I rolled over on the sky blue comforter of our king size bed to face my beautiful wife. I twined a strand of her long dark hair through my fingers and released a peaceful and relaxed sigh. She gave me a small, sweet smile as I leaned towards her to give her a gentle kiss.

It had been months since we had been able to enjoy each other like this, with soft caresses and kisses. Things were finally winding down after our second home-meeting with the Volturi, and all I needed to worry about now was Renesme's aging process and keeping my family happy. I placed my hand on the right side of Esme's smooth face and leaned in for a deeper, more passionate kiss.

*BEEP!* *BEEP!* *BEEP!*

And the other thing to worry about was my position at the hospital. Being one of the main and most experienced doctors in the Forks' ER was no menial task. There was always an interesting case. Last week, a boy named Tyler Crowley came in with a fish-hook caught in one of his eyes. Lucky for him, I happened to be on that shift and was able to remove it without any temporary damage to his cornea.

But now, I had not a clue why they were calling me in at two in the morning. Usually the other staff could manage without me. This must be a serious case.

I kissed Esme on the cheek and whispered into her ear, "Sorry, Sweetheart. I'll be back later." She nodded her head in understanding as I super sped around the room, throwing on some clean scrubs. I ran out the door without another word and got into my Mustang. If I needed to be somewhere fast, this was the car to get there in.

Driving agilely down the highway at about 110 MPH, I got to the hospital in about eight minutes. I parked the car, got out, and ran (at a more human speed) through the front door of the ER. As soon as I got in, one of the nurses, Carry, beckoned for me to go through the doors of the operation room. I smelled a great amount of blood instantly and fought to contain my hunger as I followed her in, threw on some gloves and a mask as quickly as I could, and looked at the gory and heartbreaking sight that lay before me.

A petite, little girl of about eleven years lay on the table, immobile. She had deep lacerations clear across her face, puncture wounds and claw marks dotting her abdomen, and many deep scratches ran down her legs. She possessed another critical head wound just behind her ear in her blood-matted, dark brown hair, where it looked like she had suffered a blow from a strong paw of some type of animal.

I could hear her faint breathing, and her little heart was still pounding, but just barely. It was a miracle that this child was still alive. I turned to the nurse for an explanation amidst all of the movement trying to stabilize the girls condition. The nurse yelled to me saying that the Quileute girl had been attacked by an aggravated animal, and that someone had found her lying on the side of the road on the reservation and had rushed her in.

I took another glance at her. She was fading fast; I could hear it in her heartbeat. To me, it looked like it wasn't an animal attack, it was shifter wounds. It looked like the little Quileute girl had stood too close while one of the pack had shifted. I guess I was going to have to talk to Billy Black after this nightmare was over.

I rushed to help the other doctors stabilize her condition, hooking her up to an IV and something to ease the pain of her injuries. I then proceeded to clean the wounds and purge them of any foreign objects and dead tissue. Another nurse gave her a tetanus and rabies shots as I tried my best to rinse the wounds on her head and face while the other doctors repaired the wounds on her torso. I cleaned her wounds as gently as I could and I grabbed a pair of sutures to hack her hair away so I could begin stitching up her wound. We would have to do many scans later to be certain of any permanent brain damage.

As soon as I started stitching her up, a nurse hooked her up to a blood transfusion. She began to violently convulse.

"She's rejecting it!" I yelled. The team and I held her down as foam dripped from her mouth and her eyes opened and rolled into the back of her head. The only thing we could was wait until she stopped flailing as a doctor removed the transfusion from her wrist.

Then… she flat-lined. I began CPR and tried my best to get her heart pumping again. I was losing her.

Meanwhile my subconscious whispered to me 'You could turn her'. After all, my venom could save her life. But it would open her up to an eternity of immortality, frozen as an eleven year-old. Not to mention my family would receive a death warrant from the Volturi for creating an immortal child, she would be ultimately miserable in a life of hiding and running. It was not worth the pain; I couldn't do that to her or my family. I had to let her go, to either heaven or whatever afterlife there lay beyond life. I would never get to find out.

And so she died on an operating table. This poor little girl, mauled by an animal, had suffered for no reason. As a doctor, no matter how many times you lose a patient, it still stings and haunts you for the rest of your life.

I looked around the room to all the gaunt faces resembling my own. It was silent except for the long beep of the heart monitor. I turned it off and covered the little girl's fragile body with a sheet. There was nothing left for me to do.

I took off my gloves and mask and changed my stained shirt, just throwing it all into the trash. Everyone has their time, but the loss of such a young life was heartbreaking and brutal. Seeing as I was not needed anymore at the hospital, I returned home, into the arms of my beautiful Esme and the comfort of my family.

Tonight I was reminded that life is precious, and that I need to appreciate my own life, with such a beautiful family, as much as I could.

I would make a visit to the reservation in the morning, but, for now, all I wanted to do was to return to bed and lie down with my gorgeous wife in my arms.

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