Bella jumped off the cliff in La Push. Jacob was not there to save her. Bella is drowning and going to die. Fate had other plans…
Twilight Angst/ Romance Bella & Edward Alt ending to new moon
PROLOGUE
New Moon 358-362
BELLA POV
"Bella" I smiled and exhaled. Yes? I didn't answer out loud; for fear that the sound of my voice would shatter the beautiful illusion. He sounded so real, so close. It was only when he was disapproving like this that I could hear the true memory of his voice- the velvet texture and the musical intonation that made up the most perfect of all voices. "Don't do this," he pleaded You wanted me to be human. I reminded him. Well watch me,
"Please, for me?" But you won't stay with me any other way. "Please?" It was just a whisper in the blowing rain that tossed my hair and drenched my clothes- making me as wet as if this was my second jump of the day. I rolled up onto the balls of my feet.
"No Bella" He was angry now, and the anger was so lovely. I smiled and raised my arms strait out, as if I were going to dive, lifting my face into the rain. But it was too ingrained from years of swimming at the public pool- feet first, first time. I leaned forward, crouching to get more spring...and I flung myself off the cliff. I screamed as I dropped trough the open air like a meteor, but it was a scream of exhilaration and not fear. The wind resisted, trying vainly to fight the unconquerable gravity, pushing against me and twirling me in spirals like a rocket crashing to earth. Yes! The word echoed through my head as I sliced through the surface of the water. It was icy, colder than I'd feared, and yet the chill only added to the high. I was proud of myself as I plunged deeper into the freezing black water. I hadn't had one moment of terror-just pure adrenaline. Really the fall wasn't scary at all. Where was the challenge? That was when the current caught me, I'd been so preoccupied by the size of the cliffs, by the obvious danger of their high, sheer faces, that I hadn't worried at all about the dark water waiting. I never dreamed that the true menace was lurking far below me, under the heaving surf.
It felt like the waves ere fighting over me, jerking me back and forth between them as if determined to share by pulling me into halves. I knew the right way to avoid riptide: swim parallel to the beach rather than struggling for the shore. But the knowledge did me little good when I didn't know which way the shore was. I couldn't' even tell which way the surface was. The angry water was black in every direction; there was no brightness to direct me upward. Gravity was all-powerful when it competed with air, but it had nothing on the waves- I couldn't eel a downward pull, a sinking in any direction. J just the battering of the current that flung me round and round like a rag doll. I fought to keep my breath in, to keep my lips locked around my last store of oxygen. It didn't surprise me that my delusion of Edward was there. He owed m hat much, considering that I was dying. I was surprised by how sure that knowledge was. Ii was going to drown. I was drowning.
" Keep swimming!" Edward begged urgently in my head.
Where? There was nothing but the darkness. There was no place to swim to
" Stop that!" he ordered " Don't you dare give up!"
The cold of the water was numbing my arms and legs didn't feel the buffeting so much as before. It was more of just dizziness now, a helpless spinning in the water. But I listened to him. I forced my arms to continue reaching my legs to kick harder, though every second I was facing a new direction. It couldn't be doing any good what was the point?
"Fight!" he yelled "Damn it, Bella, keep fighting."
Why?
I didn't' wasn't to fight any more. And it wasn't the lightheadedness or the cold, or the failure of my arms as the muscles gave out in exhaustion, that made me content to stay where I was. I was almost happy that it was over. This was an easier death than the others I'd faced. O Oddly peaceful I thought briefly of the clichés, about how you were supposed to see flashes of your life 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 storedEdward away in flawless detail, saving him for this final moment. I could see his perfect face as if he were really there, 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 nostril flared with rage.
"No! Bella, no!"
My ears were flooded with the freezing water, but his voice was clearer than ever. I ignored his words and concentrated on the sound of is voice. Why would I fight when I was so happy where I was? Even as my lungs burned for more air and my legs cramped in the icy cold I was content. I'd forgotten what real happiness felt like happiness. It made the whole dying thing pretty bearable the current won at that moment. Shoving me abruptly against something hard, a rock invisible in the gloom it hit me solidly across the chest, slamming into me like an iron bar, and the breath whooshed out of my lungs, escaping in a thick cloud of silver bubbles. The iron bar seemed to be dragging me deeper into the dark to the oceans floor
Goodbye, I love you, was my last thought.
CHAPTER 1
BPOV
I was slightly aware of an uncomfortable pulling sensation in the back of my stomach before my surroundings were clear. I was in a familiar place but I wasn't sure where exactly it was. I thought back to what I last remembered and it all came flooding back. I remember the jump the feeling of complete an utter weightlessness, in both the physical sense and emotional. I remembered plunging in to the icy black depths of the La Push ocean bay. Most of all I remembered him. He was so clear, yet I felt no pain in his remembrance. The possibilities of where I could be dawned on me. I died. I never resurfaced, and I had drowned. This was never my intention. I hadn't jumped with the goal of death; I had jumped for the thrill, the freedom. Ironically enough I was free… now. I decided that this must be limbo; I must be there because my heaven & hell would have both had Edward. Different forms of course, just like my Edward on earth the one I loved and the one that left me.
At that moment I felt uneasy, I tensed. Someone was here with me, I wondered quickly whether or not this might be for everyone who had died the same time I had, but dismissed it quickly, for why would it look like the ocean in which I drowned. I felt it, the water I hadn't realized I was in shifted. I turned towards the pulse of water and if I hadn't been dead I would have died right then. I was looking at a woman, more beautiful than even Rosalie or Alice. She was less angular in her features. She had a young soft face but her sapphire eyes told tales of a woman much older. Billowing softly in the water around her face was her long auburn hair. It was shades lighter than his but reminded me of it all the same. As I became more aware of my environment I took in the woman as a part of it, she belonged there, that much was evident. Another pulse of water caught my attention, I stared towards the source bewildered, attached to this beautiful woman was a tail. It was even more beautiful than the woman herself. The tail caught what little light there was and shone the jade scales magnificently, as her tail fanned out I became aware that it turned into the same color blue as her sapphire eyes and fanned out into wisps of fins that seemingly connected her with the ocean.
She noticed my distraction with her appendage and giggled a soft musical laugh that some how had more of a song behind it than anything she had ever heard, even from the Cullen's. I looked up to her face once more and she nodded down to my own lower body. In place of my awkward legs was a tail that rivaled my companions. Mine too picked up the light and the scales glistened. The majority of these scales were a dark navy blue, but very distinguishably blue against the water surrounding us. As my eyes progressed down, what I assumed was my tail, the scales changed into a dark chocolate brown my fin fanned out into the ocean. I looked up from my mesmerizing tail into my companion's wise eyes. She simply stated the obvious,
"We are the same, you and I"
Her voice was soft and contained the same musical base as her laugh. I wondered immediately if I would be able to respond. I tentatively opened my mouth testing as to whether or not I could still feel it. As I started to speak she moved again sending the pulsing water towards my tail. It felt so odd to feel the water shift each scale slightly so it could pass.
" What is it that we are… exactly?" I asked not entirely sure I wanted an answer.
" We are mermish," she stated simply
I had known that this would be the answer I got; I hoped she would elaborate without me asking but when was my life (or whatever) easy?
"Uhg How…I" tried again " How did we… become mermish?"
Like my previous question I already had an idea it was more of a conformation than anything else." We are the lost souls of broken hearts, when you drowned thinking of your love we felt you fade. I came for you and you were not yet dead, I could feel the pain in the ocean and I wished to give you the peace I have now." She finished. With more questions than answers I became confused. All the stories I had ever heard about mermaids were of a separate species, I suppose it had to start somewhere though. I also learned a long time ago the stories are not always fact.
" Is this a sort of limbo then?" I questioned
She shook her head and her eyes grew sad as she gazed upon me " No, this is your new existence, you are no longer human and you are immortal" Her answer was simple enough and I could not change it, I began to think that cognizance must accompany immortality, because I seemed to accept it without question. Suddenly she pulled me out of my contemplation with a question.
" Would you like to meet our sisters?"
"There are more of us?"
She nodded and a small sad smile danced across her soft face.
" I would very much like to meet them" and as a second thought I added " I think I can feel them"
She nodded " yes we are bound together by the heartbreak we have all faced it is our foundation, some have a stronger connection to the others as a way of mending the heart by filling it with others. Kind of the more broke you were the more you have now" finishing with a wistful look towards me.I laughed and thought to myself how strong my connection would be. I then realized as I thought about connections that I had one with this woman and did not know her name.
" I feel terrible, I have not asked your name…"
" It is Cecilia… and yours?"
" Isabella but I prefer Bella."
" Bella, it is then" she paused and stared at me momentarily before addressing me
" Bella, if you don't mind me asking, why were you so willing to accept that you were not dead and not alive but a mermaid? I thought I had gone mental when our sisters told me what I was."
" You are going to think I am truly a nutter when I tell you this but, when I was human, the one that broke my heart was actually a vampire. He and his family were vegetarians," I added quickly for she was shocked " We had a very strong love, or so I thought, and he was very selfless, he left me to protect me. After he left I leaned on my best friend for my light and life and he turned out to be a werewolf." I finished with "The supernatural and the dangerous always find me" Cecile floated there shocked and simply said " Well fate really must have wanted you to have immortality" I was shocked! What could she mean by that? The shock must have been plain across my face, for she qualified her statement quickly." I only mean to say that, from what I have heard, those two mythical creatures are immortal and you seem to form a connection with both and then when you cannot take it any more and you try to take your life you still end up immortal!" I must have looked like one of the fish the way my mouth was gaping.
" He would never change me, he told me I was just a distraction, he never loved me, and my friend Jake, well he would leave me too. When he imprints he wouldn't be my Jacob he would be someone else's." Cecile looked astonished at my bluntness and how easily I just brushed off the two most important relationships of my human life
" By the way I wasn't trying to kill myself…"
"What? Why would you have that much despair and pain. You were limp and not fighting! Why did you jump" I knew she would ask this and I knew I needed to answer her truthfully
" I have been feeling that pain and despair for the last few months. That actually was borderline happiness for me what I was feeling. I jumped because when I do something stupid or dangerous I hear his voice. He yells at me and I can delude myself into thinking he cares. I jumped because it was both stupid and dangerous. I didn't fight because it was the closest I had felt to no pain, to him."
I finished with a great sigh. I spoke like I was and actor reciting a line or an anchor repeating news of great magnitude. Something that was supposed to be sad and heart wrenching and tear jerking but turned up just shy, still evoking a reaction from Cecile however. She extended an arm to me and when she reached for me I saw the inside her pale white arm magnified by the dark green scaled fin on the side and thought of how he used to hold out his icy marble hand to me to ask permission or to establish trust. The only difference was now the hand offered condolence and empathy. Her pale white arm however reached me and I could no longer remain detached and clinical. The hole seared my chest and I sobbed. No tears escaped my eyes; there was no need for tears underwater.