The world went on. Days got longer, then shorter, then long again. Light came, then went, then came again. Elisabette held a fear deep in her heart. A fear that eclipsed her body and shattered every inch of safety and security she had built up over the years. It hollowed her very soul, which she swore got colder by the day.

Elisabette held worries for things she knew would come eventually, but the fear was different. For example, she worried that the Volturi would successfully recruit her, which she knew included brainwashing. A worry that the Cullens would reappear in her life sat in its own nook in the corner of her brain, as well.

She clenched her eyes, listening to the sounds of the ocean. Crash. Retreat. Build. Crash. This paired with deep, unnecessary breaths, salt burning the inside of her nose. Though her lungs had yet to intake air in hundreds of years, it still felt nice, pretending. She did that a lot, pretend. She pretended to breathe, pretended to eat, pretended to live. The last was the hardest of all. It hurt, just a bit. Moving on in a society in which no one even cared to know her name. Such was life in 21st century America.

Elisabette had been on the King's court, loved the President (and had been loved back, as far as she was concerned), and fought for civil liberties. No one could know that, though. As far as everyone knew, Elisabette Victoria was a well-off college student in Portland, Oregon. She feigned a love for the smell of brewing coffee and a hatred for the rain. In reality, coffee - and most human food - caused a slight trigger in a sort of gag reflex, and the rain was the best cover up for her hidden identity. She wore a shy smile and a shimmery lip gloss to classes. Her teachers explained mathematics that she had seen discovered, read books which she had signed first edition copies of, and taught events that she couldn't quite remember.

Life was normal, routinely. For some, this would be painfully monotone, and they would crave difference and spontaneity. Not Elisabette. She craved domestic, craved all that she had lost in the woods that early morning. If she thought hard enough, she could see a little boy with a dark mass of curly hair. Who was he, though? A brother, nephew, cousin? Did she have a son? It clicked. He was her son, and she smiled. Elisabette's hope as a mother filled her cold heart, and she hoped he had survived. She prayed to whatever deity she could think of that her bloodline had made it. Even hoped that her husband had remarried, that he hadn't dwelled too harshly on her memory. Their names were lost though. If she could only remember the names, it would sink in, and she could move on.

For weeks, she thought. Her entire brain was encompassed by the idea of figuring out the name of the curly haired boy with the sweetest smile. His face got slightly clearer everyday, but his name only got murkier. She was overcome with a dark, depressing fog. The friends that she had made at the small northwestern college were slightly concerned. She told them she was trying to remember someone, not a lie. An incomplete truth.

Elisabette prematurely mourned her soul for the day she would remember his name. Her heart would break into a thousand jagged pieces and cut at her ribs, leaving cuts in their wake that would never heal. They would fester and itch and burn and she would do nothing but stare because, on some level, she knew she deserved it. A lonely, painful life was the perfect punishment for a sinner like her. Maybe the Volturi would do her a favor and kill her. No, she decided, Aro would rather lose someone along the likes of Santiago or Heidi just to have Lissa.

Punishment, neverending, it would seem. On a trip to a small Washington town she didn't care enough about to even learn the name of, she heard a voice. A booming, overpowering voice. Calling for her.

"Ellie! Fancy seeing you here!"

Emmett Cullen.