Chapter 11: And so it begins

Izzy POV

"Come on, how scary can a dream really be? It's just a dream, Rose," comforted Alice, although there was a hint of condescension in her voice, and…did I imagine that, or was that a slight tremble of uncertainty and confusion?

"I'm telling you! It didn't seem like only a dream! It was…it was so vivid…and…and horrifying!" Rose seemed purely in distress. "I don't know…it was so weird!"

"What happened?" I asked, strolling up to the circle they had formed.

"Rose says she had a pretty intense dream last night. She said she was walking through the streets, going home, but it was somewhere else, in the past." I could tell that Edward had a little trouble understanding why Rose was so freaked out.

"But it seemed so much like a memory! It was so…real! I had been at a friend's house, and she was the same age as me, but she was married, and I felt really jealous for some reason. They had a little boy, I think that was why I went to visit, but I felt so envious. I apparently started dreaming of that kind of life for me. You know, married, with kids? And I think I was…engaged. And he was really rich, and I was kind of vain. But then…I was going through an alley, because I was stupid and refused an escort, and he was there, and I somehow knew it was him, even though I hadn't ever seen him before, in real life. And I could tell he was really drunk, and his buddies all were, too. Then, he comes up to me, so I can smell the alcohol on his breath, and he kind of chuckles, all evilly. And then I woke up. But it seemed…it seemed like…they….took advantage of me! And it's so weird because it was in a dream, but it seemed like it had actually happened!" At this point, Rose was breathing erratically, and I could tell she was starting to freak out. It must have not only seemed insanely real, but hit particularly close to home. She was close to breaking down again. Emmett pulled her in close and shushed her, looking like it was paining him to see her at all upset. Her breathing eventually evened out, and she detached herself partially from him to face us. She looked a little embarrassed, and she kept her eyes on the ground.

"I'm sorry, I…I probably seemed crazy. I-I just…it really did seem like it wasn't just a dream."

"I know, honey. I had one of those last night too. It was so real. It's okay. Nobody thinks you're crazy," I said, as comfortingly as I could manage.

"Really? You did? That's…that's kind of weird." She seemed genuinely puzzled. She fixed her hair and wiped away her tears. "Are my eyes puffy?" She asked, waiting until I shook my head before going on. "Was it almost like a memory, but way more vivid?"

"Yeah. And it seemed like it was way in the past, but also happening in real time, you know?"

"Yeah!" This wasn't just weird. This was pretty crazy.

"Okay, this is crazy." Just what I was thinking, Edward. "If these dreams are as vivid as you say, and they happened at the same time, then it would be a pretty big coincidence."

"Yeah, but what else could it be?"Alice mused, seemingly lost in contemplation.

"I have no idea." The rest of us seemed really confused, along with him. Before I heard Rose had had the exact same kind of dream on the exact same night, I thought that maybe I was being delusional, but I knew that Rose was a fairly sane person. The bell for class rang, and with us all feeling pretty creeped out, we turned to go.

"Guys, just don't feel too weird. Just remember, it's not like we're in some freaky movie or anything. As crazy as it seems, it's probably just a coincidence," Edward rationalized.

"I don't believe in coincidences." Looks like Jasper was thinking the same thing I was.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Destiny~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

All through the day, I was mostly thinking about how weird that was. To the point where it was lunchtime and I was still thinking about this occurrence, if that's what it could be called. It was a little mild, sure, but it just didn't seem like the kind of thing that happened in real life.

"Hey, Izzy," greeted Edward, as I sat down at the table where we had all first talked. It had kind of become "ours". The others also chorused a variety of greetings. I nodded in a showing of the same.

"Hey, Edward." I was kind of in a serious mood today, apparently. I would usually tease him by calling him Eddie, which he hated. "Hey, do you guys want to go outside to eat today?" I could use some fresh air. I needed to snap myself out of this feeling of something big happening, and the consequent slight mental paranoia. Even more that what was there usually.

Everybody kind of shrugged, seemingly kind of in the same frame of mind I was, and we all took our food and went outside. We hadn't gone outside for lunch ever before, but we all seemed to kind of want to not be in the crowded, noisy lunchroom. The school was pretty much used to us now, so not many people paid attention when we all left. It was cloudy as usual in Forks, the city named after silverware and places where roads split. Subsequently, there were no other people outside, except a brown-haired, quiet girl with glasses I had in some of my classes, Angela. Even she looked like she was heading back in. She did, and it was just us.

"So, what? Do you guys think those dreams were just a thing that happens?" Rose finally said, breaking the solemn silence we had going.

"Well, what else would they be, though?" asked Alice in reply.

"She's right. We can't exactly just focus on one weird occurrence. We should just go on like normal. It was weird, it freaked us out, we move on," stated Emmet kind of gruffly. He didn't like having to think that they were something else. He liked to keep it kind of light

"AUGH!" We all looked at Edward, thinking he had just been physically harmed. I tensed more in preparation, but he seemed physically fine. Instead, he looked like he was having an intense headache.

"Sorry…guys…it's just-my head…it's killing me," he rasped out. "Could…could you guys just…tone it down a little?" he asked, seemingly directing it at everyone but me and Jasper sitting a little to the rear and right of everybody else. We all looked around, puzzled. We weren't talking. I whispered this to him, but he just shook his head, grimacing in pain. "I definitely hear Alice's voice, and Emmett and Rosalie, and a little bit of Jasper's."

Now we were concerned. Was he hearing voices? "I'm telling you guys, I'm not crazy! I can hear Emmett basically shouting. He's saying something about…how this shit is so depressing, and he wishes it would stop being so serious." Emmett looked shocked. He hadn't said that out loud, but… "No Emmett, there's no way I'm hearing your thoughts." Oh my shitsicles. We all knew that there was no other explanation. Edward made a little sound of relief. "That's kind of better. Thanks, guys. I've had bad headaches before, but you guys were all yelling, and…why are you all looking at me weird?" He had opened his eyes slightly, just to see us all staring at him in shock. Pure, dumbfounded shock. There was no way this was happening. It can't be. People can't hear other people's thoughts. I apparently mumbled this to myself, because Edward's eyes were wide open in shock.

"No….you don't think…"He abruptly cut off and clutched his head in agony. "GUYS! Do you mind? Can you not…think so loud?"

"Sorry, Edward, it's just kind of weird, and we're all freaking out a little," I said quietly.

"No, you're okay. I can't hear you at all, actually, and Jasper just barely, like he's just kind of mumbling in the back of my head. But Alice is talking really loudly, and Rose was too, and Emmett..Emmett was practically shouting. Or…thinking, I guess?"

"But how can that be possible?" Emmett said, also quietly. He seemed to be making a concentrated effort to not think loudly. How do you even control that? I guess I don't have to know…

"Edward, do you think you can handle school? I don't think it's too much of a problem out here because there aren't a lot of people, but you were in pain. I'm guessing your…range or whatever, isn't too big, because you can't hear the thoughts of the people inside. But, it'll be worse if you're in a crowded hallway or in a classroom. There's no way people aren't going to notice." If there was a way to deal with it, it wasn't by doing it right here, right now. This isn't ordinary, and we should discuss it later, somewhere safer. But we can't have anybody see Edward like this, or they'll send him to an asylum. I told everybody this, and they made noises of agreement.

"But what can we do?" asked Alice.

Jasper spoke up this time. He rarely did, content with just staying in the background and evaluating things, but when he took charge you could count on him to have a well thought out plan that would be less likely to backfire than a top of the line sports car. With Rose for a mechanic, as she had turned out to be a top of the line one. "Here's what we'll do. One of us, preferably Alice, the one most capable of convincing adults with her 'puppy dog face', will go get the nurse, and tell her that Edward here is sick. Her thoughts will most likely cause Edward pain, and while it isn't very good for him, it will help convince her that he needs to go home. I'll offer to drive him home, since I'm his half-brother. Then I'll tell our guardians that we're going to go to Emmett's. Later, I'll call them and say we're going to crash over there. They let us do that the other day when we all went to Izzy's. And, like that day, we'll go over there, because there aren't any nosy people out there, and it'll be just me, Izzy, and Edward. I'll drive back to school and we all act like everything's perfectly normal. He'll spend the night at Izzy's, if that's okay with her, and we can see what the situation is tomorrow." That was a nice plan. Simple, but it took care of all of our bases, at least until tomorrow. We all nodded in agreement, and Alice went off to fetch the nurse.

AN/: And I'll leave it off there, because it seems like there was a lot of drama in one chapter, at least compared to my previous ones…yeah. This chapter, like all my other ones came out of a veritable writing frenzy, so, it may or may not be in need of some editing or revising. If it does, then I hope you guys will just bear with me and give a little forgiveness-money to the metaphorical can I'm holding. (In this metaphor, I'm a hobo) Anyways, I'm more focused with getting it all out in a story-like glob before I go back and refine. I don't know when I'll get around to doing that, so maybe there's going to be a lot of bearing. I just want to say thanks for that, since I've gotten no bad reviews yet….:)