It Started With A Fire.
This is my version of how Esme wakes up as a vampire after Carlisle changed her. Carlisle and Edward will come in later chapters. I might even go as far to when they fall in love later on. We'll see how it goes.
Stephenie Meyer owns the characters and plot. I am telling the story in my own version.
I wanted to die.
That's all there was to it. If I could be granted nothing else in this world, I wanted a swift end to this pain, this seemingly never ending, agonizing pain. All I wanted was salvation from this horrible ordeal – death seemed the only answer.
But then again, I was already dying. That was the problem. I had asked for death when I jumped from the rocks. This was what I had asked for.
I had never felt this kind of anguish before. If only I could find the source of it, I would have something tangible to focus on, to perhaps will away. The seething fire I felt, instead, raged as it if originated from every pore, every vein, every capillary in my body – nothing was spared or forgotten. My heart was beating wildly in concert with my agony, fueling and baiting the fire. I was only vaguely aware of a cool hand running across my cheek, the change in temperature merely reminding me of how unbearably hot I felt inside. I hadn't noticed until this point that my eyes were closed, my vision only open to a wasteland of blackness – even if my eyes had been open, the only thing I would have been able to focus on would have been the flames currently licking every crevice within me.
A cry of torment rumbled in my throat as a particularly cruel wave of heat coursed through my body. My muscles, which I had never been particularly aware of as a human, suddenly felt as if concrete were being poured into them. I was hyper aware of each one as I felt them seize up, further paralyzing my already ravaged body. I arched, writhed, squirmed – anything to protest what was happening to me.
But next to me I could feel the presence of another, somehow even though my pain was so great. I could hear talking in the midst of my crying; a low male voice. I became irate at the thought that the ordeal my poor, weak dying body was going through was a spectacle to be watched, studied. My ensuing pain and anger seemed to fuse with one another to my distress. The process I was going through didn't seem to abate – instead, my anger appeared to be making it worse.
The next stab of torture I felt was crushing. Any air I may have had left in my lungs left as I must have let out a piercing cry of pain (not only was my vision impaired, but my hearing was also distorted, the only sound available to me being the roar of my own heart and the invisible fire encased within me). Each of my organs began shutting down, the first my womb and its adjacent appendages. Unlike the concrete I had felt being unleashed into my muscles, it felt as if tiny matches were individually being lit, each match stronger than the last until a fire raged so hot I simply thought my organs were being forced to melt. This continued for each organ, the tiny balls of fire slowly and mechanically weaving a way to the most vital one, the one I wished it to reach fastest to put an end to all of this – my heart.
Before that, the matches encountered my lungs. I pulled as hard against the restraints as I possibly could in my reduced state as the fire began there – first the right, then the left. The air I had left in my lungs was pushed out of my burning throat as I let out another cry of pure anguish, the agonizing pain causing a low rumble to reverberate in my throat. The need for taking a breath vanished as the pain slowly receded from my lungs, though I still took a large gulp of air as if I had just emerged from water after nearly drowning. I thought perhaps the worst was over – I was wrong, horribly wrong.
I could feel two pairs of cool hands wrap around my wrist and force it back down. The pain I had felt in my lungs matched nothing as the flames licked and wrapped around my heart, the last survivor in this less than admirable fight I was waging within myself. I was wholly unaware of the cries I was emitting as I felt nothing like I had ever imagined, nothing I ever wished to feel again.
Heat, searing heat, found its way into each and every crevice of my heart as it struggled to continue beating. Concrete, thick and demobilizing, began its deadly trail through what must surely be the last remnant of my life on this earth. In its struggle, I could have sworn my heart was attempting to push out of my ribcage, fighting to gain access through the stone that was quickly becoming my skin. Its incessant pounding roared in my ears as the terrible fire continued to ravage it.
I wanted it all to end. I didn't realize death would be this awful.
Was it because I hadn't had a priest around to give me last rites?
What a terrible woman I was. I was on my way to ... hell.
I let out another cry of anguish. It got worse - very worse - before the last step.
And then it was over. My heart, in the middle of a beat that seemed to match that of a trembling bird, stopped. There weren't any dramatics – it simply stopped, stilling to a hard, immobile stone within my chest. The raging fire ended along with it, leaving me unaware as to what would happen next – was anything going to happen?
I realized I was no longer breathing, and in a brief moment of panic I gasped for air until I realized I no longer needed it. The cool air, unfortunately, created another fire, one I was wholly unaware and unprepared for.
My throat felt as if a thousand rusty, sharp nails had been scraped inside of it, each creating a small, irritating crevice. Though nothing like the raging fires I had just recently endured, a smaller, yet still agonizingly painful, heat emanated within my esophagus and trachea. Normally I longed for water – even the smallest sip seemed as if it would help keep this pain away. I knew this wasn't what I was truly searching for. Only one thing could cure this terrible affliction.
My eyes suddenly snapped open. Though unaware of my surroundings, unaware of who was beside me, I was abruptly aware of who, what, I was: I was something different entirely, most certain not a human. And what I craved most was blood, thick, rich, warm - but above all - human blood.
I wanted to drink human blood.
I was... a vampire?