Author's note: Ah this chapter took foreeeverrrrrr I'm sorry! I got a major cold, had to finish a school assignment that was overdue and just..didn't...feel this chapter y'know? My inner Aro wasn't talking. He was having a diva moment.

There is a strange humming in my ears.

I can't see anything.

I don't want to see anymore.

Conversations are happening around me – angry, loud words shouted back and forth.

I hear them, but I can't see them. I see nothing now. I am a ghost in this place, in this life.

A life that is not even mine.

"Aro, your game have gone on long enough. Dispense of it, now."

"Marcus is right. The fun part is over. What more can you possibly do with her?"

"Look, she's bleeding."

"Will someone please make her stop screaming?"

And just like that, I find that this is not a dream – I am lying on the floor curled up into a ball with my hands covering my ears – but there are no air sirens, no earthquakes. Just me, screaming. I find that no matter how hard I try, I cannot make myself stop.

Eventually, though, someone makes sure that I do. Someone hits me in the head, and as my head bounces towards the floor, I black out.

I have a dream of wandering through my bedroom, back home in Forks. It feels so real, so familiar. It looks just like I left it.

Someone is looming in the doorway, but it's not my dad or Lana. It's my mother.

She's clutching one of my favorite shirts in her arms, folded and clean. She's older than I remember, her eyes wiser, knowing. She does not resemble the woman that left me so many years ago.

"It's funny, the rain." she says, looking out the window at the clear skies and I frown.

"The weather is fine mom." I say, shaking my head. But she's still looking, and as I turn to check again, dark clouds are gathering outside. The sky goes completely black, and everything – everything, fades away.

Then it is just our voices left. Hers and mine.

"What will I do when you go?" I ask.

She sighs heavily, her voice watery and sad.

"Don't be so kind, my dear. Never be too kind."

When I wake up, I am not sure if it's still a dream at first. My surroundings have changed.

I am lying against something cold, hard. Gingerly I sit up – I am in a very dark room with no windows. Stone walls, and concrete floor. A wall with thick, heavy bars on them. I am in a prison cell. But where I don't know.

It's still the same. A voice whispers in my ear, a new voice. Like an old instrument being played on for the first time in years. I know who she is.

I stand up and walk over to the bars and press the left side of my face against it. It's cool and soothing against the large bruise on my skull and I close my eyes with temporary bliss.

Then I feel that voice becoming more than just a voice. I realize that she and I are the same. And I think about what I was forced to see, to remember.

An atom can split itself to infinity. I wonder if the brain can do something similar. I stare at my skin for so long that my eyes burn. I am trying to find familiar patterns – old scars. I am trying to see traces of blood. I check under my fingernails for sand.

The hair – the only thing that is exactly the same.

Even though this girl has a name, I am still just a number. I can never forget that.

But it is time for that to stop.

I am tucked against the cold floor, asleep when he enters the cell. But I wake up without him needing to speak. There was always a certain energy about him that made my skin prickle.

"Rebecca? Are you alright? Your head-."

For a moment I don't even know who he's talking about. Perhaps a day has passed since I last saw him, but in reality, it is far longer than that. I realize now, that in this moment, I am meeting him again for the first time. But even though he looks different, talks different – the madness that had only just started then has by now grown into its own thing. Other than that, nothing has changed.

He looks at me with such concern, hands outstretched hesitantly towards me. A bit ironic, since he is the one that put me in this cell. I glance down at his hands and only feel cold. Distant.

"Do not call me that." I say, to which he flinches, looks surprised. He blinks several times, looks away with growing uncertainty.

"I never meant for it to be like this. That was why I waited to tell you."

It really doesn't matter what it is. But one way or another, this is what Rebecca fought for. What she yearned for. I owe her that much.

"Tell me what?" I ask, my voice flat and almost unrecognizable.

"The reason why I'm still here. "

"Then tell me now. "

And it is when I say this that he finally seems to realize what has happened. The false pretenses and the lies that he's been telling me are dropped, and I can see a faintly familiar gesture in his hands – his gestures always were theatrical.

And then his laugh. It used to be warm and just so...happy. But now it is a chilling, jarring sound. It didn't even sound human. He laughs long and hard at my words, like he really finds it all so amusing.

Then abruptly as it began, the laughter stops. Some of his dark hair falls across his face and shields some of his pale features, his eyes in particular going an almost dark burgundy color in the sparingly lit cell. He does not look at me as he talks, but stares intently at the stone floor, as if the answers are there for all to see.

"It's really quite amusing. They foretold that I would find a way to come back, even in death. Of course I did not believe it at the time. But then, shortly after my sacrifice – a woman found me. Drank my blood. It made her strong. And after a day or two, I was stronger too. Just like how I always wanted to be, in life. Powerful, unstoppable..."

I shake my head and interrupt him.

"That was always the problem. You were sick even before this happened." I say to the wall, not caring any longer what he will do if I make him mad. I want that to happen. But he continues talking like he never stopped to begin with.

"I want you to be with me, Rebecca. "

I finally face him, even though the mere sight of him now makes me sick.

"That's not my name. I don't even have one." I say, some of my calm composure cracking as I advance towards him, like I could actually physically hurt him. He only looks at me with hooded, calculating eyes, revealing nothing. We are quiet then for some time, just staring each other down.

"You know what will happen if you refuse." he finally says.

"Let me guess, you'll either kill me or torture me right?" I ask, letting out an entirely humorless laugh. His methods are still the same. When he doesn't get what he wants, he will just take it by force. He can do either as far as I'm concerned – as long as I can finally be free of him. I'd rather die than be his slave once more.

"No. I could never do that to you. Still so fragile, my Rebecca. You think you know me so well, but you forget entirely, that I know you too."

And with that, he quietly exits the cell once more, locking it soundly behind him and leaves without looking back.