Downward Spiral, Chapter 2

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I don't know how long it lasted. At times, I wasn't sure if the nightmare had ever not existed, and that my memories of my life before were nothing but hallucinations as well. Nothing seemed certain.

I had retreated into the depths of my own mind; reality was just too painful. The monster had taken over completely. He prowled the room like a tiger in a cage. The guards still brought women to my cell, but he wasted no time with them, killing them and draining them as fast as they could be shoved into the room. The guards were silent now; the monster frightened them.

I watched from within, detached. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. In some ways, it reminded me of tedious hours spent watching in-class movies in high school. You couldn't leave; you didn't really want to pay attention; but the consequences of leaving were worse than staying.

So I watched, almost as though his eyes were cameras, his ears microphones. I sat and watched, passively. Experiencing, not reacting. Reaction was pain. Reality was pain. None of it was real, anyway.

But I couldn't let go completely. If I retreated too far inward, the nightmares began. Horrific images warped and poisoned every happy memory I ever had. The memories of Bella were the worst; Bella dead on the operating table, a gaping wound in her abdomen, my venom too little and too late to save her; Bella and Renesmee burning on a pyre, the Volturi victorious as I was forced to watch my universe turn to ashes and cinders. Every good thing, every pleasurable memory I had ever experienced was perverted into something twisted and evil.

I remembered when I had thought Bella lost to me, and I had considered suicide. Once again, I found myself at that place. What else was there for me? Trapped in a cell within a cell, sharing my own body and mind with a crazed murderer. Once again, I had taken human life, and innocent life at that. My mind was broken beyond repair. What could I offer Bella now?

The monster was silent. He had won; he had no need to even acknowledge my existence.

Time passed. Perhaps. I couldn't be sure. I couldn't even truly be sure of what I was seeing. Everything I experienced acquired a sensation of déjà vu.

Some things seemed new, and did not repeat. Aro came to visit, apparently overjoyed to hear of my fall. I sensed his covetous, avaristic thoughts as he and his personal guards approached my cell.

He had succeeded. He broke me. But not in the manner he expected.

The monster attacked the moment they entered my cell. Felix's arm was torn off at the elbow before he could blink. The monster threw him aside and lunged for the door. Jane's gift immobilized him with pain, but even then he thrashed about in a frenzy. Alec blinded and numbed, but his gift only worked on physical senses. Using the sight of the Volturi guards for perspective, still he attacked. When sight and sound returned, he was pinned to the wall by four massive guards, snarling ferociously; the guards' arms and faces marked by bites and gouges inflicted by the monster's blind rage.

Aro attempted to speak, but the monster was beyond words, and I wasn't listening. When Aro approached and tried to touch him, the monster struggles flared to new levels. Even four vampires, each chosen for their strength and prowess, were hard pressed to restrain him. When Aro was finally able to make contact, his thoughts echoed with apprehension. The monster was totally useless to him, its existence a mockery of his design. A crazed vampire couldn't be forced to reproduce, and even if it were possible, what manner of offspring would occur? They would be more uncontrollable than even the immortal children. It was at that moment I sensed reprieve. Aro began to contemplate my destruction.

My dead heart soared at the realization, and the monster faltered, recognizing a change. NO! I roared. I need him to continue in this madness, to force the devil's hand. For the first time since the day I had killed Beth, I began to battle for control again. Aro had to believe that this body was worthy of only destruction now; it was my only way out. If Bella and Renesmee really existed, if my memories were more than hallucinations, surely they couldn't look at what I had become and want me any longer. Let this mirage of my time with my family be preserved in its perfect, simplistic glory. It would be far more merciful for all concerned if this thing that I'd become would perish.

But I had been dormant too long, and the monster had grown strong. Aro and his contingent exited the room as the struggle continued.

"Throw him the little one," he said. "I must consider this before I make a decision."

Jane paralyzed the monster and, as the door was closing, the sound of something being thrown into the room could be heard behind us. The beast turned and eyed the tender morsel. I had believed there was nothing further Aro could do to my conscience, but as the monster slashed the small child's throat, I realized how wrong I had been. I had to watch through him as life drained out of her brown eyes and blood spattered her copper ringlets. The beast was back into his vicious cycle now, glutting himself on the child's innocent blood. I willed myself into silence.

The nightmares began to intrude further and further into reality, as the guards began to take on the characteristics of my family and friends. Carlisle laughed at the beast's nakedness and filth, jeering about the state into which I had fallen. Emmett manhandled me to the wall as Alice laughed, using her skills to hold the beast still so that the child's drained body could be removed. Rosalie arched her elegant eyebrow from just behind Aro as she stood barely touching his robes. Jasper and Jacob cleaned the room of every item, their laughter echoing in the empty chamber. Esme stood against the wall, sneering. I didn't see Bella or Nessie. I was to be denied even the benefit of seeing them when I was being taunted.

The door to the chamber slammed and one thought became apparent. We had been left here as an experiment. The thoughts of the guards surrounding the door echoed the sentiment. How long could a vampire survive without blood and what happened as a vampire's body ceased to function? It would seem that, sooner or later, they would find out.

Time passed.

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The monster had grown weak. He now prowled around me, inside the body that lay decimated on the floor. Hunger had long passed. I saw my body through his eyes. Our prison was now as gaunt as the body of a holocaust victim. So, in the end, it would seem that the body, without the restorative powers of blood, would resort back to biological decay. The monster could barely move what was left. In a last effort at self-preservation, he had passively offered me control, but I waited in stillness for peace.

The echoes of the minds around me had long grown into a maelstrom of noises; my power was beginning to fade. I could barely discern individual voices; much less follow their lines of thought. It was with this limited ability that I noticed activity in the hallway. Perhaps they had grown tired of waiting and decided to put an end to the experiment.

The door flew open, and I heard gasps and felt the vibrations of footsteps on the stone floor. Too many thoughts! Pain flashed through my head, and I moaned at the onslaught. Then a pair of hands reach under me, and I was pulled from the floor into a wide set of arms.

And then we were moving; the walls blurring by so fast that I felt like I was flying. I couldn't hear anything anymore. The castle walls were replaced by the night. Then the smell of leather and metal drifted through my consciousness, along with a sensation of motion and stillness. A car? Before long I was in a forest, and I heard an unrecognizable noise and then felt liquid dripping on my face.

"He's not drinking," I heard someone call out.

"I don't think he can," came another voice.

I felt fingers pry at my jaw, but it was frozen shut. "Break his jaw, Emmett."

Sounds of distress accompanied the sound of dried carbon snapping, and then I felt the moisture in my mouth. Hands quickly began to massage my throat. The hunger roared to life, but I couldn't move, not even to grasp what was being held to me. The warm liquid began to trickle slowly down my throat, the cells soaking it up before it traveled too far. The flow stopped too soon. Then another warm body was put to my face, and the feeding began again.

They're postponing your death! They just want to torture you more. The monster spoke in my head. My struggles began again, and I jerked my head away, twisting it from side to side to avoid the fluid.

"Why is he fighting it?" Emmett snarled in frustration.

"Em, stop. If he gets his strength back, he's going to fight us," Alice called. "He's gone feral. We'll have to wait until we get him home. Jasper?" and I felt a wave of calm envelop me.

A string of electronic tones interrupted the moment of silence; a cell phone dialing.

"Bella, we've got him" Alice said, but then paused for a moment, listening.

"Look, he's alive and safe; that's what matters. Turn the hostages loose and head for the rendezvous. We'll be there in an hour." Alice sighed as she hung up.

"It's just as well that we needed Bella to conceal the location of the hostages from Demetri. If she'd been here to see this, she would've torn them into little pieces and danced around their funeral pyre."

"And we should have let her," snarled Emmett. "Look at him! We should've made Sulpicia and Athenodora into a fucking bonfire, videotaped it and mailed the ashes and the tape to Volterra!"

"I know, Emmett, but that will have to wait," Carlisle soothed. "For now, though, we honor our deal. We have him back; revenge can wait." A warm hand cradled my head. "Oh, my son. What did they do to you?" His voice broke at the end.

And then I was flying once again.

What followed was a whirling collage of images: strange sights, familiar voices, and half-heard conversations. I could tell I was in the back seat of a car, and that it was still night outside. The scenery rushed by as I stared blankly, not truly seeing.

"It's the strangest thing. He's experiencing multiple, conflicting emotions at once, and they're reacting to each other, almost like there's more than one person there. Can vampires have Multiple Personality Disorder?" Jasper mused

"I don't know," Carlisle muttered. "In all my years, I've never seen anything like this. They must have been starving him for months on end."

"What the hell did they do to him? Alice?" Emmett growled.

"Don't ask me, Emmett; now is not a good time to talk about it," Alice replied

"The hell it isn't! You've been walking around in a daze ever since he got taken, and you wouldn't tell us anything. I know you saw what happened!"

"Emmett!" Jasper snarled.

"STOP IT!" Alice yelled. "Both of you! I did keep it from you, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done, but there were damned good reasons! Just drop it until we get him home! Please."

Silence

"Can we even take him home like this?" Emmett asked.

"We're going to have to," Carlisle responded

The voices faded in and out.

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They pulled me from the car as gently as they could. The smell of jet fuel, metal, concrete and oil filled the air.

"Edward!" I heard an oh-so familiar voice cry out, followed by the sound of running footsteps rapidly approaching. Emmett lowered me from his arms into a standing position, with him and Jasper supporting me on either side. I was too weak to stand on my own, and all my weight rested on their arms.

A pair of tiny hands caressed my cheeks and raised my head from where it rested lifelessly, with my chin on my chest. Slowly, gently, the hands lifted my gaze until I caught a glimpse of a face.

Bella.

The monster, again! He had come to finish the job and send me into bowels of hell in the guise of my Love. I harvested every last screed of energy within me, and lunged one last time at the cause of my insanity. Hands grabbed me from behind, as others snatched the monster away just before my teeth reached the hallucination.

"Bella, watch out; his emotions are all over the place," Jasper warned.

The fiend's golden eyes widened at the declaration, and at the sight of my black lifeless eyes. She raised her hands to cover her mouth as she continued to gaze at me; horrified.

My body sagged in the arms of my brothers. The lunge had cost me dearly; I had nothing left…

"Look at him!" Bella choked, her voice seething with rage and grief. "You should've told me, so I could burn those two bitches on the spot. Aro will pay for this if it's the last thing I do! Edward, Oh my God, Edward. What have they done to you?" Her tiny, warm hands caressed my face. How may times had I dreamed this dream? It couldn't be real. The monster seethed at the foreign touch, but we were both too weak to react, aside from a quiet growl.

What was this? Had I finally been rescued? No! I couldn't let myself hope. This had to be some new trick. It had to be.

"What happened to him, Carlisle?" Bella asked. "Why did he attack me?"

"I don't have any answers for you, Bella. We have to get him home and see if we can get him to open up to us. Hopefully, now that we have him back, Alice will be willing to tell us what she's seen. She may be the only way to know what we're dealing with here."

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Lying on a couch, a curved ceiling overhead, and the sound of jet engines: we were on a small private plane. The mouthful of blood I had consumed had not been enough to give me any strength, but my senses had cleared. The thoughts still roared in my head, muddled and distorted. But I could hear them talking.

"I'm SORRY!" Alice shrieked. "If you had known what he was going through, you would've charged off to rescue him, and you would've died, and he would still be there. I had to wait until I saw a chance for all of us to get out alive, and I swear this is the first chance that has come up. Do you honestly think I would've just left him there this long if there was any possibility of getting him out sooner?"

Bella snarled in response

"Bella," Carlisle cautioned. "Alice, no one is blaming you. We know you had your reasons, but now we need to know what you saw so that we can start to help him."

"It's so horrible," she whimpered in response. "I don't even want to think about it, much less tell you. Bella is going to snap when she hears everything."

Carlisle sighed. "Alright. Is there anything you can tell us now?"

There was a long moment of silence, then a hesitant breath. "He was so strong at the beginning, but I could see him slipping. They would send… people… into the room with him, and he had to choose between killing them himself or letting them get tortured to death by the guards. After a while, when he was alone, he started to talk to Bella, as if she were there in the room with him.

"And then, one day, after he killed one of them, it all seemed to go wrong. He started talking like Bella was in the room again, and then all of a sudden he was shocked and horrified by something, and he crumpled against the wall and just started screaming. It felt like it went on forever, but then it cut off all of a sudden, and he looked up and his eyes opened, and he wasn't Edward any more…"

Her voice trailed off, and she was silent for a long moment. "Everything else has to wait. I can't… I… Jasper?" Her voice broke, fading as she headed forward to join Jasper in the cockpit.

The others were silent for quite a while.

"Well," Carlisle said, finally.

"What happened to him?" Bella pressed.

"Well, until Alice tells us more, I can only make an educated guess, but I have a strong suspicion. Vampires are highly instinctual creatures, most especially when it comes to feeding, but also in other life aspects: mates, self-preservation and the like. In many ways, those instincts form a personality all of their own; one that can take over completely if we allow it. When Edward and I would discuss the matter, he always referred to this part of himself as "the monster"; the instinctual side of him that he fought against to maintain his humanity.

"I think that whatever they did to him was so traumatizing that his mind withdrew from reality. In a human, this would result in a catatonic state. In a vampire, because our instincts are so much stronger, relatively speaking… Well, I think the "monster", as he called it, has taken over completely. Edward is still in there somewhere, but he doesn't want to come out.

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Thanks so much to content1 for pushing me to keep working. My muse has been on strike until a few days ago, and content1 is the one who kicked it in the ass and told it to get to work. I'm currently Betaing her story HARVEST MOON, which is arguably the best Post-Breaking Dawn Expanded Universe story EVER! If you aren't reading it, you are missing out on an awesome story that promises to be epic in proportion (and don't forget to read the her other stories: FAMILY TRADITION, A CULLEN CHRISTMAS, and HARVEST MOONS, all of which tie back into the main story)

Thanks also to Gleena, for letting me take a sample of her world home to my lab and see what sort of mutant I can produce. Her story THE COLD WAR, along with its sequel ACTS OF AGGRESSION, is also arguably the best Post-Breaking Dawn Expanded Universe story EVER (and she's doing very interesting things with her new story SOLDIER X)