More Terrifying than You
Cloudincia Portagate
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Author's notes: I am writing this to have a dig at Twilight, especially the pseudo-science. This was born out of a scientist and a historian who dislike Twilight having a conversation about the stuff about chromosome numbers in book 3 or 4 (can't remember)
: The main character is based on, but is not, my little sister
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Twilight (thank God)
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I got up and took a few cautious steps around. After my headlong dash into the magical appearing portal in my living room I was not about to trust myself to move very fast. Nothing seemed to happen and I risked a look around. I find myself in a damp green forest not dissimilar to the one I was watching on my TV screen before the protal appeared and I went charging into it like the idiot I am. Unlike the forest on my TV however, the trees in this one were conspicuously devoid of either Edward Cullen or Isabella Swan, much to my disappointment. The rest of my group don't understand why I'm not actually attracted to Robert Pattinson, but I'm not, and I don't understand why they are. But Carlisle Cullen…there is a vampire worth stalking. I shook my head at myself, and heard the telltale patter of rain on the leaves above me. I shivered slightly and, on a whim, choose a direction in which to start walking, stumbling over bracken, pushing aside branches and generally getting very wet and muddy in the search for somewhere warm and dry.
I began to wish I had my ipod with me as I made enough noise to scare away any wildlife and, aside from the dull hiss of the rain there was no sound at all when I stopped to catch my breath. I started trying to hum Love Story by Taylor Swift, as I was in the mood for something that reminded me of Bella and Edward, and it was my favourite of the most recent radio hits. It worked to wind me further and to distract me so that I fell more frequently so I gave up after a few verses. That was when I heard it; something large moving in the trees around me, clearly not put off by the racket I was making. I moved faster, hoping to make more noise and to thus convince it I was the larger animal. I had longed to be a vampire for many reasons in the past, but this was the first time I had wanted to scare anything off.
There was a frantic thrashing in the green bracken before me, and out of the ferns stepped a girl, a woman really. Two things were obvious immediately: 1. she was beautiful, in a slightly Amazon queen, disarrayed way, not that she had any hair or anything obvious to be in disarray, and 2. she was stark naked. Actually if she had been clothed I would have mistaken her for a boy, but she wasn't so I didn't. I yelped and fell backwards, landing my backside on a rather painful pinecone. One thing was sure; I was going to have to seriously up my cool-factor for Carlisle Cullen to notice me; I was almost as klutzy as Bella Swan. But she simply towered over me and asked 'who are you?' I gulped out my name, which she pondered for a few minutes before asking, 'are you looking for someone?'
I managed to bite back the scathing 'anyone would do,' but the sarcastic 'Dr Cullen' escaped before I could stop it.
She looked first surprised then angry. 'They don't come here. Keep going.' She turned to go herself, but then, as if catching something on the air, turned back, sniffing. 'You don't smell remotely of them, you do know what they are, don't you?'
I assumed she meant vampires so I said yes, still getting my head around the fact that she seemed to know the Cullens, and that they were actually here. If this was Forks, and I had seen no evidence to the contrary, then I was in heaven. 'And you're…' I began, but there was no point in continuing, as she had disappeared, her place taken by an enormous wolf, terrifyingly real, and large, and snarling as she leapt back into the forest. My semi-paralytic mind dredged up the name Leah Clearwater and I perused it for a few seconds before I realised what to do with it. I had just met Leah Clearwater, which meant I was in Forks, the Twilight Forks, and Dr Carlisle Cullen was real.
A warm feeling materialised in my gullet, and spread through my chest, searing my lungs as it increased in intensity, like a beast stirring within me after a lifetime of dormancy. I was overcome with conviction: Dr Cullen existed, in this world, in this direction and I would find him. There was nothing and no one, not even Esmé, who could keep me from him. He may have been a vampire, while I was only a puny human, but I would hunt him down, from now on Carlisle was my prey, my obsession. I didn't walk towards him any more, I didn't push aside branches. I ran, barrelling into trees and leaping over fallen logs. I fell a lot more, I was no vampire after all, but I was determined. Leah Clearwater had told me to keep going, and I would stop at nothing to get him. Hunger faded, weariness evaporated, the cold and damp became meaningless as I was left burning with the superhuman desire to see him.
Night was falling, the last rays of the sun glancing on the upper stories of the house in the woods when I finally reached it, but the lights were on downstairs, spilling their warm light through the windows around my feet. Standing at one open French window, through which floated piano music, what I guessed to be Esmé's favourite, was my personal Jesus. 'I heard you coming,' he explained in a voice much softer than velvet, 'won't you come in?' I didn't stop to think, though looking back I should have realised something odd was going on. One moment I was standing under the trees looking up at him, and the next I was wrapped around him, having hit with such force as to wind me, and to send him, solid and strong as he was stumbling back a measured pace. The music died and the other Cullens appeared behind him. At the sight of Esmé Cullen the burning in my chest intensified, and burst into my limbs, strengthening my fingers and toes, which twisted into his clothes, being the only graspable ting about him. The moment the heat took my head, not as a blush, but as of some chemical far stronger than blood, I became aware.
I had always shunned such phrases as "self awareness" believing them to be the product of women's magazines, but there was no other word for this feeling. I knew what I was in that instant. I knew that there were beasts besides vampires and werewolves in this world, far more dangerous beasts, and I knew that I was of them. 'What are you?' asked Carlisle in his soft voice, perhaps comparable to moleskin or, for some reason, baby corduroy. But I had no interest in finding a good simile for his voice; I never intended to part with it.
'I,' I answered him, hating the coarseness of my own voice after his, 'am a creature far more terrifying than you. I, and those like me, have been gifted an extra chromosome, whose proteins provide ample nutrients, giving us the power to go without food, water or sleep for weeks, even months on end, while we hunt. We take this duty seriously, we are hunters of a terrifying nature, we do not kill our prey, but we are unerring and unwavering. We hunt until we or prey die. When we find them the mere sight will grant us the required strength to subdue them, strength which matches or surpasses yours. We can kill at a range of 50 yards with a high pitched vocal emission anyone who gets between us and our quarry. This cry will burst eardrums and cause brain haemorrhage. We are unstoppable, unbeatable, once we have our prey we hug it and do. Not. Let. Go' the last four words were punctuated by squeezing Carlisle until he emitted a muffled noise, and I realised I was probably hurting him.
'I'm terrified,' Rosalie drawled, sarcastically.
Esmé took me a little more seriously, 'let go of my husband,' she ordered.
'No,' I tried to say, but it came out as a snarl. Carlisle tried to twist away and, feeling his body move I emitted a softer version of the squeal which so characterised my kind and buried my face in his cool neck.
'Emmett,' Carlisle's voice was strained as he called on the largest of his sons, 'would you kindly remove the young lady?'
I held tighter, using my new strength to grab his stony flesh in my fingers and pull it into my fists, lest Emmett, now approaching cautiously, try to pull me away. 'I will never let you go Carlisle Cullen,' I vowed, and finally decided to tell them the name of my perculiar race, 'I am a fangirl!'