Okay, here's the next chapter! :) enjoy!
A Change of Heart
IT HAD BEEN TWO DAYS SINCE MY LAST VISION AND I WAS EXTREMELY thankful for that. But I was back in my room now. The weakest I've ever been. I couldn't really talk much and there was no way in hell I could support myself. The drop in medication had weakened me and the no food had meant nothing but blood, which the baby didn't want. It had grown attached to the food, but the food had driven me insane. So I only had small doses of blood to keep me doing, but now the baby was getting pretty pissed off with no food and it was like she wouldn't let me drink a single drop of blood without throwing it back up again.
So I gave up. I let it have it's own way and we both went without any nutrition. Damn hybrid baby!
Jacob hadn't left my side since he was let back in a couple of days ago, it was nice having him with me. The only problem was the sadness of it all. I had never seen so much pain in his eyes for such a long amount of time before. I couldn't see myself withering away, I could feel it. But he felt my pain and he could see it too.
My throat was so dry and sore that I had to resort to using my gift to communicate. I would send my thoughts to Jacob as he laid next to me in my bed and he would talk back. Sometimes I knew the sight of me was so painful for him that he wanted to cry. Sometimes, when he replied to me, his voice would quiver and his gulps were louder than usual as he tried to hold back the tears.
To be honest, I wanted to cry too. I wanted to cry for the country I was in so much pain both emotionally and physically. Luckily, no bones were broken - yet. I didn't know what would happen to me at the birth. I might either get bones broken and die or I'll have bones broken and be paralysed for the rest of my life.
My hand was permanently to Jacob's cheek as he captured every thought of the moment. I was always thinking, so he was never deprived of my personality or who I was - he just didn't hear my voice come from my mouth.
"Okay, I'll ask again and be honest with me - on a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?" he asked.
"Alright, probably eleven. But don't worry, it'll be over soon. I can hold on until then."
He sighed, "I don't want you to go through the same as what Bella did, but so far you seem to be doing worse."
"That's only because this baby has less of a decided diet than me. I knew what I wanted and wanted blood. This baby, she's temperamental, she's something one day and something else the next."
"Huh," he scoffed, "Sounds like a bouncing bundle of joy. I'm sure glad she's your responsibility."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"It means that if you had a child I always wanted it to be an angel. I wanted it to be perfect for you. But, this one isn't perfect-"
"Nobody's perfect, Jake."
"You are." he smiled.
I let out what was meant to be a scoff but came out like a hoarse cough. "I'm anything but perfect and I'm sure as hell not angelic in anyway. I look like a corpse, I have the morality levels of Satan and I'm part demon too, just to round things up."
"You're too harsh on yourself." his voice shook a little more that time and I saw the water rush to his eyes. He looked away and I removed my hand from his face.
"Jake," I tried to talk to him properly, but it felt like someone was rubbing sand paper down my throat - I sounded like it too. "Don't cry, please. I'm fine, really."
His tears fell more. "No you're not,"- he cleared his throat - "you're dying. And you knew it would come to this." he cried harder, "Why are you leaving me like this?"
"Jacob-"
"I love you and I don't want to lose you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and if that means only living for a few more days then so be it."
"No, Jacob, please don't-"
"Ness, I can't live without you. Do you honestly expect me to let you die then just move on?"
"Yes!" that word was the last of it for my throat so I returned my hand to his face. "Jacob Black, listen to me! I love you too and that is exactly why I can't stand the thought of you doing something like this to yourself."
He looked at me for a long moment and then sighed, looking away from me.
"It's your fault I'm like this." straight away his eyes fell into shock. He couldn't believe he had just admitted that out loud, in front of me.
I took my hand away from his face and held it to my chest. I didn't want him to hear what I was thinking. I didn't want him to know that I thought he couldn't be more right and I also hated the thought of him knowing that my optimism of my survival was as dead as a dinosaur.
I was going to die, I knew it now. There was so much in life I would never get to do because I had made that one final stupid mistake. I was the most selfish person I knew, I was my own nightmare.
By agreeing to bring this child into the world I was sealing my fate and leaving the people I loved and cared about. As well as creating an innocent child just so that it could be taken and used for nothing but breeding, just like an animal because I was too coward to stand up to it myself
"Ness, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it." he went for my hand and tried to hold it to my face, but I pulled away again.
"Please," he begged, "Please talk to me."
Finally, I returned my skinny, fragile hand to his warm cheek to tell him that I wasn't mad and that I completely agreed with him. He was right.
But the second my skin touched his my vision went black. I started to panic. I couldn't take these visions anymore, they were too much for my fragile state to take. They scared me, even when I thought they would be normal, they would turn on me and show me something horrific.
I wanted to cry and try to shake myself out of it, but to Jacob, I would simply look as if I had slipped into a daze.
My vision returned...
I'm in a forest, one that recognise. In fact, I used to go here as a child a lot. I would run away to here when I wanted to be alone, not just inside my bedroom. For the first time, it isn't dark or night, the sun is high in the sky and it shines down into multiple rays through the tree branches.
I start to calm, because I feel... I feel at home. Everything seems warm, a yellowy orange filter covers the trees and the grass. It's summer.
I notice movement next to me and when I look I find a little girl skipping along side me. But she isn't any ordinary girl, she's special, she's me. I look about seven, so I must have only been a year and bit old.
She looks up at me and smiles widely with brilliant white teeth, then she holds my hand. I watch as she takes it and I see a wedding ring on my ring finger.
A wedding ring?
She looks up at me a smiles again, but this time there is a certain darkness to her smile, something sinister.
I jolt and hold back. She continues to walk on the hand of another woman - Bella. That would explain the wedding ring.
As I watch them walk, darkness fills the gaps of the trees they walk through. I follow them, never wanting them to leave my sight.
Not far into the darkness they stop.
"Where are we Momma?" little Renesmee asks her mother, but Bella says nothing. She simply stares ahead, waiting.
Renesmee becomes scared and the joyfulness leaves her big brown eyes to be replaced by fear.
"Momma?" she whimpers.
Just then two men appeared out of the darkness and stood closely in front of Bella and Renesmee. The little girl tries to hide behind her mother but she refuses to let the girl hide. Bella holds her straight before guiding her little hand to a hand of one of the men.
"Mommy?" the men start to pull her away, but Bella does nothing. She stands and watches as the strange men drag her daughter away.
"Mommy!" her little voice screams as she's pulled into the darkness.
"Mom!" I hear my own voice come from the darkness this time. The little girl escapes from their clutches and returns from the darkness as a fully grown woman.
"Mom, please. Don't let them take me!" she throws herself to the ground in mercy as those men reappear behind her and take her under arms.
"I'm sorry," Bella whispers to her. "But I have to."
As Renesmee is dragged, yet again into the darkness - I return to my bedroom.
Jacob still lies in front of me, with my hand to his cheek and horror in his eyes. He saw it. He watched that vision with me.
"What was that?" he asked, but I was sure it was rhetorical.
"It's the kind of thing I see everyday. But I'm not sure how that could be an alternate memory - nothing has ever happened that could lead Bella to doing that. She would never do that to me."
I looked away from him then and rested my head against his chest as I stared down at my large bump.
I gently touched it and for the first time I didn't feel a chill when I touched it. I didn't feel like it was a demon trapped in a metal cage inside me. For the first time I felt like it was nicely wrapped in a blanket - safe and warm. I didn't feel like the host to a demon's possession, I felt like the protector of something innocent.
"You're becoming attached to her, aren't you?" asked Jacob.
I smiled and tried to speak again, "You're starting to realise that I'm not carrying a demon, aren't you?"
He kissed the side of my head. "I realise that I've done more harm to you during this than that baby has."
As I looked at him, it was only a second before he gently pressed his lips to mine. A white hot buzz rushed through my veins and a brand new warmth wrapped around me. As our lips parted I smiled.
"That's the first time you've kissed me since I've been pregnant." I told him.
"Well, I don't know how much longer I can kiss you for, do I?" he said. "I might only have a few more days, or I might have forever - who knows."
"So you do think I'll make it through?"
He shrugged, "I still have a little faith in you I guess. But my telling you constantly that I think you're going to die really can't be helping your confidence. So I figured, I don't want to make the rest of your life miserable if there isn't much left of it. I've made your last month miserable enough as it is-"
"Jake, I don't wanna hear anymore about it. Let's just not talk about my chances of surviving anymore, we're too close to finding out to discuss the possibilities. I need to hold on to the thread of optimism I have left."
"Deal. Is that letter still in the draw?" he asked
I nodded. "Only if I die though, right?"
"Right, so what happens if you survive?"
"I burn the letters and never take life for granted again-"
Blackness again. Damn it! When would the meds and food wear off? But I didn't have to wait long this time. I quickly opened my eyes to find the forest and the darkness again.
The screams still echo off the trees and the calling is still close by. Bella still watches, making sure that her daughter is gone. But as the screams come closer, a little girl jumps out of the darkness and grabs onto her.
But this little girl isn't me anymore. She looks like me. She has the same curls, the same big eyes, the same innocence. Except her eyes are darker, her hair is darker and her skin a hint darker than mine.
Then I realise,
It's her.
It's the little girl.
It's my little girl.
So that must have meant that-
Now Bella turned away from the pleading child, she couldn't take it anymore. But it wasn't her child, because the woman wasn't Bella - it was me.
"Mommy, please!" the little girl cried as her mother walked away. But Renesmee stops and turns to look to her.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, "But I have to."
As the forest returned to my bedroom I started to panic. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do that to a poor little girl.
I was wrong. I was so wrong.
I shouldn't have done this.
This entire thing was a mistake, a big, stupid, stupid mistake!
"Jacob!" I panicked, "I can't do this. I don't want this baby anymore. Please, I can't-"
Just as I said that an excruciating crunch came from inside the bump and I screamed.
It's time.
