Twilight and all related properties and trademarks are not mine, but they are Stephenie Meyer's.
This isn't Bella or Edward's POV.
I loved him. The day he took my life and being away was the day that I first lived. I now know the reason that my life had been so meaningless before, the simple repetition of days; it was because I had never known the dark. So caught up was I in doing what was thought to be good for me. I had done my duty all my life; I had been the quiet and obedient little girl, the one who didn't make a sound unless my superiors bid me to. I was good, a being of light. Sometimes an unknown thought seemed to escalate, chanting and screaming in strange words that I didn't recall, and this feeling inside me that I didn't recognize simply grew. I was not miserable. I didn't know anything but this life of docility and obedience.
But that was before I met him.
I remember, being so cold that one winter day. I was walking around in the forest, my forest, because my mother wanted me to gather something, I don't remember what; all traces of my former life are a blur, except this one moment in time, my last apparently.
It was cold, I remember that. The snow was a blanket that seemed to be warming the earth with its white softness. More snow was falling in white swirls and bursts. I had worn a white shawl, a testimony to my own blandness. But this white didn't feel so plain, it felt as if it held all the colors known and unknown, mixed and matched together until the blend had given birth to a seamless new color. It was in that clearing on that fine winter's day that I had felt an instance of impulse. That word seemed to hold back a world, bright and beautiful and locked to me. I wanted to experience that impulsiveness for myself. And so I did. For the first time, I laughed at the snow and the drifts piling around me. I skipped and danced and jumped and sang. The exertion was pumping blood through my cheeks, making them rosy, and warming me. I could feel the vivacity of life renewing and cheering me more than I had felt in a long time.
It was then that I heard the snap of a branch, and my revelry suddenly halted. My senses came back to me, I regained control of my limbs, and I became as alert as the doe who knew that a predator approached. I remembered where I was, and that I was alone.
But then he stepped out of the protection the great trees offered, and all my inhibitions simply melted away, better than when I was making a ruckus in the snowy clearing.
He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. This unknown man with his skin the color of the snow, and his hair blacker than a raven's wing. His face was something that one didn't expect in the Colonies, but in the royal palaces of Europe. His was the face of Prince Charming in Cindrillion, the kind of look and air of a prince of the highest standing. This prince was staring at me, and I stared right back into his purple eyes. I had known even before then that he wasn't meant to be here. The strange purple simply reinforced my view.
He walked, with the grace of a thousand winds and the elegance of a swan. His entire being seemed to fill the white clearing with something I can only call soleil noir, all around him the once blissful sanctuary was filled with the lurid black and the cold blaze that seemed to seep through the corners of his very soul.
His eyes held mine, my breathing and the instinct to run were silenced, none of it was of my own volition, it was all his; I was a puppet, willingly submitting to my master's strings.
And he smiled at me. If I had any freewill left inside of my body, it would have disappeared at that smile. It taunted me, this smile; everything about it was forbidden and wrong and beautiful and so very perfect. That entire smile was so very wonderful that I didn't even notice what had started to creep into view between his pale lips. I was so fixed at staring at that beautiful smile that the perfect ivory teeth escaped my notice.
Slowly, It approached—so much more than a he, so much less than a human, and yet so much more, I deferred to him as an it—, and I was helpless but to stare at my idol. Few seconds had passed and yet this strange It had broken and demolished every conviction, every past moral and ideal that had been so diligently instilled into me.
The air around me was still freezing, so very intense and cold, and I was numb to it all, unfeeling and unmoving to everything except that terrifying and thrilling smile. The blood that had invigorated me seconds ago was gushing even more furiously through my face and body; I must have burned brighter than any candle flame against the snow.
It stared, almost hungrily, and it was when our eyes had been locked for almost an entire minute out in the wind and the weather and the wood that it finally pronounced one word. One devastating word with a strange lilting accent, said beautifully and calmly, almost lovingly. This one word seemed to break the spell that surrounded me and only strengthened It's hold on me. It spoke just this one word, the lips moving so pleasantly, "Run."
As I was no longer a creature who could think for itself—no longer after meeting this thing; I was happily imprisoned in my own body—, I did as It bid me. I ran, over the bumpy terrain, over logs and branches, and still it wasn't enough. The thing simply ran after me in a whirling dervish that seemed more than an It and less of a He. It reminded me of those storms, the ones during mid-winter, when the snows and winds are more than any human can handle. Its pale skin rushing through the air towards me, my thoughts once more coming upon that image. That one thought seems to be the very clearest in my memory of my human years.
It had seemed hours, days, years, and yet what was really only a few seconds ended abruptly when I felt my body topple to the ground. The Thing had lunged at me, firmly grasping me in its icy hold that didn't seem at all different from the snows.
And there was a pain. It was such a terrible burning and freezing that originated at my neck. My mind came up out of the emotional sleep it had been trapped, and for the first time I felt the slightest twinge of horror when I actually realized that this prince, this beautiful It, was sucking my blood, this fairy tale hero was a murderer.
But my apprehension lasted for less than a second; such was my devotion to this terrible thing. I realized that there wasn't anything left to back to in my old life, and since surely we must all die, what better way than to die at the hands of such an incredible ephemeral creature in a snow-filled glade. It seemed something out of Le Mort d'Arthur. I was not afraid to die now.
But, there must've been something, my ceasing struggle, my resigned look, that alerted my murderer. He stopped his motions and stared at me, as I looked back into his purple eyes. It is true what they say of how the eyes are the windows to the soul, and Its soul was indeed striking in a forbidden way. It seemed malformed and twisted so much so that it had reached into the realm of the ugly so far down until it was beautiful in its hideousness.
Perhaps this thing was doing the same to me, I don't know, but after the space of seconds—an eternity—he rose off his knees and picked me up as well. By this time, the wound in my neck had risen to such a terrible degree that the only thing that prevented me from crying out from the pain was staring into its eyes.
It chuckled, "You'll do very nicely."
Those words slammed the door and left me so willingly ensnared in the dark. And I have never regretted it.