La Fille de Loup
The Wolf Girl
When I first opened my eyes after the transformation, everything struck me in a brilliant sort of clarity. The light gliding through the windows was intense; it almost blinded me. The stark white walls of the room were absolute ivory, and loomed above and on top of me, as if the color itself was so pure, a mere house could not contain it.
I was also extremely and unusually self-aware. I could feel the strength and raw power pulsing through my icy veins, taking the place of the blood that had once occupied them (still occupied them, I reminded myself, for at least another year) . I could literally hear my lungs move as I took each unnecessary breath; the sound was a tad bit disturbing and would take some getting used to, I knew.
The air was also different. It tasted (yes, tasted) plain and bland, almost foul. The flavor of pollution was nauseating; if not for the crisp, clean scent of air from a previous century buried underneath the layers of hazardous waste, it would have been absolutely intolerable. I wished I could make myself stop breathing, as I knew was possible, but I couldn't quite figure out how.
And then, in spite of all my stunned bewilderment over these wonders and anomalies, I realized, with an instinctive precognition, that I was not alone. I glanced to the side to find Edward grinning softly in my direction, obviously unsure of how to approach me. I paused for a moment, expecting the familiar fluttering of my heart to shake my chest, but oddly nothing happened. It worried me for a split-second before I remembered that my heart no longer beat.
I attempted to rise shakily to my feet, and he rushed to my side in a motion impossibly swift, one that I would not have seen had I still been a human. It unsettled me a tad bit that I could plainly see all of his movements. He was no longer a blur to me. We were on exactly the same level.
"Be still, love," he cooed, touching my cheeks as lightly as before the transformation (or perhaps it was ten times as rough and I just ten times as durable…)
"Edward," I whispered, the corners of my lips upturning slightly, "Edward, I can see everything. Everything is so beautiful!"
He chuckled, and threw an arm about my shoulders, squeezing me tight against his body. It…it was…Like Jacob's (I shivered at his name) body had been, minus the insane heat. Strong, and steady, but with skin soft…and normal. Edward's rock hard body (I giggled at the pun) was forever gone to me. I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that. I mean, how often could one snuggle with a dazzling statue?
He led me down the flights of stairs, and I marveled through the window at the snow, as I bore witness to every single crystal of delicate frozen water as it danced through the sky and spun with the wind. Alaska had never seemed so beautiful to me before. I figured it was because I couldn't feel the bitter cold any longer.
The house was empty, and each step we took was hollow and obscenely loud. Even though I knew my every movement was as silent as a ghost, and even though I knew I just wasn't used to my oversensitive hearing, I was unnerved. The differences were huge, of course, but I still sounded like a human.
Edward turned me towards him and his eyes scorched, ocher in all of their aesthetic beauty. His pale skin glimmered in the dim lamp light, his hair tousled from when he must've run his hands through it in anxiety. Moving slowly, he tilted his head and pressed his perfect lips upon mine, moving them softly and at the same time with a sort of desperate fervor. His hands trailed down my arms until they came to a halt at my waist, at which point his pulled me against him. I could feel every crevice of my own molded into his, as one. His lips moved more quickly now, the desperation growing. "Do you want me, Bella?" he growled, somehow finding a way to force our bodies even closer together. "Will you always want me?" his voice pleaded in a way I had never heard before.
"More than anything in my entire existence," I promised.
But then it slammed into me like a freight train. Knocked me senseless. Ravaged me and ruined me and tore apart at my very being, unlike any desire I had ever known. It grinded in my belly and set fire to my throat, and I wanted it. I wanted it so badly. I was hot and bothered and starving and thirsty. A grating screech resounded from somewhere deep inside of me, and I lunged blindly towards the source of the smell. Edward attempted to restrain me, but his strength was no match for mine.
With wild abandon and a sweet scent all but rendering me sightless, I clawed my way outside and into the biting snow I could no longer feel.