Little girls, this seems to say / Never stop upon the way / Never trust a stranger friend / No-one knows where it may end / As you're pretty, so be wise / Wolves may lurk in every guise / Now as then, 'tis simple truth / Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth. – Rosaleen, the Company of Wolves
AN: Hey guys! So this is a little something I was inspired by the quote above and Red Riding Hood the movie! So yeah. I hope you like it! Please tell me if you think I should continue it or if you like it where I ended it? Reviews make me smile! ]~(-.-~)Happy Halloween from that scary ghost and myself!
Caroline was eight when she first met him. No one knew who he was of course, and people later came to the conclusiossn he wasn't real. But she was always haunted by those piercing moss green eyes.
She was eight when she was running through the woods through trees that seemed to move with the boy with the boy with the moss green eyes. She woke at dawn in her pyjamas in the very same woods near the crypt, to the sound of people with flashlights screaming her name. There was one voice that rang out loud and clear above the rest, the sweet lullaby of the boy with the moss green eyes 'I'll be back soon, Caroline,' he promised. She was too young and tired to question how he knew her name. Her mother and her friends questioned her as to how she got out of her house in the middle of the night, but details were fuzzy about that part. All she remembered was that she was in the forest with the sharply bright moving trees and all bright blue skies and the feeling of the leaves crinkling underneath her feet as she ran with the boy with the moss green eyes.
People tried to figure out who this boy was, and they had her look at pictures of boys in her town but now of them were him with eyes that shined in just the right way. Mischief, impishness, and a certain cheek. None of them were right. None of them were him. Slowly people started putting a more sinister spin on it and her mother sent her to a woman that asked her questions she couldn't happen because the further she was away from that dream the less she remembered until all she remembered was the moss green eyes. No one asked her about him after that.
People started to talk, and Mystic Falls is a small town. It soon got around that the sheriffs daughter was mad.
She stopped telling people about the boy with the moss green eyes after that.
But she always hoped he'd come back and they could run through those trees again.
But the years past and the memories faded, but she'd always be reminded of him in the strangest ways; when she smelt pine or mint, when she saw a particular colour that Jeremy was using when he was painting, when she walked through those very woods everyday in the hopes of seeing him again.
She never did.
Elena and Bonnie put up with it, her spacing out at random times and she'd start sentences then cut off, frowning, and they'd know it would be about him. It left her distanced from them in the end.
Caroline was fourteen when she started to give up on the boy with the moss green eyes. He'd surely be a man now, and would have no interest in the silly little mad girl who cares too much. She tells herself this every night before she goes to sleep.
But she stills feels disappointed when she wakes up the next morning after a dreamless night's sleep.
Caroline was fifteen when she dreamt of him again. She had long since given up on him, and boys her age had started noticing her and she watched them notice her. But they still weren't him, no matter how hard she tried to forget. So when she found herself in her dream in the middle of the trees that were just as bright as they were seven years ago, she could feel her heart starting to pound as she whirled around, looking for any sign of the boy with the moss green eyes. And there he was, though he was no longer a boy but a man, and while she wasn't a girl anymore she certainly wasn't a woman. He looked different, taller, wider, he'd filled out and become handsome. But the cheeky smirk on his face and the glint in his eyes when he saw her was just the same. 'Caroline,' he breathed, saying her name like a prayer. No no no no, not him. 'No,' she said, the reluctance in her voice betraying her conviction. 'Leave me be. You don't get to call me by my name. You don't get to call me anything.'
The boy-man, she reminded herself- looked mildly surprised. 'I told you I'd be back.'
'You told me that seven years ago. I waited for seven years.'
'It took a long time for me to find you, my Caroline.' She tried to ignore the shiver that went up her spine at his words. 'People thought I was mad. They said you aren't real. Are you?' He goes silent at that. 'Yes and no,' he answers.
'You left me alone.' She says suddenly, the voice undeniably broken and vulnerable. And by God, we are all broken and desperate things. 'I was always there. You couldn't see me, but I was.' He starts to advance towards her. 'I will always come back for you, Caroline. I promise you that.'
'How do you expect me to go anywhere with you if I don't even know your name?' Caroline asks, curiosity getting the better of her.
'Nik,' he says with a cheeky grin and grabs her hand. 'Now run with me.'
And they do, until she wakes up on her bed, tucked in, but the tell tale sign of mud on her shoes. She breaks down and cries.
She spends that day in the woods, hoping to see him. He doesn't. But he does show up that night and the night after that and the night after that. 'why me?' she says him one night as they are sitting side by side beneath one of the trees. 'There so many people it could have been. Why did you choose me? why did you come back?' He tucked a stray lock of hair away from her face.
'Because you are interesting. And beautiful, and full of light. And I made a promise I'd be back.' he answers, just before she wakes up again.
Caroline's sixteen and a half when he first kisses her. He tastes like mint and tangy orange and he smells even more delicious up close. His hands fist in her hair.
Caroline's seventeen when she doesn't enjoy his visits quite so much anymore.
She should have seen it coming, really. The visits were getting less frequent, but when he did he would have this dark look in his eye and he'd snap at the tiniest of things. But not with her; never with her. Until one day he's kissing her like he's never kissed her before and it feels like everywhere he kisses is on fire until she gasps as his teeth sink into her neck. He kisses the bleeding spot on her neck and sits back, licking his lips. "Now I'll always be able to find you." The fear kicks in just as she was jolted awake, her hand immediately going to heart necking, it coming away with blood on it. Her heart is pounding and she stuffs her fist in her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
But he keeps coming back. 'please,' she whimpers one night. 'please leave me be. If you mean me no harm then you'll leave me alone.'
'You know I can't do that, my Caroline. I promised I wouldn't leave you alone.'
And he never does. Each night he comes back.
Until one night he doesn't.
She gets up and goes on with her day like she wasn't a mad girl being plagued by a strange man in her dreams. School passes as she goes through her classes, talks to Elena and Bonnie, and teaches a new routine to the squad. Everyone is gone and she's finishing clearing up on the field when she feels like someone is watching her. Paranoid, she whips around, only to be faced with darkness and the dim lights emaciating from the stadium headlights. Slowly, she turns around and the water bottle she was holding fell from her now weak grip at the sight of the person in front of her. 'no,' she breathed. 'It's not possible. You aren't real.'
'Hello, sweetheart,' he said.
'Nik.'