The Dissentience

A Twilight Fanfiction

By fancifulreality - Sarah

"Cognosce te ipsum."

Life is short.

Copyright Dislcaimer: Needless to say, I don't own Twilight, or any other books in the series, as much as I wish I did. Bella, Edward, and any other canon characters are copyright of Stephenie Meyer and all her publishers, etc. However, my original characters, Kezia, for example, are mine, and copyrighted by, well.. myself.

Extra Note: Dissentience is a dark story. It's meant to be that way. Pay attention to the rating, it's important. The 'M' is there for a reason, due to potentially gruesome scenes, a no-holding-back type of coarse language, and some sexual reference. Angst runs abound, with the occasional sarcastic humor. This is definately a Bella-x-Edward pairing, they do tend to get pretty mushy-gushy afterall, but Jacob and the rest of the wolves will pop in, Jacob feuding for Bella's love as much as ever. Takes place after Eclipse. Bella's yet to be turned and reluctantly wears the engagement ring, Alice is planning every aspect of the wedding, and Edward is still cautious of turning Bella, though he plans to still go on with his promise. Needless to say, Bella is still anxious for an enternal life with Edward. This is a sort of alternate world, without being drastic, of an end to the Twilight series, so you can sort of think of it in the light of my own version of Breaking Dawn set to come out in August.

Thank You's! Thanks to Jayiin for helping me get this up, and for the idea/use of this pre-story author ramblings.

I love reviews! So please read and review, they're always welcomed. I take all comments to heart and hope to improve from your advice.

There just wasn't any sense to it. Absolutely none whatsoever. In fact, it even made her cringe at the idea of something so completely ridiculous being even the slightest bit possible in a world like the one she herself had once been so overwhelmingly a part of. In the common law of kill-or-be-killed, the hunter never became the hunted (no matter how much the prey thought that was how it was turning out), prey were never good for anything more than a meal to stay alive by, and the weaker souls were eagerly devoured by their stronger carnivores. This simple law had remained true until these bothersome rumors begun popping up of a human and a blood-sucker together. That simply wasn't imaginable - a vampire not using the human for food, and a human not fearful of the deadly creature? They were lovers, even, though she imagined a live person would not be so ridiculously stupid as to actually... She paused, shuddered at the thought. It just made her wince. True it was really none of her business, and pretty much beyond her boundaries to act on her own and go investigate such claims, but nevertheless curiosity had gotten the better of her and somehow she'd wound up here.

Here, roaming the dense, wet forests once again. Here, in Forks, one big cheesy horror story waiting to happen.

A sudden plop of water hit her head. She snarled. It was raining again.

Perhaps it wasn't the best idea of hers to come here alone, without any form of material compensation - easily translated into any money whatsoever - and without a roof over her head to stay the night. She'd forgotten how cold it could get, and the normally unnerving sound of nothing but the pitter-patter of rain splashing into puddles and pine trees on the top of her head would have driven her insane if she hadn't become so accustomed to an eerie silence already. A shiver ran down her spine. Eternally cold, and the bitter wind wasn't helping. Foreign hazel eyes glanced down at her hand worriedly. Abnormally pale and still covered in dried blood clinging to the skin like nightmares to their victims. Still, there wasn't any lingering pain. Teeth sunk down into blue-tinted lips. Still no pain. The feeling was unnerving to say the least, despite the fact that this would not be her first time in such a situation, and if she knew she wasn't being watched by something somewhere, she'd have easily cried.

That is, if she could still cry.

This wasn't the first time she'd come back like this - though usually she was accompanied by him - but every time it felt foreign. That thought wasn't completely ridiculous, either. Every time it was a different situation, a different story, and yet all so familiar. There was always misfortune. There was always tragedy. There was always death. Then they'd come, breaking any laws of decency, invaiding something they didn't have any right to be a part of, and use it for their own wicked benefits. When the time came that they were finished, their vessels were easily tossed away, narry a thought of remorse for what they'd done present in soulless bodies. Then the shells would just rot away, dug up from what should be their final rest, and the true owners, if not already crossed over, would forever linger, oftentimes falling into their predators' traps.

Always was this cycle. Humans were bound to spend their lives on the mortal plane and eventually die from some sort of cause. Anything other than that was just.. unnatural. Disgusting. Nausiating. Yet it happened, more often then one in her situation would like to admit to.

As she awoke from her deep state of thought, tainted eyes caught sight of a large gash right on a critical vein in the wrist, the source of the blood no doubt. Considering how much it still reeked of human vitality, the hours of when this harm had been inflicted were few. It didn't take more than a second to find the cause of this one. Suicide. The only peculiar item in question were rope burns around the arms she hadn't seen since, well.. She stopped herself from veering to that train of thought. Horrors came from such thoughts, a path she just didn't want to go down. In any case, it had been rape. Eyes closed, concentrating on finding more information despite a nagging of better judgement to let dormant secrets lie. There was that gruesome curiosity once more that drove her to peer into things she shouldn't be messing with. Flashes of a man overing over her, laughing disturbingly while the girl shook with fear. Her body thrashed about in a feral state of survival, chomping hard on the rope around her mouth that kept her from speaking, trying any way to keep this man from touching her... The vision clawed at her morals, choking back an overwhelming feeling to vomit. She shivered, closing her mind to such suddenly unwanted thoughts and coaxing herself into falling into a drowsiness as if being lulled by the rain.

A small hiss woke her up from her deep trance-like state, coming from.. her lap? A twinge of fear soon relaxed as the intruder was identified and given a small welcome by the stroking of its head. A small snake, no larger than two feet, had snuck its way up on her lap. Company, even of the animal variety, was welcomed at such a lonely and rather pathetic state as the one she found herself in. Though this wasn't the animal she was particularly interested in associating with, she still smiled slightly, a fragile, fearful smile.

"Little guy, have you come to spy on me?" She pet it a bit more, examining each individual brown, black-patterned scale on its body. The patterns were almost mesmerizing, reminding her of the first time she saw him, in his idolic, absolutely mar"Better than nothing I suppose, but you ought to find a den.."

Three blurred figures ran past her, one distinctly male carrying on his back what appeared to be a girl, the other a rather short girl who struggled to keep the pace with the other. Still, the speed they traveled at was obviously inhuman, and a sigh braced her for what was about to happen.

"..before the storm comes."

The first thing she caught was their smell. Unmistakable, even over the reeking of this own body of hers. Even the cold blood in their pale bodies, if you would call it blood at all, seemed to flow throughout their veins, eventually all coming together at their common point - the heart. She bit back a snarl, digging her teeth into already damaged lips, a nasty habit she'd picked up from her father. It was hard not to listen to the steady rhythm of the pounding in their chests, and of how easily it could be ripped out from them, and not envy the life they lived. She wanted life like that again.

Thoughts cleared, listening in silence for something she knew she'd never hear.

No heartbeat, no warm blood pulsing through her veins, no life.

Abruptly she caught sound of the group pausing, pivoting, and backtracking towards her. Finally. She had grown quickly sick of waiting for this vampire to make himself known, and that wasn't even mentioning the choice words she wanted to pound into the girl's head.

Another snarl. Hopefully they'd at least invite her into a shelter first. The rain wasn't good for, well…decaying flesh.

It seemed as if the creatures that had so elegantly ran past her, foolishly paying no mind to the still figure laying against a newly-laid headstone in the town's graveyard, were simply not expecting company. This, the sight of a girl who had been supposedly dead for days now, wasn't something that was suspected, even in the vampire world. This, a rotting corpse reanimated and functioning once more was nothing short of terrifying, no matter what the situation.

"So it was you," the male broke the silence as they swooped in quietly like shadows, making a home amongst the grave markers, speaking with a cool, almost seductive voice as if he felt no terror at all. His courage was admirable, if not a bit foolish, but despite the façade of being completely collected, she could feel him shake, feel his heart pick up a quicker beat. It made her want to rip that heart out right then and there. "The one Alice sensed."

"Poor girl, you… reek of death," the one apparently named Alice chimed in, holding a hand over her nose. This was one of the blood-sucker kind that had inherited powers, was it? She moved the snake off her lap, slowly rising uneasily. Moving the body was always difficult.

"More like completely and horrifically stinks of it," always the elegance to his voice, this boy. "You're not living, aren't you? I am right in saying that your body is…just a corpse, right?" He took a step back, seemingly ready to protect the human if necessary.

"Like you smell any better," she covered her own nose, scowling in the male's direction. It was true, their scent, so unmistakable, was far from the pleasant aroma seductive vampires in those modern movies seemed to give off to humans. Not like the Living could possibly see anything but good from a predator built specifically to feast off those foolish enough to fall into their spells.

Her eyes, seemingly growing in black tint and just generally darker by the second, narrowed, catching sight of the apparently curious girl slowly peeking out from behind her eternal protector. It was disgusting, and yet, so badly did she crave the same affection. "You must be the Cullens, I take it," she almost hissed, the anger not in the least repressed. "Then there's also Bella Swan, am I correct?"

Quite honestly, she'd taken too much information from this rumor for her own good.

"The vampire-human lovers," she glanced down at the ground at a puddle forming at her feet. A sudden kick of mud disrupted the disgusting reflection she just didn't want to see. "I honestly am surprised. You realize what celebrities you two have become?"

"I knew it!" the suddenly loud Bella broke her train of silence, stepping an inch closer. Edward tensed. "It can't be possible, but I recognize your face from the Seattle newspaper. You're that Elizabeth girl who was…" She paused, as if hesitating to bring the issue up. "Abducted from near here recently. They haven't found her yet." Her mind seemed to be processing any reason for what was happening. It was not the least bit surprising her almost obsessive mind turned to vampires instantly. "Are you a newborn?"

"I believe that she preferred Liz," she spoke with such fake composure, when all she wanted was to knock some sense into this Bella girl. "But you're partially correct. While I admit, this is her body, she's been dead for quite a few hours now."

A flash of lightning across the sky accompanied soon afterwards by the roar of thunder ominously signaling a coming storm broke a small silence as she collected her thoughts.

"Consider it, a rental if you will, if it helps you understand any better. And though I really owe you no answers, it's common manners to introduce oneself, correct? I go by Kezia."

A sudden shiver shot down her spine. There wasn't much time left before he would come, and only complicate things.

"I've come to tell you two what complete and utter fucking fools you are."