some kind of madness is swallowing me whole

part 1

From coast to coast. The trees expand in each area. People fluttering each end. Architecture that was so detailed it needed a careful look to see. There was no place she called home. Once, 100 years ago, she called Virginia home before all she could think about was killing. The slightest smell of blood was the best smell in the world. To you, it might be cookies baking on a Sunday afternoon. To Bella Swan, it was when someone fell on the ground and scraped their knees and hands. That was the best moment to attack when they were vulnerable.

history

Bella hadn't given it much thought to how she would die in 1919 before it happened. She heard rumors of people who could run faster than anyone could see and people who could lift 500 times their weight. These people would have Bella curious for years. She wouldn't know at the age of 14 that in 5 years she would be one. She heard lots of rumors in her time as a nurse, which she began learning when she was 14. As a nurse, there were a few things Bella needed to learn first. Her mother, Mary, had been practicing as a nurse for as long as she could remember, and at 14 that isn't that long but people would tell stories of her mother being a nurse. Bella learned everything she needed to know from her mother. She learned where the best place to insert her teeth would be. The best place to drain a human of their blood content. The best place to quickly knock someone unconscious, if needed.

###

It might be time to change the scenery, Bella thought to herself. Maybe get back into nursing. It has been 100 years. I need a change.

It wasn't a spur of the moment thought. Bella had been searching for more for a while now. She yearned for something. She wanted to feel something even though being a vampire made her unable to feel for quite some time. She wanted company. She remembers seeing couples on their vacations in Paris, Hong Kong, or even New Orleans. For the moments they were in these cities together everything felt right to them. Now some of them could've gone home and things changed there, but for those brief moments of satisfaction, those couples showed bliss. Something Bella only had on rare occasions. She never really wanted that for herself, for obvious circumstantial reasons, but it had her longing for something more.

I could always turn the love of my life into a vampire, she always began this monologue when she was longing. Although this wasn't my choice so I would never make it anyone else's.

So, in a random out of the blue moment one day, she looked up the best doctors in the Olympic Northwest of America, because they have the most cloudy days there (obviously). None other than Dr. Carlisle Cullen showed up.

The website said "The best doctor of Forks, Washington. No scratch that. The best doctor in all of Washington. And he has a smile to prove it." Why would a website even say something like that? What does a smile have to do with how well someone practices medicine?

Bella just stared at Dr. Cullen until his proven smile became too creepy to handle.

If he was the "best" doctor then being a nurse wouldn't be too bad, Bella thought. Now to only forge a degree and previous work references.

So, Bella went on searching for how to forge a degree and work references. Nothing much was coming up that was legal. She wanted this to be a clean slate. If she was going to up and leave her whole life behind, her criminal ways had to leave, too.

For a hundred years the only thing on Bella's mind was feeding on the innocent. It never bothered her. She never thought about wanting to live life another way. It wasn't a task for her to find someone delicious to feed on. That was even the highlight of her day most days. It would be comparable to a human going to the store, buying ingredients, and going home to cook them. When you live for a hundred years you have to find joy in the little things, she exhaled heavily to show humor behind the thought.

history

I remember that feeling. The first time my mom let me near the dead body. She always said "you're too young" but then one day I wasn't too young. Death fascinated me, even before I became dead myself. It was consuming how something as simple as a breath can be taken for granted. "Bella, you have to be careful about how close you come to those bodies," Bella's mother warned consistently. "You never know what diseases they had." Her mother was right, in almost every situation but especially this one, the Spanish influenza was making its way around. "What would I do if I lost you?" Mary asked Bella that a lot. For as long as she could remember it had been Bella and her mom. What would I do if I lost her?

###

She was going to have to get this job the hard way. She was going to have to go back to high school. It could've been easy to forge a high school diploma, just by looking up some of the most populated high schools in the country, so that there would be people who didn't remember her there and it wouldn't be weird. Maybe finding a high school that flooded or had a fire so there could be a reason for a lost record. Maybe even finding a high school abroad so that was a reason to lose a file. Either way, she wouldn't be able to keep the lie going for too long. Somehow people ask a lot of questions even when it isn't their business to be asking it. And sometimes it's hard to keep a lie going for a long time.

She hasn't been to high school in a while anyway, so not only will she learn high school topics she will also learn the lingo of the teenagers of 2019.

On her way to Forks, Washington she went.