Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

CONFUSION

Pain. So much pain. It is as if I am being burnt alive, but when my fingers touch my abdomen I can feel the dampness on my dress- the very same dress that I died in- and smell the scent of the sea. Tendrils of flame slither through my veins, and my body wracks and shudders in agony. Is this Hell? Is God punishing me for my weakness? The terrifying thought brings a cry to my lips, and I scream and scream, begging God to kill me once and for all as the pain increases, and all the while I can feel a cool hand holding mine, and a familiar, comforting voice telling me that everything is going to be okay…

The internal fire is all but gone. I can feel it as the pain evaporates from my hands, toes, arms and legs, and from everywhere else in my body. It feels blissful and cool, and I cannot help but wonder if God has allowed me to enter Heaven after all.

But the pain in my heart swells to an excruciating level, as if the Devil is dragging me down into the bowels of Hell. Automatically, my hands reach out to clutch at my heart, the hard edges of my nails digging in deeply into my chest. Strangely, that action does not cause me pain like it should have. My feeling of horror is drowned out by the pain in my chest, which nothing will extinguish, not even God.

The burning pain surges through my heart, egging it on, and I listen with new, sharper hearing as it accelerates, beating faster and faster until it is as fast as a hummingbird's. Sometime during the burning pain, my hearing seems to have improved, as well as my eyesight. The few times I have opened my eyes, it has been like seeing a richer, new world. Everything is magnified, and I can see everything, even the specks of dust that are on the ceiling, in a different light. There is a beauty in everything that my eyes notice.

I prefer to keep my eyes tightly shut, so I do not see much of the disorienting new world that stares back at me. I do not want to believe that I am not dead after all, but trapped in my own body still, while a confusing, strange fire blazes through my veins. It is unnatural, it cannot be. I cling to that belief like a lifeline. It is best to believe that I am burning in Hell. That belief is familiar, one that I had heard of all my life before I jumped off the cliff. 'If you do something bad, you will go to Hell,' everyone always warned me. 'Hell is like an eternal furnace, punishing you for your past mistakes.' The thought of that always made me shudder in horror, but now, I would rather face the eternal furnace than the unknown. At least I would know what was coming. Now, as I hear my heartbeat accelerate to painful speeds, I have to face the truth: I am not dead. I am not in Hell. I have no idea what is happening, and the thought makes me want to shriek in terror.

The pain in my heart is almost too much to bear. I open my mouth to beg someone, anyone, to kill me now, but shut it again almost immediately. If my inner fire could be stopped, then someone would have done it long ago. I will have to endure, and wait for the pain to end at last. If there is an end…

I clutch tightly at the hand that holds mine. It is not so cool now, to my confusion. If I am burning, then shouldn't the hand feel as cold as snow? But as my heart races, its beat increasing in speed every second, the pain in my heart increases, and my mind is consumed by the unbearable pain.

Dimly, in a small part of my mind, I hear light footsteps coming towards me—a boy's footsteps. The rest of my mind focuses on the pain, and the sound of my heart beating so fast that it can surely go no faster, and the hand which has never let go of mine since the inner burning began. I squeeze the hand as hard as I can. I can dimly remember the pains of my birth, and how the nurse allowed me to squeeze her hand as hard as I could to deal with my pain. It could work now as well. So I clutch at the hand, squeezing it and squeezing it so hard that I am afraid I will damage it, but it does not crush within my grip, and the skin feels like satin, smooth and slightly soft. But it does not give in, like the nurse's hand did. That gives me comfort.

Another surge of pain comes, and my heart thuds twice, and is silent. I wait, expecting to see the gates to Heaven open before my eyes, and for my soul to drift out of my dead body. But nothing happens. Instead, my throat feels dry, parched. So parched that I almost cry out in agony.

Panic rises within me. What is happening? Why am I not dying?

"It's all right, Esme. You're safe." I recognise the voice immediately. How could I not?

I ease my eyes open to find myself lying on a bed, staring up into a pair of familiar golden eyes that are filled with anxiety. "Dr. Cullen?" I ask hesitantly. Is it really him? It seems impossible, but he looks exactly the same as when I last saw him.

I can see another person—the boy whose footsteps I heard—standing beside him, but my attention is riveted on the doctor.

"You needn't be afraid," Dr. Cullen says calmly. He is the same, exactly the same, as I remember.

"I thought I saw you during the burning, but I thought I'd imagined it…" My voice trails away as I listen in amazement at the sound. It is as if a bell is chiming.

What is happening? How has everything changed so quickly? "Dr. Cullen, what is happening to me? Why do I feel so…different?" 'Strange' and 'unusual' also come to mind, but I settle on 'different'.

"Esme," he says gravely. "You are a vampire."

A vampire? A thing of legends? I can feel my eyes widen as I begin to speak. "There is no such thing," I say, unable to raise my voice above a whisper. "It can't be true." But still, doubts flit through my mind like flies in the summer.

Memories, though dim, surface to the centre of my mind. Of the burning, feeling as if every cell of my being is on fire. Of the strange richness the world has now; even the miniscule dust motes on the ceiling can be seen by my eyes now. All of this cannot be possible, but Dr. Cullen has given me no reason not to believe him.

I take a deep breath. There is no relief in the action now; the air whistles musically as I exhale.

Should I believe Dr. Cullen? Is he telling the truth? A part of me believes that he is, but another part refuses to believe, wanting to stay in ignorance. "Is this a senseless trick you play?" I beg him.

"Esme, do you trust me?" he asks in return.

Our eyes meet, one pair pleading and the other frightened. For a moment, none of us has a word to speak.

Before the silence becomes too much, I decide to intervene. "Yes, I do," I admit quietly. And it is true. I do trust him. He is the last good memory of my childhood that I have before I married Charles.

And so he begins to speak: of how I was found in the water by a group of fishermen in a rickety boat who risked their lives to rescue me from drowning. They recognised me as the schoolteacher; I had taught at a local school to earn a living while in the town. I had always wanted to be a teacher, but I had never had the chance until then. When they arrived with me sopping wet in their arms, the doctors thought that I was dead, and sent me to the morgue. But, Carlisle says, he found me in the morgue, and realized that I was still alive. He carried my body from the morgue and took me to his home, where, he says, he bit me to change me into a vampire.

Sometime during the explanation, the boy leaves the room, slipping quietly away, leaving no trace of him ever being there at all. But I am listening intently to Carlisle's explanation, and pay little attention to it.

It is all mind-boggling. He tells me that he is a two hundred year old vampire, born and raised in England in the fifteenth century, and that his companion is also a vampire. He tells me about vampires. How they are unbeatable, unusually strong and hard, like a rock. How their skin is pale, pearl-white, and that their skin sparkles in the sunlight. He hands me an elegant, decorative mirror and I look into its depths to see a beautiful woman smiling hesitantly back at me. Her skin is as pale as winter's first snow, and her face carries a strange luminosity. Her eyes glow an almost painful crimson. It is all too strange. I cannot help but feel as if I am staring into the face of a goddess, so I look away.

"Nothing will ever be able to hurt you physically again," Dr. Cullen explains. "You are safe in that respect."

"Oh!" I think of Charles, and the abuse that would have begun again if he had found me and forced me to return to Ohio with him. Of the burning shame that I had felt each time he shouted at me, and hit me with his fist on my cheek, where I could feel a deep bruise taking shape when I woke up in bed the next morning almost crying as I felt the aches of old bruises, knowing that I was alone and that not even my mother and father would help me or believe me about Charles' abuse. Another heinous memory begins to take shape, but I thrust it from my mind as the images start to appear.

"Esme, I understand how strange this is for you, and I apologize," Dr Cullen says. "I would not have done this if I had had any other choice."

"I-I know," I say, smiling shyly at him. "I am very grateful to you."

"If you wish, you may leave and make your own way as a vampire," he offers. I gaze up at him. Even as he tells me this, I can clearly see that his eyes tell a different story. They speak of joy and guilt and longing, and a loneliness that echoes my own. And lastly, a deep love that I have not seen for several years. With that, I make my decision.

"No," I say resolutely. "I wish to stay."