Stephenie Meyer owns the Twilight Saga. I own twitchy fingers that like to write for no profit.

Chapter 1: Pits and ladders

At first my pit was not my choice. My chest had been hollowed out, my soul scoured red raw, I couldn't breathe, couldn't make my heart beat right, couldn't function in any way. Once I'd got used to the pain, familiarised myself with it, I began digging away at the pit. Not to escape it, but to make it deeper. I knew it was probably futile; irreversible damage had almost definitely already been done, but i had to try. I had to make myself isolated, untouchable, static, completely unaltered and unalterable. It was the only hope in case Edw...He came back. Or we wouldn't fit anymore and then I would have lost my everything again.

It was the dreams that first began my long climb out of my pit. No. That's not right. Rather it was my worry about my dreams that saw me starting to gain some awareness and put my foot on the first rung of the ladder. Some people say they don't remember their dreams most nights, but that's not something I'd ever experienced myself. I've always remembered mine. Often they were just your standard gibberish; being late to history class and then finding that, not only was there a pop quiz, but that I'd forgotten everything I ever knew about the civil war, along with most of my clothes, and my teacher's yelling at me in Russian about not bringing my pet turtle into class with me, except its not my teacher, it's Simon Cowell, and he's telling me "I'm afraid it's a 'no' this time, Bella." That sort of dream.

But sometimes my dreams have a crystal clarity. The colours so much brighter. The sounds so much clearer, and the details so minute rather than the standard dream vagueness. Those dreams will often repeat themselves night after night until I accept what my brain is trying to tell me. Those dreams, I've always believed are my subconscious' way of filtering all my facts, even those I didn't know I had, filling in the gaps with tiny logical jumps, and pointing out to me the unescapable truth of a situation, and what I should do about it. It was a series of dreams like this that led me to the conclusion that I needed to let Renee and Phil have some space and go live with Charlie. It was another series of dreams like this that helped me fit together all the pieces of information I had about Ed... Him and come to the conclusion about what he and his family were.

And now here was another set. I'd been having (and carefully ignoring) this particular series of dreams every night since E...He left me. I was having the running after him dreams, and being totally alone in the forest dreams too; the ones that I woke from screaming every night, causing Charlie to rush in every time to help me settle. But after those dreams, once I'd managed to catch my breath in my hollowed out chest, once I'd calmed my crying jag down to silent tears, once I'd finally fallen back to sleep, this current series of almost painfully clear and sharp dreams would repeat over and over till I woke up feeling drained and as if I'd not slept at all. I knew why. I knew that I needed to focus on the message my subconscious was screaming at me, but I desperately, desperately wanted to ignore them. I couldn't afford to allow them rental space in my head. If I ignored them I could stay in this limbo. I could remain this auto-pilot zombie version of myself, and I could avoid change. This is the important thing now. Avoid change. At all costs I must avoid any change in my patterns, my routine. Everything had to remain exactly the same, all day, every day, or everything was lost. But now I was finding that the dreams were forcing themselves into my conscious mind too. Sometimes these days my blank expression wasn't just due to my determination to avoid anything different or interesting that might be going on outside of my own head. Sometimes the empty face I was showing the world was due to the fact that my mind was racing through a series of images, repeating over and over, my subconscious no longer willing to be ignored and forcing its message into my conscious mind. I didn't want to focus on it, damnit; avoid change, avoid, avoid, avoid! But even allowing myself to worry over trying to avoid it was change in itself and try though I might, the zombie state was getting harder and harder to maintain.

Through sheer stubborn force of will, I managed to keep my fingernail grip on "auto-pilot Bella" for a couple more weeks once I'd noticed the waking dream flashes, but then came the second rung on the ladder out of my pit. I woke screaming once again from my nightly alone in the forest dream, to find Charlie slumped next to my bed, not shaking me awake with soothing words as usual, but crying, no, sobbing himself. My Dad was crying! I'd never seen my dad cry before, and the sight actually achieved the impossible, my empty chest seemed to crack and hollow out even more. This was my fault. I'd done this to him. All these weeks I'd been telling myself to avoid change "at all costs" I'd never once considered that I wasn't the only one paying the costs. Selfish, selfish, selfish.

And there it was.

Too late I noticed the change.

I'd switched the auto-pilot off without realising it.

Too late.

I'd made a change.

The battle was over.

I'd lost.

I'd lost everything, and I'd hurt my dad for nothing.

I slid off my bed and onto a startled Charlie's lap, flinging my arms around his neck and sobbing wet and snotty breaths into his sleep shirt. I have no idea how long I stayed like that, the pair of us crying into each other's necks before I began to hear a litany of muffled words amongst the sobs "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, Daddy" it wasn't til the "Daddy" at the end there that I'd even realised I was talking out loud. Hell, until the "Daddy" at the end there I was pretty sure I was apologising to either E...Him or possibly even to myself. But no. We'd both of us - He and I - done this to ourselves, no apology needed or deserved. But Charlie? What had he done to deserve this? Nothing. I'd broken him along with myself and the time had come to accept a change or two. Keep them small at first, no need to rush at things and mess things up even more. But the battle was officially lost and now I'd have to face up to the collateral damage. Namely my normally stoic, but despite all that, loving father currently sobbing along with me in a soggy, broken, snotty mess on my bedroom floor.

Yep. That second rung on the ladder out of my pit was a fucking doozy!