Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or New Moon and am not Stephenie Meyer.
A/N – The inspiration for this story came out of nowhere and hit me full on in the face. I really don't know why I thought it up – it must be my crazy imagination! Most of the A/N will be on the bottom instead of up here. Now, on with the story!
"In the light of the sun, is there anyone? Oh it has begun…
Oh dear you look so lost, eyes are red and tears are shed
This world you must have crossed, you said…"
"Boston" by Augustana
Chapter 1 – Beginning
Boston - 1840
All I had known was pain. Pain and more pain, crushing down on me like waves of agony, an ocean of cruelty bearing down on my fragile body. I felt the bones snap and reform, my muscles tear and reshape, everything enhancing to a painful level. Nothing was safe anymore, the world was upside down and twisted and it hurt so bad that I never thought I'd get away from it…
And then it stopped.
My eyes flew open – they had been clenched so tight, trying to offer some kind of relief to that all-encompassing pain. There had been no relief from the pain, however small it might have been, from keeping my eyes squeezed shut.
When I let my eyes drift open, I was taken aback by the brightness of the strange room I was in. Where was I, that this place was so bright and open? I could feel wind tugging at my hair, even though it was no more than a soft breeze – there was so much light coming from the opening that I had to turn away.
The inside of this place was much dimmer, even though sunlight reflected off the smooth stone surface. It was probably only a few feet deep, but there was something about it that felt ominous. I didn't like this place – so why was I here?
That was the question, wasn't it? I didn't know all that much about myself, come to think of it. There was something missing in my mind, some key piece of information that I knew I had to know, that I knew was desperately important. But I couldn't remember it.
My fingers ran over my thighs, hoping to find something of use on the clothing that I wore. The heavy dress, with a floor-length skirt and formal top, certainly didn't look like everyday wear. But how was I to know what everyone wore? I could barely remember my own name.
Like a shadow of memory, it came to the front of my mind as my hands ran around my back and felt the tight laces of my corset under the gown. Isabella, my mind murmured my name to me, Isabella, Bella, Bella Swan…
Me, Bella…it fit, and it seemed right. I supposed I had a good enough memory to be able to remember such things as my own name after that agonizing torture was through. But that didn't help me in the long run, for I wasn't receiving hints about anything else.
I looked down at my dress, the dark blue fabric rumpled and wrinkled from what appeared to be days of tossing and turning in the grips of some unimaginable torture. Of course, to me it wasn't unimaginable. I had lived through it.
The dress had a high throat; I felt like it was choking me already, somehow. The lace around my neck bothered me; without thinking, I reached up and tore the collar, exposing only the column of my throat to the air. The burn in the back of my throat didn't decrease in the slightest.
It scared me that this feeling of gnawing hunger wouldn't leave. Touching my feet, I noted that they were enclosed in old, worn black boots and pushed myself off the ground and to my feet. Then I stopped and stared at my hands, then the ground, before crouching back down.
I shoved my skirts out of the way as I leaned forward, observing with incredulity that my hands had left imprints in the stone. Prodding the floor gently with my finger, I noted that it certainly didn't seem soft or squishy – pressing harder, I was terrified to find my finger making a dent in the stone.
My jaw opened and I let out a strangled noise of shock – but I couldn't hear it. Even more panicked, I clapped my hands in front of my face. Again, nothing. No sound reached my ears. I brushed my hands over them frantically and tried to make noise, to hear myself, but there was no sound.
I could hear nothing.
That was what I didn't remember! Despite the panic at discovering that I was…deaf, deaf was the word…I felt my lips spread into a smile. At least I knew what was wrong – I couldn't get a nagging feeling on any other secrets I had managed to hide from myself.
But now was not the time; I wiped my smile away quickly as I focused on the handprints in the floor. They weren't supposed to be there; I knew there were other people outside of this strange room, but they mustn't know about this. It was far too abnormal for any human…
So what did that make me? I wasn't certain, not in the least. I couldn't be human, because I just knew – knew – that leaving handprints in solid stone was not normal. I knew in the same way that I knew what I was wearing was a dress, clothing, and that I should have been able to make noises from my mouth but couldn't create them and couldn't hear them.
Lifting my hand, I looked at it, considering what to do. Then I glanced back at the ground. Hand. Ground. Hand. Reaching forward, I applied pressure and moved my hand over the ground – I erased the obvious handprints, leaving behind a rough spot in the stone.
Turning around, I looked out of the strange room, and saw nothing but green. Bright and dark, it was a forest of plant life. So this was a cave, then. The burning in my throat distracted me from the bright sunlight and brilliant forest.
What was it that I craved? Why did I want something that would pour down my throat like liquid, but tasted so much sweeter, so much better? I sighed deeply, feeling my lungs fill with air and then release – but it didn't make me feel anything, like taking in air normally would.
But I did catch the faintest whiff of something that smelled absolutely incredible.
My legs contracted, pulling me into a catlike crouch; with my hands poised on the ground, ready to push off and into prey, I let my eyes lazily drift shut and nosed my way around the air, trying to catch that scent again.
In the back of my mind, I realized that this action was entirely too predatory for my liking; I didn't understand what I was doing, and it scared me very badly that I couldn't seem to stop myself. But a part of me longed for that scent – I wanted it badly, and I would have it.
It was everywhere. How I could not have smelled it before, I would never understand – but I could now, and I realized that the scent I wanted so badly was all over the cave I was standing in. My eyes shot open as I eagerly looked for what I wanted.
It was bright. And on the walls, the ceiling, the floor…the spot I had indented the ground at was clean, but all around, there was bright, sticky something splashed all over, like something was torn and tossed about.
A handprint was streaked against the entrance, like someone had tried to escape. In my mind's eye, I saw a pale, slim-fingered hand stretched across the stone before it was violently yanked back, more splashes of blood joining those on the floor.
The scene of horror in my mind was utterly silent. There was no noise, nothing to tell me who had been here – no screams to match to other voices – and no evidence of anything foul. No evidence of anything strange, or odd in this cave. And if there was noise, I couldn't hear it.
My breathing was coming heavy now, as I glanced around frantically, taking in the small blood splatters that were tracked around the floor. Yes, the cave was completely clean and void of anything unnatural.
Except me.
With trembling fingers, I stretched my hand up to the side of my face, running my fingers over my forehead, cheeks, chin…my right hand came away dotted with the same dried blood that was stuck to the cavern.
My entire body shook as I ran my hands across my face, feeling more blood, before continuing to the upsweep of hair that was coming loose from its elegant hairstyle, held in place underneath a bonnet that was loose and had spots of the dried blood on the outside. The loose strands were knotted with blood, stuck together and dried.
A faint memory, a whisper of something, came to mind. I saw words on a note, fire burning bright – but one word in elegant script, of someone that I had to have known, stuck out in my blurred images of memory.
My knees felt weak and I sunk to the floor as my hand found a mark on my neck – just slightly different from the rest of my skin, barely noticeable except for the fact that my hands were so sensitive. Indentations spaced like teeth. Exactly like teeth.
Vampire.
I felt like laughing at the absurdity of it. Vampires couldn't be real – I didn't even remember learning about them and I knew that they couldn't be real. But I looked at my hands, the blood, and the mark on the floor. What if…I lifted my hand to my face and sniffed the dried blood.
No, there was no attraction there, was there? I laughed at my silliness, just a dry huff of air that I felt come out of my mouth. My vocal cords weren't vibrating – I couldn't feel the vibrations. So I was deaf and mute, then.
But the thirst I could feel raging in my throat was still alive and making me weaken. Against my will, I was soon crouching again, and edging out towards the entrance to the cave.
My speed astonished me. I could see everything as clearly as if I was walking, but I could felt the wind whip by at amazing speeds, and could just tell that I was moving far to fast for any animal to see. The birds in flight above my head seemed frozen on air as I sped by.
Exhilarating. I loved it, much more than I should – because I as speeding towards something. The scent of it was being carried right into my face on the breeze, and I had little choice but to obey the call and the overwhelming instinct urges to bite something…
My body came to an abrupt halt among the trees. I could see a path just beyond the foliage, and walking along as casually as could be were a couple, a man and a woman.
The man wore clothes just as nice as mine, and the lady wore a dress incredibly similar to mine in a shade that made something inside me purr in contentment, for it was the same color as the splashes inside the cave. I knew now what it was that I wanted so badly.
Blood.
I was truly a vampire, then, wasn't I? An undead creature, a monster bent on drinking the blood of human beings: I felt sick to my stomach, but there was no way for me to resist the thirst. I was alone in this world, unable to understand what the two were even saying – I saw their lips move, but heard no sound.
They were feet away, just barely a few seconds from the end of their lives. My fingers curled over the branch between my hands; it broke. I was too strong – I knew I would have to exercise caution, always, to make certain that I could control myself around humans – prey.
I didn't want to do this. I wanted to run away, run home and hide in my room – but I didn't know where home was. I didn't know what my room was like. I couldn't even remember the name of the forest I was in, where I was in the world…who was I to deny my thirst?
What could I possibly deny it for? There was no reason to. I edged closer, my lips curving into a smile at the sight of the man moving in front of his lady, both of them gazing around in concern. Their lips moved, but their message passed unheard.
I stepped out of the trees in front of the couple, muscles tight and ready to leap forward. In my head, I was planning the strategy to take out the three humans…wait.
Three?
My eyes locked on the infant baby, swaddled in cloth in the woman's arms. This was a married couple walking in the woods with their newborn daughter – a baby girl, a new life ready and waiting to start.
The couple looked startled to see me, but the smiles on their faces were hesitantly welcome. The man stepped forward, cautious – and he drew back sharply when I locked eyes with him, letting the loose strands of hair swing away from my eyes as I lifted my head.
I wondered what they saw in my eyes or my face that made them look so terrified, but the thirst was driving itself hard into my throat – my mouth felt dry, like a desert in summer, and I could feel the hunger roaring inside me. It demanded that I kill the two people in front of me, and their daughter.
That little baby girl…I could not kill her. I wouldn't give in to what my body demanded, no matter what it took out of me. I couldn't take the life of such a young girl, so full of hope and promise and life – where I now had no life at all. I was 'undead'; I was likely immortal if I knew anything about vampires.
The strength of will that it took to make me leave behind the three in the woods was something that I could hardly grasp in my own mind. I saw them in front of me, and then I was suddenly running, as fast and as far as I possibly could.
Trees flashed by at high speeds; the wind threw the rest of my hair out of its upsweep and it trailed long down my back, free and loose. My bonnet flew away into the air behind me, left far behind. I raced, far from the ones I had wanted to kill.
Kill. The word rang in my mind. I couldn't remember anything and I had wanted to murder those three because of the thirst I felt. It was surreal and terrifying; I wanted to cry, to weep and wail and bemoan my fate, but I couldn't express myself like that. I simply wasn't able to.
The tears pushed at my eyes, but they didn't come, and I felt nothing but anger swamping me. Anger at myself, for wanting to feast on the blood of that small family: anger at the family for being there: anger that I was what I was: anger that I was alone.
Fury radiated inside me like a poison. It swelled and grew and blossomed until I felt it break and I collapsed to the ground, spent and weak. I was far too tired to move any further, and certainly too weak to resist any more.
I prayed that no human would come by. For a time, it seemed to work; I was alone, panting and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. Not a single idea came to me in all that time. I didn't even know how long I sat there, alone.
My strength was nonexistent when I felt vibrations in my hands and he scent of a human drifted along the wind, right under my nose. I was far too weak to resist springing to my feet and darting out after the single lone human who was wandering in the woods.
And I couldn't deny the joy that spread through me when that sweet, rich blood was pouring down my throat.
A/N – I don't think there's really all that much for me to say, but I do think I'm going to be rationalizing having Bella give in to the thirst for blood. First of all, she doesn't remember much about her human life – a bit like Alice, but not quite. I'll be getting to the story behind Bella being changed later on in the fic, so I can't reveal too much now except that Bella went through something traumatic before her change that caused her memories to wipe out before she even became bitten. It carried over into her change.
Also, yes she is deaf. No, she is not actually mute – she just thinks she is because her vocal cords haven't had time to work yet because she never used them when she was human. They are still functioning and she was born being able to use them. However, she was born deaf and so the hearing cannot be corrected – she simply doesn't have the parts of the ear necessary to hear.
That's the way of the story before this. I'm afraid I don't know much sign language, but hopefully when I get to Bella 'talking' you'll understand what I mean by her 'talking' – I have a key, don't worry! I just didn't put it up here because I wanted to start the story, and Bella isn't really able to talk to anyone yet because she doesn't remember sign language. I'm not even sure if it was already created back then or not…if you have any information to help me, I would gladly receive it! As much as I would love to hear what you think of this so far! Sorry the chapter's so short – I think they'll be getting longer in places, but I have a lot to cover. Thanks for reading!