Chapter 1
The fever was a fire-burning, consuming me. I couldn't think-I was past even the hallucinations that had plagued me in the beginning. The only thing I was aware of, other than the pain, were the hands that held me down to stop me from hurting myself, that brushed the hair away from my face when I moaned, that and nothing else had kept me from going under before, even that had no meaning now. I had lost. I gave up, gave in, sinking into the black void. I sighed there wasn't any more pain no more fire my mind told me, relieved.
And then it was back. It was burning hotter than ever, a forest fire, burning everything in its path, sucking, draining the life out of everything. Scorching me, burning my extremities first, and then moving in closer to my chest… where my heart was trying frantically to outrun the flames. It was losing the race.
It felt like centuries-no, millennia- when the flames were extinguished, the only reminder of the fever a burning sensation in my throat. It wasn't very bad, just a dull ache-my mind was keeping tabs on it, like I usually kept tabs on breathing and my heart. Slowly I sat up, noticing the way everything was so much clearer-I could see things I wouldn't have dreamed of before. Shaking my head to clear my confused thoughts, I looked around. I wasn't at my own home. I was in a, a morgue I opened my mouth to scream, but was stopped by a smooth, white hand covering it. Clamping my mouth shut, I slowly turned around to face a blonde, tired looking man. The same blonde, tired looking man currently had his hand very rudely over my mouth.
Raising my hand, I peeled his fingers from over my lips. "Where am I, What am I, and who in the name of all that is holy are you?" I said coolly, staring straight at him. I was not pleased.
He smiled sadly, solemnly, and said "You, my dear, are in a morgue, as a vampire, and my name is Carlisle, Carlisle Cullen." After he finished this charming little confession, I quickly sat up, pulling my body off the cold metal gurney I had been laid on, presumably pronounced dead before I had got all the way to the hospital. I closed my eyes against the onslaught of memories that battered at my conscience, suddenly hyperaware that if what this Carlisle said was true, I couldn't ever be allowed to see my family again. Too dangerous, of course. I would kill them in a frenzy for blood and death. This took my train of thought in an entirely different, but related, direction.
"Why?" I asked "Why did you change me? Why not just let me die, another insignificant, puny human killed by the plague that has taken so many? One more casualty would not harm anyone, except me, and I daresay, my family." I said this all without looking at him, afraid that if I did, I would be angered even more than I already was, a burning anger that tainted my vision with scarlet.
As she was wheeled through the wide doors of the overflowing hospital in which I was currently working, I paused. She looked exactly as my daughter had, but my daughter had lived almost a hundred years ago, not impossible that she was still alive, but improbable. I tore myself back to the present and quickly took the young girl from the nurse who was taking her directly to the morgue. I could see the logic there, as we had no room, and she was nearly dead anyway. As we reached the morgue, not pausing, I sank my teeth deep into the soft tissue of her neck. Before I could taste any more of the blood than I already had, I quickly sealed the cut shut, and repeated the procedure with her wrists and ankles. I quickly moved her to a dark corner in the morgue, where I knew no one ever went. I sat there with her for four days, an incredibly long transformation. No vampire had I met whose transformation was that long, which was odd. However, that was a story for another time, as I could see her stirring, in my thoughts; I hadn't noticed that the frenzied beating of her dying heart had stopped. She blinked, stirred slowly, and sat up. As she looked around, not seeing me, she must have noticed she was in a morgue. She opened her mouth to scream. I quickly clamped my hand down over her mouth, praying she wouldn't cause a scene. The last thing I needed was someone asking why a doctor was sitting in the middle of the morgue, hushing a dead body, because that was not easy to explain.
She took my hand from her mouth, I, satisfied that she wasn't about to go screaming, loosened my grip. She turned to face me, and asked the simple questions first. I answered her, "You, my dear, are in a morgue, as a vampire, and my name is Carlisle, Carlisle Cullen." She jerked her body up off the gurney, her eyes narrowed, only a little, but enough to set me on edge, she was dangerous, and very, very strong.
"Why?" she asked "Why did you change me? Why not just let me die, another insignificant, puny human killed by the plague that has taken so many? One more casualty would not harm anyone, except me, and I daresay, my family."
I didn't have an answer. Why did I change her? Because she looked like my Sophia, who had lived almost a hundred years ago? I was sorry that I had damned her to an existence like this, truly sorry. I don't think I had need of the companionship-I had already changed Edward Anthony Mason.
Ooh, what will happen when Bella meets Edward? I guess you will have to wait and find out.
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