When we got off stage, smiles on our faces, I finally tripped; stumbling over nothing more than my own two feet

Disclaimer: Didn't do it.

Hello my lovely little darlings!
Special thanks to anyone who reviewed, favorited, and then of course a huge hug to everyone who bothered to read this little obsession of mine!

Your reviews and all of it, they're like crack! I swear, I've been sitting at my PC for hours on end refreshing my stats page, guzzling diet coke till the wee hours of the morning.

I'm all pale and I need sleep and I bet if you replaced my can of diet coke with a huge dead DEER, I'd totally pass for a vampire!

A little music... Labyrinth by the Cure... I suppose it's a bit melancholic so it COULD work with this chapter, but really it was just my "song on repeat" during the writing process. Oh, and, Riders on The Storm by the Doors. :D

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Bella Swan, September 20th 2007. 4:00 AM.

When we got off stage, smiles on our faces, I finally tripped; stumbling over nothing more than my own two feet. I was wondering where all my bad luck had gone! The past hour seemed like it'd been too good to be true. This time, though, instead of getting up, I just remained lying on the ground, flat on my back, grinning up at the world.

Tom stood over me, sharing the manic grin glued to my face, but was soon distracted by Ian, who was making his way over. At this, I got up, almost threatening to fall over again, but I made it. And now came the moment of truth.

Ian had come sprinting to the backstage area and we all turned to him in anticipation…

"Okay, we need you at the office to sign tomorrow. That was freaking amazing," were the first words out of Ian's mouth. He was panting slightly and his entire face was lit up as he spoke.

We erupted into hysteria, screaming and jumping into each other's arms. Only Tom stood apart, a suggestive look on his face as he stared at Ian. Within seconds the two of them whisked off through a nearby door, and the rest of us broke out into a fresh round of laughter, celebrating the good news.

Some time around 4 AM, I decided to head out and get some fresh air; the cigarette and beer smell was starting to get to me. We'd been celebrating with the owner of StarLive and the other bands, discussing the certain pros and cons of strapping into glittering silver spandex for gigs, but soon enough, a new bout of worry had reared its ugly head back around and waltzed right back into my brain.

I shivered as I stood outside; it was a bit too cold for my liking. I took a seat on the step at the door, and propped my guitar up against the wall. The cold wouldn't have bothered me a few hours ago, but I was coming down from my stage-high. Our future was ahead of us, and we'd overcome our first obstacle, but I shuddered to think of those that were yet to come.

Of course, I was ecstatic that we'd made it this far and I hoped we would make it farther… but what if I screwed this up for us? I'd landed into so much trouble with only the help of my own two feet. If I managed to ruin everyone else's and my own dreams simultaneously…it was so hard to realize the possibilities of what could happen to any of us from now on.

…And what if the band split up? Instantly I whacked myself over the head for doubting my band. Of course I trusted them. All of them. I just hoped all this good fortune wasn't going to come back and haunt us one day. I stood up to head back inside, away from my unnecessary rambling, when something caught the corner of my eye.

What the…? I hadn't heard anyone approach, but when I looked up, I saw a man standing not 20 feet away from me. No, he didn't even seem to be a man just yet. He couldn't be more than my age, at the most. That fact didn't make me feel more comfortable, though, about encountering a stranger in an alley at this time of night, because when I looked up to his devastatingly beautiful face, contorted into an expression I'd never seen before, I could feel my heart hammering against my chest with… dread.

Time stopped there for me as I tried to decipher what I read on his face. His every feature was marvelous. Impeccably straight nose, lusciously full lips, a strong and very perfect jaw line, all in gorgeous contrast with his pale white skin. But when I looked into his eyes, seemingly pitch-black pools of fiery liquid, I tried to take a step backwards. I was incapable of moving, of taking even the tiny step. What I saw there, on his face, struck a chord in me—it was almost agonizing to watch.

At first, I thought he looked rather angry and… dangerous. Ready to attack… to kill. I willed myself to move, to shelter myself from that vicious look in his eye, but I couldn't move. I stood paralyzed. But then, as I stared some more, unable to properly comprehend much just yet, I saw something else.

Was it…?

It looked as if he was… in pain. As if he were fighting so hard, in battle with himself, and that the effort was destroying him.

For this, I wanted to help him. Such a glorious face didn't deserve to feel what he seemed to be feeling, I decided. I thought that maybe, if I could calm him down, I could somehow… help him.

Even more astounding was the aspect of his glare that I recognized as… hunger? What?

More than anything, I was confused and scared. Hate seemed to radiate from his ebony eyes and from his stance, blocking out the exit…

Bella. Bella, maybe, just MAYBE, you should run. Stop standing here…and turn around… and GET INSIDE! This voice in my head was screaming at me, warning me of the obvious danger I was in, but I was still caught in my paralysis. I hoped more than anything that it was temporary as I tried and tried to turn around and escape from this situation I found myself in. I didn't know what this… creature could do to me. To call him human seemed…wrong, for the look in his eyes was simply inhumane.

The last thing I could properly focus on was his face as he swooped towards me with unnatural speed and threw me back against the wall. I crumbled beneath his steel grasp and then registered a sort of ripping pain in my neck.

Was he…biting me? I tried to move, tried to resist, but I could only hang there, suspended between his cold iron hold on me, and the wall, pulled into a daze that I was unable to will myself out of. What was he? Why was he hurting me? What had I ever done to deserve this?! I felt as if I were drowning and suffocating and choking, all at once. Was this death? Was I dying? I begged God, Allah, Zeus, any form of a higher power, any otherworldly divine force, to watch over my friends when I was gone, to take care of Charlie… and Renee… Tears welled up in my eyes when I knew I'd be leaving them behind.

And then I heard a gargantuan roar shatter through my reverie, followed by an earth-quaking CRACK, and the sound of bricks crumbling. I fell to the ground; someone had pulled this… thing off of me. I was no longer being attacked. I wasn't going to die.

"EDWARD! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" I heard a deep voice yell out as he picked up my attacker as if he weighed nothing, and threw him against a wall.

…His name was Edward? Why on Earth would anyone grant such a foul thing such a handsome name?

Though still dazed and utterly petrified, I couldn't help but notice something warm and wet trickling down my neck. Slowly, I brought my fingers to my throat, and pulled them back, staring at them in horror. They were covered in blood. My blood.

Before I could resume to feel angry, or scared, or whatever it was I was feeling before I saw my own blood, before I could see what was actually happening to me, I felt nauseous. The rust-and-salt smell of the stuff penetrated my nostrils, making me dizzy. What was going on? Why was this happening to me?

I looked up and around, and there I saw him. The monster. Edward. The vile creature that had done this to me, pinned up against the wall by someone else. I looked up at my saviour in awe; he was massive. Muscles bulged from his back and arms and he seemed to be whispering to my attacker. I simply couldn't understand what was happening.

That was when I noticed what felt like a fire growing from my neck, reaching its sickly fingers out to the rest of my body; as if someone was holding a lighter directly up to my skin, broiling away at my veins. I screamed bloody murder and, at that very instant, both Edward and the man who was holding him up stopped struggling. Edward slid to the ground and his entire figure crumpled.

"Look what you've done." My saviour looked at Edward in accusation, his voiced a hushed whisper. I was in pain, in utter and complete agony, but when I looked into this Edward's face, I saw, again, something I most certainly hadn't expected: he looked as if he was…mourning. It all made so little sense! His eyes were distorted in what seemed like true remorse, caught up in sorrow. But hey were pitch-black, and they still contained the ferocity that had attacked me, and for this I was still scared, despite the presence of my rescuer. Oddly enough, neither of them seemed to breathing. How was any of this possible? How could they move with such speed? Was it possible for anyone's eyes to be so endlessly black?I briefly remembered how, only moments ago, I'd been caught up against the wall, and how Edward's hand was so hard… and cold.

How was it all possible?

"I'm sorry," he then whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear it. Before I could notice what had happened, he'd disappeared, and I felt a faint gust of air pass before my face. Then the pain ripped through me again, and another scream escaped from my lips. This was when my savior turned to me, the one who's name I did not yet know, and I saw that his eyes, the same deep black onyx, also had an equally sad quality to them.

I was too terrified to protest as he picked me up and swung me over his shoulder like a rag doll. He looked around the alley before taking my guitar with him, and for this I was grateful. At least I would still have that, wherever we were going. And then off he was. I couldn't see much, my view so obscured by his back and the night sky and the pain that seemed to be spreading to my every limb. If I had seen everything that was happening, I knew I wouldn't comprehend it. This was all too surreal, too strange. And concentrating on anything but this horrible fire that seemed to be saturating my body seemed far too impossible.

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It's a little longer than my other ones, but I must admit I had a lot of trouble writing it…

Sorry if it's not up to standard

Either way, though, reviews are (as always) definitely appreciated…

Thank you so much!

-Mint.