Death
It was the cold. That's what he remembers the clearest from Before. The way it sunk into his body, deep into his bones, until it was the only thing he could feel.
And how slowly, agonizingly slowly, his uncontrollable shivering stopped, his muscles became stiff and wooden, and his thoughts fuzzy and unclear. While the entire time, his blood trickled into the snow around him, splashes of crimson vivid against the white.
Then, the burning had begun, chasing away the chill.
It had been as if the fires of Hell itself were devouring him alive. There had been nothing but agony, ripping him apart from the inside, only to rebuild him back again, and shatter him anew.
He thinks he screamed. He must have, but there had been no one to hear him anyway, so deep into the forest, far from the closest village, in what he suspected was the biggest snowstorm in the last sixty years at the very least.
It could have lasted seconds, minutes, days, weeks, years.
He knew not. He cared not. There had been only pain and fire, consuming his every thought until he wished he was dead.
But eventually, the fire had started receding.
First from his fingertips, and toes, and then the rest of him. Still just as slowly, so agonizingly slowly, much like the cold had been.
And his throat...his throat! He had never felt so parched in his life. It had been as dry as the well had been during that one summer in his childhood when the rain would not come, despite their ardent prayers. They had thought God had abandoned them. Decided to punish them for their sins.
His heart too. Regardless of the already frantic pace of his heartbeat that had echoed in his ears, it only got quicker.
Faster and faster and faster, it had beat until it stopped.
Too never start again.
I don't own Twilight.