Chapter One - Forks
I wake from another nightmare on my birthday, it's September 10th again and I've always feared that one year I would simply not wake from my sleep. I look over my shoulder to see, my love. If that's what it is called. I've never known a love before Jacob, I'd never seen something so concrete and complete. Or pleasant. From the time I first saw him, the day of my birth suddenly he was a friend to me, and over the years, he's become more. He sacrificed for me a lot when I was young, and he had as little control over our connection than I did possibly less. He saw my mother come to near death as I was being born, the woman he loved, and he says he came downstairs to love me, though he didn't know it at the time. Then, his thoughts were focused on killing me for killing my mother, Bella. Then, suddenly, we were each other's worlds. We were wholly and completely dependent on each other.
The next three days, though, were hard; l was without my mother, and my father, as he was occupied trying to save her through transforming her into one of the immortal. My father, Edward, is a vampire, as is my mother now, though she was human while carrying and birthing me. So, my aunt, Rosalie, and Jacob watched over and cared for me for those initial three days until my mother came to consciousness in her new form. However, it was still some time before she could interact with me as the others did, because for my being half human, I still have blood, and my mother's being a newborn put me in danger, or so thought my everyone else. But, from the first time I saw her, I knew my mother was strong. She was . . . special. My mother's greatest fear of ever becoming a vampire was being a newborn, completely consumed by her bloodlust, and she skipped that phase all together.
And then trouble came to haunt my life when my mother, Jacob, and I were hunting, my mother and I for the animals' blood – we Cullens are "vegetarians," we do not feed on the blood of humans – and Jacob for the animal in all, for he is a shape-shifter who becomes a wolf at choice, for a long time confused to be a werewolf. A woman, also a vampire, saw three of us, and took my obvious being something more than human, for being a forbidden immortal child. These are vampires stuck in infantry, never aging and always killing. So, of course she ran off to tell the Volturi, the royal vampires who carry out the law of our secret world, "Keep the Secret," which is a broad umbrella that also covers, "No Creating Immortal Children." Irina, the female vampire was soon to have the Volturi and their entire guard off to kill me, and all my family. The next months I was to think that all the trouble was my fault, but no, the Volturi were just waiting for an excuse to extinguish my large and powerful family. So, Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett set out to find witnesses while my mother, father, Jacob and I stayed home to tell these witnesses the story, and though I advanced very quickly and could talk at 3 months of age, I communicated through a special ability of mine to share mental images and thoughts through touch. Some of these witnesses agreed they would fight with us, if it came to that. Others thought us insane, if it is at all possible for a vampire to go insane at all.
However, once the Volturi forces arrived my mother was able to prevent a fight for some time with her gift of shielding a mental attack, which would handicap the Volturi and block their strongest offensive maneuvers. Alice, my other aunt, though, soon arrived with another like me, Nahuel, whom I learned a lot about myself from, like that I'd stop aging seven years later, when I appeared to be approximately 16 years old. Though, now I prepare for my 116th birthday, a woman who looks 100 years younger than she really is, it's what every human female wants, isn't it? My family has come back to Forks, Washington, everyone they have once known here is now gone, including my grandfather, Charlie, who died long ago. Jacob, like the rest of us, hasn't been here in a long time and is anxious to re-visit La Push, he has gone into wolf form often enough to have not aged, but he does not know if the same is true for his former pack brothers, and sister.
My heart races at the thought of Leah Clearwater, as it always does when I get jealous. Of course though, my never-sleeping family of super-hearing vampires hears this development and rush to my bedroom.
"What's wrong, Nessie?" calls my aunt, Rose, and my mother glares at her for the nickname that she absolutely detests.
"I'm fine, really. I was just thinking that's all." Jacob stirred and awoke then. It was now time for the first day of school we all supposed. Carlisle would be going off to the hospital in just two hours, and Alice had forecast that it would be a very cloudy day, so we'll all be off to Forks High School, except for Jacob, who will be going to the reservation to make sure our visit isn't fought against by any wolves who have forgotten the treaty that promises peace. My mother and father, are the last to my room, seconds behind the others, as they were in the cottage, and my room is on the third story, where my father's room was, before I was born. Their golden eyes reflect the choice that we've all made to spare the lives of humans. Of course, then along comes Alice, my mother's sister in-law, my aunt, my erratic, over the top, always-dancing, beautiful vampire aunt carrying a pile of clothes designated for everyone, based on the activities that we'll find ourselves engaged in later today, she'd know better than any of us.
"Here, Nessie. Bella. Edward. Carlisle. Esme. Emmett. Rosalie. Jasper. Jacob."
"You mean mutt," accused Rosalie. She never took a liking for Jacob, for reasons I never found. My dad sighed then, probably reading my mind. So, really, not much of my family approves of my loving a werewolf. I would never dare say this, and try my hardest not to think it, especially not around my father, but it's a little hypocritical. I mean, my mother had loved a werewolf, the same werewolf that I do even.
"So much better…" my dad whispered then. Only I knew what he meant, that I could do so much better… But, I don't want "so much better" and I need Jacob. My sunny moon. My brightest night.
"Let's go then, just a quick hunting trip before school couldn't hurt us any," added Jasper, he still struggles with "vegetarian" life centuries after being initiated into the lifestyle.
"A little fun before the tedium, I'd say."
"Of course you're up for it, Emmett," said mom, who doesn't feel like hunting obviously. Though, we all did go. There has been a scarce amount of elk, though.
It was lunchtime in the Forks High School auditorium that we smelled them. All of their noses flared then wrinkled, mine was fine, because of not being wholly vampire, the smell doesn't offend me.
"Who invited the dogs to lunch?"
"Since when do they come to school in town, weren't they supposed to stay on the reservation?"
"Oh, dear God, my nose!" I couldn't stop from laughing at my family. This certainly did shy from usual nonchalant silent spectacle of the Cullens the students were provided daily. Then our chimed sounds reached the ears of the "hounds" and our sweet smells alerted them. The Quileutes just got the message that the vampires are back in town. Then one looks over at us and gasps, and so do we, it's impossible, absolutely unbelievable, Seth Clearwater.