Rising: A Life and Death fanfiction

Chapter 1: Déjà Vu

30th August 2015

God. I really hated flying. It just didn't sit well with me, I hated not having my feet on something solid, something grounded. It wasn't as if I was afraid of a crash or anything, as I was more than capable or saving myself in that scenario, but something else. I'd learned that my father had been an R.A.F fighter pilot in the second world war, so I guessed my hate for flying stemmed from that; sometimes I wondered whether it was only our physical traits that were enhanced in this life.

I pulled my feet up onto the wide, first class seat and switched the song on my phone to something more relaxing - I needed to calm the butterflies in my stomach, tomorrow was going to be hard enough already. 

We were moving. For the first time since being adopted, my family and I had decided that it was time to move on; Carine was meant to be 30 and she'd barely looked 23, the age she technically was, when she first took the job at the hospital in 2008 - people had began to talk. It also didn't help that there were six teenagers walking around who should be in their early twenties - we could only use good genes as an excuse for so long. Besides, I was pretty sick of hiding away since I wasn't supposed to exist. 

This was all part of being a Cullen, moving from one cloudy place to another to avoid raising suspicions of what we really were - vampires; there was no guarantee that the town-folk wouldn't come hunting us down with pitchforks and torches, and the Volturi wouldn't be most pleased if we rose suspicions either.

Honestly, I was kinda excited for this new move, for two reasons: firstly, we were moving to Britain - mine and Carine's original home. I couldn't wait to see the Union Jack flying in the wind, to actually be able to speak and be completely understood - for some reason North Americans were completely incapable of understanding the British dialect. The other reason was because I was being enrolled in Secondary School for the first time in 50 years, meaning I'd finally get to act like a real teenager and complete what I hadn't been able to in my human life. It wasn't as if I actually needed the education though, I'd done enough studying in the past half-century that I probably could have lectured at university level; I was going for the experience and nothing more. I was a little worried, however, as I wasn't completely sure if I would be able to keep the bloodlust under control - if I had even one lapse in focus then I could end someone's life before they even knew it. That would completely suck not just for me, but for everyone else - I was determined not to ruin our new town by sucking the life out of some unsuspecting teenager.

The town we were moving to was Erwick, a town of approximately 3,000 inhabitants, nestled in the southern tip of Wast Water Lake, Lake District, England. Carine and Earnest had bought a house in the forests west of the main town, which they'd started to renovate in July - me, Beau, Archie, Jessamine and Edythe had travelled the northern reaches of Canada during this time, whilst Royal and Eleanor had been on some grand romantic European tour - I could only thank the gods that Edythe had warned me against accepting Eleanor's invitation to go with them, as apparently the affection that they'd shown for each other at home was them being restrained. I certainly did not want to see what unrestrained looked like. 

I tilted my head back onto the seat and closed my eyes, letting the soft melody of Clair de Lune wash over me, classical music was my go-to when I was stressed, and the Clair de Lune was probably the mot calming piece I knew. I loved how the piece evolved throughout its duration, and the soft tenor was perfect for the nerves whilst the complex rhythm gave my mind something to ponder.

A heavily accented and high-pitched voice announced that there was little under an hour left of the flight, and we'd soon be touching down at Manchester airport. The knot in my stomach tightened. Breathe, Eamon. It wasn't as if anyone was going to bite me (I'd like to see them try).