*****This was originally written as a second person point of view story, but this website has changed the guidelines to forbid that type of story, so I am changing it to first person point of view. Otherwise it is the same story. *****

Disclaimer: This goes for this entire story. Stephenie Meyer owns the entire Twilight saga, and I am simply playing with her characters. I am doing this to satisfy my own imagination, for my own enjoyment, and am not receiving compensation for any of this.

Rating Warning: This is an M rated fiction, which means 18 and older. It will include violence, curse words, and probably sexual relations between characters. If a parent still sets your bedtime, you're definitely too young to be reading this.

xxxxxxx

Prologue

(The small amount of gore in this chapter, describing an accident scene is the worst I will see in this story, as I'm not fond of gory descriptions.)

I listen happily as my favorite song plays in my headphones, my eyes on the lame movie being played on the monitor above me, though I'm not really watching it. Instead, I'm remembering the radio contest I heard on the loudspeakers at the grocery store. It wasn't a station I knew or would normally listen to, but I just happened to know the right answer to their trivia question and called in on a whim. To my delighted shock and surprise, my call went through, and I actually won the grand prize.

The prize was an all expenses paid vacation for me and my entire family. It had taken some finagling to work out everybody's schedules, but now everyone I love is on this luxury shuttle bus, traveling to the host resort. I'm keeping my eyes pointed at the little TV screen, because the view out the window of this winding road through the mountains was making me nervous. The bus seemed to be hugging the guard rail, much closer to the drop off of hundreds of feet straight down than I'd like.

The blaring of a loud horn alerts me to lean into the aisle and look through the front windshield. To my dismay, I notice an eighteen wheeler careening wildly down the mountain toward the bus. The driver is beeping the horn in a series of long and short blasts, making me wonder if he is attempting to sound out a distress signal in Morse code. That isn't really important, and I easily dismiss the question as soon as I realize he is traveling mainly in the center of the lane, seemingly out of control and unable to reduce his speed.

The bus driver begins swearing, sweating, and blasting the bus's horn, as if that might help somehow. At least he is also slowing down, his eyes looking for the widest point of the road in hopes of avoiding a collision. Others on the bus have also caught onto the problem, and screams are mixed with shouts of advice and desperately murmured prayers.

The truck driver tries his best to stay on his side of the road to prevent the imminent catastrophe, while the bus driver is scraping the guard rail, as far over in his lane as he can get. The bus has slowed to nearly a standstill, but the truck is definitely without functioning brakes and keeps picking up speed. Peering into the cab of the truck as it approaches, I can see the terror on the driver's wide-eyed face and the white of his tightly clenched knuckles on the steering wheel.

There is a cheer from some of the passengers as the cab of the truck slips past the front of the bus without touching, but alas, the rear of the truck is unable to make the turn and drifts over into the oncoming lane. The panicked bus driver puts the bus into reverse and guns the engine, desperately trying to get the bus out of the way, so it won't take the full brunt of the impact. His idea might have worked, if he'd thought of it sooner, but his reaction time simply isn't fast enough. The last ten feet of the truck slam into the bus's front at an angle, shoving the bus right up, over, and through the guard rail. For a second, everyone on the bus freezes, not even daring to breathe, as the bus teeters on the edge. Time seems to slow down as the adrenalin increases my perception and ability to gather and process information. Then the bus is falling, whistling through the air, plummeting toward the rocks below.

I'm too young to die! I still have so much left to see and do, I think to myself, though part of me knows I would think that even if I were twenty or thirty years older than I am now. My mind gives out before the big crash, and I thankfully lose consciousness, narrowly avoiding experiencing the most painful part.

All too soon, I become aware I'm hovering over the smashed and burning remnants of the bus, seeing the horrifying reality of the near instantaneous death of all my loved ones. Hearing retching sounds, I look up to see the driver of the eighteen wheeler off to the side of the road, puking his guts out behind his front tire. The large truck had flipped over multiple times, rolling and sliding partway down the mountain along the roadway, before friction had done the job the damaged brakes had been unable to do. A full third of the truck's smashed rear end hangs over the precipice, but enough remains on the road's surface to keep it from going over the edge. my attention returns to the chaotic mess below me as I hear the truck driver shakily calling the authorities.

The scene below is so horrendous, my brain doesn't want to make sense of it at first. I begin picking out the familiar faces of my loved ones, distinguishing them from the others who'd been traveling to the resort on vacations of their own. I feel something similar to nausea as I spy the tiny broken bodies of the children on board, twisted in unnatural positions, dripping with blood, and impaled by glass, metal, and plastic. The seat belts and booster seats had been unable to protect them from the massive force of impact and the resultant destruction.

The seat belts hadn't been any more effective in saving the adults who had chosen to wear them. Those who hadn't bothered to put on their seat belts were tangled up with those who had. Various severed body parts are scattered throughout, and the blood of many has painted the entire scene red. In fact, there is so much red, it's impossible to distinguish skin color or eye color on most of the bodies in the fading light. So many of the faces wear nearly identical expressions, eyes wide open, staring blankly in horror, and mouths locked open in silent screams.

After identifying the person most special to me out of all the others, the last of my group, my eyes shift to the area of the bus where my seat had been. Casting my sickened, grieving gaze around unseeingly for a few moments, my brain struggles to come to terms with the bloody mess in front of me. Finally, unwillingly, it dawns on me. It is me, what's left of me. That bloody pile of pulp is my body, mangled nearly beyond recognition, tangled up in the wreckage.

The disturbing odor of burning flesh and hair suddenly hits me, as the bus bursts into flame, a fiery ball of death exploding in the night, cooking the human remains, as if to permanently seal the deal. All hope of rescue, of recovery, is now lost, not that I'd really been harboring any hope anyway.

The string tying my spirit to my body suddenly snaps, like a taut rubber band being released on one side, recoiling and casting me backward. I feel a strange tug from behind me, that steadily increases in intensity until it feels like a really powerful vacuum cleaner is sucking me up into it. I look fearfully over my shoulder and gasp when I spy a small black hole. The suction is coming from the hole, and no matter how hard I struggle, I can't fight the pull. It drags me backward, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Scared of the unknown and worried about how I will fit through such a tiny hole, I realize I'm about to answer the age old question of what awaits 'on the other side' after death.

Before I have time to unleash my imagination, time has run out for me. I'm right in front of the hole with no way to stop my progression. I feel myself folding up and stretching out as the darkness swallows me. I feel like I'm being sucked through a straw, inside out and upside down. I barely have time to register surprise that my new form actually fit through such a tiny hole before I feel myself racing faster and faster through the tube, accelerating rapidly, until I feel like my skin will peel away at the current speed. Suddenly I'm thrust out into an open area, shooting out like a spit ball from a straw, flying through the inky blackness without restraint. My body seems to expand, stretching out of proportion, bouncing off invisible barriers that contain it, even as I flow and bend, filling every crevice, nook, and cranny of this new space. Confused and exhausted by the journey, my thoughts fade into nothingness, followed eventually by dreams of happier times spent with my loved ones, the ones who no longer exist outside of my memories. Thus begins my process of grieving the life I have known and the people I have loved.

Though I do not yet realize it, my spirit now inhabits a new body in a new universe. A universe well known to me, despite never having lived there before. It is a universe of possibilities, where the supernatural are more than just a figment of an overactive imagination. It is a universe where secrets are prevalent, soul mates abound, death is always imminent, and love is eternal.