Forbidden Fruit

The nights have become harder and harder to endure. From the moment her alarm sounds, to the second her hand once again rests against my prison, I am in agony. I cannot stop shaking. The vibrations seem to find every natural flaw in the stone, spreading microscopic cracks like fault lines. The edges are eroding; I can taste the dust in the air. Now each section of stone resonates at a different frequency, creating an atonal chorus that only amplifies my restlessness.

Perhaps she feels it. She is becoming increasingly distressed. When she visits, she runs to join me, pure joy in her voice. But then she stumbles away in the evening, anguish whistling in her throat.

Then do not leave, I think. Do not ever leave me, if it hurts you so.

But still she jumps the moment her alarm sounds, gathers her possessions and departs.

Tonight, she is crying. She sniffs and sighs as she takes her leave, and I am overcome by anger. She is hurting. She needs me. Me! And I need her, too. This hurts too much. I cannot go on…

I rail against the injustice. Star-crossed lovers, indeed. I do not even know her name. Sadness becomes rage, and I thrash within my chains, throwing my weight against the welded iron links over and over until I hear more than the pops and cracks of splintering stone. The marble edges are actually screeching against one another as the post leans and the base shifts beneath my feet.

Then I feel movement in the air itself. Fresh air seeps in between the cracks, damp with rain and smelling of-

I inhale…

It is a scent unlike any other. Sweeter than honey, richer than claret, it sears my senses until the thirst flares hotter than the sun.

That scent…

Everything is relative. Age. Size. Density. Pain.

I thought I knew pain. I thought I understood thirst. Once upon a time, I believed I had experienced the uppermost limits of both. And desire… Yes. That, too.

I have perspective now. On a relative scale, I had no concept of Pain. My Thirst was merely an irritation. And Desire… that was nothing more than a strong word for 'want'.

No. What I feel now is the essence of all three, amplified by time itself. It is all I can manage to remember that I am Me. I am. And this feeling, though it may own every part of me, it does not erase who I am.

I hear her approaching. That is impossible. It is night. Or is it? There is no trace of light, but can I trust my eyes when they have seen nothing but blackness, trapped between these four walls for more than six decades?

Sounds pour through the rifts in the stone, crisp and loud, hammering against my ears. Her heart beats like a bass drum, pounding through my skull, and her voice tears a hole in my chest.

"Oh, Edward," she sobs, bending down before me.

Then she stands, steps up, embraces my prison, and her scent swirls around me. Tear me to shreds, set me ablaze, it could not burn me more completely. I am faint. I feel my mind falling away, disintegrating beneath the onslaught.

"I can fix it. I'll fix it," she says, desperation twisting her voice.

Then my world is exploding with light, stars colliding across my retinae. I cannot quell the moan of agony that slips past my parched and wasted lips.

"Edward," she whispers, and my eyes are drawn to the voice of my singer. My tormentor. My destruction.

In the face of my insanity, she recoils, scrambling away on all fours like an animal. And, like an animal, the beast possesses me, intent on bloodshed. I twist and buck against my chains, taking vicious pleasure in every crack and pop, throwing my weight against the post until dust and chunks of marble are raining down on me.

I am decades of agony. I am rage. I am Tantalus, and this thirst will never release its hold on me. I am my thirst.

Seconds before I cast off the final threads of my humanity, the sun crests the horizon, burning through the mist and setting the cemetery aglow. The stones are bathed in rose pink and tangerine orange. Droplets of azuline hang suspended in rays of pure energy.

My mind cannot process the sensory assault. I close my eyes, reeling. And that is when I realize what I have lost. She is gone. She will never run toward me with joyful anticipation. She has seen the monster. She knows the truth.

I open my eyes and and let them burn, staring into the rising sun. How long until I am discovered, starved, nearly naked, chained beneath this tree?

A chickadee lands on the branch before me, pecking sporadically at the red velvet mites that crawl between the needles.

"Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?" I recite. My voice is a whisper of dust, eerie and alien. "Yes, Father. I know my value."

I close my eyes, hang my head and wish that William would reappear to relieve me of the burden of living.

Ironically, the song carries on in the distance, more chillingly beautiful than ever before.

~*~ MONOLITH ~*~

I try to empty my mind of all thoughts, but the singer always creeps back in. Her song will not be silenced. Even if I could cover my ears, I know it would still ring through my mind, overturning every attempt to direct my thoughts elsewhere.

Days have passed since the catastrophe. The number does not really matter. Before that night, I had hope, I had pleasure, I had her love and adoration. Today I am bankrupt in every way imaginable.

Then, without warning, the song begins to climb, louder than ever, a magnificent crescendo of radiance and joy. And with the song comes a chant, a pounding heartbeat to drive home the final measures of the symphony. My chains vibrate in response. The friction grows until my skin burns. The song, the scent, my punishment and my thirst, these forces are tearing me apart.

I hear a gasp and raise my head, opening my eyes in wonder.

I am dreaming. It is my beloved, the woman from the vision, appearing as if by magic beneath the overhanging branches of the fir tree. But she is young, so young. Dressed like a bride in white lace and silk ribbons, with a pale blush adorning her cheeks, she is the manifestation of every young man's fantasy. She would have been my fantasy if I were still Edward Anthony Masen, idealistic, naive… human. Her hair flows loose around her shoulders, and she is crowned with a circlet of yellow rosebuds. She takes a step forward, then another, her bare feet dancing around the shattered remnants of the monolith.

She raises her face, baring features more precious to me than any other being on earth. Her eyes are brown, not golden, but they shine with recognition. It is impossible. I have never seen her before. Not really. She has only ever existed inside my head.

Ice worms its way through my entrails. Now I see. She is my curse. She starred in the false dream planted by a demon decades ago. These past weeks, she has been the siren who usurped my free will. The angel of my dreams is my greatest nightmare.

"Carlisle should have killed me," I say, clenching my hands into fists lest I reach for her. "He should have destroyed me when he had the chance."

She comes closer, smiling, and I recoil against the post. I feel more of the concrete crumbling beneath my feet.

"It's okay," she says. "I want this. I want you."

The heat of her body makes me dizzy. The scent of her blood makes me burn. As she steps up onto the dust-littered platform, slivers of stone cut the soles of her feet. She does not flinch, but I do. A red mist rises up around me, blocking my vision.

I cannot escape. I am her prisoner. Her fingers find mine, and her touch awakens a different sort of madness. I am possessed by an overwhelming urge to wrap my arms around her, to embrace every temptation I have denied myself in this lifetime and the last. Those lips taunt me, shining pink with saliva and plump with hot blood.

"Two bodies, one soul," she reminds me, confirming what I have told Carlisle all these years. God has abandoned us soulless creatures. There is only one destiny for us. We live in torment until we cease to exist. There is no salvation.

I press my lips together and turn my head away, but her hands slip behind my neck, into my hair, tugging me closer.

Dear God, why? Your son starved in the desert for 40 days, and you allowed the dark one to tempt him three times. Am I so lost that my torment must carry on for all eternity? Please, please, please let it end. Please…

But my prayer goes unanswered. The only thing I hear is the clamor of cymbals in my ears and the gush of blood inches from my parched lips.

I know with absolute certainty that, if I succumb to this temptation, I will never go back. Once again I will live by blood, I will live for blood, and Edward will be no more.

She stretches her neck until I feel her vertebrae pop with the strain, and the sweet scent of her blood rises up into my nose. Involuntarily, I part my lips. I taste her on my tongue, and my throat clenches, swallowing air.

I feel my resolve weakening. I have never been strong enough, but to persevere as I have, to endure as I have, and then to destroy it all in a moment of weakness? No. I will not.

Her fingers flex, her nails scraping against my scalp, and I think of all the times those fingers caressed my stone prison, how I yearned for that touch, how I dreamed that there was no stone between us, just flesh against flesh.

Now I see the absolute folly of my resistance. Some supernatural force created her with me in mind. Her voice, her mind and her heart...they all call to me. Her blood sings for me. Her body molds so perfectly against mine. It is as if she was designed for the sole purpose of destroying me. And I hate her for it. I hate her more than myself.

I do not want to hate. I do not want to destroy. Because if I kill this woman, this child really, if I crush my last and final prayer for deliverance, I will be a demon for all eternity. If she was anyone else, anything else, I could find a way to recover and rebuild, but to drink from her, the forbidden fruit, would be crossing the point of no return. There is no bridge back across that chasm.

And, like the edges of a chasm, my will crumbles. She feels me weakening, and her heart accelerates. I am losing control. I cannot fight us both.

"No," I gasp. It is the end. "No, please... Not you…"

She lets out a soft moan, a triumphant cry, as my will caves and my lips brush against her skin.

Her taste is more perfect than I imagined, shining light across all the dark and broken stretches of my mind. And when her skin splits against my teeth, and those first succulent drops spill across my tongue… I… I am…

I am unmade.

A/N: Still with me, Dawn? LOL Don't worry... It'll all be okay in the end.