CHAPTER 2: NEWLY AWAKENED
After her transformation, Alice woke up in a start. Her back jolted and her eyes opened to her new beginning. The room was a complete blur at first but then a vision entered her mind, leaving the cabin in which she woke up in unnoticed. The vision was of a man. A beautiful man with pale white skin, skin covered with hundreds upon hundreds of scars that looked like… bite marks and honey blond hair and even though she didn't know why, she felt oddly drawn to him. The vision was quite solid and it was solidifying with every second that passed. She made herself stop looking, although unwilling, to see what was in front of her. She was dressed in a plain white dress and she wore no shoes. She stood up to observe herself. There was a mirror just at the edge of the cabin and she took a look. Her hair looked impossible, it flowed all the way to her waist and there wasn't a straight thing about it. It was tangled everywhere. She tried to straighten it out with her fingers but it was impossible because it was so long and it was far too tangled with itself.
Her dress was dirty and it was filled with holes, dirt and dust… there was something else in her dress… something red.
Blood.
She was disgusted by what she was wearing. Her face was pale white, as pale as the beautiful man that she saw in her head, and her eyes were a sparkling red. Like molten rubies. Her eyes frightened her a bit as she tried to remember what happened to her. She looked around and saw that the cabin was a complete mess. There were signs of a struggle, some kind of fracas that she couldn't remember. She tried to rack her head for memories but she couldn't find any, all she could remember was darkness. It was as though she was born, right then and there. Besides everything else, she noticed a pain in her throat. A remarkable burn in her throat that shocked her as to how she could have ignored it for so long; she was thirsty.
Alice was confused and thirsty; she didn't know what was going on. She then took a breath instinctively and she caught the scent of everything in the cabin and even across the forestry. There were dust motes everywhere, the scent of pine was fresh in the air, but there was one scent that ruled them all. There was a scent that was so strong, so unbelievably forceful and irresistible, Alice was lulled to it. Her breathing was heavy and steady as she hunted down the alluring scent. She was running swiftly and lightly but it was as though she felt no ground beneath her.
It was then when another vision entered her mind that made her stop moving. Her vision was different that time, it wasn't of the unknown beautiful blond stranger, and it was of different people. There was a man, a blond man with gold colored eyes. He was surrounded by a group of other people. There was a woman beside him, a woman with long, caramel-colored hair. She looked kind and endearing, motherly even. Next to them was a lone figure with bronze hair and an expression of determination and some kind of inner pain. Behind the three of them were two others, a big, burly haired man who was about the size of a bear and beside him was a blond woman who possessed impeccable beauty, as if her face was stolen from sweet angels. They were moving… running, like she was only moments ago. Only she saw them going after something completely different, something not as pulling. They were going after a group of carnivorous beasts and she saw their teeth break through the skin and wiped them completely of blood. They seemed satiated afterwards and quite able, their eyes a smoldering liquid gold, much more inviting than the intimidating red tone that her eyes had. Her vision ended and Alice, again, seemed oddly drawn to the family that she saw in her head. Not as pulling as the man was, but it pulled her nonetheless.
She stopped running and going after the irresistible scent, finding it quite difficult to stop but the distraction of the family was quite helpful to her evasiveness. The burn in her throat did not cease and so she ran, going after whatever she could find that was similar to the ones that the family went after. Soon enough, she found herself well satiated with a herd of deer and elk. They did not smell as good as the ones that she previously smelled but it tamed the aching burn in her throat somehow. It was only when the distracting burn was extinguished when she noticed everything else. The moon was whole and pale above her as the twinkling stars decorated the nighttime sky. Alice found herself walking, still energetic as she went feeling strangely hopeful.
Not long after, she found herself in a quaint little village. The village was dark and hardly any lights were on. The village was filled with the perfume of blood in the air but Alice was strong enough to resist, her visions still solid in her head. She found a small house that was occupied by a man and a woman. They were both sleeping. She snuck inside the house and looked around. It was big enough for a family but she could smell that it only held two people. She went to where the couple was sleeping and saw them there, the scent of their blood was almost too strong what with her being in their proximity, but she managed not to be swooned by temptation. She moved swiftly and quietly as she went to the mirror. Even in the darkness, the moonlight still shone through. Her hair was still the impossible mess that it had been when she first awoke.
She quietly looked around for a sharp object so as to tame her wild and unruly hair. There was a pair of scissors inside the dresser that was near the mirror. Alice cut her hair to shoulder length and found it much easier to calm it down when it was shortened. After a few minutes, there wasn't a single tangle in her hair. Instead, she combed it so as to none of it covered her face but they swayed to the side of her head like spikes. She liked it. She then looked around the room to find the woman's closet. Alice took almost all of the clothes inside and found a bag nearby so as to stash the clothes that she took. She also took the scissors, just in case. She left the house silently and undetected.
She ran back to the cabin where she first woke and observed the things that she got. She tried some of them on and they were a little bit too big but, thanks to the scissors, Alice found a way to make them fit. She then looked at the mirror to find that, despite the fact that the shoes that she got from the woman were a bit too big and there was no possible way that Alice could make them fit with scissors, she looked presentable. She poked around some of the other things that the woman had and saw that there were a few paper bills inside one of the pockets in one of the bags that Alice took. She pocketed the bills and she looked out the window to observe her surroundings again. The sun was almost rising from the east and sent its rays through the windows. It touched her ivory skin and Alice was confounded with what it did to her skin. Her hand sparkled in the daylight; it looked like the faucets of a million diamonds.
What it could have meant, Alice didn't know nor did she care. Her thoughts were occupied by something else. She thought about the visions that she had: the beautiful blond man and the family, and why they were so pulling. Alice didn't know what else to do, but somehow, deep inside of herself, she knew she had to find them. She had to be with them. It was the only valid reason that she could tell herself. Why else would she have the visions if she didn't belong with them? She decided, in that moment, what she was to do. She was going to look for them; the both of them, and in that instant, the visions in her mind were as solid as stone. She had nothing and no one else but her visions. She couldn't explain it properly but she will find them. She had to.
She made herself think, to see what things could help her find the people she was looking for. There were flashes, brief flashes of light that made her a little dizzy. She didn't even know how her visions worked. There were times when Alice saw herself in shadows, walking about with her bags at hand. Most of the time, she would see the blond man again and Alice would make herself see where he was, for some clue as to where to find him. She went on the move, determined to find him. She could see that it would cause her unnecessary attention if she were to walk in broad daylight. She could see that she had to stay in the shadows for as long as necessary.
She was learning more and more about herself as time went on. She realized that she could see things that were going to happen, the possibilities: weather, for example. She could see when she needed to stay hidden and she could see when she could stay in the open. Then again, if she stayed in the open her clothes would get wet and she felt protective over them. She learned that she was quite skilled at taking other people's possessions without getting caught, so as to make her existence a little easier. Small bills from different people, sometimes a larger amount if she could see that the person wouldn't suffer so much with the small loss; over time, Alice existed peacefully, in solitude and alone, never giving up the hope that she would find the one person she knew she was destined to find.
Every hour of every day and of every night, Alice concentrated on the man's whereabouts. She began learning things about the man too. He was named Jasper and the expression in his eyes looked so… defeated, anguished. Jasper looked like he hated his existence, like he hated everything he saw, like all the hope inside himself drowned or had been overshadowed with despair. Alice's heart broke at his expressions which made her even more determined to find him, her hope was the one thing that couldn't break. She will find him. She had to.
Her journey was steady for a long time, her goal never changing. Whenever she saw Jasper in her head, she would head out for the place on where she saw him. She would ask people if they've seen him but they never knew anything. They were all too blind to notice his beauty anywhere. She also saw that it was quite fitting to be in the midst of these kinds of people, the kind of people who regarded her as something special. She didn't know why but she could hear what people were saying about her. Calling her 'pretty' or something of that sort; she couldn't understand it very much. She had better eyesight than the rest of the other simple people but she didn't see herself as a beauty. It must have just been her eyes.
She looked for him for years, almost always a little too late. She never gave up hope though; she would wait a hundred years if it meant that she would find him in the end. She could see that he was looking for her as well; looking for something that he couldn't quite understand, but she knew what he was looking for. She had the advantage of knowing. She kept trying to concentrate on where he was at the present so she could run off to meet him.
When she couldn't run off to see him because it was sunny, she would try to learn more about herself. She would read countless books that made her see what she was. The pale white skin, the blood drinking (although her food source was a tad bit different from the ones written in the books), the immortality, and the fact that she didn't age; everything fit into place. She found out that she was a vampire through the books that she took the time to read; actually she guessed that she was a vampire since there seemed to be no other logical explanation. Since she didn't remember anything about her human life, she saw no wrong in being an immortal and found no memories to make her miss being mortal. She had no memory to turn to, she had nothing to miss. All she knew that if her past was a problem, it was her future that could solve it.
Out of everything else, there was one thing that Alice never ran out on. She never ran out of nor did she ever give up on her hope. She knew she would find what she was looking for eventually, even if she didn't know how or when she would find them. If a gloomy or hopeless thought somehow entered her mind, she would instantly shake it off. Alice couldn't do that to herself nor to the people she could see in her head. She could see that he was looking for her, that he needed her, and only Alice knew it so. She knew that the family that she saw in her mind needed her as well but, just like Jasper, they didn't know it. Only she did. If she gave up hope, where else would she go? Who else could she turn to? Alice had nothing and no one. All she had was her hope and she had nothing else.
If she had nothing at all, then she had nothing to lose.
Alice was determined and she kept thinking positive thoughts about her outcome. She was going to see them, all of them, soon. She was going to find them. She could see it in her head, there was no way to doubt it.
All that was left now was to wait. She couldn't care less on how long she had to wait. She'd wait a lifetime if it meant she'd finally meet them. Sometimes the waiting made all the difference.