Hi all! So just so you know, the first few chapters will start out pre-Twilight while the Cullens are living with Tanya and the Denali Clan up in Alaska. After that, it will transition to New Moon after Edward leaves Bella. Hope you enjoy! :)

The Cullens sighed collectively as they heard the front door slam closed for the third time that week. It was a telltale sign - Edward was having a particularly hard time coping with his thoughts. Ever since he had become a vampire, all Edward could see when he looked into the mirror was a monster. In the first few years of his new life, he had rebelled against this image, doing everything in his power to change. His constant thirst for human blood disgusted him, and for days at a time, he would lock himself away from the rest of the world, wondering why he couldn't have just died. This animal he had become had no place in the world.

Then he turned to tracking down the dregs of society. With his ability to read minds, he would hunt down the rapist, the serial killer and the kidnapper one by one. He wanted to believe that ridding the world of the damned would save his own black soul. He wanted to believe that though he was a vampire, he could be good. But then he realized that these criminals he murdered weren't the ones who were damned. They could all be forgiven for their crimes. Edward, however, could not.

That is when he chose to follow Carlisle's lifestyle. He gave up on trying to fix himself and instead looked up to Carlisle's gift of healing others. Carlisle was the one dash of hope in the cursed world that Edward now lived in. He was humbled by the immense amount of virtue that this fatherly figure possessed. Even knowing that his soul was condemned to the fiery pits of Hell, Carlisle's only goal was to help others. Any other man would have said 'screw it,' throwing every moral lesson out the window and enjoying life to the fullest, corruption and all. But Carlisle was genuinely a good-hearted person. He didn't help others for the sake of looking good to the big guy upstairs. Nor did he treat others with kindness in the hopes that everyone would someday sing his praises. No, he simply found pleasure in his philanthropy. And so Edward looked to this single prick of light; this lone, shining star. Vampire or not, if Heaven existed, Carlisle would be the first to go.

Yet even with his firm belief that there was still hope, Edward could never stop seeing himself as a wretched abomination. Even on his happiest days, a small voice inside his head relentlessly tried to ruin his joy. And more often than not, it worked. But it was worse still on his bad days. On days like this, the tiny voice became a thundering roar, and all Edward could focus on was the stream of self-directed curses that filled his head.

That's the kind of day it was when Edward stalked out of the house, directly into the secluded, white woods. He trudged deeper and deeper into the forest until he reached the same spot he always retreated to when he felt he had hit a new low. It was just the sanctuary he needed. Delicate flakes of snow drifted quietly to the ground, and even with his sharp hearing, not a sound could be heard echoing through the clearing, for this part of the forest was completely uninhabited. And that's just the way he liked it – invitingly beautiful, but barren and empty, like the shell of a man he was. He sat unnaturally still, his eyes staring blankly out at the expanse of Alaskan forest before him as he sulked.