Disclaimer- It aint mine!
Between the In Between
Playlist- Notion by Kings of Leon
I stepped out onto the curb, breathing in. The air was wet, something I was used to. Today, I reveled in its moisture. It was water swimming inside of me, bathing me from within. I didn't feel dirty, but I felt aged and parched. Yet there was an entirely different side, and that side felt too young to be carrying a life so weighted.
I sat down on the curb, hoisting my sagging backpack up on my shoulders. The straps, covered in years of grime and soot, hung limply over my shoulders, all of their padding broken down and disintegrated. I shrugged under them, but their pull remained heavy and uncomfortable.
My name is Bella Swan, and I'm a time traveler. I live by myself in the back of an old Match Factory on the outskirts of Forks Washington. I came across the abandoned factory when I was traveling back from a visit to my great grandmothers childhood, who grew up in Forks along with all the other members of my family on my fathers side. The massive warehouse burned down in 1953, ironically. It was forgotten, like me, and we fit each other as two pieces of a puzzle might correspond to each others curving edges. No matter where I travel to, I always return to it's crumbling brick walls.
For all of those who blanched at the word time traveler, I apologize for the shock. No, that doesn't mean what I say isn't true. Contrary to popular belief and natural law, I, on occasion, find myself displaced in time for reasons I've yet to understand. I only travel to the past, at least so far. Where and when is subject to the greater power which renders me unable to maintain a constant company in the present. I used to hate the lack of control. I gave up such exhausting emotions a while ago.
I scuffed my boot against the asphalt, waiting for the familiar tingling in my spine to signal my return to the factory. I'd been wandering through the backwoods of North Carolina for the past five hours, waiting for time. I was always waiting for time, waiting but never waited for. No one was expecting me on the other end, back in the present. It had been years since I'd had someone to return to.
When I was five, my mother passed away from terminal breast cancer. I didn't understand; I still don't. I return to her often in time, watching her from a safe distance. Mostly I visit her during her final days, but ever once and a while I'm granted a stroll through the park behind her as she pushes my infant self in a stroller. These trips, above all else, I cherish.
Charlie, my father, passed away when I was seven. He was a police officer, and the murderer was just another aching soul. I feel no anger towards the man who pulled the trigger. I only feel pain. I've traveled to the scene of his death more times then I can count, and each time is like a knife to the gut. I see the wild desperation in that man's eyes, the empty hollow of his cheeks. It's like he's no longer a person, so spun out on synthetic relief, any drug to erase the pain of his own personal hell. Every time he pulls the trigger, I feel the shot in my own chest. Charlie had happiness; he died human. That man, the one who murdered him, had been dying for quite some time.
I ran my finger across the ground, the dirt on the pavement thick, leaving a trail where my finger traced. The woods surrounding the road hung over me like tall evergreen people. I felt like they were looking down at me; maybe in ridicule or protection. The shadows of their bodies cast strange shapes across the dirt and paved forest floor. My stomach was growling; it had been for the past two hours. I sighed heavily. I was bored.
To my left, I heard the faintest rustle in the bushes. My head snapped up, my muscles tensing, posing themselves for whatever would come next. My heart accelerated, the way it always did whenever fear and flight gripped me. I jumped to my feet, facing my body in the direction of the sound.
Just then, I felt my skin pricking, shivers of spiking electricity running up and down my spine. I wanted to sigh with sweet relief; whatever was coming for me was too late. But my eyes locked on a figure coming out of the bushes just as I was fading back into the present, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
He rounded out from behind one of the big firs a few yards away from me, his dark eyes intent upon me. The heavy shadows masked his features, but those unmistakable eyes shown trough the dark. Bright, burning gold eyes, the strangest shade of ocher. I'd seen them before, many, many times before. It wouldn't have meant anything if not for the fact that those exact eyes had visited me on numerous occasions, in numerous places, all of which were scattered throughout time. I found his gaze everywhere, in every decade, in every period and place. Those eyes, which belonged to a figure I'd only seen up close once, where the only constants in my constantly inconsistent life. No matter the time, the eyes remained unchanged, frozen in their state.
We never spoke; one of us always disappeared before the other had the chance. I called him the boy stuck in time. However fleeting our encounters were, he was the only other being in time I'd ever felt a connection to. It was because of him that I even entertained the idea that I might not be the only one.
He stepped away behind the trees just as I faded back into the present.
Wonder who that was...
Bon jour! My name is WHAT, and that was my first fanfic you just read there. I'd first like to bestow my thanks upon you readers for opening up and taking your time to read this intro. This idea popped into my head a few days ago, and i sorta just rolled with it. i love writing, and i love reviews, so please please please let me know if this crazy idea is worth it. I'm hoping it is!
Muchas gracias mis amores!
MynameisWHAT