A oneshot set in the year 2238 with Edward and Bella's tenth child. Got kind of inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean when I was writing it so it turned out very different to how I expected...

Ashes To Ashes

Carlie Elizabeth Cullen

After World War Four, the world died. It became a barren and ugly place to live, and this is the place I was born into. I don't know what possessed my mother to have a child at a time like this, maybe she was missing having children, or maybe she wanted to bring a little light into her life, or maybe she was just desperate for something right to happen in the world.

After WWIV the world didn't repair itself. Instead different clans of people banded together to create their own kingdoms, this went well for a while until the rise of one supernatural, one supernatural that changed the world as we all knew it.

Cato Castodian, a powerful supernatural, his species unknown whose power was not only to bring people back to life, but bring the souls of the deceased back to their desiccated and rotten corpses. After been denied a spot in the supernatural council, he swore vengeance on us, creating the world we live in today.

He had brought back all the dead people from WWIV, the warriors, the angry and tortured souls to fight in his name, thousands upon thousand of undead warriors ready to kill anybody who came near him or who would not ally with him against the supernatural council.

Of course the humans got caught in this crossfire, the humans were being turned into these vile undead creatures, flesh eaters, zombies of sorts. This is why the world is as it is not, barren and broken. The humans decided that they needed to isolate themselves from each other and the flesh eaters for their own safety, so now each human faction lives in circular cities known as Kingdoms, each kingdom is shaped like that of a wheel, with the main city in the centre with a huge wall around it, and then more walls coming out from the centre like the spokes of a wheel for more protections. Within these spokes live the kingdoms people, the workers and the farmers and the people who are not deemed valuable enough to live in the city.

There are ten sectors in each of these kingdoms, one for each vital role that keeps these kingdoms alive and thriving. I live in one of these sectors with my mother and father, they didn't want me out in the wilds as the barren landscape outside the walls is called.

I have no memory of ever been outside the walls of the kingdom, our kingdom known as Abaddon. My mother and father were my the only people I felt close to, as everybody kept to themselves. I had never seen any of my family, any of the rest of them. I knew I had nine older brothers and sisters and many cousins, aunts, uncles and nephews and nieces- I had just never met any of them.

Bella was my mother, she was the kindest person you would ever meet, and my father Edward was the most protective and loving father I could have ever had, but with my fourth birthday fast approaching and my time to have some freedom was now upon me. I couldn't usually go out into our sector as if people knew how fast I had grown they would have known that I was not like them, that I was not human.

So now my growth was close to stopping, I knew I would at least be allowed to go out into our sector and meet some of the humans, I would finally be able to meet others and make some friends and not be so lonely anymore.

I would have loved to meet my brothers and sisters, but people were rarely allowed to visit from other kingdoms, and then there was the fact they didn't actually live in another kingdom, they were with the supernatural council fighting the flesh eaters and trying to get to Castodian to stop this madness that had gone on for a few decades now.

"Carlie, where are you?" My mom shouted as I sat up from my bed sighing. Considering I was physically reaching her age, we had a pretty normal mother-daughter bond.

"I'm here." I said speeding down the stairs with a smile on my face, running into her chest and wrapping my arms tightly around her.

"Your father is still at work, I hate working." She sighed and then pulled out a chair, I sighed sadly and then sat beside her. They only worked to keep up their human façade, because if they didn't we couldn't have stayed here and I would not have had a safe childhood.

"It's only through the day though, and you get Mondays and Tuesdays off. Plus you get to be awake at night too. At least you can go out of the house, I can't yet." I tried to cheer her up, I hated it when I saw my mother so hopeless. I could see she was missing her other children madly and I didn't want to upset her further by reminding her that she was also lonely.

"I know, I need to talk to you about that anyway. How would you like to start going to school?" She asked me. I widened my eyes in awe, I couldn't believe it. Only the richest children went to school as the school was in the capital of the kingdom, most would just carry on living in their sectors or transfer sectors when the choosing ceremony came at the age of 18, but people who went to school got the option to live actually in the centre of the kingdom as a doctor or a warrior in arms.

"You would let me go to school?" I widened my eyes looking really happy, I hadn't expected that. All of my siblings had gone to school in one form or another, whether in college or in actual high school, so doing this made me able to compare myself to the amazing people I had heard about so many times in my life.

"Yes. Me and your father have been talking about it for a while, you can go to school here and then we can go back to the supernatural council for a few weeks and get the latest news and see our other children. It's still too dangerous for you out there, and once you go to school you will have to do your provisional training and exams to test whether you are intelligent enough and then you can carry on in the field of your choice. Carlisle has agreed to fund your education for you." Bella explained to me. I nodded and then felt tears come down my face.

"I'm so happy!" I cried and then stood up to hug my mother again. Although I was sad that they would be leaving for a few weeks and that they would be seeing my siblings I had always wanted to meet without me, I was ecstatic that I was finally going to be able to go to school and meet some new people.

I heard the door unlock and I turned around to see bronze hair entering the room, bronze hair I had somewhat inherited. My hair was a blondish-bronze, a few shades lighter than my fathers. My eyes were inherited from my mother, chocolate brown like most of us seemed to have from her.

"Daddy!" I screeched and then I threw myself into his arms. He caught me, hovering off the ground and held me up in a hug.

"What's made you so happy, Li?" Edward asked with a smile as he tussled my hair a little. I rolled my eyes and pushed his hand from my hair as he placed me on the ground next to my mother who was now waiting for her kiss as she usually did when my dad got home from work.

"I'm going to go to school!" I exclaimed with a laugh. I was so happy about been able to go to school, I couldn't believe I would now be able to have the freedom I had always wanted.

"What job do you think you will train for?" My father asked me with a smile, showing me he already knew what I was really happy about. Right, I forgot you could read my mind. I rolled my eyes slightly and then let mom and dad kiss before they pulled apart and looked at me again, awaiting my answer.

"I think I'll train to be a doctor, though I am not too sure yet." I grinned, I had a lot to think about with the job I would train to do, I knew what I had expected to do at this age- I had expected that we would move and live with the supernatural council, our family were technically the leaders, or more specifically my niece was the leader of the supernatural council.

"As long as you're happy with what you chose, I'll be proud of you." Bella placed her arm around me and smiled like the loving, doting mother she was. I placed my head on her shoulder and sighed happily. It was moments like this when I loved been with my parents and nobody else.

"Are you sure you're ok with this? You definitely want to go to school and you don't mind us going to the council to see Nessie, Eddie, Winnie, Maddie, Eli, Cory, Nai, Char and Carl?" My mom asked as she hugged me. All of my stuff was packed for school and I blinked back tears as I stood at the edge of the train that would take me to my new life in the centre of the kingdom.

"Yes, I'm sure." I nodded happily and then wrapped my arms around both of my parents, I would miss them like crazy, but I knew that it would only be a few weeks, maybe a month until I saw them again.

They let me go, I grabbed my bag and climbed onto the train, I was the first child to be going to school in the capital from this sector in years. Most children who went to school were capital born or sometimes from sectors that involved more technical thinking like the power sector, number two who would sometimes gather enough money to go to school and then they would go on to become engineers or weapon experts.

I was simply from the farming sector so I knew next to nothing about technology, but I was skilled in music, art, language and maths. I knew that these traits would go in my favour. I thanked my parents in my head for been vampires before I stepped onto the train. The doors shut and I was off on the high speed railway, zooming down the tracks almost as fast as I could run myself.

Another girl sat on the train, she had dark brown hair and hazel eyes, she was overly large, though not in a way that she wasn't fit. She was very tall, broad and muscular for a woman. I gulped slightly knowing I was easily stronger than her as she was only human, but if she would have been a vampire me with my small frame would stand no chance what so ever.

A boy walked up the train, he had dusty blonde hair and dull green eyes, he was also quite tall and muscular. I felt myself cringe a bit as I realised that they were probably going to train to be warriors, assassins of the undead.

It was hard enough for a supernatural to kill a flesh eater, but with the technological advances been made, weapons were becoming more efficient to kill the flesh eaters. There were guns that could disintegrate parts of them, bombs that could blow the creatures to high heaven- but this was bad because if the humans ever realized the true reason behind the flesh eaters appearance, that they were the cause of a war of the supernaturals, then they could use these weapons on us supernaturals, and that would not be good for us.

I turned around and looked out of the window of the train, we would be at the school soon, the Abaddon College of Arms. Abaddon was best known for it's training of successful warriors, so even though the school trained doctors and veterinarians and technicians and engineers, the school was named after the warriors that made it so famous.

"Move, little girl." I heard a deep voice rumble from behind me. I blinked once and then raised my eyebrow at the boy who stood behind me, wanting me to move out of his way.

"Excuse me?" I felt my eyebrows crinkle at how rude the man sounded.

"I said, move!" He bellowed, the muscles in his arm flexing, "Stupid planter." He spat, 'planter' was what our sector's people were called. I growled.

"Don't you dare disrespect my sector." I spat, "I don't care which sector you came from, or even if you are capital born, but you don't ever disrespect where I grew up. Got that?" I snarled at him.

He raised his hand, screwing his hand in a fist, I knew instantly he was going to attempt to punch me, but as my vampire sight was so precise I knew he was going to do it. Time seemed to slow down as I grabbed his arm and twisted it under me, locking his arm in a grip that meant if he pulled I could break his arm.

"No! That's not possible!" He screamed at me as I let go of his hand and he stumbled back. I smirked at him as the girl laughed a little.

"Declan, she is clearly coming to the school like us to train to be a warrior. Leave her alone. By the looks of things she could kick your ass." The girl flipped her hair a little and looked at the man who I now knew was called Declan.

"But... sister... she can't be a warrior. We were trained by our parents to be warriors! We are from the capital! She is from sector nine!" He hissed as he looked at me.

"Hey, what's your name?" The girl asked me a little more friendly than the boy... well, a lot more friendlier than the boy.

"I'm Ca- RILY" I screamed as the train jerked forward and I was thrown to the back of the train, my luggage falling from the shelves above the seats. I knew my name had come out wrong, but that was besides the point. "What the hell just happened?!"

"Flesh eater at two o'clock!" Declan suddenly yelled as he pulled out something that looked like a miniature gun. I glanced out of the window and saw the most grotesque creature I had ever seen in my life.

It was like a walking skeleton, but bits of flesh that looked like rotting meat hung from the bones and cartilage, bits of cloth resembling clothing also hung from the corpse, it moved incredibly fast as Declan tried to shot it.

"Rily, go get the captain!" Declan yelled at me, I looked over my shoulder at the girl thinking he meant her.

"Go now!" The girl yelled at me- Then I realized that when the train had jerked I had pronounced my name Ca-Rily. Well, it worked.

"Captain who?!" I screamed, and then the window smashed and the creature was climbing in through the window. I gasped as the flesh eater's eyes fell on me, sniffing the air his eyes rolled back and he whispered something hauntingly, though I could not quite make out the word, I was sure he said, 'Supernatural.'

"Stacy!" Declan yelled as the corpse turned around and began to walk towards the girl who was stood there looking way too brave. She refused to back down. She was a warrior.

"Declan! Shoot it in the heart!" She growled at Declan, that was one of the only way to kill one of these creatures, to destroy the brain or the heart.

"I'm trying!" He yelled as he fumbled with the gun, the creature then reached out for Stacy, almost touching her flesh, and then I felt my body move as I charged towards the flesh eater. It turned around snarling, Declan kept firing shots at the corpse as I tried to lead it away from Stacy.

I kicked the corpse in the gut, though there wasn't much gut there to actually kick, then I punched it in the side of the face, it grabbed my arm and flipped me over, pinning me down on my back as it stroked my neck, finding the right place to dig it's teeth into my flesh to decapitate me- the easiest way to render a vampire useless.

The I heard another loud bang, then a sharp jolt and the disgusting thing fell away from me, blood splattering my clothes as I realized that the creature had been shot in the head.

"Rily!" Declan yelled as he ran over to me, "Are you ok?"

"Yes... I'm fine... just a little shaken up." I glanced down at the disgusting zombie-like creature who still seemed to be undead to me. I expected him to move or to say a name again, but he didn't.

"How did that thing even get into the capital?! It would have had to scale not one, but two sets of walls!" Stacy yelled as she kicked the thing in the gut as I had for good measure.

"It must be one of the campus experiments that have gotten lose. You hear about it every now and again when they are testing these things to see what can make them die, they sometimes escape, usually it's from the college they escape though when the experimentalists are trying to create new weapons to kill these bastards with." Declan said to Stacy.

"So, think she's cut out to be a warrior now?" Stacy asked, smirking at Declan now.

"Yes, I believe she may be." Declan said, "Our little warrior Rily."

"Private Rily." Stacy smirked, "That's kind of cool. So how comes somebody as small as you knows how to fight? I mean, your parents can't have taught you."

"Actually they did... they... uhh... fought in wars before." I blinked as I realised I had said, 'wars,' though my new friends didn't seem to catch on.

"That's so awesome, our parents were warriors from the capital. They died last year in the corpse siege that happened in sector three." Stacy sighed a little but smiled, "They were heros."

"And now their legacy will live on in us." Declan agreed, I smiled at them both.

"So... warrior, huh? I was thinking more of becoming a doctor or a veterinarian... not a zombie hunter." I smirked, 'zombie hunters' were what people nicknamed the warriors who protected our kingdom from falling to the undead flesh eaters.

"Well you could, but after that display of courage I think you have what it takes, even if you are sort of small." Declan grinned at me, suddenly I realized I may have judged him a little too soon.

I thought about it for a few seconds. Did I really have what it took to be a warrior? My siblings had all fought in wars of the supernaturals, they still were. Was this my time to shine? My chance to become a legend like they were? "I'm in."