Note: Okay, I rearranged the whole thing and Kristen618 revised it (Kristen, love ya for that!). I will be more than happy if you review my little story.
My vampires can be hurt physically and I don't always stick to the book.
No native speaker here, errors may occur.
Disclaimer: In this case I own nothing but the storyline and (perhaps) the words.
Last one standing
Chapter 1: Jokes And The Existence Of A Higher Being (EPOV)
Bit by bit the roar that tingled not only in my ears but in my whole body faded away and my senses turned outward. The high, ancient firs rustled in the strong wind. Some small stones rolled and bounced downhill making low noises. At some distance a squirrel warned of the predator with loud, nervous squeaks. The rocks under my left hand were cold, covered with a little bit of soft moss, the ones under my right wet and warm. Lying on my back, some of them pierced slightly in my shoulders, while the rest of my back and body rested on the soft, wet and warm remains. The coppery odor of the blood drifted heavily around me, allowing me only to smell little of the earthy, fresh and somehow dark-green aroma of the wood that surrounded me. My tongue was still occupied with that copper, licking it from the front teeth and lips. Finally, I opened my eyes slowly and sunlight hit them. For a brief moment light was the only thing I saw, the frames of my vision only lightly colored in red, then my eyes adjusted and I could see the blue sky above me, the small clouds chasing over it.
You know, you can never rest when you are some kind of cruel joke that Mother Nature or God or biological coincidence created. Of course you know that a joke has to fulfill a purpose. When you are at a party, you tell a joke to amuse a girl or a boy or to lighten the mood, because laughter and humor are the keys to a human's mind and heart. Some philosophers say that humor is the only thing that distinguishes man and animals. I had time to read. And a joke creates humor through its punch line. My head starts spinning so I think it is better to stop writing like an imbecile and explain what I mean. The purpose of the joke that is my existence is not to evoke humor, but to prey. I am created as a predator and I cannot choose. Do not dare to laugh, because you humans can. You can choose to lie in the bloody, still warm remains of a deer and ignore the world around you, shutting away your senses. Probably you would not choose to lie in those remains in the first place, I admit, but I think you understand what I mean. But damn it, I cannot. Sometimes I think my senses have a life of their own and I have no control over them. They supply me with information relentlessly and therefore I cannot rest. And every time I look at my hands in the sunlight, I remember what the punch line is.
Lying there on my back in the sunlight, I lifted my hands and examined them. Though they were covered with dark blood, some of it dripping from my fingers onto my lips where my tongue caught it instinctively, I could still see the sparkle. I was a deadly predator that just killed a deer to survive, catching it in less than fifteen seconds, ripping its throat out, drinking its blood, shivering ecstatically because of the taste, its fading life, hearing and feeling the wild roar of the blood. And I sparkled like a statue created from the finest marble, like a fairy that some child's imagination brought into being. A short, slightly hysterical laughter bubbled up in my throat. It cut through the noises that nature made around me, seemed to silence it for a moment. It startled me, I flinched and then I burst into tears. They were all dead, their sparkle gone forever. The pain of the loss twisted my insides and I howled, trying to expel this pain from my body by causing another, different, seemingly more tolerable pain by hitting my knuckles against the rocks with all my strength. While the rocks slivered under my hands and pierced through my skin and my tears ran down my temples, shreds of memories invaded my mind. For a brief moment I knew that whatever pain I could cause myself would never be enough to dispel those memories and the blinding pain that followed them. When the memories washed over me, I was proven right.
Our house was on fire. Some of the firs that surrounded it, too. All the windows were shattered. Smoke poured out of them. Wild and agonized screams wavered through the grey and black air. The ground was wet from blood. Shadows in green army gear moved through the violent, unreal scene. I was too late. I found no one that would help us and now I was too late to help. Rosalie's shredded, but still beautiful body disintegrated on the dark ground to my left. Emmett's head was chopped of by a deadly sword, then his body fell lifelessly to the ground. I realized that the manlike shapes on the ground in the clearing that were filled with gore and contained some remnants of cruelly familiar, blood-soaked clothing were the rest of my family. I roared and lunged blindly at a man who held a big gun that flashed in the yellow fire, ignoring a sharp pain that pierced through my right side. I landed on his broad back and gripped his head, turning it sharply and snapping his neck. I heard the gunfire just seconds before another pain struck my body, lower this time. I turned around quickly, searching for the attacker, holding the dead man's body in front of me for cover. I was nearly surrounded. Not one attacker, but fifteen. Their faces cowardly hidden behind night vision devices, I could not see their eyes. I snarled, my body tense as a bowstring, working only on instinct. I have never been less human in my afterlife than in this moment. I wanted to kill, to bathe in the blood of the people that murdered my family and destroyed my home. I prepared to attack another man in green army gear, but then I saw something that grabbed my attention immediately. Behind the men that slowly tried to circle me, I saw Carlisle's face in the flickering of the fire. It was distorted with pain. He was covered with blood and open wounds. Three army men held him down, while another one raised a bloody sword. I screamed and Carlisle's sad, weary eyes searched the scene until they found mine. They widened and before the sword hit his neck, he desperately yelled, "Edward, run!" The animal in me roared, refused to obey, wanted to kill or die trying, but what was left of my sanity told me to respect the last wish of my father, to not fight a battle that I could not win. I realized I was the only one now that bore the name Cullen. And even if I did not want to save my own life, I had to save this name and all of the memories that it contained. And so I ran.
My tears had run dry. My roars had died. But I still lay on the ground in the clotting remains of the deer. Considering it, I indeed would say that you humans would vote against doing that. Yes, you can choose. But I am a predator and you must rely on army gear and dirty weapons. I rose slowly, ignoring the pain that your bullets had caused, thinking that I would give anything in the world for the ability to ignore the other pain. I must have been an unspeakable sight: Covered with blood – my own, that of the army man and that of the deer –, half naked, wild golden eyes, standing in the middle of a shredded cadaver in a wood somewhere in Washington. The wind brushed my blood-crusted hair and while I rubbed my eyes that were glued with tears and blood, I decided to go back to my former home and hold a funeral.
I moved without consciousness but with the excruciating pain that streamed like a river through my mind, letting my instincts guide me over crevices and through the deep wood, until my never sleeping senses told me that something was seriously wrong with the right side of my abdomen, my right calf and my left thigh. So I stopped next to a small spring that sputtered innocently over sharp rocks in the sunlight and looked down to identify the source of the momentary imperfection of my body. Although the upper part of my body was naked, I could not see anything that caused my weakness, because it was covered with dried blood, shreds of fur and miscellaneous dirt. Damn it, I could not remember where I lost my shirt. Had the army-men ripped it from me when I fled? Had I shredded it myself when the memories infested me? Had nature taken it from me? Considering the status of my ruined trousers I decided with strangely calm logic that the last alternative was probably the right one. Mother Nature was the delinquent. God, I had to stop thinking like a lunatic. I shuddered as I pondered that that was maybe what I was now: A lunatic. But I think as long as this idea frightens you, you are not. But I could almost hear my sanity breaking with tiny but violent noises. I shook my head, knelt down by the spring with now aching legs, ladled water with my hands and started cleaning the upper part of my body with cautious movements. The water of the spring turned pink instantly as I repeatedly dipped my hands in it. I scraped the dirt and fur off my body, but it seemed to take eternity. Maybe that was a punishment that some ancient Greek god entailed on me for being this joke that looked so insolently beautiful. Sisyphus had to roll a huge boulder up a hill throughout eternity and Edward Cullen had to clean his body from filth forever. But I could not serve this sentence because I had to honor the dead by holding a funeral and telling everyone that did or did not want to know that the name Cullen still lived. And I had to… I lifted my head abruptly and stared in the still blue sky. "Revenge," I whispered. And I could feel a vicious grin distort my features as my wrath manifested itself on the surface of my consciousness. I would make a plan, I would try to take revenge for my family and for me and either they or I or all of us would die.
In some way I managed to clean up the upper part of my body and was now able to see the deep bullet wound in my right side. It could not heal because the bullet was still stuck in my flesh. I gritted my teeth, condemned humans and their weapons and put my finger in the wound quickly to get ahold of the bullet. I growled, because it hurt like hell. Borrowed blood started streaming again, but finally I got it out. I carefully placed the bullet on an almost black, strangely shaped stone to my right and then got rid of the rest of my trousers. I cleaned my legs and extracted the bullets from my calf and my thigh, snarling in pain and blinking away tears. As ridiculous as it was I then washed the little pieces of metal that had been parts of my body not half an hour ago and I held them in my right hand. They shimmered in the sunlight on my sparkling skin. I closed my eyes and my fist, pressed it against my forehead and whispered, "Whoever or whatever created me shall be my witness, because this is a holy oath. Because of you my family had to die. Did you not know that humans hate deviance? That they destroy what they cannot comprehend? If you did not than you are an imbecile just like I am for talking to thin air and scared forest animals." I laughed hysterically, then continued, "But if you knew, why did you not save us? Why did you create us with sparkling skin and insatiable hunger that compels us to leave our shelter? You had to know that humans are intelligent and that they would see through our masquerade. We are predators and our strength is supernatural but they outnumber us by far. We do not stand a chance. We perish. We are alone. I am alone." I sobbed dryly and said hoarsely under my breath, "So I swear that I will follow only my own rule not yours. And this rule is revenge. I will not yield to morals or reason. I will not rest until the murder of my family is avenged. That I swear." I giggled madly about the fact that I sounded like some superhero from a Marvel Comic – I read that too – and still believed that a higher being existed that was responsible for all this misery. But then my giggle died and I knew that I had addressed no one other than myself with my speech. No higher being would cause such pain in my breast, so I decided that there could not be a higher being. Now I was truly alone.
I had folded the bullets and the strange black stone in a piece of fabric that was left over from my trousers and had left the spring. I ran naked and with inhuman speed through the wood, jumping over rocks and bushes. I would arrive at my former home at midnight. Suitable, I thought.
Death Wish (JPOV)
I hear the desperate screams of a woman and quickly jump off my… horse that prances nervously back and forth. While I hurriedly tie its reins to a crippled bush I survey the surroundings to find out… if there are any foes left. Yankees have obviously raided this… place not long ago. I suppress a violent shiver… as I only see corpses of the people who had inhabited the house that… burns. Flames. Smoke. I can't see. Screams of a woman. My guts twist as I feel her agony. I know her. No, please. I try to run. My legs won't move. Her agony increases, reaches its peak. A loud roar washes over me; I feel the skin of my face crack open. Pain. Then… Her agony is gone. She is. My mind splits into pieces. If I die before I wake pray the lord her soul to take.
Darkness. Smell of fire and ashes. I have to open my eyes. She needs me. Can't. She is... No, No, No…God, No, Please. He tries to touch his face. His right hand doesn't move. His left does. Scap. Agony. Eyes gone. She is. He screams. Tries to. Breathless whimper comes out.
Maybe the Yanks didn't kill everyone. I'm a major. I protect. I have to move. Can't too. He knows he's not dead. He wishes he was. But he has his responsibilities. Not allowed to die. His hearing works. He hears footsteps. Can't defend myself. Hush. He lies motionless. Makes no sound. Doesn't have to breathe. Why? He hears a familiar voice in the darkness. It curses God, then screams that there is no God. Memories come back.
He isn't Jasper Whitlock. He's Jasper Hale. And the voice. Edward. Edward is full of undistinguishable pain. No clear thoughts. He tries to call his name but his throat doesn't work. Just a puff of air. But abruptly Edward's attention is on him. He now senses blind rage, burning wrath. No recognition. He will kill me. Please, Edward, do it.
He shouldn't have used his name in his thoughts. He sobs as he realizes that Edward heard them and now knows. He won't do it. He knows I'm Jasper Hale. Doesn't matter, Edward. Kill me. Pretend you don't know. He is too tired to force his will upon him. It never worked right anyway. He has to rely on his mercy and go on pleading. Please, Edward, please do it, do it, do it. Because she's dead. So please. Do it.
Something touches his left hand carefully. But it hurts nevertheless. "Jasper." He knows that Edward won't comply with his wish, because he is too happy that he has found him. He can't speak because he can't part his lips. But he goes on in his mind. Please, please, please. Though he knows that he won't do it. When Edward slowly strokes his forehead and tears drop on his face, he stops his begging. He tries to reach out with his left hand and return the touch, but he can't see and his body won't obey him. He sighs. I'm sorry.
But Edward knows what he wanted to do and gently takes his hand. He strokes Edwards's knuckles with his thumb. "You are alive. You are alive. Some other member of my family is alive," Edward says with a voice that is hoarse from tears. I shouldn't be.
He senses that Edward pulls himself together, concentrates on what has to be done. Then Edward gasps and terror floods Jasper's mind, because that's what happens to Edward's. He moans full of pain, because he can't handle Edward's feelings at the moment. "Sorry, but your body is just…. Your condition is bad," Edward says with his trembling but still soft voice and locks away the terror in his mind. "I have to move you, Jasper. It is too dangerous here and I will have to hunt something down for you." Perhaps they will come back. Leave me here. Let me die. Edward snarls wildly and squeezes his hand painfully. "I will not let you die, Jasper. Erase this thought from your mind, because I will not allow that. You will live. Just like me. You will not leave me alone." He sobs again dispiritedly as Edward shoves his arms under his body and lifts him. The sudden pain overwhelms him. He loses consciousness.
