What do you think about when you're about to die? Just five seconds from death, what comes to mind? Do you think about your golf partners? Your long established law firm? Or do you worry about the tuna sandwich squashed in your brown leather bag? None of them. All the trivial little things wouldn't matter anymore, when you're just five seconds away from death.

Edward Cullen lay there, sprawled in the middle of the road. A small crowd was surrounding him. He could hear the noise, the chaos around him, but his mind was a hushed silence. One last look around, he could see the terrified faces around him, the sun shining bright. Then, in that one, small second, everything stopped. Everybody stopped moving, everybody was silent and the sun stopped shining. Darkness engulfed him. Five seconds from death, what did he think about?

Edward Cullen was just like any other guy in New York City. There was nothing odd about him, save for his oddly natural bronze coloured hair, and nothing spectacular about him, except for his somewhat luminescent green eyes. He went to sleep at night, woke up in the morning, went to work from 8 am until 5 pm, returned home and slept again, and so the cycle went on. He was honest, unpretentious and practical. Until, he met Bella Swan.

Just like any other morning, he woke up at exactly 7.30 am, got dressed in one of his AX suits, went down to the train station and used subway 408 to get to Dean Parlour street where his law firm was located, a five minute walk away. Yet, nothing was ordinary about that day.

It was unusual that he had lost his glasses which were usually on his bedside table, and it was unusual that the service lady, who cleaned his clothes for him, had accidentally burnt his favourite cornflower blue tie. A bad day was looming and he knew it.

He entered subway 408 just as it was about to leave. There was no seat left, except for one near a heavily pregnant lady and another one next to man who was pretty well-known in the tube for picking his nose. He chose the seat next to the pregnant woman. He wedged into the seat and she gave him an unforgiving look, as if he was intruding into her space. A young woman sitting across from him smiled the same way a girl of ten years old would smile upon seeing her best friend falling on the doorstep of McDonald's. This was Bella.

From that day onwards, Edward began to notice her presence. She made her presence well-noted in fact. She would be there when Edward got on the subway and she would still be there when he got off. She would offer him a Kleenex when he sneezed and share with him a piece of biscuit which she usually wrapped in a purple napkin. Edward began to get acquainted with her and each and every day he would find something intriguing about her, nothing a stranger could tell merely by looking at her face. Bella was slowly drawing him in to her, but this was the only the beginning of the ride.

Edward could feel his body being yanked onto a stretcher. He could feel the pain and he could he could feel the blood draining; but again, his mind was hushed into silence, playing a silent movie and he was his own audience. He could feel his pulse slowing down as the pictures in his head reeled faster and faster.

"Bella…" He thought to himself. Two seconds left.

Edward took Bella on an extravagant first date, just the night before. He took her to Jean George restaurant in the heart of the Manhattan monstrosity. It had seemed that the whole world had stopped spinning for the both of them, as he watched Bella from across the table in her midnight blue dress, red lips stained from the wine and moving sensuously as she spoke about art and poetry. Her eyes sparkled each time she smiled and that was all she had to do to captivate him.

Edward took Bella ice-skating on that beautiful starry night, Edward in Armani, Bella in her Vera Wang dress. They laughed and spun each other around, and Edward had never felt so youthful in his entire life. She twirled in her dress with the grace of a dancer and he could only wish that he had taken a photograph of that moment so it would last longer. However, it didn't matter now; with one last second of life in his hand, he knew the picture would forever be carved in his head.

Edward closed his eyes with Bella forever in his head. One last picture that reeled in was that of their first kiss on her doorstep. That one graze of her lips on his, he could almost feel it now, drowning the pain he was in as one last drop of blood trickled down the back of his head.

Bella.

Edward Cullen thought of Bella Swan in his final 5 seconds of life.

A/N: Please leave feedback, and check out my other story, A Fine Line. Thanks.