So this chapter deals a lot with the negativity of being a vampire, at least, from Lana's point of view. I read on Stephenie Meyer's website that when you become a vampire all of your physical traits like freckles, scars, birthmarks, etc. all go away and I started thinking of how horrible that would be if those things are actually important to you and that's what led to this chapter. This chapter was actually supposed to be mixed with the third chapter but I decided that I liked the way this ended so I cut it short. P.S. Sorry if Lana seems a bit harsh or depressed in this chapter but if you really think about it then her reactions do justify. Still, I promise that Lana won't always be such a downer; she's just going through a hard time with being an immortal bloodsucker.

Chapter 2

Lana Mills wasn't the sort of person to constantly wonder about death, although in the rare moment that she had, she never imagined it to be so painful. When she was fifteen—the one time that she ever thought of dying—she had thought that she would die of old age, peacefully and in a sterile hospital room. Not in the middle of the forest feeling as if her entire body had been struck with millions of hot needles that had just been taken out of flames.

Everything burned. Her heart was beating so fast that she swore it would break out of her rib cage and rip out of her chest. Her body felt like someone had just thrown her in a cauldron of boiling water.

She could hear voices talking, a man and a woman. She was really disliked them. How dare they just stand there and talk while she was being burned alive from the inside out? How could they be so calm while she was dying?

She forced her eyes open, everything was so blurry and she could see a haze of black on the edge of her vision. The woman was by her side, holding her hand like a mother would for her sick child at the hospital.

"Please," she begged her voice hoarse. "Please, kill me. Make it go away."

The woman leaned forward slightly and brushed Lana's hair from her face. "I'm so sorry." The woman said. Lana turned her eyes away and looked at the ceiling; she wanted to scream in pain at the flames burning at her heart, she wanted to cry at the injustice of no one trying to ease it. She must have committed a truly terrible crime in a past life to have such pain bestowed upon her. Or maybe, God hated her. Did she even believe in God? Who would be so cruel to cause her such pain? Especially the man who is said to hold no hatred towards anybody.

I'm not a bad person, Lana thought as tears blurred her vision further. Sure, there were those few minor fights back when she was young when kids would make fun of her for being in an orphanage; and even the time when she was eleven and she put worms in the lunch of a boy who had pushed Hannah off of the swings at school but she never did anything to deserve the flames.

^H^O^M^E^

The next time Lana opened her eyes, everything was clear. The burning had stopped but she was still warm. There was an uncomfortable scratching in her throat and she grimaced as she stared up at the ceiling. She could see every tiny crack in the ceiling, and could count every mote of dust in the air.

It took her a moment to realize that she wasn't alone. She could smell three very distinctive scents. She sprung up and stared at the three strangers, two men and a woman standing a bit behind them. By some unknown instinct, Lana crouched down and snarled. The two men stood a bit closer, almost completely shielding the woman from view.

A pale, blond man took a step towards her, Lana growled deep in her throat as her body became warm.

Warmer.

Too warm.

Burning.

Lana's fist clenched in pain and she fell to her knees from her original crouching position. She looked up in time to see the shocked look on the faces of the three strangers; their mouths dropping open as their eyes widened. Turning her head, she looked back and saw flames. The thick drapes behind her were lit on fire. The dark orange flames mesmerized her; her fingers twitched to touch them but another instinct kept her from it.

She moved to the other side of the room, away from the three strangers and the burning curtains. The woman and the man with reddish hair moved fast, leaving the room and returning with two buckets of water. They each threw the water on a curtain to put the fire out.

There was a ringing coming from the pocket of the blond man, Lana's eyes snapped to it. He nodded to the other two and went downstairs to answer his phone. Lana could hear a high-pitched voiced female screaming something about visions, newborns, and fire.

She stared the other two and they stared back. A female with hair the color of caramel and a boy, or a man—she couldn't figure out which, stood just a bit in front of her.

"I am sure everything will be alright, Alice," the man was saying, Lana could hear the slight chuckle in his voice as he spoke. "We have handled newborns before; there is no need for you and Jasper to return." He paused and they could all hear the girl on the other line speaking. "Yes, I understand your concern but Edward, Esme, and I will be just fine. Take your time, and bring us back a souvenir...goodbye, Alice."

The man was back in the room and standing in front of Lana in the same second that he hung up. He gave her a kind smile and she gave him a weary look in return.

"Hello," he started, "my name is Carlisle Cullen and this is my family." He introduced them to her. The woman, Esme, gave her a soft smile while the man-boy, Edward, gave her a polite nod, though his lips were pressed in a thin line.

"What is your name?" The woman asked, her voice as kind as she appeared. Lana opened her mouth to answer when the scratching in her throat immediately changed and started to feel like there was molten lava stuck there instead; she grabbed her throat with both hands. Panicking, she started to feel warmer again. The edge of the rug began to produce a small stream of smoke.

"Lana," The man-boy said, "her name is Lana."

She looked up with startled eyes, wondering how he knew her name. They stared at each other for the longest time before the blond, Carlisle, moved forward, blocking her view the redhead. "Well Lana, would you like to take a walk with me?" He asked.

Lana stared at him, not completely trusting. He seemed kind enough although it could easily be a ruse. She looked out of the window which was half covered by the wet burnt curtains and nodded once. While she particularly didn't want to go anywhere with him, Lana did love being outside. And if he tried anything, she just could do to him what she did to the curtains; that is, if she ever figures out how she did it. He smiled at her and walked past the two others with Lana slowly following him.

She didn't know how long they walked before he stopped. Lana stared at the back of his head as she rubbed her neck with her hand, she felt ready to kill someone just to make the burning go away.

"Do you hear that?" Carlisle asked, turning towards her. Lana raised an eyebrow and listened. She could hear a stream; she could hear leaves brushing against one another as the wind blows, birds singing in the trees not too far away. It all sounded so beautiful, so peaceful…that is, before she heard it; the quiet thu-thump followed by another and another and so on. She took a deep breath and her eyes darkened considerably.

"Just follow your new instincts." She could hear Carlisle say before she lost all sense of who she was.

^H^O^M^E^

Lana stared at her bloodied hands in horror as she walked a few feet behind Carlisle. She's just killed four elks, those poor things. The burning in her throat was now reduced to an uncomfortable tingle, apparently that's as good as it gets deinking animal blood. While walking, she listened as Carlisle continued to explain what she became, how his family lives, and how he and his wife found her.

Drinking animal blood, she thought with a frown. She's always considered herself an animal lover, being a vegetarian since the age of eight with only one slip up. She's only had meat once since she was eight, it was just a year after her parents died and she was sent to the orphanage. One of the women there had made a soup with small pieces of meat and Lana ate some, only to throw up and spend the rest of the day feeling sorry for herself. After that she made her mind set on being a pull vegetarian and hasn't so much as tasted a morsel of meat…and now that's all wasted. She has no choice but to drink blood for the rest of forever.

"It is your choice." Carlisle said. Lana's head snapped up, she had forgotten that he was speaking.

"Huh?" Seemed to be the only think she could get out.

"If you would like to stay with me and my family, it is your choice." He repeated.

Do I have another choice, Lana thought sarcastically. Where else was she supposed to go? She had no idea what it meant to be a vampire; she had no idea what she could and couldn't do.

"I'll stay." She whispered, whipping her hands on her jeans. The blood refused to come off. Was this what it would always be like? Getting hungry and killing animals everyday and living for eternity knowing that you just took away the life of something. Never having to sleep seems even worse. No escaping the reality of what you are. Lana always loved to dream, it was the only place where she could escape and pretend that she wasn't an orphan with no one to care for her.

By the time they reached the house, the sun was going down. Carlisle opened the door for her and Lana took a tentative step inside; she didn't want to get blood on the rugs.

Esme was there to greet them at the bottom of the stairs, and Lana could hear pages turning from somewhere upstairs. Edward must be reading, she concluded.

"Can I take a shower?" Lana asked, interrupting Carlisle and Esme's conversation.

"Yes, of course." Esme said and pointed upstairs. "You may use the bathroom upstairs, the third door to the right."

"Thanks." Lana said as she headed up the stairs.

"Lana," Carlisle called. Lana turned and raised an impatient eyebrow, she really want to get the scent of killer off of her.

"When you finish, I think that it would be best to discuss your powers."

She nodded slowly, remembering Carlisle's earlier words on how some vampires have special powers. Apparently, she has the power of fire which, Carlisle had explained, is why her body temperature wasn't freezing cold like a vampire's should be but it wasn't exactly as warm as a human's. "Sure." She said before walking up the rest of the steps.

Inside the bathroom, Lana undressed and cursed as she turned to the mirror.

Lana stared in the mirror longer than she had ever stared at herself before, wondering who the girl was; certainly it wasn't her. The girl seemed so smooth, so pale…so perfect. Everything thing that use to define Lana wasn't there anymore. Her brown hair was silkier, softer than she remembered, and fell in gentle waves past her waist. The freckles that had previously dotted across her nose, cheeks, shoulders, and arms were gone, as was the little mole she had on the side of her neck.

Who was this girl? Lana thought. Her previously blue eyes were red, looking like a mixture of blood and water. Her skin was porcelain white and smooth, no wrinkles or imperfections. Even her scars were gone. Everything that made her Lana was gone, everything that had molded her into the person she was, every mark on her body was gone.

She hated it.

How could anyone be so beautiful yet so repulsive at once.

The only mark on her body was the almost unnoticeable crescent on the side of her neck. She remembered that it was in the exact place the flames had started burning; where the man had bitten her. For a moment she hated Carlisle and Esme for coming there while the man was feeding, they should have just ignored the man and let him suck her dry. Death is better than immortality. Instantly, Lana felt guilty. Carlisle and Esme were good people. The man was the one who ran away when he saw them. Esme and Carlisle were kind enough to take her in instead of leaving her to wake up alone and start killing humans.

Humans, she thought and looked in the mirror again. I'm not human. Not human, not alive…not Lana Mills.

Lana Mills was the girl with scars that each told a story, either funny or sad, and Lana Mills a face full of freckles. Lana Mills had her mother's freckles and her dad's blue eyes. Being able to look in the mirror and know that her parents had something that they were able to pass onto her for her to remember them by would always make Lana be able to smile but now she doesn't have that pleasure anymore.

Seeing her body without freckles bothered her more than she would ever have imagined. Lana had lived almost eighteen years with a face and body full of freckles, and now it felt like being stuck in the body of a stranger. Yes, when Lana was young she did have thoughts on what she would look like if she didn't have freckles but freckles had always been her defining trait. Lana had always been recognized as that "girl with the freckles."

Who was she now? "That girl with the bloody red eyes."?

She pulled her arm back, taking more look at the flawless girl before her fist made impact with the glass.