A/N: This is something I wrote two years ago, and I thought I'd put it up on FanFiction.

The burning, the heat, the smell! There was fire everywhere. Isabella Swan didn't know where she was or how she got there, but she does understand that she is in great danger. "HELP!" she yelled, "PLEASE HELP!" she exclaimed again. She could feel the carbon monoxide damaging her lungs, she tried not to close her eyes and go to sleep, but it was hard, slowly she dozed off…Bella sat up quickly on her bed trying to get her breath onto its normal pace, "It was only a dream" She woke up with a start and quietly whispered to herself. Bella always gets bad dreams nowadays, but she cannot see why. She slowly got out of bed and put on a pair of jeans and a tank top, and went outside.

Bella could feel the summer's sun on her face when she went out to get the mail. She flipped through the letters, most of it was junk. Then she saw a letter without a name, it was torn on the edges and wrinkled in the middle, she didn't have to look at the address to know who it was from. Bella dropped the rest of the mail and ran inside with the wrinkled letter. "Mom, Mom!" she cried looking desperately for her mother, "What?!" her mom said in a surprised voice "Jas-Jasper, he wro-wrote me a letter" I said trying to keep the tears from coming out from my eyes. Jazzy, or Jasper his proper name, is Bella's older brother; he is in the Iraq War and hasn't written in three weeks, which seemed like forever. "Okay, calm down" her mother said while wiping Bella's tears of her cheek, "let's open the letter as a family, like we always do" her mom said trying to hold back the excitement, Bella frowned and went back upstairs. That whole afternoon Bella just stared at the letter and wondered if she should open it or wait for her dad to come home from work. Finally she heard the garage door open, she ran down as fast as she could and gathered up her parents into the living room. "Ok Bells, don't get too excited, Jasper may not be coming home for a while" Her dad said in a sad voice, some of Bella's hope disappeared. She carefully tore of the envelope as if it were a precious jewel, inside was a crumpled up piece of paper with a big inkblot on the right hand corner. She slowly read the sloppy handwriting:

Dear Bells,

Hey little sis! I really miss you. There was a huge explosion up north, I know that two of my friends were up there, but I'm not sure if they are dead or just injured, today they did not return. They don't tell us much over here, all I know is to fight. I miss home and am worried about my friends. Anyway, I might be coming home for the Christmas, but that's a promise I may not be able to keep. You know how it is. I miss you guys, I miss watching TV, family dinners, playing sport and having fun. I miss mom's yucky food too. I miss mom, dad and you. Love you, and tell mom and dad I said hi.

Love Ya,

Jazzy

Bella could feel a tear drop falling down her face. It was quite for a while, then Bella cut it off and said "at least he might be coming home soon", her parents kept quiet, but Bella knew what they were thinking "if something goes wrong". In Bella's mind she prayed that Jasper won't get hurt.

Every single day that week Bella stared at the letter for hours, trying to feel Jazzy. Jazzy always wrote these simple letters without much information. She wanted to know more. At least he is safe. However for how long… quickly Bella switched her thought to the movie she was watching. "BRRRRRRRING!!!" Bella could hear the shrill noise of the phone; she reached to get it, but heard her mom on the other line, and hung up. Bella went downstairs to ask her mom who it was. "Mom!" she cried when she saw her mother on the floor, sobbing. "What's wrong" she asked in a worried voice while holding on to her mother's hand, "Your brother, he-he-he…" she couldn't complete her sentence, Bella dropped her mom's hand, "WHAT?!" she said even more worried, "he-he's been shot in the stomach, he is not d….." she couldn't mention the word. "He is still alive" she said with tears flooding her eyes. Bella was frozen, she waited for herself to register, and once she melted she ran upstairs. She jumped onto her bed and cried, she cried until she fell asleep. Bella next day assured herself at least he is alive.

It has been two weeks since the devastating phone call. Bella and her family were trying to keep everything going, it basically means their lives. Bella couldn't fathom how life goes on so normally outside. For Bella it's hard to keep things normal, Bella goes to school with red eyes from all the crying, her mom doesn't cook dinner anymore nor does she do anything she just sits there staring at the walls, her father has been working more than usual to get his mind off his son or anything related to him. All of them await the calls that inform them of Jazzy's progress. Bella is very depressed she cannot grasp her brother getting hurt or injured, she remembers only the one time when he broke his leg from the skiing accident. She went downstairs to see if her mother had finally cooked dinner, but nothing was on the table. Another day of frozen dinner "If only Jasper was here, we would be sitting at the table eating dinner. Jasper and I would be fighting over who gets the first scoop of ice-cream for desert, mom and dad would be trying to calm us down, everything would be chaos, and that would be normal, however that will not happen….will it happen ever?". Jazzy has to get the college funds and help our country.

It was a dark and gloomy evening; rain was pouring cats and dogs. The rain and the complete silence was the only sound in the room, Bella looked outside the precipitation made this day worse, not only she could not go outside, she had to stay inside with nothing to do. "Ding Dong!" Bella heard the door bell ring, she saw her mother open the door, Bella could not see who it was, but she saw a glimpse of two large men with stern faces, she couldn't tell if they were wearing blue or green. Even though she did not see, she could still hear clips of the conversation, "...I'm very sorry, ma'am…" said one man "…No, that can't be true..." her mother cried out aloud "…Yes, we understand…" the other man said in a soft patient voice, "…we'll do that…ok…yes" the men replied to something her mother had fumbled. "…Goodbye…we're truly very sorry, we know how you feel about this situation…" That was it. Bella couldn't move, she was petrified, she couldn't walk, and she couldn't even get up. She was frozen like a statue. Her mom closed the door, went to where Bella was, put her head on Bella's shoulder and started to cry, roles were reversed her mom needed to be comforted by Bella. She let her mother cry as long as she had to, Bella couldn't say anything to her mom, Bella was cold, she had no emotions inside of her, it was as if she were a ghost, she knew exactly what her mom was crying about. Jasper Mathew Swan is dead. Her brother Jazzy was dead.

It has been at least a month since the doorbell rang. Bella still has no feeling inside of her; she is like a walking robot. Everything she does is always simple; she does what she needs to do. It is the first sunny day for a few weeks, instead of going outside with friends Bella stay's inside and just sits, she doesn't like watching TV, she doesn't hang out, doesn't browse the net, doesn't read her emails, cannot read a book ,she cannot concentrate anymore, cannot do anything without thinking that Jazzy will never come back home. This rings through her mind all the time. Bella knows that she is different now; she also knows that she will have to accept the fact that her brother was dead. Unexpectedly she realizes why she had those bad dreams all the time; it was fear, not only the fear of losing her brother, but also the fear of losing herself. All of a sudden she starts to cry for the first time in a month, she couldn't stop herself, it was an emotion that had a mind of its own, she cried for what seemed like an eternity. Now Bella knows what her real fear was; her intuitive imagination had pulled towards the direction of reality. She understood her nightmares now. Bella was asking "Why do we fight a war, why do we go through such pain….why do we ever fight? Why do we have to die? Why can't there be peace. Why Jasper was dead?

xoxo

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