First of all, a very Happy New Year! And yet again, I'm sorry for the delay... Exams and screwed-up internet connections only mean- studying! Anyways, I just couldn't resist writing this chapter, it totally dominated my thought processes. So, as a New Year's treat, the POV of one of my absolute favourite characters... Enjoy!

Edward

The sharp, agonised cry of a sufferer made me jump. I frowned momentarily, fast enough so that the woman whose pulse I was checking didn't notice it. It wasn't normal for someone of my kind to be taken by surprise. It just showed how nerve-racking the day was. That night had been nightmarish and terribly tiring. Not physically tiring for me, of course, but I could just imagine the pressure on my human counterparts' shoulders. It was also mentally tiring, and yes, my mind was terribly tired. People were dying every minute- that sounds like a simple statement of fact, so I stand corrected- people were dying every minute in my hospital.

It was a cold night in Chicago, the year was 1918. Most of America had been struck by the dreaded Spanish influenza. It was a new strain, a deadly strain, and it was spreading all over the world at an alarming rate. There had been no forewarning. The newspapers were too busy reporting about the war and so they often skipped by the death tolls of the world-wide epidemic. It was highly contagious and thus spread quickly. One of the worst parts of this new 'flu was that most casualties were from the adolescent and average adult age group. It was bizarre- the weaker section of humans consisting of infants and old persons were unharmed. The science of it all interested me enormously, but I was still worried- this disease would cripple the population profoundly, sapping the world's workable human resources. Add to that a disastrous war, and the humans might as well wipe themselves out of existence.

It also bothered me that I was untouched, unharmed, while many able, good humans were dying around me. For perhaps the millionth time I felt unworthy, unfairly cursed with immortal immunity.

At that moment, however, all such deep thoughts were completely out of my mind. Almost every minute I was watching a person die before me, my superhuman strength and enhanced senses doing nothing to help them. I was left helpless, and I didn't like the feeling.

With a sigh, I let go of the woman's wrist. Her pulse was dangerously high. The end was not far... Poor woman. Her full lips were quivering with her delirious whispers, her eyelids fluttering showing flashes of brilliant green through half-open lids.

"Well, Cullen?"- a grating voice asked, interrupting my mental lamentations.

I turned to the old man, and shook my head slowly. He sighed loudly, the air he breathed out making harsh grating sounds in his throat. The sound was unsettling; I shuddered to imagine how much this man had smoked in his lifetime.

"Too late, most of 'em," he mumbled in his cracked voice.

"Yes," I said sadly. "We never have enough time."

I had eternity, while these deserving humans barely had a week when they first came down with the 'flu. And they often never came to us at the hospital until atleast four to five days had passed, believing it to be a normal 'flu attack.

The old man settled down slowly and painfully into a rickety wooden chair. "Never enough time to test the cures… it's a damned crazy disease, Cullen."

"Yes."- I sighed again sadly.

We were surrounded by cots and gurneys, all occupied by sufferers. The number of patients had increased drastically in the previous 24 hours, and was likely to increase. Old Dr. Ramsey was retired, but he had offered to come back to help treat the terminally ill patients- his age serving as his protection. Most doctors my age(my human age, of course) had left, after one them had caught the disease and died. There were many brave souls, doctors and nurses alike, still working through the night with us; nevertheless, we were terribly understaffed. Every ward in the hospital was full, with extra cots being placed at every possible space. Even the corridors were lined with gurneys. It was as if war, from the countries of Europe, had come all the way to Chicago's doorstep.

"God's above, I'm swept," Dr. Ramsey wheezed.

I glanced at him, and noticed that he was, in fact, "swept". I could hear his heartbeat stuttering with the exhaustion of it all. He was drained.

"Why don't you take a break, Dr. Ramsey? Get some fresh air. I can manage for a while."

He glanced at all the patients. Most of them were sleeping or unconscious, the few awake were merely delirious- nothing a single, able man couldn't manage.

"I suppose I will," he finally agreed, getting to his feet slowly. I could hear his joints snap and his bones creak. "You'll be alright, yeah?"

I nodded. He hesitated. I knew what he was thinking. Why hadn't I gone away, when I was most prone to catching this disease? He didn't know the existence of my excellent immune system, of course. We had already talked about this, and so, with a shrug, he made his way towards the door, weaving through the rows of cots. I turned back to the woman. Her heartbeat was intensifying, and her delirious voice was rising in volume.

I heard Dr. Ramsey open one of the double doors with a bang and shuffle outside. The bang made me look up. Dr. Ramsey was already going, the door closing behind him, not noticing what had happened here in the general ward. But the door had crashed into a gurney, and that had set it in motion. I watched with growing horror as the gurney gained speed and made way straight towards a cot with a young dying girl stretched out on it.

I didn't pause to think. Knowing that the only heartbeats around me were those of sick patients, I leaped to the girl's side, even as the gurney crashed into me lengthwise. I caught it with my left arm, and lifted it effortlessly. The man sleeping on the gurney was not on the lighter side, but I didn't feel the weight at all. Swiftly, but carefully, I placed it next to the cot. In another second, I took off the man's boot and placed it in front of one of the little wheels. There. There wouldn't be any more risks of a runaway gurney.

Slowly, in human speed, I returned to the woman's side. Then I noticed, shocked, that her eyes were wide open.

How much had she seen?

I also noticed, almost absently, that her heartbeat rate had risen even more. She was gasping with the exertion, taking quick, tiny breaths to keep up with her fast-dying heart.

Then she lifted her hand and clawed in the air wildly. I understood. She was asking me to come closer. I obliged nervously. What would she say?

She said a lot of gibberish, but the first comprehendible word surprised me.

"Edward."

I quickly took her hand and stroked it in a smooth, calming motion. "Yes, yes," I said softly, smoothly, as though I understood, when in fact I hadn't. This was not new to me- I had been at enough deathbeds to know when and how to comfort a dying person.

"Edward- you-you w… will?

"Yes, of course," I said.

"H-he… dying. Save him!" The sudden clear shout from her lips made me jump. Again. My nerves really were in tatters.

"Save… save Edward." Ah, that explained it. She wanted me to save someone.

"Please… only you… y-you can. P-please… save Edward… my baby… war… dying… save Edward!"

"I will," I said soothingly again. Perhaps she had a son who was at war. I didn't know how I'd be able to save him, but I didn't say so. These were her dying words- and I couldn't disappoint her now.

Her brilliant green eyes bore into my dark brown ones. "You-you… will… save him."

"Yes."

I realised suddenly that her eyes were very bright, very clear. She was not delirious anymore. She held me in her brilliant gaze even as her body began to die.

"Give… give me your word." I was frozen. She wasn't satisfied with simple soothing platitudes. She was serious about me rescuing her son. Motherhood had never ceased to astound me, and astound me it did, at that moment.

She was dying, and she could feel it. "Quick," she whispered through her pain, her words suddenly lucid. "He's dying. Here in the hospital. Save him! Give your word… save him!"

Her hands were clawing the air again; she raised her torso up on her elbows with fast depleting strength, staring at me with feverish effort. I could nearly see her fighting against the darkness surrounding her.

"Quick!"

"I-I… yes."

"You'll… save him?"

"Yes."

"H-he must not… not die."

"No, he won't."

She stared at me, even as her entire body racked with the effort of holding her torso up. Her elbows gave way and she collapsed back into the bed. But her big, bright feverish eyes were still locked onto me.

"Edward Masen."-she said softly, so softly that had I been human, I'd have missed it.

And then, with a light, feeble whisper that even my ears nearly missed, "Thank you." Her eyelids drooped over her eyes and covered the piercing green gaze.

And from where I had heard her heart beat, there was now only silence. It was over. She was dead.

And I was left staring at her inanimate body, turmoil in my mind.

In a flash, I stood up. The next moment I was at the door. Her earnestness had won me over. I had to find Edward Masen, her son. I had to find him, and try my best to cure him.

The cold, analytic part of my brain told me that it was hopeless. Quickly my brain calculated that her son couldn't be very old. That put him right in the disease-prone age group. If she herself was dead, I tried not to calculate the son's chances of survival. My enhanced thought processes did it anyway. His chances were less than null.

Outside in the corridor, I met one of the few head nurses who had stayed behind. I pounced on her. "The woman in cot 283," I said hurriedly, "what's her name?"

The woman was surprised by my obvious nervous energy. I had always been calm and patient, to her knowledge. Nevertheless, the evident surprise wasn't enough to keep her heart from beating faster, as did most women's when they saw me. "Just a moment, Dr. Cullen," she murmured, and made her way to a desk ten feet away. For the first time in many hundred years, I felt impatience at a human's normal walking speed. The feeling momentarily astonished me. I hadn't felt impatient at all since… years. I remembered something akin to impatience on a particular night some years ago, in Columbus, Ohio…

I shook my head in quick jerks, ridding myself of the memory. Concentrate, I told myself fiercely.

The woman took down a register and looked into it. "Let's see…"-she mumbled, more to herself than to me. I was next to her in three quick strides. She had her head bent over the register, so she didn't see my unusual speed.

"Bed 283 was a woman. A Mrs. Elizabeth Masen, age 38."

Elizabeth. Suddenly I was reminded of a small, beautiful child's face. This child, too, had green eyes, but they weren't this Elizabeth's brilliant green. I knew the child's name. Elizabeth Platt. And with the name "Platt", the image of a dryad in forest green rose in front of my eyes…

I closed my eyes shut firmly for a moment, and then opened them again. Esme Platt's tantalising image vanished. I really needed to focus. Elizabeth was a very common name, in any case.

"Right. Any others of her family here?"-I asked her, my voice unchanged by the assault of memories. "She just passed away," I explained.

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry, poor soul," she murmured, not sounding sorry at all. "Hmm, let's see now… oh, here's another Masen! Bed 144, Mr. Edward Masen, age 50."

The elation in my dead heart died, too. This must be her husband. Before I could ask her to check again, she said, "Oh dear, it appears Mr. Masen passed away an hour ago."

Dead. The poor boy had no one. I had to try and save him.

"I gathered she has a son," I said gently, trying to keep the impatience from my voice.

The woman obliged immediately, running her finger down rows and rows of names and bed numbers.

"Here we are!"-she said brightly, the brightness sounding out of place in the sombre hospital corridor.

"Edward Masen, age 17. Bed 261. Not dead yet, according to this register!" Her cheap humour sickened me.

"He won't die," I said firmly in a voice that made her jump and her heart rate increase even more. "I'll see to that."

Beds 261, 299, 123, 92 and 311 were crammed into a ward that could, at most, contain three beds with comfortable space to move in between each. As it were, the ward barely had any floor space left. My sensitive hearing counted three different, feeble heartbeats. There were no medical staff in sight, since most of the doctors and nurses were taking turns and making rounds.

I stepped into the foot of clear space right in front of the door. I recognised the boy without having to look at the number painted onto the metal headboard. He had his mother's full lips and sculpted facial structure. A shock of messy auburn hair looked striking against the pale white of the pillow. He was a handsome young man. His eyes were closed, but he was alive, I was glad to note. He was taking in quick, shallow gasps of breath, his face was covered with a film of sweat.

The breathing was enough to alert me. He was dying.

I held the bag of medicinal knick-knacks more tightly in my hand. Hearing no one approaching, I crouched, semi-bent. Then I jumped.

I sprang six feet in the air and landed nimbly at the foot of his bed, which was near the head of another. Quickly, I set myself to work. I leaned into his face, and tenderly lifted an eyelid, flashing a flashlight into his familiarly brilliant green eye. At the same time, another part of my head counted his pulse, not requiring touch to do so.

His pupil did not contract. He was already unconscious. For the first time, doubt and fear rose in my chest. I had been fully determined to save him, no matter what. But now, the horrible feeling of helplessness crept upon me again.

His pulse was weak, too weak. His end would be different from his mother's. But his end would come.

His end… it would come. I repeated the thought in my mind again. His end would come.

He would die.

Eventually.

Then my mind went down a path it had often tread upon, but never since this epidemic broke.

He will die eventually, yes. If not today, if not from the 'flu, he will die. He might die of diabetes, a car accident, old age… but he will die.

You aren't helpless, a voice in my head told me. You do have a cure…

No. I couldn't sentence another soul to what I was going through.

But he has no one. He will be missed by none. It wouldn't make any difference.

I wavered, and stared down at the boy. Even as I did so, I heard a heartbeat behind me stutter and die. Another patient in the ward had died. Edward Masen could be next…

"But he'll be lonely…" I murmured to myself, my voice too low for human ears- dead or alive.

No he won't. He'll have you, and you'll have him. Finally. You will have companionship. No more loneliness…

That did it. I looked at the child's uncovered eye again. The brilliant green shade was the exact shade as his mother's.

"H-he must not… not die."

I had promised her.

Very well. He would not die.

Silently I sent out an apology in my mind, hoping that wherever Elizabeth Masen was, she would see that I had tried my best, done what I would do with the best intentions.

I stared at the lovely shade of green of his eyes for the last time. I knew he would lose this physical trait after I was through with him. I'm terribly sorry for taking away your legacy from him, I told her in my mind. Then I switched control to the analytic, forever-planning part of my mind. I would think of the implications later. Right now, I needed to act and think no more.

So without any more hesitation, I pulled aside his stained white collar, and bit into his neck, the skin tearing like butter beneath my teeth.

The ever-present burn in my throat increased sharply- this was the first time I had ever even bitten a human. I hadn't realised it would feel so irresistibly good.

I felt the blood drip into my mouth, tasting amazingly good, better than any blood I had ever tasted in these centuries. For half a second I remained in that position, feeling the blood dribble out of my lips, the taste on my tongue, the sweet intoxicating smell…

Then I straightened, and spat the blood away. The blood was loaded with morphine and other drugs, which served to help keep my self-control. I would not drink the little that had gushed into my mouth. Never. I wasn't going to destroy centuries of effort in a single moment.

I turned to Edward's face. His eyes were open, unfocused and his body was stiff with the shock of the pain. I knew he would start crying out soon. Quickly I bent down to the wound on his neck and licked away the traces of blood, venom dripping from my tongue and sealing the open wound. There. It was done.

Quickly, I slipped my hands under him and lifted him. After a quick, calculated leap above the beds, I was outside the ward. I placed him on a nearby empty gurney and rushed to my ward in vampiric speed, praying that no one would see me. My luck stayed, and I was unobserved as I halted in front of the double doors. I took a deep breath, wiping last traces of blood from my mouth, and burst into the ward, my act already planned.

"Dr. Ramsey!"-I gasped, making the old fellow jump and nearly fall out of his chair.

"What's the matter?"-his voice grated.

"I- I must leave."- I said hastily, keeping an appropriate amount of abashment and fear shown on my face. "A delirious patient bit me."

"Good Lord!"- Ramsey gasped, rising from his chair, his bones creaking familiarly.

"I've washed the bite with carbolic… But I do not think I must attend to any more patients…"

"Yes, yes, go home, Cullen! Go, now!"

I nodded to him, then strode out. Again, I flitted towards the corridor where I had left Edward, and again, I was unobserved.

When I reached him, he was already moaning, his cracked voice making him squeak. I knew he'd be screaming soon. I picked him up again, and made my way to the small nurses' entrance nearby.

"Don't worry, Edward," I muttered to him as I stepped into the empty dark street even as his moans began to get louder. "I'll take care of you."

And thus Edward Cullen was born.