AN: If you guys haven't heard of TwiFicPics (dot) com, I highly suggest you check them out! It's a great resource for our fandom!
If you're an artist and looking for someone who needs a banner or if you're new to the banner-making scene and want to learn more, they have some great tutorials there! If you're a writer, there are sections of the forum where you can find artist portfolios for people who like to make banners, as well as a 'Banner Adoption' section. Sometimes, artists will get inspired and make a banner. You can sort through various pairings and maybe find one that will inspire you to write! It's one of my favorite part of the site!
They also hold banner challenges, where the previous challenge winner posts a theme and then other artists are challenged to come up with a great banner that fits said theme. They've recently started a new part of the challenge, where writers are encouraged to whip up a drabble to go along with one of the banners in under 1000 words.
This was my entry in their Crime Scene Banner Challenge. I had the honor and pleasure of tying for first place with the awesome M81170. The original banner that I used can be found here: http : / / bit . ly / mui8rP (delete the extra spaces) The artist who made the awesome banner was Sunray16!
Title: My Worst Fear
Penname: KitsuShel
Based on Banner Entry #: 25
Word Count: 990
~O.o.O~
As I sat and watched my six-year-old daughter stumble - I mean dance - across the stage, I couldn't help but smile. She definitely inherited her lack of coordination from me and not from her mother. When she'd been alive, each and every one of Renee's movements were as fluid and graceful as her dancing. When we decided to start a family, I'd worried that she might regret leaving the career that she loved, but Renee was adamant that she loved me and our family more.
The night a drunk driver crashed into her car, killing both himself and my wife, flipped my world upside down. Not only was I now without the love of my life, but I was now a newly single father to a baby barely 6 months old. I moved us back to Forks, after selling our house in Seattle. I wanted to raise my daughter in the town where I'd grown up; where she'd be safe from predators and monsters.
The music ended, breaking me out of me reverie and the giggling troop of little girls took a bow. I stood and clapped, proud of my baby girl. A few minutes later, a blur of pink flew at me and I lifted my daughter high in the air.
"Daddy!" she squealed. "Put me down!"
I lowered her just enough to be eye level and she grinned at me, her smile missing two of her front teeth: one at the top and one at the bottom. They were diagonal and reminded me of a crossword puzzle. She reached out and tugged on my mustache, making me wiggle it and throwing her into a fit of giggles.
"Did you see, Daddy? Did you see me dance?" she asked excitedly.
"Yes, Princess, I sure did. You were beautiful up there."
She giggled and shook her head. "No, I stunk, Daddy. S'okay. Ms. Ezzy says that we dance 'cause we love to, not 'cause it looks pretty."
I smiled and ruffled her hair.
"Ms. Esme is definitely right."
I glanced across the room and met Esme Evenson's gaze. She waved and shot me a grin, before leaning down to speak with her seven-year-old son, Jasper. I swallowed the nerves in my stomach and chastised myself for being so nervous about our date tomorrow night.
It's not like it'd be the end of the world as I knew it. Right?
Oh, how wrong I was. That night would end up destroying almost everything I loved.
~O.o.O~
Fast forward twelve years and Esme Evenson is now Esme Swan, but known as Mom to Bella, as well as Jasper. We lead a quiet life, a good life. Being Chief of Police keeps me busy and away from home too much, but we manage.
The case I've been working on lately had been a thorn in my side. Two women in a nearby town and one here in Forks, have been murdered. All three women had brown hair and brown eyes- all shot execution style. It was beginning to look like we had a serial killer on our hands. Here. In sleepy Forks. It was unbelievable. Something felt wrong about the whole situation. I think it was the fact that my daughter held the same characteristics of the murdered women was part of what was eating away at my stomach.
I pulled up in front of our house and sighed, scrubbing my hands across my face. It would only upset my family, so I took a deep breath and tried to put it from my mind. As I swung the cruiser door closed and turned towards the porch, the sight of the front door wide open shot a chill of fear down my spine. I took off running and leaped the stairs two at a time, before stopping as I slid in something wet, just inside of our foyer.
Bile rose up in my throat as I looked down at my wife, my beautiful, loving wife, at the blood seeping from her body, which made the floor slick. My heart broke and a sob began ripping its way from my chest.
"Ezzy, no," I cried, kneeling down to check her pulse, finding it silent.
A scream tore through the air from upstairs and my heart began thrumming in my chest again.
"BELLA!" I screamed, tearing up the rickety steps.
She cowered in the corner, eyes wide with fear. She turned to me and shook her head slightly, warning me not to come any closer.
"Why?" she sobbed. "Why are you doing this?"
A familiar voice answered, one that chilled me to the core.
"It's your own fault. You stole her from me, she was my mother. The other girls, they were just practice for you," Jasper replied eerily calm.
"Bu-but," Bella stammered. "You shot her! You killed our mother!"
"MINE," he screamed at her, stepping into view. He tore at his hair with one hand, shakily pointing the gun at my daughter with the other. "She was MY mother. She stepped in front of YOU. It's YOU who should be dead!"
As silently and swiftly as possible, I leaped into the room, knocked the gun out his hand. As I cuffed his arms behind his back, he sobs about how he's so sorry. I looked down into his face—the boy I'd come to love and call 'son'—but he's not there. In his place is a hollow shell.
The rest of the force, it seems, shows up a few minutes later. Who tipped them off, I have no clue, but I can't worry about that now. My heart ached for Esme and my daughter needed me. Her arms are wrapped around her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. I picked her up and cradled her to my chest, like I did when she was a child.
"Ssh, baby," I whisper as I slowly sit down on her bed. "We're going to be fine."
I hope.
~O.o.O~