Title: Brave New World: Shift
Summary: After a climate shift, the structure of humanity falls apart and the world becomes a vampire free for all. /Completed/
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Story is produced without profit.
Characters: Leah/Renesmee, other.
Genre: Apocalyptic/Survival
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Apocalyptic themes.
Status: Completed.
Archiving: Please PM me.
Inspirations/Dedications: ~
Author's Notes: This story is part of a series. It is purposely left open with the aim of adding more to it.
Shift: Chapter One
It's cold out tonight. Colder than even she can stand. Her body demands a change. Survival would be so much easier with a fur coat, but she has to resist. There's no way she could carry the packs that are weighing her down, despite her superior strength.
The world has been swallowed by snow and ice. It blankets the entire landscape, leaving a bitter chill in the air that seeps through the six layers of clothing she is wearing. She could wear six more and it would still find it's way in. There's nothing left to distinguish where she is standing. It could be a village, a city...she could be standing in the middle of New York, for all she knows. Way back when, she could pinpoint her exact location just with a simple sniff of the air. Smog, pollution and spicy noodles and she was in Port Angeles. Fresh air, wet grass and car fumes and she was home.
That's the first lesson she learned. Her abilities are almost useless in the face of Mother Nature. They were bestowed by her after all, and she'll be damned if she was never going to show them their limits. Leah likes to believe it's a test, however egotistical that may be, because it's easier when there is something to keep pushing for, and she's always liked to prove that she is better.
She met Brady a while back. It took her until at least ten minutes into the conversation to realise where she knew him from. His face was smooth and youthful, a by product of their blessed genetics, but his eyes held no trace of the innocence she knew existed once upon a time.
...
"Leah?" His voice is rough, masculine. He's not a boy anymore. He wraps his arms around her in a hug and it's been so long that she's been touched by anyone that she caves into his embrace.
"Who are these people?" She asks, studying the group behind him. He has others with him, humans who shiver and shake as they talk. It doesn't matter what they look like, or how they got here. They look at him as if he is a hero and she remembers when she had companions of her own. She thinks about warning him. They'll only slow him down, they'll slowly fade away one by one until you start to question whether they existed in the first place, but she can't bring herself to do it. These people need a hero, and though she knows the boy in front of her is anything but, she lets them dream a little while longer, because she knows that he needs a reason.
He names them, one by one, and she can tell that he hasn't been doing this for long. Soon they'll merge into each other, soon names won't be important. It'll be easier to forget them if you never really knew them in the first place. .
Brady is heading North and she is heading South, so they say their goodbyes. A firm handshake, a pat on the shoulder and then they are gone. She sniffs the air, sharp and bitter, and she knows there's a storm on it's way. She starts to run, her eyes zooming every which way in search of shelter, because even a werewolf can't survive the waves. She's learned that the hard way.
...
The shelter she finds is a dilapidated cottage, and there's a fifty percent chance that, when the storm hits, it will come crashing down around her ears. But it's better than being out side so she settles down and prepares for the night ahead. She's got her routine perfected. First she checks the cupboards for food and the taps for running water and when she finds neither, because she never does, she spends a good few minutes cursing and kicking furniture. It's not rational but it helps. She considers, for a moment, dropping to the floor and just letting nature take it's course, but then she remembers a young boy proudly showing off his new transformer toy and her survival instinct kicks in.
She smashes up an old rocking chair that she knows is an antique and probably worth a few grand. None of that matters anymore. It's nothing of value in a broken world. The only thing it is good for is firewood and she feels no guilt or sadness as she watches it blaze. Her belly grumbles with hunger but the only people who dare to venture out in a wave are vampires and those who wish for death.
She piles every blanket, towel, and other scrap of material that she can find in a spot around the fire. She leaves the curtains because the difference is slight, but they really do help to keep the cold out. She doesn't bother boarding up the windows. To do so would be the equivalent of nailing a neon sign to the front door. If the cold has done one good thing, it's made it harder for the vampires to pick up a scent and so they've come to rely on visual signs that there is fresh blood near by.
She tries not to remember her life before but that is a case of easier said than done. It seems like a dream to her now. Faces and memories have faded so much that she can't tell the difference between make believe and reality. Some things stick. She remembers a time when she thought the worse thing that would ever happen to her was being betrayed by the people she loved and losing her father all within a few months of each other. She feels it's a blessing that Harry died when he did. She's not sure she could have watched her daddy suffering, without losing the shred of sanity she had left. Her father died at her own metaphorical hand, and that's a dignified way to go these days.
It didn't take her long to get over Sam. She wonders if Emily is still with him, or if he's had to watch her succumb to the cold, or worse. She thinks of her own imprint, sacrificed for the good of the pack. The overwhelming love she felt for him was second to none and she still misses the comfort of having him near her. She fought so hard to protect him after the shift, so she really should have intervened when she saw that vampire leap at him but in that second ,all she could see was her pack, her brothers. She knew she could never protect them fully, not while her imprint was still alive, taking all the love she had left to give. She had quickly regretted the decision, even more so as she ripped his marble throat out, but the pain had faded with time.
It all fades in the end.
…