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…Ponder this:

We've taken what you'll sorely miss,

…The prospect's black

Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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A rocky beach, littered with driftwood, with a backdrop of cliffs was the picture displayed to me now. A strange vision, sure, but not the strangest I had seen. I did not try to uncover the significance of this vision. If it was important then eventually the meaning would come to me.

I tried to resurface, willing myself to leave the vision behind. Go back Alice. Go back to your family.

Family.

Something in my head slid and clicked into place. Now I understood. I had never been to this place but I knew it. Call it my seventh sense; a seer's intuition. This was First Beach, La Push, Forks, Bella.

No! Don't think it! Erase the thought…Too late.

The picture dimmed, shimmered and then refocused as another. The same beach but on a higher zoom. Now the picture shown to me was of the cliffs that were previously only a backdrop. High cliffs surrounded by a dangerous storm about to break. The pictures in this vision were beginning to spook me. They were giving me the mental equivalent of goose bumps and I had no idea why. My keen eyesight was drawn to a single, solitary figure standing near the trees that bordered the cliffs.

"Bella," my instinct said.

Bella? No. My instinct must be wrong. This poor, lonely figure wasn't Bella. It couldn't be. This was a sick, dying person. Not clumsy, lovable, bright Bella. Not Bella, the human that embraced me like a sister. Not kind hearted Bella that I had abandoned and left to rot-

NO! Leave the thoughts behind. Just watch.

The vision shimmered again and my anticipation rose as another picture drifted into focus. Higher zoom. I could see the figure's face more clearly now. A mental gasp escaped me. Bella? It wasn't the Bella but it was a Bella. As if an amateur painter had tried to copy a masterpiece. She looked terrible, worse than terrible. I gazed at the sunken cheeks, the lank hair, willing myself to believe. I tried to avoid the eyes - I had seen my brother's and knew the dead, blank stare that I would find there - but they found me, trapping me in their depths. And I was shocked, shocked to find not blankness but longing. Pure, unadulterated longing.

I tried to block the vision. Pushing and shoving it back further into my mind. But it wouldn't relent; it was pushing back harder, forcing me to watch this strange scene play out. I shouldn't be watching her. No matter how stupid Edward's request was, I had promised. Also, the vision was unnerving and I was becoming scared and uncertain of its meaning. I didn't want to watch it. What on earth was Bella doing that had her features fixed in such a worrisome emotion? It was then that I noticed the rest of the picture. Bella was on the balls of her feet at the edge of a precipice, dangerously close to the empty space that lay ahead of the cliff. Her body was tilted, coiled like a predator finally about to catch its prey.

Again, a sliding and a clicking occurred inside my head. Oh no, no, no, no, NO!

The picture shimmered again. While in my mind I had no eyes to shut. No way to escape the next picture in this horrifying slideshow. I couldn't block my ears either before a sound rose up that made me feel ill; Bella's scream. Not like the scream I heard in Phoenix that made Edward's dead heart stop. No, this was a scream that belonged on a ride in a theme park. A scream filled with adrenaline and ecstasy.

The next picture focused and came into view. It was just a picture of the ocean. A turbulent ocean, sure, but it was not a particularly scary image. I had hardly ever been more frightened in my life.

Oh my god. No. She hadn't. She didn't. I couldn't understand, didn't want to understand, but my mind was forcing the answer into my consciousness. My mind couldn't tolerate my incomprehension. It granted me no sympathy, would not let me delude myself. "She jumped," it sneered, mocking me.

How long had she been under for? I began to count out the seconds frantically in my head. 1,2,3,4…

I stared at the image in my mind, trying desperately to find some unseen mark in it. Was there a head bobbing above the waves? "At least there aren't any rocks," my subconscious murmured, trying to calm me. No rocks. No rocks! What sort of relief could that bring?! At least there aren't any rocks to mangle her body! How fantastic!

30…

How long could humans hold their breath for? No… that was the wrong question. Bella wouldn't be holding her breath. She would've let go of it before she jumped, like she had let go of everything else. This sudden realisation sent me reeling in pain.

48…

I tried to rephrase, shoving against the pain with whatever small amount of hope I had. How long could humans survive for without air? Damn it, I had no idea. I never paid any attention in the silly emergency classes schools made us attend. At the time it was pointless. No one in my family was ever going to need CPR. My family was immune from such disasters.

Not anymore.

It couldn't end like this. The vision was incomplete. There had to be some picture afterwards; a beach resuscitation, a hospital bed, a washed up figure… a coffin. No! Bella still had time. I strained and tried to search through her future. There was nothing, nothing but the picture of the monstrous ocean. She had disappeared entirely.

Come on Bella. Where's your strength now? All of the bravery I know you have? Just break the surface. Don't give up yet.

161…

Was this to be my punishment? Was I going to have to watch her death, my sister's death, and be powerless to stop it? Was I going to have it burned into my memory forever because I, along with the rest of us, had left her?

You could've stopped it.

But I didn't. I had thrown away my sister like I threw away used clothing. Is that how she felt? Did she feel like an old teddy bear, suddenly outgrown?

It's your fault… but not just your's.

I hung onto that thought. I needed it to escape this crushing guilt. I needed to push the blame onto someone else. To my relief, the guilt gave way to anger and hatred. The image of the ocean in my vision took on a red tinge. Did he truly believe that his actions held no lasting consequences? That the consequences would only be Bella sobbing for a week? Bastard. Hadn't he learnt that every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Had the decades of repeated schooling not hammered that single fact into his arrogant, self-assured head! His uprooting of us and complete desertion of Bella had been so cataclysmic that the reaction could only be equally as devastating. And now I was left with the results of what he had done.

295…

The anger then turned to another avenue. How dare she. How dare she do this to herself. Did she stop to think of how this would affect anyone else? How this would affect Charlie? My family? Edward?

Imagine you're Bella. He left, remember? He doesn't care.

The anger was changing shape, shifting form into something else. I didn't want this emotion. I wanted the anger back; it was so much easier than grief. I wondered how this much sadness could be contained inside me. Humans could at least release some of it though tears. Questions kept bouncing around my head. How could she? Why would she?

Think about it. You know why.

367…

I must be counting too fast. Time always seemed different to vampires. Surely Bella hadn't been under for over six minutes. As I strained my brain to remember some smidgen of information that could calm me, a memory came back to me, a small piece of information that Jasper had told me. Normally, a human's brain became irreversibly damaged after about four minutes without breathing.

It's over two minutes past four minutes.

Oh please, please, please God, let her resurface. She doesn't deserve this! She didn't deserve to meet me.

I strained my brain again, willing my sight to come up with another image, anything but this endless, angry ocean… nothing.

It ends here. There's not another image because they won't find her body. No burial, no understanding, no closure.

420…

Seven minutes… I had never felt like this before. I didn't need to breathe, so why was I suddenly struggling for air?

Time's up.

Isabella Marie Swan was dead. And my entire family was to blame.