I don't own Twilight.


Chapter V"As I Feel"


Sometimes, I want to go out into public and stand in the sunlight, just to feel the warmth against my skin … or lack thereof. Sometimes, I wish to be human. I want to know what it feels like to die. However, in this life, I will never die naturally.

The ring of fire can take me away to some other place but nothing else. People are dying from diseases without a cure and want to live. I am nearly indestructible and I want to die. It seems ironic that that the greatest potion of life, fountain of youth lies in a monster.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks from across me. We huddle around a fire to pretend like we are just out for the night exploring. We can't even feel the heat of the fire. We are like ice though unable to melt; we can only stare at the warmth and remain cold.

"I was thinking about humans," I reply, my voice full of absolutely nothing. He catches my eye and we stare at each other for a long moment. He can see what I mean.

"They are delicious and very stupid," he says, covering up for my thoughts. As she watches the awkward conversation, I can see her face scrunch in confusion. She picks at a leaf; peeling the plant into pieces. But she doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to.

As I feel absolutely nothing, my future is changing.


Alice

***

I want to remember what it feels like to live. I want to feel the wind and the sunshine. I want to be able to touch a knife and bleed, to eat food and feel full, to drink water and no longer be thirsty. I wake up from my drowsiness and look around. I can't remember anything. Everything is a blurry haze. I try to focus on my memories, the reason I am lying on the ground in the middle of a forest. There is blood all around me and my clothes are ripped.

I am thirsty.

Looking around me, I can smell that there is water from a river about a quarter of a mile from where I am sitting now. But, somehow, water is not what I want to drink. My throat is burning – almost like I haven't drunk anything in years – but the smell of water is nearly repulsive.

My head starts to hurt and my hands begin shaking. I remember this process, though I don't know what it means. And then I see it: in this … vision, I see a blond soldier sitting at a diner all alone. I smile brightly at him, though I've never seen him in person before and stroll up to him.

The picture changes and suddenly I see a doctor. "You wanted to talk to me … Alice, Edward said your name was?" I nod. "What can I help you with?" He has a pleasant face and a nice smile, though I can see the confusion across his face.

"I want to be like you, Dr. Cullen," I tell him, "I want to drink blood like your family. I don't want to kill anyone and I've had visions of coming to you so I wouldn't."

I come back to reality and look around me. I am still in the forest with the burning throat, the ripped clothes, and the blood on the ground. Blood … I think and I can feel my throat twitch with anticipation. It occurs to me then … I am a vampire, and I need drink.

***

The weekend passes by too quickly.

I dread Monday morning when William comes to talk to me about my latest set of dreams. I keep hoping he won't even come, though I want to see him still. I am still humiliated from the night of the party, though I can't stop thinking about his kiss. The way his lips felt against mine.

I want to taste them again, under different circumstances. I want to be normal for him. I can never be normal for him. For the entire weekend, I think of ways I can get out of seeing him on Monday. I can pretend to be sick but, then again, I'm already "sick." Grandfather told me on Sunday there was no way of getting out of it.

He also told me William had locked himself in his room. Edward – William's father – had tried to talk to him, bring him food, and other things but William would never respond. Grandfather told me it was because William was thinking about me.

Grandfather is such a great liar, I think.

By Monday morning, I have not thought of a way to get out of my meeting with him. He comes in quietly, wearing the same jacket he wore at the dance. He sits down in his chair, without his notebook for once, and he doesn't look at me. He looks like he was beaten up this morning before he came in to work. I sigh heavily and he stiffens up but doesn't look at me.

For the entire time we're supposed to be talking about the dreams I have had – which were a lot by the way – instead we sit in complete silence. The air is tense and he only moved once when he rested his arms on his thighs and leaned forward.

For awhile I watch him; then, when I realize that he's not going to look at me, I lay back down on my bed and stuff my pillow under my head. I close my eyes and feel sleep take over me. I accept it gratefully, William or not, because I haven't been able to sleep since the dance.

I see other things while sleeping. The blond soldier comes to mind many times – he always does when I'm upset. For the three nights and two days I had hope of my mother coming to save me from this hellhole, I used to see him hovering in every corner of my being. When I realized she wasn't and had accepted that, he disappeared and I saw things that didn't involve me necessarily.

***

I see William now, in my dreams, standing by a pond.

There is a girl next to him. She has auburn hair and bright hazel eyes and they sparkle in the moonlight. Her dress is white and she is wearing silk stocking; she has a jacket on, blocking her from the cold. William looks just about the same. His hair is shorter now, but not by much, and hair falls in his eyes a bit. He looks older than he does now, so this vision must be far in the future.

He looks nervous, more so than he has ever looked. I watch them from a distance. Though this is a vision and they can't see me, I still feel odd walking into their personal lives.

"They water is beautiful," the girl remarks, casting her eyes away from William's face to the pond next to them. He nods quietly and puts on of his hands in his pocket. I can see the material move up and down, like he's playing with something.

"Do you know what today is?" he asks her after a long while. She looks away from the water and back into his eyes. I can nearly feel her heart soar just to look at him. William had a hard past, she thinks, but he has changed so much from the man I knew when I first met him, six months ago.

"Today," she answers in a clear, honest voice, "is the anniversary of the very first date I had, when I was thirteen years old." She looks at him and smiles playfully. He smirks back. They laugh together; I realize then that I have never heard William laugh.

"Is it really?" he asks, placing the hand outside his pocket on his hip. He gives an expression that makes her cover her smile and laugh even louder.

"No, I was making that up," she replies. "Today marks our six month anniversary. Am I right?" He nods, more serious now. "Why do you ask? You must have remembered somehow. That's more than any man I've met in my whole life." She smiles brightly at him and I can feel her radiance. I wonder … have I ever smiled like that?

Nodding, he removes the object from his pocket but hides it in his hand. "There's something I want to ask you …" he says quietly. She looks at him curiously. I sneak forward to hear what he is saying. The nervousness is oozing out of him. The sweat on his brow, his playful hands, his awkward smiles; though I didn't know this side of him, I could tell he was worried and scared.

"Well, here's the thing …" He stops and tries again. "I love you and I …" He stops again. Finally, as if words cannot express what he is trying to say, he takes her hand and sets the object inside it. He closes her fingers around it. As soon as the item touched her fingers, tears filled her eyes.

"E …" she starts to say something but he cuts her off with a kiss. She grips the object hard in her hands as he cups her face with his hands. For a long moment, they stay like that. Their lips didn't move but they stay resting on each other. Finally, he looks away.

"I can't say anything without sounding like a fool but …" he rests his forehead against hers and she holds up the ring. I feel the breath leave my body completely. Tears spring into my eyes as I watch my first love ask his love to marry him. "But … you've changed me, and I love you. Will you marry me?"

She nods with multiple yeses as he slips the ring over her finger.

"And I have something to tell you," she says quietly. He looks at her now, the smile fading. "Remember when we went out to this pond on the blanket and …" she blushes in the moonlight and he looks away. It isn't proper to engage in those kind of activities before being married.

He nods and smiles at her.

She leans up and whispers something into his ear.

***

My eyes open slowly. At first I don't recognize where I am at. The lights were bright and the bed sheets were too bright to look at. When my eyes adjust, I could feel something against my arms. It was scratchy and smells like leather. I blink twice before my vision clears.

I meet William's eyes. They're close to my face, like he was watching me. When he sees me wake, he doesn't look surprised. Instead, his eyes look even sadder than when he enters the room. Or perhaps it's the vision I saw that makes me think this way. He seemed so happy then … or rather, soon. Why can't he be happy now?

"I've never had a patient fall asleep in a visit before," he says quietly. I watch him, not moving. "You really are different, Alice Brandon." He closes his eyes and kisses the top of my head. As his lips press into my hairline, I feel a chill run through me.

He leaves me alone. I have a fear now: a fear of losing him. I am going to lose him to this girl in the future. It makes me sad to think that the little time I have with him is soon going to be gone.

I sit up and something falls off my shoulders. I look down and see his jacket lying beside me. I think about Saturday and how cold I was just sitting there by myself. I pull the jacket up and rewrap it around my shoulders. I smell the collar – it smells like the outdoors and the cold wind.

Then I feel even worse. I know this isn't going to last. And I want it to last forever. I lay back down and rest my head on my pillow, breathing him in, knowing I should enjoy the present before the future comes.


William

"Edward," Grandfather says to my father that night.

I look up from my meal, hearing the seriousness in Grandfather's voice. He looks sad almost and my father turns away from the paper to look at him. "Yes, father?" he asks, putting the paper aside. My father has always polite like that. When someone talks, he listens solely to him or her.

"It's November already," he says quietly. I look away. November of the year 1900 is the end of the first year of the century. Before my mother died, almost four years ago now, she had always looked forward to this year. She was convinced that America would start to expand and develop, becoming something greater than it was already.

She is right; things are happening. People are thinking and inventing, creating things that we need in this world. However, my mother is not here to see them.

On November 13 of this year, it will be four years since the death of my mother and grandmother. It will be the fourth anniversary since they were brutally murdered in town, just a mile away from here. It will be the fourth year since everything had changed.

"You're right," Father says and looks away.

The conversation ends awkwardly there.

For the rest of dinner, I watch my grandfather. His face seems so sad and lost. I remember him at the dance and the smile he wore when he looked at Alice. She brings him so much joy, I think. He is always the patient he talks about, always the girl who is the best. He loves Alice just as much as he loved my mother, his daughter-in-law.

What about her makes him so happy? I look at my father as he reads the paper. He knows about Alice; Grandfather talks about her all the time. He doesn't even know her personally and he loves her just as much. Why? I wonder. What about her is it that makes us all think of my mother and my grandmother?

And why do we so desperately want to hang onto her?


I walk into work the next morning and immediately go to Alice Brandon's room. She is sleeping with my jacket on her shoulders. I watch her. Her mouth is open and I can hear her light, feathery breath as she inhales and exhales. Her face is serene but it soon turns to terror.

Is this one of the visions she always talks about? Is she in here because of these visions that seem like nothing more than dreams? She was trapped here because of her dreams? Could they be nothing more than dreams? Or are the really visions?

I walk over to her when I see tears fall down her cheeks. One runs over her nose and drops to the leather of my jacket. I pull up the chair and sit next to her. Her hand hangs limply over the edge of the bed. I take it and look at the white palm, so small and fragile.

When I look back up her eyes are open and she's staring at me. I let go of her hand and stare back at her. She sits up slowly and we sit in total silence. There is not one thing making a sound in her room except the sound of our breathing.

"It's not time for our visit yet, is it?" she asks quietly. Her voice is quiet and kind and full of fear she tries to hide, "because if it is … I may have overslept." She smiles a very small smile and I shake my head, laughing, though I'm not sure why.

"Sometimes I wonder why my grandfather and my father love you so much," I tell her seriously. "My father, after all, hasn't even met you. And my grandfather goes out of his way to see you. And then you say something or do something that tells me why."

I lean forward and brush a strand of long black hair away from her face and let my palm fall on her cheek. "Why is that?" she asks while her eyes are close. I can feel her skin, so warm and soft under my fingertips. When she opens her eyes, I'm falling.

"You are so beautiful," I tell her. "You don't even have to do anything and you have my father and grandfather under your spell." She blushes and bites her lip, embarrassed. "And you have me too," I add quietly. "You have me."

She looks at me and leans back as I come forward. I take her shoulders and press her up against the wall of her room. She leans her head back and I kiss her lips. At first she does nothing, afraid that I will break away again but I squeeze her shoulders and she begins to respond.

Our lips move together clumsily and we break away three seconds after we've start and I laugh out loud and so does she. "I'm bad at this, I'm sorry," she says.

"No," I tell her and lean back. "You're not bad at it. We both are."

And we laugh once more.


A/N — I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I just want to apologize. I was researching Alice before writing this story and, for some strange reason, I got it into my head that she was changed in the year 1901, not born. So, for this story's sake, she was changed in 1901. I apologize if any of you guys are hardcore about the facts! It just has to be this way. XD. I have it in my head. It won't leave. Haha.

Also, I have made a fake movie poster for this story. It is up on my deviantART page. The link is:
w w w . z a p e n b i t s . d e v i a n t a r t . c o m
(remove the spaces!)

So, I hope you review! =]

-Liz