CHAPTER 21: THE BLIZZARD

EDWARD

Bella had gotten up about a half an hour ago, leaving me to sleep for a little while longer.

I sighed with happiness.

Even with the slight headache, I never felt better in my life.

It was strange that during the zombie apocalypse that I could be this happy, but I was.

Reluctantly, I decided to get up.

Dressing quickly in the cold, I walked downstairs.

"Edward, you're finally awake!" Emmett's cheerful voice called out as I walked past the living room.

Instead of continuing to the kitchen, I stopped to talk to him.

"Well, well, well. Was it a good night?" he asked, looking at me with raised eyebrows.

I flushed red when I realized what he was talking about. I hadn't even bothered to look at myself in the mirror, but I knew that I must look like someone who had been part of a pretty serious make-out session.

"I… um…" I began but decided to leave the room instead of saying anything.

"Good morning." I felt a warm hand gently grasp my wrist before I made it even one step.

I turned around to face her with a smile. Bella looked so beautiful, wearing a long sleeved blue shirt and dark wash jeans, but she was beautiful in anything she wore… or didn't wear.

"Good morning," I whispered in her ear as I pressed myself against her.

In one of her hands was a steaming cup of coffee and in the other a bowl of instant oatmeal.

"I made you some breakfast," she said as she leaned in.

Bella kissed me gently on the mouth and then handed me the cup and bowl. For a moment, I completely forgot about the fact that Emmett was standing right next to us, probably having a field day.

"Wow," Rosalie interrupted us, "you two must have had some night last night."

"That's none of your business," I said in an irritated manner, pulling away from Bella.

"It's pretty obvious. Right, Emmett?"

"Emmett…" I warned.

Emmett chuckled, "Well you both do seem to be sporting an after sex glow."

"They do! There is definitely a sex glow," Rosalie agreed.

"We didn't… you know… have sex…" I began, trying to defend us but it only backfired.

"Well, something was had," Rosalie laughed.

"I need to go upstairs for a few minutes," Bella said, escaping out of the room and up the stairs.

"Not cool, guys… not cool at all," I growled at them before walking into the kitchen.

Emmett followed me, grabbing the carafe of coffee off the stove and pouring himself another cup.

I'd never liked coffee before, but now I loved it. Anything hot to drink was a luxury in such a cold house.

"Late night?" Emmett asked with a smirk and a wink.

"Bugger off," I said, but I was in too good a mood to let him get to me. So, I decided to fire back.

"Well, it was you guys that put us in the mood," I said, in mock seriousness.

"What?" Emmett asked, looking startled.

"You guys weren't exactly quiet," I said with a smirk.

After a lengthy pause, Emmett spoke.

"Dude… that's just… that's just wrong…" Emmett said. "Don't use us for ear porn."

"Well, maybe you should remember that you're not the only ones in the house," I responded.

Then a bigger smile broke out across my face.

"Although I really should thank you, the sounds, the rhythm—" I began, but Emmett interrupted me.

"Okay, okay, you win," he said, raising his hands in mock surrender.

I laughed and sat down at the table to eat my breakfast.

Two weeks later

"This is ridiculous. My hands are too big!" Emmett whined.

"You're just not trying hard enough," I said with a smirk.

"Fuck off, Edward," Emmett said looking down at the train wreck that he called a sock.

I was already finished my first sock and was on to my next. Knitting wasn't that hard once you got the rhythm of it. And Rose was right. It was relaxing because it required focus, like playing Solitaire on the computer.

If I were being truly honest, I actually really enjoyed knitting.

Emmett, on the other hand, didn't have the patience. Also, he was right about the fact that his hands were too big.

Bella was knitting a hat and scarf for me and I was considering making a blanket. It would take a while, but we had the time.

One week later

"I think it's time for us to have baths. It's getting pretty rank in here," Rosalie said one evening.

"And we could all use haircuts," Bella said.

"I'm not taking a bath in freezing cold water," Emmett said.

"Of course not, dummy. We have fireplace, we have buckets, pots and pans. We have an ample supply of water from the snow. It'll take some work, but at this point it is very necessary," Rose said, standing in front of us with a stern expression on her face.

I could tell that this wasn't up for discussion.

So, we began by bringing in buckets of snow to melt. Then, we heated it to almost the boiling point before rushing upstairs to pour it into the bathtub. We'd placed heated bricks in the tub to keep the water warm until we were ready to get in.

As a team, it wasn't so hard to heat enough water for each of us to have a good long soak.

Sinking into the still hot water filled with bubbles, thanks to the previous owner's obsession with soaps, shampoos, scrubs, etc., I moaned in ecstasy. It was the first time in a month that I felt truly warm. Muscles that I didn't even know were tense loosened as the heat worked through my body. With every dousing of soap and water, I felt more and more normal. I was able for a short time to push away the memories and worries that I had about the dangers of the new world we were living in.

I'd never been much of a fan of baths, but I was now.

Eventually, the water went from hot to lukewarm, and then to cold which forced me to get out.

While Bella and Emmett filled the tub again with water for him, Rosalie sat me down in front of the fire to cut my hair.

"It's not fair that you've got such nice hair," she said, running her fingers through it to separate the strands. "Women would kill for hair like this."

"My mom and little sister had the same hair," I said.

Rosalie paused for a moment. As an unspoken rule, none of us talked about the past very much. It was too painful.

"They must have been very beautiful," she said, combing out strands of hair so that she could cut them.

"They were. Everyone said that my sister was going to be gorgeous when she grew up. My aunt said that we'd inherited the best genes from Mom and Dad—Dad's green eyes and Mom's hair."

It didn't hurt as much to talk about them. The hollow feeling that would open up inside of me at the thought of them wasn't as large as before. I was starting to think about the good memories that I had of my family and not just how I'd seen them after the dead had risen.

Closing my eyes, I relaxed to the soothing snip snip of the scissors and the heat of the fire behind my back.

Three weeks later

The wind was howling outside, and the house creaked and groaned like it was complaining about the cold too.

I stood up from where I'd been sitting with Bella on the couch and walked over to the living room window. Pulling the curtain out of the way, I peered through the crack between the boards.

It was a full on white-out blizzard. I couldn't even see the end of the driveway, let alone down the hill.

With a sigh, I dropped the curtain and returned to the couch with Bella.

For days now, Bella had been writing in her journal. She was so focused on it that she didn't always notice what was happening around her. The curiosity was killing me, but every time I'd ask her about what she was writing about, she just smiled and said "You'll see."

So, I left her alone and focused on what I'd been doing for the last week. With nothing but time on our hands, I went through every nook and crannie of the house and I found something amazing. One of the previous owners of the house wrote music, so they had empty sheet music stashed away in a filing cabinet.

I looked at the piano in the corner of the living room longingly. At least once a day, I would look at it and wish that I could sit down and play it. Playing the piano had been my outlet, my way of relaxing when I'd get home from school. My mom had started me in piano lessons when I was only five. She was told by my teacher that I showed talent and that she should foster that. So, she bought me a piano and got me a private teacher that would come to our house twice a week. It was Mrs. Chapman that encouraged me to start writing my own music. At first, I'd been against it, not believing that anything I could write would be good. However, once she'd cajoled me into doing it, I found that I loved it. She'd even had me play some of my pieces at recitals. It was some of the proudest moments of my life. Not only did my mother sit in the front row and smile proudly at me, but my father also came to see me play. He rarely had time to spend with us, so having him there was special.

Bella had suggested one morning that if I played quietly it probably wouldn't attract any attention, especially with the weather being so bad. However, I just couldn't risk it.

So, instead of playing the piano, I composed for it. Maybe one day, I would get the chance to play again, I thought wistfully. I would love to be able to play the song that I'd composed for Bella.

I was brought out of my thoughts by a loud thump outside.

All of us stopped what we were doing and just froze, waiting to see if we heard any more. However, it was so noisy outside that unless it was loud we wouldn't be able to hear it over the howling of the wind.

Emmett carefully stood up from where he'd been sitting on the floor and walked towards the window closest to where the sound had come from.

Parting the curtains, he peered between the planks of the boarded window.

For a moment, he just stared.

The longer, he looked the more I relaxed. If he hadn't seen anything yet, there was probably nothing out there.

Suddenly, though, he jerked away from the window and let the curtain drop.

The rest of us tensed, looking at him in anxiety.

"Zombies on the veranda," he mouthed.

"How many?" I mouthed back.

Emmett raised two fingers.

Another loud thump followed by a scrape echoed through the room. I could hear the moaning now as the zombies pressed themselves against the building.

Placing my sheet music on the couch next to me, I stood up and walked over to the window.

Pulling the curtains apart barely a sliver, I looked through the crack.

I almost jerked away from the window when I came face to face with one of the dead. I hadn't been this close to one of them in over two months and the winter weather hadn't been kind to it.

Icicles clung to the dead man's gray hair which was covered in snow. His eyes were crusted with snow and ice, but the brown of dried blood could still be clearly seen. His jaw looked dislocated and there was very little left on the right side of his face that looked human. It was a grotesque image that churned my stomach.

Whether it saw the movement inside when we lifted the curtain or it was just coincidence, but it felt like it was staring me right in the eye.

I didn't move, not knowing if it was actually seeing me.

As the seconds ticked by, the dead man finally lost interest and stumbled away, heading around the side of the house and towards the front door.

Once he wasn't blocking the window, I saw that the other corpse was leaning against the railing, weaving left to right as the wind beat against it.

Then, it stumbled forward and thumped against the wall of the building.

The other dead was now thumping at the front door. A shiver of unease travelled through me because it almost sounded like he was knocking.

Rosalie and Bella joined Emmett and me as we walked to the front door.

It was a solid oak door, so it was unlikely that he'd be able to knock it down. However, it did make a lot of noise.

I motioned for Emmett to follow me to the kitchen.

"Should we take them out?" I asked. "Two of them are not a big deal, but if they make enough noise, they could attract any other stray that is wandering around."

Emmett nodded in agreement.

"It's not going to get tired and clearly there is something in here that is attracting its attention," he said.

"I can do it," I said, striding towards where we'd stored the weapons and grabbing my long handled axe.

"I'll go too. I could use the exercise," he said, grabbing his machete.

Pulling on my boots and coat, I walked over to Bella and whispered in her ear.

"The minute we step outside, shut the door and don't open it until one of us says it's okay," I said.

"It's only two of them, Edward," she whispered back with a smile.

"Okay…" I mouthed. "One… two… three."

Bella pulled open the door and Emmett kicked the corpse away from it before we both burst through outside.

The wind and snow whipped against my face, making it hard for me to see at first.

Squinting my eyes against the blast of snow, I saw that Emmett was already on top of the dead man that had been at the front door, slashing at it with downward strokes from his machete. So, I ran around the side of the house looking for the other one. As I turned the corner, my feet slipped on the snow, but I righted myself quickly. The dead was where I'd last seen it bumbling against the side of the house. It took nothing to knock the corpse down and kill it, but when I looked up I saw something that chilled me to the bone. Through the squalls of snow, moving shapes could be seen in the not so far distance.

I turned, ready to get Emmett's attention, but he was already at my side.

"How many?" he said.

"Hard to say. All I can really see is that they're moving in this direction," I responded tensely.

"Get back inside," Emmett said, bolting around the side of the building and to the front door.

Immediately, Bella threw open the door when we both reached it.

The smile on her face turned to fear at what she must have seen on our faces.

"What is it?" she said.

"There are zombies coming this way," I said, shutting the door and locking it.

"Did they see you?" Rosalie asked, coming to stand next to Emmett.

"We can't tell for sure," Emmett responded.

"All the windows are covered and secured. We can barricade the door, so that if there are a lot of them, they can't knock it down," I said, my brain going a mile a minute.

If there were enough of them and they wanted to get inside, there was nothing we would be able to do to stop them. A large enough herd could tear the whole house down. However, it didn't need to be said. It was all of our worst nightmares.

We dragged the love seat to the door and braced it against it. Then, we went to all the other rooms and made sure that the boards and curtains were secured.

Then, each of us grabbed a weapon and made our way into the living room to wait and see if the dead were coming for us.

We'd considered going to the basement, but quickly decided against it. If the dead really did break in, we'd be trapped in the basement. At least in one of the rooms on the main floor we could get out if we needed to.

Instead of sitting in the chairs or couch, we sat on the floor to be closer to each other. In silence, we waited, pressed close together for comfort.

We heard the dead as they got closer, a multitude of different voices moaning in hunger. It was impossible to know how many because looking out the window might draw attention to us.

I wrapped my arms around Bella and practically pulled her onto my lap. It felt better holding on to her. Comforting her made me feel less helpless. However, I couldn't control the tension that would flare in me with every particularly loud moan from the dead.

It was still possible that they hadn't seen us and were just passing by. We'd seen herds before, but none had come this close.

I'd almost convinced myself that nothing was going to happen when a loud thump sounded from the side of the house closest to the kitchen.

Bella pressed her face into my neck and gripped me tightly.

The thump was followed by another and then another from the opposite direction, telling us that the dead had arrived, and the house had been their target all along.

As more and more piled onto the veranda, the farmhouse creaked and groaned as the dead pushed and slammed against the walls.

The howling of the wind and moaning of the dead drowned out everything, making it hard to even think.

Too afraid to speak, Bella used her notebook to write messages to us.

What do we do? she wrote.

Wait and see if they'll leave, Emmett wrote back.

There's less snow behind the house because it's sheltered by the trees, Rosalie wrote. If we have to leave, we can go out the back door.

Let's not panic, I wrote. If we stay quiet, they'll leave eventually.

I wasn't all that confident about what I'd written. My words to Emmett from weeks ago echoed in my head. "Staying in one place gets you killed. Holding up in one place can work when it's people are after you. They'll eventually run out of supplies, get bored and then leave. But the dead don't get tired or bored. They don't need anything to keep them alive. They just want you. So, every day you stay in one place is just another day that the dead pile up outside. Eventually you'll run out of food and then they'll get you when you go out to get supplies."

As the day progressed, my fears were starting to become a reality.

The walls were creaking louder and louder as more dead arrived.

We need to draw them away, I wrote.

Emmett nodded his head even though there was indecision in his eyes.

Before he could reach for the pen to volunteer, I began writing. I would lead the dead away from the house. This is what I was good at. Emmett, Rosalie, and Bella were good with keeping us alive day to day, but I was good with the high risk stuff.

Once I'm a safe distance away from the farm, I'll fire my shotgun a couple of times. The sound will attract them, but the echo will make it hard for them to pinpoint where I am.

Bella gripped my arm tightly, but she didn't argue. She understood that we didn't really have a choice. It was either do it or lose our home.

Emmett could protect them until I got back.

Thinking that there was no point in waiting, I got up and went into the entryway to get dressed for the blizzard outside.

I couldn't wear too much that might obscure my ability to see and move, but I had to be warm. I had no idea how long I'd be gone.

Slinging my shotgun over my shoulder, I headed towards the back door with the rest of them following me.

Looking through the shuttered window to the left of the door, I saw that there were as of yet no dead.

Turning back to the others, I pulled Bella to me and kissed her hard.

Then, I cupped her face in my hands and stared intently into her eyes, needing her to be okay with what I was about to do.

"I'm good at this, Bella. You know I'll be fine," I said quietly and then grinned at her.

After a few moments, she nodded and stepped back.

"Stay safe," Rosalie whispered in my ear as she pulled me into a hug.

Emmett did the same with a whisper of "Thank you. Don't worry. I'll take care of her."

Stepping back, I nodded to him in silent acknowledgement.

Then, I opened the door and slipped outside on silent feet. A feeling close to excitement took a hold of me. It wasn't that I actually enjoyed putting my life at risk, but I did like how it brought my senses alive.

I paused for a moment outside the door, trying to get adjusted to what lay in front of me. I couldn't see anything at first with the snow whipping past almost diagonally and the stark whiteness of the snow blinding me.

Rosalie was right. There was less snow in the back of the house, but when I stepped down the stairs I still sunk up to my shins. It was going to make moving difficult.

Pushing myself through the snow, I finally made it to the tree line which had significantly less snow under the overhanging of fir branches. I looked back at the house, seeing if there were any dead on the back side of the house but there wasn't. I couldn't go too far before I fired the first shot. They had to be able to hear it above the howling wind.

I ran between the snow drifts under the trees until I could barely see the house anymore.

Stopping, I raised my shotgun in the air and fired. I prayed that it could be heard above the wind.

I fired again for good measure and then waited.

When I saw movement at the treeline, I started running again.

It wasn't long before the cold started to affect me. The wind that buffeted against me cut through my clothing, making me feel like I was barely wearing anything.

I had my hat pulled down tight against my head, but I couldn't cover my ears completely in case the dead approached without me seeing them. I needed to be able to hear them coming.

I had my scarf wrapped around my face, but it wasn't helping. My breath through the wool only made me colder as it dampened the material and allowed the wind in more easily.

I stopped running after about five minutes and fired another two shots in the air. I waited again to make sure they were following me.

Standing still was painful but I did it regardless of the pain.

After a few moments of nervous anticipation, I saw many moving shapes weaving through the trees. I squinted, trying to get a better look, but my watery eyes made it difficult.

There seemed to be quite a few of them following me which had to be enough proof that I'd gotten the herds attention.

I had to lead them even further away, so I started running again. I wanted them as far away from our home as possible before I left them alone. I couldn't afford the possibility that they'd follow me back.

After ten minutes and another few shotgun blasts, I decided that I'd led them far enough away.

It took me another twenty minutes or so to circumvent the growing herd that was in search of me. They were quite spread out, so I had to travel in a wide ark just to get around behind them without attracting their attention. However, by that time, I suddenly realized that I was in unfamiliar territory. I looked for any familiar landmark, but couldn't find any, either because they were covered in snow or because I wasn't where I thought I would be.

I had no idea how long I stumbled around looking for anything familiar, but late afternoon had already moved towards dusk. As the temperature began to drop with the sun going down, the cold was starting to get to me. I could feel tiny ice crystals forming on my eyelashes and hair that was peeking out from under my hat and my cheeks were burning from the intense cold. Every part of me hurt or had gone numb.

I was finding it harder and harder to break a trail through the snow because my hands and feet were aching.

I realized at some point that I'd slowed to almost a complete stop and I hadn't even been aware that I'd done it. The urgency with which I'd been searching for the farmhouse had disappeared in the numbness that was taking over my body.

A jolt of panic shot through me as I spun around looking to see if there were any dead following me.

I realized that I was probably developing hypothermia, but I was so cold that I wasn't all that worried about it.

All I wanted to do was sit down and take a rest, but I knew that that was wrong. So, I pushed on.

I walked and walked until the sky had turned from slate blue to indigo and still there was no sign of the farmhouse.

I was finding it almost impossible to motivate myself to go on until I caught a faint scent of wood smoke on the wind.

I started moving towards where I thought the smell was coming from, praying that it was our farmhouse and not someone else's.

As I followed the scent, I noticed that things were becoming familiar which gave me energy to push harder.

When I broke from the trees and saw my home, I whimpered in relief.

Cautiously, I went around the side of the building and stepped up onto the thankfully empty veranda.

With my arm feeling like lead, I reached up and knocked on the door.

Almost before I had the chance to lower my hand, the door flew open and I was being gently pulled into the house.

The heat that hit me caused my head to swim. I knew that people were talking to me, but I wasn't able to process it.

I heard snippets of conversation.

"… hypothermia… need to…."

"… get him out of the wet clothing…"

I felt hands pulling and pushing on me, but I couldn't process what it was that they were doing. I knew that it should concern me, but I didn't have it in me to care.

"… need to keep the blood from rushing to his head and heart too quickly…"

"… body heat… Bella…"

Something was placed around my head and then something warm and soft was wrapped around my chest. I leaned my forehead against the warmth and soaked up its heat.

"Guys, he's not shivering. Is that a good or bad sign?" a voice asked.

"He's too numb from the cold. I think the textbook I read said that once his core temperature reaches a certain level he'll start shivering again," someone responded.

For a while, I just soaked in the warmth, floating in and out of consciousness in the silence.

"I'm going to make some soup and tea for him. Once he's able, he's supposed to drink hot fluids to get rehydrated."

"You're okay," someone whispered in my ear. The voice was soothingly familiar.

I tried to say something in response, but all that came out of me was some sort of sound.

"It's okay, babe. Just hold onto me. You don't need to talk," the voice said. "God, I love you so much Edward."

At the sound of her voice, my whole body shivered and then just kept on shivering.

"He's shivering now," another voice said from next to me. This time it was a deep male voice.

I knew who they were now. The man was Emmett. The woman holding me was Bella.

"You're okay, Edward. Just rest. It'll be okay," Bella said, soothingly into my ear as she cradled me against her.

But with awareness came the pain. Every part of me hurt as the feeling started returning to it. My hands and feet were on fire and all of my muscles were tensed.

I winced and shuddered in Bella's arms as flares of pain shot through me as nerves awakened from the cold.

After a while, Emmett broke the silence.

"Let's get him dressed," Emmett said from next to me on the couch.

"I brought down the warmest things he owns," Bella said, but she didn't let go of me.

I realized at that moment that we were skin to skin. It was startling, but I couldn't move or even ask her why she was half naked.

Finally, she pulled away from me to let Emmett gently pull my shirt down over my head. She was dressed in jeans and only a tank top. She must have been freezing. I couldn't understand why she was wearing so little.

Emmett carefully pushed me forward so he could drape my hoodie over my shoulders and then push my arms into the sleeves. Bella zippered it up to my neck and then stood up.

Grabbing her own hoodie, she pulled it down over her head.

"Put this hat on him. It's fleece-lined. People lose a lot of body heat through their head," Rosalie said, coming forward with a hat in her hand.

Bella took it from her and came to stand right in front of me.

Gently, she pulled it down over my head.

I looked up at her and tried to smile.

I must not have done it right because her bottom lip trembled as if she were holding back tears.

Leaning in, she pressed her lips against my forehead and just left them there for a moment.

When she pulled away from me, I saw that there were tears in her eyes.

"I'm okay," I said in a raspy voice. It hurt to talk, but I needed to comfort Bella. She looked so scared.

The minute I spoke, Bella burst into tears.

She dropped to her knees in front of me and cupped my face in her hands.

"Of course, you are…" she said, sniffling. "Of course, you're okay…"

"Rosalie, is the soup and tea ready?" Emmett called out. "I think he can drink it now."

For the rest of the evening, they babied me. Emmett kept the fire stoked and Bella fed me soup and tea, one sip at a time.

I was still hurting, but as the night progressed the pain started to recede enough that I could have a conversation.

"So did the herd follow me right away?" I asked.

"Pretty soon after the first shot you fired, they started to leave a few at a time. They're persistent buggers. Some of them hung around for a while after most of the herd left, but eventually the gunshots in the distance were more enticing than whatever attracted their attention in here," Emmett responded.

"We thought that you'd be back a lot sooner," Bella said quietly. She didn't say it in an accusing way, so I knew that she'd just been concerned.

"I got a bit turned around and lost my sense of direction," I said, casually. However, I could tell by the look in Bella's eyes that she knew it had been a lot more serious than I was letting on.

"It's over now. Crisis averted," I said, nonchalantly. "Just another average day in the zombie apocalypse."

I meant it as a joke, but no one smiled.

"Once winter is over, I think we need to come up with a better place to live," Emmett said. "We need to find a place with walls, some place we can fortify. I don't only want to feel safe when I'm within these four walls."

The rest of us didn't' speak. We knew that he was right, but the thought of being on the road again was a horrible thought.

Our crisis with the herd had changed things for us. This place didn't feel like a safe haven for us anymore.

"It's been a long day and I'm beat," Emmett said. "Let's start putting our heads together tomorrow and try to figure out our next move. There's only about a month left of winter, so we need to start making plans."

"Why don't you and Bella stay down here tonight?" Rosalie asked, standing up and stretching like Emmett.

"I think I want to be in my own bed," I said, craving the comfort of our mattress.

"Okay then. Let's get your room ready then. I heated up extra bricks in case you wanted to sleep up there," Rose said, grabbing the towels we used for the bricks and wrapping two.

"It's okay. You guys don't have to-" I began, but she cut me off.

"Edward, you risked your life to protect us. It's only right for us to take care of you too," she said.

While I waited on the couch, the others came and went getting things ready for me.

It was weird just sitting on the couch while people tended to me. Normally, I would have fought against it, but I was hurting too much to put up a fight.

Finally, Emmett and Bella came downstairs to get me.

Leaning heavily on Emmett, I climbed the stairs one at a time. Every muscle in my body hurt and putting weight on my feet was painful.

If I'd been out in the cold any longer than I'd been, I could have possibly lost some of my fingers or toes or both. The thought disturbed me, but the risk had been worth it. I'd saved us.

Fully clothed, Bella and Emmett tucked me into bed. The weight and heat of the blankets was wonderful, but I just couldn't stop shivering.

Bella slipped in next to me and completely wrapped herself around me—arm around my stomach, one leg thrown over mine, head nestled against my chest.

The last thing I heard before sleep took me was Bella whispering, "You're okay. You're okay…"