It was somewhere near midnight, and the stars were bright. The glittering trail of far off galaxies and planets gazed down knowingly from their indigo home down upon us, as Alice and I sat beneath a gnarled tree at the edge of the woods. The air seemed to anticipate some change and was very still around us, whispering its mysteries in the leaves.

 "Isn't the sky beautiful tonight?" said Alice quietly. Her hand was enclosed in my own. It was an unspoken gesture that told of years of friendship and the deep understanding that ran through us, but I could never take for granted the little thrill I felt at this slightest of physical contact with her.

 "Yes. I suppose it is," I said, staring at the winking stars.

 "I would love to see a star up close," she said vaguely, "If I could fly that would be the first thing I would do."

 "Hmmm."

 "You're quiet tonight," she commented, peering at me curiously.

 "I'm thinking."

 "You are always thinking."

 I smiled.

 Suddenly her grip tightened around my hand. I knew what this meant and watched her face. Her eyes were disitant, as distant as the stars they reflected. I could only guess what they saw, for they saw what no other could see at that moment. I waited as patiently as I could, holding my breath.

 After about a minute or so she blinked and seemed to wake up. She looked at me with dazed eyes.

 "Alice…?"

 "Jasper… what I saw… I can't make sense of it," she breathed, frowning.

 "Why? What did you see?"

 "I saw… I saw others. Other vampires, like us. But they weren't like us at all. Oh, Jasper, it was so strange!"

 I rubbed her arm and stroked the bubbling emotions of curiosity and bewilderment, calming them. Her shoulders lowered, and she let out a long breath.

 "Tell me what you saw," I said.

 "The vampires. They did not take human blood. They lived without it," she explained, her brow furrowed, "I don't know how they do this, how it works or how they fight the hunger… but they do it. They can manage."

 I had never had reason to doubt Alice's visions before. She always been correct, even if they seemed a little strange at first. But this… as much as I wanted to believe it, a small whining voice kept on rejecting this as nonsence. I knew what it was like to try and abstein from human blood, and knew the madness and depression induced by the calling, the irrepressable compulsion to kill, to murder, to feed. It seemed impossible that any vampire could resist such an addiction.