A/N: Any wolves you recognize from The Twilight Saga belong to Stephanie Meyer.
Basically everything else, including past and present wolf pack members, imprints, wolf families, and additional characters in this story belong to the universe created by the amazing, brilliant, and wonderfully talented yay4shanghai!
Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, it means the world to me!
This chapter is dedicated to everyone who loves the story 100 Years of Solitude: Okay, Maybe Just 5, and wished for more from that time. And who didn't… I mean honestly, how could you not fall in love with Randy and Soli?!
As always I recommend you read the other spin-offs by liljenrocks, ari11990, AsagariMelody, Guzhong, twihardcaligurl, and intiMACYx33. They are fantastic and worth taking the time to read.
Thank you yay4shangai, for being such a great beta and friend! Thank you so much for writing such a fantastic story that captured my, and so many other people's, interest enough to want to explore it further and write this. Also thank you for letting me use your amazing characters to write this and for being so supportive.
A Day to Remember, No Matter How Much I'd Like to Forget
Michael's POV
26 August 2041
The look in Levi's eyes as I watched him walk away was hauntingly familiar. It was a site I had hoped never to see again, at least not in person. I had no choice about seeing it repeatedly in the back of my mind or viewing it in my dreams, it was part of my penance.
Dead. His eyes looked dead, their blazing spark stomped out. They were completely devoid of all signs of life, just flat, dull, empty pits of charred unseeing darkness, like the wick of a snuffed candle.
It was just like before. It didn't matter that his heart still beat and his body still functioned, because in that moment, he was gone. The thing that made him, Levi, had vanished. Disappeared like a traveling circus, there and full of life one day then gone the next with nothing left behind except an outline marking where the tent had stood.
Just like Devlin was gone and that made it so much worse seeing Levi's eyes like that now, because their resemblance was uncanny. They had always looked alike, but just then all I could see were the similarities and it reminded me how much I had failed my sons, my family.
I stared at his closed wooden door, seeing nothing of the white paint, only the memory of lifeless nearly black eyes, while I listened with half an ear to Taylor reassure Melody that he would change his mind and Anna hugged me.
I didn't look at any of them, especially Anna. Sometimes it hurt too much to look at her, knowing how I was the reason her son was dead. That it was my fault, that I should have been the one protecting him and not the other way around. To see the pain she was going through and not be able to comfort her or help her any, because I couldn't even help myself. I didn't understand how it was possible for her not to hate me, yet she didn't.
"Anna, why don't you guys head over to Mark and Jordan's cabin? I'm sure they won't mind if you show up a bit early and I can take care of things here," Taylor suggested quietly from somewhere nearby after the sound of Mel's crying tapered off a while later.
If anything else was said, I didn't hear it and I saw nothing as we headed out, having retreated into my mind as I was forced once more to relive the past.
~x~*~x~
26 August 2036
The last twenty-one days leading up to this had been the most grueling of my existence. Everything bled together, only an endless montage of feelings and brief flashes of images document the progression of long tiring days spent fruitlessly searching as tensions rose under the mounting stress of feeling a constant shadow of fear hovering over us.
We stayed wolf from the moment we left, the longest period of time ever, especially for a group this size. If we didn't know each other intimately before, we did now. The coven that kidnapped Annabelle was leading us on a merry chase, ten steps ahead from the very beginning, benefiting from our need to eat regularly or stop for rest; something unnecessary for them. They purposely prolonged our pursuit in order to wear us down before we ever even saw a battlefield.
We'd headed straight for the northern border of Forks where Alice had last seen them stationed upon leaving La Push, but the grassy oblong clearing was deserted when we arrived. No one seemed able to track them properly either, their stench dispersed in various directions yet altogether indistinct at the same time like a strangely puzzling riddle. We relied on Anna and Levi, our best boarhounds and the only two able to pick up their trail using the lingering traces of their sweetly-foul, rotten odor that beyond detection for the rest of us, so we followed their lead.
There were occasional strong whiffs, like getting too close to a dumpster in an alley, which penetrated our senses. It should have meant they were close by, but we never found them and instead of bringing the expected hope, the breakthroughs always had a peculiar diminishing affect on the group. Once a new led was discovered, it wouldn't be long before the trepidation started, dread seeping into our minds and infiltrating every corner as it evolved to full blown terror.
Our fears seemed to take on a life of their own. Irrationally and inexplicably expanding and contracting at random times, but always causing a disruptive panic among us that had everyone's thoughts forecasting portents of doom, like the next apocalypse was heading our way, which made it nearly impossibly not to give up and run the opposite direction. We were plagued with nagging doubts, scared that they would continue eluding us until it was too late or dreading that they would slip past us and reach La Push, wiping out those we left behind. It was difficult to say who was struggling to deal with the fear the most because none of us were immune to its affects and it only got worse the longer we continued searching, much like an infectious plague.
We ran anyways, scouring the unpopulated forests and mountain sides in Olympic National Park, with a fine-toothed comb each day, but they continued to evade us. We didn't stop, determined to catch them, until exhaustion set in and we were dead on our feet and even then only stopping for a few hours of sleep each night, collapsing when we could go no further and the cloak of darkness, blanketing us was greatest. We'd prefer to fight them during the day, probably only vampire clichés and all that hoopla, but it wasn't worth the risk or giving them any extra advantages.
Only one particular day, about a week into our search, stands out now. Nothing specific really from the day, just the notion that we'd been convinced we were closing in, only to lose them late in the afternoon; and that everyone had spent the whole day imagining horrible scenarios for how things could go wrong once we did catch up. It was my memory of that evening that remained intact and much clearer than any others in my mind.
Experiencing such elevated levels of anxiety for so many hours had been taxing to say the least and we were all completely drained that evening, but I'd woken about an hour after I'd conked out from a nightmare about Melody getting killed. Despite my fatigue, I couldn't get back to sleep.
Nor could I block out the images, flashing like a brightly glowing, red neon sign, leaving me gasping for air and nauseous as I fought the need to vomit. Glimpses of the grisly site of my sweet daughter's bloody mangled corpse, her limbs twisted and bent at unnatural angles with her jagged broken bone protruding through the swollen, bluish-green surface of her tender skin, the deep slicing laceration across the flesh of her stomach, spilling—
Don't think like that. Taylor growled forcefully, the white fur down his back standing on end as he interrupted my grotesque mental replay. I was surprised that someone else was awake and that I hadn't notice before, then winced that he should be the one to see those fears.
I can't help it. I'm scared to lose her, any of them. I admitted, though I needn't, it was already obvious.
That won't happen. She—they, will be fine. He told me. He was trying to reassure himself as much, if not more, than me, but hearing his words didn't stop a new wave of fear from rolling through me.
You better not leave her side for a single second. You got that? I don't care what's happening around you, you stay with her or I swear I'll never let you near her again when this is over.I threatened desperately.
His mind swirled to life at that. An array of thoughts, but most centered on thinking I was crazy to ever dare to suggest he wouldn't or wasn't already planning just that. Although one or two thoughts leaked through concerned about if I would ever seriously try to keep them apart, as if Mel, or Anna for that matter, would really let me, not that I would anyways. Just as quickly as they came to life, they morphed into understanding right before he got them under control again.
I won't. You have my word. He promised seriously and I knew he meant it. We both went back to our own private worries as we attempted to get some more rest before heading out again.
To prevent being ambushed while we slept, but not lose those few precious hours altogether, the vamps Emmett, Rosalie, Kate, and Garrett stood sentry, while Bella, Edward, Jasper, and Alice scouted the area for any signs of our foes in pairs.
We'd hoped that by getting Alice away from us, she'd be able to see something, but it didn't work. She couldn't get a clear vision, not one the entire time we searched. The most she'd been able to see was an obscure blur, like looking through frosted glass, of Rosalie ripping a woman's arm off, but there were no distinct clues to help indicate when or where that happened. It got harder for her to try too, once she stopped going out.
Jasper, arguably our most skillful and unparalleled fighter was a wreck, kept having unexplainable panic attacks that completely crippled the fearsome soldier, making him grab Alice and run the opposite direction whenever they'd thought they were getting close. So it was decided Emmett and Rosalie would go out instead since Jasper wouldn't let Alice go without him.
Edward wasn't as much help as we'd hoped for either. He kept thinking he was imagining their thoughts at first, positive that he was just making them up because he wanted to hear them so badly.
It was two days before the actual fight happened. Edward explained it as one of the vamps, Edgar, who was sticking close to us amplifying our fears and Jun, who he said was the leader, would make us believe that they were truly happening or had happened. This explained a whole lot. When we'd been scared we wouldn't be able to pick up their scent, they made us believe we couldn't smell them or if we were afraid that we would miss them even if they were close by, they made us believe we had missed them. It also explained our unreasonable fears and preoccupation with things going wrong or there being trouble back home that we were missing. It explained things, but I'm not sure how reassuring that knowledge was.
Fear is powerful. Some would argue that it is the most powerful of all emotions. It can be constrictive and deadly. Nothing has the ability to paralyze the mind and body quite as effectively as fear does. We are defined by what we fear and once a fear exists, it has the ability to spread, slowly creeping through your mind, making you deaf to reason and logic, until its influencing nature corrupts your will and your actions are controlled by your fear. The only way to fight it is to try and master our fears, but at most, the fear will merely be repressed, because it can never truly be released.
Knowing what the problem was helped us fight it or at least attempt to. Jasper, being more sensitive to the fear and persuasion than the rest of us due to his empathic gift, struggled unless Alice was beside him since his greatest fear was something happening to her; and Bella tried the next day, but was unsuccessful at getting her shield to work against them. As Alpha, Mark can give orders and we have no choice except to follow them through, but he had no influence on our emotional state of mind. So it wasn't possible for him to simply order us not to be afraid or not to believe something, but at least we were aware of potential dangers beforehand.
Then last night, armed with this new knowledge and hoping to end things sooner, we pressed on, not stopping for sleep and were rewarded when we finally managed to catch up with them around dawn. Although later I would think back to this point and wonder if they hadn't let us catch up knowing how the chase and our exhausted states would have weakened us and I would regret the fact that I don't remember more of my final days, nights, and hours with Dev, the last time my family would be whole.
Just before entering the clearing they were congregated in, when we were still a few miles out, Edward announced that two humans were traveling somewhere nearby with Annabelle and that the leader had just given them orders to get moving and hide her, but he couldn't be sure how many of these vamps, if any, had left to assist the trio. Not wanting to take unnecessary risks, we split up, sending Kate to accompany Phil, Collin, and Randy as they helped Brady search for Annie since he would have the best luck tracking her now.
The rest of us, including Garrett, Jasper, Alice, Edward, Bella, Emmett, Rosalie, Jake, Seth, Krys, Jordan, Mark, David, Taylor, Melody, Levi, Devlin, Anna, and myself prepared to battle this new threat, the one with the explicit goal of eliminating all of us. The facts about us stood thus: 7 vampires, all seasoned fighters and 4 that had the advantage of gifts, as well as 12 wolves, 6 of whom had seen this kind of fighting before and 2 more that had at least killed a leech prior to this.
Arriving just after sunrise on a beautiful, cool, clear morning that seemed entirely inappropriate for the coming activities, we discovered that for the first time ever, we were going into a fight where we out numbered our opponents. Even with the others gone, there were 19 of us and only 13 of them. It should have been easy, it was almost two to one odds, but we were exhausted before the battle even began and they seemed to fight harder and more viciously than even the highly trained Volturi army had, their grips more crushing, hits more bruising, and kicks more breaking.
I don't really remember anything about the start of the grueling, brutal fight or how much time past before my memory picks back up again, just a blur of pain, blood, and the deafening reverberations of grinding screeches as vampires were dismembered or the resounding cracks of werewolf bones breaking; and the feelings—the unimaginable fear, the constant struggle not to let their gifts get to us and flee or get distracted by other's thoughts.
The collective mind was supposed to aid us in battle, but now it was doing more harm than good. Instead of alerting each other of our opponent's moves or potential threats, we were visualizing each other's deaths. It created enough chaos and disorder amongst us that no one seemed to be able to distinguish fact from fiction, to know what to believe, or even be able to make out each other's thought all the time like they should have.
We fought. I fought, mindlessly, automatically. Then suddenly, like a dazed soldier stationed in the trenches who is recovering from the blinding blast and deafening boom of an exploding bomb near the front line, my memories become distinct again. They popped back into focus right as a hissing, sneering vamp, with Farrah Fawcett styled, dishwater blonde hair and high-rise bell bottoms, Anna and I were facing off against landed a bone snapping, roundhouse kick to the left side of her chest, sending her down hard.
Enraged, I flew at the leech, my teeth penetrating her rock hard skin at the curve of her lower neck where it connects to the shoulder, my aim not accurate enough to decapitate her, but good enough to do some damage when I ripped the chunk from her body. The proximity forced my nose close enough to smell the rancid, overripe reek of cantaloupe melons. Before I could pull back, the bloodsucker sunk the curled, lioness claw-like talons extending from her long, skeletal thin hand into and across my back, shredding my flesh to ribbons, if the stinging burn was anything to go by, as she fought to pry me loose. She succeeded though I took her shoulder and arm with me.
Spitting the foul tasting appendage out, I turned towards where Anna had fallen and the blonde was currently heading and found myself faced with a new opponent. I could feel the difference in this new fight as I dodged a pasty light brown fist barreling towards my grey muzzle, ducking beneath it. The fist belonged to a black haired man. He was dangerous looking and carried himself with a sense power, like he was used to being in charge and intimidating others and I couldn't help feeling intimidated as well.
The guy's ruthless brown eyes bore into me and even as I lunged for his leg, intending to tear it off or at least knock him off balance, I felt dread seize my heart in a clenching vice-like hold. The terror threw my aim off and I overshot my target, causing me to smash into the churned, uneven dirt of the brown scarred terrain littered with bristled clumps of its former bright green grass, skidding painfully to a stop several yards away. The crash dislocated my right shoulder and I felt the tendons and ligaments screaming in protest from its useless, limp dangling position as I attempted to roll back onto my feet, faltering and tumbling back to the ground when trying to move over the irregular surface with only three legs unbalanced me.
Immediately after that, a kick to the fleshier region of my exposed gut with the force of a wrecking ball sent me flying straight up into the air first. I fought the urge to yak up my stomach and intestines as my organs absorbed the brunt force of the impact. I feared they'd shut down from the extensive internal injuries that kick had surely caused. I twisted helplessly in the air as I paused for a moment at the peak of my flight when my upward momentum was equal to the opposing downward pull of gravity.
Before my descent had even begun, my assailant's big hand came at me like I was a furry stuffed animal in a vending machine and it was the mechanical claw arm, snatching me towards him by the throat in a punishing grip and a smile on his face. Blind terror clouded my vision and I noticed what the difference with this fight was then, silence. It was silent in my head. I couldn't hear or see anything from anyone and I feared the worst, that they were all dead. I knew they had to be, that was the only way this would happen.
A surge of desperation unlike any I'd ever known at the thought of every person I loved, my entire family being dead, giving me a renewed strength. Chocking, my lungs on fire from the lack of oxygen, I used my three good paws, digging them deeply into the disgusting granite hard skin of his chest. I ignored the shrill screeching and dragged them, tearing his silky black shirt, until I felt his hold loosen, allowing me to use his chest as a springboard just as my vision blurred and I felt lightheaded, freeing me from his grasp and propelling me away.
Instead of attacking, I stumbled back, trying to clearly see my surrounds, unable to shake the image from my head, searching the clearing for them, though I knew I shouldn't let myself get distracted. This was the fear guy we'd been warned about, he had to be. I knew it in the back of my mind, but I still let the vision trick me. It was kind of like when you know that fresh cup of coffee is hot, but you still take too big a gulp, burning your tongue and instantly regretting it.
Dad! I heard Dev cry out in fright a millisecond before the impact.
A force, stronger than any I'd ever experienced slammed into my side, hurtling me through the air like I was an astronaut in space. My eyes lost focus and the breath was painfully expelled from my lungs in a whoosh when I felt the blow, but all I cared about was that I'd heard my son, that he was alive.
I was still soaring effortlessly through the air, the wind ruffling my black fur and my injured shoulder throbbing with a fiery heat when the haze impairing my vision cleared and I saw that it was the runt of the pack, my Dev that had bulldozed into me after his panicked warning. Then I saw why—to protect me from the enclosing mouth of the vamp I had been battling. But by protecting me, he had placed himself directly in the path of the leech's venomous teeth.
Gasping, but unable to do anything, I watched in horror as they slide into his thickly corded neck, our eyes meeting. His caring, dark orbs widened and just as quickly went blank after the fangs pierced the firm skin beneath his russet fur right as Alice appeared, pulling him away. I was moving in slow motion while the world around me raced in fast forward, still airborne when Jasper, less than a step behind Alice, began ferociously tearing the leech apart before his outstretched hand, reaching for Alice, made contact.
I felt the fear and rage radiating from him as he disassembled him, moving faster than my eyes could even follow, faster than Edward's legendary speed could ever possibly hope to keep up with. He was a blur of continuous movement, except his face. His face never seemed to move and as I fell, heading downwards now, almost to the ground.
I kept one eye on Alice and Devlin, but the other watched Jasper as the horror spread across my face was reflected back at me from his pale one as they gradually mutated from their previous coldblooded assassin. The expression was clearly visible as he also watched his beloved Alice sink to the patchy ground desperately clutching the swiftly shifting wolf to her.
We seemed to land at the same moment. The jarring impact caused my eyes to close for an instant, the pain in my shoulder flaring to life again, but when they reopened they discovered a site that made me wish they never had. Alice's head was jerking rapidly back and forth in tightly controlled motions of denial, her short hair swishing and delicate pixie features contorted in unspeakable sorrow while cradling as much as her tiny arms could of the limp, battered body belonging to my lifeless son.
I was in shock, unable to move, unable to phase, unable to tear my eyes away. Her sparkling skin created swirling patterns of twinkling light dotting his skin, illuminating the extensive abrasions he suffered and emphasizing every discolored surface on his skin.
Ignoring the turmoil in my head, I looked on as Jasper dropped down to her side, his opponent now demolished; and wrapped his arms comfortingly around the shoulders of the person he had succeeded in protecting. Dev had protected me as well, but I had failed him.
All at once it seemed to be over. Everything was finished. The battle was won and Devlin dead.
"We have to go—three escaped. They're headed for La Push. Edward's ch—," Emmett said when he appeared to quickly dispose of the scattered pieces of my son's killer in one of the fires already blazing, but stopped abruptly when he caught sight of Alice holding my boy, my Devlin's broken body.
Alice's golden eyes locked on my, her grief apparent, but just as quickly looked away when Levi ran up.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Over and over again, Levi shouted in denial.
The one syllable word coming out riddled with such immeasurable pain, it nearly killed me to witness. My shame was unbearable as I listened to his chant create a nonstop echo that drowned out everyone else's sorrowful pain and confusion as they raced to join us.
She hurriedly covered the fatal bite on Devlin's neck, knowing even without her premonitions, that he was about to use his enormous wolf tongue to lick the wound, not willing to risk discovering what the affects of ingesting tainted blood might be for a wolf. Levi wrenched back with a repulsed shudder when his tongue made contact with the surface of her stone arm.
His thoughts were silent now and I was deaf to all others. For a moment, no more than that because apparently this nightmare wasn't over yet and we needed to get back to Forks, nobody moved. The silence we all heard was broken then, disrupted by the one it would always be silent for, as he expressed the immense depth of his, and our grief with an unnatural, eerie howl. It was deep and scratchy. The harsh, rattling sound's piercing echoes resonated through the clearing, tumbling forth to shatter the delicate walls I'd unconsciously erected to keep myself detached, to maintain the illusion that it wasn't real for even just a moment longer if possible.
I don't remember trying to phase back, just that once I had, I was locked tightly in my big brother's warm, secure arms, both of us sobbing, crying pitiful, heart wrenching broken tears and clinging to the other as yet other family member was brutally ripped from our lives and this one infinitely more painful than any of the previous ones. I couldn't bear to face Anna right now and I wasn't sure how I ever would again after she realizes this was my fault. She would blame me, hate me for it.
The crushing, consuming pain well exceeded the maximum of any threshold I thought I was capable of withstanding without ending up clinically insane. It should have been me that died. I'd rather it was. It felt like someone was using a cheese grater on my heart. Little burning, stinging slices were being carved out all over it at once. My lungs were filling with freezing water, the pressure was excruciating. It sent icy electric shocks rapidly radiating outward and not an inch of my body was exempt, eventually my nerves would be fried and I'd be left numb, I was sure.
Dev was too young; he hadn't even had a chance to start living yet. No parent should ever outlive his child. I would give anything to go back, to stop him from saving me.
My son had been dead for maybe three minutes and it was already unbearable. How was I supposed to live out the rest of eternity knowing he'd just died because of me?
~x~*~x~
26 August 2041
I couldn't say how long we'd been at my brother's when I reemerged from my trance. This happened all the time, not a single day had passed since where it hadn't, and I stopped being surprised by the missing time gaps long ago.
Even the weather was in mourning today, how fitting. I watched as the rushing wind howled while it swept through the tree branches, rustling the leaves along the edge of the forest as I stared out the window from my seat at the table in their cozy breakfast nook. The room was dimly lit with only a little natural light filtering in on the monotonous grey, dreary day as horizontally blown rain pelted the glass, making little tink sounds similar to the clinking of glass marbles.
Jordan was surreptitiously watching me from across the table while he listened to Mark and Anna talk quietly. I knew he was aware of my return to reality and I was grateful he didn't draw attention to it. Mark was hesitantly answering Anna's question about how Eli had been doing lately.
"He's good… happy," he responded carefully, not letting any of his own happiness I knew he felt for his family from being heard in his words. He changed the subject quickly afterwards.
I appreciated his thoughtfulness when discussing that subject today, but my thoughts were conflicted, clashing in a vicious struggle for dominance. I was bitterly jealous, wanting to scream and rage at the injustice of the situation, that fate should gift them with a child after taking mine, but at the same time I was exceedingly happy for them. I knew how lucky a child of theirs' was and how there wasn't a more loving or deserving couple worthy of being granted their wish to have a child, not to mention the fact that I was thrilled, as much as I was about anything anymore, to be an uncle.
It occurred to me that I was the most worked up and alive-feeling that I'd been in a very long time. That these were the most intense emotions over the greatest emotional extent or range I'd felt in five years. Something about remembering what happened this time was different. I by no means felt better or any less guilty, but I did realize that I'd already lost one son and I didn't want to lose another.
I'd let Levi push everyone away before and made no effort to stop him. Back then, it had been hard enough not to actively push him away myself, considering every time I looked at him I saw Devlin and was reminded of my role in his death. But worse than that, had been how I kept expecting Levi to curse me, to let it be known in no uncertain terms that he blamed me entirely, as he should, and wished it had been me instead, as I did.
I wouldn't let that happen again this time. Levi deserved to be happy and I wasn't going to let him waste his life away in isolation, wallowing when it wouldn't change the past. I needed to at least try and put more of an effort into being his and Melody's father again and letting them know I'm here for them, and Anna, and that I will always be there to help them if they need it.
"I'll talk to him after he's had a chance to calm down a bit," I leaned over during a lull in the conversation and whispered casually to Anna, though I knew Jordan and Mark could hear. It wasn't much, but it was a start, although I'm not sure if I'd ever be capable of much more than that.
She looked surprised for a moment that I'd spoken, twitching slightly, then even more so, her jaw dropping, as she processed my words. A second later she kissed me. It was just what I, and it seems she, needed right then, passionate and intense. This kind of kiss was a lot rarer these days and I had missed it. We poured all of our grief, fear, regret, but most of all, our love, into that kiss. I savored her sweet vanilla and coffee taste and her perfect scent, like the bark on a Ponderosa Pine tree on a sunny day. It reminded me of baking cookies or perhaps butterscotch. I never wanted it to end and it took a few, less than subtle, coughs from our audience before they finally managed to break us up.
Pulling back, I stared into her beautiful, kind chocolate eyes and small but loving smile, and I knew that the consuming, crushing grief I felt wouldn't always be quite this bad as long as she continued looking at me like that. I would never stop feeling guilty about what happened, but I loved this woman and I didn't want to push her away anymore, I couldn't. My family, more specifically our surviving son, needed me right now.
~*~ ∞ ~*~