They came on a night like any other- still, cold, and quiet.
The snow had fallen that morning, masking the forest in a hush like death's own lullaby. I'd gone to sleep with my mother's song humming in my ear, her fingers tracing my hair, her voice trembling just a little more than usual.
I drifted to sleep only to wake to the silence of predators.
Not normal silence. This was a void. No wind. No creaking trees. No breath from the world around me. Just stillness, the one that comes before the storm.
And it was broken by a sound barely audible, but it sliced through me like a scream.
A whisper of movement. Too fast. Too smooth.
Volturi… they're here. No one had to tell me I knew immediately.
I rolled out of bed, no longer the baby I was born as. My limbs were fast now, strong. I could move like no human child should. But I was still just a child small in a world about to collapse.
The glass shattered downstairs.
Then voices. Cold, musical, and sharp as glass ground into stone.
"A pity they ran so long. Fortunately, It ends tonight."
"We only want the child. Stand aside."
"He's not a child. He's an abomination."
"Hand over the freak and you might live to tell the tale."
My father's voice answered low, steady, seething with restrained fury.
"You'll never touch him."
A sound like thunder crashing through trees. The house trembled. Screams then snarls, like wild beasts. Furniture shattered. Walls cracked. The floor beneath my feet shook with force no human construction should endure.
I ran to the stairs but stopped halfway down.
My father beautiful and furious, a blur of shadows and fists crashed into a cloaked vampire, throwing them through the kitchen wall. My mother was faster, her movements liquid, savage, graceful she tore into another attacker with her bare hands, a snarl on her lips.
Blood splashed the walls. Not red. Black, almost silvery in the moonlight. Vampire venom I recognised it immediately. The thing running the vampire's body.
My parents fought bravely, each taking on multiple. Surprisingly my mother took more numbers than my father, probably due to her newborn strength and speed.
But there were too many.
They came in waves. Cloaks of crimson and black. Faces pale and merciless. And eyes… eyes like old embers in a dying fire.
The Volturi. I knew them, saw them through the screen but they were different from the screen ones. They were more intimidating, their bloodlust almost tangible. They were far different than their counterparts almost a domestic cat compared to a wild untamed lion.
My eyes reached to their leader. Or maybe not the leader, but the one who came to kill me. He didn't move at first. Just stood watching, eyes fixed on me even as the fight raged around him.
"The abomination… watches," he murmured. "…He learns." His eyes burn with hidden desire.
It wasn't curiosity. It was cruelty. Fascination with a specimen before dissection.
I wanted to scream. To run and fight.
But my legs froze. My hands trembled. I couldn't do anything but watch helplessly. Helplessly as my father roared a beast cry and charged at the cloaked one watching me.
And that's when it happened.
A crack of sound. A flash of movement and my father went still in mid-lunge his chest pierced clean through by a marble-white hand.
He looked at me. Just for a second. His lips didn't move. But I heard him. In my blood, my bones and my soul.
The Volturi vampire pulled his arm free, a heart clutched between his graceful fingers. My father's heart. I watched as he crumbled like a fallen god.
A scream tore from me high and broken and more human than anything I'd ever done. Along it, the ever-growing pressure behind my temple exploded.
An omnidirectional wave of Psychic energy spread me as the center. My intense hatred for them changed its nature to attack them mentally, to destroy them.
The mental attack was strong it made younger vampires mentally dead immediately, older ones ones were knocked out only the ancient ones came out without much damage but the mental blast made them disoriented as well.
My mother saw all that and didn't hesitate. She crossed the room in a breath, grabbed me, and ran.
I felt the wind scream past. Snow and trees and moonlight became streaks of silver.
Behind us, I heard the monsters follow, shrugging off their disorientation.
She whispered as we ran, voice shaking with venomous tears she wouldn't let fall.
"You are our everything, baby, my sweet boy, my Atlas. Mama loves you so did Papa. It pains Mama to say this but listen to me very carefully baby, you have to run. Run as far as possible. Mama will go and lead them away from here. Don't wait for me."
I clung to her as she spoke, tears burning my skin. My fingers dug into her shirt. I didn't want to let go.
But I knew- I knew I had or else we both would die. My father's sacrifice would be in vain. There would be no one to avenge him. No one to kill those who took him away from me.
We were deep in the woods now, near a narrow gorge with a frozen creek below.
She set me down, kissed my forehead, and smiled fierce and bright.
"When you remember this, my son… remember we chose this. We chose you so please live a happy and long life for us. Don't seek revenge. It would be against all we would want from you." She said, her tone pleading.
Then she turned. And ran back into the dark.
I started at her retreating back and stood with shaky legs.
I turned around and pushed myself with whatever strength I had left and ran.
I wanted to wait for her to return but I knew better.
She would not return and she never did. I don't know how I knew that but I just did.
The darkness of this world swallowed her. They killed her. They took them both.
Tears returned as I realized I was alone.
Alone in this world that wants me dead.
I didn't stop moving for hours. My speed was fast, blurred to human eyes.
The cold didn't bother me. The hunger didn't bite. Nothing reached me. I ran without stopping just as she wanted me to.
I didn't cry at that point, my body had no tears to shed. My eyes were completely dry.
I don't know when but I stopped
Memories of their last moments flashed before my eyes.
First came the stillness.
Then came the sound- soft, broken, curling out of me like breath from a dying fire.
I screamed until my throat bled. Until the birds flew away. Until even the predators feared me.
I pounded the earth with my fists until the rocks shattered and the ground split.
They were good and kind. They did not deserve it. They should have lived a happy life with me. They should have seen me grow, enjoy the world togather. The new life was just starting for them and me.
And yet they were gone now. My parents. My protectors. My home.
All were stolen by cloaks and red eyes. All stolen by Volturi the ruler of this world.
I buried their names inside me.
"I will destroy them," I vowed, my voice hoarse and shaky. Not loud or angry. Not a some wrathful roar. Just a whisper. Cold and quiet Like goddess of death making a promise.
I didn't know how I would do it. And I didn't know when I would do it.
But I knew one day, the Volturi would bleed. And I would be the one to make them.
Vowing to myself I ran once more.