AN: The characters in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer.
The first two chapters are lead ins to a swap story that I wrote. I hope that you like my lead ins and the story itself. The following entry is a nightmare Rosalie had as a human.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1 - Nightmare
Sometimes things happen that can really scare me. Two days ago, for instance, I was walking into the school building and greeting my friends when I noticed they were staring strangely at me. I looked down at myself wondering if there was something on my clothing, but everything seemed neat and orderly, so I figured that couldn't be the problem. I was accustomed to people turning and staring at me when I walked into a room, but today as I entered the math classroom and everyone turned to stare at me there were no smiles on their faces; instead, I saw looks of shock and disgust. I felt so hurt and confused wondering why everyone turned away and refused to look at me any longer. I leaned forward to ask my friend Amanda what was going on, but rather than answering me, she leaned over her desk for a few minutes and then handed a note back to me, but she never once turned to look at me.
I cautiously unfolded the paper, but it seemed like there were more folds than necessary; it seemed as if Amanda was attempting to hide the words she had scrawled on the scrap of paper. When I finally had it all unfolded, I laid the paper on my desk in order to smooth it out but as I ran my hand over it, I noticed it was blank. I decided to smooth it out with my hand one more time and the letters became visible on the sheet. At first, I couldn't read it because of my hand being in the way, but as I swept my hand past the center, a neatly scripted style sentence in elegant writing became visible:
What have you done to yourself?
I wasn't sure what Amanda meant and didn't have time to ponder her words because at that moment Mr. Grey walked into the class. I thought it was odd because Mr. Grey taught English not math, but I didn't stop to question what was happening.
The first words out of his mouth, as he walked in, were, "Miss Hale, go see the principal now!" It was a command and his tone warned me not to brook any argument, so I slowly gathered my stack of books, which seemed to have grown since arriving in class and even more slowly walked out of the class with every eye in the room following me. As I opened the door and proceeded out, I notice the hallway was a narrow ledge that hugged the side of a mountain. I found myself with my back pressed to the bare stone of the mountain and cautiously slid my feet along the ledge toward the principal office. I avoided looking down as much as possible because when I was a child, heights really bothered me. When I finally reached the office, I apologized to the principal's secretary for being late but she only gave me a horrified look and pointed me toward the principal's door. I slowly progressed into his office not knowing what to expect but confident that it couldn't be too bad because I had never been in trouble before. As I walked over to take a seat, however, I realized something was grievously wrong and my fear was confirmed when the booming voice of the principal yelled, "Miss Hale, how could you come to school looking like that!"
I was at a total loss for words. 'How could anyone be so mean,' I thought as I felt tears slowly welling up in my eyes.
"Did you even look at yourself in a mirror this morning?" he demanded.
I knew I did; I had checked my hair before I walked out of the house and knew I looked fine but instead of defending myself, I discovered my mouth wouldn't open; so I just nodded my head in answer to his question as I fought back the tears that were threatening to spill over the edges of my eyes.
"Miss Hale, I think you're really being impertinent. I will be contacting your parents. You should go to the girl's restroom and see if you can make yourself more presentable."
I sat in shock just staring at him, and when he noticed, he waved his hand saying, "Please remove yourself from my office immediately!"
I felt the tears finally beginning to roll down my cheeks as I got up and walked out of his office. As I exited through his office door, I found myself entering the girl's bathroom, but it was not like any bathroom I ever remembered seeing at my school. In this room, there were floor to ceiling mirrors covering all four walls, and that was all that was in the room. It wasn't the room or the mirrors, however, that made me scream; it was what I saw in the mirrors that ripped a horrified scream from my throat. The scream came from deep inside of my being and echoed violently around the room, and once it started I was unable to stop it, but after seeing the monster in the mirror, I couldn't silence the terror and revulsion that echoed from within me..
What I saw in the mirror was a hideously distorted face. The eyes were uneven and tipped in a downward angle; the brows above them were thick and angled. In fact, they looked like they formed a V over the two-misshapened eyes. The nose was bulbous and red, and the mouth below it was misshapened. On the right side, the corner pulled up, but on the left, it pulled down. In addition to the hideous features, there were also red splotches all over the face, and two large warts, one on the side of the nose and one under the chin on the left side; each had a dark course hair sprouting from it. The monster's only redeeming feature was her long golden hair that flowed down her back. I couldn't even fathom who this monster was, I just knew I couldn't look at her any more. As I turned away, I noticed she also turned away. Maybe, I thought, she couldn't tolerate looking upon my beauty.
I knew I was the most beautiful girl in the school, that was why everyone in the school turned to stare at me, but then I remembered the horrified and disgusted expressions on everyone's faces as they looked my way. 'Why would they do that?' I thought. Then an even more terrify thought occurred to me.
I turned around to find the person who was casting the reflection in the mirror, and I realized no one else was in the room. 'So who is this ugly person,' I asked myself, but no answer was forth coming.
I meditated on the reflection in the mirror as I wandered around in circles, for what seemed like hours, hoping this was some terrible dream and wondered what was happening to me. Finally, I turned back toward the mirrors once more but regretted it the moment my eyes fell upon the monstrosity in the mirror. I watched in horror as it grew two tiny horns on either side of its head, and then noticed the canine teeth extending into pointed fangs that began to drip blood.
At that very moment, I began to scream again. The next thing I knew, I was sitting up in my bed shaking from the shock of what I had seen, and it finally dawned on me that I had been dreaming. No, I realized, not dreaming but experiencing the worst nightmare I ever remembered, and then it struck me – that monstrosity in the mirror was me. With that knowledge, I began to sob.