@skeletcnkey (mitchell) continued from long ago
how CRUEL a universe to pit light in an ever constant WAR with darkness. how cruel a universe to bring the two of them together if their now intermingled fate would lead to this. how cruel a universe that KILLER and RESURRECTOR should be one in the same; not a red-headed vampire– a devil in disguise– or a stranger, but a friend, no, that wasn’t quite the word… how cruel a universe, how so very cruel.
tension hangs within every atom of air like the collective gasp of a crowd watching a tight-rope act. there’s no net, NO SAFETY, only what feels like an infinite wrinkle in a strangely mundane timeline.
bella had been the MUNDANE, living a life where her biggest problem was taking care of her mother. and then she had become the performer: she was the new girl and then the one every girl wanted to be, she had fallen into a kind of first love– the kind of love you thought you’d give up your life for, you’d do anything to protect, the love that made you blind to the rest of the world, but so very happy until it would crash and burn around you– and she and felt pain, she had run with wolves and discovered hidden family secrets, she had lost and lost and been tested and tested with trial after trial until she was deemed ready for the main act. and then john mitchell had found her in that alley, a stake in one hand and a battle with a vampire commencing. one had to wonder how different this outcome may have been if it had been anyone else.
this place had been her greatest fears materialized. that night in the woods had played over and over, the ballet studio too. she had watched everyone she cared about murdered, always too slow to save them. she had watched herself become a MONSTER, her being the one to attack. she had even found herself back in forks, happy with Edward until the narrative had begun to change. no, it wasn’t right, he had never wanted her to become one, that had been her. she had been so YOUNG and NAIVE…and he wasn’t the one who she— it had taken that one to fully awaken her, only to find mitchell still under this maze’s brutal influence. and her present state and a stone room filled with blood and tissue was proof enough how that had turned out. maybe he should have succeeded in his efforts to tear into her body. maybe she should have succeeded in plunging that stake into his chest.. or her own. because he had killed her. he had eviserated everything she once was as his fangs butchered her. yes, this place had been her greatest NIGHTMARE, and now, it had made her such as well.
she’d let go of the stake and flown through the air, nearly missing her mark until a hand grips her own and AWAKENS her in a new way. terror courses through her… she feels as if she’s crashing down…. mitchell’s hand holds tight and suddenly she has an almost IRONIC LIFELINE, lips parting as a collective gasp is released from her mind’s imagined crowd.
a single touch, A SHARED SENSATION, and bella is more alive as the undead than she ever had been as a living, breathing teenager. her mind begins to race, scents mingling. some part of her understands they should move on in this god-forsaken maze, that the walls seem to have eyes and if they want out they have to go forward, while another part is suddenly focusing on their joined hands, watching the vein in his wrist and letting her hues move upward, following that blue line. she wants them to leave this place, to SURVIVE this place, but her mind has suddenly become so cluttered, so LOST. this is what it means to be of the darkness, to experience that hunger that drives the undead…
when had she pushed him toward the wall, hands still gripped together?
when had her features shifted again, but this time not out of anger or fear?
eyes widen, her forcing herself a step backward but not dropping his hand. there’s too much happening, too many emotions mixing with scents and hunger and the drive to just escape this HELLMOUTH or whatever one wanted to call this evil place. it all plays across her features as if they are windows into her mind and soul. and the struggle begins again, bella shaking her head frantically and trying to gather CONTROL. she needs to have her mind in the game, she needs to get them both out of there. she needs to feed before her death becomes a true death. before her death becomes her fate.