Twilight Fan Fiction / Twilight Fan Fiction ❯ In a World Without You ❯ Part IV: Preparation for Annihilation ( Chapter 4 )

In a World Without you (continued)

 

Part IV: Preparation for Annihilation

 

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“Talk about goin' out wit a bang.”

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-Fan Made Maximum Ride Trailer

www.YouTube.com

 

How did one go about this? I doubted there was a “How To” anywhere in this world that applied to my current circumstances.

 

It wasn't as if I wasn't ready—I was more than ready. It was just that I didn't have the slightest idea how to start.

 

I sat; my back pressed again the ancient, deserted alley wall. My knees drawn up halfway to my chest; feet planted solidly. I sighed, placing my forearms on top of my knees, hanging my head in the space between my paralleled arms.

 

I studied the dirt packed into between the cracks in the interval stone of the footpath tracked in by the thousands of tourists that had passed through here, their intentions infinitely less grave.

 

How could I convince them—to force them into what I wanted?

 

I focused every part of my mind on my plans, trying to force the burning agony to the back of my thoughts as I had done with my thirst for the past eighty-odd years.

 

But this was a different kind of agony—one that could not be soothed, but had been caused by the ending of a life.

 

No, not just a life.

 

Her life—so much more infinitely precious than any other on the planet.

 

Gone.

 

I shook my head, trying to clear it.

 

But Bella was like a sedative, like a fog. Every few moments she started to cloud my thoughts with, not a dulling numbness, but a scorching ache of loss—a hollow anguish.

 

Lift a car in the main square? I wondered vaguely, trying to keep my thoughts on the task at hand. I had almost done that before—when I'd saved her from that Tyler Crowley's van. Another moment in which I'd almost lost her.

 

Had she taken him up on his date before her life was cut short?

 

Or perhaps it had not been Tyler she'd finally said yes to. Perhaps she'd finally agreed to Mike Newton. Whoever it was, I hoped she was happy—however fleetingly.

 

Because I was certain I hadn't made her happy, or if I had, it would hurt her more in the end.

 

I would have happily sat in that dusty attic, rotting away with the rafters for the remainder of eternity if my leaving her had allowed her to find someone that made her smile.

 

It would've been worth it just for that.

 

The proof that it had not all been in vain—that for once in my life, I could do something right by the one I loved.

 

“Focus, Edward.” I muttered to myself, pushing the fog to the far corners of my mind. “Focus.”

 

No, a display lifting a van, or throwing one wouldn't force them to do anything. They could explain it away quite easily—they were shooting a movie, or it was a special effects event for the festival. Easily consolable.

 

I wanted something that they could not explain away in time before they were forced to destroy me.

 

Speed? No, no one would see me.

 

Into my mind, drifted the Bella-fog, along with a crystal clear memory of running, running through the forest, adrenaline (or the vampire chemical equivalent) racing through my body with the warm weight of the human girl on my back.

 

Stop it, I commanded, don't think. It's over. It'll all be over soon.

 

What else would mark us for what we were, and force them to destroy me or risk exposing our race—that would break their number one rule.

 

Go on a feeding spree in the middle of the festival.

 

Prefect.

 

How ironic, though, my more surreal side mused, that on the day celebrating the extinction of vampires within the city walls, one strikes.

 

I would simply jump out from the alley, and attack the first person I saw. I could indulge myself before my life was ended in the one thing I had denied myself in my century long life.

 

Besides Bella.

 

Razor edges raked across the ragged empty hole in my chest.

 

Funny how you could live for a century, and in the overall picture, only four and a half months mattered.

 

The saying “It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all,” suddenly drifted into my mind.

 

Certainly the person who came up with that statement had never been in my circumstances.

 

Of course, for myself, I would never give anything up for the few precious seconds in the scope of my long life I'd had with the only girl I could ever love. Anything, any pain, and punishment was worth the beauty of her smile, the kindness of her soul, the warmth of her personality, the feeling of her lips on mine.

 

But for her, for my Bella—I wish I had died in 1918, when I was supposed to.

 

For her sake, I wish my family and I had never come to live in the little town of Forks, that we had never met, never fallen in love.

 

I would have lived the rest of eternity alone, never knowing the joy, the bliss of her company. But that would have been fine. As long as she had been happy. She would have found someone, some human man that she would really have fallen in love with.

 

Someone she would have married, and had children, and grown old with, someone—

 

“Focus!” I scolded myself under my breath. Would I ever be able to instigate my plan when my consciousness was varying so wildly; like a human's?

 

El es muy bonito!

 

He's very beautiful!

 

I heard the sound of a young child's mind cut through the usual background drabble I typically blocked out. I raised my head from its place between my arms to look up towards the mouth of the alley.

 

There a young girl with was standing precisely at the line where the light from the square faded into the dark shadows of the early morning alley. She was wearing a bright red dress, her dark hair pulled up into pig-tails on either side of her head by bright ribbons of the same color.

 

Her head was cocked to one side, studying me.

 

Que son el aquí?

 

Why is he here?

 

Because, little girl, I contemplated telling her, when you loose everything important to you in life, your desire to be in bright places with many happy people decreases significantly.

 

Unfortunately, I was the only one here who could read the other's mind.

 

“Como te llama?” The little girl asked, her high voice tinkling like a little Spanish bell.

 

What is your name?

 

Was she actually speaking to me? Most humans were supposed to shy away from us—from our alien-ness. A flare of agony ripped through me as I thought: apparently there are two exceptions to this rule.

 

“Me llamo Edward,” I told her slowly after a moment, the Spanish reply rasping a bit on the way out.

 

My name is Edward.

 

She smiled, dimples appearing on her rosy cheeks as her lips pulled back to reveal a mouth of pearly white teeth.

 

“Qué son tú aquí?” She asked, repeating the earlier question she'd formed in her mind.

 

Why are you here?

 

I sat in silence for a moment, deliberating. Finally, I opened my mouth to reply, but a sudden shout from behind the little girl, in the square drew both our attentions.

 

“Nina! Dondé eres tú?”

 

“Nina!”

 

Nina! Where are you? Nina!

 

She turned back to me.

 

“Mi Madre y mi hermanita,” she explained with a sheepish smile.

 

My mom and my little sister.

 

“Adios, Edward,” she said with a little smile of pearly teeth. As she turned to go, she raised her tiny hand, pressing it briefly to her lips, then holding her palm out flat, and blowing.

 

She ran back off into the square.

 

I slowly raised my left hand into the air, catching an invisible kiss on the wind, and then held my palm out, staring into the space there.

 

“Adios, Nina,” I whispered.

 

That's it, child. Run while you can.

 

No, I couldn't feed on these innocent people.

 

The face Carlisle, my savior, my mentor, my friend, my ­father flashed through my mind. Couldn't I even consider him in my last moments—Carlisle, who had given up so much for me?

 

It would go against everything he'd worked for, for me, his first son, his first real companion, to leave this world in a frenzied, blood-lust filled haze.

 

I could not take innocent lives for my own reasons—my own escape.

 

I may be selfish, but I am not that much of a monster.

 

I was grateful for the height of the buildings and the overhanging balcony that blocked the sun that was now rising in the rapidly in the sky, although a beam or two filtered down onto the alley walkway, dripping spots of sunlight a few feet away from me.

 

I stretched out my right arm so it dipped into the sunbeam. The brilliant glittering light that reflected off the bare skin revealed by my white t-shirt was so intense after the darkness of the alley that I pulled it back immediately.

 

That was it. Plain and simple. I would just walk out into the sunlight.

 

I would not harm anyone; I would not put anyone at risk. I would go out the way Bella had picture me—sparkling and wonderful. The way I wished I could have been for her.

 

Now that my plan was set, I had no words, no thoughts. Just my plan, and the Bella-fog slowly creeping back into my mind.

 

The clock tower next to the alley boomed deafeningly, marking the 11:00 hour.

 

I could wait. I was 107 years old, what was an hour to me? I would wait until exactly 12:00 on this, St. Marcus day to portray the last act of the play of my life that rivaled even Romeo and Juliet in tragedy.

 

Only this time, my Juliet would not wake up.

 

The clock above me chimed again, and I rose to my feet more gracefully than was safe. Thankfully, no curious eyes were studying the shadows in the alley.

 

I stared down into my left hand again, where there was nothing but air and a theoretical kiss.

 

I closed my hand into a fist around the kiss, crushing it in my inhuman strength as the clock boomed its eleventh chime.

 

One hour, I assured myself, as I prepared myself for my final act.

 

**-End of Part 4-**

 

Yay! I had sooooo much fun writing this chapter >_< longest so far. Hee hee, recognize the little girl?

 

Sorry if my Spanish is a little off, it's been a year since I've taken a class, so I'm a bit rusty.

 

But, I'm thinking I'll do one more chapter???? Idk, please review and tell me what you think and how far I should go if and when I write the next chapter. Thank you~