A/N: This is my first fanfic, hope you all like it, please review so I can try and improve!
Chapter 1 : Rebirth
My name is Winter Severina Starling. I've been around for a while, not that anyone would notice. To everyone else I'm just a normal person; gothic, but still a living, breathing human. But I've seen things that no one alive today has scene.
I was born 150 years ago.
When I was 18 I was brutally attacked and to all the world I was dead, my body drained of every last drop of crimson blood. My heart stopped beating and my skin became like ice. But I wasn't dead. The man who attacked me was a vampire and he filled me with his venom, our blood mingled in my icy veins. I had been returning from my work in the Crown bar in the city when I decided I wanted to walk by the sea. Back then I loved the ocean, the sense of freedom, of release that it gave me made my mundane life as a lowly waitress bearable. Every day I heard the jaunty chatter of those that I served; and I envied them. They could free themselves from their post whenever they felt like it, I however remained trapped. I was admiring the ocean, the cries of seagulls and the echo of ship horns called out to me, promising me freedom.
Then he came.
I was leaning against the railings when he called out to me. I turned and saw a silhouetted figure beckoning to me. I froze with fear when I saw red eyes flickering from underneath his wide brimmed hat. I opened my mouth to scream but I couldn't even make a sound. Then he leapt. He roughly pushed me against the railings, snapping my head back to expose my neck. I cried out in pain. He gasped with what sounded like satisfaction and buried his teeth into the side of my throat. Warm, red blood flowed down my neck and cascaded onto the ground. I began to feel weaker. I felt myself falling back against the railings. I felt so cold as the figure drained the last drops of life from me. He lowered my shivering form to the ground.
"Thank you" he whispered. He brushed my dark hair from my fading eyes. "You are beautiful."
Then I lost consciousness.
When I awoke I was cold all over. The sky was reddened as the sun began to rise. I was lying in a circle of darkened, dried blood. My blood. My hair clung to my face and my clothes were soaked.
I sat up, brushing my hair aside.
"Where am I?" I murmured. Then I realised. The events of the night returned to me in flashes, each more horrific and painful than the last. I began to weep bitter tears of anguish. I looked at my white hands, knowing that not one drop of blood flowed through my veins. I was a vampire, and nothing would ever be the same again.
I hid away from my family and loved ones, I couldn't bear to let them see me, not as the cold, heartless monster I'd become. I was never to see them again. I changed my name to Winter to reflect the coldness that forever gnawed away at my broken heart.
Today I still live in Belfast, to be near the graves of my family. Every 31st November, the day that I was forced from my mortal existence to live in isolation; I leave a frost bitten rose on their cold tomb and pray that they'll forgive the anguish I caused them by leaving. It was the year 2012 and I had entered my 150th year of my harrowing existence. It had been 100 years since the second event that changed the course of my life…
It causes me too much sorrow to think about it. Here I stood on the steps of the Olympic building in the Belfast docks, watching the relentless waves crash below. I stared, remembering that night, so many years ago. I watched the visitors streaming through the glass doors, laughing and pointing, smiling together. They think it's fascinating. My icy blue eyes filled with tears as cold as the vast ocean. Sure, they could enjoy it; they could never conetemplate the terrors I witnessed that night. They were not haunted at night by the screams of all the peeps in the waters.
On the night of April 14th 1912, I watched as the Olympic fell to her icy grave.