A/N: PTB continues to be a big help. Thank you, mcsc2008 and Phoenixjedi!
MEP, here's our story. Thanks for 'writing' this one with me. ;)
(Check the blog for pics and extras)
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See No Evil
A One-Shot
Her parents marked her dead the day they sent her away, but I never stopped loving her.
He promised me it would make the visions go away.
Jasper POV. Alice POV.
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight; it owns me. The Twilight Saga characters and things belong to SM. See No Evil belongs to Twilightfanpire1721.
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Some things are more certain than others … like the weather. People are harder. I only see the course they're on while they're on it. Once they change their minds — make a new decision, no matter how small — the whole future shifts.
-Alice Cullen, Twilight, Chapter 22, p.435
It had been sixty-five years since any of us had stepped through these gates. You could still see the barbed wire wrapped around the top of the fence. It was used to keep them in and evidently, to keep us out. All of us were quiet as we walked under the entrance way. I glanced up, looking at where the great eagle once perched, but that was before the survivors had dragged it down.
The looks on their faces… I could see them now. Their bodies were nothing but bones, but their eyes had the fire of hope and peace in them, all, except for the ones who did not make it to that day—the day, on May 5th, 1945, that we brought freedom to the ones who had been unrightfully denied it.
Pausing in the main courtyard, I took in the scene before me; there was no sign of death or disease. There was so much of that following the days of our arrival. Thousands of men and women had survived in the other places, but they perished here in the final week of war.
Questions about their fate haunted me from that day on. Could we have saved them if we had gotten there sooner? What if the world never had to experience such evil? What if we had only listened to her?
I can remember that first night so clearly when I was just seven years old. The men in the gray uniforms with crimson armbands scared me so deeply; their eyes were red with hate and the cries of their victims so loud. My father rushed into my room waking me from my first nightmare. I was frantic, searching for the men from my sleep. It took many hours to shake me from my dream and for me to realize it hadn't happened. If only they had listened as I told the story of the family in hiding and how the "police" had come in and taken them away…
My first encounter with Alice Brandon was long after the nightmares had begun. When I was thirteen, I began helping out at the Brandon Plantation. It was a large estate in Mississippi with fields and fields of crops and pastures for horses. I lucked out with the task of watching after the horses, an easy feat as the animals always seemed at ease with me, much like the men I would fight later alongside in the war. That first day, after brushing down Mr. Brandon's mare, I saw her.
She was an angel. Her eyes closed and her head bowed almost in prayer. I thought she was daydreaming, but if only I had known the nightmare she was truly seeing.
I froze in the yard, planting my feet in the soft earth one summer day. The blue and white stripes and the ashes fell all around like snow. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, willing, praying for the scene to go away. It was too much to bear.
Well into her teens, Alice could no longer deny the things she was seeing. Bits and pieces of a world war lay at the tips of her waking dreams. I watched her from a distance in school. During English, outside for lunch, and with her friends, I could see the visions were taking hold of her. They were locking her in a dark world. No longer able to hide her fears, she went to her parents. I happened to be right outside the kitchen window when she told them. It was the summer of '39.
-/-
"Miss Alice, you put those elbows off the kitchen table before your mother catches you," Mr. Brandon commanded.
Alice stared out the window where Jasper was setting out flowers for Mrs. Brandon's garden. The cool breeze blew across her face and stirred her long, dark hair. But the air seemed much chiller to her with her eyes closed and a frozen road before her. People were slowly walking in the snow and Alice could see where it would lead them. The trail would only lead to death.
"Mary Alice! I said get those elbows off my table and get in the kitchen and help me!" Alice was pulled away from her dream and saw her mother looking furiously at her while her father just shook his head.
"If you would keep your head out of the clouds and join the rest of us, you might have a few manners," her mother said.
Alice ignored her and continued to sit at the table, withdrawing her elbows. "Have they said anything about the Germans, Pa?"
"Now, Alice, you shouldn't concern yourself about foreign affairs. You would never fight in any wars. Leave that to the young men." Her mother had interrupted before her father could even begin to tell of the rumors of Europe.
"Mother, I think a World War would affect anyone, boy or not."
"Not, another one of those. It's not probable. Not with Roosevelt in charge," Mr. Brandon replied haughtily.
"Likely or not, something's happening. If Roosevelt would go over to Europe right now, he'd find them."
"Find what, dear?" Her mother trying to persuade her daughter out of the dining room and into the kitchen pretended to be interested in what she had to say.
"The camps. The crowded neighborhoods. The Star of David. I don't know. It's all a blur." Alice rose from the table and began pacing around the room trying to make sense of her visions.
Her mother closed her eyes and prayed for it to stop, for the madness to cease from her daughter's lips.
"Alice, that's enough. It's all nonsense. Nothing, but bad dreams and ghost stories."
"No, Mother, please. Something is going to happen. I can see it! Hundreds of people are going to die!" Alice screamed.
"Go to your room, Alice. You've upset your mother. Enough," her father demanded, walking over to her mother and placing his arms around her. Alice stood there for a moment pleading with her father to believe her, but he wouldn't. He couldn't see it.
-/-
After Alice had flown off to her bedroom, I crouched below the windowsill. It was so unreal. The men at the police station were talking about something brewing across the ocean, but the United States had no part in it. Alice could see it? I couldn't understand.
And neither could her parents. But they had heard of another happening in Germany. There was a medical hospital there that specialized in mental disorders and hallucinations. Over the years, her parents had noticed Alice's strange looks and heard her crying at night. They had awoken many a night to her screams, unable to calm her from her nightmares.
Something had to be done. Nightmares and daydreams were one thing, but when they entered into a person's reality, it must be stopped. They wanted to send her to Germany. Right to the heart of the horror.
Here in Germany, I could see it all in much more detail. Minutes, instead of seconds, past before me. I had to get away and find someone who could help me. Or find him and stop the madness.
They waited until after graduation, until after I'd spent some time at finishing school. And then I traveled across the Atlantic. With such a long trip, there was plenty of time for the visions to remind me of where I was going. I watched with dreadfulness as the family went into hiding. I wanted to scream for them to run, to flee! But I could never speak, only listen and watch.
Her parents marked her dead the day they sent her away, but I never stopped loving her.
I always thought she would come back. I had signed up for the war by then. The war she always knew would happen—in the trenches, I thought about her. I wondered where she was, if she was close by, and if I would ever see her again. We knew of the dangers around us and heard the rumors of the camps. I just never knew she would end up there, too.
It wasn't as bad as I had imagined. They treated me well and gave me plenty of food to eat. I couldn't understand a word they said. Their broken English mixed with German kept me on my toes, and I watched the future constantly to see what was going to happen.
Tests and more tests were performed from simple guess-what-I'm-going-to-do-next or pick-the-final-game-score to more complex physical movement guesswork.
It was tiring. So much in fact, that when the day was over, I barely had time to dream at night and no visions slipped into my unconsciousness. I was grateful for that, but I couldn't help but think I was going to miss something. I knew I wouldn't stay here forever, but the "hows" and "whens" were all a blur. This place was playing with my mind.
Months, maybe a year, passed by in this place, and I kept going. I prayed for it all to be over. But it wasn't the end; it was just the beginning. And the only one there to answer my prayers was the Angel of Death.
I caught sight of his white coat as I paced the corridors looking for something to do. I usually visited with the other patients trying to catch a glimpse of where their lives were headed, seeing if there was any hope for them, but there usually wasn't.
I don't think he noticed me, but as we passed one another, he grazed my arm. It was a soft, subtle touch, but what happened next crushed my very soul.
A vision of the future, not just any future, but mine.
I tried to stay away from him, but eventually he heard the rumors about what I could do, and he came for me. After a few tests, he declared he could treat me more properly at another location.
I had no choice but to pack the few belongings I had and board the train to Auschwitz.
I could have run away. I'd seen that possibility, but I knew I was getting closer to it all. I still had enough hope that some lives could be saved.
'Arbeit macht frei'
I saw the sign before we ever reached the place. I could feel the excitement coming from the man in the white coat. The future changing every few minutes as he went over in his mind the things he wanted to do with me. I had to close my eyes and turn my head away to escape the pain.
My hair was the first thing to go. Each pass of the blade across my scalp wiped away any resemblance of the girl I once was. Blue numbers were etched onto my arm, erasing my identity and marking me as nothing more than a number. When this nightmare was over there would be nothing left of me.
112108
It was a blessing and a curse. The number assigned me to a hut, marked my clothes, and let the men in charge know that I was still alive.
Not that I felt very alive. Every morning he would come for me. I spent my days on an operating table under bright lights and prodded with sharp points.
The end was coming. I tried to warn him. I hoped if he would listen to me, he would stop. If I could prove that they could not win, he would leave me alone. But there was no mercy in his cold eyes, no forgiveness in his acts.
I was turning into one of the skeletons from my nightmare. The food was becoming scarce, and the guards were getting antsy. The Angel of Death grew impatient with me. I had given up on what he wanted me to do. I couldn't change the future. I couldn't create a superior race. I could only watch. I could only wait.
He brought in another specialist, someone from Austria. Doctor Death was what they called him.
He had a plan. They couldn't control my visions, but maybe they could stop them.
The room was dark and I was laid out on the table, too weak to even put up a fight. I prayed that what they said was true and that the dreams and images would really go away. That I could forget. That it would all die away.
Pain. So much pain. I was numb from my fingers to my toes. The visions were flashing before my eyes. Faster and faster they flew. I tried squeezing my eyes as tight as they would go, but it wouldn't make the images stop. I couldn't stop what was about to happen next.
A white coat. A stick in the arm. No more pain.
Cold metal in his hands. I knew what that was for.
Hot. Searing. He promised me it would make the visions go away.
-/-
"Help. Someone help me." Alice moaned out into the darkness. She fumbled down the corridor using her hands as a guide along the icy wall. She was freezing. Her feet were so numb that each step felt like there were a million icicles stabbing into them. There was a slight draft coming from up ahead, blowing the thin fabric that clung to her small figure.
"Help!" She cried. Her energy was fading, and she fell to the floor.
She felt as though she had been walking for a hundred years. There was nothing else she could remember but the movement of her feet, left and then right, over and over, mile after mile. Her mouth was parched, and her stomach was past the point of hunger. Rest could not satisfy her tired body. Everything was hurting even her eyes. In the darkness, she tried to make out where she was.
A soft haze fluttered across her eyesight. She pushed up from the floor, crawling over to the light, and stood up to look through the small peephole in a white, steel door.
Immediately Alice knew exactly where she was. The pain in her eyes intensified tenfold. The vision was strong. A woman was screaming as heat poured out from the door. Alice jumped back, her hands burning. She had never had a vision this strong.
The fire was consuming all of the oxygen in the small room, taking the breath away from the woman. The screams were cut off, and Alice watched in horror as the skin melted and the short, spiky hair was singed. Burnt flesh filled her nostrils, and Alice reached for her eyes wanting to cover them from this nightmare.
She pawed at where her eyes once rested but now were covered in gauze.
The Angel of Death had failed. The visions were still present. But she wouldn't let the visions control her any longer.
Alice saw the vision of the dark-haired girl in the crematorium, and she ran.
-/-
It was like falling down the rabbit hole and landing in the middle of Hell. This place had haunted my dreams for sixty-five years.
The group was moving on ahead, so I hurried along as the rain started. I wasn't paying attention to the speaker or the display of photographs. All I could think about was her.
It was nearing the end of the first day of Liberation. I was growing tired, and the other soldiers were hungry.
We had been looking for survivors. There were more than we ever could have imagined. Many of the survivors were on the doorstep of death, a knock away from seeing the Pearly Gates.
It was a small room, maybe used as a broom closet or a storage place for medicine in one of the barracks. She was curled up in the corner, dirty and weighing under seventy pounds. I picked her up and brushed the dark hair out of her face.
A gasp escaped me as I saw the bandages on the woman's eyes. There would be nothing behind the dressing. No bright orbs showing the fight to hold onto life.
I glanced down at her arm. 112108.
I carried her back to the main courtyard. The soldiers were lining up the dead and assembling the living as someone had found the list of names. Before they etched in the numbers, these people had been someone's father, mother…lover.
My ears listened for the number on the arm below me, for the name of the woman with the bandages over her eyes.
112108 – Alice Brandwein – Psychic
Even with the Jewish surname, I knew it was my Alice. The woman I had been searching for. The woman I loved.
I sank to the ground. The weight came crashing down on me, pulling me into its depth. I couldn't hear when the soldier came up and felt for a pulse. His head was shaking, and his lips were moving, but I couldn't hear a word.
I would never know how she made it to the concentration camps. I could never fathom what she went through here. I never knew what exactly she saw or how it was even possible, but Alice Brandon saw it all. The camps. The murders. The Holocaust.