AN: Disclaimer: I do not own twilight. To begin with this is rated T. It could change to an M at some point!
Summary: Bella Swan has never been known for her 'good luck'. Her life has been one nightmare after the other: her parents dying, being adopted and then being abused in her adopted home. The one good thing she has in her otherwise average life is her adoptive sister: Lisa. Bella's bad luck continues to escalate one terrible morning when she wakes to horrors beyond her worse nightmares. Follow Bella in her desperate attempt to escape them, and the shadows that have been following her all her life.
Bella had often heard the saying, "If you keep going, even in the darkest of times, you will eventually find the light," or at least something similar. But today, she knows, somehow, that everything will change. She feels it in her blood; it sings to her from her gut instincts and reflects in the sky. Everything will change.
It's a typical day in December: heavy snow, and icy roads; the cause of so many accidents, and deaths. The pavements are slippery and scream warning at clumsy prone-to-accident- people to stay indoors, and avoid the injuries that hurt the ego more than the body. It's nearly seven in the evening and schools are closed for the holidays.
Usually at this type of year, with festive cheer all around, Bella can sense the happiness in whomever she passes on the street. The kids are happy because it's nearly Christmas, and schools are closed. Parents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles and the like are stressed; trying to find decent presents for their relatives but are overall happy, and anxiously excited.
But this year is different; Bella can feel it. Something is wrong. From her place on the pavement, she saw a house on the end of the street, its Christmas decorations consisting of overly bright red and blue lights that light up the dark, gloomy sky. A large cluster of people is tightly packed together outside and she can see that some of them are crying.
There's yellow tape cutting off the public from the house, so Bella knows that whatever has happened is bad. Her curiosity is piqued and her body is preparing to release pity for whatever horror of events has taken place there. As Bella pads closer curiously, she notices a little girl, just one, sitting in the back of an ambulance she failed to spot previously.
The doors are open and the back of the ambulance is brightly lit, showcasing the small child wrapped in a thick, warm blanket and sipping from a steaming mug that is tightly clasped between her dainty hands. Bella frowns, puzzled because the scene looks, and feels familiar. Somehow, she even knows that the child is sipping hot chocolate.
Bella also knows, without knowing, that the child is counting snow fakes landing on the floor, rather than just burning a spot in to the snow with her gaze. The little girl is quiet and her gaze is only caught when an older man crouches before her, wearing a warm smile. He gently rubs a wet sponge over a cut on the girl's forehead.
Bella suddenly finds herself right next to the ambulance, but no one has looked at her, aware of her presence. It's as if she's invisible. The little girl shivers and Bella feels the shiver roll down her spine, as if it had been her shiver to begin with. From her close vantage point, she can see the man's eyes are blue, and the little girls are brown; like Bella's.
The girl makes no sounds, not even of pain as the older man rubs the sponge across her forehead. He finally sighs and throws the blood stained sponge into a bucket of water next to him. "I think that may be a scar one day," the man whispers gently.
A twinge on Bella's forehead has her fingers flying to the exact space on her head, where the younger girls fresh cut is still red and raw. She's surprised to find a raised line there, as if that red, raw cut had once been her own and had since healed into this thin, presumably white scar. Impossible.
Bella's attention is stolen by the younger girl who finally looks at the man in front of her and whispers, "will my mommy be ok?" Her voice, to Bella, sounds strange, almost indifferent.
The man coughs softly, presumably not wanting to reveal a harsh truth. Bella can see it in his tense expression but the young girl doesn't seem to be able to. "I-I'm not sure, sweetheart."
Bella can tell he's lying but again, the younger girl cannot and instead nods, assured by his semi-assurance. The man sighs as he stands and Bella can see it is to welcome two police officers that have just joined the conversation. One man steps forward, removes his hat and looks to the little girl with sympathy painted across his face.
For some unknown reason, Bella's heart begins to race; fast and hard, as if she knows what will come from this conversation and this police officer with the sympathetic features. A sweat breaks out across her skin.
"Do you think you could give us a minute, please?" He politely asks the ambulance man, who takes a quick glance at the little girl before nodding and stepping away.
The police man now steps forward, bending like the previous man had, to talk one-on-one with the child. His voice is calm, and slow. Practiced. Bella's pulse sky rockets. "You must be Isabella?"
Bella startles out of her panic. The child shares her name? The girl simply nods her head in response.
"So Isabella, I have to ask you: did you see what happened? Anything at all?"
"Jim," a warning voice hisses and Bella sees it's the other police officer: a woman.
Bella looks back at the young girl and she can see her eyes are filled with sadness. She feels sucked into them. Her whole world shifts and it feels as if her body is propelled into the little girl and suddenly, this is her. She is the little girl. She is Isabella, and this is a memory: a dream. She knows what's going to happen next and she doesn't want it to.
Bella fights herself, her old mind trapped in this young girl –this memory- and tries to wake up. But she can't and her memory plays itself out, torturing her. The events of this terrible day continue: the man begins to speak, but is cut off by a scream. He and the police woman run to the commotion, demanding to know what's happened.
"It was the blood, Sir! She couldn't handle it; she just fainted when she saw the room," someone informs Jim and he's carrying a limp body.
Bella begins to tremble and cry, the memory-child she's trapped in scared and confused, whereas she is aware and desperate to escape. Jim turns to face her, his face falling at her terror. He rushes back over and hugs both Bella's, entwined together as they are, and shushes her. "It's going to be alright. It's going to be alright sweetheart. Everything is going to be ok."
Nine years later:
Bella, in her present body once more, woke up –screaming- from the dream. She knew her screams carried outside the huge estate she was in. She realized instantly that her screams were fighting for dominance with yelling voices somewhere else and shut up in her curiosity. Lisa found her, damp with sweat and hugged her until she was calm.
When Bella was better settled, both her and Lisa left the estate and sought solace inside a barn, collapsing on the straw covered ground and clasping each other's hands.
"They're at it again, then? Why do they always fight at this time of year?" Bella whispered, pulling Lisa into her arms.
She felt Lisa shrug and barely heard her whispered, "I don't know, Bella. They just do."
The two girls were silent for a long time, listening to the shouts and screams. They both knew that a significant amount of time had passed and that it was very late. "It's almost bedtime," Bella whispered.
They both stood, sighing and prepared to leave their small pocket of comfort. "It sounds like they've stopped anyway," Lisa responded.
Both girls slowly made their way out of the barn and back into the estate via the garden rife with wild grass. They held hands as they walked the length of the garden before finally entering the large estate. The moment the door opened for them, they spotted a woman stood waiting for them with her arms cross tightly across her chest: Bella's adopted mother.
She clearly wasn't impressed with them. "Girls, I have told you about running out to the barn at this time of night! You're going to catch a cold, and your death."
Before either Bella or Lisa could speak in their defense, or just simply argue, the woman interrupted them. "I don't want to hear it! Go to your room, both of you."
With that both Lisa and Bella made their way up the stair case to the second floor and prepared to part ways to enter their separate rooms that were situated besides each other.
"Goodnight Bella," Lisa said, turning to hug Bella goodnight.
"Night Lisa," Bella mumbled into the other girl's shoulder.
Letting go of each other, they finally separated into their individual rooms, closing their doors firmly behind them. When each door was closed, Bella crawled back into bed and fought to get back to sleep. It took her a little while but she finally managed it, only to be woken some time later by shouting and smashing plates.
Bella had just sat up to find Lisa when her door opened, presenting the girl in question. She was trembling in her pajamas violently and was quick when she shut the door and joined Bella in her bed. They both lay down, hugging each other as Bella wiped the tears from Lisa's face.
"Shh, it's going to be alright, Lisa. Everything is going to be ok." Bella whispered the same sentence over and over as she slowly rocked both her and Lisa back to sleep.
When Bella woke once more, it was to the sun shining in her room, lighting it up. Unlike other bright mornings, no birds were singing and there was an eerie stillness to the air as Bella opened her eyes. Still half awake, she turned, yawning to wake Lisa up, only to panic when she caught site of dark, ominous blood staining the sheet beside her.
Bella screamed, shot up quickly and fell in her panic, landing hard on the floor. She looked down and screamed louder when she realized she had landed in a big pool of blood. Bella scrambled backwards, her hands slick with and staining the floor.
"LISA!" She begged, frightened of being in the blood covered nightmare alone.
Tears poured in hot, thick sheets down Bella's face. She stumbled from her blurred vision and blood stained hands in attempt to run out of the room. She pushed herself back off of the floor, still sobbing and wrenched open her bedroom door. There was more blood along the walls, and a stream leading down the stairs.
"LISA!" Bella screamed again.
Bella stumbled, hazy and dazed, into Lisa's room, sobbing when she saw that yet more blood coated the room; the bed, the walls, floor, doors and windows. The stench was ever worse. "Oh god, oh god, oh god," Bella chanted as she rushed down the stairs, staining her bare feet.
"LISA!"
On the last step, Bella tripped and slid along the floor, soaking her nightgown in the crimson gore. By the time Bella had gotten to her feet again, her gaze still blurred by tears, she had smeared more blood along the banister, wall and floor. She finally found purchase and raced through the hallways, wailing.
She found herself in the kitchen and collapsed the moment she saw the two mutilated bodies in there. She screamed, her voice cracking from the intensity before she gagged from the intake of rancid air. Dizzy, Bella stumbled over the bodies, still screaming for Lisa as she ran out of the smashed sliding doors, now devoid of their glass.
She instantly stepped on thousands of tiny shards that promptly imbedded themselves in her feet and hands, making her cry harder in pain and shock. "LISA!"
At first, while running, she thought the bloody footprints were own. It was only after a good time running, and sobbing, did she realize they were someone else's and that she had already been subconsciously following them. They took her to the grass garden and beyond that a small path she knew very well.
Bella ran all the way down it, finally coming to a stop at the end, trying to catch her breath. Her gaze was blurred and spotty from her lack of oxygen. She couldn't stop sobbing long enough to catch a decent breath and had to clutch her side in agony. Bella tried to calm down, tried to tell herself to find Lisa. She assessed her options quickly: straight ahead, to the right or to the left.
To the left were plain fields, the right was a small forest and straight ahead was the lake she and Lisa, her sister, had gone swimming every day in the summer. Still not thinking clearly, Bella made her choice and rushed towards the forest after choosing right. Her tears started again but she talked herself down. To the right was answers, and Lisa. To the right was safety.
AN: Thanks to my beta LeighJ11