THIS EMOTION CALLED LOVE
SUMMARY: During the time after Edward left her, Bella came to the attention of the Volturi. Because of the fact that she had been exposed to the vampire world, they give her two choices. Now, like Alice, she has no memories of her human life- or the feelings she had enjoyed as a human. What happens when she encounters Edward again?
BACKGROUND: Edward left, Bella moped around and was depressed until her issue came to the attention of the Volturi. She was bit, and as a result, has nothing from her human life, not even her memories. The "power" she has is subtle, such as Esme's or Carlisle's. She has the power to repress emotion, and has done so since. For as long as she can remember, she has never felt emotion once. She is part of the Volturi guard, loyal to it due to Chelsea's power, yet wanders off on her own explorations for a reason in existence, which is where this story begins.
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I DO NOT KNOW WHO I WAS. I AM NOT HAPPY TO KNOW THIS, BUT NEITHER DOES THIS FACT CAUSE ME SADNESS, OR LOSS. I AM DEVOID OF EMOTION RELATED TO THIS SUBJECT. IT IS SIMPLY A FACT.
Isabel of Volturi am I.
I do not know who I was before. My memory begins the day I was born, opened my crimson eyes to see the world in crimson clarity. Some may think it strange to come into the world conscious and intelligent, but I have never known different. I am a vampire.
Aro has told me it is not uncommon for those such as I to not remember their human life. Sometimes, when it is especially traumatic, pieces of the memory are remembered. Normally, most vampires only remember those they cared for greatly, such as parents or lovers. I remember no one, or nothing. That, in itself, is not abnormal either. I probably had nothing interesting in my life to remember.
Once I accompanied Heidi on a decades long trip she took around the world to attempt to find her origin, yet she never found it. The only thing that came close was the time we went to Paris, and entered a restaurant, and a "great sense of longing and passion hit me like a wave", as she put it. She supposed that something important had happened there, but she didn't stay to find out, frightened by the emotions. Volturi did not feel emotions; it was dangerous. It made us susceptible, so I did my best to quell anything in any of us, keeping us the cold, hard guard we needed to be to do our job.
I do not have any great longing to find out who I was, like Heidi. I am unattached from the human I imagine I had been; probably a vulnerable girl with a heart shaped face and mahogany hair like mine, yet less lustrous and long. I don't know what color my eyes had been. It doesn't matter. My eyes are red, and that is the color they belong. If I came upon that human in the street, I would kill her without thinking. She is just a human. I am someone else. Isabel of Volturi.
There are ten of us, besides the trio and their wives. We each were chosen for our distinct ability, honed and trained to be of maximum potential. Jane is our weapon, with her agony-inspiring gaze. Alec steals the senses of our victims, leaving them without sight or feel. Chelsea dissolves loyalties between covens. Felix, Afton, Corin, and Santiago are our fighters, Felix especially chosen for sheer brawn and strength. Renata is a shield, and Heidi is a seductress, leading our victims to us.
And finally, I am our desensitizer, a powerful weapon similar to Chelsea's. I can desensitize someone; make them lose all love for someone, or all pain. I can make them lose the will to live, so they would willingly burn themselves.
And we are all loyal. All dedicated to the profession we had chosen for all existence.
After all, what other point is there to survive?
This year, it was true, I had been separated from the Volturi, but we all did that once in a while, such as Heidi's search for a past life. Aro allowed it, condoning it as a necessity. I left once in a while, when the strife in the vampire world had stilled to a dull roar. I wasn't sure why; to the unknowing eye I looked to be merely sightseeing, visiting America, the Caribbean Islands, Japan...
But I knew what I was doing, what I was searching for. I was searching for a reason.
A reason to want to exist.
I didn't quite know if I was searching for pain, or love, or simply the thrill of danger. Just some emotion...
For my power goes too far. I can control the emotions of others, yet it holds me in a sort of shell that would never let me break free; never lets me feel anything. Ever.
Can it have been that in my past life, I hadn't wanted to feel? That I was scared to? That I had to build this shell, for fear of what could attack me if I emerged from it?
Partly I keep it up of my own volition. I don't particularly want to feel lust, or infatuation, or desire, or any of those other synonyms for that word "love" so much poetry and music was written of.
But, if not that, even something...
This would probably be my last trip. I have taken countless ones over the last forty-nine years, but I am finally mature enough to accept that there is nothing for me. There never was. A reason doesn't exist. I must simply survive, doing my best to assist the Volturi in keeping peace in the world. For my core, my individual self, there is nothing. I will accept that and move on.
END OF JOURNAL ENTRY
I sighed, snickering to myself inside my head. I had tended to "record" thoughts to myself lately, just to remember how I had felt and thought at a certain point in time. It worked just as well as inscribing it on paper or computer, for my enhanced vampire memory was infallible. I smiled. I would not give this up for the world. I looked down on the humans; what clumsy, incompetent creatures they were. They were practically born to be prey.
I looked down in my arms at the unconscious young man in my arms. He was still alive, and I had kept him that way, just for the dramatic kill. He would probably have been considered handsome by human eyes, with his long, dark lashes, and messy black hair, but my extra sensitive eyes zeroed in on the tiny blemishes on his skin, the microscopic weakness in the eyes, and the small roundness of the chin.
I leaned down, experimenting. I had tried this before, and nothing worked, nothing dredged up the slightest bit of emotion from that endlessly dry fountain somewhere inside of me. Could a human be different?
I slowly pressed my lips to his soft, warm ones, and waited, waited for something to happen, to come to me.
Eventually I pulled away, my vampire hearing noting the slight part in his breath as my lips left his. Maybe there was no such thing as feeling. Maybe there was no point in trying, it just didn't exist, and everyone else was lying to themselves.
I leaned down again, but this time biting down on his exposed neck, sucking eagerly and embracing the feeling of release the blood gave me, a temporary fix for my species-wide addiction to that beautiful, entrancing liquid: blood.
I let the drained, white body fall to the ground, and sprang up, pushing aside leaves from around me. I was in a rainforest, meditating on my pointless desire for emotion, and the hiker had provided a welcome, and needed, alimentation, if unexpected. I needed to return to the city; I should get back to Volterra soon, now that I had acknowledged the futility of my mission. I could stay in the city-- somewhere in Brazil, now, I thought I was-- for about a month to feed well so my eyes returned bright red, then I would return.
Return to the dreary, empty hole I called life.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NOTHING
my thoughts are not coherent anymore
simply blurs of throbbing pain
the empty loss and missing meaning to life
I don't quite know where I am
just curled up somewhere, tormented with agony
I hear the drunken voices from below me
but I don't care
I don't care
there is nothing left for me
TEMPTATION
I want to go back
so tempting it is
even though she's an adult now
she's probably completely forgotten me
married with children
but what if she's not?
what if she's gone?
it's been so long
what if I go back, and I find a grave?
bella, love, look down on me from heaven
and know I do this for you
do you remember me, as I remember you?
OH GOD, PLEASE
why are you doing this to me?
can't you take it away?
I can't stand all this suffering
I'm weak, I know, I admit it
I never considered myself anything good
please, just take it away
take it away
HALLUCINATION
I was on the piano, playing a song. It was dark, dismal, full of painful agony. My slender, white fingers pounded upon the keys, smashing out the notes.
"Edward," she whispered from the window.
My fingers faltered, and I looked around. My eyes widened and lips parted. "B-Bella..." I breathed in astonishment.
She didn't say anything, but came to me, sitting on the stool beside me. I pulled her against my cold body, fighting to breathe, and dry sobs tore themselves out of my chest.
After a while, I calmed down, and began to kiss her; her hair, forehead, throat and finally lips.
"What are you thinking?" she whispered.
I looked down. "I'm wondering if I've finally gone insane."
"What do you mean?"
Pain rushed at me, attacking me, as I looked up. "You can't be real." I brushed my cool hand against her cheek, and it grew warm under my touch. "But I don't care. I'll take it."
She thrust herself back into the kiss, with more strength than before, empowered with the feeling of despair.
"Are you?" I asked after a couple minutes.
"Am I what?"
"Are you real?"
Oh. "No, I don't exist outside of your mind."
I chuckled darkly. "So I have gone insane."
Her tone matched mine. "No more than I did."
I pulled away. "What do you mean?"
She sighed. "I'm dead."
My face twisted in horror. "What?"
"I threw myself off of a cliff two months ago. It's okay, it doesn't matter. It was to be expected."
"It was to be expected?!"
"You left me, I never moved on. I don't blame you, don't worry. You had to do what was best for you. I understand why you had to leave."
"No!" My arms dropped, and I stared at nothing, blankly, full of shock.
She looked confused. "Why does it matter to you? Don't feel guilty."
"Bella." I took her face in my hands, brought it up to look in her eyes fervently, urgently. "Bella, I never stopped loving you. I left so you could have a normal human life. But now... I don't know. I don't know anything."
I dropped her face and buried my own in my hands.
She looked upon me with pity, but stood and said, "Edward, I have to leave."
She didn't seem to expect my reaction. I leaped up, wildly grabbing her wrists. "No! No- you can't... I'll die..." I was full of agony, strangely vulnerable.
Without responding, face twisted with sadness and kind pity, she silently unlocked my hands from around hers, and walked across the room. My eyes followed her with dread.
She climbed up on the windowsill.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A girl's silhouette, glowing slightly, was outlined in the open window of the top story of a decaying tenement. She stood there, motionless, for a couple seconds, then leaped.
She collapsed on the ground, three stories below, a crumpled, broken body that shimmered for a second before it disappeared.
Where she had been was a pile of fine, black ashes.
RESOLVE
bella's gone
she's gone
my life is gone
my reason is gone
without her
without knowing she exists
how can I survive?
I can find only one answer: I can't
I will find another vampire;
another one in this dreary city
and convince them to murder me
I must
I cannot stand this
I need to end this
KILL ME
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
A once-called beautiful young man crouches in a dusty, dark room, somewhere in Brazil. Rough, cracked sobs are tearing themselves one by one out of his chest, and his eyes are black, blacker then they've ever been before. His hands are pulling at his bronze hair, yanking on the roots. He seems almost insane with despair.
Suddenly, he unbends his back, craning his neck up to show his wild eyes, mouth bared in a grimace, and screams out, "KILL ME!" Then he collapses onto the ground, his head hitting the rotting wood, yet he cannot escape into unconsciousness, for he is immortal.
