I do not own any of the Twilight characters...

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She was pinned. Trapped. Not by physical force, by something else. All she could see was flickering red, and it burnt her eyes whenever she looked, so it was easier to keep them shut, though she knew this was giving up. Every breath was harder. Each inhalation brought new intoxication. Her chest felt too tight. But she couldn't move. Her limbs were like lead. She didn't want to open her eyes and see. She didn't want to breathe in any more, though she doubted it was possible anyway. She could hear, and that was enough. Enough to wish that death would just take her and stop toying with her.

The screams of her dream did not fade as Bracken waded through the blackness back to consciousness. But there just one, panicked, petrified. And coming from her mouth. It stopped sooner than last time. Bracken lay gasping. The sheet had been clawed away from her and hung from the bed in an almost dejected manner. She sat up after a moment. She was blazing hot. Bracken used both hands to scrape her hair off her face, where it was stuck with sweat. She circled the room with her eyes.

It wasn't much different from the night before. But the one window on the far wall had been revealed – somebody had pulled back the curtains to reveal a mottled blue china vase filled with yellow flowers, and the bright world outside. Bracken wished whoever had chosen to do this had not. It made her ache to rejoin the outside world. She exhaled shakily. Nobody had come running. That must mean she was alright.

Bracken scraped around inside her head, but to no avail. Her memory was no more recovered than yesterday. She only wasted a moment or two sighing about this. It was a new day. And she planned to use it well. Bracken turned in the bed, her legs dragging like dead weights. Annoyed, she jerked them along with the rest of her body. She peered at the small table beside her bed. There were a few things on there. A brush and a mirror. She smiled. It seemed the nurse had thought of what she would have wanted.

Bracken took a deep breath. Though she knew her name, one part of her memory that had floated away to disintegrate was her appearance. She was a little scared to look at herself, though she knew it was essential if she wanted to recover. She sucked in the air, which scored her teeth, and took hold of the mirror. She pulled it from the table. It felt oddly heavy in her hands, though of course it shouldn't have. It was simple plastic set with thin glass. Then she looked at her thin wrist, and took it with the other hand. She didn't want to go and break something.

Before she could change her mind, Bracken thrust the mirror in front of her face. She blinked. Weirdly, she was not too horrified by her appearance. The scrap of memory reformed itself to slot back in snugly. She could pick out the small differences between her appearance before, and her appearance now. Her hair was still pretty much the same, straw-blonde, but tied back in a messy bun that kept most of it off her face. Her eyes stared back, hazel as ever. Her skin was paler, but still speckled with freckles. She looked thinner, more gaunt, and distinctly more unhealthy, but other than that... She was the same old Bracken.

This filled her with confidence. She released her hair. It bounced down in irregular curls and clumps from the bun. She took hold of the hairbrush (this time with both hands, taking no chances) and began to pull it through her hair. Since her hair was very knotty, and her strength deteriorated, it was harder than she remembered. But she managed, tying it up in a far neater, more sleek ponytail. Usually she would have left it loose but she wasn't sure Dr Cullen would approve.

Now was the challenge. Pushing away the sheet, which was draped loosely in all directions, she sat on the edge of the bed and dangled her legs down. Blood rushed through, bringing with it pain. She hadn't used her legs for so long that it hurt to merely hold them in this position. She gritted her teeth until the sensation faded. Her bare feet didn't quite touch the floor – she had always been small in the height area. She pushed them downward until first her toes, then the rest of her feet touched the cold floor. She breathed out, wondering why she was shaking lightly. This wasn't a new experience. Walking was something people did every day.

Bracken placed both palms on the edge of the bed and pushed herself upright. Her legs, which, like her arms, were much too skinny, shook with the effort, as though they had forgotten how they had taken so much weight. She took hold of the table which held the brush and mirror, hunched over. Her heart fluttered in her chest and, embarrassed, she told herself furiously to calm down. She could do this. Bracken let go of the desk and took a shaky step in the same heartbeat. Before she put her foot down she knew she wasn't strong enough. She was pushing herself too far, too soon.

She staggered forward, the white floor rushing up to meet her, but something broke her fall before she could connect with it. Something iron-hard and cold, around her wrist. And something else, catching her around her waist. She was guided back to the bed, where she sat, shaken. The thing around her wrist was somebody's hand. She looked up at the face – it was Dr Cullen. How could somebody's skin be so cold, and hard, like stone? Maybe she had just forgotten what it felt like in her seemingly endless sleep. But her own skin wasn't like that. Her head span, and she put one hand down on the mattress to stop herself sinking flat to the bed again.

"You shouldn't push yourself like that." Bracken knew that Dr Cullen would be angry, so she wasn't surprised by the steel edge to his words. But as she appraised his face, his expression softened. She noticed that his eyes were just a fraction darker than yesterday – more topaz than honey. Maybe it was light. Or she was seeing things. Option two was probably the more likely. "Sorry," she mumbled, averting her eyes from his, disconcerted. She examined the window, tracing the frame, then looking out of the clear glass. A lump formed in her throat.

"I know you want to get out of here," this time Dr Cullen's words were more kind, more like the voice she remembered from last night. "But you'll have to wait a bit longer, I'm afraid. It's going to take practice." His words were meant to chastise, but comfort her. They did neither, just frustrating her further. She wanted to remember. She was tempted to ask Dr Cullen what had happened to her, but she was fairly certain he would refuse, wanting her to remember under her own steam. He was stood at the end of her bed, holding a folder, pen in hand, doing something that was obvious significant to her recovery.

Bracken bit her lip and closed her eyes, running through everything she knew about herself. Her name was Bracken Moore. She was seventeen years old. She had lived somewhere large, a city. But that was all. She gritted her teeth in frustration, wishing the facts would come back to her just like that but knowing that they wouldn't. She opened her eyes to see that Dr Cullen had disappeared (soundlessly, again) and the nurse was back. Nurse Lewis, she recalled. The nurse, who didn't look much older than she was, smiled at her as she passed and began fiddling with the machines beside her bed. Bracken was briefly glad that somebody had taken the pipes out of her body. Thinking about them made her shudder.

She looked at one of the machines, her mind wandering. A red light flashed before her eyes, winking from the machine. She tried to think, but the light blasted away her concentration with its irritating little dance – flicker, flicker, flicker. She tried to shut her eyes but it was as if they were being held open. And then it came to her.

The light grew until it swallowed her up. Flickering redness surrounded her. She was lying on something hard, the floor. She wasn't injured, but her throat was stuck up with smoke and ash. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think. And all she could hear was the screaming. The pleading. And there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing...

Bracken found herself curled up on her side on the hospital bed. Her knees were pressed to her chest, her nails digging into the flesh so hard they she punctured it. There was somebody shaking her. "Bracken, Bracken. Bracken, it's alright." She breathed evenly, trying to calm herself. She clung to the words. It was alright. It was fine. She was safe. She could hear the nurse's voice, and Dr Cullen's soft tones. But she couldn't pick out the words. She had to concentrate on stopping panic taking over.

After a few long moments, Bracken uncurled her body. She felt stiff, as though she had been lying there for hours rather than minutes. She did not move herself into a sitting position. Dr Cullen crouched beside her bed so he could look at her. He opened his mouth to speak but she beat him to it. "Where are they?" A line appeared on the doctor's white brow. Was he going to deny that he knew what she was talking about? "Where are they? I... I... I need to know... I..." She trailed off, her teeth chattering together as the haunting memories swept through her once again.

Dr Cullen's mouth moved, but he said nothing. He looked downwards, not meeting her gaze. But she sensed he was preparing to answer rather than stalling. "Bracken... Do you remember what happened on September 2nd?" The question was simple enough. She dove into her mind to find the answer, but there was nothing. A hole. Another blank spot. "I... No." She decided to keep it short. She wanted to know what was going on. Dr Cullen pinched the skin between his eyebrows for a moment, and then spoke again.

"We're not entirely sure what happened, but... Well, the police are still investigating it," he began slowly. "But it seems that somebody broke into your house that night, Bracken. They set fire to one part, the part where you were. Then they proceeded to the rest of the house. They didn't set anywhere else on fire, but... Well, your parents heard them upstairs. They went to investigate. The person was in your brother's room... They... Well, they..."

Yes, she remembered that. This was when she had first woken up. She had heard the screams. The agonized wailing. Her brother. Her Aden. Tears welled up in her eyes, though only seconds ago they had felt dry as a pile of straw. She noticed the doctor falter, perhaps because of this. "N-no, go on." Her voice was husky and cracked. He scanned her tear-filled eyes. Water was sliding down her face by now. She guessed why he was hesitating. He story wasn't going to be pretty. She hardened the steel defences around the more sensitive parts of her heart, though she knew it wouldn't help her much. "Just say it."

Dr Cullen blinked, but did not wait any longer. His expression was pained as he continued the terrible recount. "Your parents went upstairs. They were... Attacked, like your brother. As far as the police can tell, they didn't do anything more. Nothing was stolen. The ambulance's arrived. The fire crew had to pull you out through the window. You weren't burnt, but so much smoke and ash was inside your body, you weren't breathing.

"Four people arrived in the hospital. All the rest of this I saw with my own eyes. There was a woman, Heidi Moore. She... She was dead upon arrival. She had multiple injuries, and had lost too much blood. It was hard to tell what was used to attack her with. Then there was a man, Mason Moore. He was in a similar state, and... And he was dead, too.

"There was you, who he resuscitated. And then there was a boy, Aden Moore. He had received a bad head wound. The police think that he was... That he was thrown against a wall. We tried. We thought he could live, we really thought he had a chance, but... But his brain just shut down. He died. And then there was you. You were just in a coma, until yesterday."

Bracken was silent. She realised that she hadn't breathed for over a minute and sucked in air. She was shaking with sobs and her whole face was glazed with tears. Her mother, her sweet, overprotective mother. Her father, who tried to act stern but could easily be won over. And her brother. Dear little Aden. He would've been ten in a few weeks time. All gone. All dead. She was all alone.

She pressed her hands to her face, then rolled over onto her stomach so that she could not see anything. She heard the nurse murmuring to her, and assumed Dr Cullen had left. She felt the sheet being pulled over her body. She seized it and tugged it as high as it would go, right down over her head, hiding her from view. Hiding her from the world.

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