Borne Again

COPYRIGHT ALERT: The Twilight characters are not mine, they are Stephenie Meyer's.  The other characters, however, ARE mine, and so is the story idea.  Please do not steal it. Thanks. :)

Summary:

What else could possibly go wrong??  Anira’s life has been a complete disaster this past week, and obviously it’s not going to give her a break any time soon.  The local power plant almost had a meltdown, a bunch of stupid teenagers burnt down half of the forest she lives in, the government found out that she was living in an abandoned shed and threatened to move her into an orphanage, and worst of all, HER BOYFRIEND DUMPED HER.  When she wakes up on the first school day after winter break with that same sinking feeling in her stomach, she knows something else will go wrong, but never in her wildest dreams did she imagine it would lead her on a path like this.  A story of self-discovery, this anything-but-average teenager is forced to confront a past she never knew existed, survive an encounter with deadly yet somehow civilized vampires, and juggle a secret that no one can ever know, right in the middle of the worst week of her life.

            Palo, Iowa wasn’t supposed to be this unpredictable.

Chapter 1: Get me out of this mess

            I opened my eyes groggily and groaned.  My stomach was twisting and turning again, like it had almost every other day this past week.  And almost every other day this past week, something had gone wrong.  The first day had been the absolute worst though, in my opinion.

            Hey, Anira, I need to talk to you, Nick, my boyfriend, had said.  It was the last day of school before winter break, and we had just climbed off the bus to go home.  I had looked at him and smiled, trying to ignore that gut-wrenching feeling I always got when something bad was going to happen.  I… Uh, I think we should just be friends.  We just aren’t very good together, you know?  I hope you understand.  It’s nothing personal.  We can still be friends though, right?  I had agreed with a little too much enthusiasm.

            The next day, after I had cried myself to sleep, I’d barely noticed that same feeling when I woke up- I thought it was a side effect from all the sobs- until late in the night when I caught a whiff of smoke and realized that my forest was burning.  Apparently a group of teenagers had thought this was a good place for a bonfire to celebrate the week-long vacation.  Why they had wanted to be outside in December was beyond me, but there they were, burning down the only thing that hid my house from view.

            Then, of course, after the trees had been drastically thinned, the inevitable happened: I got a notice on my door saying that my house was on government property and I needed to go to court to get a real home under penalty of the law.  Of course, as soon as I showed up and they realized I was only fifteen, they threatened to send me to an orphanage or foster home until I was legally old enough to live alone.  I had two weeks to pick a foster home of my choice before they forced me into some rotten place with the other homeless kids.

            If that wasn’t enough to take in with all I had already been going through, the local power plant was in danger of having a meltdown, and I had to work there for days trying to calm everyone down and take control of the situation.  By the time all the chaos was over, I had only three days left of my break to relax.

            And of course relaxation was an impossibility with my home being threatened and my heart completely shattered in my chest.

            Now it was the first day of the new semester, and I could tell that something else was going to go wrong.  But what else could possibly go wrong?!  After everything I’d been through in the past week, what else could go wrong?!

            I sat up grudgingly and stretched my aching muscles.  I wasn’t used to sleeping so often.  Usually I only had to sleep two or three times a week, but I was so upset during the break that I had actually slept every night. It wasn’t natural.

            After going to my closet and grabbing a dull green blouse and khakis, I went into the kitchen to get some breakfast.  It wasn’t a very big room, with only the bare necessities to keep it running: a refrigerator, a sink, a stove, and a little wooden table with one chair on either side.  The refrigerator was actually pretty unnecessary at this time of year.  Since my house had no heater or air conditioner, the food just adapted to whatever temperature it was outside, and since it had just snowed… Well, my food would be plenty cool without manmade appliances.

            I knew perfectly well that not having a heater was strange and unthinkable to any of the humans around me.  It was part of the reason why I had never invited anyone to my house.  But to be perfectly honest, I liked my house without all those silly indulgences.  I could really taste the fresh air when the musty air of a machine wasn’t in the way, and besides, the thing would be unnecessary anyway.  I couldn’t feel temperatures.  Well, I could feel when the weather changed, and I could tell when it was hot or cold, but I was never actually affected by temperature.  My skin was just the same 85˚ all the time.

            I grabbed an apple from the fridge and went into the bathroom as I ate, my feet dragging a little as I walked.  The bathroom was a little smaller than the kitchen, with a bath tub, a toilet, a sink, and a mirror. I lived in an extremely small house. 

            I looked at my reflection in the mirror without interest.  Just a little over a week ago my eyes had been bright and shining with life.  Now they were just a dull forest green, similar to my shirt color, with no emotions and no light.  There were shadows under my eyelids that hadn’t been there before.  I may have been sleeping more than usual, but that certainly didn’t mean I’d been sleeping well.

My hair was an unkempt mess, knotted and tangled from the many days of neglect.  I grabbed my brush from the sink now, not wanting to look like a zombie when I got on the bus to meet Nick.  I couldn’t let him know how much his decision had affected me.  I had to suck it up and act like nothing had changed, as if it didn’t matter in the slightest that he had broken my heart.  It wasn’t really his fault, I guess.  He wasn’t trying to be mean or anything.  He just didn’t think we were right for each other.

            I sighed when I was finally done and watched the gossamer strands flow all the way down my legs, halting just below my knees.  The name Rapunzel fluttered through my mind as I glanced back in the mirror.  I was a strange sight to see, with flawless pale skin and pale hair that ran all the way down to my calves.  Maybe that was why Nick had dumped me…

            I shook the thought out of my head and checked my watch.  7:30. I still had 30 minutes before I had to be at the bus stop, and I was already set to leave.  What was I supposed to do for 30 whole minutes?

            My eyes brightened just slightly as an idea came into my head.  I ran back into the kitchen to look out the windows at the surrounding forest- at least what was left of it.  Was it safe?  Would anybody really be out and about this early in the morning?  Ordinarily I wouldn’t be too worried about getting caught, but after those stupid teenagers had burned down the woods, I couldn’t be too careful.  The coast seemed clear, and that uncomfortable feeling in my stomach had subsided, for now, so maybe I could get some exercise in before I left.

            Before I could change my mind, I reached behind me to reveal the crease in my shirt where I had installed the zipper.  Very carefully, I pulled the zipper down until the hole was completely open and exhaled in relief as my wings slipped through the flap.  I had been too preoccupied over my vacation to stretch out my wings, but now nobody was around, I could sense that it was safe, and I had 30 minutes of free time to kill.  What better way to spend that time than to fly as fast as I could and just tune out the world for a few precious moments?

            I fluttered my wings experimentally, smiling as my feet lifted off the ground.  It felt so good to finally use them again!  I shot out the back door after a short warm-up and let the world blur around me.

            I thought about my past while I flew, all the memories I had before this week that didn’t make me want to hide in bed all day.  Before I had lived on Earth, I had grown up in a small planet called Avalon.  I lived there for eight years, but then one day our Fairy Council had come to my house and asked my parents if they could send me to Earth.  They sent different fairies to Earth every year to help the humans with their natural disasters and magical infestations, but only the ones with the best talents could go.  I was honored to be a part of their program and left immediately.  I had always admired the fairies that came to this planet, and I had hoped they would pick me, but I had also thought that my talent wasn’t good enough.  While some fairies could bend the elements or turn invisible, my only unique quality was my sense of danger.  I knew when something bad would happen.  I didn’t know what it would be, but I always knew, and it had saved my people’s lives many times.  So they sent me here, to this tiny town of Palo, Iowa, where I could live safely undetected and help those in need.

            Well, that plan was in the process of being uprooted and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.  The officials had trusted me to keep our secret, and though nobody knew what I really was, the fact that they had found my house was enough to put us all in grave danger.  Nobody could know we existed, humans and other mythical creatures alike.  We could not be discovered.  It was the law.

            I slowed to a more human speed and dropped down to the ground when I heard a rustle in the bushes.  A deer jumped out of nowhere and scampered across the path to disappear into the trees once again.  That same uneasy feeling came back as I watched the creature, and I backed away on foot.  Whatever that creature was running from had to be the danger I was to face today.  I wasn’t going to let it find me here, completely vulnerable and with no witnesses.

            I opened my wings and fled back to the house.