh yes, the blood! I picture it pumping fresh and warm through their veins. The blood is the life, and I need that life right now, inside of me, and all throughout my body. I can already taste it in my mouth. My body demands it.
Animal blood will not do.
I've never stalked human prey before. I'm tired of going against my nature. I must feed. This will be my first kill—not animal but human—and I long for it with every inch of my being.
I sneak up behind one of the boys. I know I've got to move fast and I have to compel him to keep him from warning the others. The moment his eyes meet mine, I put my hand on his cheek and project the image into his mind.
I show him my lips on his neck, my teeth breaking his skin, and the warm moist of my tongue suctioning gently, tasting the blood from his wounds and releasing my venom into his system. I see the thrall suddenly take possession of him. A glazed-over look in his eyes, and he is mine.
But right as I put my arms around him and part my lips over the silky skin of his neck, my eyelids fly open, and the darkness of my room comes rushing in faster than the tide.
That's when I realize my dream is over, but the unquenchable thirst is still there, clawing away at my throat. A sudden jolt of agony drags me down, submerging me into an inferno of instinctual need, and I thrash about in my bed, writhing in and out of fetal position.
My cravings always seem to reach their peak at that very moment when my dreams trick my body into thinking that I'm finally going to feed.
Oh, woe unto me, poor unfortunate soul, born under the name of Renesmee Carlie Cullen! I am aweary, I am aweary. I would that I were dead.
Downstairs, I can hear a sullen melody playing softly, deftly, crescendoing at times, and then plunging right back into near silence. It's my father, Edward Cullen, playing his new grand piano, for my uncle Jasper broke his old one . . . once upon a new moon.
That's the only way my father says he can quiet down the thoughts that come unbidden. He calls them telepathic invasions. They're the thoughts of others, he's told me, and they whisper constantly in his mind's ear, always forcing him to walk the fine line between a midnight sun and an eclipse.
He says music is the only sound that soothes the heart of ice and stone in his chest. I wish it did the same for me, but no such luck, for I'm different from everyone in my clan, you see.
I'm what my Auntie Alice Cullen calls a half-breed, part vampire and part human. My parents conceived me during their honeymoon in Brazil, four years ago to be exact, while my mum was still human and my dad was a vampire already well past the hundred-year-old mark.
No, he wasn't a dirty old man at the twilight of his life. He looked rather young and debonair, like a marble statue. Therefore, age was nothing but a number in this fairy-tale marriage between a human girl just out of high school and a British vampire who refused to feed on human blood.
I'm told my mom had the time of her life in Brazil, what with a flurry of feathers and a large share of bruises acquired under, shall we say, risqué circumstances, but that is a matter fit only for mature audiences so . . .
On to more suitable material . . .
At first, everything was rainbows and unicorns for us. My father was the very elegant Edward Cullen, and my mother was Bella Swan Cullen. My name, Renesmee, derived from Renee, the name of my maternal grandmother, and Esme, the name of my father Edward's mother.
As for my middle name, Carlie, it was short for Carlisle, the name of my paternal grandpa and leader of the Cullen clan. So, as I stated earlier but cannot state often enough, my full name is Renesmee Carlie Cullen, yours truly and at your service.
It was unfortunate that, while being born, I almost killed my still-human-at-the-time mother by cracking open her rib cage and crushing her spine. But that's not the worst part. My birth was so bloody over-the-top and melodramatic, that I also forced my father to turn my mom into a vampire in order to save her life.
In the end, however, my arrival into this world made everyone in my family so happy, that they completely forgot about the bone-crushing incident.
In other words, after just a few days of being born, I'd secured my position in the Cullen clan as Nessie, short for Renesmee, the undisputed princess that would guarantee them peace with their long-time enemies, the Quileutes. I'll tell you more about them later.
For the time being, suffice it to say that my grandparents were crazy about me the moment I was born, but they weren't the only ones. Jacob Black, a Quileute werewolf, was also quite smitten with me, to the point where he told my family he had imprinted.
Wait what? A Quileute werewolf and a half-breed vampire? Yes, you read correctly. A bit absurd, I know, but, as I mentioned before, I will tell you all about the Quileute werewolves, Jacob Black, and the business of imprinting later.
For right now, it's back to my family, the Cullens, clan of vegetarian vampires extraordinaire.
After I was born, my grandparents, Carlisle and Esme, bestowed upon mom and dad a dream cottage for the three of us to live out our happily ever after. The cottage was next to my grandparents' mansion in the outskirts of a sleepy little town called Forks, in Washington State.
Such fantasy accommodations worked brilliantly at first. But our idyllic family life didn't last, because I happened to attract the attention of a very ancient clan of human-blood drinking vampires, the Volturi.
Without going into much detail and, to make a long story short, I will narrow it down to stating that foreign relations with the Volturi brethren deteriorated so much, that my family had to round up an army of vampires from all the way across the world.
Fortunately, Aro Volturi is quite the gentleman, so, as soon as my parents presented him with some compelling evidence proving that I was not an immortal child, as they had originally been made to think, he picked up his billowing robe and retreated without a fight.
That's how the Volturi clan retreated back to their headquarters in Volterra, Italy, with the tail between their legs. Figuratively speaking.
So, when that happened, the Cullens, along with our Quileute allies and the army of vamps they'd rounded up from all the way across the world, got together and threw a big soirée to celebrate our happily ever after.
After that, everyone went home, and we all thought that was that.
Little did we know that this was only the beginning.
Yes, I know what you're thinking. But what about my mom, Bella Swan-Cullen, and her awesome, secret vampire super power? Namely, a shield that is suspiciously similar to the one they activated during the final Hogwarts battle in the Harry Potter Saga finale, only my mom's shield is impenetrable and indestructible, so there you have it.
Yes, yes, I haven't forgotten about that. Not to worry, my mom does have this mighty vampire super power, and she defended our entire army from the Volturi with it, but, believe it or not, her shield is not as impenetrable as you may think.
Yours truly here happens to be the only person in this world who can penetrate my mom's shield. Other vampires, like my dad and my auntie, have to wait until my mom lowers her shield at will in order to use their vampire superpowers on her, which is almost never, might I add.
My mom Bella is a very private vampire and she downright loathes it when her fellow vamps try to use their superpowers to influence her in any way. That must be why her vampire superpower is this shield, vulnerable only to her daughter.
I want you to pay close attention to this seemingly insignificant detail, because it will play a big part in my story later on. I am the only one who can penetrate my mom's shield. Remember that.
This, my tale of woe, tells about how I, Renesmee Carlie Cullen, get seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, Luke Skywalker be damned.
I know what you're thinking, but don't worry. I'm not trying to crossover into the Star Wars universe. What I'm trying to explain is that this mysterious, mystical force they speak of in Star Wars is a universal force. It is everywhere, all around us, and we all have the power to manipulate it.
We decide if we use it for good or evil. Add to that the fact that I am a half-breed vampire with a very special superpower, and you might be able to imagine just how difficult it is for me to play on the side of the goodies.
But I will tell you more about my special vampire superpower and about the significance of me being the only person able to penetrate my mother's shield when the time comes. For right now, just keep it in the back of your mind as you read my tale of woe, because it will make a lot of sense when a major plot point gets revealed involving a certain someone from Volterra.
So . . .
On to bigger and better things:
At this time, let me take the opportunity to explain why what we thought was the final happily ever after for the Cullens, the Volturi, the Quileutes and all the other vamps from across the world, was really only the beginning.
Yes, that's right. If you thought the Breaking Dawn Part 2 finale was going to live forever, you are sadly mistaken, if you don't mind my saying so, because, as it turns out, things are not as they seem, you see.
Truth be told, we only thought Aro Volturi and his guards had retreated with the tail between their legs and gone back to their lair in Volterra. But, in reality, as soon as Aro got home to his quaint abode, the wheels in his head began turning, and a sinister plan started hatching.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
Bear with me for a second, and let me take you back to Forks to my early childhood years, after the Volturi went back to Italy, frustrated over the anticlimactic turn of events, which involved a certain epic battle that never happened. Or rather, an epic battle that really only happened in the vision of my Auntie Alice Cullen.
You may remember that my Auntie Alice's vampire superpower is that she has clairvoyant visions about potential futures. You may also remember that Aro Volturi's vampire superpower is tactile telepathy.
In other words, he can read people's minds, but much more in depth than my dad can, because he is able to read every thought, feeling and memory a person has ever had for as long as they've existed. That's how he was able to see that it'd be off with his head if he tried to fight my clan and our allies.
So, after the supposedly fearsome Volturi retreated without engaging us in battle, my clan and I were able to live in peace.
Trouble is, our blissful existence didn't last very long.
I first became aware of my tragic flaw one year ago, when I turned three. My clan began to train me in the ways of the vegetarian vampire. You know the drill. I was never allowed to drink human blood. Instead, my family taught me how to hunt deer, elk, bear, mountain lion, and other similar animals, so I could feed on their blood instead of killing humans, and yada, yada, yada.
Meanwhile, every time I complained to my parents because animal blood wasn't nutritious enough for me (with me growing up at three or four times the rate of full-breed humans and all), they would tell me it was all a matter of self-control and nothing more.
Yeah, sure. Easier said than done.
As it turns out, for some reason I can't fully understand, the whole self-control strategy just wasn't doing it for me anymore. The more I tried to talk myself into controlling my appetites, the stronger my cravings grew.
And, to make matters worse, my body was developing so fast, that, by the time I was three, I looked like a twelve-year-old, so my clan got paranoid, and we had to move to Victoria, on Vancouver Island, in Canada. My grandpa Carlisle said it was the only way to keep the humans in Forks from getting suspicious.
But moving to Canada only solved some of our problems, because it allowed us to start a brand new life in a new town, but that didn't stop my cravings for human blood.
That's when I started having the dreams. It was the same every time. I saw myself walking alone in the dark in isolated places, always stalking unsuspecting humans, and always using my vampire superpower to compel them into longing for the embrace.
No one in my family ever talked to me about the vampire's embrace. It's something I found out about on my own, by going online and doing research. The vampire's embrace happens when a human is seduced by a vampire. It doesn't count if you attack them and force them into it.
They must surrender willingly, and it's easy for a vampire to seduce them into doing it. Humans are, for the most part, quite stupid, you see. They are hedonists. They seek out pleasure at all costs, even if it leads to self-destruction.
As a matter of fact, humans love walking that fine line between life and death. They are thrill seekers and they love adventure. Danger excites them. Believe me, I know. I'm part human, so I know all about that.
So that's where the vampire's embrace comes in. The moment the vampire's teeth break the human's skin, a chemical is released into their system along with our venom. The chemical is actually mixed in with our venom, and the effect it has on humans is supposed to be an orgasmic experience incomparable to anything else.
Humans instinctively seek it out. That's why they swoon and relax into the vampire's embrace. They are said to enjoy it so much, that they don't mind dying in the process. So, if the embrace is this much fun for a human, one can only imagine how pleasurable it must be for us vampires.
Once I learned about the vampire's embrace and what it does to humans, I became obsessed with experiencing it. The dreams only made it worse, because I got so close every time, only to wake up right when it was about to happen.
It got so bad to the point that, now that I'm four years old and ready to start ninth grade in high school, I already feel like a fiend. I am addicted to something I have never experienced, and my every thought revolves around this obsession.
Only problem is, my parents and my entire clan say it is forbidden.