The Twilight Twenty-Five
thetwilight25 dot com

Prompt: 20
Main Character/Pairing: Bella (Edward)
Rating: T
Word Count: 1779

Here is where you can find the prompts for this round. - www dot thetwilight25 dot com / round-ten / prompts/

A/N- I started writing for twilight twenty-five with just one month left which means I don't have time to have any story beta'd, just so you know in advance.

~oOo~

She was running as fast as she could, faster than she ever had before, and she could feel her legs burning, her body begging her to stop and take a break but she couldn't, wouldn't and neither would any of the people she was running with because they were running for their lives.

It started out as a festival, there was multiple stages all over the area, tents everywhere with drunken, happy people and people all around as well, thousands of them because this was one of the biggest festivals this summer. Bella was seated in one of the tents that they had brought with them, they being the group she came with consisting of her class mates from collage. They had arrived two days ago ready to spend the coming four days partying while listening to some awesome live music.

They had fixed all the tents, made sure who was sleeping in which tent and made sure that everyone knew the rules about not fucking in the tents if other people are in there as well (If they don't agree to it and you let them watch of course). After that everyone went to buy alcohol, the new rules this year was that you couldn't bring any alcohol with you into the festival area for safety reasons, instead they had made it so you could buy alcohol inside but that didn't effect Bella seeing as she had sworn to never drink alcohol again in her life.

Bella grew up with her dad, her mom died when she was young leaving them to fend for themselves. Her father took to nursing the bottle when she died but he was never a mean drunk, no the opposite, he became overly happy (maybe that's why he drank) and carefree, so carefree that he didn't really consider the dangers of offering his twelve year old beer to her dinner, and a shot of vodka to make the tummy pains go away. Sitting and watching the game on Friday nights with her daddy while drinking a couple of beers was routine and after awhile she became addicted to it. A beer everyday keeps the doctor away her father would laugh and say cheers. She didn't get any help with her addiction until the school took notice of something being really wrong when Bella would show up intoxicated to school and was worried when she turned sixteen and got her drivers license that she would get in an accident.

Bella was forced to the hospital and they called social services and Bella was placed into foster care when the test showed that she had been drinking alcohol for years, large amounts of it and her tests were something you usually saw coming from grownups. It took a long time for Bella to understand what was wrong, a little beer never hurt anyone, it made you happy and free, it wasn't till she came to her third foster home and saw how horrible the foster parents became after drinking, how damaged the other kids were because of that and understood that maybe alcohol really isn't good for you.

But she didn't stop drinking herself until she hurt her best friend in that home one night after sneaking some vodka to her room. Bella woke up with a hangover that morning and the sight she saw when opening her eyes is something she would never forget, Liz laying in her bed, pale and still with blood coming from a wound on her head running down, coloring her blonde hair red. Accidentally under the night Bella had somehow bumped into their bookshelf, most probably trying to get to her own bed, making it fall down on Liz, hitting her in the head, all without Bella ever noticing. Liz survived, the foster parents took her to the hospital but after that night Bella wowed to never ever drink alcohol again. Because of that Bella was now winning all their drinking games at the festival seeing as she competed with lemonade or soda while everyone else drank their own choice of poison.

That first night at the festival was great, many of Bella's favorite bands were playing and she spent most of her night just enjoying the music while her friends were getting drunk in the biggest tent. She met a few acquaintances walking between the different stages and it was always funny to watch some people trying to dance and be cool but totally not nailing it, all in all she had a good night and was looking forward to the next day but that is something she would regret thinking in the morning.

Bella woke up to heated voices, people were fighting outside her tent. She looked around her and her bunkmates were still sleeping so she hastily got dressed and went outside to see what they were fighting about and why they had to do it while others were sleeping. as she looked around her she saw two of her friends arguing while having a tug-of-war with a shirt by the looks of it.

"What is going on?" Bella asked confused about why these girls were awake now fighting about a shirt?

"This lying whore stole my shirt, a fucking cunt is what she is," Paula swore and pulled some more on the shirt.

"Stole it? You said I could borrow it because it's too small on you anyway you fat cow!" Sonya replied with a growl and before Bella could comment on their fight Paula got into attack mode and jumped Sonya, hitting and scratching her face making her scream. A confused Bella stood at the side watching it all play out, what the hell, was he only words she could say that described how confused she felt. She took a look around and saw other people fighting as well and as she walked through the area she saw more and more people waking up angry and upset.

All day she saw people fighting and being bitter, even the artists performing on stage was arguing and most of the times the performance was cut short due to the fighting or their indecision on stage on what song they were going to play. The whole day seemed surreal, her friends were fighting, with each other and with her, mostly about petty things such as who stole ones beer, it was such a contrast from the day before when everyone was happy and just enjoying the music. As Bella made herself ready for bed she had a headache and hoped than when she woke up everything was going to be normal again.

The morning on that third day Bella was woken to the sound of screaming, a raw scream, someone terrified for their life scream. Bella was up and dressed before she could even register what she had heard. She was alone in her tent, carefully she pushed the door to the tent aside to see what was going on and was shocked to see a big fire on the campsite with people standing around it laughing and cheering while people, bound with rope, was tossed into the fire, burning alive before them all.

She sure was happy she had given up drinking and wasn't one to wake up hungover today because if she had been she doubt she could have kept herself from screaming bloody murder and getting away, instead she quietly slipped out from her tent, went behind it and the ran towards cover in the woods a few meters behind her tent. Scared, confused and nauseous Bella stopped behind a tree, trying to make herself as small as possible so no one accidentally would see her. She had almost calmed herself down when she felt one hand on her shoulder and one hand clamping down over her mouth making it impossible for her to scream.

"Shh," a manly voice whispered in her ear, "I'm going to let you go but please don't scream alright?" Bella nodded furiously and took a step away when the man let her go. She looked at him and saw that he was just as scared as she was. The man was tall with brown hair and was dressed in jeans and shirt much like she, he probably woke up this morning expecting to listen to some good music and saw exactly what she saw.

"How are you normal and not crazy and burning people alive?" Bella asked feeling herself shake and she couldn't help but cry as she thought back at what she saw.

"I have a theory, all my friends have gone crazy, they tried to kill me, my best friends! I wondered how the fuck this came to be, why they were like this and not me and the only thing we've done differently these few days is our drinking choices. I haven't had any of the alcohol they sell here, how bout you, have you been drinking?" The man asked Bella and she shook her head. She didn't know if he was crazy in his own way but he was the most sane man she had met all day so weird or not she was going to stay with him.

"I thought so, I don't know why but they must have drugged the alcohol here everyone was buying and it's making people crazy. I have met others like us, come out guys," The man said and suddenly there was four people standing behind the man, looking around them, scared that they would be found.

"Hello, I'm Bella," She waved to the new people and tried to smile but probably was unsuccessful. "I'm Edward, this is Terry, Ali, Tom and Timone," the man said and Bella couldn't help but laugh hearing the last persons name, in all this crazy there is a man here named Timone and all she can think of is the children movie, lion king. They all looked at her like she's crazy and it sure didn't help when she looked at him and asked, "Where's Pumpa?".

Everyone was silent, everyone but Bella who was going into shock and was laughing profusely, she just couldn't stop. "Shh, Bella you have to be quiet, they can hear us," Bella looked into Edwards eyes, willing her body to stop and just shut up but before she could do it they heard twigs broken and when they turned around people stood there, some half naked with broken beer bottles as weapons ready to attack, "RUN," Edward yelled and they started running as fast as they could, faster than they ever had before because they were running for their lives.