Not Me!

That One Night

(Y/N)'s POV

Mud clung to my feet like quicksand. Thunder cracked and boomed in my ears. Rain pelted down on my body.

I could only move so fast in the mud. If it had been a race between my heart and me, I would surely lose. My ribs ached and burned.

Large trees loomed high over me like doom. One missed step, and I'm done. But my snail's pace is my downfall.

A lunged and tackled me to the ground. Cold, thick mud coated my front and cheek. Sharp teeth barred. Blonde hair and a sinister grin loom over my shoulder.

Nothing but danger in my future; it could only go wrong from here. His bite is vicious. James, he's not alive anymore. Yes, he isn't.

This is just a dream. A dream told over and over again like a story told for centuries to come. I already lived this story. If only I could wake from it.

His mouth inches from my neck, and his hold is hard and cold. I couldn't escape, reduced down to prey. My eyes open wide like a deer in headlights.

My screams echoed in the trees before his dirty, calloused hand clamped over my mouth. He forced my screams of agony down.

I just wanted to wake up. The ending is clear in my mind. Edward would save me from this terrible reality. Edward, my boyfriend of a couple of months, would kill him.

Edward, the vampire, is not in this. It's only a dream. "He won't save you." James joined my thoughts with a gruff whisper, holding me down in the mud.

My eyes opened wide, and I sat upright in my bed. That's right, my bed. I'm not pressed into the Earth with mud caking and seeping into my clothes.

My chest heaved as I tried to catch my breath. Everything is how it's supposed to be. The lights are off. Moonlight seeped in from the cracks of my curtains. It's a summer night at home. Nothing is here to hurt me at all.

"Pull yourself together," I mumbled to myself, putting my hands over my face. "It's over now," pulling the bedsheets from my body, I crawled out of bed and went to the bathroom.

My eyes caught the view of my scar. It's slowly fading to match my skin after these months. Tracing each little line that made up my scar, I could remember it all. How couldn't I?

The white-hot pain seared and burned my neck with no mercy. I couldn't handle it then and fainted. Hope had been lost in that muddy forest.

The last I saw had been that figure deep in the woods, next to a tree. I couldn't possibly think of who that was. I couldn't even be too sure that they were real, to begin with.

All I know is that I want to know more. I didn't want to have a single question in my mind about that night. Though, if I could have everything I wish for, there would be many more wishes.

Like I wish that that night doesn't haunt my memories and dreams. Better yet, I wish it didn't happen at all. But as this scar exists, I won't have that wish come true.

What I could do is learn more about that figure. I wanted an answer of whether that person was real or just a figment of my imagination. It appears in my dreams like they are important to me.

It seems so peculiar to me. I feel like I need to know who they are, like a long-lost part of me. The first step that I can think of to figure it out is to find that forest again. That is the only clue that I got.

I stopped my long stare at my scar in my bathroom mirror and went to my computer. It has been that time when Edward took me to that hotel. If I could remember which one it was, I hardly remembered in the panic.

My bag, I think I remembered putting something in my bag about the hotel. Digging through, I found something. A pamphlet about the sites near the hotel and the hotel's commodities sat at the bottom of the hastily packed suitcase. It hadn't been touched in months since the incident.

I could thank myself for snagging this from the hotel suite. It's a little crumbled, but it'll do the job just fine.

The hotel, when searched, had a five-star rating. My eyes darted around the map to find what I had been looking for. Vampires are fast, but I doubted James cared to take me too far to try and finish me off.

My face had been glued to the screen like I would need to be pried off. A massive forest came into view on my screen.

Like I thought, James didn't bother going far. The forest and the hotel are about 30 minutes apart from each other. I'll plan a trip to the forest sometime soon, but I'll set it aside for just a moment.

The trek would take me at least four hours to get there. It could wait. Tapping from my window hit my ears.

I knew it was Edward wanting to be invited in instead of just inviting himself. But it still made me jump, and my heart beat a little faster.

I closed the tab on my computer before coming to the window. "Edward, why did you come here?" My window opened, and I let him into my room.

"Yeah...um, I wanted to see you." He stood to his full height in my room. Without looking, he closed the window behind him.

"For any reason? Or you just wanted to see your partner?" I slowly sat down on my bed and patted the surface, another invitation.

"The latter," he slowly came to my side and sat on my bed with me. "What are you doing awake at this hour?"

"Another nightmare, I've told you about them." My fingers subconsciously danced on the bite mark from months back.

"I'm here. You don't have to worry about that." Edward took the tracing hand into his. "I know it's difficult."

"I hardly have the strength to stay away from you." He slowly lowered to lay next to me. "You can rest. I'll stay here." He pulled me into his ice-cold embrace.
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1078 Words