disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer, these are not my characters.

Chapter 20: New Dress

I lost track of time as I watched the beautiful blond man, the one I loved. The longer I watched him, the clearer he became, so that I was able to follow his travels quite easily. He liberally roamed the United States, drifting often towards dark areas that offered little in the way of identification. I had no idea where he actually was.

Not that it would have mattered much, I think. I still had no idea where I was. I still seemed to remember basic geography – northern, southern, and western United States. But the details of those places remained foggy. A part of me assumed that it was because I had never actually seen them. The lack of clarity had to be one of the most annoying details of my mind.

Right after being unable to remember who I was, of course. My name was Alice, and that was pretty much all of the self-knowledge I had woken up with. No past, no present, and unless it was immediate danger, no definite future. The simple concept of it - of having no memory – was thoroughly depressing. My only consolation was that I had all the means to seek answers. As days idled by, I had started testing the boundaries of my physical abilities, and was pleased with what I found.

My strength was surprising. I had spent one day marveling at how easily I could shape stone, tracing designs in hard granite with the tip of my finger. If I closed my hand around a rock, it easily turned to dust. I had yet to find something I couldn't break. My speed, too, was amazing. There was little I could test this against, though. All that I knew was that I could outrun deer easily, as well as any other wild animal. I never felt tired, I never slept, and I could stay still for days. The surges of power through my muscles made me feel confident. How could anything stop me in the search for my family? The astonishing thing was I could apparently do even more.

I had learned a lot from Carlisle's lessons for Edward. I had gone nearly a week without being able to hone in on them, but one afternoon their discussion had suddenly overwhelmed my vision. Carlisle had been talking about the specifics of being a vampire, and it had been one of the few times I had heard him speak.

"I'm sure you have realized how difficult it is to kill us… otherwise, we are immortal. I know you realize the great strength and speed you have, and that will last for a solid year. Your body is still reacting to the human blood in you, and that's also why your eyes are red, unlike my golden ones. The color change remains as long as you drink animal blood."

"And the minute my eyes change color you'll know I cheated." Edward's velvet voice had momentarily caught me off guard, because he wasn't in my direct line of vision. I struggled to regain my focus and try to expand, seeing him suddenly in the peripherals.

"But I trust that you will not. You can see that Edward." There was silence. A small, detached part of my mind was wondering what Carlisle meant. The answer came shortly after.

"Now, as to your ability to read minds… that is unique. I have only seen one other vampire with a similar ability, but his was not like yours. It may have been carried over from your human years. Were you particularly apt at understanding people?"

The answer was lost to me as I snapped out of my vision. Already I was working on processing everything I heard. It was almost too much to take in at once, except for the fact that my brain had extreme processing power.

I had been human.

That was the fact that startled me most. Carlisle had implied in his talk that all vampires arose when humans were bitten and allowed to survive as the venom spread. The venom part I remembered very clearly – the memory of the fierce pain and burning were etched all too clear in my mind. But I had assumed that was how we somehow came into creation, or that it had been a sort of reawakening. This concept that I had originally been human… it shocked me.

If I had been human, did I have a family alive somewhere? Were they looking for me? Did they even miss me, or were they glad I was gone? The last one sent a pang of pain through me. There was so much to consider.

More than that, Edward's ability seemed like my own. I had finally realized why so many times they had one-sided conversations – Edward simply read Carlisle's mind. Why would Carlisle even bother talking if he could just think in a general direction? Of course, the much more pressing question was whether my own… talent was akin to Edward's.

I could see the future. I had taken that for a given when I saw myself being torn apart by my hunter, and it had happened a few times since then. Just a week ago I had been able to catch a glimpse of myself finding a large coyote if I veered thirty-four degrees south of my original plan, and it had worked out. Other small things, too. I had finally taken for granted that all of my visions were of the future.

This all meant something very, very important. Carlisle, Edward, and the other blond man were not my past, as I had thought. They were my future. Something I could most definitely work towards, regardless of how mysterious my past was. This fact, together with my physical prowess, kept me out of depression long enough to hunt regularly and be careful with how I carried myself.

Hunting had not gotten any easier. The physical part of it wasn't demanding, but the more deer and coyote blood I drank, the worse it tasted. I started going longer and longer between hunting times, trying to refrain from fulfilling the thirst unless I absolutely had to. But it was so, so hard, because the thirst never went away. Whether I was idling days by sitting still under my rock overhang, watching Carlisle, Edward, or the other man, or just trying to pick out pieces of my immediate future, the thirst was always present.

I had to admit that seeing the future had its advantages. If any humans were going to potentially come close, I would see it soon enough to turn and run the other way. I couldn't go near them, that much I knew for a fact. If I considered staying my path, the visions would turn into animated versions of me killing the humans, ripping them apart, which would only make my thirst worse. So I stayed in one spot in the middle of the desert, waiting for when I might be able to get near them again.

Several months passed in this fashion. I would watch, hunt, and return to watching my visions. It was a waiting game, and I became an expert at the waiting part. It might have stayed like that for longer, except for one very big issue.

My clothes.

My ugly, dirty, torn, poor excuse for clothing. No matter how careful I tried to be, they were getting worse and worse by the week. The once white material now had dirt stains, grass stains, bloodstains, and every other type of stain imaginable. The gown was torn in several places now, leaving strips of my pale white skin showing. And in addition to all of that… it was ugly.

This was finally what forced me towards civilization. It had been several months, and I trusted myself a little more. Now at least my visions of nearby humans only consisted of the initial pounce, but I never saw myself draining them completely. That was a good sign.

So I ran towards the sounds and scents of small civilization fully intending to get some new clothes. The first place I ran into was a miniature town, with a few houses scattered around a makeshift town hall. There weren't very many people here, and their scents were mingled heavily with the smell of wood and steel. It was enough that I knew I wouldn't slip up. Hopefully.

I had spent all of the previous day trying to focus on the immediate future. At first all I got were little wisps of visions – a flash of color, the hushed mumblings of some humans, and the corners of a worn out cabin. But as the hours progressed, I had gotten better. That's now I knew now that there was a small cabin on the very outside rim of the town, where the woman would hang clothes out to dry… sometime today. I would have liked to trace down more exact details, but so much future searching gave me enormous headaches. Even now, my mind still felt exhausted as I neared the town.

I lingered several hundred feet away, keeping low to the ground. I was able to see the house I wanted, the one that had become familiar after so much searching yesterday. Apparently I was right on time. A young woman came out the makeshift door, singing some happy melody I didn't recognize. She had a large woven basked in her arms, full of different light-colored clothes. From the size I could tell that most of them were children's clothes, but the one at the very bottom would be a cream colored dress. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than what I had.

As she methodically hung up all the recently washed clothes to dry, I mentally steeled myself for what was going to happen. I would have to time it perfectly, so that the woman wasn't nearby when I dashed in and out. If I could haul myself out fast enough, I would be able to run away from her scent. Here was where several visions had played out in my mind's eye.

Either I got out fast enough, and boasted a new dress, or I would be running away with new bloodstains and brilliant red eyes. I wanted desperately to will the last vision away, but it remained all too clear in my mind. All I could do was hope for the best.

The woman finally finished and turned to go inside, still humming her little melody. I waited several more seconds, until I heard the distinct sound of another door opening; it had to be the front door. That was the farthest she would go, and my only chance. I set off at a dead run towards the cabin.

The overwhelming scent of human blood hit me like a tidal wave, washing over my senses as I approached. There were so many scents! Roses, cinnamon, pine, honey, oak! They all got unbearably strong as I neared the cabin, but I plowed forward, keeping the dress in my line of sight. I tried to focus on the other nonhuman smells – wood, steel – and fought down the predator instinct with all of my self-control. I can do this, I can do this.

I bounded easily to the cabin, snatched the dress elegantly off the line, and was running in the opposite direction in less than two seconds. I pushed myself even harder as I ran away from the town, intent on clearing the scents from my mind. Instead I tried to memorize the scent of this new fabric, holding it to my sensitive nose as I ran.

It was some sturdy material I didn't recognize, and that was good – it just might last through my wild lifestyle. There was a light pink floral pattern I hadn't noticed from afar, set nicely on a cream-colored background. The design was decent, at least. It had short sleeves and a very simple fit, flowing smoothly all the way down. The neckline wasn't as stuffy as the gown I had on now, and that would be marvelous. All in all, my new dress was pretty nice.

I didn't stop running until I had reached the little dry pond I frequented. There was a perpetual small puddle of water at very bottom, but how it survived under the sun was beyond me. All I knew was that I could rely on this pond when I needed to wash, or just look at myself. The funny thing was that all of the animals had stopped coming here.

A quick glance around told me there wasn't any risk of anyone approaching, not that there ever was. In one fluid motion I took off my old gown and slipped on the new dress. It was definitely a loose fit, but I figured anything would be. It would have to do for now. I gazed at my reflection in the water, at the very pale, very thin girl showing off her new dress with a huge grin.

author's note: Phew! This is the longest chapter by far, although I think they've all been getting progressively longer. I haven't really planned out the time between Alice becoming a vampire and Alice meeting up with Jasper (which I believe spans several years), so if any of you have anything you want to see (before Jasper!) drop me a PM. Otherwise we're doing a very very long time jump, haha. For anyone who might possibly be wondering, my grad studies conference went great! I learned way more than I wanted to know about the graduate school process, but it was fantastic. Anyway, you see that big new button underneath the story, with "review?" Click it!! :)