CHAPTER 1: STRANGER IN FORKS
The cold bit first.
Peter's lungs seized on the inhale, muscles convulsing as his body jackknifed upright. Pine needles pressed into his palms, slick with rain and something darker—mud, maybe blood. His head throbbed with the rhythm of his pulse, each beat a hammer against his skull. He blinked, and the world swam into focus through a curtain of water.
Trees. Everywhere, trees.
Towering Douglas firs crowded the sky, their branches knitting together overhead like skeletal fingers. Rain fell in sheets, drumming against the canopy with a sound like television static. The air tasted of moss and decay, sharp and metallic on his tongue. Peter's hand went to his chest, fingers scrabbling for purchase against soaked fabric.
Breathing. I'm breathing.
The thought anchored him, even as everything else spun loose. He pushed himself up, knees sinking into the forest floor. His jeans were torn at one knee, skin beneath scraped raw. Blood welled, sluggish and red, entirely too human. He stared at it, watching rain dilute the crimson into pink rivulets.
I should be dead.
The memory hit like a freight train—headlights, the shriek of tires, a child's face frozen in terror. His body moving before his brain could catch up, the impact of metal against flesh. His flesh. The world spinning, pain blooming white-hot, then—
Nothing.
But not nothing, because here he was. Alive. In a forest that smelled wrong and felt wrong and was definitely not the intersection where he'd—
Peter's stomach heaved. He twisted, retching onto the moss, but nothing came up except bile and the sour taste of impossibility. When the spasms subsided, he stayed hunched over, forehead pressed against his knees, breathing through his mouth.
Cars. Skyscrapers. Coffee shops with WiFi passwords taped to the counter. Mom's voice on the phone, asking when I'd visit. Dad's silence. My apartment with its leaking faucet and the neighbor who played bass at 2 AM.
The memories were there, crisp and clear and utterly unreachable. Like looking at photographs through bulletproof glass. He could see the life he'd had—twenty-three years of mundane existence, dead-end job, expired gym membership, student loans he'd die before paying off—but it felt distant. Borrowed.
I did die.
Peter's hands were shaking. He pressed them flat against the ground, focusing on the texture of decomposing leaves, the sharp prick of fir needles. Physical sensation. Proof of existence.
A drop of water hit the back of his neck, colder than the rest, and he jerked upright.
That's when he noticed the silence.
Not actual silence—the rain was a constant percussion, and somewhere a bird called, sharp and piercing—but the absence of city noise. No car horns. No sirens. No low hum of electricity thrumming through power lines. Just trees and rain and the whisper of wind through branches.
Peter stood, legs unsteady, and turned in a slow circle.
The forest stretched in every direction, a maze of trunks and undergrowth. To his left, the ground sloped downward, disappearing into mist. To his right, more of the same. Behind him—
A road.
Not much of one, barely more than two ruts cutting through the vegetation, but it was man-made. Asphalt peeked through in patches, cracked and overgrown. Peter stumbled toward it, feet slipping on wet earth, and nearly sobbed with relief when his boots hit solid ground.
Okay. Okay. Road means people. People means answers. People means I'm not losing my goddamn mind.
But even as he thought it, another part of his brain—the part that had spent too many late nights scrolling through forums and wikis and fanfiction archives—whispered something else.
Forks, Washington.
Peter froze.
The knowledge settled over him like a weight, undeniable and absurd. He knew this place. Not personally, never been within a thousand miles of the Pacific Northwest in his life, but he knew it. The endless rain. The oppressive green. The small town huddled against the Olympic Peninsula, population 3,120, famous for exactly one thing.
Vampires.
"No," Peter said aloud, voice hoarse. "No, absolutely fucking not."
But the certainty wouldn't fade. It dug in with claws, sharp and persistent. This was Forks. That meant somewhere in this waterlogged hell, there was a family of sparkly bloodsuckers living in a glass house, a sullen teenage girl about to stumble into their world, and—
A sound cut through his spiraling thoughts. Sharp. Mechanical.
PING.
Peter spun, looking for the source, but there was nothing. Just trees and rain and that godawful mist creeping up from the valley below.
PING.
Louder this time. Or not louder—closer. Inside his skull, resonating against his thoughts like feedback through a microphone.
"What—"
Words materialized in his vision. Not on a screen, not projected, just there, hovering in the air like an afterimage burned into his retinas. They appeared as if someone were typing them directly into his consciousness, crisp black text against the blurred backdrop of rain-soaked forest.
SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE. Welcome, Host. Designation: Peter. Status: ACTIVE. Location: Forks, Washington, USA. Date: January 7, 2005.
Peter's knees buckled. He caught himself against a tree trunk, bark rough under his palm, and stared at the text that shouldn't exist.
"I'm hallucinating," he said, voice flat. "I'm dead or in a coma or having a psychotic break, and none of this is real."
The words didn't disappear. If anything, they sharpened, edges crisp and clean against the blurred backdrop of rain.
SYSTEM RESPONSE: Host status: Alive. Mental state: Within acceptable parameters. Hallucination probability: 0.00%. Recommendation: Accept current reality and proceed with orientation.
Peter laughed. It came out strangled, edging toward hysteria. "Accept reality. Right. The reality where I'm talking to fucking text messages in my brain."
CLARIFICATION: This unit is designated as the Mimic System. Function: To assist Host in survival and power acquisition within current universe. Primary capability: Supernatural ability replication from proximate entities. Secondary capability: Mental protection suite. Tertiary capability: Emergency intervention protocols.
The words hovered, patient and merciless. Peter read them twice, three times, waiting for them to dissolve or warp or do anything that would confirm this was just trauma-induced delusion.
They didn't.
"Mimic System," Peter repeated, voice hollow. "Supernatural abilities. Emergency protocols." He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, hard enough to see stars. "I'm in Twilight. I died and woke up in Twilight with a goddamn isekai system."
CONFIRMATION: Affirmative. Host designation: Peter. Role: Survive. Additional context: Host possesses metaknowledge of local supernatural entities and timeline. Advantage: Significant. Warning: Timeline disruption possible. Recommend discretion.
Peter dropped his hands. The forest swam back into focus, rain-soaked and indifferent. He was cold. Wet. Alone. And apparently starring in some cosmic joke where dying to save a kid had earned him... what? A second chance? A mission? A front-row seat to watching Bella Swan's disaster of a love life play out in real time?
"This is insane," he said, but the words lacked conviction. Because underneath the panic and disbelief, something else stirred. Something that had been dormant in his old life, buried under routine and resignation.
Curiosity.
"Okay," Peter said slowly. "Okay. Let's say this is real. Let's say I'm... here. In Forks. With you in my head." He gestured vaguely at the space where the text hovered. "What happens now?"
DIRECTIVE: Primary objective: Locate supernatural entities within 10-meter detection range. Secondary objective: Select ability to mimic. Duration per mimic: 24 hours. Progress toward permanent unlock: 0/10 abilities mimicked. Warning: Host transformation accompanies ability acquisition. Prepare for physiological change.
Peter's mouth went dry. "Transformation. You mean like... vampire transformation?"
AFFIRMATIVE: Mimicking vampire ability grants vampire physiology for duration. Benefits: Enhanced strength, speed, senses, healing. Drawbacks: Blood thirst, sunlight exposure risk, return to human baseline after 24 hours. Note: Permanent form retention not possible. Human baseline is permanent state.
"Not possible," Peter echoed, and something in his chest tightened. The promise of power, dangled and snatched away in the same breath. He wanted to be angry, but exhaustion was winning. "So I get to be a vampire for a day, then I'm back to being breakable."
CORRECTION: Every 10 abilities mimicked unlocks permanent ability selection. Current progress: 0/10. Permanent abilities function in both human and transformed states. Recommendation: Begin mimic acquisition.
Peter stared at the space where the words had been, at the clinical detachment of it all. A game. The System was treating this like a game, and he was the player character.
Or the pawn.
But pawns didn't get systems. Didn't get second chances. And they definitely didn't get dropped into fictional universes with the power to copy superpowers.
"Alright," Peter said, straightening despite the ache in his ribs. "Alright. You want me to find vampires? Fine. I know where they are."
He turned toward the road, legs steadier now, and started walking. The rain fell harder, soaking through his jacket, but he barely felt it. His mind was already racing ahead, cataloging what he knew.
The Cullens. Seven of them, counting Carlisle and Esme. Edward, the mind-reader. Alice, who sees the future. Jasper, the emotion manipulator. Emmett, all brute strength. Rosalie, beautiful and bitter. They live in a mansion outside town, play human during the day, hunt animals at night.
And they're about to have their world turned upside down by a clumsy teenager who smells like heroin to Edward.
Peter's footsteps squelched in the mud at the road's edge. The asphalt was slick, rainwater pooling in every crack and depression. He had no idea which direction led to town, but instinct—or maybe the System's influence—pulled him right.
He walked for twenty minutes before the trees began to thin.
The first sign of civilization was a rusted mailbox leaning at a drunken angle, its red flag long since corroded away. Then a driveway, gravel giving way to mud. A house materialized through the mist—small, vinyl-sided, with a sagging porch and windows dark despite the early afternoon gloom.
Peter kept walking.
More houses appeared, scattered along the road like teeth in a broken jaw. None of them looked occupied, or if they were, the occupants had the good sense to stay inside where it was dry. The road widened, potholes giving way to smoother pavement. A street sign emerged from the fog: CALAWAH WAY.
I'm actually here. This is actually happening.
The realization should have terrified him. Instead, it settled like a stone in his gut, heavy but manageable. He'd died once already. What was a little impossible transmigration compared to that?
The rain eased to a drizzle as he reached what passed for Forks' main drag. A handful of storefronts huddled together, their signs faded and water-stained. A hardware store. A diner with a flickering OPEN sign. A thrift shop with mannequins staring sightlessly through the window, dressed in clothes that screamed 1995.
Peter's stomach growled, sharp and insistent. When had he last eaten? His memories of the hours before his death were hazy, but his body was screaming for fuel.
The diner it was.
He pushed through the door, triggering a cheerful bell that clashed with the somber gray light outside. The interior smelled of coffee and grease, warm and almost aggressively normal. A handful of customers occupied the booths—an elderly couple picking at pancakes, a trucker nursing a mug at the counter, a woman with a toddler who was enthusiastically destroying a plate of hash browns.
Peter slid into a booth near the back, as far from the other patrons as possible. His jeans squelched against the vinyl, and he realized he was leaving puddles on the floor. Great. Nothing said "stable, normal human" like looking like a drowned rat.
A waitress materialized, notepad in hand. She was maybe fifty, with hair dyed an improbable shade of auburn and a name tag that read SANDRA. Her smile was automatic, professional, but her eyes lingered on his soaked clothes.
"Coffee?" she asked, already reaching for the pot on a nearby warmer.
"Please," Peter said, voice rough from disuse. "And, uh... whatever food you've got that's hot and fast."
Sandra's eyebrows rose slightly, but she nodded. "Burger and fries work?"
"Perfect."
She poured the coffee—black, steaming, smelling like salvation—and disappeared toward the kitchen. Peter wrapped both hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into his frozen fingers. He sipped, wincing at the burn, and forced himself to think.
Okay. Step one: Don't look crazy. Step two: Figure out where the hell the Cullens are. Step three: Get close enough to trigger the System. Step four: Try not to die or accidentally break the timeline.
Simple. Totally doable. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
He was halfway through his coffee when the conversation at the counter snagged his attention.
"—still can't believe they let their kids go to school here," the trucker was saying, voice low but carrying in the small space. "Those Cullen kids."
Sandra, refilling his mug, made a noncommittal sound. "They keep to themselves. Doc Cullen's been nothing but helpful at the hospital."
"Helpful, sure. But there's something off about 'em. You see the way they look at people? Like they're... I don't know. Better than us or something."
"They're just pretty, Earl. Don't be jealous."
Earl snorted. "Pretty don't explain why they never eat. Margie's daughter has lunch with the blonde one—Rosalie, I think—says she just pushes food around her plate the whole time. Never takes a bite."
Peter's pulse quickened. He forced himself to take another sip of coffee, casual, just another customer eavesdropping on small-town gossip.
"And that big one," Earl continued, warming to his topic. "Emmett. Kid's built like a linebacker, but you never see him at any games. None of 'em do sports, or clubs, or anything normal teenagers do. Just show up, go to class, leave together soon as the bell rings."
"Maybe they're homeschooled kids who just—"
"For five years? Nah. Something ain't right."
Sandra sighed, the sound of someone who'd had this conversation a thousand times. "Well, they're not hurting anyone. And frankly, with the way things are going these days—all those bear attacks up in the mountains—I'm just glad Doc Cullen's around if someone gets mauled."
"Bear attacks," Earl muttered, and even Peter could hear the skepticism.
The food arrived, cutting off his eavesdropping. Peter tore into the burger with single-minded focus, his body screaming gratitude for every greasy, salty bite. He'd forgotten hunger could feel like this—like a living thing clawing at his insides.
By the time he'd finished, the trucker had paid and left, and the diner had settled into a drowsy afternoon quiet. Peter pushed his plate away and tried to look like he belonged here, like he had somewhere to go and a reason for being in Forks beyond "transmigrated into a vampire romance with a power-copying System."
Sandra reappeared with the check. Peter stared at it, then at her, and felt his stomach drop.
He had no money.
Of course he had no money. He'd died in his own world, woke up here with nothing but the clothes on his back—which, judging by the lack of wallet-shaped bulge in his pocket, meant exactly that. Nothing.
"Shit," Peter said under his breath.
Sandra's professional smile flickered. "Problem?"
"I, uh..." Peter's mind raced. He could run. Just bolt out the door and hope small-town law enforcement was as incompetent as TV made it look. Or he could—
Wait.
He looked at Sandra, really looked at her. Tired eyes. The faint smell of cigarette smoke clinging to her uniform. The way she held herself, shoulders rolled forward like she was bracing for the next small disaster.
Peter leaned forward, meeting her eyes, and felt something click into place in his mind. Not the System—this was older, deeper. A skill he'd never known he had, or maybe one that had been sleeping in his DNA all along.
"You know what?" he said, voice smooth, confident. "You're going to forget about this check. I was never here. Just another face in the afternoon rush."
The words felt strange in his mouth, weighted with intent that went beyond their meaning. Sandra blinked, and something in her expression went soft, unfocused.
"Right," she said slowly. "Another face. No problem."
She picked up the check, crumpled it absently, and walked away.
Peter sat frozen, heart hammering against his ribs.
What the hell was that?
But he knew. Deep down, in the part of his brain that was starting to accept the impossible as routine, he knew.
Compulsion. I just used compulsion. But I haven't mimicked anything yet. I'm still human.
He stood, legs shaky, and headed for the door. Outside, the rain had picked up again, cold and relentless. He turned left, then right, trying to orient himself.
A flicker of movement caught his eye. Across the street, barely visible through the downpour, a sleek silver Volvo was parked in front of the hardware store.
Peter's breath caught.
No way. There's no way it's that easy.
But even as he thought it, the hardware store door opened, and two figures emerged.
They moved with a grace that made his eyes hurt to track, fluid and inhuman. The first was male—bronze hair, chiseled features that belonged on a Renaissance sculpture. He carried a bag of what looked like canned goods, his expression locked somewhere between boredom and barely concealed disdain.
The second was female, petite with short black hair spiked in every direction. She laughed at something the male said, the sound like wind chimes, and Peter's entire body locked up.
Edward and Alice.
He knew them. Not personally, not really, but he knew them the way you knew characters from a book you'd read a dozen times. Edward Cullen, the brooding mind-reader. Alice Cullen, the hyperactive precognitive.
And they were walking straight toward their car, which meant they were about to leave, which meant—
Peter's feet moved before his brain caught up. He crossed the street at a jog, rain plastering his hair to his forehead, and nearly crashed into a lamp post in his haste.
Edward's head snapped up. His eyes—golden, impossibly bright—locked onto Peter with the precision of a predator spotting prey.
For one terrible, eternal second, they stared at each other across twenty feet of rain-soaked asphalt.
Then the System PINGED.
The sound was deafening inside Peter's skull, drowning out the rain, the traffic, his own thundering heartbeat. Text erupted across his vision, sharp and urgent:
SUPERNATURAL ENTITY DETECTED. Range: 18 meters. Scanning abilities... SUPERNATURAL ENTITY DETECTED. Range: 18 meters. Scanning abilities... Processing... SCAN COMPLETE. Available abilities: Telepathy & Advanced Compulsion - Vampire - Edward Cullen. Precognition - Vampire - Alice Cullen. SELECT ABILITY TO MIMIC. Warning: Selection triggers immediate transformation. Host will assume vampire physiology for 24-hour duration.
Peter stared at the text, at the two options hovering like fate condensed into bullet points.
Edward's expression shifted, confusion bleeding into alarm. His mouth opened—
Peter didn't give him time to speak.
"Telepathy and compulsion," he said, voice barely above a whisper.
The System's response was instant.
SELECTION CONFIRMED: Telepathy & Advanced Compulsion. Vampire transformation initiating. Duration: 24:00:00. Status: ACTIVE. Brace for physiological restructuring.
The world broke.
Peter's knees hit the pavement, but he didn't feel the impact. Every nerve in his body was screaming, not in pain but in more—sensation flooding through him like a dam had burst. His vision sharpened to the point of agony, the world snapping into crystalline focus. He could see individual raindrops suspended in the air, track their trajectory from cloud to asphalt. The threads on Edward's jacket. The microscopic imperfections in Alice's skin that somehow made her more perfect, not less.
Sound hit next. The roar of blood in his veins—his blood, but different, moving with purpose and power. The conversation happening two blocks away, crystal clear: "—can't believe the price of milk—" The scratch of a pen on paper inside the hardware store. The whisper of fabric as Alice shifted her weight.
Smell nearly drove him to his knees. The rain wasn't just water; it was a cocktail of ozone and earth and the faint chemical tang of car exhaust. He could smell the coffee on his own breath, the grease from the burger. And underneath it all, threading through every other scent like a bass note—
Blood.
Rich. Warm. Alive.
Peter's throat burned with sudden, vicious hunger. His eyes snapped to the diner, where Sandra was visible through the window, and his body coiled, ready to move faster than thought—
A hand clamped on his shoulder.
Peter spun, and found himself face-to-face with Edward Cullen. The vampire's golden eyes were wide, his expression caught between shock and something that might have been fear.
"What are you?" Edward demanded, voice low and dangerous.
Peter opened his mouth to answer, and heard a dozen thoughts that weren't his crash into his mind like breaking glass:
—can't hear anything from him nothing at all what IS he Alice do you see—
—oh no oh nonono he's going to attack he smells the humans I have to—
—danger danger DANGER—
—that girl in the diner her blood smells like—
Peter slammed mental walls up on instinct, and the voices cut off like someone had muted a television. Edward staggered back, his hand dropping from Peter's shoulder.
"You..." Edward's voice was strangled. "I can't read you."
"Yeah," Peter managed, his voice coming out rough and wrong, an octave deeper than it should be. "Funny how that works."
He looked down at his hands. They were the same, but not—paler, harder, the skin seeming to catch and reflect light even under the overcast sky. He flexed his fingers, and watched the tendons move with inhuman precision.
I'm a vampire. Holy shit, I'm actually a vampire.
Alice stepped forward, her movements cautious. Her eyes were unfocused, seeing something beyond the physical world.
"You're..." She tilted her head, and her expression crumpled into confusion. "You're blank. I can't see you. Your future just... stops."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Mental Protection Suite active. Host is shielded from telepathic and precognitive intrusion. Note: This extends to external observation of Host's decisions and timeline.
Peter would have laughed if his throat didn't feel like it was on fire. "That's the System. It's got my back against mind-readers and future-seers."
Both Cullens stared at him.
"System?" Alice repeated.
"Long story." Peter forced himself to straighten, to push past the screaming hunger in his veins. The burn was constant now, a living thing coiled in his chest. But underneath it, threading through the pain, was power. He felt like he could run to Seattle and back without breaking a sweat. Could hear conversations happening miles away if he concentrated. Could—
A thought drifted through the air, sourceless and immediate: —hope Earl remembered to pick up the milk—
Peter flinched. The thought had come from the woman with the toddler, still visible in the diner. He could hear her. Not just her voice, but her thoughts, rising off her mind like steam.
"Oh, this is so weird," Peter muttered.
"You need to come with us." Edward's voice cut through his fascination, sharp with authority. "Now. Before you do something you'll regret."
Peter met his eyes, and for the first time since waking up in the forest, felt something like control settle over him.
"Yeah," he said. "I think we've got a lot to talk about."
Alice's expression flickered—still confused, still seeing nothing—but she nodded and moved toward the Volvo.
Edward didn't take his eyes off Peter. "Can you control it? The thirst?"
Peter swallowed, tasting ash and hunger. "Ask me again in five minutes."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's honest."
For a long moment, they stood in the rain, vampire and... whatever Peter was now. The System's presence hummed in the back of his mind, patient and inexorable. Twenty-four hours. He had twenty-four hours of this power, this terrible, wonderful power.
Then Edward turned toward the car. "Get in. We're taking you somewhere you can't hurt anyone."
Peter followed, each step feeling like he was walking on springs, and tried not to think about how good Sandra's blood had smelled.
Twenty-four hours, he thought. Then I'm human again. I can do this. I can keep it together for twenty-four hours.
Behind him, barely audible even with his enhanced hearing, Alice whispered: "I can't see him at all. It's like he doesn't exist."
Peter climbed into the backseat of the Volvo and watched the town of Forks slide past through tinted windows.
Welcome to your new life, he thought, and felt the System's silent agreement pulse through his skull like a second heartbeat.