FH: Okay, this is my VERY FIRST Twilight fic, so no flames, please. Just enjoy the fic and R&R!
(Bella's POV)
Alone. I repeated the word with grim satisfaction as I wrenched myself to my feet despite the pain. At precisely that moment, a figure stepped out from the trees to the north, some thirty paces away.
A dizzying array of emotions shot through me in a second. The first was surprise; I was far from any trail here, and I didn't expect company. Then, as my eyes focused on the motionless figure, the pale skin, a rush of piercing hope rocked through me. I suppressed it viciously, fighting against the equally sharp lash of agony as my eyes continued to the face beneath the red hair; the face wasn't the one I wanted to see. Next was fear; this was not the face I grieved for, but it was close enough for me to know that the woman facing me was no stray hiker.
And finally, in the end, recognition.
"Victoria!" I whispered in horror.
However, even though it was the quietest of whispers, it caused said vampire to whip her head in my direction. As soon as her eyes landed on me, a pleased, crazy smile lit up her face.
"I've finally found you!" she chirped, happy to have found her quarry at last; me. Victoria started to walk towards me in that wild, feline way of hers.
My eyes darted around me, looking for an escape. But even if I had tried to run, it would be useless anyway. No one could help me now. I was on my own.
I said the first thing that came to my mind to distract her.
"D-Did you f-find J-James?" I stuttered, inwardly cursing my frightened voice.
It did exactly the opposite.
The next thing I knew, I was dangling a good foot off of the ground as Victoria held me by the throat, all traces of the smile gone, replaced by an angry snarl.
"Yes I did, in fact, but all I found was a pile of ashes!" she spat out, "And now I will take the revenge of his death out on you, and make you suffer!"
With that, she flung me away from her, and I crashed into a nearby tree with such a force, that I was stunned by the pain. The next second Victoria was on me, and threw me to the ground so hard that as I landed on my left side, I heard a sickening crunch as my left arm broke, followed by the pain. I screamed.
Victoria was on me in a flash, as she flipped me over onto my stomach and grabbed my broken arm, twisting it up into my back. I screamed in agony as I squirmed underneath her.
"Do you feel that Bella?" Victoria asked harshly, "That is the pain that I felt when I found James! And now you will pay with your life!"
I began to sob from the pain and the fear as she twisted my arm further. I was going to die.
Victoria suddenly released my arm and flung me into another tree so hard that I felt a painful rip on the back of my head, and the hot, sticky substance of my blood dripping onto my shirt. The smell of it made me nauseated. I looked up and Victoria looked at me with the blackest eyes I've ever seen. It wouldn't be long now. Her thirst was taking over.
I sat slumped against the tree, a mess of blood and tears as Victoria began to stalk towards me. When she was about ten feet away, I wasn't sure due to the black dots floating in my vision, she stopped, and crouched.
With what seemed to be a single, fluid motion – one that must have been performed a thousand different times with all the same end – she sprang across the gap between us, lifted my paralyzed face level with his, and her fangs unerringly sought my human neck. I felt the razor edges of her teeth sink effortlessly through my skin and her icy lips press firmly to my neck. I screamed as her sharp teeth gouged painfully deeper into my skin. I felt an icy cold wave of panic as I felt my blood drain away from me.
"Fight, don't give up!" my beautiful hallucination pleaded, but his voice – Edward's voice – seemed full of dread.
My brief scream faded.
I didn't want to fight anymore. Even if somehow my feeble strength could repel my attacker, even if somehow my clumsy body could outrun my predator, I couldn't bring myself to even bother trying. I was almost happy that it was over. Even if this death was painful, and terrifying, I was somewhat glad it would be over very soon. Darkness started to drift across my vision. I jammed my eyes shut, not wanting the last thing I saw to be the wild red eyes of my murderer.
I thought briefly of the clichés, about how you were suppose to see your life flash before your eyes. I was so much luckier. Who wanted to see a rerun, anyway?
I saw him, and I had no will to fight. It was so clear, so much more defined than any memory. My subconscious had stored Edward away in flawless detail, saving him for this final moment. I could see his perfect face as if he were really there; the exact shade of his icy skin, the shape of his lips, the line of his jaw, the gold glinting in his furious eyes. He was angry, naturally, that I was giving up. His teeth were clenched and his nostrils flared with rage.
"No! Bella, no!"
I first I thought I was hearing Edward's furious growl, but I quickly realized it was something else. Edward's growl wasn't nearly so rough and guttural. I then heard an entire chorus of these growls, and snarls. Victoria froze for the briefest moment, and suddenly dropped me, spinning to face whoever was challenging her kill. My knees buckled as my weight was returned to me, and I crumpled limply to the ground. My hand clapped weakly over my torn neck, feeling my hot blood flow fast from under my hand, lacing around my fingers.
My eyelids fluttered open, and I dimly registered massive dark shapes detaching themselves from the forest, hurtling themselves toward my would-be murderer. Five massive beasts seemed to descend upon the vampire, but I could hardly follow the movement with my eyes before Victoria fled with the animals pursuing her.
Confusion flooded me at the same time that the pain did. Now that I was free of the crushing grip and slicing fangs, I registered for the first time the fire. My neck was burning and the pain was quickly spreading and increasing as it slowly inched further from the bite with every beat of my heart. I realized what was happening with a start, and I realized that this time there would be no one to stop the spread like before, no one to draw out the venom quickly infecting my system with fire and pain.
No! I cried out at the hellishly cruel irony of this situation. I had only wanted to become a vampire to spend forever with Edward, and now, I was condemned to spend eternity without him.
The flames spread and the pain that accompanied them was unimaginable. I writhed and screamed as I tore at my neck, my fingers clawing uselessly at the fire, as if trying to extinguish them. But the flames refused to be swayed and, as if in protest to the idea of my trying to extinguish them, they suddenly grew more intense and I knew I've never felt such agony in my life. My hands drifted further from my neck as I clawed at the line of fire slowly razing through my body, and I screamed and cried out as more of my body was consumed in pain. By the time my whole body was plunged into the scalding flames, my throat was already hoarse from the screaming. But I continued regardless, it was utterly impossible to endure this pain silent. With my entire body now filled with fire, the pain unexpectedly rose and peaked, and rose again. I was temporarily stunned by the intensity of the flame, before my mind restarted with a single thought.
Let me die!
Let me die!
Let me die!
Let me die!
I needed to get out of there! So I gingerly stood up, because of my broken arm, and dashed in the opposite direction of Victoria and the wolves.
After only a few minutes of running, the burning became too intense to keep going, so I just dropped in pain in a very small clearing.
I was trapped in the pain. I couldn't even comprehend the time as I was sucked into the endless moment of agony. It might have been seconds or hours, but it might as well have been an eternity in hell and fire as I lay in the clearing. Now the clearing held memories for me, ones now forming as I flipped and writhed in the grass and dirt, gouging marks into the earth with my frantic body.
As I continued to endure the fire, I slowly began to think around it, and I was vaguely able to mark a passing of time as the sky started to darken.
The time came when the darkness of night shrouded the meadow and I was lost in the agonizing pain of fire. What should have been a million burnt deaths later, the sky seemed to lighten, but there was no change in the blistering tongues of flame that ravaged my body.
I thrashed and shrieked while the flames continued to lick through my veins with searing agony. As the sky brightened further, I started feeling some slow change. Both my mind and senses were slowly shifting. I could now hear with remarkable clarity the hidden river near the clearing seemed louder than before. I could smell the upturned earth and grass from my thrashings with new appreciation. As well, my mind slowly revealed new space to me – more space to suffer in – but also to think.
The fire raged on inside my body, unrelenting, with no change.
Several screams later, the sky darkened.
Eleven thousand, four hundred five loud screams later, the sky slowly began to lighten again to mark the second day. There seemed to be so much more space in my head now, and I was able to mourn this horrible turn of events, wonder about my endless future, able to think ahead to the seemingly impossible end of this blazing hell, the hell whose scalding flames continue to chew at my body.
Then the sky started to prematurely darken as the clouds thickened over the clearing.
I was shocked by how much I heard. Now, that I was focused on my hearing, a barrage of new noises filled my head. Over my ragged breathing and rapid heartbeat, I heard as the wind picked up and whispered through the grass before tousling the leaves in the trees into an audible scraping. In the branches of the trees, I heard the ruffling of birds and below in the brush was the rummaging of small rodents. The hidden stream was practically deafening now that I listened to it. I waited while listening to the forest around me.
The sky continued to darken further with grey clouds as I resumed listening to the sounds of the night. I picked up an odd pittering noise, one that came from all around me and became louder as the minutes passed. It took me a slow few minutes to figure out it was the rain, after all I couldn't even feel the cool droplets against my searing skin. The rain increased and I was aware when my vision blurred as the water gathered on my face. I closed my eyes to keep the rain out of them, and decided it wouldn't be worth opening them for a while since the dark night was coming soon anyways. I continued burning through the long night, and finally morning came once again.
It was day three, the last day hopefully. What would this mean now, that I was about to become a vampire? What would I do? Where would I go? Charlie. What about him and Jake?
I wallowed in these thoughts for a while, letting them occupy the portion of my mind not filled with burning and agony. Outside my mind, I continued to keep my eyes shut, and I was able to gain control of my voice enough to stay quiet. I was somewhat glad that if this did have to happen, that it happened here out in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't fathom how someone could hide and stay quiet enough to avoid discovery in a city. I wondered how he'd done it?
I was about to change my train of thought, it was doing no good to think about them, when suddenly the pain changed. On the good-news side of things, it started to fade from my fingertips and toes. Fading slowly, but at least it was doing something new. This had to be it. The pain was on its way out...
And then the bad news. The fire in my throat wasn't the same as before. I wasn't only on fire, but I was now parched, too. Dry as bone. So thirsty. Burning fire, and burning thirst...
Also bad news: The fire inside my heart got hotter.
How was that possible?
My heartbeat, already too fast, picked up – the fire drove its rhythm to a new frantic pace. The fire retreated from my palms, leaving them blissfully pain-free and cool. But it retreated to my heart, which blazed hot as the sun and beat at a furious new speed. The loudest sound in the clearing was my frenzied heart, pounding to the rhythm of the fire.
I steadfastly kept my eyes locked shut when the increasing pain caused a scream to break through my silent façade. My new shockingly musical cry did little to distract me from the excruciating pain in my heart.
Quickly, my wrists became free, though, and my ankles. The fire was totally extinguished there. The fire ripped hotter still through my chest, draining in from my elbows and knees. And then – oh!
My heart took off, beating like helicopter blades, the sound almost a single sustained note; it felt like it would grind through my ribs. The fire flared up in the center of my chest, sucking the last remnants of the flames from the rest of my body to fuel the most scorching blaze yet. The pain was enough to stun me, and I found I couldn't have screamed if I wanted to. My back arched, bowed as if the fire was dragging me upward by my heart. It became a battle inside me – my sprinting heart racing against the attacking fire. Both were losing. The fire was doomed, having consumed everything that was combustible; my heart galloped toward its last beat. The fire constricted, concentrating inside that one remaining human organ with a final, unbearable surge. The surge was answered by a deep, hollow-sounding thud. My heart stuttered twice, and then thudded quietly again just once more.
There was no sound. No breathing. Not even mine.
For a moment, the absence of pain was all I could comprehend.
And then I opened my eyes and gazed above me in wonder.
………………..End of Chapter 1: Torture & A Bite……………………..