To All My Utterly Amazing Reviewers: Ho. Ly. Shiz. Zle. It's a good thing this is a reading program instead of an audio program, because I am stunned speechless. Speechless. Some of your reviews are just so breathtakingly sweet, and I love even the scary ones. THANK YOU SO MUCH for helping me get to a thousand. Erm, I've been gone, but I've been working on this chapter sparingly, FINALLY finishing it. I got 66 reviews though. If you all were corporeal, I'd send you all cakes. As it is, the only thing I can do is reviewer shoutouts. Sadly, I'm leaving again for a week. And I don't really have time. But, when I get back, I PROMISE to do this BIG HUGE GIGANTIC reviewer shoutout page! Kind of like those JCPenny's blowout sales? Yes, THAT big, where I'll probably write all of you a page in gratitude. Just, erm, W-O-W! Thanks again. I'm in total, complete, and undeserving awe.

Your Humble Writer,

Lily

Now, ON TO THE SHOW!

Chapter 37

Death or death. I was stuck in a maze with just two paths, and a veracious Minotaur eagerly awaiting me down either, and try as I might, I couldn't see another way.

Essie. I loved her. I didn't even know her, and already I loved her.

Edward. I loved him. He would die at fifty-two. I couldn't bear it, especially with the knowledge.

As much as I tried to shake those visions, I couldn't.

I opened my eyes for the first time in fifteen minutes and stared out in front of me. I noticed, for the first time a black dot hovering just above my left knee.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that it was a fly. Its spread translucent wings caught the light from the bathroom when I turned my head a certain way. Red, multifaceted eyes were wide and alien. I reached a finger up to touch its black body.

Envy caught me. I longed to be that fly then, as silly as that sounded. I longed to be frozen with the rest of the world, as opposed to being mobile without it. Alone...

I had till ten. That left me about forty minutes to decide what to do with the vial. It wasn't fair. But then again, life rarely was.

I wondered what would happen to me should I fail to decide. Those fates, or whatever they were, were clever and magical. I answered my own question.

A lot. That's what could happen.

I wanted Edward more than ever, and that was saying something. I wanted him with me to help me choose. It was his future, too!

In fact, my choice would affect everyone.

Death, death, death...

Dammit! Couldn't anything just calm down? Couldn't Edward and I get a break just once?

Death, death, death...

It was too much to take. I screamed at the top of my lungs. Who'd hear me?

Why couldn't anyone live? Essie would die. Edward would die. Charlie was already dead. A strangled sob escaped my dry, cracked lips. Tears would have rolled out of my eyes, on the black paths the running mascara had made, but there just weren't any left.

I rubbed them and stood, making my way over to Charlie's door. Why couldn't he have lived? Why couldn't I give him life?

I stopped mid step. My foot didn't even come down onto the plush carpet. What did that vial contain exactly? Life?

"Start where they left off..."

That's what the fates had said the vial would do to the drinker. They would start where they left off. Did that stand for everyone?

Edward, in technical terms, was dead. His heart no longer beat. Charlie, in very, very technical terms, was dead, and had the certificate to prove it. Would the vial work for him?

Essie... She'd still never live. Didn't she deserve to?

Would she still be born, just not to us? There were so many questions. Could she be mad at me for trying to bring my father back?

Could I do it without consulting Edward?

I'd asked myself enough questions. I needed to make a decision. The fates promised that Edward would be tortured if I hadn't decided in an hour, and I didn't doubt that threat for a moment.

The world felt too big for me, like shoes four sizes too large. Even so, I was forced to clunk and stumble around in them anyway.

Edward, though. He might be mad at me for giving it to Charlie, for throwing away his chance at life on someone whom had already had his.

I walked back into my bedroom where Edward was still lying on my bed in the exact same position. I could do it right now. I could give him his dream and turn him human. That's what I'd do.

Running, I went out to the unlocked car and pulled the vial from its hiding spot in the floral bag, then returned to Edward's side.

Paralyzed like everything else, I just stared at it for what could have been minutes. It glowed with an inner luminescence of its own, a liquid ruby. I popped the cork off the top, and red mist swirled above it in the air for a moment or so. Then, slowly, I lowered the edge to Edward's open lips. It came closer and closer.

"Yes," I thought I heard something whisper.

The glass rim was almost touching his bottom lip before I pulled away.

Images of Edward's sleek black coffin filled my mind. More, and even less welcome images of Edward writhing in pain as cancer consumed his body played out after.

But Charlie... I had a shot to get him his life back. He was too young to die anyway.

I would try to bring Charlie back.

Question after question knocked at the back door of my mind, but I wouldn't let them in. I stayed in my resolve. I'd face the consequences, whatever they might be.

I shoved the vial into my back pocket.

"I'm sorry, Edward," I whispered in his ear.

I thought I heard that same voice whisper menacingly, its disappointment strong, but I drowned it out, sure it was my own disappointment in my self starting to haunt me. But, selfish as it was, I couldn't bear the thought of loosing Edward in any way.

With firm, unusually non-clumsy steps, I stomped out of the house, grabbing the Camaro keys off the coffee table downstairs. Then, I stepped out into the oversized world.

I tried as hard as I could to fill it, to stretch and spread myself out and make it fit me. If I could keep my determination steady, and forget my doubts, I almost felt like I could do it. So, I marched to the car, never once letting my thoughts waver from the ultimate goal.

The morgue in Forks was small – a small building for a small town and a small population. I knew how to find it though. I drove past the school I'd graduated from. All my memories there felt like they happened centuries ago.

I drove through a tunnel of thick old forest trees. They were silhouetted by the moonlight, their vines and reaching branches twisting around one another to form a black, random kind of lace. Or...a net.

I sped the car up to as fast as it would go. Not many vehicles were on the road at this hour, but I passed the ones that were. They were frozen, too, the people inside them snared in the middle of a telephone call or a sip of coffee.

Suddenly, the stark moonlit world shifted into something darker, and I glanced up at the sky. Clouds had covered the moon. Some things, I realized with a strange hope, were too big to stop.

Something large popped out in front of me, and I swerved to avoid it. I slammed my foot down on the brake out of shock. When the car stopped, I looked to see what had almost killed me.

Two objects were wrapped together and hovering off the ground.

I stepped out of the car and walked towards the objects. The echo of my footsteps was the only sound in this dead silence.

One of the objects was clearly a deer, and the other a human looking creature. Tentatively, I stepped closer. The short brown hair gave him away.

The human looking figure was Emmett, and the deer was his supper for tonight.

The clouds pulled out from under the moon, and I could see them more clearly. The deer's mouth was open, teeth clenched, eyes wide with terror. It appeared like it was screaming.

Emmett had wrapped his arms and legs around the animal's back, and had his teeth sunk into its neck. Strangely curious, I walked even closer. Something wet hit the back of my hand. I brought it up to my eyes and saw that it was a drop of the deer's blood that my hand had run into, suspended on its drop to the ground.

My gaze finally settled on Emmett's eyes. They were wild and ferocious. I backed up, stunned at his appearance. The deer looked more human than him. Was that what I would become? Of course it was. I shook my head. I knew what I was getting myself into. Still, it made nauseous to see a person I'd come to think of as a big brother out here, destroying an innocent animal.

"Go back."

I shook my head to try and get rid of the annoying whispers.

I practically sprinted back to the car and sped off, trying to ignore the voices telling me to turn the car around. They were making me shrink, and that couldn't happen. I had to be confident, or the world would swallow me.

I drove the rest of the way to the morgue without incident, parking in the middle of the parking lot. Who was around to give me a ticket anyway?

The morgue was a squat, gray building in the middle of nowhere. It was connected by a covered causeway to the larger funeral home.

I tried the door. It wasn't locked.

The room directly inside the door was as big as the whole building, just some leather chairs and a wooden desk with an old corded telephone on top.

The bodies, and Charlie, must be kept downstairs. Ignoring the fear in my gut, I walked toward the nearest door I saw. When I opened it, my suspicions were confirmed. It opened to a staircase leading down into pitch-blackness. I looked around the wall on the side of the stairs for a lightswitch. Unsuccessfully.

Gulping, I made my way down the flight of steps, down into the inky dark. My palm combed the wall for a switch all the way down, finally finding one at the bottom. I flipped it on and closed my eyes from the blinding fluorescent light.

Everything was silver and sterile and cold. Four silver tables had bodies covered in white sheets. More of the flat tables were folded up and stacked neatly in the corner. A long, bulky looking metal thing protruded out into the center of the room. A temperature gauge and other levers were on its side panel, so I figured that must be where bodies were cremated. I'd never considered that. What if Charlie had wanted to be burned.

I breathed deeply to try to calm my nerves, and regretted it instantly. A horrible odor stung my nose and made my eyes water. It smelled like too much of a terrible perfume. I held my nose with my fingers and breathed through my mouth. With a sick feeling, I realized that I'd have to lift up the sheets covering the bodies until I found Charlie's...if I found Charlie's.

I started with the corpse closest to me. I took a deep breath through my mouth and pulled the sheet down over its head. It wasn't Charlie. It was a woman, with white curly hair and wrinkled skin.

Choking back the bile, I pulled the sheet back over her head and moved on.

The next one wasn't Charlie. It was a man in his late fifties, with a bad burn stretching across the right side of his face. I cringed, not wanting to know what had happened.

The third body wasn't my dad, either. I didn't even have to look at the face. Its head was bald.

That left the fourth body. I walked over and pulled the sheet back.

Sure enough, it was my father's face. His eyes were closed, and his skin was paler than even the sheet he was covered by, but the hair and the bushy eyebrows were a dead giveaway. I cringed at the wording my thoughts choose.

I also recognized the crescent shaped marks at his neck. Not being able to handle it anymore, I sunk down on the freezing, tiled floor and trembled, letting the doubts and the fear consume me. The world was gigantic.

Another A/N: So you think you know where this story is going? Do you, really? I seriously doubt it. :D THANKS once again. Especially, to my lovely beta, thefuturemrs.edwardcullen and kerssica for being splendiferous (have fun at the beach. I'm going to. You know what that means…). Oh, and another thing. I was looking back on my early chapters, and realized how much I've grown as a writer with this story, and how my style and grammar back then were ATROCIOUS. Also, there are two plot holes that don't add up that I need to fix. So, I'll be doing that throughout posting the rest. And as for the rest, seriously, brace yourself.