Disclaimer: All belongs to Stephenie Meyer

Part I: Aurora Australis- Chapter 1

Chapter One.

The soft ringing noise gathers my scattered attention. I look up, and see that my flight has arrived and it is time for boarding.

I pick up my bag and luggage, and head for the entry portal. I get there ahead of everyone else, and am the first to have my passport stamped and be admitted to the Chamber. There, I have my luggage taken from me by a small whirring robot, while another provides a complimentary bag of breakfast vitamins, media download coupons, and anti-sickness medication. I don't need them, but I suppose the thought is nice.

The robots scan me to make sure I do not carry weapons, then spray me in antiviral medicines before allowing me to board the craft. All of this is unnecessary of course. I do not carry weapons or viruses. I haven't for a time longer than these robots have existed.

I find my seat, and strap myself in. I watch the other passengers as they board. A family with one child seats itself behind me. I try to ignore them. It is difficult, of course. It is always difficult to ignore humans. Their blood pounds far too loudly. I exhale and lean back in my seat, not bothering to take another breath. I do not want to tempt myself more than I already have.

The ship is filling up now, mostly with families. It is very tiny, about the size of what was an airplane back when I was younger. We aren't traveling far, so there is no need for the gigantic cruisers so prevalent these days. Even though I’m not breathing, I can still feel their scent. It throbs and pounds against me, and I try to turn my mind to other things. I will have to be here for a few hours, and I cannot lose control.

I have come so far; I will try to make it the rest of the way. It will not be easy. I have not fed for several hundred years.

To add to the agony, the flight will be interminably boring. I have no books to read, since I have read them all; I have no videos for the same reason. I cannot sleep, not anymore. So I must sit here, and wait, and fight my thirst.

A cool female voice over an intercom instructs the passengers in the rules of spaceflight. The lights dim, and underneath the floor I feel the engines rev up, their sound louder in my ears than in the ears of my fellow passengers. I sink into my chair and watch the people around me engage in various human activities. This will be my only entertainment for the seven hour journey. It is a necessary entertainment; it will keep me from attacking them. I have not fed in many days.

I watch the couple sitting in front of me; they are so loving. He leans over, and I can hear the small, sweet comments he makes to her. She smiles and blushes, so pleased at his devotion. A small ache begins, and I have to look elsewhere. I don’t want to be reminded of everything I’ve lost. Unfortunately, the plane is full of small reminders: cheerful couples, happy families, and young people beginning to taste the adventure that life has to offer them. I was all of these things, once.

I close my eyes and steel myself; I no longer have these things because I do not want them. This is my profession, my reason for being; I still find happiness in what I do. Perhaps it is just the prospect of such a long journey; it tends to make one depressed. The engines shut off, meaning we have achieved our top speed and need only to coast through space.

I sit back and over the course of the next several hours I watch. I make small notes in a journal I keep with me; it is less for research purposes than to keep me anchored to something, so that I do not drift away in to memories. I stop only when I hear the breaks applied to the ship.

“Please remove all belongings from the overhead compartments,” says the voice over the intercom, and I obey its orders. The past few hours have put me in a contemplative, slightly depressed mood; I hope being in a new destination can help me shake off this mood. It will also give me the opportunity to feed.

I follow the rest of the passengers off the plane, through the detox chambers and into the spaceport. It is a large, airy building. Overhead, through the glass that makes up the ceiling, I can see an alien sunset; the light is beautiful and strange. I can also see towers in the distance, already lit up for the night. Even further up in the sky are the ships; some of them small transports, others large and grand space cruisers, built for centuries-long journeys. The small ship I took ferried me from where a cruiser had dropped me off on a nearby moon. The spaceport here is new, and can’t accommodate such large ships. The colony started only a mere fifty years ago.

I travel through the crowds, taking care to not walk too fast or act in a manner that would otherwise give me away. I do not need suspicion cast on me, not again. I know where I’m going; the address was given to me in the packet with my letter. I go a couple of floors below and catch an inter-tower subway, the small train taking only a few minutes. I arrive at my tower and, after depositing my bags in the closet, I try to decide how to best treat my hunger.

I am nearly at the end of my patience; I have been in stasis for several hundred years, and while I did not have the nausea that my fellow passengers had upon waking, I am left with an intense hunger. I had been able to push it back, but only barely. Here in my room it wakes itself again, nearly ten times worse than what I’d experienced back on Earth. It was also made sharper by the fact that I knew there were no predators I could hunt- not yet.

I’ll have to find a way to get my sustenance. And unfortunately the only way I can do that is to break into a hospital.

I remove every article of clothing I own, and take from my suitcase a spare set of scrubs and an overcoat. I have no badge, but my need is too great to wait for the amount of time it would take to create or procure one. I have maybe an hour before my careful control will snap.

In a few seemingly endless minutes I am on the train, carefully not breathing nor looking anyone in the eyes. I can feel my thirst burn its way up my throat and through my eyes; I can feel them turn darker by the second. Were anyone to look at me directly, they would see hell staring back at them.

When the train stops I race as quickly as I dare away from the platform. I see a nearby personal elevator; it must be late at local night, as the line to use it is not very long. With a few gentle smiles I’m able to take the first spot in line, and when I am encased in its glass I press the “Hospital” button.

The elevator- more like a personal shuttle- shoots upward in a graceful, silent manner. The speed is breathtaking, almost as fast as I am when I run. The shuttle has a window that allows me to see inside the tower, and as we hurtle past each floor I try to make note of every detail in an effort to distract myself from the pain that is slowly beginning to work its way into my lungs and down my spine.

At last, I reach the hospital floor, and when the door opens I speed off, a slight blur to anyone looking at me out of the corner of their eyes. I nimbly dodge various patients, gurneys, and doctors. I let myself take a slight breath to locate the storage room for blood, and I am nearly knocked to my knees by its overpowering scent. I can’t locate the room; I am surrounded by so many injuries. I lean against a wall to compose myself.

“Are you lost?” says a kind voice. I open my eyes and see the warm, friendly face of a nurse. She looks worried. I pat my mouth, then point to the clipboard she has in her hand. She hands that and a pen to me, and on the back of a form I write the following: I’m sorry, but I am mute. Could you please show me the way to the blood bank?

“Oh, I’m sorry! Yes, I can. It’s two hallways over. Do you have a pass?”

Yes, I write.

“May I see it?” she asks.

I left it at home, I scrawl on the pad. I still do not look her in the eyes.

“Well,” she says, “You can’t access the room without proper authorization. You’ll need the code plus your I.D. card. We didn’t use to have these methods, but a few years ago someone was stealing blood from here, so we instituted these safety measures. Did you just arrive from Earth?” I nod. “Then,” she continues, “You’ll have to apply at the Health Department.” At this point an alarm sounds, and small lights placed over the doorways begin to flash. The look on the nurse’s face is grim.

“I have to go,” she says.

I nod, and watch her carefully as she leaves to make sure she doesn’t turn around. It must be an emergency though, for she begins to run only a few steps away. I quickly turn and begin to wend my way towards the room.

One hallway away, I stop and take another, small breath. This time, mixed in with the other heady scents is a cold, organic smell. I must be close. I listen, and hear a man and a woman, both doctors, in the next hallway talking; from the sound of it they are not going to be leaving soon. I peer around the corner and see the two of them standing close together, right in front of the door to the storage room. I let out a low hiss. I do not have time for this.

I straighten up, and then race around the corner and into the couple. They are sent sprawling; the man scrambles around on the floor before I am able to knock him out with a well placed blow to the head. The woman lies in front of the door, frozen in fear. Her heartbeat echoes in my ear. I imagine what it would be like to feed- to feel her throat beneath my lips, her blood spurting into my mouth…

I shake my head to clear my mind. This woman does not deserve it.

I reach down to the male and grab his I. D. card. I swipe it through the slot, and then very gently sniff the keypad. I punch in the numbers; it takes several different tries to get it right. The door finally opens, and the glorious scent of fresh blood washes over me. I turn, and see the woman cowering on the floor next to the man. I try to ignore the image as I close the door.

There are several refrigerators in the room; at the back is a door that leads into a room that houses the centrifuge. I rip open the nearest fridge and grab every package of whole blood inside. I rip into them; the taste is soothing and welcoming after so long a period of deprivation. I eat about six pints worth of blood before I am able to stop. I stuff the bags into the pockets of my overcoat and try as best as I can to wipe the blood off of the tables. I wrap the coat around me to hide the bloodstains on my clothes, and lick my lips to remove the last drops.

I open the door, and I see the woman is still there, trying to revive the man. I lean over, and she looks up at me before jumping away and into a corner. I listen, and hear his deep breathing and even heartbeat. I look over at the woman.

“He’ll be fine,” I whisper. She says nothing, but merely looks at me. I have probably traumatized her for life.

“I’m sorry,” I say, because I cannot do anything else. “Do not ever mention this to someone else.” I then speed away. Her gasp at my speed echoes after me.

I slow down several hallways away from the place, and take a deep breath. I feel fine- better than fine, I feel exhilarated. I smile happily as I walk towards the elevators until I catch the smell of blood- a lot of it. Curious, I detour and head for the room to where I locate the scent.

It obviously is the source of the flashing lights earlier. A young girl, lying in a hospital bed, is struggling to breathe. Doctors are gathered around, trying to tend to her wounds. It seems she had fallen over a balcony and caught her body on some sort of protrusion. There are jagged wounds and broken bones. If I had not fed recently I would have lost all sense of control.

A nurse arrives at the door; he is out of breath.

“Well?’ barks a doctor.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps. “There’s been a… break in. Someone’s stolen all of her blood type that we have on hand. We have partial, but-“

“Shit,” murmurs a doctor. I suddenly feel myself going very still.

“Well, get it for her,” says a third doctor. “It’s the best we can do.”

I move slowly away from the room. I hear them still debating about what to do.

I may have just cost a little girl her life.

My exhilaration is gone.

I wander back to the elevators, and again I do not look anyone in the eyes. After all this time as a “vegetarian” and it seems I may end up killing someone anyway.

Is this the first time, though? Were there other times, perhaps, that someone died because I’d had to use blood banks in the past, because of Renesmee, or because there was nothing else handy? Did I condemn someone to death because of me, what I am?

I hope the young doctor does not mention me to her colleagues. They might think her insane. It might also hamper my efforts to try and feed there in the future, as it will take a while to gain access to outside the colony. Next time, I will be better prepared. I will not let myself be taken by surprise.

I arrive at my apartment’s door, but a crunch under my feet takes me by slight surprise. I had been too preoccupied to notice that someone had been there, but with my senses aware I now notice the smell of a human.

I pick up the plain white piece of paper. It is folded. I open it and read.

WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE, it says.