Welcome to Gaia! ::

[preview:]

Her words echoed through my head as I turned to her son. I couldn’t leave the room as Elizabeth’s breathing grew more and more shallow, and her heartbeat slowed and stuttered. There Edward lay, dying also.

Did she truly realize what I was capable of?
—‘What others cannot do.’
Would she have even wanted me to consider the damning idea that was filling my mind?
—‘Save him.’
How could she guess what I could do?
—‘You must.’
Could anyone really want that for her son?
—‘For my Edward.’
Did she think I was some sort of miracle worker?
—‘That is what you must do.’
Didn’t she know that I was a monster by nature?
—‘Everything in your power.’

I gazed at Edward. I had grown attached to him. There was something pure and good about his face. Sick as he was, he was still beautiful, and as a vampire, I was attracted to that beauty, that goodness, that strength. It was clear that he had only hours left before he would follow the thousands of others like him into the uncertain afterlife. Only, Edward wasn’t like those thousands of others. He was someone I cared about. He was someone who I could make like me. He felt like my own son.

This was not fair. I had asked, with all the fervency I could muster, that God be willing to spare these two out of all the lives that would end by the end of another week. Surely He could be satisfied with another thousand souls. He didn’t need to take these two. I believed that He was more merciful than my father had said He was. Truly He was a compassionate God, willing to heal more than to pass judgment.

I may not be all powerful, but I believed that God was. I would not usurp His position as Creator and Healer. I was no Messiah. But if God really heard me, He would create a way to save Edward and his mother. Could He see how good Edward was, could He heal him? If there was some way that I could suffer in his place, I wouldn’t hesitate for one moment. I felt an outpouring of affection well up inside me toward the boy laying next to his dying mother, fighting for his own breath. Couldn’t God see how much I loved him?

Can You hear me?
Am I getting through tonight?
Can You see him?
Can You make him feel all right?
If You can hear me
Let me take his place somehow
See, he's not just anyone
He's my son