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Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of Afterlife: Venom and Blood
Stats:
Published:
2024-08-05
Completed:
2024-09-10
Words:
69,510
Chapters:
38/38
Comments:
113
Kudos:
298
Bookmarks:
55
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7,713

Afterlife

Summary:

Twenty-one year old Robin thought she had a pretty good grip on life. But after she is brutally murdered, it turns out that there is a lot she doesn't know about the world. Namely, that the world she read about in her younger sister's favorite teen vampire saga is actually real. Not only that, but she seems to belong to it, now.

Are there really vegetarian vampires in Forks, or did the books just manage to get some things absurdly right?

Confused, frightened, and above all thirsty, Robin makes her way North, hoping for a miracle.

Chapter 1: Robin's Dedication and Prologue

Notes:

Dear reader,
I am writing this story at a time in my life where the craving for comfort, home, and sense of safety often conflict with responsibility. I was drawn to the character of Robin, who I dreamed up many years ago, because she is seeking all those same things and finds herself in the same conflict.

Since rereading Twilight after a decade or so, I was struck by the interesting dynamics in the Cullen family and I wanted to see more of that. I wanted to see how they work, how they need each other, how they fit together, and what real life might look like for them. And I didn't want to see it from Bella's perspective. I wanted to see it as it was experienced by an outsider who really needed a family--and not just any family, but who really needed them. To be honest, who doesn't need a warm and supportive mother like Esme or a compassionate, encouraging father like Carlisle?

This fanfiction is my attempt to flesh all this out.

Romance will come. There will be adventure, intrigue, bloodshed, heartbreak, and loss. But there will also be home, cozy places, and a strong foundation of family to land on.

With hope,
Aravis

Chapter Text

Robin's Dedication


For Hannah, because we shared a death.

Just between us, yours was probably better.





"One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more,

Death, thou shalt die."

- John Donne

Prologue

They came in while Hannah and I slept and tore open our throats with their teeth.

Hannah’s parents would find her body in the morning. It was where they left it, haphazardly hanging off the edge of her bed, her eyes staring, her long, blond hair–streaked with now dried blood–brushing the floor. Gruesome. Ugly. Grisly. It would say that in the papers, and then it would say “other victim, Robin Martin, age 21, of Montgomery County, TX still missing” and a picture my sister had recently taken of me would appear farther down in the article with requests for information. The police would follow the trail of my blood out the door, down the hallway, across the kitchen and down the patio stairs. I wouldn't be hard to track, at least not until they found the place on the creek bank where I slid in, to be carried by the current to the joining river, and away into the woods.

But that was an eternity ago. The calendar said three days, but for me, it was a lifetime.

They would not find my body in the morning, but my life ended that night.