Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight
The Story of Carlisle Cullen
I. Pain
He woke in darkness, but that was not the first thing that he noticed. It was the pain. The piercing, ice-cold pain shooting through his body. He writhed in the dirt, hardly noticing his eyes adjusting to the lightless night and bringing a forest, rather than rows of houses, into view, the tree tops looming over him as his body neared the trunks.
He forced himself to stand, using the tree beside him to support his body as he twitched against the ache. When he felt he could control his legs at least a little he pushed forward, rushing to the next tree trunk and pausing as his body quaked more fiercely than before.
But he did not fall or falter. He gritted his teeth and pushed again, almost reaching the next tree before his body fell to the dirt once more. He howled in anguish, the pain growing more intense by the moment, and he prayed for death, wondering what sort of black magic was keeping him alive.
And then it hit him. The chase, the angry humans chasing after the lone beast, with him in the lead, and the moment when the battle turned.
He did not know what had happened, but somehow he had been running away, trailing his mob back towards their homes, and all he could remember after that was the fierce face above him, the fangs and the blood-red eyes, and the piercing in his neck as the monster bit him.
Monster.
Another quake went through his body, but there was more than pain behind it.
Hopelessness welled up inside of him as the pain increased, and as thoughts of what he was becoming filled the tiny part of his mind that wasn't fighting against the terror and the agony. A Vampire. A Monster.
Whatever would his father say?
A cry escaped from his lips, filled with fear and coated with anger. He gripped for the tree trunk nearest him, clawing at the bark, letting it cut at his still-human hands, finally wondering when he had been moved from the street where he remembered falling.