𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐈

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍, 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎𝐎

𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒.

Smiling faces torn to fake frowns and scowls, long nails slick with blood from the eyes of a friend, the roaring monster within a broken chest, hearts beating for someone who would never love them back.

She had felt it course through herself, the rage, the understanding, even with the droning music pounding in her head like a distant and angry echo. She didn't know why she was here or what she planned on doing once her drink was empty, but something was calling to her like her stomach was attached to a long rope and someone was tugging her close. The house she crept through, each step in tune to the never-ending beat, belonged to a fellow student.

She knew he was beautiful and kind, but there was a darkness that lingered within him and those who surrounded themselves with him and his brother. Both handsome, both built upon rumors of violence and lusting romances as if they were plucked straight from a novel. She had longed to be loved by someone like them, to have their hands find their place against her own.

The pull on her rope made her feel all kinds of dangerous things as it continued to tug and tug, tearing her at her seams. She was not one to crave the flesh of another so ruthlessly as she did then, as she did even now. It was never supposed to be like this, to go this way. Things were supposed to be different.

It all started here. Within their house; within their sacred home that held faces in walls and screams from cellars and bedrooms.

Colette didn't know why she was there.

She didn't know anyone the way they did each other. She didn't even know who the party was being thrown for, although she did notice a large birthday cake amongst half-empty beer bottles and red solo cups. She hoped their night was going better than hers, that they were happy from the turnout, from the love on display.

It was all a haze to her once her drink was finished. She had taken her friend's hand, been led somewhere she couldn't understand. She feasted on something, hearty and rich, her mind was left with an aching abandonment of thought and senses. It had emptied her of all comprehension, allowing the hands of unforgiving guests to run up her sides, through her hair, handing her another drink, then a third, then a fourth.

It ran down her chin in ribbons of something holy and forbidden, something that not even the gods should be allowed to witness. But she felt a god, pleading for another taste.

She didn't remember leaving. She didn't remember getting inside her car.

But she remembered the crash. The fire, burning her from within as she plummeted. The flames took hold of her like an old friend, encasing her in their sharp, thorny arms. She felt her flesh melt and bleed and blister before there was no pain but the crushing ache in her chest and the blood that spilled down her chin like she was being twisted from the inside out.

Had the gods forced their hands down her throat, to take out what was ruined and bleeding? Were they attempting to cure her by destroying her?

Beautiful skin turned charred, turned to nothing but hard and ruined flesh that once belonged to a goddess. To something that had been pure and then wiped out by the hands of angry demons who smelled like campfires and something sickly sweet.

She remembered not being able to breathe, the suffocating tightening of a throat no longer accepting air. The burning spread through her lungs like she was shoveling lit coals into her mouth and swallowing them, starving for more and more. Her body was hungry for the hurt, for the torment of constant torture right beneath the skin.

The pain was so unbelievable there wasn't a coherent thought being formed, nothing but agony seeping through something that was once whole that had now been left raw and open.

Mother, would you allow these foul beasts to harm me this way? My most sacred friend, would you let these evil things tear me up until there was nothing left?

Colette remembered being reborn, crawling to the water.

She remembered the sting, the ache, the burn as she fell into the dark pool, dragging her broken limbs behind her. She could remember hearing someone wailing from the car as it skidded over rock, through barricades, against the trees as nature swallowed her whole. She remembered the smell of gasoline before the fire started but nothing mattered once she saw the water.

It took her by the hand, laying her down delicately before giving her a cold embrace that sent her heart stuttering, ruining her further. She remembered sinking, or rather, she remembered floating. She remembered the numbness that followed and the hollowed-out feeling in her chest as the water around her washed her clean of her charred and bloody remains.

She felt the rage that wallowed deep within her for so long erupt like a chasm finally breaking. This world had forsaken her, it had led her to the inferno that shredded her away into something foreign and resentful. It left her cursed.

The gods should've been more kind to her, she remembered. The gods should've been more careful.

AUTHOR'S NOTE━━ this story will be set up in a then / now arc. you'll get chapters before what unfolded in the prologue and then chapters from what happens after. For now you'll just be getting the summer chapters which lead into the events of the prologue. also this story is 100% being set during the summer after season 2 and through season 3!! 

(also....when tf is elena's bday bc i know her actual one is in june but the show gave her a bday party in august so....idk what to do oopsie hehe)

Hope you guys liked this because it definitely felt like just a mess. Let me know what you think eeee and don't forget to vote/comment :)