EVOLUTION
I found it easier to accept if I thought about what caused us to come to this consequence. They had allowed themselves to be corrupted. They built their enormous machines under their cities, monstrous mechanical wonders to experiment with. They sought to tear apart the fabric of their reality to see what made solid objects hold gravity. Always experimenting, such a curious race. Curiosity killed the cat.
They thought that if they could unlock the key to dark matter, the mysterious substance that had eluded science for years, then they could create a perfect world for themselves. All they had to do was harness it's power. But power that great wasn't designed to be messed with, could not be controlled. They built their partacle colliders and their accelerators. They could mould the building blocks of life into their own structures, to suit their needs. It was terrifying.
In pursuit of their selfish goal they powered new machines, larger and more terrifyingly grand, deep into the core of the Earth to extract resources out of their reach. The deeper they delved, the more resources they used up to keep their new system working. It was a vicious cycle of waste and greed. There were huge catastrophies, all human error. They had eight hundred years to get it right. Still they failed.
In the end, after years of experiments, years of abuse towards the planet, they succeeded in not only slowing down the rotation of the Earths mantle, but in turn causing side effects so magnificent no machine created could stop it.
It started with the North Atlantic current ceasing rotation almost immediately, pushing warmer water up to Greenland that melted the icecaps. It caused a giant wave of water as the sea levels rose to sweep towards Europe. It eventually overpowered the Thames barrier in London, half of Britain was now underwater, an abandoned, useless Island.
The banks of the Missisippi burst with the weight of the weather, and the worlds continents were transformed forever. First one river, then the next. Where once were deserts, great seas now bled into one another. In short, There was much more water on the planet than land.
The extra water in turn caused great storms, the seas rose and the weather strengthened. It had remained that way for a further two hundred years as things gradually declined towards environmental chaos.
The athmosphere was degrading, the hole in the ozone layer no longer a whimsical notion as it had been when I was young. Now it was a real issue. One could blame the people of my human time, they knew of it's existence and did nothing to stop it. Future humans did nothing either. Then it was too late.
The human population grew diseased, their once seven billion planetary population had dropped as low as three billion at the last record, and the animals had begun to die. The many abandoned, flooded, destroyed nuclear power plants had gone into disrepair, their putrid chemicals leaking and exploding across the continents until the ground was rotted through. Nothing would grow. There were mutants living in the far reaches of the world now. All abandoned, left to die by the warring governments of the world.
The humans were at a loss, their time was up. They had been told by their scientists that a great storm would loom over half the planet for two years, until the skies burst and the last rains would fall. Then, once the atmosphere had shed it's last drops of moisture, the rain would fall no more. The death of the athmospheric shield that surrounded the planet. No protection from the sun, all the radiation that the Earths magnetic field usually deflected would hammer unguarded against the face of the planet, and the Earth would be baked to a cinder. Nothing would survive.
Their evolution was the greatest tragedy of their entire race.
The vampires had realised through premonition long before the humans that the world would be unsustainable for the humans after a time. They thought we could adapt once they died out, feed on the animals, create reserves through blood banks for sustenance.
It became clear that this would not be an option.
When the animals started to die from the pollution, we realized we coudn't continue to live after the humans perished. They had grown taller, year after year, and the vampires of the world were becoming harder for them to ignore. Our physical differences were more obvious, now that the humans had evolved past their previous smaller, leaner forms. Vampires stayed the same, as Edward and I had since we were human, but we found it harder to pass for one of them the more time went on. Even younger vampires were having trouble blending in with human society, they looked beautiful and godlike, when their peers were ill and diseased.
They built great caves in the hillsides to protect themselves from the weather, and cavernous underground facilities to hide from the Sun, and there they had remained awaiting the great rain to fall.
The humans weren't all oblivious to our kind though, high up in the Government buildings, far out of the sight of the population, the vampires were influencing the Senate.
Edward and I knew of these deals, these discussions as he called them. I knew better. They were trying to hammer out a deal where our race could survive along side theirs. But to do it, the human population had to be halved. There wasn't room for everyone in their grand scheme, and the vampires were trying to make sure that we were given a place amongst the last ships to leave this planet. We didn't deserve it. They didn't deserve to die either, but to leave millions behind to make room for us, I couldn't comprehend why they would ever agree.
The vampires didn't give them a choice.
As Edward and I walked down the mountainside and back through the town of Forks, we said nothing to one another. What could I possibly say to make this better? Nothing. And neither could he.
One thousand years and we were back in the same place. The town had changed since we first lived here so many years ago, but for us it was still the same. It was our home. Forks had once been named the rainiest place in the American continent, and we had chosen here to await the great storm that would put an end to the weather for good. There was an irony in that, but looking around the streets of our old home, I didn't smile.
I paused in the main square..shut my eyes and tried to hear the birds singing. I couldn't. I blocked out the smells of dust and decay, the rusted cars and the rotting trees, and pulled from my memory the sharp details of a town bustling with people, the smell of fresh pine, the animals as they danced through the woods. A vampires memory is so adept at detail that I was almost there, I could feel the happiness of the place all around me, pulling me under.
I was awakened from my daze by Edwards fingertips. My eyes fluttered open and leaned into his hand as he brushed it lightly across the side of my face. I turned my head to look at him as his hand cupped the side of my face. I smiled.
"Bella, I love you, I don't want you to be sad, please, everything will be alright"
He turned to face me in the abandoned town square, and we stood frozen like two ghosts in a place we no longer knew.
I wrapped my arms around him lightly and leaned my head into his chest. I was being careful. I was afraid that if I let myself crumble to pieces this way out in the open, I would become a statue and never move from this place again, lost in my own memories of a place I longed to see as it used to be, striving, and alive.
Edward wouldn't let me hide my anguish, he pulled my body closer to him and wrapped his arms tightly around me, holding me in a cocoon against his body. I sighed. There was only one place I had ever felt safe in my entire life, and that was in Edwards embrace.
He leaned his head against the top of mine and swayed us slightly from side to side. He pushed me back a little, and released his arms from around my body to hold my face in both his hands.
He looked at me with desperation and spoke to me in his soft, intense voice.
"I will always love you...no matter what happens Bella, no matter where we are, no matter what price I have to pay...I will love you until my dying day. Even if that means we have to die sooner than I expected. I want to live forever with you by my side, but if this is a burden you cannot bear...if you can't live with this, then I don't want you to have to live for all eternity with that kind of guilt."
He continued to stare into my eyes and I melted. He had always had this effect on me, he could change my mood at a moments notice. Who needed Jasper around when Edward could affect me so easily with just a look.
All the anger drifted away as I was pulled into his gaze. He loved me, he would stay here and die if I asked him to.
I would never ask him to.
His fingers found a lock of my hair and wound it into place behind my ear, caressing my face with the tips of his fingers. I smiled at him, and cocked my head to the side.
"Edward, I love you" It was all I could say.
"I was worried for a moment there" He answered, returning my smile.
"You don't ever need to worry about my feelings for you, they are as powerful now they have always been" I moved my hands from around his arms to clasp his hands in my own.
"I'm sorry" I whispered. "Edward thank you"
"What for?" He frowned and looked down at me.
"For giving me all the reasons I would ever need, not to be separated from you...last night...it was one of the worst nights of my entire life." I admitted.
I smiled again at him, hoping he would see that it wasn't him I was angry at really, it was the situation we were in.
He traced an invisible line from the corner of my mouth with his fingers, brushing them up my cheekbone towards the corner of my eye. My eyelids fluttered shut. I sighed. He still had the same effect on me after all these years together.
"I want your smile to reach here" He said, stroking his thumb across my closed eyelids.
I pressed my hand against his as it cupped my face, my eyes still closed, and held it there.
"All I want is you" I said, and looked up at him.
"Here" He took my right hand in his and we held hands as we walked through the street together. "You have me...let me take you somewhere?" He asked.
As if he needed to ask...I would go anywhere with him.
He leaned down and his lips lightly brushed my cheek. Before I could respond, his lips moved up to my ear.
"Follow me" He whispered quietly...and it sent shivers straight to the heart of me.
Edward took us up the hillside and away from the ruined town, over the fields and across the new marshes. We ventured higher and higher up the mountainside together. We could have run and got here in ten seconds, but Edward and I were both enjoying being together again, we wanted to draw out our time together.
I felt better, knowing we were no longer at odds with one another. I hated being apart from Edward, and I knew he hated being apart from me. I didn't know where he was leading me to, but I began to suspect our destination when he pulled me into a tight embrace near the edge of the forest. I dared to hope on a distant dream.
"Is it still there Edward? I couldn't bear it if it wasn't there any more...if it's gone like everything else" I muttered, looking past him into the wood.
"Why don't we go and see?" He smiled down at me.
"Okay" I answered, and I prayed he already knew the answer.
We hadn't lived in Forks for nearly two hundred years, since before the weather had turned most of the surrounding land into sodden marshland in the wetter parts of the world. Only recently had we gone back to our cottage in the woods, our first home together. It seemed poignant to spent our last days in this world in our beautiful cottage. We had been in Alaska, away from human eyes.
I prayed our meadow had survived the river.
Edward linked our arms together, looked me kindly in the eyes and then ahead, towards the direction of where the clearing used to be.
Finally we ran. I ran as fast as I possibly could, my feet flying over the roots, and past the branches of the tall trees. As I felt the air change, the sweet smell of the flowers in the air, of the individual blades of grass and the scent of the beautiful wildflowers, I bolted. I let go of Edwards arm and for the first time, I overtook him. I was desperate to find it, the place where everything was right in the world.
I could hear Edward behind me, running as fast as he could. He would not catch me, I was too set on my goal.
Then, through the gaps in the trees ahead I finally saw the glint of purple and green I had been yearning for.
At the edge of the clearing I stopped dead, and two seconds later Edward halted beside me. I gasped. It was even more beautiful than I had remembered. The trees on the edges of the clearing on all sides were bathed in sunlight from above, the rays of light glinting through the them, causing the grass to be bathed in a golden honey of light.
We hadn't seen the light properly in so long, the sky constantly covered by a thick blanket of menacing storm clouds. For the first time in over a year, I saw the sun. Of course it would be here, in this most magic of places, that the presence of the light above would still remain. My heart ached with the beauty of this perfect sight before me.
"Edward..."I gasped and turned to look at him. From the look on his face, he already knew that the meadow was still here. He smiled at me with such fondness, such love in his eyes, that if I could cry at this moment, for this perfect gift he had given me in a time of such sadness, I would have.
"Thank you" I said sincerely to him as he took my hand once again in his own and kissed my hand, the way the men used to in Edwards lifetime, his human lifetime. In this moment, I loved him more than I could ever love anything else in this life.
"When did you find this?" I asked.
"Last night...Bella you looked so...broken...and I didn't know how to help you. I thought the magic of this place might heal your heart a little. I know you've been hurting" As he spoke, he placed the palm of his hand above my breastbone, right where my heart would be. It didn't matter that my stone heart couldn't beat, I could still feel it...and it was in freefall.
His fingers caught the end of one of my long tresses of hair, and he lightly twirled it in his hand.
I smirked. He always knew how to get me. He was dazzling, he always had been. A thousand years later and he was just as alluring as ever before, he was just more experienced at reading my emotions. He could play me as exquisitly as he played the piano. His words were musical notes to my ears.
He knew I would love this. And love it I did.
"Come...let's take a walk"
Walking was the last thing on my mind at this point. I wanted to take this Godlike creature home, but my mind was torn. If we left now, we may never see this place again.
Edward glanced at me and his face broke into a smile. He knew. He held my face in his porcelain hands once more and without warning he pressed his lips to mine in a quick, chaste kiss. Too quick. He released me before I could react.
"Later" He said and turned towards the opening in the trees.
"Is that a promise" I asked.
"Always" he replied.
I smirked at him again.
He led us quietly across the meadow and sat us down on the cool grass. Edward pulled his arms around us and we lay glittering in the gorgeous sunlight in this place made only surely for the Angels.
We laid in silence as my vampire eyes took in every molecule of this exquisite, perfect piece of our history. We had had so many happy times here. It was our most private place. As I laid amongst the wildflowers I remembered our times together in this meadow. We had danced in the twilight here, amongst the fire flies at dusk, made love under the stars at night, and spent our afternoons bathing in its beauty. If this was our last time here, this was the perfect way to spend it. With each other, lying in the grass, admiring the beauty of the place, in perfect symmetry of the very first time we had found this immaculate piece of existence. It was our perfect piece of forever, and if it had to end, I would carry it's memory with me for the rest of my immortal life, so that it would bloom forever in the vivid depths of my eternal mind.
Our happiness had to break at some point, and as night fell and the sun disappeared behind the storm clouds once more, I turned to Edward and with one thought sent him straight on his feet and racing me back through the woods.
"You promised"