Part Twelve:

Claire: I can heal, but what kind of lame power is that? I'm just a victim.

Season 3, Episode 2: "The Butterfly Effect"

I let my head slip, going under water. When I open my eyes I see my hair float like tendrils around my head. Anything above the surface is a blur, all sounds are muted. Light comes through and I find it peaceful in that moment; however, my lungs begin to tighten, signaling me of my need for oxygen.

Could I survive without air? The idea is morbid that in itself; there was no way that I would test it out. Jumping from great heights is over in a second but drowning would be tortuously drawn out. Would I regenerate? My body would not be physically injured so much as it would not be able to function from lack of oxygen. I consider, for just a moment, if the indestructible girl is so indestructible after all.

I sit up in tub, sucking in great lung fills of air. I lie back in the tub, as I stare at the white walls. I lower my face until my eyes are just peeking out above the surface, the water sending out ripples from my movements. I wiggle my toes in the warm, relaxing water, staring at my small one in particular, considering.

The more I'm left alone the weirder my thoughts get. There was a time when the most disturbing thing I considered would be if I accidently got a stain on my clothes or if I forgot my homework in my room. I wonder if others think strange things like me; not actually considering if they are actually possible but maybe just thinking about them… If anyone could read my mind they would know I'm not normal. It is something to ponder for another time I suppose, but I have had other matters on my mind; like the strange events of the other day.

Yesterday had been an interesting day. I say "interesting" because I'm still trying to find another adjective to describe it. It started off normally enough with me going to hang out with people at the La Push beach. Yes, I probably could have acted a little more normal, cooler. It had been my first time to see the ocean for myself however; I suppose I could be a little lenient with myself. I just have to make sure it doesn't happen again…

Anyways, the day didn't seem particularly noteworthy in the beginning. It had been cute how Angela and Ben shyly talked with one another and held hands. Then there had been Jessica who blatantly flirted with Mike. Lauren even had Tyler. Eric had his… surfboard… Everyone was coupled off, leaving me rather contemplative and moody for feeling like the third wheel. It surprised me somewhat how when I was alone and longed for company I immediately thought of Edward. I'm pretty independent, yet that for me was unusual.

I didn't need to feel awkward for long because around that time a few La Push residences joined us, Leah, Seth, and Jacob. I had been glad for their company. They seemed to bring with them this unique energy. There was an undercurrent of unease that seemed run through them as well, though I had not picked up on it at the time. Jacob carefully hid his concern for Leah as well as Seth did. It was not until after I had noticed Sam's gang and had asked about it that Leah somehow seemed to be set off. She collapsed minutes later. That was when it had gotten strange; even I picked up on it.

And I couldn't shake it, couldn't get rid of the feeling that there was something wrong with the situation and the Quileutes, well, perhaps not wrong, simply unusual, rather like the Cullens in a way. The Quileutes seemed distrustful of the Cullens, why else would they not want to take Leah to Dr. Cullen? Why have such strange legends involving them? I mean really?

And the Cullens…oh God, one Cullen in particular, especially how he acted when I last saw him… The way his eyes seemed to gaze into my darkest corners, how his cool hands tenderly cradled my face, how I felt like I could hardly breathe with the electric impulses saturating the air around us. What kind of "see you later" was that? I still see his eyes staring at me, staring through me when I close my own.

It is no use working myself up over it. I will find no peace about how to act around Edward until I see him at school tomorrow. I really can't do anything about this Cullen-Quileute thing either. It is not my business and I really do not know the details. As to Seth, Leah and Jacob, well, I could at least do something about that.

I get out of the tub, drain the water, and wrap myself in my robe, then head towards my room. After changing, I go to my father's study. Out of habit I shut the door behind me and close the curtain that is behind the chair that is at my father's desk. I log onto the computer and head towards the internet to check my e-mail.

Technically, I'm not supposed to have e-mail. My father had more or less made it contraband. Theoretically, he thinks I might try to get in contact with people from my past, people the company knows about and could be monitoring. While I think it is a little extreme, just like the situation overall, I realize that my father worked for them for a very long time and knows things about them and how they work that I have no idea of. I don't use my old e-mail of course. I have a new one designed to stay in touch with people in Forks. It is part of my cover. I mean whoever heard of a teenager who didn't even have at least an e-mail?

My inbox says I have three messages. Eagerly I click the first. It is from Angela. She inquires about my absence since I was not able to stick around long enough to explain. It is nice of her to wonder. I click the reply option and type, trying to explain as best I could. Somehow I think even if I can't she'll just take my word; she is just that kind of person.

After I press send I'm taken back to my inbox. The next two e-mails are from Jessica. The first is a two full pages of a breakdown of every little thing that happened yesterday between her and Mike. She overanalyzes everything and then asks me for my opinion. I shudder and quickly click the next e-mail. I figure she'll just bombard me tomorrow if I reply or not.

The next is more of a side note in which she points out that my cell phone is off and I need to stop forgetting to turn it on. Personally, I'm surprised that Jessica didn't bring up my disappearance like Angela did. Jessica really is marooned on Planet Mike. I pull my phone from my pocket and then decide not to turn it on just to be safe.

Oh, and that reminds me that I should get in touch with Jacob. This is what I can do to put my mind at ease to an extent. I type out my own inquiry, asking how Leah is doing ect. I feel like I should. On one hand I get the vibe I'm intruding or something…but is it not polite to ask?

After I send the e-mail to Jacob I drum my fingers on the desk a few times, considering. I open a new tab, going to Google. I type in 'Quileutes' and the results pop up. I skim through sites and articles. There were a tourist information sites that hold basic information which give brief outlines of the Quileutes' history and great locations and sites to check out. Other than that though, I cannot find much information, especially about any legends. However, I find a local book store chain that has books about local legends that should be work checking out. I suppose I could try that when I do decide to go Seattle for a shopping trip. Edward and I could both go; maybe we could use our shared inquisitiveness in a common pursuit instead of poking at each other… Hey, how did Jacob refer to the Cullens in that legend he told? Cold Ones?

I open a new search page to type in 'Cold Ones".

"Claire!"

I jump in my seat. Out of instinct I close my open window.

Lyle stands in the doorway staring at me incredulously. "Um, Claire?"

"Yeah?" I flash him my big sisterly smile.

"Got a minute?" He waves his science homework. Just as my father predicted, Lyle has left his homework for the last moment. With a sigh, I direct him over to the desk to see if I could help him out a bit. I wince as I look over some of his attempts to answer the assigned questions.

I never do google "Cold Ones" as I end up tutoring Lyle until dinner. Mom, Lyle, and I clean up the kitchen after. Lyle goes to play on his game console. Mom reads in the living room. They look very comfy together in the living room. I don't join them however, feeling rather tired and little out of place. I go to bed early, to prepare for another day. The last thing I remember before falling asleep were the glow-in-the-dark- stars on my ceiling.

I was looking up, but what I saw above me wasn't my bedroom ceiling. It looked awfully familiar with its periodically placed fluorescent lights that flicker and buzz. I slowly sit up with my hands braced against the cool, grubby tile. When I look around I realize that I know this place. This is my old school from Odessa. It is different from the way I remember for this is Forks' high school too. If I stare at my surrounding in just a certain way, like when one goes cross eyed and sees two of one image, I can see two different schools seemingly meld together to form this hybrid.

This is really weird. That is an understatement considering that this should be impossible. I am here though which begs the question of where am I. Have I been drugged? Am I hallucinating? My mind races though every plausible explanation but no logical reason presents itself.

A growing sense of trepidation settles over me as I cast quick glances in every direction. I am in a deserted hallway which goes in two seemingly endless directions. Doors line the sides at regular intervals. The sign over one door hangs on one screw, swinging back and forth like it had just been knocked.

"Hello?" I call out, my voice wavering in the quiet. Not a sound can be heard beside my footsteps as they echo down the empty hall. I try the doors one after another, but they are all locked. My heart beat quickens as a sick feeling enters me. I fumble on one of the door knobs, the noise rattling off the walls, disturbing the silence. I move to the next door in another vain attempt to open one. The building adrenaline ties my stomach in knots and will not let me remain stationary.

The place felt so…dead. The analogy I just made in my head wasn't helping my nerves any. I shivered and not because it was cold. I called out again, my voice louder and stronger this time, hoping someone, anyone would hear me. There just had to be someone. I couldn't be alone…

I feel a trickle of warm air like breathe brush the back of my neck. I spin around, looking for the person I suspect my mind probably desperately conjured up. I wipe my sweating palms on my skirt then freeze. I look down, running my hands down the red pleated skirt and up the shirt of my old cheerleading uniform from Odessa. This was just not possible. My old one had been ruined and I had never gotten around to getting a new one. Yet this one was definitely mine. I note the different color thread on one sleeve that mom used to mend a small tear once.

How could…?

A hundred voices fill the air, a flurry of incomprehensible whispers, overlapping, coming from all directions at once. I try to find the source but all I see is the dim hallway from which I had just walked from.

I turn back, gasp, and stumble backward. A tall silhouetted form dressed in form fitting black comes forward in slow, measured, steps, his feet not making a sound as they touch the tile floor. His long bangs cover his eyes, leaving them in shadow, unreadable.

"Peter," I breathed, shocked. I knew him, I'd know him anywhere. He was undeniably Peter yet….

The light shifts on his face as he steps closer still, revealing a deep scar that runs across his face. "He is coming Claire." His voice is deeper than I remembered, harder.

The center of my chest tightens, breathe quickening. I back up instinctively. He's my uncle, my friend but this…him… How could Peter be here? He was dead; he exploded, that night in the Kirby Plaza.

"Who is coming?" I ask. "What's going on?" My voice raises an octave.

"The boogey man!" A voice said behind me in a whispery urgency as if I should very well know as to who they refer.

I turned to face Molly Walker. Her eyes were wide with fear as she gazed at me imploringly. "Don't let him hurt me." She threw her arms around my waist tight, making it difficult to breathe.

I look from the girl who is so desperately clutching on to me back to Peter, wanting to ask him a hundred questions only to find the Japanese man is standing stoically a little behind Peter to the left. He isn't wearing the glasses now and he is dressed all in black with a sword strapped to his back. "Save the cheerleader, save the world."

"I'm not a cheerleader anymore." I protest as I automatically move my hand to run down Molly's hair to sooth her but my hand just goes through air. I whirl around, my eyes searching but she isn't here. She just disappeared like a ghost. I turn back to ask Peter and the Japanese man if they had seen her but they are both gone too.

The whispering voices are a little clearer the farther I walk down the hall. I catch only a few words such as "monster," "unnatural," and "murderer." That alone is warning and if that were not enough then the tone of these voices are enough to raise the hairs on my arms for the emotions coursing through these voices could only be described as raw fear.

I hear a click and see the light at the end of hall behind me turn off. I saw no one flip a switch; in fact, I can't even see any light switches at all around me nor since I've found myself in this place. Another second more than there goes the next flickering fluorescent light, blown out like a candle. Another light goes, and then another, the wall of impenetrable darkness draws ever near. The sound of my heart beating furiously in my ears is the only steady beat, the voices rising and falling like an accompanying choir. I have to will myself to breathe as I almost trip over my own feet in my hasty retreat.

I hear a screech and then out of the corner of my eye an object flies at me. I jump to the side, the object, what appears to be a locker door that was ripped off its hinges lays crumpled at my feet from the force of the impact it made with the wall when it missed me.

A locker door? How did…. What? No way!

A rattling sound builds like a crescendo, coming from the end of the approaching darkness. It is lockers, many of them, being ripped off their hinges and-

Before the full realization hits me the locker doors do. The first strikes me with enough force to send me into the wall and the next to the floor. The third misses me, imbedding itself into the wall not an inch to the right of my head.

I can taste blood in my mouth, realizing I must have bit my tongue. My whole body feels battered and bruised. I'm unsteadily get to my feet when something wet trickles down my forehead. I raise a hand and my face contorts into one of confusion. I have no open wounds; that blood is not mine… It came… from above? I look up hesitantly, squinting. Something is on the ceiling but it is so dark…Wait, is that a figure, a person lying against the ceiling? It was like the laws of gravity had been reversed only for-

And I know, though her blonde hair may be hanging in front of her face I recognize the uniform. I stand directly beneath her in open mouthed horror as part of my past starts to repeat itself; replaying from my memories.

"Claire…" Her eyes are unfocused and I can see where the blood is coming from, a crude hewn cut across her forehead…She raggedly breathes in one last time, exhaling with one word. "Run."

This jump starts me as I realize the darkness is but a few feet away. I'm running down the hall, reminiscent of another time about a year ago. I look over my shoulder to see the darkness has already swallowed up where Jackie had lain.

I turn back to find myself at an abrupt end. I fling myself at the last door, desperate. It won't open. I can hear the voices swirling around me, chanting, their words still not making much sense but I feel their urgency pushing me forward, telling me promises of what the darkness brings if it should have me. I see there is but one light left, shining on me like a spotlight, showing my last attempts as I ram the door with my shoulder, putting all my strength into it.

The door crashes open with a bang. I stumble into the room, nearly losing my footing. I'm too busy trying to catch my breath that I don't immediately look over my new environment, but when I do I freeze.

Eyes unblinking; my numb mind slowly registers what it is seeing. My hand that had been gripping the door knob slips off to dangle at my side as my body trembles. I want to scream. I can feel it locked away, clawing to get out, but only a whimper escapes me.

This was it. The voices, it made sense. Each one was a separate person, their last moments, blending with hundreds of others. They were clearest, strongest here. It was obvious why. There are so many bodies carelessly strewn across the floor, mangled. Endless faces...Jessica, Mike, Angela, Ben, Jacob, Lyle, Mom, Dad …all dead…..

A figure stands over them, blood dripping from his hands. I can't look away, can't turn. I want to claw my eyes out, make this all go away, can't stop them traveling up his frame, almost to his face-

"Hello Claire."

Then the darkness surges from behind, enveloping cutting off the remaining light. Everything is black and even I am no more.

My eyes snap open. The glow-in-the- dark-stars on my ceiling greet me. I give myself several seconds to be sure. I take in a shuddering breathe, and then another as I blink back the water that is welling up in my eyes. I throw off my sweat soaked sheet, letting the cool air hit me, bringing me to full alertness. I sit up, my face in my hands.

I had many nightmares after Homecoming night a year ago; however, they had slowed to a trickle to the point they hardly ever made a reappearance. I guess I can't expect myself to ever completely forget though. It will always be with me, the horror, the blood… I lost a friend that day in such a horrible manner and it was my fault. If it weren't for me… if I hadn't…Dear God, never, please never again, not because of me…

I dig my nails dig into my palms to regain control, refusing to let my emotions, my fears run me. I'm stronger than that. I breathe in deeply, then exhale.

…But after everything that has been on my mind why this now? I hadn't had this dream since I came to Forks. I had not been reminiscing on that time either before I had fallen asleep. It was not just of my memories from that night. No, there were additions, probably random images and thoughts that had been floating around in my head that my brain decided to throw in. It took my past memories and made them worse and even more horrible. Though this firmly confirmed it in my mind that it was just a dream, I could not shake the level of creepiness.

And that voice… It seemed familiar but I could swear I had never heard anyone say my name in such a way. I would have remembered that. I never got to see the face either so I have no way of knowing who my mind had cast as the villain. I struggle to remember but my mind cannot recall what it has never seen. Well, I hope it shall always remain faceless to me.

I gaze about my room. My mind casts phantoms along the wall that rear then recede, bits and pieces of memories. These I wish to never forget and then wish also to have them be erased; being so closely entwined together that doing so would be impossible. The people I have met, the friends I have made; I want to treasure these. But the blood, the nightmares…I wish for these to seep into the walls, deep into the wood to be locked away, forgotten and unnecessary to be remembered. Over a year ago the red pill had been swallowed and I found that for better or for worse there was no going back.

The digital clock on my bedside reads 3:43 A.M. I have school tomorrow.

I fluff up my pillow, pull my sheets around me and lay back down. My eyes will not close though; I am wide awake now. My mind keeps replaying fragments in random succession. If I keep thinking about this than I am never going to go back to sleep and I do not want to think about this, not that I seem to have much choice in the matter.

I reach over to my night stand to turn on my lamp. A soft, warm, light comes from it, casting shadows on my wall. The blackness that surrounded me has been cast to the walls to be only shadows hanging on the fringes. I fumble around, searching for a magazine, or a book, a distraction. My hand grazes my stereo. I smile, remembering the CD I had left in there. I press play, letting the music begin where I last stopped it. From the end of the second to last song it then goes to the last one, the one I had yet to listen to.

A few soft notes trickle out, capturing my attention. Several more, and then a flurry dances across a sad undertone. It was like a river, each note flowing into the next.

Vivid images it evokes, that of light, darkness, and an in-between. There is joy at discovery, yet an unfulfilled longing. My breath is caught in my throat as I turn the volume up; letting the music spread across my room, filling it with its vibrancy.

Every single song on the CD Edward gave me had been beautiful but this one was exceptionally so. There was something about it…something alluring, secretive, yet familiar. Certain images it evoked, a story falling into place with the song. A lonely heart, waiting, longing for something it does not yet know. Then it finds it and it is beautiful. But it can never be and the song takes a melancholy note. The piece ends on an open ended note; bittersweet but with a hint of light, of things that could be... Never had I heard a musician put so much emotion, such passion, into a piece before. The musician seemed to pour his soul, his essence, baring all of him self in this one piece…

That was all that was on the CD. The room falls into a deafening silence. I immediately hit the play button again then set it to repeat. I quietly arise from my bed as not to disturb the trance-like quality of the music, and make my way to my window. I open it up and breathe the fresh night air. A single star can be seen peaking through the cloud cover that always blankets Forks. It is like a spark of hope, a light in the darkness. I find myself wearing a smile as a light breeze brushes through my hair. I am not cold, strangely, I feel rather warm and peaceful. I remain like this, till the dawn comes and the sun rises over the hills. For now, the nightmares are gone.

Author's Note:

This update took so long because of school. School is great, I like school; I like learning. Unfortunately, it is very time consuming. It is just the way it goes. I had been working on this in bits and pieces when I would have a spare moment; however those were few and far between. Thank goodness for Thanksgiving break. I finally had some spare time on my hands without being bogged down by homework, hence the update finally!

I know this chapter is rather short and not a whole heck of a lot actually happens. I mean, such a long wait for this? Yes, I know… I was originally going to make this a much bigger chapter but I decided to go ahead and get this part out. I've been working on the next chapter (that has Edward in it! :D I know! It has been two whole chapters since he has made an appearance!) though it probably will not be up soon because finals are coming up… -_- (emphasis on the not) But there is always the possibility that I may get some more time to work on it. We'll have to see. But yeah, things will definitely start heating up in the next few chapters. The big unveiling is coming up!

Oh, and interesting fact, this fanfiction is now 100+ pages counting this chapter (not counting lengthy author's notes). Now to some this may not seem like much, but to me, I have to say I feel ridiculously proud of myself for actually writing that much. Now to see how long this thing is when I'm finished… 0_0 ….

Thanks for reading! Thanks for your patience and sticking with me! I really do appreciate it! If you have a question (that I can answer without giving away spoilers) comment, or if you just want to say hi, leave me a review or private PM. I always love to hear from you.