Author Note: My first published story...ever...so please be gentle :) I'm not sure where it's going to end up, but a string of coherent ideas hit me in the shower this morning and I decided that today was the day because I knew I'd never truly find the right time to lay open my heart to the drumming of reviewing fingers on a keyboard...hehehe...did you get it?
Disclaimer: I do not nor do I wish to own the characters...I just like to play with them from time to time. I mean, really, who needs the added drama of being whined to about how much page time so and so got compared to the poor guy who was slaughtered ten sentences in? Except for my OC...she's mine...her I can handle...or learn to handle cause she's the one that lives in the fiction part of my brain.
Prologue
Watching from the cover of the trees, she saw him disappear and realized too late that her opportunity to follow him was gone. Once her mind accepted the truth, she walked towards the only solution to her eternal loneliness...
Had it been minutes? Hours? The fog Nora woke to wasn't only in her mind. Her medical training kicked in and she began to assess herself for injuries. Rising to her feet, she wondered how she'd gotten here. The surroundings were familiar, from the comforting feel of the air around her to the colors that took shape and formed those things that tell us if we are going in the right direction. The trees, the familiar walkways that led to warm meals, storefronts that called to her with the hellos offered from behind the counters within. But she didn't feel safe or welcome. Something had changed and she slowly began to walk along the sidewalks that had always led her to the comforts of her small town life. Nora felt herself enveloped by the silence all around her as the early morning shadows lifted from Mystic Falls. Why was she on the opposite side of town instead of near the Mystic Falls Family Practice office where she worked with Dr. Fell? Struggling to clear her head and find some answers, she changed direction and soon found herself in front of one of the older buildings in town that had been converted to lofts-the current architectural trend in many of the surrounding mill towns. Home. Turning the knob of the door that would lead to her 600 square feet of safety, she began to breathe lighter than she had since she came to.
Her apartment appeared the same. Nora remembered leaving her unfinished cup of coffee on the kitchen counter as she rushed out the door and smiled at the memory. She'd still been late to work that day. Nora smiled thinking that if she'd known then what she knew now, she'd have finished it. The last few grounds had been carefully scraped from every corner of the bag that her parents had sent for Christmas knowing that she couldn't afford to treat her expensive taste in coffee. Walking the few steps from the door, she picked it up and nearly dropped it in surprise. It was still warm. "How?" She'd spoken aloud, immediately covering her mouth with her hand. The sound of her voice emphasized the silence of not just her apartment, but the world around her.
Nora moved from the kitchen towards her bedroom, glancing around the living room on the way, searching for any sign of change. She found that her bed remained rumpled from sleep and quickly shed clothes were leading to the bathroom. Following the erratic path laid by the pajamas hastily discarded after realizing the snooze button had been abused, she noticed her toothpaste was still open and steam continued to grasp at the edges of the medicine cabinet's mirror. Water droplets were still making their way down the shower walls...Wait!...her alarm clock. Nora peeked back into her bedroom and looked towards her nightstand. On it lay the book she'd been reading until two that morning and next to it was the obnoxious alarm clock her sister had given her as a housewarming gift. Lauren and Nora had shared a bedroom until Nora graduated high school and moved into the dorms at Whitmore College. Her sister knew Nora's habit of "five more minutes" better than anyone and had found an alarm clock that could record customized messages for the snooze alarm. Nora remembered well the first morning she heard her sister's voice gently nudging her from sleep before turning into a screeching shout of "wake up, sleepyhead!"
The red numbers seemed to sear themselves into her mind and she began to shake as she realized what they were trying to tell her. 8:10. She had woken at 7:30 that morning and managed to run out the door at 7:55 in a desperate but doomed attempt to arrive at work by 8. Fifteen minutes had passed since she hastily locked her door, awoke in the neighborhood she'd grown up in, and walked to the current residence of her adult existence. The confusion she had felt waking up on that sidewalk returned and she collapsed abruptly on her bed, holding her head in her hands.