EPOV

I didn't look back again.

I knew I was no longer in my body, and I heard the pleas of Alice and Nya begging me to wake up. Instead of doing what was probably the sensible thing and turning around to at least look or try to tell them I had already begun my journey, I simply took Bella's hand in mine and walked with her. I let her lead me along.

Not much time seemed to pass us by before we entered the shores of a sea through the opening of a cave. I hadn't realized that we were in a cave until I noticed that we were walking out of one. I shrugged and smiled.

"I'm happy to be here with you," I said.

"Are you?" Bella asked.

I nodded my head. "Of course I am."

"But you don't even know where we are."

"Tell me then: where are we?"

"This is where I spend most of my time. It is either here alone, or surrounded by happy couples who have rediscovered one another in death. I guess I prefer being here because this is where I feel least lonely."

I stared straight ahead at the waters. At first they smelled like rotten flesh, but then the fragrance turned sweet and attractive.

I looked above. Up where the sky ought to have been was a dome of hundreds – maybe even thousands – of mirrors. The reflections were twisted; strange but still very beautiful. Bella noticed me staring up at them.

"Those show me all of the places I could have gone in my life. Sometimes they show me marrying other men and having children and sometimes they show me going off to school abroad where I might have studied rare subjects. Yet, as exciting as those things may appear to be, the fact is that I would rather be here."

"Here? Alone?" I asked.

"Yes. I would rather be alone by these waters than with anyone who isn't you."

"Surely you can't mean that you're happier here?"

"I am," she said.

I looked back at the waters. We walked up to them until the small waves were lapping against our bare feet. I immediately stepped out of them when I realized what the water contained. No wonder they smelled of rotting decay!

"What is this?" I asked with alarm.

"These are the waters of the other side," she said calmly. "Every night, when I come to you, I must swim through them until I reach you. Sometimes it feels like a year goes by before I can manage to get to you, but I do it. I know you'll be on the other side waiting for me. I was always so surprised that you were waiting for me. I guess it just seems funny because the truth was that I always spent all of my time waiting for you."

"I'm so sorry, Bella." I was humiliated by the fact that she was here and not out there in the world living her life. "Please, please forgive me."

"What for?"

"What for? For… for," I motioned all around us, "For all of this!"

The waves started creeping up closer to our ankles and I took another step back.

"Please, Bella, tell me," I took a gulp, wondering if I should really ask, "What is in those waters?

"These waters contain remnants of the flesh of every single body that has been mortally ceased by water. Usually the bits stay at the bottom. I guess the current is a little stronger tonight, though. As for the water itself, it is made mostly of the oils from all the flowers that die. It's not real water, you see."

I shuddered at the thought of what she was telling me. The floor of the water was not dirt or rock, but skin and body parts from people who suffered a miserable end.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why what?"

"Why is this water like this?"

"Edward," she giggled. I was more alarmed that she giggled and seemed to make sense of this place now than I had previously been disturbed by the actual idea of a sea of dismembered body parts. "Where do you think we are?"

"I really have no idea."

"It's okay," she said, rubbing my arm. "I know it's a terrible, crazy place. Believe me- I know. But it's not like it is back there, where we just came from. Rules for that world don't apply here. Things never add up the way they did once. Sometimes, though, if I just stop trying, things start to make a little sense. Here, let me show you what I mean."

She gripped my hand more tightly and led me along the shore to some large rocks.

"Look between them," she said.

I did as she advised. I saw her. She was lying in plush, green grass. Loose locks of her long, brown hair were catching the swirls of wind. She was writing in a notebook.

"What am I seeing?" I asked.

"Me."

"But you're right here, next to me."

"I know," she smiled. "But that's not me now. That's me several months ago. I remember that day. Shortly after I realized the fact that you were really not coming back for me and that you really would stay away from me forever, I decided to start writing in a journal. There was no one else out there in the world who could possibly understand the situation I found myself in. I know that sounds dramatic and extreme, but come on! You know our special circumstances- I mean, what they were. So anyway, I started writing…"

"I know," I interrupted.

Again I shuddered- this time at remembering her journal. I took another peek through the large rocks and noticed that she was crying. The sun was beginning to set, though the sky was covered by clouds anyway. I saw a flash of lightning immediately followed by the thunder and the rain. She didn't budge. She just kept writing. She covered the small notebook with her left hand while penning in it with her right. It was the only thing that remained remotely dry in the downpour of rain.

"You should have gone inside," I whispered to myself. "You could have taken a chill and become sick."

"I did," she whispered back. "I was ill for weeks after that day."

"Go inside!" I shouted between the rocks.

The Bella on the other side turned around suddenly and looked toward us. She closed the journal and put it in the pocket of her jacket. She stood up suddenly and began searching around the yard.

"I heard you then," she said.

"How could you have?" I asked.

"That remains the mystery, I guess."

The Bella on the other side kept walking around, searching.

"I was so sure that I heard you," Bella whispered. "So sure, in fact, that I just kept searching. I was out for hours."

"Hours?"

She nodded her head. "Mmhmm. I never did find you, though. Not until I was already dead."

The gap in the rocks seemed to be further apart that I had noticed before. I could make my way through, if I wanted to.

"Can I stop you from searching?" I asked. "Can I plead with you to go back inside the house?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know."

I slid through the gap in the rocks and stepped forward. Immediately, they closed behind me. There were no longer rocks, but an entrance to the forest just outside of Bella's home. In front of me was the searching Bella on the other side and her house. She was turned around, not facing me.

"Bella!" I called.

She gasped in shock.

"Edward?" she asked with wide eyes.

She ran toward me and put her hands on my chest, then moved them to my shoulders and down my arms.

"I can't believe it! It's really you!"

"It is," I replied. "You should go inside. You're going to catch a chill."

"I don't care!" she cried, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I've missed you so much. Have you come back to me?"

"I don't know," I said.

"You… don't… know?" she said, releasing me from her embrace and looking down at her feet.

"I don't know where I am," I tried to clarify.

"What do you mean you don't know where you are? You're standing with me, in my backyard, here in Forks. Remember? Forks? The town you left because I wasn't good enough for you?"

Her tone turned angry now.

"Bella," I said, trying to calm her down. She was growing hysterical.

"No!" she shouted. "I should have known better! God!"

"I'm here," I said.

"But for how long?" she argued. "How long until you just up and leave me again? I wasn't good enough for you before, so why the fuck are you standing in my god-damned yard?"

I didn't know what to say to her. This didn't seem anything like the Bella I knew. But then again, perhaps hard emotions and terrible loss change a person?

"Well?" she demanded. She was tapping her foot with her arms crossed, waiting for me to give some answer to justify myself.

"I love you," I said.

"Oh, do you?" She squinted her eyes. "If you love me, does that mean that you will do anything for me?"

"Anything!" I promised. "I swear, Bella, that I will do anything you ask of me!"

"Then here," she said, handing me a knife with a ten-inch blade.

"What's this for?" I asked, refusing to take the thing.

"It's a gift," she smiled, "From you to me."

"What do you mean?"

"You said you will do anything I ask. Is that right?"

I nodded my head and began to regret not setting some kind of limitations on the deal.

"Then kill me."

"Kill?"

"Yes," she smiled wider. "Kill me."

"My god! No! You can't be serious, Bella."

Her gaze remained steadfast and deliberate. "You bet your god-damned ass I am."

She pushed the knife into my hands.

"One way or another, Edward, you are going to kill me. We can stand out here in the rain until I die of exposure or you can get this over with now."

"Please," I begged.

"What? Would you prefer I jump off a cliff?" she laughed.

"What?"

"You heard me," she laughed again.

She snatched the knife from my hands and began thrusting it into her middle over and over again.

"Bella!" I screamed. "Stop that! Stop it now!"

She kept laughing. I gripped her shoulders and she dropped the knife. Her nose began to bleed and blood made its way out of her mouth with each sound of insane laughter. It was less than a minute before her eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp.

"Bella?" I cried, shaking her. I screamed at the sky.

When I looked down, I saw nothing in my hands. There was nothing in my grip. She wasn't there anymore. Had she ever really been there?

"What is this?" I asked. "What is this place?"

I spun around, desperate to find a way out. I was still in the yard. The rain was letting up and the sun began to shine, even though it had just gone down for the night. I ran toward the house. The back door was locked, so I pushed the whole thing in. It made a loud crashing noise as it fell to the ground.

I saw the back of Charlie's head. He was sitting calmly at the little round kitchen table, sipping his coffee and reading his paper.

"Charlie?" I asked, approaching him cautiously. I wasn't sure what to expect from one second to the next anymore. "Charlie?"

A man turned around, but it was not Charlie.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He laughed and pulled a knife with a ten-inch blade from his pocket. "Sorry about that," he said with a devilish grin. "Sometimes I just can't help myself. All the new ones are so easy to screw with."

"Who are you?" I asked again; this time with more force.

"Why, Ignis Fatuus is the name. If you ask the others, they'll warn you that I'm a bit of a prankster. But I suppose you don't need their warning anymore, now do you? After all, you've already seen first-hand for yourself all about that haven't you? Have a seat."

He kicked the other chair out from the table and motioned for me to sit down. I did so, only because I was too confused to think of anything else to do at the moment.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"I am a lot of places. Do you mean to ask, where are you?"

"Okay then. Where am I?"

"You're in Seselis, otherwise known as the Land of Shadows. Which by the way, what brings someone like you here?"

"Someone like me?"

"Yeah. I didn't think your kind was able to get here. How are you here, Edward, if not delivered by Death?"

"I came through a window," I said. "The glass, I mean. I didn't actually crawl through a window or anything, but I came in through…"

"The reflection," he said.

I nodded my head.

"With who?"

"Pardon?"

"Who brought you here?"

"Bella."

"Right. Yeah. She's the girl whose form I took a likeness to, right?"

I nodded.

"You're not still upset about that, by the way, are you?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn't really sure how I felt at that particular moment- other than confused.

"Well, you'll not get where you're going like that," he announced.

"Like what? And where am I going?"

"Two good questions," he snickered. "Sorry. I should've begun at the beginning. It would've been the kinder thing to do, I think." He stood from his seat and started roaming around the mock kitchen of Bella's home. "You're not dead, Edward. You're passed out. At least, I guess you can say it like that, anyways. So, the thing of the matter is that you will need to do better than passed out. You're going to have to find Death if you want to argue with it over who gets to keep Isabella Swan."

"How do I…"

"And," he kept going, despite the obvious fact that I was still confused and trying to ask a question, "You will need someone to take you there. I guess since I'm not doing anything at the moment and because I feel a little badly for that fun charade earlier," he snickered to himself, "I can take you, if you want."

"Is there someone else who can take me?" I asked.

"Nope," he smiled.

I suppose I had no choice. "Alright," I said. "How do we…"

"As for getting there," he interrupted again, "I sort of know the way. It's been awhile since I've seen it – Death, I mean – and I'm pretty sure I can get us there. But things around here change all the time. It's not like we can follow a map or something, you know?"

"No," I said. I didn't know.

"Yeah, well, what I'm trying to tell you is that we are going to have to forge our own path."

"Can Bella take me?" I asked.

"No," he said. "She's on the other side of the rocks. She can't come this way. It's not possible for her."

"Why?" I asked.

"She's a dead person."

"Are you not dead?"

"I never was alive."

"And what about me?" I asked. "Why can I come over here?"

"I thought we already talked about this, Edward. You're going to have to pay much better attention than that if you want to make it through this strange swamp of a place! Geeze! I already told you- you're not dead. That's why we're going to visit Death."

"Can Death be visited?" I asked.

"I don't see why not," he said, shrugging his shoulders casually. "Death accepts visitors all the time. In fact, I think it might be expecting you. You don't want to be late, do you?"

"I didn't know we were on a time budget."

"Well, we are, and we aren't. It depends on how you look at things, I guess."

"Tell me Ignis, how do you look at things?"

"There'll be plenty of time to talk about that on our journey. Let's get out of here. I hate Forks."

…

A/N: Ignis Fatuus-

1. Also called friar's lantern, will-o'-the-wisp. A flitting phosphorescent light seen at night, chiefly over marshy ground, and believed to be due to spontaneous combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter.

2. Something deluding or misleading.

3. In this case, a strange character who is neither good nor bad, and who is helpful but sometimes not whose disgusting sense of humor is strange and inappropriate, to name a few adjectives. I guess you'll see more of what I mean later on. Thanks for reading! ;)

Until next time,

Stephanie