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My first attempt at Twilight FanFiction! I'd love to hear your opinions, so please review. Just to let you know, I've already posted the first few chapters of this story on Twilighted, so future updates will initially come very fast.

The world as I knew it came crashing down when I saw her face. Panic clutched my chest and I found myself unable to move. Were it not for the faint fluttering of her heart, the rasping breaths that issued from her lungs, I would have thought her dead and drowned.

Of course, her skin had always been rather pale, but now her face was ghastly white under a greyish hue, and her lips - the colour of which I remembered as a lovely mixture of red and pink tones - were a horrifying shade of blue. Though she still smelled absolutely enticing, her beautiful brown eyes were now blank and did not move but were fixed on the ceiling right above her. Indeed, only her heartbeats and her uneven breaths indicated that this girl on the bed had not yet departed from this world; everything else about her looked dead. I gasped with pain as the realization of what my departure had done to her hit me square in the chest. I had killed her.

She must have heard me, because suddenly her eyes found mine and after seven months of yearning I lost myself in their depths again. I couldn't move a muscle, and despite her rather strange position on her bed she made no sign of wanting to move either. Her eyes stayed fixed on my face. How could this be the girl I had foolishly left all those months ago? To think I did it to protect her made it obvious that I had never been more wrong. Gone were my faulty reasons for abandoning her, my lies about never having loved her; only her pain, and my guilt, were left.

She was thin, so much thinner than before. The face that stared back at me didn't belong to the Bella I had known; my Bella. Her cheekbones protruded beneath her transparent skin and deep, dark hollows had formed underneath her eyes. I stood staring at her for nearly two minutes and would have done so for a much more extended period of time, had she not suddenly shivered. The movement wouldn't have been discernible by human eyes, but it drew my attention to the rest of her body as it shook slightly on the mattress. The sheets on her bed were wrapped haphazardly around her legs and the shirt she was wearing looked damp, even wet.

My eyes found hers again, and pain swelled up inside me as I saw the immense amounts of devastation and hurt trapped in them. It was unbearable for me to know that I had caused her misery. She shivered again, and this time she was the one to look away first. As she closed her eyes, a cold gust of wind made the curtains around her open window flutter, causing my muscles to finally unlock themselves and stride towards it. But in the few seconds it took me to cross her room, her heart rate accelerated dramatically and her breathing stocked. I was already at the window when she said a single word that made me stop dead in my tracks.

"Don't."

Her voice was no more than a raspy whisper, a harsh contrast with the voice I remembered as being hers in happier times. I turned around and raised my hands, palms forward. A single tear trickled over her cheek as she looked at me. She didn't want me to close her window? Why?

"Don't go," she croaked.

I understood, and a part of me died inside. She thought I was leaving her again. She didn't realise that, now that I had seen her like this, I wouldn't have been able to go, even if she didn't want me to be with her. I needed to make her understand I couldn't leave her again, that I would stay with her forever if I could only fix this.

"Bella, I won't," I whispered. "Please understand, I just want to close the window. Is that okay?"

She didn't answer me, but as I studied her face for any sign of approval I thought I could see the ghost of a smile touching her lips. In the absence of a verbal answer, I decided that her small smile would do too, and I turned again to close the window. The world behind the glass pane was hidden in shrouds of mist; an ensemble of grey asphalt, dark earth and damp trees. The only colour in the street came from the bright red truck parked on the driveway in front of the house. Bella's truck, I thought sadly.

She was shivering constantly now, I could see that in the reflection of the glass. The slight haze in my brain that was brought on by seeing Bella in this state made way for sheer panic; what in the world had happened to her? She was freezing, her clothes and her hair looked wet and she hadn't moved at all since I'd entered her room. Was she hurt? Had somebody hurt her?

"Bella, are you hurt?"

A frown crossed her features. She looked at me imploringly, as if she couldn't understand the question. I carefully sat down beside her on the edge of her bed - making sure not to move too fast and frighten her in the process - and tried again.

"Have you been hurt?"

She replied almost immediately.

"Yeah."

Her tone was slightly patronising, as if she was explaining a very simple concept to a three-year-old. I reached out for her so I could see where exactly she was hurt, but as soon as my hands touched her bedcovers, she shrank back. Her fear stabbed me, but I pushed those feelings back for the moment. Leaning away from her, I raised my hands again, palms forward, and gave another try .

"Bella, where are you hurt? Please, tell me."

Again, she didn't answer but continued to stare at me, the small 'v' between her eyebrows back in place. I was growing more frustrated by the minute; her silence unnerved me. My fear for her became ever more pronounced inside me as I struggled to keep a clear head. Call Carlisle right now, I mentally sneered at myself. Never taking my eyes of her, I took my phone out of my jacket and dialled his number.

He answered after two rings, and greeted me cordially with a hint of surprise hidden beneath the clear, deep tones of his voice. During his greetings, her face turned, unbelievably, even bluer and I was unable to answer my father's inquiries. The colour of her face was distracting, and I remembered the first thought I had had when I saw her today. I had thought her dead and drowned, merely because that conclusion fitted her appearance, but what if that was what had really happened? Had she nearly drowned today?

I froze, phone held in mid-air, my eyes raking over her body once more and seeing the evidence they had until now so ignorantly overlooked. Damp hair, wet clothes, ashen skin, blue lips. Her raspy breaths sounded louder in my ears and her wonderful floral scent was clouded by the smell of salt. I had found my voice again and was speaking fast into the phone when she asked me a question that caused me to halt my conversation with Carlisle once more.

A short first chapter, but future ones will be longer. Next up, Bella's POV.