MOURN THE LIVING. carlisle cullen

prologue

a monster would always
let people down

     Edmund once thought he could be redeemed. Carlisle said he could, believed it with such sureness he could only agree. It was the only option. When one is faced with a Carlisle so passionate, his eyes blazing with conviction, fingers splayed against your lower back, there is no room for doubt—Carlisle wouldn't allow it, not with his light suffocating any shadows that may have lingered.

     Edmund used to think it was so honourable, that conviction, that fire, so pure in its ability to withstand any trial. But after seeing himself, the gore sticking to his tunic, and witnessing that conviction leaving Carlisle's eyes, he could no long live in blind ignorance. Not when he knew what it would eventually lead to.

     He'd known it all along. It was only a matter of time. He had made sure he was ready for what was to come. A pity Carlisle had not done the same. But how could he? He expected the best of Edmund, and that was his fatal flaw. He was a monster. It was sealed the moment he allowed himself to indulge in another's lifeblood.

     What he didn't know, however, was the empty chasm that burrowed its way into his heart and stayed to torture him.

     Carlisle's face would forever be embedded into the fragments of his mind.

——————————