Alrighty! Hi to all my old fans from Dusk! If you haven't read that, go away! You can not read this unless you read Dusk first, otherwise, you're going to end up UBER confuzzled. So. After being threatened, bribed, worshiped, and hated, I finally managed to get the first chapter up. It is a bit short, but still. It's something, and that's better than nothing. I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to update, but no worries! I will update before the end of the month. So, enjoy, and please review!

I leaned against the wall, frowning deeply at… nothing.

Not that such a thing wasn't unusual. At least, for the past couple months it hadn't been. I found myself frowning at nothing any time I was left alone for too long. And I could never explain, to myself and others, why. Just a feeling of something being wrong. Sometimes, if I stayed quiet and thoughtful long enough, I could almost pinpoint what was wrong, like a ghost of a word fluttering around the edges of my mind, on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't catch a ghost. The more I worked at attempting to catch it, the faster it would sift away, like sand in a sieve or an hourglass.

At first, when this began happening, I was frustrated, angry, oddly desperate to remember. But time passed, slowly and inexplicably painfully, and I settled into the knowledge that I was probably going to continue being like this until I figured out what was bothering me. Either that, or I was stuck this way for eternity, which didn't seem like an enjoyable outlook.

I could hear heart beats enter the hall leading to the feast room, but I made no move to get up and join the rest of the Volturi. Probably it would mean another angry lecture from Aro, but I just wasn't at all eager to go join them. Half the time, he'd say something in anger that made no sense to me, but wasn't that just like Aro? Never quite realizing how insane he sounded.

The door at the far end of the room, which rested in a strip of sunlight, opened, and a faintly glittering form slipped in before closing the door behind herself. Alice looked around the room, spotted me, and came over with incredible grace. She leaned against the wall next to me, and looked up at me, calculation in her gaze.

"Do you always hang out in the shadows, Bella, or is it just a phase?"

I frowned a little and tried the approach of not straining to grasp the ghost in my mind, hoping that it would just abruptly jump out and yell "Here I am!".

"What do you want, Alice?" I asked, reluctantly. She was obsessed with cheering me up, and it usually involved makeovers and shopping. She had serious issues.

She rolled her dark eyes at me. "Bella, what do you think I want? I want to know what the hell these visions I keep having of people are about! But why am I here?" She gave me a look. "You know that. Aro sent me. He demands you come feed or he'll make Demetri and Alec hold you down while Jane gets to force feed you."

I snorted. "Jane won't do that anymore. She likes me too much now." I frowned again. "Don't know what changed her opinion of me so quickly." I added in a mutter.

Alice sighed, and slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. She dropped her head on her knees, her arms lying limply on the ground next to her. I slid down until I sat as well, wrapping my arms around my middle instinctively and folding my knees close to my chest.

"I saw that one guy again. In my visions." Alice whispered.

I looked at her. Alice had visions of possible futures, things that happened depending on peoples' decisions. They centered around people close to her, herself, and things that would affect her. Yet for some reason, she also kept having ones of this coven of five, and more specifically from that, the blond single one. It worried and distressed her, because they never seemed to do anything that would affect us way over here in Volterra, yet she had small visions for them almost every day.

"What was it this time?" I asked softly. I attempted to block out the now uneasy murmurs of the humans as they entered the feeding room and Aro greeted them.

"He's leaving his coven. Later tonight, I think. He doesn't want them to know he's going though. He keeps changing his mind about where to go, so I can't tell that much, but he's still unhappy. I haven't figured out why, yet." She frowned. "But I will." she added with determination.

I grinned at her, mentally wincing as the screams started. You'd think, after nearly four years, I'd be past this already, instead of feeling even worse than usual. "Aw, is Alice falling in love with the vision guy?" I teased in a baby-like voice.

She stuck her tongue out at me, somehow managing to look regal while doing it. "Yeah, and look at you. Moping for no reason still?"

I frowned darkly. "There is a reason, I just haven't figured it out yet." I muttered darkly.

A worried look passed through her eyes, and I forced myself to smile easily at her, in hopes of dissipating her worry. Alice had problems of her own to worry about without adding my odd behaviour into the mix. I leaned my head back against the wall, closing my eyes and ignoring the few, faint, dying whimpers from the feeding room. I wished I could sleep. Four years of ever-wakefulness was exhausting, especially when there was no reason to be awake so long. Sleep was an escape I wasn't allowed, a form of release that I was banned from. I wanted to sleep. When one slept, they dreamed, and dreams were mainly one's way of interpreting what was occurring in one's life, to help gain understanding and see solutions hidden from one during times of consciousness. In sleep, there were no limits, boundaries, logic was illogical, and you were more open to possibilities. Maybe, if I could sleep, I would understand why I was so lost, frustrated, depressed all of a sudden.

Sometimes, when I was especially overwhelmed with these irrational emotions, I'd simply lie on the bed in the room I had that I never used, curled on my side, closing my eyes and letting my mind drift as it pleased. It was as close as I could ever get to the peace of sleep. And sometimes, the ghost would come, even closer than usual, and I'd get fleeting sensations. Longing, sadness, an intense sense of missing, and my chest would ache like someone was slowly shredding my un-beating heart to miniscule pieces. Flashes of color - green, lots of green; topaz; gray; bronze. Words - rematch; biology; race; IM. None of it ever made much sense, and it seemed impossible to string it all together.

Alice broke me out of my internal musings. "Bella… I hate it here."

I sighed. "So do I Alice. But there's no way we can leave… Aro won't let us. And I am not ready to risk getting killed because I'm simply unhappy. He'd have to really piss me off."

Alice rolled her eyes and stood, mindlessly brushing off the back of her clothes, though the cloak would have kept it from getting any miniscule dust particles on it. I followed her lead and rose as well, if rather reluctantly. I could never seem to find any enthusiasm for things these days. If Aaron were still alive and not killed on our last mission, he would say that I needed a vacation from this joint, then bug Aro constantly until he got to take me to some outrageous place.

Too bad Aro had forbidden me from leaving Volterra.

JPOV

It was painful to be at home these days. No one felt anything close to happiness, no one could move on completely. Rosalie was the most harsh of us all, pushing aside the pain to move on. So they were gone, she'd once said. We're not so let's live. Esme felt horrible, having lost three people she loved as her own children. Carlisle became so distracted at work, he 'quit', unwilling to take the risk of making a mistake that could cost someone their life. Mainly, he tried to comfort Esme, or kept to himself in the study. Edward being the first one he changed, there would always be that close relationship between them that no one else would have. Emmett tried to keep up his usually easy-going personality, but he didn't joke around or smile nearly as much.

And I withdrew even more than I ever had in my life. Without Alice, I felt very little reason to live. Sometimes, I almost gave up on this life; I knew no one would stop me if I truly wanted to go. It was difficult to resist the lure of human blood already, and without Alice there to really encourage me, to give me a reason to really give forth an effort….

I was leaving tonight. The rest of the family was going hunting. I, once again, was not going along. They thought I was simply going to continue moping, as Rosalie called it. But I was leaving, I didn't know where to. Maybe I'd look for Charlotte and Peter. Maybe I'd just wander around the world. I wondered if I should get new identification from Jenks or not. I dismissed the idea, not able to find any need to. Maybe I'd go back to the south… it was the only other thing I knew besides this life. And I didn't want this life without Alice.

Still… I couldn't forget the emotions that had, briefly, flickered through Aro when I'd let them out, and had constantly been in the girl with him. They were the slim string of hope I clung to, that maybe, for whatever reason, Aro had lied to us.

EPOV

I crept through the dark alleys of the large city - I hadn't been paying attention as to where exactly - and shifted eagerly as the sweet, mind-fogging scent of blood reached me. I kept my mental ears open for the thoughts of criminals and those up to no good.

A few blocks farther away, I slipped onto a fire escape and quickly climbed up it. Yelling, shouting, harsh words and frantic heartbeats were coming from one of the apartments. I glanced into the window near the fire escape, and growled lowly. A slightly overweight, obviously drunk man was throwing things around, aiming - for the most part poorly - at a woman who I gathered was his wife. She was ducking clumsily, sobbing, then gave a short scream as he came over himself to slam his large meaty fist into her face. I heard the bone fracture, and quickly opened the window, slipping inside the house easily. The woman saw me first, and her eyes widened in the familiar, fearful way as everyone's eventually did. Her husband, drunk as he was, seemed to think it was because of him, and he sneered smugly. I stalked up behind him, barely noticing as the woman's breathing quickened into hyperventilation. Finally, the man turned around as he realized she was looking past him. He gaped in dumbfounded shock, then glared in anger at me.

"Who are you? Get outta my house!" he slurred demandingly.

I smirked at him, and took another step closer.

"I'm warnin' you," he slurred, getting worried and fearful now.

My lips pulled back from my teeth in the semblance of a grotesque grin. I hadn't yet given myself over completely to my instincts; there was no reason to risk hurting the woman - her life had been bad enough already without having to die so painfully.

"I'd run, if I were you," I told her, slowly moving my eyes temporarily to her. She paled some more, then scrambled backwards until she was on her feet; she scrambled around the man and I, and raced out the door, tripping a few times. I smirked at the man as his heart went into dangerously quick beats, as his breathing shallowed and quickened, and he began to perspire in fear.

I grinned in feral delight and took another step forward.

His life ended tonight.

So. We get a bit of a peek at what's been going on for the past five months in the world of Dusk and Sorrow. Hope it was at least somewhat up to expectations. It'll get better as we go along... review please!

Laughs and hugs all!