Serendipity || Rosalie Hale

- 9 -

Daria hadn't thought about dying ever since her family had passed. The thought had crossed her mind multiple times but it was as if Penny knew her thoughts. As if the woman knew what was going on at all times.

She probably did. Daria had noticed the cameras after all. There always had been a few, but ever since she had been the only one of the Vaigo family, security seemed to have been updated. She had even seen people following her and she knew that Penny was the one to make sure that she was safe.

She wished that she hadn't been in a good place when she had gone up that mountain.

Maybe then they would have seen the fall. They would have saved her. Taken her to the hospital and make sure that she would get the best care in the world.

Maybe Carlisle would be the one to treat her. To make sure that her pains were subdued. That her mental health would be in check.

Maybe her friends would come and visit. Emmett would come bearing sweet and chocolatey gifts, Alice would bring flowers, Jasper would give her his crooked smile, Edward would tell her it would all be okay. And Rosalie.. she would sit by her side and read to her from one of her favorite books until Daria would be able to go home.

Maybe then she wouldn't be in this excruciating pain. The bewildering pain.

She didn't understand it. It was as if Daria's body was rejecting the pain, letting her get sucked into darkness that made sure she didn't feel the agony for a few seconds. Maybe even minutes. Daria had no idea what was real.

She had fallen down the mountain, right? Did that mean that her body should feel like this? Like she was being sawed in half, hit by a bus, punched by a prize fighter, trampled by bulls, and submerged in acid, all at the same time.

Maybe even worse. She didn't know, she hadn't experienced it all in the real world.

She wanted to move, to shout, to cry out in pain, to make her body twist and turn in a way that would take the pain away. In her head she was doing all those things, but she knew her body didn't move.

Daria had a near drowning experience on one of their annual holidays. They had gone out for a swim at the beach and though they had been warned about the underlying current, their egos about swimming trophies had made Samuel and Daria only more competitive.

Until the current actually took Daria under.

The way that her body had gone under water, how it felt to want to swim to the surface but not knowing where it was, the burning in her throat as she tried with all her might to keep in the air she had.. nothing compared to the fear, pain, and burning she was experiencing now.

Daria couldn't remember what happened after, what her family members had looked like in the face of this almost tragedy. If they had let her go, she wouldn't have been in this unbreable pain.

It seemed to be mainly burning now. Maybe her body had given up the fight? Maybe it didn't want to feel the bruises anymore. The broken bones. So why was the burning getting worse?

It was too hot. Way to hot. Like grabbing the pan that had just been on a fire hot. Daria wanted to let go of the pan, in an automatic response, but she wasn't holding a pan.

She wasn't holding anything.

Daria became very aware of the fact that she was just laying. She wasn't moving. Was she dead?

No, if she was dead she wouldn't feel this pain. This burning. She couldn't remember ever feeling this much hurt. Almost drowning, getting into a car accident, breaking her leg.. nothing compared to this. She would've preferred those incidents a thousand times over, if the burning would just stop.

A scream resonated and it took a while for Daria to realise that it had been from her own mouth. She didn't think that she could even make a sound, and even though she had. She wished she didn't.

The voice that made the blood curling noise had been angry, scared, broken, filled with pain and sadness. It didn't feel like the Daria she used to see in the mirror. But maybe that was all she was now.

"She's in pain."

"Of course she is!"

Daria couldn't make out the first voice, but she knew who was the one snapping at the other. It had been Rosalie. Was she still alive? Was she not in hell? Because she had imagined that his was what the eternal pit must've felt like.

The fire only became hotter and Daria wanted to cry, to beg for someone to kill her. Get her out of her misery before she lived one more second in this pain.

Her body was burying itself in flames that seemed to chew their way from her heart towards the rest of her body. She could feel the impossible pain in her shoulders, her stomach, they were making their way up to her throat, licking at her face.

The whole of her existence did not outweigh this kind of pain. It wasn't worth living through for one more heartbeat. They needed to do the right thing and not let her be alive any longer.

"Ed?"

"I don't want to tell you."

There seemed to be no ending to her torture. Was she in a hospital? Did they not give her morphine? Where was Penny?

She didn't know how she survived all of that pain, only for it to double down. Something had happened that made everything worse.

Daria screams out in agony and she knew there was someone close, there had to be. Because she wasn't the one that was inhaling sharply.

But after that, she knew that she was getting better. Though the burning was still there, she could finally feel something else. She could feel something in her body changing and finally she was able to actually move something. So she moved her fingers first and before she knew it, Daria could feel someone holding on the her hand.

She grabbed it fiercely before screaming out in pain once more and trying again to make her body bend in impossible ways. It didn't.

Everything seemed to become clearer and she could listen besides feeling the immense torture. Daria could hear her own frantic beating heart. The way that she tried to breathe slowly through the pain. She could count the low, even breaths that came from somewhere close beside her. She concentrated on them. They meant that time was passing.

Daria concentrated on them so hard that it took a while for her to hear other things, things that she shouldn't be able to hear. Light footsteps, the whisper of air stirred by an door. The footsteps got closer and she could feel pressure against the inside of her wrist. The pressure cooled down that exact spot, before it disappeared and she wanted to scream for the pressure to come back. To consume her whole.

"It won't be long."

"It's always too long."

Rosalie! Her friend Rosalie had been by her side. She was there. She wasn't alone in this fight.

"Daria?"

Daria knew that voice. If she could smile, she would've. She knew that Carlisle would be the one to take care of her. He knew her personally, probably even made sure that she had her own room.

"She squeezed."

"Are you sure.'

"I'm not an idiot, I know change when I feel it."

Change?