𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐍 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇 | J.H

NINETEEN

It had been a while, since Eleanor had slept in her own bed. For the past couple weeks she had stayed in Jasper's bed, it was with him that she felt her humanity, so it was with him that she slept. And he was very insistent on her rest.

His absence created a coldness in her room.

She pushed the loathing of her situation away, embracing the numbness that still lingered as she sat at her desk. Her fingers brushing over the sheet music filled with her messy notes.

Jasper had requested it, that she write a piece for him.

Eleanor pulled her draw open and pushed the papers in, not wanting to remind herself of what she had done. In the draw, she found the leather bound journal Carlisle had given her.

Delicately, making sure to handle the ancient book with care, she took it from her draw and crawled onto her bed. Considering she had volunteered to fight with death's power, she hoped it would give her some clarity.

The first page simply read,

Property of Charles Black.

His writing was neat and loopy, but as she flicked through the pages it began to deteriorate into scrawling spikes before the pages became blank.

Eleanor stopped at a short entry, towards the end of the filled pages.

I fear for my sanity, my emotions have slowly returned to me yet I feel less human as my days go on. My dark pursuer taunts me, where it used to stand in the corner of my vision, it's darkness has now infected me. I am glad I do not sleep for I am sure it would haunt my dreams, where I would be stuck in the purgatory that trapped me in my death.

Aro encourages the use of my black magic, I inflict pain in his enemies. Manipulating their emotions, reducing them to a horror stricken shell with no choice but to join him. The guilt has taken hold of me, but I do not do it without reason. I still long for the  immortality he has promised - the eternal escape from death.

There was no question that Charles and Eleanor were the same, but his words didn't give her much hope. It was obvious Charles' soul was eventually claimed by death, who stalked him too, but she questioned what the limit was. How much could she borrow death's power before he claimed her too?

His writing was poetically macabre, and in a chilling thought, it reminded Eleanor of the melancholy music she had composed.

Eleanor flicked to the last entry.

Death has tricked me. My emotions are not my own, I know that now but it is too late. I slept, for the first time since my brief death, and in it he shared with me my fate. I will die, and there is no afterlife for me, just the infernal void.

He toys with me, I write of him as a man because a woman would not play with existence like this. It is women that bring life into this world, it is only right that a man should take it from us. He has told me of my fatality, yet Aro refuses to gift me immortality. I believe that he is scared that as a vampire I would exceed even his power.

Death watches me as I write this, he looms over my shoulder. I can feel his rattling breath against my neck. All I can think to write is to anyone who falls to the same fate as mine; I hope you are stronger than me.

Eleanor's eyes lingered on the barley legible writing, Charles' final words and they were tainted by death.

'My emotions are not my own'

The sinister message replayed in her head as she questioned it's meaning. Were the feelings she thought emotions a trick from death? The anger so raw it burned her, the grief and sadness, was it all death's manipulation?

Eleanor felt the insanity Charles wrote about as she questioned the emotions she believed to be a sign of recovery - perhaps it was all false.

But then she thought of the happiness that warmed her when she was with Jasper. They way her heart strained at the sight of him and the fact that it was only with him that she felt human. This, she was sure, was real.

Her eyes slowly raised from the book's yellowing pages, to the shadowy corner of her room.

There stood death, watching her, it's face hidden by a hood but she could imagine a skeletal grin, observing her as she questioned her reality.