8. Death
I was staring unseeing out the window. There was an odd tactility in the air as I got the impression that someone was watching me. Like someone was seeing me from afar. The sensation didn't leave me as the anxiousness flooded into my body through my finger tips. The two others in the room were oblivious to how the manipulation of moods also meant that I could literally taste the atmosphere around me.
A hand waved in front of my face. "Jasper? Hello?" There was a slight strain in his tone.
My eyes met Peter's. "It's been three weeks." He looked sideways at Charlotte who nodded once. "We are worried about you. Isn't it time for you to hunt again?"
I blinked once, though there was no relief in the action, it was one that would let them know I heard them. The melancholy in the room deepened, but it wasn't from the two sitting across from me, it was from my own feelings.
He was right, though. I did need to hunt. The last time I was out hunting I ran into a man in an alley way. My thirst had gone without quenching for so long I didn't hesitate as I ran towards him to drink of the warm liquid pounding out of his neck.
It was getting worse. The tenor of my prey's state of mind during my attacks was wearing down on me. It was hard for me to explain this to a vampire. I am probably the only vampire in the world who constantly experiences death without the relief of the end.
When stalking my prey, the first sensation they receive is one of anxiety as they constantly look to see who is stalking them, yet meeting no one. The second comprehension is that they are in trouble, in serious life altering danger. Once my hand is around their neck, sniffing up their neck enjoying the aroma before tasting the heat, their emotions usually explode into so many different directions that I barely have the opportunity to enjoy the luscious fragrance emitting off of them.
Over all, it is harder to feed on a woman. The emotions of a female in the compromising position I place all my victims in has them mentally screaming their worst fears through their mood. It was hard not to do, but holding my victims close to my body, letting them warm every inch of me brought some sort of odd satisfaction to me. At the same time, it was almost impossible not to revel in their heady scent. My nose always automatically drew a line up the neck of my meal.
Women usually screamed in protest, because to them I was about to rape them. Silly, honestly. Even if there was a human on this earth that was appealing enough to me for me to lose my self control with I'd probably kill them during the act. Something like that would be impossible for my kind. There have been rumors, but only that.
Women…I stared out the window again, my thoughts still on my prey. The venom automatically pooled in my mouth. I swallowed it back as I thought about the worst victim yet.
She was roughly three feet tall, her long tangles of curls bouncing as she jumped down the front steps of her father's house. She had a teddy bear in one hand and a small backpack on her back. It was night time and the moon accented her skin, her veins easily seen through her translucent skin. She looked back at the house, a tear strolling down her face. Tears were a complicated thing to me. Of course, they didn't smell nearly as good as blood, but the salty smell mixed in with their aroma was hard to resist, too.
Her state of mind was roughly between hate and revulsion. To me, it looked as though she was running away, and perhaps she was. She didn't get very far. I stalked her for a while, my uncontrollable thirst growing. It was hard to think about those days when staying away from a human was nearly impossible. The newborn year, as Maria once called it, is the hardest to get by, yet the strongest you'll ever be.
The year had almost come to an end, so my innate longing for the vital principle was slowly becoming something I could manage. Following behind my prey was odd for me to do, at that young period in my life. She had stumbled several times through the street, having trouble seeing. I had no problems looking straight through the darkness. Her demeanor was straight forward, full of her anger.
She was only a child of roughly seven. This is why I was stalking her instead of feeding upon her. She grappled around in her bag on the side of the cobble stone road. In the darkness she was unaware of what she was touching in front of her and had ultimately cut her finer, sliced it from the tip to her palm.
The wind shifted my direction and immediately I was upon the small child, holding her against the nearest brick wall. It was impossible to stop myself, yet her emotions lashed out at me harder than any other. Automatically my nose sniffed up her neck, her hand in my own so I could taste the blood. I bit down into her palm, the warm life spilling into my cold dry throat. The pain was radiating out of her, our contact concentrating the feelings.
She didn't scream, she only bit her bottom lip in agony and let me take her life. As I drained the blood from her body she came limp in my hands. Her heart was pounding slower as each second I delighted in the taste. As her heart slowed, the feelings of dying swept over her and I could feel them too. There I was, dying just like she was. As death came closer to her, it did for me, too. Every second, every millisecond, her weight was beginning to lessen under my grip as I drained her.
Then she was dead, though right before she died I could feel it coming on…death. And as her body lost its soul, I too died. I dropped her white, limp body. The thud of my prey against the stone street had me cowering away in shame. She was just a child and I had killed her. Each moment of her death I felt along with her. Her youth was no more; she was nothing more than a dead body.
The hand on my shoulder made me flinch. I was so lost in my memories I had forgotten I was with Peter and Charlotte.
"Jasper? We'd like to take you hunting. Please, come with us." Peter said softly.
So calm…so casual about the whole thing. Did they not understand the terror that we possessed? I guess not, considering they hunted more than necessary. Their life did intrigue me, though. No wars, no battles. There was no need to worry about walking down the street by yourself. Here in the north there were no armies or covens responsible for massacres.
"Jasper?" Peter asked again. The feelings of anxiety were growing along with annoyance.
"Let's go." I agreed.
The city we were near was not large, so we stuck to the woods. Peter and Charlotte left me to find my next victim alone. It was easier to hunt when you didn't feel like you needed to protect your back.
There were many trails through the woods, most of them covered in the scent of deer. The smell was not very appealing, though I could hear their heart beats not far from where I was. The night was cold. Frost had covered most of the leaves and the ground was hardening as the night progressed. It was hard to imagine any human being out in this weather, so I wondered dangerously close to the cities boarder.
And then the fragrance hit me. Her scent was more delicious than any I'd had the pleasure of breathing in lately. I didn't know if it was because it had been so long since I had hunted or if it was because it was a female. They did always seem to radiate a sweetness beyond belief. Her mood was tranquil as she leaned against a tree, book in hand as a roaring fire lighted the pages.
I stalked her in the night, though she remained oblivious to me. If only I could feed without my prey knowing they were going to die before hand. I wasn't sure if I could handle the semblance of another victim. I imagined a veil falling between me and her, one that could hide me from her view as I took her life.
As I approached the tasty female the peculiar sensation of being watched occurred again. It was weird to think of someone shadowing me for a change. But this wasn't like someone was pursuing me, just like someone was witnessing my brutal act, or my soon to be brutal act. Why someone would want to observe my maliciousness was beyond me. The feeling didn't go away as I stalked forward.
Her shadow casted sideways as the flames licked up the wood. She brought her hand to her neck, as if she were covering it so I couldn't run my nose up it to gather her heady scent in my lungs. It wasn't fair. I was getting frustrated. I wanted to move forward, but I knew it wouldn't be as satisfying to me as it would be for Peter or Charlotte. She turned the page to her book and then her fingers intertwined with her hair as she ran her hand through the many tangles.
And that was it, the moment of relief. My pounce was fluid as she fell flat on her back against the frozen bracken of the forest floor. It was too easy to just pin her arms down beside her as I straddled her waist. Her heart drummed madly at my appearance. The contact only doubled the strength of my ability.
The strongest of all her emotions was surprise. Bending down over her, I pulled her palm to my nose and the tip brushed down to her arm to her neck and up to her hair. Her heart continued to beat out wild palpitations of fear and alarm. She shuddered when my lips pressed against her neck, my teeth ripping through her skin like biting into butter.
Time seemed to stand still around us as her body began to undergo the complete and permanent cessation of all her vital functions. I grabbed on to her violently, the fatality of this moment burned in the depths of my stomach. The life slipping away from under my hands made me feel like I was slipping away too, to a dark place. The desire didn't fade through the feeling.
Her breath caught in her throat, her last manifest before her death. I was like the agent of death personified, the extinction of her life flowed out of her and into my body. This, I thought warily, was why I didn't hunt for three weeks.
She died…I died.
Author's Note: So, I haven't updated in so long because I wrote chapter 8 several different times, but nothing seemed good enough to post. Then, I got this brilliant idea to write a chapter in Jasper's point of view. I hope I didn't disappoint, though there might be more chapters in his perspective, to help alleviate some of the space between Alice and Jaspers meeting. I might even do a chapter or two in Edwards or Carlisle's point of view. I'll just have to wait and see what idea's roll through my curious head.
Please Review!
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of Stephenie Meyer. Lolafalana is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of Twilight. No copyright infringement is intended.
