In the Afterlight: A Twilight Rewrite

by garbanzosoprese

She admits it: artist Isabella Swan screwed up. Turns out, escaping to Forks entailed constant rain, worsening nightmares, and the hot freak from Bio, Edward Cullen, saving her from stalkers and sudden death. What's a girl to do when she's trapped between the world she thinks she knows, the past she can't recall, and the vampire she'll throw it all away for? Asking for a friend...

10. Chapter 10: Nightmare

Every time I try to run, I can't get anywhere.

In my dreams, after the fall knocks the wind from my lungs, after I've landed on the jagged, mossy floor, my ribs scrape, crack, burn like tobacco to ash. They scratch the underside of my skin while I twist and clamber over fallen trunks and rocks. My legs are small and fragile; so are my arms. When I push away the icy ferns, their dew drops tumble off my skin, sparkling under the ribbon of light glinting through the darkness.

I follow the light because I don't know what to do. I follow the light because I am desperate. I follow the light because the icy mist prickles my skin like pine needles, and that light keeps me from freezing to death. I follow the light because the light holds me. I follow the light. Darkness comes. I am desperate. I follow the light.

Something snatches me. Blackness crashes.

What else is there to do? Purge to fall asleep again: Draw. Small sketches, scribbles where the lines feel free to run wild. My charcoal snaps from the heavy pressure.

In the morning, after two more nightmares, the sketch, like my stained hands, will be bold, black, and angry. Dark fingerprints litter the sheets and pillows.

I remember nothing.