Chicago, 1918. Height of the Spanish influenza pandemic. "Promise me doctor Cullen," Elizabeth Masen gasped with her all but last breath, "promise me you'll save him" she cried as she clung to Carlisle's white coat, "I promise" he vowed as she released him, the mask he was forced to wear muffled his voice but he had to wear it so as not to arouse suspicion from his fellow medical staff; he didn't need it due to his being a vampire (see chapter 1). She smiled at some final thought and closed her eyes for the final time.
"Edward, Edward wake up" the soft voice broke through Edward Masen Junior's hazy concentration, at first he thought it was an angel calling him to heaven, then he realised it was only doctor Cullen whispering in his ear. His memory was blurred the last he remembered was Dr Cullen carrying him out of the ward and taking him to his small apartment in one of the darker areas of Chicago, after that only the memories of the searing pain in his neck as something broke the skin followed by days of burning. "doctor Cullen, what happened" he groaned as he opened his eyes, he gasped as he saw the perfect clarity of all he could see, even before the disease his eyesight hadn't been as clear as this; eight colour rainbows glinted as the sunlight glimmered on vases and light shades, and the doctor's skin. Edward sat up and noticed his own chalk white, glistening skin, he got up at what seemed to him to be quite slowly but his brain, which seemed to have trebled in thinking space, told him he was moving at a pace which should have reduced the room to a blur. He walked to the mirror in the corner and what he saw made him freeze with shock; his eyes, once a soft pale green, were now red as rubies and his skin was pale as a corpse as it glistened like diamonds. He turned and looked at the doctor's own eyes and skin, the skin was the same but his eyes were a deep gold like topaz stones. "What did you do to me?" Edward asked, "I'm sorry Edward, but I promised your mother that I'd save you," Carlisle said, "So I turned you into a vampire".
Several years passed and the two vampires settled into a routine living as father and son or as brothers, they lived quietly, moving from place to place when humans began to be suspicious that they weren't aging. This is what led them to Columbus, Ohio.