So, it's been awhile since I really sat down and tried to write anything... Life managed to get the best of me. I was wandering aimlessly, reading random stories, and stumbled across Free Twilight story plots by Linnac, which was a bunch of story plots she had no time to get around to write. I read this idea and fell in love with it, so this is my attempt to bring her vision to life. Obviously, I don't own Twilight.
If anyone should have been capable of getting exactly what they wanted from the Givers, it should have been me. I, Edward Cullen, had spent the last five years of my life working for a top secret government agency, studying and learning more about the Givers, mysterious creatures who grant wishes to select people. I had personally been assigned to the task of studying how the actual wording of the wish translated to the outcome. My partner, Emmett McCarty, had been working on trying to determine how the Givers chose their 'victims', as he liked to put it.
To my dismay, he was much more successful in his research. The circumstances were nearly always identical, and always depended on the mindset of the person. First, the 'victim' would achieve something monumental, something they were extremely proud of, and would feel that their life couldn't get any better. At that point, the Givers would begin following them around, and they would begin having bad luck, everything going wrong, and would feel that things couldn't get any worse. Then, the Givers would offer them one wish, whatever they wanted, no strings attached. The 'victims' were always generally positive people, always looking for the silver lining, and were always trying to make those around them happy, even if it meant sacrificing their own happiness. Emmett had told me on more than one occasion that I was a prime example of the type of person the Givers chose, but I never really thought much of it.
The wishes came with no strings attached, but they could not be taken back or changed. They were also given based on the interpretation of the Givers. Once you made a wish, you were stuck with whatever you got. That's where I came in. It was my job to try and figure out why the Givers interpreted things the way they did, and how wishes should be worded to result in the most happiness from the outcome. For the majority of five years, I had come up with nothing. Their interpretation seemed completely random. The only wishes that I had found to be definite in their outcome were those in which a specific object was asked for, and even then, it was only a sure thing if it was something inconsequential, like an ice cream cone. Safe to say, I was irritated with my job and the lack of results.
I had begun to actually hate going to work. I didn't feel like I was actually accomplishing anything at all. The more I tried, the less I really cared. I was on the verge of quitting entirely, completely giving up, when it occurred to me that the couple of cases I was reading through, all with decidedly positive results, involved wishes in the form of metaphors. I spent the entire day sorting through other cases, always finding that the 'victims' were happier with the outcome if their wish was worded as a metaphor. When I went home that night, I actually felt that things were looking up. I was proud of myself, and actually looking forward to work for the first time in a long while.
The next morning, I felt as though I was being watched on the way to work. It was an eerie feeling, but I refused to let it get in the way of my current level of happiness. However, that happiness was destined to be very short-lived. One thing after another seemed to go wrong, and the worst of it was when some idiot ran a red light, and crashed into my Volvo, totaling it. In about eight hours, I went from loving life, to absolutely hating it. It's almost funny to me now that I didn't see it coming, that I was shocked to find several of the Givers waiting for me in my living room.
I listened as they told me what I already knew. I had one wish, anything my heart desired, I couldn't take it back, yada yada yada. Surprisingly, given my job, I had never really thought about what I would wish for. I was 28 years old with a great house, great friends, enough money to replace my poor Volvo, and a comfortable life. The only thing I didn't have was love, but I firmly believed that if it was meant to be, it would happen on its own. So, I carefully thought out a wish which I hoped would help me to make an impact on the world, wording it as a metaphor, and hoping my theory was correct. I took a deep breath, and said, "I wish that I was the greatest weapon for justice through all eternity."
Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on them interpreting the terms 'weapon' and 'eternity' quite so literally.