Crescent Moon: Aloura Cullen

Chapter 10

So still and almost quiet, with low shallow breathes as the only sign of life, my mother laid out in a puddle of her own blood as she clings to every breath as though it were her last. I gently pick up her delicate head and carefully place it on my lap.

"M-mom, what happened? Who did this to you?" I asked in a low voice as the knot in my throat gets tighter and tighter with each word.

"G-Go, you..have to... run nuttaunes before.." She starts to say in a soft weak and strained voice. "Cough!" She begins to start coughing up blood as she tries to continue speaking.

"Please mom Stop! You need to save your strength. I'll get you out of here ok just hang on-." My hands are now shaking along with my legs as I try and pick her up as carefully as I can until she let's out a small whimper.

"Li-listen nuttaunes you... need to run please, they're s-still around here. Go f-find your...father." She says, her voice getting lower and weaker as she takes my hand and places it to her soft red lips where someone clearly hit her.

"I love you...s-so much Aloura, d-don't every...forget that." She starts swallowing her blood as she tries to continue.

"I love you mom, I love you!" I say softly rubbing her head as she pushes herself to finish.

"I wanted...to w-wait...until your father got b-back, but I don't t-think I can." I can feel her tears falling on my lap as she reaches under her side and pulls out something covered in blood. It's not until it reflects that's I realize what it is.

It's the locket I got as a child only its been encrusted with a type of turquoise stones running around it. She places it in my trembling hand and closes my fingers around it. I hold it and gently place my head on hers and just hold her. My heart aching with each beat as all I can do is listen to her breath get slower and slower. Death, this is death and no power on this earth was enough to stop it.

"Mom, I love you. You've done so much for me and I'm so grateful to have you in my life." I tell her as my tears fall onto her cheek and she smiles.

"You are so s-strong, your father and I are so p-proud of you." She starts to tremble as she places her soft red covered hand on my cheek and stares into my teary eyes with her beautiful brown ones.

"There aren't enough stars in the s-sky to show how much w-we love you." She softly says.

"I think I heard her talking to someone master!" We hear someone say from behind the house. I quickly try and pick her up, but it's no use she's in too much pain and her body had so many gashes, it was barely holding together.

"Go! Hide nuttaunes please, into the closet go h-hurry." She says as she tries pushing me away.

"Mother please! I won't leave you mom I won't-." I start crying even harder.

With the little strength she has left, she lifts her self up and hugs me. I hug her as softly as I can without hurting her any more than she already is. I burry my face in her long black hair and just hold her.

She pulls away then says,"I love you in t-this world and the next. Go hide nuttaunes, everything will be ok."

"I love you mom, forever, I love you." She kisses my forehead and smiles, then I slowly lay her back on the floor, get up and hide in the closet underneath the stairs.

I close the door but leave it cracked so I can see the monsters who did this to her. "Creek!" I hear slow footsteps coming down the hallway just as I make it inside. Then I see five hooded figures walk towards my mother. They start looking around and breaking more things.

"It's not dead yet, interesting. You know all you had to do was give up that thing you called a daughter and this would've been done with." I hear that familiar voice say. He removes his hood to reveal his long blonde hair and I remember who he is. It's the same man that mom and dad protected me from in the woods all those years ago.

"That's enough Caius." An unfamiliar but strange voice says. I don't know what it is about this man but the hairs on the back off my neck immediately stand up in high alert.

"Our brother doesn't seem to be here either." A different softer voice says.

"Master, would you like me to torture her again?" That voice I remember clearly, it's her, Jane.

"No her time is almost up." The strange man says.

"Poor thing is suffering, Sebastian put her out of her misery." The man with the softer voice says.

My heart begins to pound in my chest and I struggle to control it. Thanks to my father's gifts they can't pick up a trace of me, but I don't have his stealth yet, so they can still hear me. I close my eyes and try and take in slow and steady breathes.

"As you wish sir." The pale man says. He starts walking towards mother then all of a sudden, Ahh!
A young women who had been walking by and heard the commotion, decided to take a peek inside but was not expecting what she found. The one called Caius immediately appeared in front of her and pulled her inside. The women starts crying out for help and tries to get away with no success. Just as he lunged at her neck, "Don't!" The man with the soft voice says.

"Yes, let us put our new member to use shall we." The strange man says.

"We can't make a bigger mess than we already have. Sebastian do it!" The man ordered.

The tall man nods his head and walks over to the women. He places both his hands on her head and pierced into her eyes and says, "you will forget what you saw here tonight, you will continue your journey and forget every face you've seen in this house, now go." And just like that the women stops crying, straightens up and walks right out the broken door. That's all I needed as I replicate his gift he so unknowingly gave me.

"Well done boy, I'm glad my brother decided to spare you after all." Caius says. They soon redirect their attention back to my mother as she leans up against the table.

"Allow me master, I wouldn't want you dirtying up your hands." Jane says. She walks over to my mother and reaches for her neck.

"Stop! Sebastian you do it. You need to know what if feels like to take a life." The strange man says.
"But I can do it master he-" Jane starts to say before he holds up his hand and she quickly goes silent.

"Yes lord Aro." Sebastian says. I stop breathing for what felt like hours by the way my chest tightened.

This was the man who wrote me that horrible letter, which means these people are all members of the Volturi. Aro removed his hood and gestured for the soft spoken man to do the same. They were quite as Sebastian walked over to my mother and kneeled down to her. He reached out, brushing pass her long thick black hair towards her neck and put one hand on it. Mother looked over at the crack in the closet door I'm hiding behind and gently smiled then closed her eyes.

"My family, I love you." Her beautiful voice let's out.

"Stay strong my lovely girl, everything will be ok. I love you." Mother thinks over to me.

I try everything in me to close my eyes but I can't, they just get blurrier with each tear that falls down. My mouth begins to tremble and my throat is almost shut. My heart is almost beating through my chest. My ears try and hang on to those words for as long as they can until-

"CRACK!"

Everything around me stops. My heart, my breathing, my tears. I just sit there with my mouth open as the deafening sound of my mother's broken neck bounces off the destroyed walls and echoes through my distraught mind. Our bond was broken.

She's gone, mother is-