Copyright belongs to Stephenie Meyer, I can only wish I owned any of her dazzling vamps.

This is generally just an attempt to get into character. I'm about to leave school for the summer, so I hope I can manage some longer fics I've been pondering for a while, while everything else tended to get in the way of actually fleshing them out. Wish me luck, it'll be a hectic summer as it is. I really wish I'll find time for writing.

EPOV

I closed my eyes and breathed in the clear mountain air gusting freely through my car, feeling it cleanse my lungs and obliterate all traces of smell.

At this speed, with all four windows down, no scent would be, could be, present in the air and it whipped harshly against my frozen stone-like face. Of course I did not feel the cold as acutely as a human would, yet the snowy glacial air felt amazing to my skin. Amazing to experience the cold, amazing to sense the difference in temperatures between my cold skin and the air, for once colder than me.

I sped through the untouched forests of Alaska, closing the final miles towards my destination: Tanya's house in Denali. It lay hidden in the red ochre rocks of the Denali mountainside, safely out of the way of any curious human, yet close enough to human settlement for its occupants, the three sisters and the other two vampires belonging to the coven, Carmen and Eleazaar, to feel a part of the human world. The path leading there was long and well concealed, however, and even with my enhanced vision, the lights of the mountain mansion were still too far away, invisible in the dim light of the approaching dawn. I concentrated on my destination, banishing all other thoughts from my mind.

It had been a hellish night, one I would never again wish to relive in all my unending days. The trees had whipped by, illuminated by the headlights of the Mercedes, eerie in the white neon light, yet my mind had been wrapped in a bloody haze that rendered the entire world a deep crimson shade.

I saw blood. I smelled blood. I heard it pulsing through the forest creatures on each side of me.

I wanted blood, wanted it so voraciously that every inch of my indestructible body ached with the need to end life, simply to satisfy the insatiable craving of my tissues for the warm torrent spilling through my dry veins, my dormant heart, and all the while, the scent veered through my senses, coming back to me over and over again. I flexed my fingers now, surprised by the dents my hands had left in the steering wheel. Damn it… I blinked my eyes swiftly, just to clear the haze the memory had left.

Here in the cold wind, her smell did not seem such a temptation as it did in that warm little room back home in Forks. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, not allowing my body to recover the memory of the aroma… No… of course I was completely wrong. It was all that difficult to forget, impossible to ignore the way my throat convulsed as the scent weaved through my mind like a boa threatening to suffocate.

The memory of the sweet fragrance shook my body and I felt my insides churn at the thought of having her aroma within me. The sweet, sweet scent of her blood… warm, coursing under that soft translucent skin of hers… Just one little human. One small human girl.

My hands convulsed on the steering wheel, aching to make that turn that would mean the end of her life. I knew if I were to return now, it would be over.

Her life. My life. The life Carlisle has built for us. No, better leave it this way. I will remove myself from their lives, remove the threat I pose to the human girl and my family's peace.

My mind involuntarily jumped to the vision I'd seen in Alice's mind.

A small kitchen, dull except for the yellow cabinets that stood out in the gray twilight air. The scent of rain in her hair. She, warm and pulsing, her back turned to me, safe in her human world where monsters such as I was did not exist except in mad horror fairytales. The monster in me roared as the vision played out again in my mind.

I saw myself tense for the attack, my muscles completely unrestrained and free to act as my body would, were I only to allow myself a lapse in the carefully built self-control and quench my hunger. The monster in the vision took a deliberate step forward and I saw him extend a hand towards her, reaching to brush the hair from her shoulder. Such a fragile human girl… small, bird-boned, so soft, so warm... The monster grinned and a violent shudder ran through my body.

I will not. I would not allow the monster to take over.

I remembered what Alice had told Jasper… was it only this morning? It's easier if you think of them as people.

Her name is Isabella Swan, I told myself resolutely. I racked my brain for any other information I heard said or thought about her. Yes… her name is Isabella, but she prefers being called Bella. Her eyes are quite a remarkable shade of brown and her mind is, undoubtedly a baffling occurrence, closed to me. I tried to recall the murderous hunger her scent evinced in me but to my great surprise, found that it was somewhat quelled. It wasn't that the monster had subsided in his thirst, in his mad desire to drink the blood of this girl. It was more that it seemed that I really didn't want to kill this human. In the same manner this monster wanted to protect her from the vicious thoughts of Jessica Stanley, for some reason, he wanted to protect her from himself…

Try as I may, though, I could not suppress the reaction I knew would follow if I let my mind reach for her scent. Feeling my throat convulse, I clung to any other piece of information that would help me define this girl, Bella, as a person, not an animal to be fed upon. I leaned back in the seat and let the cool wind blow over my senses, trying to recite to myself what else I knew about her.

She is the daughter of the town's Police Chief, come to live here… there… after growing up living in Phoenix with her mother. Quite a change, I mused.

Good. This was good. I was beginning to consider her as a person. I was beginning to think of other things about her... her blood doesn't matter. She is just a human. You've dealt with humans before, I whispered aloud. You've dealt with temptation before, it's what you've chosen, now live with it. I nodded so as to confirm my decision.

I closed my eyes and let the car glide freely through the night. The first streaks of stark light extended over the horizon as the road broke out of the trees with a sharp bend and I was assaulted by the scents coming over water. A lake. My eyes still closed, I welcomed the new sensations, so pure and cleansing.

How did Frost put it?

Ah, yes… Between the woods and frozen lake, the darkest evening of the year…

The darkest evening… the darkest evening of all my years… and I was liberated from it. I've endured it; I had won against the monster that I was. Unexpectedly, a smile broke out across my face. The realization made me feel powerful, not as the preternatural monster of a hundred years with all the uncanny and sickening advantages I was given, but as the human I still strived to remain.

Her scent seemed only a far away memory now, like a long-healed wound. The thought of it still hurt, my body going through the same old routine; excess flow of venom, my veins tightening with desire for fresh blood, and yet it was impossible to feel the same pull, even as the monster snarled at me in an attempt to deny me.

How absurd, really…

Your opinions, please :)