Alice

A/N: I don't know what the vampire who changed Alice is called, so in my head he is Francis.

Alice POV

I felt shaky as I raised the glass of water to my lips, my teeth clattering against the cool rim. He would come for me today, I knew it. I'd had one of my dreams again. The twisting, turning, spinning dream. The one where the man named James found me; took me in his arms and ripped out my throat with his teeth. My hand brushed along the window sill nervously. He wasn't here yet, I reminded myself. He wasn't here yet.

But he was coming. That was enough to scare me silly.

"Mary?" Francis called for me from along the corridor.

My mother was what Francis liked to call a God Botherer. She was the type to quote from the bible and go to church every evening. She thought my visions were the work of the devil. To be fair, she had tried very hard to love me, but after nineteen years of my clairvoyance, she had had enough and sent me here.

I wasn't insane. This place was the wrong place for me to be. I was just... gifted. That's what Francis said.

"Mary Alice Brandon," Francis came into view in my doorway, his beautiful old-young face slightly smiling and a twinkle in his eyes. "Are you worrying again?"

"It's just Alice today, Francis." I smiled warmly at him. Francis was an orderly in the asylum. He truly believed my story, told me that I wasn't crazy, sat with me and held my hand whenever I was upset about a vision. He was a great comfort, despite his icy cold skin. I often joked that he should wear mittens.

"Okay then, Just Alice, I'd stop worrying if I were you." As Francis sat on the bed, I rested my cheek against his stone shoulder.

"I can't help but worry. You know how right I always am."

Francis squeezed my arm in sympathy. "You aren't infallible, Alice. And I'll protect you."

"A man named James is coming for me. He has the most horrible..." I suppressed a shudder. "The most horrible red eyes."

Francis grew very still, watching something out the small window in my room. "What did he say in the dream, Alice?"

"He said, 'I win.'" I frowned at my water glass. "What could that mean?"

"It means..." Francis trailed off, his face thoughtful. "It means, shut your eyes tightly Mar... sorry, Alice."

I did as he asked, impatient. "Why is this necessary, Francis?"

I felt his lips press into the skin on my forehead, directly between my eyes, and then he sighed.

"Open your eyes, Alice." That was not Francis's voice. My eyes flew open in sheer terror as I recognized the sound. That was James. James from my visions.

He was holding one hand out, having seized Francis in a chokehold. I gasped in horror, and he fixed his ruby-eyed glare on me now. Very clearly, he gave us both a menacing smile and said, "I win."

One second later, I was flying through the air as Francis tackled me against a wall, my head hitting the brick with a sickening crack. I flailed blindly as the blood seeped into my hair, then screamed as something sharp bit into my neck, hard. I felt my vein break, and then I was knocked unconscious.

---

Burning. Burning. I was being tortured, baked alive. I couldn't think. I couldn't move.

Why didn't they just kill me already? I prayed for death again.

---

Open your eyes, Alice. I have no idea why those four words popped into my head. I obeyed the instructions implicitly though, not thinking to question it. Everything around me was thrown into sharp focus. I was in the woods, sunlight filtering through the trees around me, though I was in a shaded space under a wide bough of an oak tree. What had happened?

I looked up at the light canopy above me, trying to remember something... anything. It was like someone had just wiped my mind clean of everything I had ever known. My breath started to come in short pants, but it didn't feel right. I couldn't quite put my finger on it...

I was beginning to get anxious. Okay, if I broke it down, step by step...

Where was I? In a forest, as I had guessed, though I didn't know where. It was sunny, wherever I was, and warm.

Who was I? That should maybe have been my first concern, but I hadn't realised that I was unaware of even my own identity until a minute ago. I knew my name was Alice, though I couldn't understand how I knew that, but I had no idea where I came from or what my last name was. If I had parents or not.

I looked down at my body, and frowned. I was wearing uniform blue pyjamas, the kind that crazy people are forced to wear when they are taken to the asylum. Oddly, I remembered everything about life in general, just not my own.

My most pressing concern was the dull burn in the back of my throat. I had no idea what that could mean, and it was confusing me no end trying to figure it out. It was like... thirst, I supposed. But thirst for what?

Suddenly, my vision swam before my eyes and I had to blink repeatedly, feeling all the more afraid. I was already drawing a blank on my life; I didn't need to go blind as well! When the haze cleared, it was not the forest around me that I saw.

I was looking upon a diner, the waitresses all in red and white pinstripe dresses and bustling around laden down with colossal amounts of food.

My vision seemed to fixate on a girl perched on a stool at the counter. I could see why – the girl was extraordinarily beautiful. Every feature on her moon-bright face was perfect, indescribably so. Her black hair was spiky and sticking out in every direction, her golden eyes bored. Those eyes were entrancing; I could only stare for a moment, astounded.

Then the door of the diner swung open, and my eyes nearly fell out their sockets. Standing in the doorway was the most beautiful, most incomparably godlike creature I had ever laid eyes on. If I had thought the pixie-like girl was beautiful, she was nothing, nothing compared to the honey blond vision of perfection that had just entered the diner. He moved with surreal grace, his dark eyes alert and watchful. I barely noticed the scars that crisscrossed across every exposed inch of skin. They were irrelevant, casting no aspersions on his beauty.

He walked fluidly to the girl perched on the stool, and you had to just look at them to know they were meant for each other. It was as if the girl had been there for years, just hoping he would turn up.

She hopped from the stool in a movement so quick and smooth that I was filled with jealousy, and skipped nimbly to meet the tall angel who had just entered.

"You've kept me waiting a long time," she accused in a voice as harmonious as a wind chime.

The blond angel ducked his head. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

I snapped out of it quickly, the scene fading into the forest again. The image of the beautiful couple was ingrained into my retina.

"I wish she was me," I sighed wistfully. My voice brought me up short. It was... like a wind chime. I brought my hands up to my mouth in shock, and saw the sunlight glint of my pearly skin like a diamond. My breath caught in my throat. She was me.

"Carlisle, we should probably go hunting soon. You know what happened last time with Emmett." A young woman with caramel curls was saying to a man. These two, like the last couple, were heartbreakingly beautiful. Carlisle, the man, turned to his... wife, I guessed, by their wedding rings, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry Esme, my love. We'll hunt soon. Emmett won't attack any more humans. It's a regrettable mistake on my part to have let him go out on that errand for Rosalie." Carlisle sighed.

"I know that you can't help it, but try not to blame yourself so much. It was an accident. A horrible accident. I just want you to take Emmett hunting. He may not be a newborn anymore, but he's still exceedingly young for a vampire."

My vision snapped back to the forest for the second time. I was stunned. A vampire... is that what they were?

The burn flared in my throat again.

Is that what I was?