META, a twilight fanfic

To would-be-plagiarizers: If you like this story enough to entertain the idea of plagiarizing it, I might feel extremely flattered. At first. But then I'll probably feel inclined to bash your head against your computer screen, or stomp on your fingers, deeply regretting not being meaty Felix, conniving Aro, or sadistic Jane. There's not much I can do to prevent you from doing it. I am no Jasper or Carlisle. There is not much I'll be able to do against you once you've done it. I am not Demetri. So I'll go all venomous Rosalie, just telling you that if you can't refrain from such despising petty urges, if you are so weak as to believe the lies you feed your sorry little ego, well then, you have no place here. You have no respect for the readers you cheat, no respect for the story you claim to love. You have no respect for yourself. I'll try and feel sorry for you.

Disclaimer: Nothing Twilight is mine. But this story is now yours to read, in love or whatever. META remains mine in so far as I have written it in accordance with the laws of fanland, intending no copyright infringement, expecting no financial benefit. Any resemblance with any other work of fanfiction at this site or elsewhere is fortuitous. Please, if you have read a similar story somewhere, pm me so that I make sure I am not being redundant.

BlueNote: /!\ Please note the M rating. Read responsibly. Language. Graphic to a certain extent. Violence and injuries associated, at some point, with sexual situations. No rape, cutting or BDSM. There is worse at this site, but there is certainly tamer.

My shout-out to fanfiction. Not your usual Twilight fanfic. POV not signaled. Expect frequent shifts, and even intertwining. You will probably find it confusing. A certain "floating" is okay. If I am half a writer and if you are half a reader, we should be fine. That's a lot of if-s, but that is what this is all about.

~ WITH SPECIAL DEDICATION AND THANKS TO ALL E&B WRITERS HERE ~

––∞(| META |)∞––

by Bluelinote

I remember someone wrote that a beginning was the most delicate thing.
You know what? Whoever the guy was, he was right.
Where had it all begun? And when? How? Why? Was there even a reason?

Besides, when –– or where –– there is a beginning, there is usually an end, isn't there? One before and one after. A Before and an After.
So, the next question would be: what was this... before?
Which in turn supposes you know what this is. Or where. Or when. Or whatever.
Which, obviously, I know... not at all.
And this brings about the most challenging one: who –– or what –– am "I".

You know what? I haven't got a clue.
Which is annoying. Somewhat.
But does it even matter?

I know but very few things actually. I know "I" is –– or am.
Which is, admittedly, a good start. Something to begin with. I think. A good thing.
Pretty slim, though.
I know I think.
Which is another good thing. I think. Cogito ergo sum. Whoever said that, was right, too, apparently. I hope.

So I am a conscience.
Which is better than nothing. I suppose.
But then, I am also body.
Because I am standing here, thinking, about 6"2 above the... floor...? ground? Oh, whatever. So I have got feet and shins beneath those knees. Though I am not sure about the feet and shins. That's just an educated guess.

Just like the rest.
I know plenty of things actually: some basic how to-s, some facts. And tons of words. How to measure hight for example. How to think, breathe, move my body. The fact someone else thought and wrote the words I have just quoted, the fact there is a high, the fact there is a low, the fact I am standing on some sort of coherent surface. On two feet –– though those have been teetering on the verge of the imaginary for quite some... time, now. I know the word "time", for example, the word for head and hand, and fog, and mist, and nothing and shit, fuck, hell. See? Plenty of words.

Plenty of words which are supposed to mean something –– or so says my brain –– but which turn out to mean absolutely nothing. So says "I". Everything I know is devoid of meaning. How-to-s and hard facts and words are rendered useless in this place. Everything I know is void, now, here.

Again, I feel the preposterous need to check.
Right?
Nothing.
Left?
Nothing.
Front?

No, nothing.
How stupid. For a moment I thought I saw something.
I should know better by now.
I don't even bother to turn round. I can only imagine the … void ... emptiness... nothingness... behind me.
I can only imagine it and yet I can almost feel it, as it presses all its airy weight against my back, right there, between my shoulder blades.

This place is tricky.

It's been playing its tricks on me for so long, now, it seems. It is as if this here fed on the very substance of reality, sucking it out of everything I know for real. Like a black-hole. Bar that, like a quiet, foggy... misty –– or whatever –– white-hole. My feet are real, though I can see nothing where they should be. Except the white let's-call-it-that-for-lack-of-a-better-word fog. Following that warped logic, the nothingness I do see all around me may or may not actually not be nothing.

This place is creepy.

The pressure between my shoulder blades, the throbbing in the air, the movements and the swirls I sometimes glimpse out of the corner of my eye, might not all be imaginary.
So says the hair in the static at the nape of my neck.

The prying eyes I think I just imagine with the tingling in my back might not be less real for being figments of abstraction.
So says my brain.

And the voices. All the terrible voices.
Yes, says my mind, they might be real, here.

So, the hole I picture in my chest could be real too.
So says my heart.

And the pain. All the never ending pain.
Yes, says "I". That, I feel, is very real.

This place is not peaceful.

It looks like I am dead. But I am not. Perhaps some "I" has died before this one could begin. I don't know. And, honestly, at this point, I can't find it in me to care any more. I am just tired of this limbo.
But that Old Pete guy is not going to materialize out of the white, twirling a big golden key on a big golden ring around his big pointer finger. No Pearly Gates, here. Plenty of white, yes, but no everlasting peace. Now, with my current experience of one version of the never-ending, I am not sure I like the sound and taste of words like everlasting. I think I have had my share of eternity. I have tasted enough, thank you. It is still bitter on my tongue.
Yeah, something tells me that I should be careful with words conjuring up forevers.
That something also tells me that I should feel relieved that everything around me is so white and not red, that it doesn't smell of sulfur but of wet grass after a spring shower over a meadow. Something tells me that I should be glad that these tongues of white licking at my frame are more vapor than fumes, speaking of liquid in suspension, rather than the native language of the flames. Something tells me that I should be wary of the flames.

Yet, I just don't care.

Because for all I know, I'm mad. Of the raving kind. A lunatic, locked up and bound in a comfy white cell, drooling or foaming at the mouth, snarling and crouching in a corner, or just silently screaming while clawing at the real foam of thick padding and banging my head against very real walls somewhere in the surreal world.
Something tells me that that figment of my imagination is just that, though. A figment of my imagination. "I"would fall asleep at some point. Even the lunatics are allowed a few breaks in their own private asylum.
I don't sleep. I have not once fallen asleep ever since "I" began here.

I am so fucking tired. I wish the pain would go away. I wish the voices would leave me alone. For the thousandth time, I wish I was...

My legs are instantly ripped from under me.

–– shit... ––

I instantly drop to my knees.

… dead.

What little breath my stricken lungs can manage is coming out in short, superficial pants.

I should know better, by now, I think, closing my eyes and sitting back on my heels, waiting for the crisis to pass, back and neck stiff and tense, head tilted far back, mouth open on a silent cry, one hand fiercely clutching the left side of my chest, the other dead and buried in the foggy nothingness.

I so know better than to wish for death in this here. That is the one rule of the place. You are not allowed to die, here. You learn quick enough. Painfully. In your flesh. For this is not the fist time. And each time it is the same. As soon as the thought forms, the ever-present hole in my chest opens wider and plants its teeth around my heart. The ever-present pain just morphs into... Well, that is the one thing I have no word for. It is beyond my abundantly useless vocabulary.

I am petrified.
As usual I fight the impulse to rip off my shirt. I know it's useless. No point in just ending up shirtless.
As usual, I beat back the crazy urge to claw at my chest. Claw and rip and shred. No point in just going on bloodless. Something tells me I have already lost enough.
And I resist the insane need to dig down elbow-deep inside of me, tear out fistfuls of my own flesh just to finally get to that thing for which I have no name, but which is heartily chomping on my heart.
I want to kill it because, for all its imaginary nature, that thing is very really killing me alive, since, here, I cannot die.

And this is how I wait for the agony to pass, hissing shaky shallow breaths through clenched teeth, imagining how the nameless will squirm and writhe when I squeeze it in my fist. Imagining how it will pathetically squeak, when I bury my nails in its throat. Imagining how patiently I will pull out one after the other of its myriad teeth. Imagining the gurgles it will make when I slowly make it choke. Imagining my teeth biting off its tongue. Imagining the taste of its blood on my own. Imagining the feel of its flesh between my fingers as I relentlessly squish it. Imagining how its bones will scream and grind as I twist its neck. Imagining the sound when they finally give way and just snap. Imagining my tongue licking its blood off my drenched fingers. Imagining how its body will twitch and jerk when I bury my teeth in it. Imagining my teeth heartily chomping on its heart. Imagining my mouth sucking all of its blood. Imagining myself drinking all of its life to make up for the one it has drained out of me. Imagining myself lifting up this bloodied cup to better drain it of the last of the bitter drops.

This is how, each time, I kill the pain, making its death real by imagining the many ways I would end its existence...
Imagining.
Imagining.
Imagining, imagining, until ultimately, it dies.

This time again, it does. But as usual, not quite. Its death is only just a sleep. Its heart is still throbbing in the hole in the left side of my chest. And I am still alive. As I would be here, because dying here is not an option.

Of course there's the watch-dog pain. Very efficient, that one. But there's one even more efficient deterrent: no real way to actually die here. Not a tree, not a cliff. No stones, no knives. No guns, no silver bullets. No roads, no Volvos, no vans. No man, no beast, no any thing to help your number move up the casual list of fatality.
I. Just. Cannot. Die.
Not even the Pain can kill me. Believe me, I've tried, this being the only potentially lethal thing available. I just kept provoking and taunting it into getting out of control, keeping on thinking the forbidden thought over and over and over while the thing feasted on my heart. It just hurt like hell and I still live to tell the story. If you can call this living. I am so screwed. I can't even starve myself to death. I don't eat and I am still here to feel my empty stomach. I haven't eaten a thing ever since I landed here. Except my nails. But you can't call that food. I think I am hungry. Then, I am hungry all the time. With nothing to eat, and no way to die. Peachy.

I am just stuck here where I am the only thing around. Something tells me I am not even human. Not even a beast. Am I –– is "I" –– even someone? Something tells me I am, but I am not sure. I have nothing to compare myself with and make an educated guess about my true nature. Or about my reality, for that matter. I have been the only thing here for such a long time...

I am so fucking tired of this whole thing.
I wish I could just sleep, I think as I slump down to lie curled up on my side.
The fog is closing down on me. I am buried alive, now.
I close my eyes. What good are eyes, when there is nothing to see?
If only I could...

... sleep. Just sleep.

Please.

I am so fucking tired.

So, so …

… tired.

I am so fucking tired.

I wish I could …–– Yeah, yeah. I know better. Been there, done that.

And hungry. I am so hungry it hurts. But I am good with pain. Now. After so long. I know there's is nothing I can do about the one in my chest, but it is totally frustrating to know that the one in my belly is totally curable. All it would take is a good helping of carbs. What I would do for a cheeseburger! At this point, I think I am not above killing someone. Or something –– if such things could only exist here. I've got a feeling that I should not think that. Being a killer feels out of character, somehow. It is not me. Whatever that means, whoever that is, –– or was. I don't know.
I just know there's only emptiness brimming with fog and pain. The dull throbbing Pain in my chest and the raw pains of my thirst and hunger combined. Yes, I am thirsty, too. I don't know how I know that for a hard fact, but I am. I also know that the chance for a golden double arch to appear like a beacon in all that fog and all that pain is about as fat as the possibility of me being dead and buried, and this being heaven, or hell, or any crappy mix of every possible brand of eternal afterlife put together. Seriously, would even a shitty apple be too much to ask for?
Yeah, apparently. Don't even know why I'm bothering to ask. Should know bett–

I suddenly turn on my heels, whipping my head around, peering at the unbroken nothingness.
Right. Front. Left...
Nothing, of course.
But I swear I felt something.
Yeah. just like all the other times.
I am not imagining things. Imagining is dangerous here. It is safer to assume that there was something. So that it can mean nothing.

I should be proud of myself. I have become quite good with the reverse reasoning thing. I think I'm beginning to get the logic of the place. Not its meaning, mind you. Just how it works.
But knowing how it works doesn't make it any less creepy.
And this place has been creeping me out for a long time, now. I think. I guess. I don't know.
Creepy as in scary, or as in dangerous.
Knowing this, makes it even more so.

Yeah, I am scared. But I got used to that, too, somehow. I must be a natural when it comes to weird and creepy. I'm good with all that shit, now. Sort of. Which is not good because compartmenting things away, in neat little packages of anguish at the back of my mind, only means I am bored out of it. My mind, that is. I must be crazy. Maybe I am. And maybe not. I am what I am. Which means a pretty whole lot here, given I am the only feature of the place. Or it may mean nothing at all, depending on which logic you apply.

There is one sure fact though: I have had enough of this place!
I. Want. Out!
"Uncle!"

"…" says Fog.

"Yield!"

...

"You hear me?"

...

"You guys won!"
"Just end the fucking game! Now!"

...

"Please?"
"Hey, God? Satan? Fate?... Sick Fuck? Bitch?"

...

"Let me out!"
...

"Let me out, or I swear I'll––" What? Kill myself?
Snort.

Yeah, yeah. I know better. Been there, done that. The guy who invented this place must have had some serious issues. No time frame, sleep and food deprivation, isolation, mental stress, physical pain, derealization, no possibility of escape whatsoever. Even in death. All the ingredients are there. This is torture and sadism brought to the finest degree of perfection.
The final degree of perfectly crazy.

And I know better than to just shout around at emptiness. There are no gods, or their arch-antitheses, nothing remotely mystical, here. No sense, no meaning. No-one.
I know better than to just sit on my imagined ass with just my head sticking out of the fog, like an island of nonsense in the featureless nothing.

So I stand up, slap imaginary dirt off my newly rematerialized bottom and walk. That's one of the few things I can do here, and I have this weird feeling that I can do them because they make no sense.

Think –– Check.

Abuse Gods –– Check.

Sit around –– Check.

Lie down –– Perhaps later.

Walk –– In progress.

I could run, too, or jump, or do somersaults and cartwheels. There would be no-one to laugh at me when I land on my ass. But no, no stunts for me, thank you. Walking is already hard enough when you can't see your feet.

So, as per usual, I just walk. And walk. On.
I have walked a lot, so far.
I have walked so far already.
Only to land in a "there" which was no different from the "here" where I started out so long ago. –– Started out. Humph! Phrase's a gem. More like started in. Fucking fog.
This is just such a long ass stroll. It is worse than walking in a desert. There is perspective there. A line you can keep your eyes on. A horizon. A direction. A goal to reach which you will reach if you just keep walking on. There is no "there", here. There is just here over and over again. However far I walk, however long, there is no there to reach, no horizon. The spot I have just left is no different from the one my left foot is landing on just now. There's no starting point. No finish line. I feel like a lab rat running figures of 8 on a twisted track. With no yummy treat as a reward in the end. Because here there is no end.
So, I never run any more. I know better. I am a brilliant lab thing. A brainy rat... Mouse. Thing. Sometimes I wish I weren't. Thinking is a pain. I would rather be oblivious to the whole thing. I would just be and think nothing of it. I would just take the thing in stride. No questions asked. But then my brilliant brain reminds me that perhaps I am oblivious. Perhaps I have been here before. Perhaps I have been on this walk before. Perhaps I have lived that endless day a thousand times already. I have in fact, in my current state of consciousness. But this is perhaps a repeat of the last time I was conscious that I was conscious of being oblivious of another time when here was just the same as now, though it was a different here, a there and then, now back in time, before this here and now... This is crazy. I know better than to board that train of thought.

So, whenever I get sick of just thinking, whenever I have had enough of sitting around, whenever I get tired of lying around, pretending I am asleep or even dead, whenever I can't take the pain anymore because it is the only point of focus available, I walk. And walk. On. And on. And on. No change of batteries needed. Mine never die. I am pretty low maintenance for a lab thing –– perhaps a rabbit, then, rather than a mouse ––. Is this why I have been chosen? If this is some sort of sick experiment. If I have been chosen. Have I? And if it is, why me?
I don't know. I know better than to stay long on board that other train of thought. I know it is better to focus on my feet.

Right
Here.
Left
Here.
Right
Here.
Left
Here.
Right
Fog stirs.
Left
That was something.
Right
So it is nothing.
Left
Walk on.
Right
Walking makes no sense.
Left
So walking is something.
Right
Walk.
Left
This place is spooky.
Right
Shut up.
Left
Just walk.
Right
Just walk.
Walk
Walk
Where is that fucking wall?
Walk
There must be a wall at some point.
Walk
When is that fucking wall?
Walk
There must be a wall some place in time.
Walk
The fog is something.
Walk
It must be contained within some other thing.
Walk
So there's a wall.
Walk
There will be.
Walk
If I imagine there is one.
Walk
How far is that fucking wall?
Walk
I am tired of walking.
Walk
It could be anywhere.

This is not the first time I have thought that thought, of course. It is as sustaining as it is maddeningly frustrating. It gives me a goal, but no direction. That wall could be right there, not two feet away to my left. Or over there, a few yards to my right. Or further away straight ahead, or miles and miles in my back. Perhaps the further I walk, the further I get from the nearest part of it. The thought is dizzying and always incapacitating. It forces my feet to a halt while I am masochistically torturing my brain over tortuous chess moves. Once more, I end up paralyzed on the spot, caught in the throes of indecision, not daring to choose any direction.
And then I remind myself that this here could just be in my head, and that my head could just be rhythmically meeting one of the four walls of a cell. The concept of my lunacy usually does the trick. There is no point in being crazy if I am not going to be thorough. So I move my feet and just walk on, imagining that, at some point, I will meet that wall I am picturing in my head. So, I just walk, avoiding making any conscious decision. On and on I walk, because only walking makes sense here. Moving on. Putting one feet in front of the other. Even if you can't see where. That is reality here.
Right
This makes perfect sense.
Left
It is perfectly consistent with the flawed logic of the place.
Right
Just walk.
Left
There is a wall.
Right
I'll find that wall.
Left
Just walk.
Right
Walk.
Left
wall.
Right
walk.
Left
Wal–– Shit!

I'm free falling forward in a second of frozen eternity

No way! I think.

Pain explodes in my head and I limply slide down the thing it has just met.

" Hello, w.. " slurs my voice in a weak whisper.

And then all the white goes black...

…

My head hurts. It is as if a heart had grown up there, out of nowhere, and was pounding away the seconds. I would definitely enjoy being able to finally keep some track of time, if the hands of that particular clock were not operating like sledgehammers.

Elbows on my bent knees, I grunt, cradling my head into my hands.

I should be used to pain. New ones should be nothing new. Especially when there is far better to consider in the novelty department.
The kind of new at the foot of which I am sitting. The kind of novelty my back is currently leaning against. I would definitely relish the feeling of my spine actually being propped against something, some pretty solid thing at that, if only my head were not so solidly hurting after its unexpected meeting with this solid evidence of there at last being something. And the voices! Shit! It is as if they have grown solid, too. They're like mad bullets ricocheting around inside my bones. I can't stop my hands and my face from twitching each time one –– or a thousand –– impacts the walls of my cranium. It is all pounding and whining and screaming and booming and pain up there. What I would do for Tylenol! Maybe kill someone. Yeah, could do. Definitely. I have reached such a low that I might not be above that any more.
Since Tylenol will not appear out of the white, I'll kill the pain by ignoring it. I'll think about something much more interesting. Something like that wall, for instance. Because that is a good start. That is something.

I have found a wall.
A fucking wall. An end to the nothing. This here is finite. I had not dared think long enough to allow that thought to fully form. I was always too aware of how easily its razor-sharp double-edge would bleed my relative hopes. But here it is. There is something, at last.

There is a wall.
It is very real. Because I can hardly see it. It is white, as if the fog had solidified.
It is very hard. I have pushed my finger against it to test it. I have launched the whole weight of my body at it. I have kicked it. It has yet to yield.
I've already spent ages running my fingers over its surface. It is smooth. Flawlessly polished. It feels like glass. But it smells and tastes like stone. Yes, I have smelt and even licked it. Sue me.
Whoever built this, is a genius. This wall is a masterpiece. The joints are barely discernible. You have to stick your nose to it to make them out, like very fine silvery-white veins. It is beautiful.

It is frustrating.
Because it is a wall. A double-edged wall. A limit on both sides. An end and a beginning at the same time. A limitation and an invitation. Because the only thing you can think about when you meet a wall – beyond the painful first impression –– is what can lie beyond.

You know what? I haven't got a clue. But I am dying to find out. I can't get enough of new, now. I am addicted. I just need to find a door. A window. A hole. A lose joint. I know it is too much to ask for a ladder or a tree. There are only 3 things here. The fog. I. The wall. Which is one thing more than there was before, but I have a feeling that asking for more would be too much. The fog can't be of any use, here. If anything it is a nuisance, what with being the same color as the wall, it only hides important things like actual height, length, doorways, windows, holes... I highly doubt it would kindly oblige and solidify into stairs at my will. So it has to be the wall. Or me. If I can't find a door or a window or a hole, I will just have to make one.
Yeah, good luck with that.

Let's be optimistic. At some point there will be a hole. Why wouldn't there, now? After all, here, at the far end of the Fog, there has been a wall.
I just have to walk. Patiently. On. Just walk.
And so I walk, steadily, ignoring the pounding in my head, my parched throat, my empty stomach, the terrible voices. I just walk, putting one foot in front of the other, following my hand as it feels our way along the featureless wall. As I steadily walk, I also try to ignore the fact that the pain in my chest is growing with each step I take. There's a yearning there which was not there a second –– or an eternity –– before. There is something to be found on the other side of that wall. I have to find that door. That window, that hole. So says another hole on the left side of my chest.

...

Okay. One more time. Left. Right. Left. Wall.
Fucking wall.
Fucking walls, I should say.
This place is crazy and not just slightly frustrating. It bores you to death with ages of nothingness, has you dying for a change, only to drive you out of your mind with irritation by throwing nothing but walls in your face –– quite literally, says my head ––, when change actually occurs.

I am definitely that lab mouse. Except I am in a maze, now, apparently, with absolutely no idea as to how I entered it in the first place. How could I miss the door? Well, it must have been huge or wide enough to allow the fog to swallow up its frame. I guess.

I am already tired of this new here.
New gets old pretty fast here. Here now is just another version of here. With a lot of walls. And a lot of fear.
I am deadly scared of the place. Down right terrified.
It is scarier than when it was just the fog. Yeah, the fog is apparently a permanent guest here. Or rather, it's the host, and I have just been ushered into its dungeon. The concept is totally absurd. It sounds like a stupid horror movie, or something.

Or something. Definitely.
Because, there are more things around here than just me, the fog, the walls. I feel eyes on me, now. All the time. My hair stand on end on a permanent basis and my arms are covered in goose bumps. My skin seems to have acquired a life of its own, rippling with wave after wave of chills of terror. The reverse logic doesn't work any more. I see things. I hear things, too. And they feel real. Whatever I tell myself, I can't convince my brain. This here is lethally real.
There are shadows moving in the fog. They are just blurs and streaks in my peripheral, but they are there. The fog swirls in their wake. Their wake brushes the hairs on my arms backwards. I hear people. Each time I round a corner to bump into yet another wall, I hear screaming and yelling. They are always different. At times, it is an insane peel of laughter, at others it is a snicker or a sneer. I have even heard someone jeering. Sometimes the voices are female, sometimes male. Some are like honey and velvet and silk and warmth; others cut like flint and claws and knives. Some are rough and loud. Others meek, and sweet and shy. One in particular makes all my blood run cold. It is sickeningly mellow and merry. Its sounds wrong. So, so wrong, that it is as though my life freezes in my veins.
They don't always sound that bad. I tried to follow the echo of a tinkerbell-like soprano. Once or twice, too, there's been this booming boyish one. It's like an explosion of mirth shattering. It seems that one could shatter even the fog. Almost. But then, it's even spookier in the context. A couple of the voices are achingly soothing. Each time I hear those I can't help feeling safe. And it terrifies me all the more, because my brain, and every cell in my body, just keeps yelling at me not to trust it. This could be one more trick, one more illusion. A lethally real one.
At intervals I can hear a bell ringing, furniture being moved around and the stampede of hundreds of feet on the move. There's shuffling and rustling.
There's also something like the constant patter of rain in the background. And the sound of wind. Loud cracking, like thunder claps. Pictures of dark forests peopled with the creaking of ancient tree limbs keep on popping up in my head. I can't help visualizing them in the storms, complete with the usual lightning pyrotechnics.
I hear screeching. Sounds like metal being torn. Things crashing. The ground sometimes shakes under my feet and the walls reverberate all this in confusing echoes under my shaking fingers.

I am going to die here. Really die. For real. My body will not take any more. The hunger and the thirst alone are nearly driving me insane. Their added aches are barely manageable, now, but the one in my chest is trying to swallow me from the inside. The hole is reaching out, pulling me in. I don't know how I can still stand, let alone walk. But this place is hungrier, thirstier and achingly emptier than I am. It is all the emptier for being so full. It has to be fed. I hear it in the growls. I am the prey for whatever beast born out of the emptiness is lurking around the walls of this crazy keep and I am bound to-
Holly shit!
Shit, shit, shit! That's new. What kind of...
f-f-
beast...
is riding that...
Howl.
Oh. Crap. A wolf. A fucking wolf.
I suppose some kind of Minotaur would have been too cliché.
Oh, God, there's more than one.
One wasn't enough. The place has to go overboard, again.
I am screwed. I am going to die, here.
Sure as fuck, I'm gonna die.
My number has always been up.
I'm gonna die.
I don't wanna die.
I don't wanna die.
I don't wanna die.
I don't wanna die.
Somehow, I'll survive this thing.
I. Don't. Want. To die.
I'll survive. Somehow.
I'm. NOT. Going. To die.
I have to survive.
I don't know how.
But I swear I will. I will. I will.
I 'm not gonna die here.
…

Will.

Survive.

I will outlive this place. I will, I swear. I've walked an eternity to find that wall. I've walked another eternity along that hellish wall to find that door –– gate rather; definitely larger than a window, or a hole ––, only to find that beyond that wall there was a wall, and another one beyond that. The place is just as packed full of walls on every side as it was crammed full of nothing before. It's maddening. How many doors are there? How far apart? How big is this thing? Probably vast. Here has its own scale, far beyond the common limits of time and space. And I have now walked yet another eternity amidst that petrified forest of perfected fog. What if there is no way out?

You know what? I have this nagging feeling that there is no way out. Something tells me that this is the place where things really begin and end. The nothingness was just foreplay. Labyrinths are not meant to be crossed. They're meant to be penetrated and if they don't kill you beforehand, they're meant to reveal what is at their core. If you deserve it.

Fuck, this is a trial. I think. I am not supposed to come out.

Fuck. I hope it is worth it.

Better be worth it. Damn it.

This had better be worth the raging Pain ripping my chest open. Whatever I find at the heart of this fortress of the absurd –– or whatever finds me around the next invisible corner –– had better be worth the blood the shadows have drawn from my body. This had better be worth a life. Whatever life I have.

I can't think straight anymore. Everything just burns and aches. And I am lost. You can't possibly be more lost than I am. In the normal order of things, you end up lost. Me? I started lost and now, I am losing myself. Losing my self. Whoever –– or whatever –– that is. Was. Could be. Could have been. Whatever.

I am going crazy, hearing and seeing things. Even smelling impossible things. Is this real? Could this be only a nightmare? Could this eternity somehow just be encapsulated in a few hours in between two sunny days? If so, please, I want to wake up. I want to wake up before this horrible dream kills me. Because it is killing me. The screeching van was just a blur of fog but the sound I heard was the scream of crushed metal and crushed bones. My bones, twisting, splintering, snapping, breaking, shattering and screaming in the pain that instantly fried my every cell. The red staining my vision, is my blood. My. Blood. I am losing so much blood, it's scary - and just as insanely absurd, because I should have died at least ten times already, just by losing more than once my 5 or so pints of red life. I am covered in bruises and scratches and bites and gashes. I am not even sure who or what inflicted them to me.
It's the fog. Whatever it is, it is in the fog. It is in the deafening voices and the beastly snarls. It is in the swirls and the blurs in my peripheral vision. It is in the static raising all the hairs on my body. It is in the smells.

I am so weak, it is a wonder I can still move. But despite, the howling pains in my body, despite, the madness in my head, despite my shaking limbs, somehow, I'm still standing. Somehow, I am still putting one foot in front of the other.

I find myself chuckling at the thought of the red trail I am leaving behind me. No white pebbles for me. No thread from any girl of whatever name. Just a jagged line of little red dots on the white ground to feed the fog. Just the red, red shadows of my hands and fingers left behind to feed the white shadows licking up the walls. I am a sacrifice to some kind of demented God. Or whatever.

This had better be worth it. Damn it.

I don't know why I am still stubbornly walking. I wanted to die before I found the wall but I couldn't. Then the wall got me curious. Paradoxically, now that there's no point in going on, now that I am going to die, some way or other, since apparently I have been brought here to do just that, now that my dying is at last a very feasible possibility, I find out that I desperately want to live. Something in me refuses to let go of the last strand of the lifeline. Something at the center of the hole in my chest is pulling me on. Something is tugging at my brain. Something is keeping me just sane enough to go on in spite of everything.
It is in the fire raging in my throat.
It is in the intoxication of the smell I am only half consciously tracking.
This one is not the stench accompanying the growls before the stinging bites.
This one is the beautifully painful one, the one my body craves and loves, the one that bathes my throat in beautiful red flames.
This one is the one that keeps me alive.
And it is growing stronger with every wobbly step I take.
It's there.
It's there.
Just there.

Nearly there.

Just around the next corner.

…

It's there.
There.

Right there.

Just around the corner.

I have no way to escape. There are walls on three sides.
It's there.
I can hear it. Shuffling. Closer.
I can smell it. Closer, closer.
Oh, that beautiful scent! Everything in me is yearning for its sweetness. It is as if I needed it. I can feel its pull. The last remaining shred of my sanity is roping my body to the ground, forcing it to resist the terrible attraction.
It is a trick. A deadly trap. Nothing is as it appears here. I have to remember that.
Anyway, the thing is coming closer. It has found me. It is coming for me.
I am a sacrifice.
I am going to die.

I don't want to die anymore. I want to live whatever life I have left. Which is not that much, judging by the amount of blood pooling at my feet. I am covered in my own blood. I have survived so many terrible things, already. Perhaps one more cannot kill me more. Or can it?
I clench my fist tighter around the piece of stone I have spent ages prying off one of the fucking walls after some hurtling blur of fog had crashed into it. Whatever it was missed me by a hair's breadth but cracked the wall enough.
It hurts. My fingers are raw from the scraping at joint and cutting stone. But I can draw strength from this pain. It is mine. So I clutch the piece of rock tighter. I need its force to make up for my weakness. I will fight whatever is coming at me. I will not end up a cheap snack.

Soon. Too soon.

The shuffling gets nearer.
It is nearly there.
The scent is getting so strong, it is so heady, it's making me dizzy.
I can hear the thing sniff its way toward me.
Shit. It can smell me, too.
I crouch lower, all my muscles ready to uncoil. I feel a feral growl fighting its way up my scorched throat. I am as much a beast as the thing which is coming for me. Whatever it is.
I am whatever I have become.

Nearly there.
Two steps
I can feel its warmth - How can that even be possible?

I can sense its terror. Or is it just mine boucing back at me, reverberating between fog and walls and it?
One step
It is here.
The scent is here.

As soon as it rounds the corner I am flying, a fierce snarl tearing through my cracked lips.
As soon as I round the corner I am flying, a wild roar ripping its way up my parched throat.

I can only smell...
Red...
I can only see
green
brown
red
brown
bronze.
I can only smell
blood
him
her
blood.

I am not fast enough he
catch her in mid air.
We crash deafeningly.
He crushes me. More pain. I can't suppress my agonized scream.
Her scream, her body. Their realnes is a shock.
God! He is real and solid. Like my piece of stone. I give my punch all I've got.
More of my blood flies in front of my eyes as more pain explodes on the left side of my face. I roll away from the wild thing that has just hit me.

More broken bones. My fingers, now. My back to the wall, I am trying to breathe. I am wheezing. Not good. Each breath is making my broken ribs scream. I feel blood in my mouth. Definitely not good.
Christ! The pain! The pain! How come I am not dead from the sum all it, already? Blood is running freely down my torn cheek. Another something broke when I landed. But now, it hardly matters anymore. Because there's only her. Her of the Red Blood. Of the red skin. Of the red scent. And I want her. She all I kknow, now, all I want. Her. Her, her, her.
And so, I lunge again.

The pain is nothing, now. It is unreal. there is nothing else now. Because there's only him. There's only Real and him, and Red and Him, and nothing left but him. Nothing else but Him. Him is all I want. Him is all I need. I launch myself at his throat the moment I see the blur of his attack.
We collide and plummet to the ground. Yet, more pain. Yet more broken bones. We both scream.

He is so real in his scream. So real. Someone's sobbing.

We lie on the ground covered in our blood and fog.
She is tightly wound around me.
He is wrapped all around my body.
I can't move. Everything is red.
I can't move. Everything is pain.
Everything is pain. Real
Everything is real. Need.
Everything is need. Blood
Everything is Red. Everything is Him
Everything, everything is Her
Everything is
skin.
Everything.

Our mouths are at our wounds.
Licking blood on his cheek. Lips sucking blood on his lips.
Tongue licking blood on her fingers
Fingers kneading my body. Hands like fists in his hair, pulling fiercely.
She is so real.
Need real. He is skin.
Need her skin.
Skin needs him.
Tongue painting her skin white as I lap all the red away.
Fingers drawing white mazes all over his red body. Tongue erases walls in their wake of my hands.
Drowning in her scent, her blood, her body, her, as push through the last walls, dive into her core. And drown and drown and drown.
He is the anchor, he is the rock. Real, solid, there. The force I needed. The one that can ground me.
Drowning, drowning. Rocked and soothed in her warmth, bathed, by the clear waters her in her depths.
Real. So real. We are real. We are making it real.
I can hear him,
my soul. She
is everything.
Together we drown.
Together we fall.

…

She is still sleeping.

Somehow we have left the maze. There's no fog here. Everything is light and clear. The madness has left me. I can think clearly.
I can only think of her.
That is a good thing. I am sure. The best place to start.

She is still here. With me. She is still real. I feel the weight of her head as it rests in the crook of my elbow. Her hair is a weightless caress on my skin. I feel her warmth suffuse me as I am spooned around her. I can feel her pulse in her neck. I can smell her intoxicating scent. I can't believe how crazed it made me. I can't believe I was that thing that attacked and ravished her. I can't believe the serene creature sleeping in my arms was that wild animal who attacked and ravished me. I bend my ear to her bare chest. She is so peaceful, now. I can hear her heart beating under her soft breast. My lips brush the sensitive skin there. I am so at peace, now, too. She is so beautiful. Her skin is dazzlingly perfect. Dazzlingly white. Mine, is, too. Our wounds have healed while we were sleeping. Somehow.

How long? How long have we been sleeping? God, I never thought I would sleep again. Was it all just a dream, then? It seemed to last for ages on end. It seems we both had to endure painful eternities of lonely wandering before finding each other. And then it seems we spent an eternity making whatever it was we have been making. The kissing. The... mating. The connection. Whatever we do or live, we don't do short, apparently. Or soft.

I still can't believe all this is real. I can't believe we did what we did. I can't believe we... drank... each other, literally feeding off one another. I still remember the taste of her blood. My throat constricts, my tongue reflexively darts out to lick my lips.
How can this be real? I don't know what real is anymore. God, if this is a dream, please, I don't want to wake up ever again.

The girl in my arms sighs and moves slightly. Her leg shifts along mine. A deep hum of pleasure escapes me. Her eyes flutter open. She blinks at the bright light. A little confused frown creases her brow. She looks adorable. Her teeth are nibbling at her lower lip. My hand comes up to her mouth and my thumb delicately tugs on her lip –– the perfect lip I have pierced and sucked on –– capturing her attention, drawing her to me.
Yes, love, I am here. Come back to me.
Her head rolls on my arm. The feel is incredible. My eyes roll back under my eyelids as I close them to revel in the sensation, taking a deep slow blissful inhale at the same time. When I open my eyes again, it is only to lose myself in those soulful brown orbs of hers. She rolls over a some more to better face me. Her raised hand lands feather-soft fingers on my healed cheek.

"You're beautiful"

We both laugh as we said the words in sync. I love the laugh in her eyes.

I can only see his eyes. So green. I can only see his face, so, so beautiful. Achingly so. I can only see his skin. His beautiful skin –– the skin I pierced and tore with teeth and nails. It is no longer red. It is no longer open or raw. It is so pale, so …
"You're sparkling!"
"You are, too."
"Where are we?"
"I don't have a clue. And I don't really care as––"
"long as I am here with––"
"you..."
"you."
Her hand cups my face. I lean further into her touch. I'm putty under her fingers. I still need it. I will always need it. The dialog of our skins. My fingers mirror the actions of hers.

My skin recognizes his. My fingers kiss his face. He kisses my fingers. I remember his lips sucking on them, his tongue swirling around and licking them white again. I remember my nails leaving desperate furrows in his scalp, as I now trail my fingers upward to let them run through his amazing hair. The same matted hair I clung so fiercely to, now clean and soft, all shiny copper and warm gold. I can't believe he is mine. I can't believe I am his. How could I ever think I was alive before? I can't believe we found each other. I can't believe we did what we did. I can't believe
"I drank your blood..."
"I drank yours. Guess we're even."
"You're silly. This is just so..."
crazy... And yet, it feels so real. His warmth, his breath in my hair, his pulse under my fingers, where my desperate mouth has been sucking his force and his reality for an eternity. The firmness of his body pressing into mine. The way we just fit as if he were made for me, and I for him. A perfect match.
I am losing myself in his perfection. The serene grin, a little crooked. The green vibrant waters of his eyes. God, I
"Love you"
Again we spoke together.
"So, so much." He adds.
"So, so more." I say.
"Even more."
"Always."
"So stubborn." He just says slightly shaking his head, his signature smile pulling one corner of his mouth up.
"Of course." I say "How do you think I survived long enough to find you."
"You don't remember clearly. I found you."
"Perhaps, but you took your sweet time."
"You didn't make it easy."
"It wasn't, was it?"
"No, it was everything but easy. Damn worth it, though."
"We nearly died."
"Were we only alive before?"
"I used to think so. Now I am not so sure any more.
"I don't know either. But this feels–– " He started, lifting a lock of
her hair to my nose.
"Real" she completed as
he took a deep inhale. "Even if it is a dream." he added
taking in her scent.

"Then it is a beautiful dream." I conclude, snuggling deeper
into me, pressing every inch of her body as close
to him as I can.
"That, it is." He just said, locking his arms around
Her. "Let's make the most of it, then"
"while it–– She started, itching her leg up around
his waist, pulling
my head up toward her. "Shhhh, don't..." I shush her.

And then, and there, there is only silence. And deep soft drawn-out kissing, each of us too rapt in the sensation of the other's reality to simply care about
"Stupid theories."
And then, and there, there is just fingers roaming over flesh. And tongues licking skin. And panting.
And flesh meeting flesh. And teeth and nails meeting skin. And moaning.
And flesh sucking on flesh. And groaning.
And flesh moving into flesh. And soft growling.
And flesh drawing rivers in the sparkling flesh. And pleading.
And flesh pounding into flesh. And red, red blood coating tongues. Sweet and thick and beautiful.
Until flesh melts into one.
Until flesh and bones and blood and hearts explode into souls.
Soaring.
Screaming.
Real and free and together.
One.
Forever.

...

"You're purring" She says later –– much, much later –– her
lips brushing the healed skin over his heart.
"So are you." He chuckles, squeezing his hand lightly around our interlaced fingers.
And I am.
"I can't believe we can even do that."
"Weird, isn't it? I quite like it, though."
"Love it. But it is still weird. What do you think we are?"
"Not a clue. We are. That is enough."
"Do you think that, perhaps, we did die?"
"We did. In a way. It is a little theory of mine."

"Oh, you have theories, now? "

"Hm-hm. I had a lot of time to think. It is about beginnings and ends."
"The end of a dream, the beginning of another."
"A dream within a dream."
"Because that is all that we see or seem?"
"You know that?"
"Oh, c'mon, don't you look so surprised. Someone else wrote that."
"True. Can't remember who, though."
"Does it matter?"
"No. Only you matter. " I sighed wrapping myself even more tightly around her. I wish I could take the whole of her inside of me.
"Only you. No matter what." I can't seem to get close enough. I want to crawl into his skin. I want him inside of me, again, again, again. Always. I want to be
with her. She is here, though. We are here. And this here and this now is so much better. But I swear it is not enough. I want her.
I want him...

… so much, it
aches.
"I need you" we both say.
"So much"
"It burns"
I know, dearest.
"Does it mean that we are alive?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. We just is."
"That is fine by me."
"I am still affraid, though. Because –– "
"There is always –– " The tips of his fingers shush my lips.
"No. No end, love. Just beginnings."
"I don't want new. I don't want this us to change."
"I am scared, too, but can't you feel this between us?"
I can just nod against his skin, my throat choking back sobs. Yes, I can feel it. The connection. The pull. The crackling static each time we touch. The longing for his skin, each time our hands part.
"I can't …"
I can't lose him. I can't. I can't. Please. Please. Please, don't take him away from me.
"We are bound. Nothing can keep us apart." I have to be strong for her. I want to believe this. This has to be real. Please. Please. Please. Don't take her away from me. I can't lose her again. I just got her.
My heart is bleeding at the sight of her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. She is as scared as I am. We both know how tricky this place is. We both know we can't trust it. And yet, I can't help hoping. This place has led me to her. It made sure I deserved her.
"You are worth it, too. I'll do it all over and over again, if it means, that in the end, I get to have you. But I am still so scared of losing you. I'll just die."
I keep forgetting she reads me like an open book.
"I will endure it all for you. Everything. I will go through fire, if there is a chance to find you on the other side. But look, I am here and I am not going anywh–– " I trail off.

He feels it, too. God it is real, then. It is too late. Too late. No, please. No. Please. Please. Please. Please...

I understand why she is so frightened. For suddenly, I am terrified, now, too. I watch the tear helplessly roll down her cheek. I watch her eyes gradually widen, her pupils dilating with knowing fear. I am sure my eyes mirror her abject terror as the truth gradually dawns on me. For I can feel it, too, now, what she has been feeling before I registered it within my own body –– No. No. Please. Please. Please... ––, the slow building up of the pain in my chest as if someone was most carefully slicing through it with a razor-thin blade. The arms that are supporting me above her are uncontrollably shaking.
She whimpers under me.

I know, love. I can almost hear the silky parting of my flesh under the blade. I can almost hear her heart bleeding.

"No,no, no,no, no." He keeps muttering, slowly shaking his beautiful head in denial. My hand loses itself in his beautiful hair. I am lost in his agonized stare.
God, I can't do this. Please. Please. Don't do this.
Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu. Laissez-le-moi. Encore un peu. Laissez-le-moi, laissez-le-moi. Laissez-
la-moi encore un peu. Mon Dieu, laissez-la-moi. Laissez-la-moi. Laissez-la moi.
"I can't do this. Again." He squeezes his eyes tight, clenching his jaw.
I have to be strong for him. I take his hand in mine and lacing my fingers through his:
"We have to go, Angel."
It is calling us away. The time has come. Again.
"This is not the first, time, is it?"
She silently shakes her head as the pain slices us apart in the silky whisper of a scalpel's caress.
No, my love. We have been through this––
" Thousands of times before."
"Time and time and time and time again."
"And many more times before that."
"And each time, it gets harder."
I know it does. The pain is unbearable. I don' t want to go.
"I don't either. But we have to."
"Because here is where we always begin."
"And we have to begin again. Come, now, Angel."

Reluctantly, I obey her. There is nothing I can do. The pull is stronger than us. Because the pull isus. So I follow my love as she leads me to the Archive.

The place has not changed. The empty circle is as vast as it has ever been. The walls of books surrounding it are still spiraling endlessly up out of sight above our heads. This room is the axis around which our lives revolve. This room is the constant. This place is not meant to change. Everything else is. Even I. Even her. I can't bear that thought. It is killing me.

Knowing my pain, because it is also hers, she snakes her arm around my waist. I do the same and we hold each other tight, our arms and hands locked around us in our own figure of eight. Together, we slowly and achingly make our way across the vast marble floor over to its center, the point of origin where our everything began. Awe-struck, as always, we lay our hands on top of the first of the black books. There are three others, each resting on a similar chest-high square column. This is where we began. With this apple, like in another well-known book. I watch in fascination and feel the fingers under mine trace the outline of the proffered fruit.

He follows me around the four pillars of our lives. His fingers cover mine over each book. I know how tempted he is to take us away from this place. Because...
This is where we always end.
I know how torn he is. I know why he hesitates. He has always known, somehow, that …
This is where we always begin.
We have always known, because the revelation is within us. It is...
just a matter of time before we remember.

I can still smell the incense of his scent as I crush my lips to his.
I can still feel her against me as I clutch her body against mine.
I can still feel him in my heart as we start to dissolve.
I can still feel her song in my mouth as we start to melt.
I can still hear him in the lullaby on my tongue.
I can still sense his soul in the hole in my chest.
I can still feel her soul in the black-hole swallowing me.
But I can feel my soul being lifted toward the spiraling shelves. There is a new book up there, waiting for us. In my ascent, I shoot past all our former lives. I remember so many of them. Some lived in bliss. Some endured. Some dark and thrilling. Some fluffy and light. Some hot and steamy. Some red and painful. Some horrifying. Some magnificent. Some dull. Some sweet. Some artless. Some wicked. Some still-born and some aborted. Those have always been the saddest. I hope this one is not going to be one of those.
I am leaving first this time. I hate to leave him behind. He will have to find me.
I will.
I know. You always do.
As you do, when the roles are reversed.
Remember me.
I will, whoever we are,
or whatever,
wherever the place,
whatever the time,
we belong
here
with each other.

I love you, Bella. Remember me.
I love you, Edward. Always.

We.

Are.

Forever

...

The Beginning