Crescent • A Twilight Story

Everyone's Okay

You thought you knew how the story ended. A girl meets a boy, who turns out to be a little more than she bargained for.

Maybe she makes a mistake along the way. Maybe she embraces someone she's not supposed to. Plays a little too close to his fire. But perhaps she could have loved him too.

She chooses the one she can't live without, the one it's always been. And they live happily, forever.

And maybe that was their story, but it could never be mine.

I teetered between life and death for awhile, in a place called the great mystery.

In it was a galaxy of possibilities. I spoke to my mother there. My step father.

I came across people I had never met, people who claimed they knew me. Grandparents. Aunts. Uncles.

And then he came along, holding out a hand. I took it without a care, even if it meant kissing that other world goodbye.

"You want to know why you're different." He smiled at me, as I leaned into him while we walked across stars. "Sometimes things have a way of working out right when we need it. Call it evolution. Creation. The universe. Destiny. You exist because you were meant to."

His arm wrapped around my middle, and I sighed.

"You were born under a crescent moon. And I suppose, in way, that's a metaphor of your life. Surrounded by darkness, with only a sliver of light. You're that light, Rory."

"But, what am I?"

"Whatever you want to be. We both know you'll have plenty of time to figure it out."

"Not without you." I panicked, as he kissed my forehead. "We were going to move in together. Have a life together."

"You'll have a life. Full and forever." He pushed me away. "Do me a favor and find someone to share it with."

I could hear a call, feel a touch along my skin. It happened again. And again. Stronger.

I was beginning to be pulled further from Duke. I clawed against the growing distance between us, until he had faded away.

Leaving me alone in the dark, the cold, once more.

***

I got her heart and breathing steady enough to move, and we vanished out of there as fast as possible. Loading her up gently in the rental car's backseat, I made a call.

Rory stayed unconscious for days, and I didn't rest easy until she was home with Carlisle and Gran monitoring her.

I stayed by her side as much as possible, watching as the biting wounds became scars all over her body, her face.

She awoke to a different world a week later, her bright blue eyes staring at the ceiling. Her breaths were shaky as if she'd been awake for awhile, as if it took considerable effort for her to be awake.

"You're okay." I said, staying in my seat across the room. "It's finished now."

She tried to speak, a rasp coming out of cracked lips.

"Everything happened the way it was meant to." Tears began to roll down her cheeks. "Everyone's okay."

"He isn't." She whispered, achingly. "They killed him."

Her confirmation ripped through me, the loss she endured. No wonder she'd been so peaceful in the midst of death. After losing him, she must have already felt it.

"Because of you, the Voltori is no longer a threat. We can all live in peace." She squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing loudly.

"I don't know if that's possible."