I covered my hands over my ears, trying to block out the screams.

They pierced through my head, sending sharp chills up my spine every time they bounced off the walls.

My eyes closed tight as I sat in the corner, gently rocking back and fourth.

They were not my screams.

Instead the screams belonged to a young girl who was a few cells down from me.

I didn't know exactly why she was screaming.

But it wasn't hard to guess.

The cells were all lined up one by one, each blocked from each other with metal bars. It stretched down farther than I could see, but from the voices that quietly talked and the shuffling of feet, there had to be more than a dozen of us down here.

They were donors.

Just like me.

The girl who was screaming was the only one that had someone else in her cell with her. It was a little girl, maybe a few years younger and most likely her sister considering they looked alike. The screaming girl lost it when a guard in a red cloak came down, taking the little girl with him with no courtesy to let them hug one final time.

I neared my door, holding onto the rusty metal bars as I watched the guard hold the girl by the back of her neck, forcing her to walk forward as her sister screamed her name over and over again. The little girl looked up to me as she passed; her bright green eyes had tears streaming down her face, her curly orange hair damp with dirt.

She was gone within seconds…

It had been an hour since the little girl was taken away and her sister was still crying out her name in hopes she would return. But she knew just as well as everyone else – her sister would not be coming back.

Bought.

Traded.

A slave.

The screams continued and I held my hands closer to my ears. My fingernails dug into the skin of my scalp as I tried my hardest not to cry. The pain was helping. It was distracting me. It was helping me forget.

It could have been minutes or hours but suddenly the girl had stopped screaming. She was crying, her voice hoarse and broken but her sobs were evident and when I heard her it tugged on my heart.

I felt her pain. Shared it.

I sat in my corner, bringing my knees up to my chest as my arms wrapped around them. My forehead rested against my kneecaps as I felt my body shudder from the coldness of the floor. I felt the tears spring to life in my eyes but I ignored them, knowing that there was no use to wiping them. More would just replace them eventually.

I wondered what Alec was doing.

Was he hurt?

I had never seen his cheek crack like that.

Were they hurting him?

I felt my heart accelerate as I tried to calm down, slowly rocking myself as I began biting at my fingernails.

What would I do without him?

He was all I ever knew. He raised me. My mother died when I was young and I barely remember her. Bits and pieces will come to me, but all together it was gone. The memory of her had faded and all I could see was Alec.

Would he find me?

Would he save me?

Would I save myself?

I left out a soft whimper, crying into the sleeve of my shirt, trying my hardest not to scream.

There had been enough screaming for one night.

I didn't bother to sleep on the small cot that was given to me and instead found myself lying on the cold floor, trying to find the courage to get myself through this.

I had found none.

-TSIPWR-

I didn't know how long I was asleep for.

No windows meant no knowledge to the time outside.

All we had in the means of light were a few candles lit on the walls where they flickered around us, allowing us to see each other's faces. No one looked at me sympathetically or out of kindness. I wondered for a moment why they didn't try and reach out to me, telling me it would be okay. Or comforting the young girl a few cells down who had just lost her sister. I realized, sadly, was because there was no point.

We were all heading in the same future.

There was no sugarcoating it.

No denying it.

It is what it is.

That made me feel empty.

Not sad.

Just… Empty.

Human emotions were shielded away from this place. They stripped everything we owned. Our freedom, our passions, ourselves. We had nothing.

I was sitting now, staring across from me and at the candle light that flickered on the wall. A small sound caught my attention and I turned to see the door opening from the top of a staircase, a man in a red cloak stepping down. As he came into the light, I noticed something trailing him and when I saw the sad deep blue eyes look at me, I felt my heart drop with a heavy weight.

He couldn't have even been five years old…

Trapped in a life of imprisonment as he was guided down the long hallway to his cell.

I put my head into my arms and tried to forget.

"Isabella Swan." A man's low voice grunted as the bar door slammed to one side jolting me awake from my corner. I looked up with lazily, the man in the red cloak staring down with his blood eyes. "Come."

I slowly stood up from my spot, finding that once again I could not move. The man let out a low warning growl as I plucked up all my courage and stepped forward, watching as he allowed me out. He walked next to me, making sure I stayed the course as we bounded up the stairs.

I turned back to see the long hallway of slaves, their bodies lingering in their cages as they began whispering my name…

-TSIPWR-

I was back in the middle of the grand room where Aro had told me where I ranked in this life, his body still in the chair but no one else was to be found. I had chains around my wrist like a criminal and I had wondered why they did that. I would not have been able to fight them. I may be spontaneous, but I am not stupid. One vampire had the strength of one hundred lions.

I would be dead in less than a second.

Maybe it was just there was to place me, to make me realize this is where I belonged.

In chains.

Slavery.

Bounded forever.

"I want to personally thank you, Isabella, for your value." Aro told me with a sharp tone, his eyes narrowing at me as I said nothing in response. "It seems that you have become very popular with the males." He smirked evilly, his fingers whipping around the air. "Carlisle Cullen has received your rights, though, and he shall be your new master."

"Will I ever see Alec again?" I asked suddenly, my own voice scaring me as it was cracked and high.

Aro laughed to himself, shaking his head.

"No."

There was nothing after that but a crisp wall of silence between us. I did not waver and I kept my stance still, hearing the door behind me open.

"Bella, meet your new master," Aro murmured in a soft and feathery voice. I turned my head to the side, seeing a man just a few feet taller than me with crisp blonde hair and decked in a black suit. But it wasn't the way he dressed or looked at me that puzzled my thoughts.

Rather than his eyes were not red.

They were red.

But not the blood red.

Not the red that you saw in a vampire's eyes and knew that the blood of their victims swirled around their pupils as if to mock you… As if to tell you that you are next.

No his eyes were a soft and subtle red.

Like the red you see when the dawn breaks behind the clouds. It is the red you see around the rising of the sun and you know that today is a new day.

That anything is possible.

"This is Mr. Carlisle Cullen."

sorry for the no update yesterday. busy with the family and probably will be tomorrow so i will update again on monday! everyone who celebrates it, happy easter. and for those who don't, well just have a great fucking weekend. ;)

ii