The last memories of my moments of a human are painful- almost too painful to think about. It's like a serrated knife cutting into my brain every single time I think about it. But while it is painful, I do think I can bear to explain what that last memory was: the sensation of being carried. Someone ice cold- too cold to be human was carrying me somewhere. In the pit of my stomach I could tell it was somewhere safe, where I could never be harmed. I opened my green eyes as the cold person carrying me laid me on an even colder table in what looked like a study. I think I remember crying out in agony from the pain, or maybe it was from the cold. It could of been both. I shut my eyes and reopened them again to see a bone-pale person coming towards me with a long needle. In my mind, I tried willing my legs to work- to get me off of this table and out of here, but with a startling realization I realized my spine was broken and there was no leaving this mess. There was a small burning as the bone-pale person stabbed a needle into the center of my chest, and then there was endless blackness... and fire.
The blackness was peaceful, beautiful, cool and quiet. Then the searing pain began. The pain was unbearable, like being cut in half and boiled alive at the same time. It was like every bone in my body was being broken to little pieces. Whatever was in that needle had done something crazy to my body- my gorgeous, toned, hiker body. I willed myself to think as I laid on the table, dead to the world. I tried getting someone's- anybody's face into my head to distract me from the burning, but it was no use. The burn raged on and on and peaked and licked and...burned and burned endlessly.
It seemed like days before I came around again. The fire left my body almost as quickly as it came. I almost felt good enough to open my eyes, and then I heard voices nearing where I was. I kept them shut just to pretend I was still dead to the world. The voices were beautiful, milk and honey, velvet and wine voices. They were soft and lovely. My throat burned just thinking about how gorgeous they were. The first one: a man, whispered softly. "Carisle, what the hell happened to her?", his voice was soft but there was an edge to it, annoyance. Another man: this one even softer than the first, sighed a little. I could hear the... breath swirl in his throat. It was a beautiful sound. "We were out hunting, Edward, and I smelled all the blood. Based on the gear up in the tree, I'd say she was tree climbing, maybe a nature watch. Her body was nearly as bad as Bella's when I came across her.", he coughed a little. The one named Edward must of ran his hand through his hair, I could hear fingers against softness. Why I had this new sense of hearing, I did not know. "God.", he mumbled. "Well, will she be okay? How long has it been since she was hurt?" I imagined the one named Carisle tapping his watch, because he seemed like a doctor-type to me. "About a day. She should be alright, Bella didn't take very long either.", as he chattered, I wondered who Bella was and why I was like this. Was she like me too?
After a few minutes, the two men agreed that they should leave me alone and wait for me to wake up by myself. It didn't take very long for that to happen. All this time with the fire, I could feel my heart marching on, as if urging my body to keep fighting whatever had taken it over. It became a sort of cheerleader for me, as if it was saying "Go, Zoey, Go!", but now it was racing madly and skipping beats, like it was dancing inside of my chest. And then it stopped. All I felt was a burning in my throat and an urge to open my eyes, so I did.
I knew I wasn't human anymore from the second my eyes opened and I sat up and saw the ceiling above me. I could see every individual fiber and crack in the polished wood ceiling. I could see every dust mote that floated around. I could smell every little thing that came across my nose. Wood, pine, cake, bread, vanilla, apple, perfume. It was a delicious and beautiful scent that made my throat burn faintly. There was two sets of feet stomping up the stairs as I pondered my surroundings and wondered what I had become. I didn't look down from the ceiling as they came into the room, but I did notice a horrible stench and a painful burning in my throat that was like swallowing fire. "Hello.", one of the voices said. I reluctantly tore my burning self away from the ceiling and stared at a tall blonde in front of me. He looked young, but tired- maybe his mid twenties or less. His eyes were a rich, golden color and I wondered if my eyes looked like that, too. He turned away for a minute to look at the open door. "Seth, stay out, please.", he turned back to me and shook his head and put my hands in his. "I'm Carisle. Do you know who you are?" I nodded quickly in a swift motion and began to jabber on. "Zoey Nunley. I lived in Port Angeles with my probably now ex-fiance. I'm an avid hiker and I love to climb trees. Please tell me what happened to me?" Carisle seemed baffled that I had such a well organized memory. He blinked only once and then removed his hands from around mine. "It's a very long story, Zoey."
Carisle finished the history of what they are- what we are, in about 5 minutes. In a nutshell, I turned into a freaking vampire after falling out of a tree and breaking my back and my neck. Carisle has a friend in Seattle who made a replica of my broken body, so to my family and fiance- I really am dead. But I've never felt so alive more than this moment. Everything was so well-defined and perfectly clear to me, like I could answer every question the Earth had to offer. With Carisle's help, I eased myself off of the cold metal table I was lying on and spun around the room like a crazy person, giggling madly. Carisle stayed in the shadows, studying me. I looked toward the door as I stopped spinning because someone came in.
My whole world shifted in that moment. Nothing was the same the second I laid eyes on his dark brown eyes. They sucked me into his world, his life. Whoever he was, he was mine. Deep in my throat though, there was a burning which told me I thirsted for his blood. He smiled a dimpled smile at me, and I could feel myself step closer to him.
