It had been five years to the day that her rose-colored glasses were torn off and replaced with obsidian. She had never been able to escape the pain that followed her seemingly everywhere she went. She never stayed anywhere for very long, especially not since Charlie lost the battle with cancer 2 years ago. She'd been living off his pension and what she made from selling his house traveling across the lower 48 and Canada.

She regularly did reckless things in her loneliness, whether it was painting with her sweet ambrosia as her ex-boyfriend called it, along alleyway walls or the bark of trees in the forests that she found along her travels that seemed to call to her. She had taken up binge drinking and drugs in order to make the pain lessen but it never seemed to work out quite the way she wanted.

So here sat Isabella Swan, 23 years old, wallowing in her depression, addiction and craving for death at the edge of a thick forest, her truck's floorboard littered with old used needles, and the freshly finished pint of whiskey slipping from her fingertips as she sat staring at the scar on the palm of her empty hand. Her thoughts were consumed with this being the last time she painted, this time would mean her death. She smiled wryly at the thought of how she'd never thought of her death until her 18h birthday.

It had been 2 months since the last time she opened the wound. The last time she was trying to relive her recurring nightmare while she was awake. She'd been 2 months sober before this excursion however she decided perhaps 23 years on this earth was all she could take. Little was she aware that she had managed to catch someone's attention. She wasn't alone this time and hadn't been for awhile.

Bright light flashed above in the dark sky, drawing her from her reverie, grabbing her switchblade from the passenger seat. The storm she had been running from had caught up to her and she wanted to get started before the rain began to fall. Pulling the handle to open the door she kicked it widely open with her boot clad foot. Stiffly getting out of the rusty beast her father got her, she looked down at her palm before flicking the blade open.

She stood at the edge of the thick forest of old sycamores, pines, and oaks somewhere in the middle of nowhere New York State merely reflecting on everyone she planned to leave on the physical plane. Renee and Phil had managed to start their own family a year before Charlie's diagnosis and quit reaching out after the first health scare. Jacob had stopped coming around after she jumped from the cliff. Told her that he wasn't going to watch her kill herself. Even when Charlie got sick he only came to drop Billy off. Billy, how she would miss her father's best friend, he never chastised her for her involvement with the Cullens after they left. Merely just sympathized with her and comforted her when Charlie died. Everyone from high school had moved on so her list was simply one. She knew Billy would understand just like he did when she left Forks.

Another flash of lightning brought her back to the present, she carefully drug the blade across the pink scar like she had many times before, slowly starting into the woods before the scent of the crimson liquid could infiltrate her nostrils. She carefully drug her palm across the taller plants and trunks of the trees in reach of her left hand. The smell of petrichor was brought with the approaching storm winds as she blindly continued deeper.

Her thoughts consumed with what was waiting for her once she was done. If she would see Charlie, and her gran. She was giddy with the possibility but how could she be sure it wasn't the heroin making her giddy. She shrugged as she continued into the dark. Two beats later a loud clap of thunder echoed off the trees, The strike of lightning illuminated the forest briefly. As quick the flash was, it was long enough to show her what laid ahead of her path. A tall figure, light shoulder length hair but the eyes stood out.

Why do they stand out?

Oh.. Red?

Well that's unfortunate..

Red eyes shone dimly even in the shadows as they were pointed in her direction. She froze, unsure if he was real or if again, it was the heroin. She'd dosed herself halfway through the whiskey. Maybe she had passed out.

"I must be dreaming," she whispered to herself.

The realization brought a frown to her lips. She knew she couldn't have been unconscious because she lacked the skill required for lucid dreaming. Her nightmares that had plagued her since her 18th birthday included red eyes.

"Definitely the heroin.." She muttered to herself, in hopes it really was a hallucination she turned left, continuing to drag her bleeding palm behind her. Another clap of thunder and flash of light stopped her in her tracks jumping slightly from the noise.

A hand wrapped around her wrist like a vise and she spun on her heel to look at who the hand belong to, she found herself staring at a flannel shirt, it was too dark to make out the colors as she craned her neck to look at her captor in the face, he was staring at her bleeding palm as if he were insulted.

Bella attempted to pull her hand away from what she could assume was a mentally challenged vampire considering how he was looking at her hand with a dumbstruck expression on his face. From what she remembered about her run-ins with human drinking vampires, they didn't look at open wounds like they had committed a hate crime. A low growl coming from the vampire's chest made her end her feeble attempt at removing the vise grip from her wrist and exasperatedly let a breath escape her lips.

"Are you gonna actually eat me, or are you just gonna keep looking at it like that" She hissed at him, still attempting to tug her hand free.

His gaze moved from her palm, to her eyes, he let out a snort before dragging his tongue across the wound effectively sealing it never taking his eyes away from hers.

"Believe me, little one, you smell delightful, but not for eatin", he drawled lazily before turning around, hand still around her wrist and proceeded to walk back the way she came.

She stood there looking at him like he must have lost his last marble, not only, did this vampire obviously eat humans, he licked her wound closed as if she had ice cream dripping down her arm, from what she had been told by the other vampires who successfully took a bite out of her, the sweetest blood any of them had ever tasted. And he did it, without a second thought, not another taste, bite, nothing. She was appalled, why wasn't she good enough to eat?

The drugs, alcohol, and blood loss that overstimulated her nervous system had tossed her inhibitions of the nearest cliff. Bella's mouth decided to have a mind of its own around this strange vampire.

"If you're not going to eat me, let the fuck go, dude" she slurred, she hadn't noticed the dark edges in her vision while lost in thought aimlessly wondering.

The vampire abruptly stopped and turned to face her, causing the inebriated, woozy human to crash gently into his chest before her vision went dark.