Prologue

I ran.

I don't do that, you know.

I am a lot of things, I admit. Vain. Shallow. Insecure.

Vapid. Selfish.

Crazy.

Hell, before I died, I wasn't even much of a good person. I have faults, lots of them. But the one thing I'm not without a shadow of doubt is a quitter.

I don't run away when things get rough. Even through the worst nightmares of my life, I have lived through. I don't believe in giving up. Maybe it's the neurotic control freak in me that's responsible for that. Problems are a part and parcel of life. It's the tiny hiccups that ultimately shape us into who we are. We need darkness to set apart the light-without it light has no purpose, no dimension. Its just… empty. Blank.

That's what I've always said to myself. Caroline, problems are like darkness. If yu don't have a little bit of it in your life, life loses its meaning. You can never appreciate what you have until you have something standing in your way from achieving it. So go out there, Caroline. Face your fears. Don't run. Face it.

Believe it or not, that philosophy worked.

From then on I took everything as a challenge waiting to be solved. Granted, I may not have used, er, the right methods to solve them most of the time, but hey! Life's a jungle out there! Especially high school politics.

And it worked! I lost friends along the way, my relationship with my close ones deteriorated. But I didn't run. Even when life decided to give a big ol' slap to my face-my dad abandoning us for a new life in a new place-I didn't run. I faced it. I put even more effort into making my life look perfect, focusing even harder on achieving excellence. I was not gonna let these small hurdles turn my life into a train-wreck. I was not gonna them get them get to me.

I was not gonna give up.

I am Caroline Forbes, and I may be a lot of things, but I am not a quitter.

At least I wasn't.

I closed my eyes tightly, squeezing them shut to keep the tears away. A treacherous sob escaped me however and I thrust my balled fist against my mouth to stop more from escaping. The gush of water from the faucet in front of me drowned out the ringing in my ear. You run, the ringing said.

You run…

You run.

"No", I muttered out loud, covering my ears with my hands in an attempt to drown out the voice. His voice. "No."

Run, Caroline.

"No", I repeated, chanting it in my mind like a mantra.

I need you to get out of here.

"No, I'm not leaving", I chanced a glance at the mirror and the shock at seeing the disheveled mess staring back at me almost stopped the ringing. Almost. I ran my fingers through the golden tangled web that is my hair and cringed, the neurotic in me screaming for a comb. I rubbed roughly at the tears that trailed down my cheeks relentlessly, groaning in pain as the skin started chafing. It felt good, the pain. Distracting me from the voice.

Run, Caroline. Go.

Well, it was good while it lasted.

"I can't", I sobbed loudly, looking miserably at my blotched reflection. My blue-green eyes stared back at me mournfully.

"I need you to get out of here", he had said. "I don't want you to watch me die."

The memory of his words was worse than the ringing. The ringing I could handle. But not the memory. Not this memory. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of our last conversation. I couldn't, not now. Not ever.

I need you to get out of here.

I screamed as the ringing started again. My legs gave way underneath me, causing me to sink to the floor. I screamed loudly in agony and despair and heartbreak. I curled up against the wall, rocking myself in place as the ringing continued. I screamed louder, trying to drown out the voice. I screamed at God, at the goddamn universe, at anything and everything. i screamed at the unfairness of it all.

Wasn't I a good person? Didn't I do everything right? I know people have faults, that I have faults. But didn't I work through them? Didn't I do everything in my power to set everything right? Sure, it took me dying and coming back as a bloodsucking fiend to turn my life around, but didn't I do it? I worked through my issues with my friends didn't I? I became a better daughter to my mother, didn't I?

I focused on fixing relationships instead of breaking them.

I started to value my life instead of complaining about it.

I worked harder at being better than being best.

I turned over a new leaf.

Didn't I?

Then why did I lose him?

I screamed and screamed and screamed- until the screams turned into coughs, the sobs turned into sniffs and the ringing turned into darkness...