Carlisle's POV: what would have happened if Edward hadn't been changed. And yes, I know it's not verbatim from New Moon because a certain someone has all of my good vampire books.. Tell me if you think I should keep going with his point of view; how not having Edward around would have changed things.
She lay on the cot across the room from her son, thin arms folded across her chest, her gaunt face looking more like death every hour. Her ragged clothes were soaked with sweat. Her son wasn't much better, laying still on the small bed that was too short for him, moaning in his sleep.
They had been sick for weeks. It was a miracle that they had survived this long. The influenza was getting worse throughout the city, and these two had come in amidst a wave of others, spread among too small a medical force. The two Masens, once healthy and prominent members of society, were reduced to little more than skeletons.
Elizabeth's green eyes never sparkled any more, and when they opened, the only thing they watched was her son, a tall, thin boy of seventeen.
It was very near the end for them, Elizabeth especially. Her breathing was ragged, coming only in gasps.
"Save my son."
It was the first thing she'd said in hours, and it seemed to take all her strength. I put my hand against her forehead, which burned like fire against my skin.
"What?"
"Save him." She whispered, "what the other doctors cannot do, you must do for my Edward."
Those were the last words. She had put everything into them, and as she spoke, her eyes had burned again, like coals being rekindled. Her last breath swirled away from her, becoming nothing more than air.
I looked at her son. He was young, not even a man yet. I couldn't take him. I couldn't. Wasn't death better than damnation? At least with death, you had a chance.
He was so pale from the sickness, so thin, and he had lost everything now, everything but his soul.
I couldn't take that from him.
I couldn't save him; couldn't change him into what I had become. Better to be dead than what I was.
I watched and waited, hoping that his end wouldn't be too painful. An hour after his mother, he breathed his last, joining his mother, his pain gone.
I stepped into the hall, where nurses bustled up and down, taking lists of the dead.
"Two more gone." I told her. She nodded resolutely.
"The Masens?"
"Yes." The word sent a pang through me, and it was then I heard the words floating on the air, imprinting themselves into my brain.
You chose wrong.