Deja Vu

Emptiness. Consuming. It pulled you in. There was nothing there. Just eyes, and if you look in them all you see is that there is nothing to see. She is so very empty. Nothing, nothing. Just the nothingness.

The face is vaguely familiar. The only feature unchanged, however, is her chocolate brown hair. Everything else has been devoured. Her skin was always pale, but it is now white. Not fair, not just light-colored, but actually white. It is paler than yours, and the tone of your flesh comes from the fact that no blood runs through your veins. In a human, it is disturbing.

Mirroring again your face, only still more jarring, more unnatural, are the shadows under her eyes. You don’t look at the eyes themselves. They’re too horrible. However, there is plenty of terror in the purple shading beneath them. She looks as though she’s been punched hard in both eyes. You would actually think she’d been beaten if it weren’t for the perfect pale tone of the rest of her skin.

Her features are sunken. Her nose is much longer, to your eye. It’s because of the hollowness in her cheeks, the thin shape that’s replaced her familiar beauty.

Her whole body, in fact, is unrecognizably slender. She was never large, but now she looks malnourished. You can count her ribs through her clothing.

And then you do look at her eyes. You regret it. There is nothing. Nothing. No light. No shine. It hurts to look at.

I know I shouldn’t be seeing this. He’ll be furious. But I can’t get rid of the vision. I want to. It is painful. But it’s so strong. As strong as the first time I saw Jasper, as strong as the seeing that made me give up human blood forever. It is too much for me.

You look around and see something horrible. You know where they’re taking her. It resounds, though you do not really remember. It is familiar in an intrinsic way, like a half-remembered nightmare you wake up from.

A similar-looking older woman takes her hands. She doesn’t react at all. “Now, honey. These people are going to help you get better. You’re going to have to stay with them for a little while. Just until you aren’t sick anymore. All right? I love you, Bella.”

She doesn’t react or respond. The woman sighs. She watches as the girl is picked up on a stretcher by men in white jackets. They carry her out the door of her home. The woman clings to her husband and weeps.

The girl still doesn’t move.

She just sits on the stretcher, staring straight ahead with those awful eyes, clinging to her stomach like she’s afraid her heart will fall out if she doesn’t keep the hands there. You can see the tendons, the bones, poking beneath the colorless skin. It looks sharp enough to break it. She looks so very fragile.

You watch the men load her onto a van. They are regretful. You realize the mother, in the usual way of things, would have taken the girl to the place she’s going… but she can’t move.

Finally, as the door closes, you see her move. Her drained lips move a tiny bit, just enough to let out a tiny moan. It is no word, just a sound. It is full of such unimaginable pain.

The girl is alone in a darkness you remember. You suffered it in another life. It will not happen to her, not to her.

“Edward!” I scream. “I am going to kill you!”