The Turning of Cecily Stewart

Awakening

The pain was unbearable. Cecily found herself wishing that she would just go ahead and die so that it would be over. It was like a fire was burning through her veins. All the while, she was screaming in agony, but no one could hear her in the darkness. No one could save her.

Had she known that she was going to die in this godforsaken place, she would have never left New York. Her boss Gabe was always telling her that her penchant for chasing down dangerous stories would get her into trouble someday, and it seems he was right.

For a moment Cecily wondered if she was in hell.

She had never thought herself a bad person, but supposed somewhere throughout her 30 years, she must have done enough stuff to piss off whoever was in charge upstairs to send her there.

All she wanted was for the pain to end.

And then after what seemed like forever, the burning began to subside. Slowly, it retreated from her limbs until finally, all that was left was a lingering burning in her throat. With a loud gasp, her eyes flew open as she saw an unfamiliar ceiling. She looked around the room frantically, moving so quickly that she knocked over the examination bed she had been lying on with a loud crash that nearly blew out her eardrums. She blinked rapidly, finding herself in some sort of doctor's office. She backed up until she ran into a window with shut blinds. She felt panic start to rise. The last thing she remembered was lying on the forest floor, staring up at the stars. Waiting for death. There had been a crash. Someone had run her off the road. She had been driving north but somehow gotten stuck on a highway that she didn't mean to be on.

She looked around the room, freezing as she zeroed in on a speck of dust floating in the air. She was transfixed by it, wondering how she could manage to see it in perfect detail. Maybe she was dead and this was some sort of weird afterlife. Her head flew over to the door. She could hear sounds. Soft voices. Footsteps.

Immediately she crouched down in a protective stance, a snarl on her face. Somewhere in her mind, she found this odd. Her usual reaction to danger was to hide or run. Usually both.

The door opened. A man who looked a few years younger than her with blonde hair and a kind smile stepped in.

"Cecily... it's alright. That is your name, isn't it?" he said softly, stopping several feet away from her holding his hands up.

His voice held far more maturity and wisdom that Cecily expected from his appearance.

Behind him, she could see others watching her cautiously. They were all... impossibly beautiful. What was going on? Was she not dead? Surely if this was the afterlife the room would have been full of people she knew or at least recognized.

Where were her parents?

"Who are you?" she shouted. "What's happening?"

The man took a deep breath, remaining calm despite her outburst.

"My name is Carlisle Cullen. My daughter found you in the woods and brought you here. You're safe," he said soothingly.

Cecily ran her hands through her hair as she straightened up, finding it thicker, fuller than before. She pulled a perfect red curl out and examined it. Since when was her hair not a frizzy mess?

"Why am I not dead? I should be dead," she whispered as she looked towards him. "What did you do to me?"

"We saved you," a soft, feminine voice said. Cecily looked over, seeing a short, petite woman with the palest skin she had ever seen. And that was saying something, considering Cecily herself was practically glow-in-the-dark pale as it was. Everyone had the strangest shade of golden eyes. "You were in a car accident... we found you in the forest."