Part II – Black Sea
Black light dazzled me and it took me a moment to realise it was actually pain. Excruciating pain. I'd never been a stickler for pain in any degree, in fact I would go so far as to describe myself as a bit off a wimp. My surprised shriek echoed around the room. I vaguely felt Edward's hand clench in mine, but I couldn't see anything anymore. My arm was splitting open, tracks of fire burning mercilessly through the veins.
I tried to disengage my mind from the pain, to think of something completely different to distract me. Like Renee, or La Push, or Jacob. My thoughts tried to spiral away from the agony, and I found myself upon a sea cliff like the one in La Push that I'd cliff jumped from all that time ago. The pain was below, roaring, black and deadly as the surf that had sucked me down during my semi-suicidal phase, and wind that was whispering promises of pain pushed at my back. It was willing me to jump into the black sea below, but I resisted, pushing back against the wind and attempting to take a step away from the edge. Spray flung up into my face, and it seared my skin, but I looked away from the roiling black water and out into the horizon.
Of course it was stormy, cold, windy; only my conscience could have come up with that. Escape from the pain to a stormy cliff edge. Typical. The clouds were low and dark and heavy, and I could tell that the pain was only kept at bay by a fragile thread of my dwindling willpower. My surroundings were steadily getting darker, the wind stronger, the sea below wilder. I had to try harder if I wanted to keep the pain away, but it was just getting so hard. My limbs were heavy, dragging me toward the cliff edge, and I could barely resist.
Agony was breaking through my safe place. The churning clouds seemed to be raging at me, and when their rain fell, it stung my arms like millions of hot needles. Then it poured, heavy sheets of black pain plummeting onto me, and I whimpered. My fear of experiencing great pain was worse than the pain I actually felt, but that didn't make it any easier. I dug my toes into the ground and clenched my mind against further assaults, but it was becoming too difficult. I could feel great fists of black thorns reaching up out of the earth, clawing their way up my legs, digging into the skin and burrowing into my veins. A true sob of pain escaped me then, and the thorns kept advancing, up my body, into my body, while the wind whipped at me, leaving great wheals of red against my skin and pushing me closer to the edge. The black sea waters roared and flung themselves about, reaching out to me, beckoning me to fall into them.
And then I did. I couldn't hold on anymore, not to the edge of the cliff, not to my willpower to block out pain, and so I gave up trying and let it consume me and tear me apart like it wanted to. My agonised scream rang out as the black sea swallowed me, the thorns still ripping at my skin even beneath the dark surface.
It was about this time that I truly had cold feet. Too late I know, but to me, at that moment of unexplainable and shocking agony, I couldn't help my rage, or my horror at actually choosing this. I roared as black thorns ripped jagged holes in my chest and cursed Edward, flinging my bleeding arms about and shrieking that I'd bloody well take the werewolf over this crap any day. I screamed that there was no way that Edward was worth this and how dare he do it to me. I thought of Jacob, and I thought of what I could have had; definitely not this. What was I thinking? What the HELL was Bella thinking? I'd always been an idiot with the decisions I made. I'd just gone and made the worst one ever this time.
This was precisely how I'd imagine being torn limb from limb felt like, and I was sure I was going to die from it. Each attack seemed to get worse and worse until my mind was nothing but a blank, black sea of suffering and surrender.
My veins felt as though they'd been torn out of my arms, my legs …my nerves and my skin didn't even feel a part of me anymore, I couldn't tell what I was any more. I knew what I must look like, a twisted mass of limbs, awash and drowning in blackness. Edward would be staring at my twisted, bloodied corpse in horrified remorse by now.
Finally, the vampire venom which I was sure had all but murdered me retreated. I still couldn't see anything, but my conscious was slowly returning to me. The black waters receded and the thorns crept away from my chest, allowing me to finally take a deep breath of air. But I found myself breathing in nothing. Not a thing. My chest rose but my lungs didn't reciprocate. I didn't need them to.