<b>Title:</b> Night Thoughts: 1918
<b>Author</b>: <lj user="justaotherwitch">
<b>Rating</b>: PG
<b>Warnings:</b> none
<b>Characters/Pairings:</b> Edward, Carlisle (kind of)
<b>Word Count:</b> 630
<b>Author's Note:</b> This is the first in what I think will be a seven part series, though each story (though more like a moment than a story) can stand on its own.  I'm really intrigued by how much Edward must know about his family.  The Cullens always say they don't have secrets, but I think it must be more that they don't have secrets from Edward.  He is the Twilight-verse secret keeper.  The title for this series is the same as a 1740s poem (that I have never read) by Edward Young.

I own absolutely nothing here, no copyright infringement is intended, no profit is being made.

<lj cut="1918">

<b>1918</b>

It was dark.  I didn’t know it was possible to get this dark.  I had hazy memories of walking along a street at night, lamps scattered down the block and houses glowing warmly in the distance.  There were no lamps here, no houses for miles, and the cloudy sky blocked the moon and stars from view.

>The absence of light should have been oppressive.  Instead, it was only remarkable in its insignificance.  I could see every crack and bump in the ceiling as I lay on the floor looking up.  I may as well have been standing in the middle of the street at noon.

Out the corner of my eye to the left, sitting on top of a table, I could see the phonograph down to the very tip of the needle.  To my right, out the window there was a large oak tree with 32 acorns, 17 fewer than were hanging last night.  I looked back to the ceiling and heard the crackle as something disturbed the leaves that had become piled around the tree, 31.

Though I couldn’t see it from where I was lying, I could exactly picture the rocking chair that sat in the corner behind me.  I knew how the grain of the wood ran in each of the four slats that made up the back and could easily recall the pattern of the upholstery.  I even knew the precise angle that the chair sat at.  If someone moved anything in this room, even a fraction of an inch, I would know.

It was strangely unsettling to be constantly aware.  Part of me knew that I had the upper hand; my prey was at my mercy.  The other part dwelt on how unnatural it was to know, so perfectly, everything about anything, just at a glance.

Although I didn’t sleep, I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare: the same one over and over, night after night.  It had started as we fled the city, distracting me as I tried to wrap my head around what Carlisle had told me.  Vampire, echoing through my head.

I watched through Carlisle’s eyes as he talked to a woman.  She looked halfway to death and I could see myself, lying one bed away, looking just as pale in this memory as I did now when I looked into the mirror.  “You must do everything in your power,” she said.  “What others cannot do, that is what you must do for my Edward.”  Her eyes were pleading with Carlisle before she turned to look at me.  I knew she was talking about me, I’d seen this play out before, but I was always caught off guard every time I heard my name.

She looked so familiar.  I knew I was supposed to know her but she kept slipping further away, her identity just out of my grasp.

Carlisle knows her, I reasoned, He spoke to her, he says he saved me.  He could explain who she is and why he keeps thinking about this.  But I couldn’t be bothered.  I couldn’t be bothered to do much of anything, I’d barely moved from this spot since we’d arrived.

The atmosphere changed suddenly, pulling me out of my ennui.  I sat up straining my ears and heard the soft clopping of a horse in the distance.  The wind blew and brought with it the most mouth-water scent I had ever encountered, drawing closer with each second.

In one motion I was on my feet, ready to spring.  I heard Carlisle moving quickly from his study downstairs up towards my room.  I growled low in my throat in his direction and moved to the open window, easily lowering myself to the ground.  I’d found my way out of the nightmare.