The Dancing Ghost ★ Edward Cullen

xiv. Closed door

A year ago on this day, Anastasia had received a phone call from the German police informing that her parents were murdered.

She was sure that her heart hasn't been functioning well ever since she had brought a plane ticket shortly after the call, not even packing a single item from her dormitory in her university back in Russia as she got on a plane at four in the morning and flew all the way to Germany.

Till this day, she doesn't know why she did it. Perhaps she believed that by going back to Germany and taking a taxi for god knows how many miles to the little house in the mountains, her parents will open the door for her.

Her parents whom the last time she had saw was when she glared at them and got inside the taxi waiting outside the house for her, dragging her suitcase and bags behind her and not looking back once at their worried and panicked faces as she went to the airport and flew to Russia where she enrolled herself in a university to study literature and stay far away from them, hidden away between miles and miles of snow.

Perhaps she thought that they would open the door and she would cry and apologize and cry again, and then her mom would comfort her like she did when she was little, back when she had cried so hard at the death of the outdoor cat she used to feed that she ended up with a fever and constant nosebleeds, and her dad will try to make her soup but it will taste horrible so he will just give up and let her have dessert for dinner.

But the door remained closed.

Back then, even though she had the house key they had forced into her bag before she left, she didn't step inside the house, she didn't even unlock the door.

At first she told herself that she is fine without going in, that with the door closed, her parents will remain alive inside.

But of course, that small comfort was snatched away from her hand and was replaced by the autopsy report the police handed her.

Her parents were murdered at night on the street in front of the box office, drained completely of blood.

When she saw the location of the murder, something clicked in Anastasia's head, something she wishes hadn't.

Her parents never left their house, so them being at the box office and the amount of money they were carrying when murdered being the same as Anastasia's university tuition bill, meant that they only left the house to send her money even though she hadn't picked up any of their calls since she left.

If she hadn't left for university, the door would have opened.

In a way, she had killed her parents.

"Get ready for act two." Oksana ordered, her voice echoing around the large and empty theatre.

The play was getting closer and training has been transferred from the ballet studio to the actual theatre.

Anastasia walked past the decoration and costume crew, empty eyed and wincing at the sharp pain at her foot, not even glancing once at the mirrors before going on stage where Oksana and the other directors were sitting in the empty audience with a passion in their eyes that almost made Anastasia nauseous.

The music had begun and so did act two. The sharp pain in her foot got even worse but she never stopped or winced once while dancing.

Soon enough, Anastasia saw her foot starting to bleed through her shoes, the blood slowly covering the entire floor of the theater and started dripping down to the audience where her parent's corpses were.

Anastasia didn't remind herself that she was imagining all of this because she knew she didn't deserve the comfort of living in bliss after what she had done.

She forced her eyes to stay on their bloodless bodies as she performed flawlessly because the truth is, she didn't deserve the door to open.

[...]

Although he wasn't much of a talker, Edward's mind was never a quiet place.

Thought after thought that weren't his had been popping up in his mind whenever he was around others for a decade now.

There was even a time in Edward's existence where the line between his mind and other people's minds had been completely blurred. It was a terrifying time where Edward had lost who he was and what he was, only gaining his sanity back after Carlisle had made him stay in an empty room all alone till he found himself back.

But even after he learned how to manage his ability, the noise lingered.

People's words were replaced by their thoughts and that was enough to drive Edward away from crowds and not make him miss his former humanity.

Since then, he never had anywhere to go to for quietness except for solitude...

That's a lie.

For a small bit, he was able to admire the calm in his head while having someone with him and that made him understand how people can fall in love.

Even though it drove him insane not to know about Anastasia's thoughts whenever she quietly starred at her watch or hesitated before writing down a phrase, Edward had worshipped her silence like it was a halo on top of her head.

But it only lasted a few moments and now here he was in his now empty and packed up room to escape the neverending noise.

He wished he could've recorded the sureal melody in his mind whenever he was around her and play it over and over again; he would've placed it on a shelf of it's own.

Edward sighted as he placed down his phone after texting Carlisle who was running around the country to prepare for them to leave and start over somewhere else.

He turned down the radio when he heard a loud crash downstairs and the swift sound of someone going upstairs with vampire speed.

His door barged open, revealing a wide eyed Alice who looked utterly terrified and dreadful.

Edward felt the world drop.

"It's Anastasia..." She spoke with so much dread that her voice was barely able to come out.

"She's going to kill herself."