I remembered fragments of my human life, flashes of events that had brought me great happiness. I remembered my fifteenth birthday, when I had unwrapped the vintage train set from my parents, shrieking with delight and dashing to play with it immediately; I had been inseparable from it for a year, until it finally broke due to overuse. I remember when the war had started, and a curious elation had struck me when I realised that I could go to war and fight for my country. The buoyant feeling had begun in my stomach, ballooning outwards and spreading warmth throughout my insides, continuing until it reached the very ends of my fingers and toes, made my hair stand on end and my knees wobbly. But nothing, nothing, would ever compare to the feeling I had coursing through me right now.

As soon as my teeth had sunk into Bella's neck, all feelings of anxiety and panic had diminished completely. My posture had slackened as, with great urgency, I'd closed my mouth over the bite and began to drink. In place of the anxious and panicked emotions was now unbelievable, ethereal exultation.

Her blood tasted nothing like my fantasies. There was no succulent wine, no palatable ambrosia – no delightful nectar that played upon my tongue and felt pleasant once it travelled down my throat, akin to a certain liquor or drug.

It was better.

No words could properly describe the complete explosion of sensations after that first mouthful of Bella's blood. My mouth burned slightly, as if I'd just taken something very bitter – but that feeling soon went away. I could hardly believe that I was drinking her blood, drinking more and more of it until I thought I would explode. I had fantasised about this moment for long enough.

My grip on Bella's free hand tightened, as I sucked Bella's blood with greater ardency. It was strange how all other emotions; all other thoughts were blocked out as I drank. The possibility that I might be hurting Bella due to my firm grip didn't even cross my mind – her blood was the only thing that interested me. How could anything else matter right now, when I was doing the one thing I hadn't done since I'd first become a vampire? This was human blood – Bella's blood. I'd never taken the privilege of drinking human blood for granted, but tasting it now, I might as well have. It was exponentially better than animal blood, and it wasn't just because it was Bella's blood. With every mouthful that I swallowed, I felt strength course through me, rejuvenating me and all the human elements I'd lost during the change all those years ago. Human blood was pure and addictive and so very satisfying. Blood was life.

It occurred to me during this whirlwind of sensations that I should stop. I didn't know how much of her blood I'd drank, but I could sense that if I didn't stop soon, I'd miss my chance to push the venom back into her bloodstream and Bella would die. And, as much as I loved drinking her blood, I would never let her die because of it. Faintly, I could hear Carlisle's anxious pleas for me to stop and begin the change. Come on, Edward. You can do it. Bella's going to give out soon; you've got to do it now. Stop drinking, Edward. Bella's counting on you...

She was counting on me, I realised. Bella had sacrificed everything for me, done all that I'd asked her to do; gone were all of her human opportunities in life, her family, her friends – everything. She'd given up her mortality for me. And now I was going to kill her, all because I didn't have the resolve strong enough to stop drinking her blood. It occurred to me just how pathetic I was for not being able to do one, little thing, and then the image of Bella, lying there, her eyes filled with trust flashed into my mind. Those deep, brown irises, resonating with conviction and resolve – they remained etched into my mind. Suddenly, Bella's blood wasn't so appealing anymore. It felt dirty and sinful, like I'd been ingesting some astringent poison this whole time. Disgusted with myself, and with Bella's trust-filled eyes fresh in my mind, fuelling my resolve, I stopped drinking.

The other part of me – the animalistic, stubborn one – protested, and I almost began drinking again. Venom had pooled in my mouth, and I had an overwhelming urge to swallow it down and resume feeding. But I remembered that Bella was counting on me, that I simply could not kill her – so I pushed the slowly receding venom back into Bella's bloodstream, and pulled away.

Without exactly knowing why, as soon as I'd broken away from Bella I scrambled away on my hands and knees, crawling towards the wall opposite Bella. I sat against it, hugging my knees with one arm, and putting a clenched fist in front of my mouth with the other. My body shook, and I didn't know why. The room spun slightly, and even the faces of my family were out of focus. Every tiny sound resonated in my ears, as if my super-hearing had been amplified even further. I couldn't understand why my body was reacting so severely once Bella's blood had been taken away from me. It was as if I was a drug addict, going through severe withdrawal as I stupidly tried to quit cold-turkey.

It wasn't long before Carlisle came towards me, grasping my shoulders tightly.

"Edward? Are you all right?"

I couldn't respond; the ringing in my ears and the shaking in my body was too severe. I clenched my eyes shut and tried to control myself, quell the shaking and the dizziness. I didn't open them until I'd stopped.

But once I did and saw the spectacle in front of me, I wished I'd kept them closed.

Bella was screaming and thrashing, clawing at the couch with her fingernails. Her back arched and her veins were prominent against her pale skin. Sudden, violent tremors shuddered down her spine every so often, and her hands clenched tighter around the sides of the couch whenever this occurred. She didn't have to say anything for me to know that she was in extreme pain.

Carlisle stood beside me, looking, not at Bella, but at me – monitoring my reactions. Already I could see the worry lines creasing his forehead, looking so out of place on his boyish face. He sent me some comforting thoughts, but I only vaguely registered them. Esme, I noticed, was looking at Bella with the same lines on her face as Carlisle, her hand pressed to her mouth in concern. Emmett was standing opposite Esme, staring into space with his arms tense by his sides. Rosalie wasn't even in the room.

I heard another scream then, but it wasn't Bella's. I craned my neck to see over the sofa and saw Jasper with his hands buried in his hair, seizing tufts of it as if to rip it out. His eyes bulged and the tendons in his neck protruded severely. He looked as though he would combust at any moment. My vision moved over slightly, and I noticed Alice's tiny hands on Jasper's leg, squeezing tightly as she, too, tried to contain her own emotions. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, and her jaw was rigid. I could tell she was in just as much pain as Jasper was.

"Fire...f-fire..."

I tore my eyes away from my siblings at the sound of Bella's voice. It was so soft, so frail that I thought I might've imagined it – but I could see Bella's lips moving slightly as she struggled to speak through the pain.

"Fire..."

Shakily, I got to my feet and went to Bella's side, kneeling beside her as I had not ten minutes ago. I could feel the creases slowly marring my own forehead, akin to those of my anxious parents. I examined her body, noticing the crescent-shaped marks where her fingernails had dug into her skin; thankfully, they hadn't drawn blood. She was still screaming, though now it was in short, abrupt bursts. For the most part, she made strange gargling sounds in the back of her throat and strained whimpers and grunts. Her body still shook violently, and her back was still arched towards the ceiling tensely.

Finally, Bella opened her eyes. I felt the wrinkles in my forehead deepen as I took in her expression – absolute, overwhelming agony. She glimpsed the look on my face and I could see the terror in her eyes. Slowly, jerkily, she pressed a clammy hand to my face and I felt a shudder go through me as I felt the warmth – no, the burn – of her skin.

I could feel pressure on my cheek, and I realised quickly that Bella was trying to draw my face down to her level. I obliged, and, for the first time, heard the anguish in her voice as she whispered, yet again:

"Fire..."

I, of course, knew what she meant by "fire". The venom spreading throughout her bloodstream right now was taking over her body, transforming it until she was human no longer – no doubt painfully.

"F-Fire...Edward it b-burns...burning, E-Edward..."

The pressure on my cheek heightened, and I cringed in agony when I realised that I could do nothing to help Bella now.

"I know it burns, sweetheart," I whispered, my lips as close to her ear as possible, "but it'll go away soon. I promise."

Soon. I kicked myself at my choice of words. How could I have said that? The pain wasn't going to go away for another two days, and I'd just told her it would stop soon. I sighed at my own stupidity, but Bella didn't seem to care about my choice of words. She moved her hand across my cheek in a sort of half-caress, but soon dropped it back to the couch, gripping it as she screamed in another bout of pain.

There was nothing more I could do for her now. I crawled back to the wall, resuming my previous position and watching Bella with tight eyes. After a while, I heard Jasper cry out in anguish again and saw him seize even more of his hair, rocking back and forth on his chair. It wasn't long before his screams drowned out Bella's, and he collapsed to the floor, unable to take the torment. Alice remained in her seat, her eyes closed and her head towards the ceiling, as if praying to the heavens for strength. I watched them miserably.

Hours (I hadn't been keeping track of how many) passed, and Bella and Jasper's screaming had become nothing but a constant ringing in my ears, a trouble in the background that I longed to get rid of, but didn't know how. I'd remained immobile against the wall, one fist in front of my mouth again and my entire body rigid. Sometimes I shook, other times I gave a half-grunt, half-whimper when Bella's screaming reached piercing levels. I didn't take my eyes off her writhing form once.

My parents had ceased sending me comforting thoughts, as I'm sure they presumed it didn't help at all. And, they were right. I didn't even register their words, let alone respond to them. Their voices were nothing more than another blur of sound in the back of my mind that I automatically blocked out to make room for Bella's screams. It was as if I needed to hear her, even though it caused me great pain when I did – for if I didn't then it would prove that what was happening around me wasn't real, only imaginary. All the comforting voices of my parents, the anguished cries of my brother; they would be non-existent, figments of some unknown realm – and what would that make me? – A hundred-or-so year old vampire, alone in another world, never to have met anyone like Isabella Swan. And I simply could not take that.

So I sat there, a silent statue, listening to Bella scream and cry and moan, watching her claw at her skin, her hair, and rip the couch apart. I never looked away; I never even blinked. Day soon turned into night, and Bella's screaming hadn't stopped once. I faintly registered the fact that there was still two more days left of this, but wasn't surprised when I realised that it didn't bother me.

It was nearing the twentieth hour when, after having not heard it for five hours, I heard Bella's strident cry once more:

"Fire!"

Whether or not that one word had triggered it, I felt my body tense even further, as, with a pathetic grunt, I started shaking again.