Chapter 1

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Authors note: Just wanted to say that the first part of my story belongs to Stephenie Meyer ( slanted ), although I have edited it slightly. Anyhow, I will start a new paragraph when it becomes my writing.

All the characters belong to Stephenie Meyer- I however, own the plot. This Fanfiction follows off from the start of the book, and takes a twist from where Wanderer and Melanie are dying in the desert. Basically, a soul finds them and brings them to safety, although he isn't who they first thought he was.

Life in the caves comes in later.

I will update regularly, although please note, I am also working on other projects so I will always update as soon as I can! Enjoy and review!
This chapter has been edited x

NOTE: IF YOU WANT TO SKIP TO THE PART IN THE FANFICTION WHEN THEY REACH THE CAVES FINALLY AND ARE NOT INTERESTED IN THE REST, SKIP TO CHAPTER 18!

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Wanda Pov.

My feet kept moving. I was barely aware of the action. It meant so little in the face of the distance ahead.

And even if we were magically transported to the very base of the mesa, what then? I was absolutely positive there was nothing there. No one waited at the mesa to save us.

"We're going to die," I said. I was surprised that there was no fear in my rasping voice. This was just a fact like any other. The sun is hot. The desert is dry. We are going to die.

"Yes". She was calm, too. This, death, was easier to accept than that our efforts had been guided by insanity.

"That doesn't bother you?"

She thought for a moment before answering.

"At least I died trying. And I won. I never gave them away. I never hurt them. I did my best to find them. I tried to keep my promise... I die for them".

I counted nineteen steps before I could respond.

Nineteen sluggish, futile crunches across the sand.

Still no answer came. I had to think harder.

Ten more crunches.

I didn't have the energy to open my lips anymore.

"Too bad I didn't get to stay here longer, then."

I wasn't sure about her answer. Maybe she was trying to make me feel better. A sop for dragging her out here to die. She had won; she had never disappeared.

My steps began to falter. My muscles screamed out to me for mercy, as if I had any means to soothe them. I think I would have stopped right there, but Melanie was, as always, tougher than I.

I could feel her now, not just in my head but in my limbs. My stride lengthened; the path I made was straighter. By sheer force of will, she dragged my half-dead carcass toward the impossible goal.

There was an unexpected joy to the pointless struggle. Just as I could feel her, she could feel my body. Our body, now; my weakness ceded control to her.

She gloried in the freedom of moving our arms and legs forward, no matter how useless such a motion was. It was bliss simply because she could again. Even the pain of the slow death we had begun dimmed in comparison.

"What do you think is out there?" She asked me as we marched on toward the end. "What will you see, after we're dead?"

"Nothing". The word was empty and hard and sure. "There's a reason we call it the final death."

"The souls have no belief in an afterlife?"

"We have so many lives. Anything more would be... too much to expect. We die a little death every time we leave a host. We live again in another. When I die here, that will be the end."

There was a long pause while our feet moved more and more slowly.

"What about you?" I finally asked. "Do you still believe in something more, even after all of this?" My thoughts raked over her memories of the end of the human world.

"It seems like there are some things that can't die".

In our mind, their faces were close and clear. The love we felt for Jared and Jamie did feel very permanent. In that moment, I wondered if death was strong enough to dissolve something so vital and sharp.

Perhaps this love would live on with her, in some fairytale place with pearly gates. Not with me.

Would it be a relief to be free of it? I wasn't sure. It felt like it was part of who I was now.

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We only lasted a few hours. Even Melanie's tremendous strength of mind could ask no more than that of our failing body.

We could barely see. We couldn't seem to find the oxygen in the dry air we sucked in and spit back out. The pain brought rough whimpers breaking through our lips.

"You've never had it this bad", I teased her feebly as we staggered toward a dried stick of a tree standing a few feet taller than the low brush. We wanted to get to the thin streaks of shade before we fell.

"No", she agreed. "Never this bad".

After a time, long or short we didn't know, we closed our eyes. Our lids were red and bright inside.

We couldn't feel the faint web of shade; maybe it no longer touched us.

We attained our purpose. The dead tree threw its cobwebby shadow over us, and our legs fell out from under us. We sprawled forward, never wanting the sun on our face again. Our head turned to the side on its own, searching for the burning air. We stared at the dust inches from our nose and listened to the gasping of our breath.

"How long?" I asked her.

"I don't know, I've never died before."

"An hour? More?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Where's a coyote when you really need one?"

"Maybe we'll get lucky... escaped claw beast or something..." Her thought trailed off incoherently.

That was our last conversation. It was too hard to concentrate enough to form words. There was more pain than we thought there should be. All the muscles in our body rioted, cramping and spasming as they fought death.

After what seemed like an eternity to us, we drifted. Our lifeless thoughts dragged us away from reality and into the various unknown. As the waves of hopelessness washed over our scorching body, we were gradually dragged away from the sandy, hot desert that boiled our blood inside our body. We floated away from reality into nothing at all.

As we attempted to relax our final efforts of attempting to live, we sagged into the sand beneath us, not moving a muscle intentionally. As we relieved the strain from sustaining our weight equally so we didn't topple over, we focused on the feelings beneath us, forgetting completely about the stress of maintaining and withholding our body upright.

We protracted our weight below us, sending us sinking into the desert floor until our body was clouded with a warm brown colour, burying us in its surface.

We ignored the blistering burn of our skin as the grains of sand scorched our body like a flattened pancake. The effect was as equally draining as being burnt alive. It was nearly exactly the same in comparison anyhow. We just couldn't overcome this obstacle.

It was simply too much to face for both us physically and emotionally- It was also far too overpowering for our body to handle. We hadn't meant to push ourselves this far. We had just been reckless, and it was all our faults.

We had tossed our life away like garbage. That was reduced in comparison to how truly hopeless we felt. There were no words to describe the feeling- Just emptiness. The end of both of our lives combined would clear us out eventually.

The loss would just be too much- The emotions would be too much to cope with. I was aware of that much at least.

We just waited for death… We welcomed it.

All means of time faded from us, until we could no longer feel the earth beneath us that had been impulsively swallowing up our figure whole and submerging us into its surfaces through countless layers of sand and mud.

It was bliss in a way, not being able to sense the burning of our body as all our inner organs shut down, and a strange sense of relief lapped in and out of our pores of which we could no longer see or feel.

It felt strangely peaceful, on the account that we were dying- For a fact; it was probably because we were already dead. That was the most likely option- It felt that way anyhow. Then again- I didn't exactly know what death actually felt like. I hadn't- Until now.

It was pure agony.

Little by little, we were drifting… Our fingertips of which had entwined with the earth's surface had loosened, unclenching our grasp with any signs of human- or souls nature. Every memory blinded us and forced us into countless agony like the crack of a whip. Although, this time I didn't scream. I simply let the memories wipe me clean of earth like a discarded piece of paper.

What we once had was lost. This must have been what the final death had felt like.

I was almost positive.

It was too late for us now, and I knew every death had a reason behind it. For instance, Melanie was dying to save the people she loved. It was all she ever cared about. Jared… Jamie…

They were her whole entire life of which she evolved around. Without them, she was lost. She simply couldn't bear to go on without them. She was bound to them with invisible ties which stretched over distances, no matter how far. She would do anything for them, be anything for them, and now her mission was complete.

But I also began to wonder… what was I dying for?

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This was just a short chapter, and I promise my others will be much longer! I just needed to get the beginning over and done with so it would give me time to make the twist in the story from here! I promise, something very different happens! You will just have to wait and see. If I get some reviews, it will motivate me to write this more often and refrain from my other projects so please COMMENT AND REVIEW