Adam had been working construction for nearly a year now. It wasn't his dream job—hell, he didn't really have a dream job. But it paid the bills, and that was all that mattered. Being an orphan meant there was no safety net, no family to fall back on if things went south. If he wanted to survive, he had to keep working, keep pushing forward.
That's how life was. You either kept going, or you got left behind.
He wiped sweat off his forehead, muscles aching from hauling materials all day. The sun was brutal, and the dry heat made everything worse.
"Yo, Adam, break time," one of the guys called out.
Adam sighed in relief and sat down on a pile of wooden planks, taking a sip from his water bottle. He let his mind wander, thinking about the book he had been reading last night. Twilight. Yeah, he knew it wasn't the most "macho" thing to read, but he didn't care. Books were an escape, a way to forget how shitty life could be.
As he stared off into the distance, he heard a loud creak above him.
Instinct kicked in too late.
Something heavy—metal—came crashing down. His body barely had time to tense before everything went black.
At first, there was nothing. No pain, no sound. Just...emptiness.
Then came awareness.
He wasn't dead—at least, he didn't feel dead. But he also wasn't alive. He was just there, floating in a pitch-black space that stretched infinitely in every direction.
"What the hell…" Adam muttered, but his voice didn't make a sound.
Time passed. Maybe hours, maybe years. There was no way to tell. At first, he panicked. He screamed, thrashed, tried to do something—anything. But the void didn't care. It just swallowed everything whole.
Then, after what felt like forever, he saw it.
A crack.
A thin, glowing fracture in the darkness. It wasn't much, but it was something. Without hesitation, he moved toward it—if "moving" was even possible here. He didn't care. He just knew he couldn't stay in this void.
With a final push, he fell.
Air. Heat. The sound of breathing—his breathing.
His eyes snapped open, and the first thing he saw was a ceiling fan spinning lazily above him. He blinked, body feeling…off. Weak. Small. His fingers twitched as he lifted his hands.
Tiny hands.
His heart pounded. Something wasn't right. He pushed himself up, his movements sluggish, uncoordinated. The bed beneath him felt too big, the room unfamiliar yet oddly…safe.
Then, the door opened.
A woman stepped in, her expression soft with concern. She looked to be in her early 30s, with warm brown hair and kind eyes.
"Desmond?" she said gently. "Are you okay, sweetheart?"
The name hit him like a truck.
Desmond.
That wasn't his name. His name was Adam.
Except…maybe it wasn't anymore.
Memories started piecing together—bits and pieces of a life that wasn't his, but somehow was. A younger sister. A sheriff for a dad. A divorce that split the family.
It clicked.
No way.
This wasn't just any life. This was Twilight.
And he was Desmond Swan—Bella Swan's older brother.