Dead Heart
Alone. I. Am. Alone. Nobody understands me, nor do they want to. They think that I am a monster, unable to feel compassion for anyone. They think I am just a mindless killer. I can't help my thirst. I didn't ask for this. He told me his loved me, and I was foolish enough to believe him. I knew what he was, though he didn't know it. Everyone warned me to stay away from him, but I couldn't. One day, his thirst was just too much for him. He didn't want me to suffer, I could tell. He drained me and left me for dead.
Why are your eyes so dark?" I asked gingerly, not wishing to anger him.
"No reason," he mused, biting back the answer I wanted.
"You are thirsty," I said it as a statement rather than a question.
"How do you know?"
"A lucky guess."
"How long?"
"Ever since the day we met. I noticed how you paused at my throat, and they you pulled away too quickly to be human."
My heart was racing and he could tell. His eyes went cold and I still didn't run. My mind was telling me to, but my body just wouldn't obey.
He bit me, but pulled away when he realized what he had done. "I'm so sorry," was all he managed to say before he smelled my blood and lowered his face once more to feed.
He thought that he had drained me of every last drop of blood, and my heart was beating too sluggishly for him to detect.
He leapt out of my window, before my parent could see him, just as the burning started. I was too paralyzed to scream.
My parents found me lying motionless on my floor. I didn't know how long I had been burning.
They buried me in the local cemetery. I only knew this from the faint voices I heard around me.
I lay in pain for days, weeks, months, I didn't know. Eventually, the pain subsided. It started in my fingers and toes, then started to draw back from there.
My vision was still black, but I thought that the burning was gone. Suddenly, my heart burst into a flame that was much hotter than before. I screamed and writhed in pain, giving my local cemetery the reputation it still carries today.
My vision returned and I could see everything, even though I was trapped in a wooden box and buried six feet under the ground. I also found that I no longer had a need to breath. It was only habit now, instead of necessity.
I lay my hand over my heart, only, I felt no beat. It was then that I realized what I had become. A monster. Just like him.
I discovered that I had a new-found strength. I was able to break through my coffin and dig myself out. That's when the thirst hit me.
Over the next few hundred years, I moved almost constantly. I fed when I needed to, and nobody ever discovered what I was until it was too late.
I had a few boyfriends, but I ended up killing them all. Well, almost all of them. One of them survived, just like me. His story is almost identical to mine.
We were out on a date that night and afterwards, he took me to his apartment.
He still hadn't figured out what I was, and if he had, he hadn't shown it. He was one of the few people that didn't fear me, and I was grateful for the companionship.
The night I changed him was the night he learned what I was.
"Why are your eyes so dark, Daviana?" he asked, touching my cheek lightly.
"Max," I replied, "I'm something that nobody believes in anymore."
That was when he got scared. I heard his heart speed up and it took all of my strength not to kill him then and there. My thirst was the only thing I could think of.
The back of my throat burned unbearably, but I leaned towards him anyway.
I took his face in my hands and tilted his lips toward mine. I pressed our lips together, mine parted, inviting him in.
He took the invitation and slipped his tongue between my lips. He was already used to how cold and hard my skin was, but when I lightly bit him, and he felt just how sharp my teeth were, he flinched. That's how he got bit.
He pressed just a little too hard against one of my sharp canines. His tongue split and my venom hit his blood stream.
We continued to kiss until the burning overtook him. He was stronger than I, he didn't scream once, not even in the very end.
Max and I traveled together for almost a century before we truly became mates.
It was just after we left the Volturi. We'd spent so much time together that we knew pretty much everything about each other.
"Daviana," Max started one day, just before we went out hunting.
"What is it, Max?" I knew it would be important because he never called my by my full name.
"I have something important to ask you," he said as he got down on one knee. "Will you be my mate?"
I was completely speechless. All I could do was kiss him as passionately as I possibly could.
"I'll take that as a 'yes'," he said as he took me in his arms and kissed me again. I guess we weren't going hunting tonight.
Love for "our kind" is so much different than in humans. Our minds work differently, we have much more space to hold feelings and thoughts. Also, we are very easily distracted.
We barely made it back to our house before we started ripping each others' clothes off.
The next morning, it was like I had changed all over again. Everything seemed so much clearer. Especially with Max in my arms, knowing that he was mine, forever.
That day, we did go hunting, but that night was the same as the one before.
I confided in Max some time later that I wanted to find the one who had made me.
"I asked the Volturi before we left, and they said that he lives in Forks, Washington. With a coven who call themselves the Cullen."
"Alright. I think we could make it there by tomorrow night," Max agreed.
We didn't take anything with us. We just left one night after darkness fell.
The next night, when we arrived in Forks, it was storming. There was still enough of their scent left for us to follow them into a large clearing. They were playing baseball, so they didn't seem to notice us.
All of a sudden, the bronze-haired boy whipped his head in our direction. He growled a warning to the others.
Max took a step back as I spoke. "I'm looking for the one called Jasper."
The sandy blonde one walked up to me with a dark-haired, extremely petite girl not three steps behind him. "Do I know you?" he asked slowly.
"You should, Jasper. I was just 16 years old when we met. You courted me for a while, but one day, your thirst was just too much for you. You left me for dead," I explained, looking directly in his eyes.
"Daviana?" he whispered.
"You do remember," I replied.
Max and the pixie-like girl just looked confused.
Max looked to me for further explanation.
I took one sharp nail and slit my wrist with it. I offered my arm to Max.
He took a quick drink, then ran his tongue over the wound to close it. The Cullens all looked very puzzled.
"I have a special gift," was all I said.
First, Jasper introduced me to his family.
"This is Alice," he started, holding the dark-haired girl closer to him. "Edward is the bronze-haired one, Roselie is the blonde one, Emmett is the brunette." Then he pointed to the two vampires across the room. "That's Carlisle and Esme."
I looked at each one as he said their names. Alice smiled at me, Edward nodded, Roselie scowled, Emmett winked, and Esme and Carlisle each gave a small wave.
Jasper spoke again. "I thought you were dead."
"So did everyone else. They had me buried and everything. Have you heard the stories about the cemetery? About how you can hear the tortured souls screaming from hell? Well, that was just me in the end of the change," I explained first.
"You said back in the clearing you had a special power?" Alice asked in her bell-like voice.
"Well, yes. You see, when I taste someone's blood, I see everything that they have. Also, if you taste mine, I can share my memories with you," I explained.
Carlisle took a few slow steps towards me. "I would like to ask if I may experience your…uh…talent," he asked politely.
I slit my wrist and offered it to him. He took a long drink and licked over the wound.
"Interesting," he mused.
"Anyone else want to see?" I asked the room.
Alice was first, then Edward. Jasper was reluctant, but Alice talked him into it. Esme and Emmett were the last two. Roselie didn't trust me.
When they were done, I lay back on the could, feeling light-headed and dizzy. "Where can I hunt?" I asked feebly.
"Well, we call ourselves vegetarians, meaning, we don't hunt humans. There are plenty of wild animals in the woods, but if you prefer human blood, we ask that you travel further away from here," Carlisle explained to us quickly.
I didn't care what kind of blood, I just needed some, so Jasper and Alice led Max and I to the woods behind their house.