The last thing I remember is cold, blue eyes staring down at me.

And then the blood.

Everything blurs as I scream helplessly. The predator is hunting his prey. There's nothing I can do to stop it. The headlights of my car glare down on the scene and silhouette the monster. A man, dark raven hair and icy eyes, claiming he's lost. I try to run but he beats me with an impossible, shocking speed that makes my heart hammer.

He's talking to me now, as if trying to calm himself, telling me about his crisis. His secret. He seems torn with himself, unsure of which way to follow. For a moment I almost pity him, sympathizing his position. We're not that much different.

But we are. And I discover that when he kills me. He drains the blood out of me. Why would he do that? He said he would let me go. My neck turns at a gruesome angle it should never go. He snaps my neck, and leaves.

And now I'm laying on the ground, headlights beating down on the road ahead, while I lie here, stuck.

And the moonlight is shining when I open my eyes.

A Week Earlier

x~x~x

I am an orphan. It changed me; made me bitter, made me cruel. Before I was gentle, sweet, caring. The Jessica Cohen I was supposed to be. The one that everybody knew, that everyone expected. But the anger stirred in me, lay there raging and fuming like a storm. Whenever I would get angry, the storm ripped out of me and lashed at everyone and everything. No one was to be at my mercy.

It made me like this. Now I know I can never go back. And I don't want to. Because I realize that life isn't fair. And you have to fight if you want to stay alive. No more pity, compassion, kindness. Weakness. That's what killed me in the first place.

My anger swings only occurred at random, when I could no longer contain myself. When I am no longer myself.

People hated me. They whispered, gossiped, telling lies that cut scars deeper into my ivory skin.

One thing I've learned, is to never, ever trust people.

I tried to restore myself, the sweet good-natured Jessica Cohen. But was she real, or had she always been a lie, just like the whispers?

I kept my anger on the down low for a while. One day, when I could handle it no longer, I chose to take it out of town. I was on my way, almost to Wickery Bridge, when I spotted a man laying across the road. I would help him. He would be my chance, I decided. He would be my chance to redeem Jessica Cohen.

He would be my redemption.

Little did I know, he would be my destruction.

And many things more, that were in store for me.

I had an accident before I died. A terrible one. It soured my thoughts and made memories bitter to think of it.

I was rushed to the hospital, and a kind woman by the name of Meredith Fell attended to me.

She told me not to worry, that she would heal me. She did.

She fed me the sickly sweet elixir of the undead.

Blood.

The memories course through my mind like water running swiftly through a stream. My eyes attune to the silver sheen of moonlight spread before me.

I feel alive.

x~x~x

I have a plan in mind.

I will hunt down the man who killed me.

He was supposed to be my redemption. I would have saved him and people would think better of me. As they should.

I'd even been out of town a couple of times, my anger overriding everything else. I went to go see the world. But I always returned to Mystic Falls. It was where my parents were born, and I felt that if I stayed away from home too long, I would lose the only connection I had to my parents.

They didn't need to know who I was; they'd start up talk again about me and my temper; my rudeness, lack of...normalcy. It was their fault anyways. When I was younger, when I didn't know cruelty, I was sweeter. A good girl. But they all still shunned me. I never understood why. What was wrong with me? So I shunned them too. They would always be talking, talking, talking about me.

Not just that, but how I was orphaned. I didn't need to hear anything about my parents that wasn't true. I'd barely known them anyways, but the perfect picture of caring, loving parents was ingrained carefully into my mind. Never mind what people said. It didn't matter. It wouldn't.

I drew when I got angry sometimes. It helped contain it. It was the only thing that kept me calm. But now...I wouldn't have to hold back any longer.

As I walked down the road, the blood matted into my clothes, my car left abandoned, I wipe away the dried tears coating the blood on my face. I died, begging for life, from a man who couldn't get his morals straight. But I was reborn someone else. Someone new. Stronger than before. Without the past. Sharp and steel-edged. Dangerous.

Not the same anymore.