Title: Origins: A Lost Soul

Author: MarieCarro

Beta: Mylissa

Pre-reader: JeniK & chatnoirmd

Genre: Angst/Family/Supernatural

Rating: NC-17

Summary: It was during the month of March in the year of 1918 that the first signs of the influenza were revealed to the public, although no one ever imagined the damages this historic event would have on the American people.

One citizen, in particular, faces an irrevocable change that causes a chain of events to unfold through the twentieth century. The price was to give up his old life, but he would later gain more than he ever thought he would.

Edward Masen was a normal 17-year-old boy with dreams of becoming a soldier, but when tragedy struck his family, his entire life changed. Edward was introduced to the supernatural world he had no idea even existed, and he certainly didn't want to live in it. Canon

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

CHAPTER 10

MONDAY, MARCH 9th – TUESDAY, MARCH 10th 1921

I was aimlessly wandering around the ostentatious house Carlisle and I had bought on the outskirts of town when we returned to America from Europe. Our residence was currently in Ashland in Wisconsin where Carlisle had been offered to work as an emergency physician at St. Joseph Hospital.

The hospital was a huge, sterile and intimidating brick building, but it was its size that had appealed to Carlisle. With a hospital of that size, he blended in easier with the doctors and patients.

He had been offered a position at a smaller hospital closer to our house as well called Rhinehart Hospital, but it was too intimate, and Carlisle's 'oddities' would have caused more suspicion amongst the local patients there than at a larger facility corresponding to St. Joseph.

The sun was out, so we were trapped inside for the day. It didn't bother me much anymore. Not as it had my first year as a vampire. Now I found some satisfaction in the chance of letting go of the human facade for twenty-four hours.

The last three years of traveling hadn't been easy. My control was rocky at best, and while it had improved immensely, I had still slipped on more than one occasion.

The first time I tasted human blood was from a shepherd in Scotland.

Carlisle and I had only a few days prior taken our first steps on the shore of Ireland after we'd made the long swim from America—Carlisle thought it was safer to swim than to buy tickets for a boat—and we were heading to London through Scotland.

The shepherd had been alone with his sheep, and his shoe accidentally got caught in a big stone. It caused him to fall and scrape up his knee.

The potent smell of the blood trickling from the open wound had caught both of us off guard, and I couldn't resist. I broke the man's neck before I even knew what I was doing. There had been something dark inside me which had robbed me of my control for that short second, and it had terrified me.

When the shepherd fell to the ground, emptied of his life-giving fluid, guilt had threatened to crush me. Had Carlisle not been there to reassure me that it was bound to happen, I most likely would have crawled into some dark corner to never emerge again.

Another such occasion where I lost control was months later in Paris when my eyes had finally changed to the golden color I'd now grown accustomed to.

We were traveling through the less fortunate part of the city because Carlisle had promised a Madame at a Maison, or brothel, to take a look at one of her girls for free. She had offered him one of her other girls for payment, but Carlisle outright refused.

I wasn't unaware of the world of prostitution. It wasn't uncommon for men in my social status to visit a brothel now and then, but having been raised in a family where my father was faithful to my mother, it caused me to wrinkle my nose in disgust at what I saw in the establishment, even though it was one of the more sophisticated ones.

We were just about to leave when we heard a scared and tortured whimper from upstairs.

Through the eyes of a girl who could not have been over eighteen, I saw the face of a man who lay on top of her bound body—her wrists appeared to be fastened to the mattress itself.

I wasn't fluent in French as Carlisle was, but I didn't need to be to know what was occurring. The girl's racing thoughts were laced with panic as she struggled hard against her restraints, but the man over her placed his hands over her wrists and used his weight to keep her in one place.

A rage like no other boiled up inside of me when I saw how he forced her legs open with violence and tore her undergarments from her body.

I could almost taste her fear, and she continuously repeated the word please in French.

Carlisle couldn't know what I was witnessing, but he didn't need to know. He could see the rage in my eyes, and he immediately distracted the Madame so I could slip upstairs.

My intent was to save the young girl from the man who was seconds away from becoming her rapist, but when he entered her, he did it with such force she began to bleed. The blood was not the same as a wound, but it still smelled of her life essence, and I immediately transformed from the hero to the monster.

I didn't drink the man, but I did kill him by throwing him out of the window; mostly because he was in the way of my prey, but also because I didn't want him to taint her scent more than he already had.

The girl didn't even have time to react before I had my teeth buried in her neck.

Carlisle had successfully gotten away from the Madame when he smelled the blood. He knew what it would do to me, and he tried to pull me away when I'd only drunk a mouthful, but my newborn strength was still lingering in my muscles and it had been no effort to keep him away from me. I had been too lost in my instincts to realize that he tried for my own sake.

Killing the girl had torn at me a thousand times more than killing the shepherd. I was supposed to save her, and instead, I ended up killing her myself.

Those were only two of the unfortunate accidents I'd had, but they were the ones that stayed with me the longest. I tried to forget about them completely, but it had been proven to be a difficulty since vampires remembered everything.

In my wandering, I ended up in the parlor where my piano had received its own corner.

Being the rightful owner of the Masen fortune and property had made it easy to hire a company that could transport the possessions I wanted to keep to our new house here in Ashland. I also bought a storage space where the rest of the trinkets from Chicago found their new home.

I sold the motorcar, and the house that I grew up in now stood empty of personal items. The furniture was still there, but if you walked through the house now, it would not feel the way a home should. Only cold and unwanted.

While being in contact with the company I hired to handle my property, I was informed of the devastating damage the pandemic had left on the American population.

Apparently, around twenty-eight percent of the population had been infected. No one had gone through the records, but it was estimated that approximately six hundred thousand Americans had died between 1918 and 1920, which was almost ten times more than those who had been lost in the war. World-wide, the numbers were too great to even think of.

I forced the depressing thoughts out of my head and glanced at my piano again. I felt the urge to play a piece, but I was afraid to touch the delicate instrument.

I had attempted to play several times over the past three years by sneaking into hotels at night when the humans were asleep, but it had almost always ended with me breaking something. I didn't want that to happen to my piano, so I was reluctant to touch it.

Still, I couldn't stay away.

I approached the bench and carefully sat down. I moved as if I was confronting an aggressive animal that I wanted to show I was no threat to. Then, probably slower than a sloth moved, I pressed down on a key with minimal strength. As soon as I felt the slightest resistance, I let go. The sound reverberated through the room, and I couldn't hold back the grin that spread.

Hours later, I was actually able to play one of my favorite pieces without even hearing a creak. I was still scared of breaking it, but I had made progress, and that made me more proud than anything had ever done before.

{=ALS=}

I had always envied those who could compose music, as I had never really thought of myself as talented enough to do the same.

It was a yearning of mine, though, and so I decided that with my unlimited amount of time, I was at least going to try. The worst that could happen was that I was no good at it, which was to be expected in the beginning.

Like the day before, I needed practice before I felt confident enough to play again, but when I felt safe and certain I wouldn't break anything, I searched the house for a few sheets of blank paper. I used those to draw my own note sheets, which took less than a minute, but I was frozen for a solid ten minutes after that.

How was I supposed to begin?

I tried out a few keys experimentally, but when I pressed down on a B minor 7 note, I stopped.

The tone echoed against the walls so beautifully, therefore I tried it again. Almost on instinct, I continued with an F minor. The two notes fit together perfectly. It was as if my hands knew the song before my mind did.

It all went easier than I expected. When I sat by the piano and wrote down the notes as I went, it felt as if I'd been composing for years. It was a talent I'd hid behind an unreasonable fear for so long, and I was finally giving it a chance to blossom.

The music flowed through my body and filled me in a way I had never experienced before. The feeling it left behind was a mixture of pride and satisfaction. I was so pleased that I had succeeded in writing my very own composition.

It was an easy, uncomplicated piece, but it was meaningful to me. It reflected the thoughts that had been in the back of my mind during the process.

I had partially been thinking about the long life I had ahead of me, the immortality and never aging part of it, and partially about what I had recently seen on our travels through Europe.

My entire day was donated to perfect the piece I had created. I made a few small changes to the bridge and added bass arpeggio chords to the background.

When Carlisle came home in the early morning hours, I was still by the piano. I suddenly became aware of my surroundings and took note that morning had dawned. I frowned and glanced at the clock. It read two hours later than when I expected Carlisle to be home.

"Was it a demanding night at the hospital?" I asked and rose from the bench.

"Not more than usual," he replied as he hung up his coat and hat.

"Then why are you so late?"

"Because I had these made for us." He brought out a manila sized envelope from the inside of his suit jacket and gave it to me. I opened it and found several documents inside. When I looked closer at them, I saw that they were identification documents.

"However did you manage to acquire these?" I asked with awe coloring my tone.

Carlisle gave me an amused smile. "They're not exactly legal, but I've had documents like these forged for me before, and humans are very accommodating when there are large quantities of money involved."

"How much did you have to offer for these?"

I was reluctant to hear the amount, but I still needed to hear it. It wasn't that we couldn't spend the money however we wanted. Since we didn't eat, we saved a lot, but I was still not quite used to spending ridiculous amounts of money on something so easily overlooked as identity documentation.

"A few hundred," he said and shrugged as if it was nothing.

"Hundreds? For a few sheets of paper?" My eyes were wide and unbelieving. Who could possibly have the nerve to ask for that amount of money?

"Edward, calm down. The deposit barely made a difference in our accounts."

I sighed and shook my head. "It's not the money itself that worries me. It's the person who demanded it."

I saw a bald, beady-eyed man with a greedy smile in Carlisle's mind. Apart from his obvious greed for money, he looked quite harmless.

"Do not concern yourself, he won't talk, and he doesn't know anything of importance anyway. I doubt the police would hold any interest in an emergency doctor and his brother-in-law anyway?"

"Brother-in-law?"

"Yes," he said with a smile and nodded toward the documents in my hand. "You are officially my deceased wife's younger brother. We don't resemble each other enough to be related, but this is a good enough reason for us to be living together. I kept your last name but gave it a different spelling."

I lifted my hand to read through the documents still clutched in it.

Half of them was for Carlisle while the other half was for me, signed in handwriting very similar to my own.

It didn't matter that my name, now Mason instead of Masen, was so similar to my human name. By reading the forged documents bearing my signature for all intents and purposes, I could feel the last part of my human past fade away behind me.

A/N:

Those of you who have followed me for a while and know that I have posted and re-posted this before might wonder why I am once again changing things in the story.

Well, you see, I am working on making this a series where each story will focus on each Cullen family member, which is why there are no more chapters up on this story for now. I feel like I have to wait until I've worked more on Esme's and Rosalie's stories.

Why you might ask. I noticed as I started to write on Emmett's story (Now available to start reading; it's called Origins: Destiny in the Mountains in case you've missed it) that I didn't really know Emmett until I got into his head, and I believe the same can be said about Esme and Rosalie. That's why the chapters involving those characters will come up in pace as I write their stories!

Okay?

Awesome!