Monster

By Le Belle Dame Sans Merci

So I realized I'd forgotten this in the last chapter. Disclaimer: I do not own any of the amazing Twilight cast. Tis a pity!

It was so dark, as if the moon and the stars had been stolen from the sky, leaving just the pitiless black of night. The ground beneath her was cool and unforgiving, the hard flat plain causing an ache in her back. She was shivering from the cold, her thin tank top and sleep shorts a feeble barrier to the strong might of the late winter wind.

Her head was pounding to the rhythm of her heart, the sluggish blood steadily increasing her pain. She reached up to feel her pounding head and found her hair matted and clumped with drying blood and the area sensitive to touch. A shudder, not from the cold, but one of terror, ran through her small body.

What had happened to her?

Sitting up, she closed her eyes and tried to think back to what had occurred before she'd awakened. Nothing happened. 'Maybe I'm just tired,' she thought as she tried again, but, once more, nothing happened. Tears began to fill her eyes. 'Why can't I remember?'

It wasn't just that she couldn't remember what had happened to her, she couldn't remember anything at all. Not her name, not her family, not her home…nothing. It was if someone had wiped her mind clean of all memories, leaving a blank slate and a broken girl. The tears that had threatened to fall made good on their promise and began to rain down her chilled cheeks, racing toward the hard ground.

'I've got to get out of here,' she thought as she wiped the blinding tears from her eyes and stood up. Her legs shook and threatened to buckle, hours of disuse making them weak.

She looked around her, her lack of memory making her surroundings seem frightfully alien and foreign. She could just make out the outline of bare tree branches as they reached toward the heavens, their leafless stems clawing at the empty night air. The limbs were a dull dark gray against the lightless black expanse of the sky. Shadowed forest stretched out for miles on either side of her, the walls of outlandish trees appearing to reach toward forever. Had she known this place? Had she been here before?

Fresh tears of frustration welled in her eyes. She didn't know where she was, or how she'd gotten there. How was she supposed to know which way to go?

She stood there as the wind whipped her hair through the air and forced its way through her clothes to graze her skin beneath them, its chilling touch bringing goose bumps to her quivering flesh. Her head was throbbing and her body trembled as it tried to revive the heat within her. She wanted nothing more than to collapse back into the frozen arms of the Earth and wait for unconsciousness to claim her again, but she couldn't.

Something inside of her told her to fight the impulse to yield to the ground's icy siren call, to run until she'd left this nightmare in the shadows of the trees. The urge to run had been drowned out by the pain and coldness of her body, but grew until; finally, she took the first step.

Each step was an inward struggle to overcome the pains of her body, but she kept moving. She didn't know where she was going; only that she couldn't stay. She had to get away from here.

She walked for what seemed like hours, the fight for each step causing time to slow down and lengthen. She felt like she was going nowhere. Every time she glanced up at the forest, it seemed as if the same trees returned her tired, wary look.

They mocked her, those trees. Their limbs danced and waved in the wind as if wishing good bye to any chance of her making it out of the terrifying shade of the forest. The shadows of the trees crawled upon the forest floor and crept across her path, the dark limbs like fingers as she passed beneath them. Seeing them made her shudder. The trees were the monsters of her nightmare, ghouls and ghost that bred fear within her.

However, as time dragged on and her body begged for rest, the trees grew less frightening, their dancing becoming a beckoning call to come and join them; their promise a promise of forever. Morphing from monsters, the trees became lovely fae, beautiful creatures luring her deeper into the darkness of the forest; their only intent being to keep her from the light. She was tempted to take it, to settle into a nest of roots and let it cradle her until the dark bliss of sleep consumed her, but she knew that if she stopped walking, there was a chance she'd never move again.

'I don't care,' she thought as she sagged on her feet, her weight seeming to have increased twenty times since she'd started her doomed journey. She staggered over to a nearby tree, her footsteps heavy and taking her every effort to make. With a grateful cry, she leaned against the tree, surrendering her weight to tree and letting it bear her up. She closed her eyes and, for once, was appreciative of the darkness.

Lost in the surprising comfort of the rough bark of the tree's tall trunk, she relinquished control of her senses, concentrating only on the beating of her tired heart.

She hadn't heard him coming, hadn't sensed his presence until his large warm hand wrapped around her cold thin arm. It brought a voice to her head, a man's voice muttering murderously, "I won't let you leave me, Izzy. I just won't let you."

Terror rushed through her veins to the far reaches of her body and panic ripped a scream from her lungs, the sound a shrill, desperate cry of fear and distress.

"Fuck," he exclaimed, releasing her arm and stepping away from her, "Shit, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!"

She couldn't see his face through the tears. "Ple-please don't hurt me," she cried, her body no longer shaking with cold, instead taking to quiver in utter fear.

"What!" He ran a hand roughly through his hair. "I'm not going to hurt you!" His yelling echoed through the silence of the forest, bringing to her attention just how alone they were.

He could see it that she didn't believe him, that she didn't trust him, but he didn't care. He just wanted to know what the hell she was doing here.

"Are you trying to die, kid? Why the hell are you out here in the middle of the woods by your fucking self?"

"I-I-I don't know. I don't know how I got here." He took the time to take in her appearance, her thin night clothes that couldn't protect a fly from the harshness of the winter wind, her wild hair that was caked with dust and forest debris, her bare feet that were covered in scratches and dirt. What had happened to her?

Sighing, he ran another hand through his hair. "What's your name, kid?"

She couldn't meet his eyes. "I don't know," she whispered quietly, her voice that of a broken spirit.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't remember who I am. I-I can't remember anything," she looked up at him, putting every bit of pleading and begging into her eyes, "Will you help me? Please will you help me?" Tears continued to fall from her eyes and just looking at her broke his heart.

"I'll help you."

Before the words were out of his mouth, she had her arms wrapped around his neck as she clung to him, her body shaking as she sobbed onto his shoulder.
"Thank you. Oh, thank you," she cried, over and over. He wrapped his arms around her small body and held her, letting her cry her unneeded thanks. When she didn't let go of him, he picked her up and began to walk in the direction he came.

She fell asleep in his arms, her head filled with the steady beating of his heart and the flowing rhythm of his breathes.

She woke up on a rough cot beneath an equally rough blanket, the material itchy and irritable against her skin. She sat up and looked around her. She was in an office and a man sat at the large desk that dominated the space.

"Where am I," she asked, pulling the blanket about her like a shield.

"You're in the Raiden Police Department headquarters, sweetheart. You're safe." This eased her fear a bit, and then she remembered she hadn't left the forest alone.

"What about the boy, the one that helped me?" The man raised an eyebrow.

"We found you laying on the doorstep, sweetheart. There was no boy."

So I'm really hoping that you all enjoyed this chapter. I had a rough time writing it, but I liked what I got. Don't forget to review, please and thank you!

Belle