Lydia Martin was hosting the best party ever.

Well, it was no surprise really. She being herself, she knew how to host all the gatherings. It was easy, really, she just needed to turn up the music loudly and serve food. Most of the teens came with dates every year and that's how the parties always worked out. Somehow the strawberry blonde had managed to push her parents out of town this year.

The girl paused for a moment as she made her own birthday cake. Her parents were long gone, out on a date in another city. Now what was she supposed to write on it? Was she supposed to pretend that she really knew her age?

Truth was, ever since that encounter with Peter Hale, Lydia had a hard time remembering almost everything about her past. She swore that she was 17 and that was that. But there were faint memories of something else. It had seemed like she had been living way too long to be just 17 years old.

Lydia licked some of the icing off of her finger and shrugged. 18 it was. "Happy 18th birthday, Lydia!" she wrote on her cake, shrugging to herself. It wasn't like people would care anyway. They'd be too busy with all the drama to be able to respond to the dumb cake. In fact, she'd be busy too. She'd be looking for Jackson.

Just when she was about to finish the rest of the icing on her cake, she heard her front door creak open and ran up to it. Oh god, this was not happening again, was it? She wanted to have a normal day for once.

"H-hello?" Lydia called out, searching for whoever had come into her house. "The party doesn't start until 9, stu-"

Okay seriously, Lydia had seen many things in her life. Things that scarred her. But there was nothing worse than Peter Hale's pale and disgusting corpse standing in front of her. She had been having tons of hallucinations lately, but the ones with Peter were the worst.

"Hello darling," he whispered as he leaned in and touched Lydia's cheek.

Lydia closed her eyes. There was nothing going on. She was safe from danger. That's what the school counselor and her therapist had told her many times. Right, Lydia. This isn't happening.

"I missed you. Didn't you miss me?" His words dragged on as he talked. She swore she could feel the cold touch of Peter's hand… she could even smell his breath. "Why don't you sit down?" he asked. By now there were tears falling down her cheek, something she couldn't help. These hallucinations needed to go away. She wanted a normal life, thankyouverymuch. Peter then sat down next to the doorway.

Lydia stood standing. Ignore him and he will go away. But she was drawn to him, which was probably the worst part of all of this. She was horrified with herself as she sat down, staring right into his cold eyes.

"Do you know what day it is?" he asked. She sat there, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She wasn't about to have a panic attack before her best party. She wouldn't allow it.

"My birthday," she replied quietly, reaching out to hold the necklace she was wearing.

"Yes, but which birthday?" he asked.

God, she was going crazy. She whimpered. Usually by now Peter was gone, leaving some sort of mark that she was actually going crazy. What had she even done to deserve this? Nothing! She wanted to be left alone!

After a really long pause, Peter began talking again, reaching out and grabbing her hand. Lydia shivered as the world seemed to get colder. She stared right ahead of her, a blank look on her face. "It's not your 17th, 18th, of even 19th, honey," he said sadly, as if this somehow affected him.

"It's your 34th birthday, Lydia." She felt him squeeze her hand. "Happy birthday," he added, as he took out a tiny, clean box out of his pocket.

And then it was all over.

Lydia opened her eyes, took a deep breath and sighed. She wiped the tears off of her face. It had just been a rotten hallucination. She closed her eyes once again and leaned her head against her wall. But she had forgotten one little fact.

Peter Hale had actually come and visited her. How would she find out later? She was still holding that little box that Peter had handed to her.


A/N: This is a short chapter, but it's only to see how many people are interested. I'd like to get some reviews and then I'll continue writing the next chapter. I hope you liked it! Thanks for reading.