A/N: hey, I've been working on this story for about a year now, and I'm really excited about it, so PLEASE at least read the first few chapters and tell me what you think!

DISCLAIMER: this isn't a songfic, but I do list some songs that relate to certain chapters, and those songs do not belong to me. However, these are all original characters and plots and stuff, and they are all mine, so please don't steal! Thx, bye & enjoy!

My Immortal

By Evanescence

I'm so tired of being here

Suppressed by all my

Childish fears

And if you have to leave

I wish that you would just leave

'Cause your presence still lingers here

And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal

This pain is just too real

There's just too much that

Time cannot erase

When you'd cry I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears

I've held your hand through all of these years

But you still have...

All me...

You used to captivate me

By your resonating light

Now I'm bound by the life you left behind

Your face it haunts

My once pleasant dreams

Your voice it chased away

All the sanity in me

These wounds won't seem to heal

This pain is just too real

There's just too much that

Time cannot erase

When you'd cry I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears

I've held your hand through all of these years

But you still have...

All me...

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone

But though you're still with me

I've been alone all along...

These wounds won't seem to heal

This pain is just too real

There's just too much that

Time cannot erase

When you'd cry I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears

I've held your hand through all of these years

But you still have...

All me...

All me...

All me...

PROLOGUE: Eternal

The stars were bright that night as a young man hurried down the dark and deserted street. He was around the age of nineteen, and was obviously poor. His clothes were neat; they were the best clothes he had, but they were also worn and aged. His skin was tanned golden from years of hard work in his father's fields. Despite his financial and social status, he was very attractive. Medium length sandy blonde hair and clear blue eyes graced a lean, muscular frame built from a lifetime of labor.

After walking for a short while, he dodged through an alley, and walked for a few more minutes until he came to a large, extravagant white house with climbing ivy and tall marble columns. If it were the first time he had seen this house, he would have been in awe of its size, beauty, and expert artistry; however, this was a nightly routine. He circled around the back, staying in the shadows of the large oak trees, until he was under a hidden veranda that was on the second story of the mansion. He smiled slightly when he saw a slender shadow watching him through the windows, and knew that she was waiting for him.

"Erik!" cried Victoria happily as she crossed the veranda and looked down to him. A warm smile graced her beautiful features. She was seventeen and had fair, almost silvery skin, large green eyes, and gently curling dark russet hair.

"Victoria," replied Erik, in a slight German accent, for his family had immigrated to England from Romania a short while after he was born. He gazed upon the young woman that he loved as though it was the first time he had ever seen her. It seemed to him that she became even more beautiful with every passing night. Quietly, he helped her climb down, and she fell willingly into his strong arms. They crept, hand in hand, to the old church house just a few moments away. Erik sat in front of the ancient piano, playing a gently tune on the old ivory keys. Victoria laid her head gently on his shoulder, closing her eyes and listening to the notes as they washed over her. When the song was over, she sighed contently. Erik turned and kissed her softly as she leaned into him.

"Why can we not stay like this forever?" she whispered.

"You know that neither of our parent's will let us marry. I'm only a poor farmer; I have nothing to offer you- the daughter of a banker."

"And you know that I ask nothing of you, Erik... that you love me is enough." She whispered in reply. He wrapped his arms around her and held her for a moment, thinking hard on what he was about to say.

"There is one way that we can be together," Erik said quietly, "We talked about it, once, I believe." Victoria looked into his bright blue eyes, with a look of bleak discontent shadowing her face.

"I know we talked of it, but we cannot run away," she said, "my father would have every man out searching for me within the hour that he found me missing, and when they found us, he would have you killed." Tears came to her eyes just at the thought of this tragic situation,

"No, we cannot run away..."

"I could not bear life without you," she whispered. The words echoed through the infinitesimal sanctuary, the only place that they felt safe to be together, and the place that they so longed to be married in. The darkness around them seemed to listen in as Erik spoke.

"I know," he said quietly in reply, "Nor could I live without you," He held her tighter, "That is why I am willing to give everything for you."

"What are you saying...?" she asked, breathless, pulling back so she could look into his eyes.

"Do you not remember that of which we spoke of long ago?" Victoria was silent for a moment, before she realized what he was speaking of.

"Alas, Erik," she cried, "We promised that that would be a desperate measure, only if there was no other way...!"

"Well, and can you think of any other course that we might take?" Victoria was silent, "We do not have much time... You said yourself that your father is planning to marry you to a man in Venice as soon as you reach the age of eighteen! What then, Victoria, when you are married and taken far away from me? Would we simply forget each other? Bear away the love that once we had, in different lives, and yet never forgetting these times we spent together?"

"No, Erik," she whispered, choked with tears, "I couldn't, never, I would die first, and that would be the only way to take me from you..."

"So be it... I will go tonight," he whispered, wiping the tears from her face.

"No!" she cried, "Wait, give us one last night, let us spend the rest of this one together!" Erik silently agreed and he took her hand as they left the old church to wander down the deserted streets. They drifted away from town, to an isolated place beneath the trees that Erik had found long ago, and spent the night in love's embrace, wrapped in each other's arms as they showed their love for one another under the light of the dying night's stars. When the light of dawn slowly spread over the land, they lay still upon the grass, pressed against each other, trying to hold on to the last lingering moment of their ill-fated love.

"Come, we must return," said Erik, helping Victoria to her feet. She was silent as she pulled her nightclothes around her, and they quickly returned to her home. Before long, they stood beneath the balcony, hushed, for no parting words could either bear to say.

"I will wait for you..." said Victoria quietly, not looking up. Erik gently lifted her face so that his eyes met hers.

"I will not keep you waiting long," he whispered, knowing, however, that it certainly would be a long time before he saw her again, and kissed her gently before helping her climb back up into her bedroom. With tears in her eyes, Victoria watched the man she loved disappear into the night.

Three months passed before Victoria saw Erik again, yet she spent every night she could sitting by her window, waiting for him. She knew he would not return soon, but could not sleep for thinking of him. As the days passed, Victoria ceased to leave her bedroom, and spoke to almost no one. She grew sallow and pale; her eyes losing their light, her hair losing its lustre. Before the end of one month, she was bedridden. Her father became very worried at the rapid deterioration of his only child, and fearing the worst, he summoned England's best doctor of medicine to come and see her.

"She has been this way before," he explained, "Nigh on ten years ago, she became ill, just as she is now," he winced slightly, "the doctor then said that she would surely die, that it was a disease of the blood that had no cure. Yet, she lived on, and we believed that she had recovered. However, I noticed quite a while ago that she was slowly falling back into this disease."

Yet, despite the medicines and cures the practitioner tried, she continued to worsen, and all who saw her knew that death was near After much convincing, she finally arranged that a messenger be sent out to find Erik, for Victoria wanted to see him one last time before she died. As she lay on her deathbed, she at last saw the man she loved entering the room she had been confined to for months.

"Victoria!" cried Erik, seeing her lying as a dead person upon the bed, and behind him entered a mysterious dark haired woman. In that moment Erik saw Victoria as he had always thought of her, an angel: Radiant, and beautiful beyond words. She was innocent and frail as a lily blossom, untouched by the hands and lust of man, untainted by the dark of night, but frozen and cold in sadness. She lay broken, her wings furled tight around her, as if to protect herself from the fate that she could not escape.

Then there was himself: dark, unworthy of the love that she gave, a wretched creature from the hours of darkness that he so fervently loathed, for it had taken him away from her. He was a very incarnation of Night, of a damned soul, looking upward towards the light, her light, which he had left behind.

"I am dying, Erik," she whispered, her eyes still closed as he took her hand and kneeled beside her.

"No," he whispered, the woman that had come with Erik stood in the shadows, sadly observing the two young lovers. "You can't die, Victoria...," he whispered, "because I love you..." Victoria opened her eyes, and gasped, tears beginning to course down her face. His once clear, sparkling blue eyes were now a dim, dark black, his golden skin had turned a ghostly, pale white, and his sandy blonde hair was now inky black.

"Erik!" she cried, choked with tears, "What have I done?" She stroked his face; his skin was cool and soft beneath her light touch. He closed his hand around hers.

"It is time, Victoria... Now you must make the Choice..." said Erik grimly. Victoria only stared sadly into his dark eyes before replying.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered, "I'm so sorry... I-I can't, Erik... I can't, and yet look at what I have done to you...!" Erik did not speak for a moment.

"Do not be sorry," he whispered, "I would do anything for you, Victoria, and I have."

"Life," said Victoria quietly, her eyes and voice were suddenly very clear, "is the sweetest gift I was ever given, until you came to me... and despite what misfortune it brings me, it also brought me to you." She smiled sadly, "And that is why I cannot abandon it, Erik, though I have only a few moments left, I never know what else may come. I must die here and now, Erik. My fate was decided long ago, and this is the way that it was meant to be."

At that moment, Erik knew that he did not deserve to take that from her: the warmth, radiance, the very essence of her purity, and condemn her to an eternal half-life as his was.

"I know," he said, "I know, and I could never ask you to give that away..." Victoria's breathing slowly grew shallow, and her face paled even more than before. Erik knew that this was the end.

"E-Erik..." she breathed, struggling to speak, "Erik, I-I have to t-tell you something..." As Victoria spoke, the woman in the corner emerged from the shadows. Her black, waist length hair rippled like water in the moonlight as she glided effortlessly to Victoria's bedside. Her silver eyes sparkled as she looked fondly down on Victoria, in an almost motherly gaze. Yet, she was also very distant, reminiscent of an iridescent shadow of the past and a flickering image of the future. Erik, however, took no notice of this as he drew closer to his dying love. Victoria continued. "I do n-not know exactly when... but-but I will come back to you..."she sighed," And... then... I will make the Choice, and we shall have all eternity... together..."

"How will I find you? How will I know it is you?"

"You will know..." she whispered, "you will know..."

"I will wait for you, then, Victoria, I will wait for one thousand years if I have to... I love you, Victoria..."

"A-and I love you, Erik ...I always will, and do not forget that, n-no matter what happens, do n-not abandon hope, and never forget that I love you... I will not keep you waiting long..." And with that, she took her last breath and died in the arms of the man she loved.