Maia's POV

I was surrounded in black.
Nothing but a vast, empty, burning blackness.
The deepest, darkest, and most dangerous depth of black.

I knew what it was, almost instantly. I was trapped.
Trapped in my own self-loathing and pain, the emotional baggage I carried with me throughout every single day.
So there I was, trapped in my own self-conscious.

In normal nightmares, I would be somewhere, afraid and lonely, so lonely, cowering as Paul approached me - his hunching posture, the glint in his eye, and the smirk on his lips: you could tell by everything about him that he had no good intent.

But, this was no normal nightmare.

The despair was so thick I could taste it - It tasted metallic, rusty even, and it vibrated on my tongue.
Then it got worse.
Every now and again the taste would change, from a white hot burning flame that licked at my tongue without mercy, to a blue icy taste that flowed into my mouth, almost choking me. I wasn't sure which hurt more.

There was no Paul.
None of Pauls mates.
No one to hurt me.

Although I wished that it would change - I wished I could transform the nightmare to one of the usual's, where Paul would be taunting me, teasing me, hurting me to a excruciating extent. Anything, and I mean anything, would've been better than this.

Little did I know, things were going to get worse. Much, much worse...

"Hello again," A deep voice hissed from behind me. I flinched. The voice echoed around the blackness, like we were in a cave. It was a voice dripping with honey.

But, don't you know honey comes from bees?
And if you mess with bees, you're going to get stung.

I didn't dare respond.

Before I had chance to turn around, he was already in front of me. My eyes quickly adjusted to see the beautiful figure infront of me.

This time, there were no lifeless corpses with hauntingly gormless faces.
No blood in his honey gold locks, that fell to just above his collar.
However, he still had those almost entrancing eyes, which were pools of liquid night.

I drank his appearance - he had many crescent-shaped scars dotted all over his body. They seemed to be his most dominant feature.
Another thing that stood out, was the fact that, I could see a look of pain underneath that sick smirk.

"W-what do you want with me?" I whimpered. "Do you want to kill me? Well, you can. I don't want to live anymore. Please..."

He grinned, dashing closer to me, until he was just mere inches away from my face.
I didn't know how he could walk on black nothingness.
All I knew was that I wanted everything to end soon.

" Please. I want you to kill me ..." I begged him.

I loved Quil, Embry and Jake, so SO much, but it just wasn't enough to make me deal with the pain.
I felt like a selfish bitch, taking their help and still wanting to die. I felt so cruel. Readers, you must think i'm a dreadful person. And I knew I was. I was a horrible, horrible cow - I didn't deserve their help. They shouldn't have had to waste their time on me. I just wanted all the pain to stop. Sometimes it hurt so much that it hazed over my eyes, coated my entire being. I was terrified of life, and hated my self.

Too top it all off, I felt idiotic whining about my life so much. Almost like an attention whore.

He seemed to falter - he opened his mouth and closed it again, before growling "... I want to kill you too." in a southern twang. He pursed his lips into a thin line. He edged towards me. "Your so aggravating with your emotions. Stupid mortal."

I was bewildered. He didn't seem as crazy as when we last encountered each other. I voiced my thoughts out loud.

"Last time I saw you I had gone into a frenzy. I killed so many innocents to get rid of your stupid depressing feelings. It's all your fault." Clenching and unclenching his fists, he grunted in annoyance. "Why won't you stop?"

"I'm a bulimic who has been bullied into depression." I reasoned, barely holding back the river of tears. Que the awkward silence.

"... I'm sorry." The inhumanly beautiful man responded softly. I looked up to meet his eyes, and noticed that they had turned to a metallic orange - almost a mix between gold and red. " I hadn't realised."

Silence.

"Maia?"

I could feel myself choking on the sobs that were threatening to escape my lips.

"Come on, Kill me then." I finally whispered. "It is what you came to do, isn't it? KILL ME!"

Saying nothing, he turned his gaze to the blackness around us.

"I looked up Mara, you know. A Mara's most effective weapon is sustaining a climate of fear." I sighed. "Why did you call yourself that?"

Looking down to me, he responded "Because, at first, it's what I thought you were. I could feel the fear radiating off of you, and I could sense it made others around you feel it slightly, too. "

"What's your real name?" I asked. I could almost see the battle in his mind, on whether to tell me or not.

"I think it's best not to tell you." He concluded, at last. I sighed.

"What are you? Why do I keep dreaming about you?" I wondered aloud, studying his face. I already could tell what he was from the last dream.

"I could ask you the same question." He retorted. "I don't dream. I can't dream. But .. these visions keep coming over me, I ... I don't get it. "

I was starting to think that this guy wasn't a figment of my imagination. Was I crazy to think that? Probably.

"Why won't you kill me?" I asked. "I know what you are, and I know that you can. So why won't you?"

Suddenly, as if having enough of my tedious nagging, he darted towards me and pierced my skin with sharp, lethal teeth...

I woke up weeping quietly, at around about 5am. It was still dark outside.

I was sleeping over at Jacobs that night with Quil and Embry. It had been a few weeks since I'd been going to that eating disorder group. I couldn't say I was getting better, but I did realise that I had an issue.
Jake, Quil and Embry had all been there for me since the beginning, and without them, I would be lost.
They were practically the only things that kept me going.

Of course, that resulted in me becoming more and more distant from Tyler.
Whenever I went to school - which was rarely, nowadays - Tyler would avoid me, ignore me, or shout at me, demanding to know why I had ditched him for some 'Steroid freaks.' Quil, Embry and Jake would always come to my rescue.
That didn't stop me feeling awful, though.

Paul had tried to contact me a lot. However, my Jake, Quil, and Embry would always warn him off. The last I'd heard was that Paul had now finally resulted in drowning himself in whores. I think someone had told me that his latest floosy was 'Prozzie Patricia.' Lovely.

Anyway, On hearing my sobbing, Jacob was by me in a shot, hugging me close to him. " Shhh honey it's okay .. It was just a nightmare.. You're okay now baby girl .." He consoled, as Embry and Quil started waking up.

As soon as they saw me, they got up in a flash, and ran to me. " What happened? Were you having a nightmare about that Skunk-nugget?" Quil asked, earning a little chuckle from me in between my sobs.
"Y-Yeah ..." I sniffled, lying through my teeth.
It seemed like they knew it wasn't about Paul, but they let it go anyway, for my sake.
They all pulled me into a burning embrace - I'd have to talk to them about their temperatures later - and just let me cry.
After what felt like hours, Embry spoke.
"Right," Embry grinned. "Get dressed, Maia. We're going to go to that all night ice-cream Parlor. My treat."

I smiled warmly at them. I loved those guys.

And, for a split second, they made everything all right again.

Yay, an update! The crappest update i've ever given to this story, but still ;L I think you all know who the guy in her dream is now .. But i'm not saying anything :P

Sorry for like, NEVER updating. Oh well :) I'll start updating more soon! I can't believe I've wrote 10 chapters already :)

Many thanks,

CaitlinB54

:)

xoxo