𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 [𝐉𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 - 𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭]

1 | The Second Try

PART ONE ~ the forgotten

R U N E — 1991

— RUNE: IT MEANS HIDDEN. Secret. There are a lot of things about him now that are secret. The untold things that he will take to the grave — graves, even — are increasing in number the older he grows.

Despite he himself being a secret, he feels secure in using his name this time, typing out the blocky Anglicised letters, 'Rune Arnesen,' into the document, fabricating a birth certificate from his spot in the dim corner of a Boston-bound library. Certificates of birth, marriage, and death for his counterfeit parents and grandparents pile up on tabs as he stretches out a new branch from a long-dead family tree. All this and more went to where it should, tracing family roots back to Denmark in a poorly thought-out decision, just so he could cling to old ties again.

He'd do it right this time — really, he would.

Rune had managed to intercept the first applications for adoption. The couple, Virginia and Jim, were a little up there in age; both divorced previously, reunited high-school sweethearts, childless but desperate for one, just a bit too far along to conceive the old fashion way without risk.

They look happy, Rune thinks, skimming their file for the hundredth time. Kind.

Hand twitching against his knee nervously like it always does when he's about to deceive — he pops his file on their metaphorical desk, watching as approvals go through at an efficient speed that the foster system couldn't dream to work at usually. Without his puppeteering, that is.

It will be different this time. He'll integrate properly into their family. He'll start out older than before, reducing his physical state into that of a fresh-faced toddler, still scrawny and meagre like he had been in true life, but good enough. He'll enjoy the years he gets as he progresses through the human cycle as usual, allowing his adult mind to retreat for a while and simply be: mind addled by innocence he cannot experience any other way. They'll never have to know, as long as he keeps himself in check this time. He'll be safe, for a while. Maybe even happy.

Maybe this life could be the last one.

Rune shakes his head of the thought, taking a harsh sip of cheap coffee and spitting it back out just before the heat took a layer off his tongue — he'd never managed to like the drink modern-day humans all seemed so enamoured by, but maybe that's because he doesn't need rest in the same way they do. There is no motivation to drink it other than the deep, desperate want to remain incognito.

The couple — the Buckleys — live in a tiny town that likes to call itself a city. On the map, Forks is but a speck in the clutches of the North Pacific Sea, nothing to shield it from the harsh winds and battering cold. It relies on the timber industry to keep afloat and sits amongst four different rivers and thick forestland. Either raining or overcast, with short bursts of passible sunlight, abundant in game for hunting season; on paper, it looks perfect. And if it doesn't work then, well, he can always fake a drowning or car accident or some such thing. He's managed it before — although this time he now knows to trade places in the morgue before the post-mortum began. Rune winces and scratches his chest in phantom discomfort, watching with greedy eyes as the Buckleys' landline pings and scrambling across the desk for the earphones still plugged into his Walkman.