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When Nate Winter returns to Forks after the death of his parents, all he expects is rain, silence, and the routine of a town that has forgotten how to speak out loud. But over cups of tea, old journals, and whispered conversations, he begins to uncover secrets buried deeper than the fog that covers the forest. I will also publish it on RoyalRoad.
Hello! I started this little project as a distraction from my main fanfic, I will try to upload one or two chapters a week, it is mostly so I don't feel overwhelmed by my other fanfic, I warn that in this fanfic there will be some risqué scenes (R18) it is also AU, so don't expect me to be so strict with continuity, I hope you enjoy it! It will also be on my patreon with some advance chapters!: patreon.com/Jayjayempi
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For seventeen years, Nathaniel Winter lived a life that many would consider perfect.
Raised in the heart of Washington, D.C., among the marble columns of centuries-old libraries and the quiet courtyards of private schools, he grew up surrounded by culture, structure, and a constant sense of purpose. His world was made of order, carefully chosen words, discreet affection, and kept promises.
The only son of Richard Winter, a brilliant lawyer with a scalpel-sharp mind, and Elena Rivera, a literature professor who found poetry even in the grayest days, Nate grew up as a perfect cross between logic and sensitivity.
At home, arguments were polite verbal duels, and love was shown through silent gestures: a cup of tea on his desk while he studied, a note with a literary quote tucked into his backpack, a pat on the shoulder before bed.
From a young age, his mother taught him to love words. She read to him every night, even after he had mastered reading. She spoke to him about authors, symbols, and emotions hidden between the lines.
From her, he inherited the habit of underlining books, making notes in the margins, and losing himself in pages as if they were portals.
His father, on the other hand, was his moral compass. He taught him to view the world with skepticism and to always wonder what lies behind appearances. To read between the lines, but also between gestures. To never trust the obvious.
He was a sober man, with a stern but fair gaze, and although he rarely hugged him, his presence was as solid as a cathedral.
Nate was a quiet prodigy. Intelligent, reserved, and athletically built. Light brown hair, steely gray eyes, and a firm jaw. He stood over 6'11" at 17, and there was something about his way of seeing the world that commanded respect, even among adults.
He'd been swimming diligently since he was nine, boxing since he was twelve, and had won more school debate tournaments than he cared to remember.
But his true gift lay not in physical strength or eloquence, but in his intuition. Nate understood the world with an ease that bordered on the unnerving.
He had an almost instinctive ability to recognize patterns, connect disparate ideas, and find solutions where others were only just beginning to grasp the problem. In class, mathematical or philosophical concepts that took his classmates hours to digest, he grasped in minutes.
He didn't memorize: he absorbed. He didn't reason step by step: he arrived at the result as if he had always known it.
It was as if his mind spoke a language the world was just beginning to learn. His teachers admired him with a certain unease; they knew they were dealing with something exceptional, but also difficult to pigeonhole.
In the ring, that intuition manifested itself in another way. It only took a few minutes for Nate to decipher his opponent's style: whether he threw with rage or calculation, whether he feared contact or used feints like a shield. He learned in real-time. Every blow he took was a lesson.
Every move, a message he knew how to interpret. Soon, his coaches stopped giving him instructions during fights. They knew he'd already figured them out for himself.
Outside the classroom and the gym, this ability made him a meticulous observer of human behavior. He noticed details that others missed: a pause in a voice, a look that didn't match the words, a nervous gesture when lying. He could read people like books without covers.
Despite all of that—or maybe because of it—he always felt a little on the sidelines as if he understood the fragility of things too quickly as if the promise of his future were made of fine crystal. And maybe, deep down, he always knew his world couldn't last forever.
The first break came without warning.
His maternal grandparents, the only grandparents with whom he truly had an emotional connection, died in a car accident during a winter storm while returning from visiting friends in Vermont. It was sudden and absurd. Just days before, his grandmother had sent him a book of German poetry with a handwritten dedication. Then, nothing. Just phone calls, condolences, and wooden urns.
His parents were devastated, especially his mother. Nate heard her crying in the bathroom one morning. It was the first time he felt... small.
Still, life went on.
A few weeks later, in the middle of November, Richard and Elena decided to take a break. A weekend getaway to a secluded cabin in the Shenandoah woods. "Just a few days," they said. "We'll be back on Sunday."
They didn't.
A patrolman found their car off the road, half-buried in snow. There were footprints... somewhat jumbled. The bodies weren't found together. Richard's torso was ripped open by what forensics described as "a large animal." Elena was found several feet away, uninjured. She seemed to have suddenly collapsed, with no explanation.
The police closed the case as an "animal attack in a wilderness area." But Nate knew something didn't add up. He felt it wasn't an accident. That something else had happened there. Something he couldn't name.
Amidst the mourning, the discreet press, and the lawyers who came and went in their monotone voices, Nate received a sealed box containing his parents' will. Inside were documents, a list of insurance policies, financial instructions… and a letter. Handwritten. From his father.
The ink trembled on some of the words as if it had been written in haste. Or fear.
"Nathaniel…
If you're reading this, it's because something happened to us.
There are things I can't explain to you. Things even I don't fully understand. But I've taught you to trust your intuition, and now you'll have to use it more than ever.
If they're still alive, find your mother's parents. They'll help you.
And if not...
Don't go to Forks.
It's a place where the sky rarely opens. Where the light is never complete, wherever the light is never complete, shadows can live without fear.
There are things that crawl through the fog. There are presences that only thrive in the gray.
Please, Nathaniel. Avoid it."
But there was nothing I could do.
His maternal grandparents were already dead. The will, dated months before, hadn't been updated. And the only surviving relative he had was his paternal grandmother, Margaret Winter. A kind, somewhat absent-minded woman with a laugh that sounded like old bells and a heart too big for her stooped frame.
Margaret lived alone in a wooden house on the outskirts of Forks, Washington.
Fate, always relentless, had spoken. And Nate didn't have the strength to argue with it.
The airport was almost empty. December had covered everything with a patina of silent cold. The Christmas decorations shone with an artificial sadness. No one seemed happy. Just busy. Just absent.
Nate stared at his reflection in the airport window. The rain pounded the glass insistently. His silhouette stared back at him, but he didn't recognize it.
His expression was haggard, his back slightly hunched from emotional exhaustion. His luggage was light: a couple of changes of clothes, his favorite books, and a knife that had belonged to his father. He wore his mother's wedding ring on a chain around his neck. And on his wrist was his father's watch, stopped at 3:17 p.m., the exact time the coroner's call had come in.
He no longer wondered why. He no longer felt anger. Only emptiness.
"I'm heading to the place my father feared. Not out of rebellion. Not out of forgetfulness. But because there's no other place left. I have no choice. Only inevitable paths. Isn't that what defines us?"
The loudspeaker announced the boarding for Port Angeles. Then it would be a two-hour drive to Forks. To the place where the light isn't complete.
Nathaniel stood up. He pulled his hood up. He adjusted his backpack as if it would protect him from what was to come. He took one last look at the world he was leaving behind, and without looking at anyone, he headed toward the boarding gate.
His soul felt withered. His hope, was thin as breath on a cold morning.
And as he boarded the plane, he couldn't help but think that maybe, after all, the only thing waiting for him on the other side wasn't a new beginning.
But the true end from which he never managed to escape.
