I'm sorry to have been gone for so long. Again.

The days lagged on and the nights felt even longer, not that there was much distinction between the two for me. The sun was stolidly hidden behind the thick tomb we were sealed into, though I was sure it had continued to rise and fall each day. There are so few constants in this existence, and yet another had been taken.

Felix came by more consistently than before, at least every other day. He was my only anchor to sanity. At first, he came with the chess board, but then he brought options- Scrabble and Monopoly and even Twister, though it was quickly discarded.

He also brought books. They were newer mystery books, many of them the almost-pocket sized paperbacks found in the grocery store. Several of them I had never even heard of, obscure titles by local Italian authors with a formulaic plot that I devoured voraciously.

It was a connection to the outside world that was feeling more and more distant as one reality became abundantly clear-

I was truly not allowed to leave.

Time passed as much as I could force it to, but I felt the will slipping through my fingers as my focus lagged with each page turned, with every king toppled. My hands felt heavy. My head felt heavy.

If I closed my eyes, I could imagine hot metal being shoved down my throat, and it seemed… real.

I tried to blink the thought away. It seemed to linger. But it was almost a welcome change. As the thirst grew, it forced itself into focus. I found the ache in my chest slightly easier to ignore.

Blood blood blood blood blood blood

I was turning monstrous, behaving like a child with no control.

Like a newborn.

I remembered them all. Beyond the ones we were dispatched to dismantle, I hadn't spent any prolonged encounters with newborns with the Volturi. That changed with Esme.

When Carlisle brought her home, he had already bit her. She had ribs broken, either from the chest compressions he had done to pump the venom through her, or from the fall from the cliff. A broken leg, blood seeping from various gashes were the rocks sliced through her delicate skin, she was truly a fractured person.

The venom fixed everything physically to the point that the process was almost magical- tissue bound together, bones snapped into place- then her eyes opened with a bright red shine, and the process began.

We had already moved to a place of deep isolation, miles and miles from where even the most experienced hiker or hunter would ever trek.

She shot out of bed when the venom subsided, tore straight through a wall. Carlisle tried to reason with her, see if he could draw some memory of himself from her mind, but all she could do was claw at her throat and beg for water.

I took her hunting for the first time, and she consumed three full-grown wolves and two deer before she turned and complained that she needed more but didn't think she could drink again.

I remember them all being so angry. Absolutely furious, delirious with need. Walls fell, chairs were thrown, windows shattered. There was no reason or thought, no logic. Humanity was unreachable.

Esme could barely recall her baby son, Emmett didn't even know his mother's name. And Rose, my sister who was so connected to her humanity that it continued as the defining trait of her existence, she didn't remember what happened to her. For Rose, at least, the newborn terror was a small blessing, a few months of respite from living through it all again and again.

I wasn't there yet. I still remembered his face, the look in his eyes as he told me to leave was a constant.

Blood blood blood blood blood blood

Carlisle and I together had 'raised' three newborns with the ideology of mind over matter, that dedication and practice could supersede the bloodlust.

I just wasn't sure how much control one can have over matter when you're losing your mind.

My throat burned and a deep emptiness seated itself in my belly. Every instinct in my body cried out for blood- thick and hot and teaming with life. I could feel it, so close I could taste it on my lips. I imagined it flowing down my throat, that warm glow coming over me as my teeth sunk through skin.

I'm just lonely, I thought to myself. Felix would be coming by within the next few hours, if he maintained his normal schedule, and then things would be a little easier for a while longer. And loneliness can be good, can't it? There are so many philosophers who isolated themselves to attain a deeper connection with whatever they were searching for.

"Yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time, for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself," I whispered to myself, too low for even acute vampire hearing to eavesdrop.

The sweetness of this solitude.

I imagined de Montaigne's solitude was made sweeter by the setting of an actual orchard, the sun shining and life teeming around him.

I wondered what orchard this was, my grand prison. It was a place of cold and stone, not of growth and humanity. Could this still be the place of self-reflection and discovery de Montaigne imagined? Or rather, was I in the Talmudic orchard, the pardes where four rabbis entered the orchard- one looked and died, one looked and went mad, one looked and forsook all his ideals and morals, and one entered in peace and departed in peace.

Madness seemed most likely.

The quick rap on the door tore me from my dark pondering. I had turned to stone since Felix last left, and I actually felt stiff and uncomfortable moving from my perch.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be gone for so long," Felix apologised, skirting past me with a Scrabble board tucked under his arm.

I hadn't noticed the length of time, but I didn't tell him that.

"I read Non Ti Muovere," I offered as he set up the board and distributed the tiles.

"What did you think?"

"It was ugly," I sighed, arranging the tiles on my rack and deciding for a simple opener. "The narrator was the most selfish, narcissistic, disgusting bastard, and his love interest deserved more."

"Timoteo is a man who can only see through the narrow lens of his own… putrescence and self-induced misery," Felix agreed. "I'll try to find more cheerful books from now on."

"I don't want to be any trouble," I murmured. "Don't go out of your way."

"It's not a problem," he said firmly. We were playing slower than necessary- I wondered if I was setting the pace and he was simply following, or if it was the other way around. I couldn't focus or care enough to figure it out.

I tried to clear my throat, as if it was dry. It felt cracked and inflamed.

"Is there… anything else I can get you?" he asked quietly.

"I haven't really kept up with Italian literature honestly, so it's all new to me."

Felix pursed his lips but betrayed no other response. Did he mean to ask something else? I couldn't tell. I tried to focus on the words in front of me. BIRDS, WONDER, RIGHT, HOTLY, LIGHT.

Felix was smiling triumphantly and lifted all of his tiles to neatly arrange them on the board. FLAPJACK.

"Esoteric," I said, rolling my eyes.

Felix laughed. "That would've been a good word to play. I guess you just don't have my skills."

I couldn't see any other options in my tiles. I played PICK, which surprisingly landed on a triple word score and gave me thirty-six points. I was back in the game, even if I couldn't match his whopping total. Felix played CUMIN, tallied his score, then folded his hands and leaned back in his seat expectantly.

I rolled my eyes, but found that the corners of my mouth wouldn't turn up. My fingers felt stiff too, and I wondered if I could feel them imperceptibly trembling as I reached out for my tiles.

HOPE.

I tried to swallow as I looked back up at Felix, but the venom did nothing to assuage the burn. If anything, it added to it, and the sting travelled further down to where I was empty and hollow.

Felix's smile dropped too.

I barely caught it. His eyes darkening, darting to the door and back before he closed them.

"The thing with feathers," he said quietly.