Hello and welcome to a trash heap! This story has no real direction at the moment, so I have no idea what is going to happen besides the bare basics. I was recently sucked into the Twilight fandom once again, after 2,000 years of self-exile, but I'm back to make it GAY. That's right folks, Bella's a lesbian! Edward's gay! Alice is pan! Jasper is bi! Emmett is demi! Rosalie is bi! Carlisle and Esme are our token straights. Lmao.

Look, to be honest, I'm a little angry at the source material. So my story and characters aren't going to be cardboard cutouts in the vague shape of a person (I say this with as much salt as possible). I aim to be realistic in my fantasy, if that makes any sense, while breathing new life in a character that had no real characteristics besides like... complaining about the cold and being obsessed with her boyfriend of 2 seconds. She's not a Mary Sue, so she's not helpless. She can save herself, thank you very much.

Anyway... onto the story.

Slowly sneaking through the leaves,
Paw by paw with claws in sheathes.

The lynx is lurking through a cell diploid,
Of whence the light and aether void.

A cat that links the cracks in time and space,
Prowls 'tween worlds with steady pace.

—"The Lynx"

Brenden J. Simons

•One•

In the middle of the woods with someone else wasn't exactly the ideal place for Bella Swan to be these days. Maybe if she'd been younger, like back in the day with her friends in the summer on the rez; sneaking out at night to pick blackberries in the middle of the woods, later attempting to skinny dip in the freezing ocean. Covered in thorn tips and sporting berry juice staining their fingernails, drunk with more than just liquor; smiling and sure of themselves in the harsh light of the moon.

You are not born doubting yourself. That comes with time.

Back then, she'd been reckless in a completely different way than she was now, quick to overlook the inconsistencies in her life, hoping she could write over it with stolen booze, whispering secrets she'd long forgotten now, and bonfires that burnt her eyelashes. The woods were something to share, tumbling over each other as logs were climbed and bets were wagered.

She'd lived.

But now it was different. She was grown, and without that came the devastating reality: having to keep certain things to herself, not for her sake, but for others.

She'd actually rather be anywhere else; on a plane that was literally crashing, in the middle of a hurricane while completely buck naked, at the heart of a violent riot... anywhere. Anywhere but the cold, damp, silent woods she'd learned when someone else.

Now, when she crept between the trees, she was alone.

Stepping foot in the green of the woods made her antsy. She wanted to run, but she really couldn't when her best friend was two feet in front of her, clueless and hyped up for camping. They were going to be here for days. Surrounded by nothing but nature.

Her body felt foreign to her now, even if she'd walked this path many times recently; she was stepping all wrong, expecting a different reaction and variance of grace than what she got from her two human, sneakered feet. She felt off balance and uncomfortable; the experience she called upon when envisioning the land around her was nothing she could use, either too short or too high in perspective. The urge to delve deeper and higher in the trees was an itch she couldn't scratch.

It made her slightly irritable, but she worked to push that aside.

Jacob was the one at fault here. She placed the blame fully on him even if he hadn't known the torture he'd be putting her through. It was his idea, his tent she was lugging across her back, and his baseless direction she was blindly following in the hopes that his promise of something 'completely awesome, Bells' was founded on something other than the multiple humongous bong rips he'd taken in the back of her truck.

She didn't even know which direction was up at this point, so she was hoping he'd know how to find their way back. If not, then she just accepted her fate of becoming millennial Tarzan for the rest of her life.

Or something like that.

"Jake," she wheezed as he lead them deeper through the trees, long past the end of the thinnest and patchiest path she'd ever had the pleasure to stumble on. She avoided a root that stuck up a whole foot out of the earth and tripped over a rock instead. "Fucking—mercy, dude. I'm about to die from falling and clonking my head on something."

"We're almost there, I swear," he told her, not even bothering to look behind him when he heard her cause a small avalanche down one of the hills to their right. She winced when a large rock thunked slowly down the slope, never ending in its adventure to the depths far below. After a minute she couldn't hear it, but she could've sworn she could feel the earth tremble every so often, as if its impact down the decline was powerful enough that it reverberated up into her calves.

That could've also been the toke she'd taken after his, before departing on their horrible adventure.

"I hate you." She told him, untangling her leg from a particularly clingy branch of a baby oak.

He laughed. "No you don't. You missed me enough to do this with me." he shot her a knowing glance, calling her bluff. "You were super pumped about this on the phone and when we were hanging out yesterday."

"And I'm regretting it," she muttered, with faux-annoyance. He just laughed some more, and she couldn't help but smile at how carefree it sounded.

It felt like ages, but the whole trek was probably twenty minutes tops. Jake pointed to an old fir tree that was bent at an odd angle yards away from them and said they were getting close. She fucking hoped so, or else she'd start singing some improvised songs about Getting the Fuck Out of the Woods (©copyright Isabella Swan.)

Right as she was opening her mouth to start yelling out the surly captivating lyrics, she heard the sound of people talking from far away. She felt hope for the first time since they hit the trail.

They broke through the heavy canopy of the trees and walked out into a clearing. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw other tents scattered around the mostly mowed field besides Leah's torn-up 'two bedroom' cabin-tent. Not that she doubted her best friends, but knowing multiple other people knew how to get here was comforting.

Unless that only knew how to get here. In which case, three Tarzan's became a small army of Tarzans.

She wasn't sure how that would go.

Jake knew more than half the people there, and Bella knew a few, too. Mostly people from the rez, who smiled and waved at them with beer cans and solo cups, or in Leah's instance, a joint that was so comically large it seemed unsmokable. It was seriously almost the size of her head, but thankfully not that thick.

"Hellooooo!" She said, flopping her torso back to the ground from the log she was sitting on and not bothering to pick herself back up. She held the joint up straight in the air from where she lay, contentment on her face. "What's it shakin ya bacons!" She crowed, and then giggled uncontrollably for a good minute or so.

"Fuck, man, I need what she's having," Bella muttered, setting the tent bag down where she thought it would be good to put it.