Here's Chapter One! Hopefully you guys enjoy the chaos.

THREE YEARS AGO

"Rebirth is not the end, but a new beginning, where the phoenix rises from its ashes to soar once more."

Damon

DARKNESS.

Darkness draped around me like a thick, heavy curtain that mimicked a curtain call at the end of a Broadway play. As I lay still, I could feel the wetness from the ground beneath my supine form seeping into my body. It was damp, soft and earthy—which made the perfect burial ground for my former life.

The irony about this situation as a whole was that, like most humans, I made the mistake of taking my short life for granted; bitching and moaning how life continuously fucks me over with no lube and no invitation. Woe is me. Life is hard. Why me? Are the things that they would say when life got tough, but took for granted their ability to persevere through the darkest of trials that life had thrown at them. If life were as hard as mortals seemed to make it, why not take their own and be done with it all?

Fear.

Fear was the reason. Fear of the unknown that would come after their final breath. Did they live suitable lives that would allow them to enter utopia, or were they afraid that their misdeeds would land them in Hell? The point being, mucking through life, day after day, experiencing the same torture hoping that one day things would be different only to experience turmoil seemed insane. Yet humans still continued to live despite their impending outcomes only to become blubbering messes as they felt their essence fade away… It was almost as if they didn't know that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Clearly humans were insane. And me, Damon Salvatore was a prime example of defying the norm. Where was my anxiety? My fear? My feeling of unfinished business? What was it that made humans want to continue living, because at this moment in time I didn't feel any of that. I felt…

Finished.

But how did I get here? What led me down this proverbial rabbit hole like Alice into Wonderland? My birthright, my destiny, my fate (whatever the hell else you want to call it), or perhaps a miscalculated fluke that nearly ended my life, and now, here I am, dying alone in a cemetery.

As hunters, we faced danger everyday. It was my call to action and it was something that I wouldn't (couldn't) ignore. I was a protector of the innocent and a defender of humanity and it was almost ironic that despite my willingness to protect humanity, being just above human is what killed me. So while every mortal went to bed every night dreaming of sweet dreams, thanks to the work of me and others like me; I went to bed dreaming of blood and gore. I could feel the steady stream of blood slowly dripping from my shoulder as it intertwined with the rain flowing down my arm.

I was willing to do whatever it took in order to maintain my status and heritage as a descendant from one of the twelve original hunting families. Even die. That was the oath that I took the moment I turned eighteen. Now at the ripe old age of twenty-seven… I had never felt more empty, because despite the fact that I lived to serve, I had never lived my life. As I lay paralyzed I could hear the sounds around me as they flitted through the crisp night sounding distorted, removed, foreign… dead.

If I were being honest, this isn't the first time that I've woken up in an unfamiliar place. Usually I was naked passed out in a five-star hotel with multiple women and empty liquor bottles, but this time my clothes were tattered and my limbs were paralyzed.

I could feel the night's breeze caress my hot skin like a lover's kiss; soft and something to be relished. Looking up, I could see the opaque light from the Blood Moon shining down on me almost mocking me. From its position, it looked to be around two in the morning. The time that I would die.

I felt the seductive lure of death like a whisper in the back of my mind since the moment I became a hunter. Death was in our DNA and beckoned us home. As I closed my eyes I welcomed the sweet embrace of death, almost forgetting that my afterlife will not be well spent.

I was finally finished. No more training. No more fear. No more responsibilities. No more fighting the impulses that were intricately woven with my DNA. No more battling with my sanity. No more waiting in line for my turn at the plate. I was free. Maybe in my hereafter I may actually get to enjoy eternity.

The crickets chirped along to a melody all their own— cohesive and calming as the slight breeze from an autumn's night cast an invisible chill through my bones. This was how it was supposed to be. Dying alone with no one knowing of your whereabouts. If you were brought into this world alone, dying naked and alone was rather poetic.

This was it.

My time had come.

At least I believed my time had come, until I felt a jolt to my system like defibrillator paddles on my heart, followed by a whiff of a subtle perfume coupled with a smell of burnt leaves and fresh blood that encased my senses. Seconds later, the foreign scent was followed by a feminine and very startled "oh shit" and a very frantic: "hey guy, please don't die," accompanied with a light tapping to my jaw. Slowly, I cracked my eyes open while I tried to determine where the voice was coming from. Through squinted eyes, a blurry figure with long hair came into my frame. It was almost like seeing her through a widescreen format… encased with Vaseline.

Oh would you look at that, it's raining now, I thought to myself, sardonically.

"Great! You can tell that it's raining!" She exclaimed, then immediately whispered to herself, "Thank God he's not dead."

A groan."Nope, I'm unfortunately very alive at the moment. Why didn't you leave me to die in peace?" I rasped.

She ignored me.

"I don't know if you know this but, you're bleeding… like, really bad. I can't tell if it's your own blood or someone else's. If it's somebody else's then I feel like I have to ask if you're a serial killer… are you a serial killer?"

Jesus. H. Christ. She talked a hell of a lot. "If I were a serial killer, would I admit to being a serial killer?" I grumbled.

"Got it. I see your point– and holy shit you're practically NAKED!"

"Stellar observation, Sherlock."

"What happened to you?" She chittered hysterically.

"That's a question that I don't have the answer to, but I can assure you that this is the first time that this has happened,"I gave a halfhearted smirk.

A pause. "You mean to tell me this isn't the first time you've woken up in a cemetery bleeding, and half naked?" she was actually a good question. Naked, yes. Bleeding, yes. Naked AND bleeding, I couldn't recall. "O-oh my God, are you actually trying to remember a time where that happened? Who are you?"

Despite the fact that this woman spoke a mile a minute without taking the necessary breaths needed between sentences, I found her endearing and a little bit insane. Here I was, bleeding to what I assume would be death, and I'm the calm one.

"It must be the moon," she concluded, "a lot of weird shit has been happening tonight. Animals have been losing their minds, and people keep getting attacked. But I do see some marks here, so I'm pretty convinced that you were attacked. It looks like you were mauled by some kind of animal. This is like a ton of blood, so I hope you don't have rabies." she babbled.

Aw shite, the Blood Moon. I felt myself closing my eyes and breathed deeply as I tried to recall what happened this evening.

We welcomed our new initiates into our guild. We had a commencement, dinner, followed by drinks. I normally wasn't a lightweight, but I must've had more to drink than I anticipated– which wasn't exactly unheard of. Then, that's when things got a little fuzzy. I felt insurmountable rage. And then…

Nothing.

I couldn't remember what happened between ten o'clock and now. I lost time and I was really starting to panic.

I opened my eyes and this talkative woman decided to take on the role of my savior. Something tells me that I had a better chance of dying again than subjecting myself to her presence. Inhaled once more. This time something shifted in my belly. I could smell a faint scent of sunshine, sugar, cocoa butter and copper rolling off of this mystery woman and it felt like I wanted to sink my teeth into her– to consume her. I'd never experienced that feeling before in my life. It felt like I was intoxicated by her and her alone.

Mine. My inner voice growled. I had passed the point of shock and migrated swiftly into terror.

What. The. Hell was happening to me?

"Okay, I didn't know who to call," her voice broke through my rampant thoughts, "so I texted one of your favorites on your phone."

"Bloody Hell, who did you call?" I inquired, still unmoving and internally panicking.

"The Ghostbusters," She joked halfheartedly, but when she received my best glare despite my current disposition, she continued. "Okay, right, now's not the time for joking… and I texted," the mystery girl emphasized, "someone named 'Stef' Anyway, she'll be here soon for you."

"You talk a-a lot." I said, unceremoniously.

"Yeah," she agreed, " I tend to do that when I'm freaking out and in extreme pain and bleeding all over the place. Blood makes me queasy and if I talk a mile a minute I focus on the words that I'm saying and not necessarily the things that are happening to me. I think my therapist calls it a coping mechanism, but I think that's just my default setting."

She was in pain? I would have never guessed. I didn't think anything of it.

"Wot happened to you?" I slurred, "And how are you helping me?"

"Like I said, the Blood Moon brings out the crazies and I was caught in the crossfire. Something attacked me when I was–" she paused for the first time since meeting her, almost calculating her next words, "- leaving work. I didn't see it, it was moving so fast. And I think the reason I'm able to help you now is because I'm a natural empath and I have a shit ton of adrenaline rolling through my body right now. Like, you know when kids get trapped under cars and moms end up lifting like three thousand pounds of said car like it's a feather? I think that's what I'm doing now."

Before I could ask any further questions, I felt the upper half of my body lift as my head lolled forward involuntarily. I could feel my body being dragged sloppily across the ground beneath me. My partially nude body grew increasingly more wet as I could feel the stickiness of the mud attach itself to the back of my jean soaked thighs. My hair was sodden which added to the dead weight that was my body. Every grunt, gasp, and curse flowing from my 'savior's' mouth, I could hear. The last time I could only recall feeling this helpless was the last time Stef and I went out for a night on the town and I got so drunk that I needed to be carried out of the bar. But this situation right now? Yeah… this was more embarrassing.

"Am I pissed?" I slurred, barely able to regain full functionality of my mouth . The dragging stopped.

"You peed yourself?" The woman responded,disgustedly nearly dropping me. "That's disgusting."

"No! That—that's vile. Pissed like— drunk, you anxiety ridden squirrel. And why can't I move or see clearly?"

The dragging stopped. I felt my body being haphazardly thrown against what I assumed to be a crypt judging by the solid wall that came in contact with my back. Though it didn't hurt, my body did not like being thrust upon the concrete wall. I could hear the crunching sound of the leaves beneath her feet as she moved to stand in front of me, though I could hardly see anything but her blurry outline standing in front of me.

"One," my Florence Nightingale began, "I'm not an 'anxiety ridden squirrel' as you so lovingly called me. You should be lucky that I'm not leaving you here to die. Two, the reason you can't move is because you were dead. I'm talking, dead enough for rigor mortis to set in, so by my assumption, it looks like it's going to take your body a little while to start working again… if it ever does." She whispered the last part.

"If it ever— what do you mean 'if it ever does?' I cried hysterically.

"Well, I'm not exactly a professor of all things undead." I threw my head back, and came in contact with the wall. That sent a jolt of pain through my skull, but I couldn't move my hands in order to alleviate the sensation.

"Oh God," I groaned, "Am I a zombie?" The worst case scenarios were flashing through my mind like a flip book.

"Do you feel like eating brains?" the woman asked matter-of-factly.

A pause. "No."

"Then you're not a zombie." My 'savoir' replied sarcastically. After a beat I began shifting in my seat. It felt like there were a million fire ants crawling beneath my skin. It was itching and burning simultaneously. There were torture tactics that I had undergone as apart of my training, but I was always able to break free and there was always an end in sight. This 'coming back from the dead' feeling was something that I never thought of, even in my wildest dreams.

"What's wrong with you?"

I sighed, "I'm itchy." I responded petulantly.

"Sounds like lactic acid build up."

"And here I thought you weren't a 'professor of all things dead?'" Through my eyes, I could see her blurry head cock to the side.

"I'm not. That's literally just science." A sigh. "Where does it itch?"

I made a frustrated growl. I've never been so helpless– so pathetic. And now I was at the mercy of a strange woman who seemed to know a little too much about death for your average bystander and talked a hell of a lot. That could only mean that she was a part of the paranormal. That, or really well versed in horror movies.

"... Everywhere." I answered reluctantly.

Without a word, I could feel her moving closer to a limb. The closer she moved to me the more I could feel her. As this stranger's hair caught in the wind, I could smell a faint pomegranate scent carry in the breeze. I could feel her touch as she lifted my aforementioned arm carefully. Though I couldn't see her through my distorted vision, I knew that she was attractive by scent alone. There was no rhyme or reason as to why I believed that but I could just sense it. My mouth was at this moment, and this moment only, that I was happy that my body could not react to the presence of a woman. A boner would've made this experience even more uncomfortable than it already was.

My breath caught as she caressed my arm, and I could feel the transition of pressure as her nails were being embedded into my skin in order to scratch my arm. I felt as though her touch was imprinted on my soul. No sooner did I get comfortable with her touch, did I miss it when my extremity was dropped forcibly, almost like I had scalded her. Before I could question her, she said:

"And on that note, I'm gone. I've done my civic duty." I could hear her weight shift as she went from a kneeling position to standing. If I could strain my ears closer, I was sure I could hear her heartbeat increase. "Wha?" I responded clumsily. "You can't bloody well leave me out here! There could be—" I stopped myself— "Thugs. Yes! Thugs! Big, nasty, greedy thugs who will actually kill me!"

"That sounds like a personal problem. I've done my due diligence." A sigh. "Look, Nicki should be here soon. She can take it from here."

Without another utterance, she was gone. And once again, I found myself alone, amongst the corpses in the graveyard— formally being one of them, myself. Now I was left alone with my thoughts and a sense of emptiness at the woman who left my side.

How did I get here?

How did I come back?

How can I continue to live knowing that I was in the afterlife and experienced nothingness? Who was my anonymous Guardian Angel? No sooner did those thoughts cross my mind, did a heavier set of footsteps reach my ears. From what it sounded like, the feet were encased in heavy boots, and from what I could smell, a scent of aftershave and Drakkar Noir.

I knew that scent.

My head turned lazily to the right while a drunken smile appeared on my face.

"Hello, Steffie."

A beat. "You know how much I despise it when you call me that," the voice drawled like Professor Snape's, as a figure moved to where his savior once stood. "The name is Stefan. And hello, dear brother, what kind of mess did you get yourself into this time?"

I smiled. "Boy do I have a tale for you."

"Here's a thought. How about you tell me after we get you the hell up out of here?" Stef said as he lifted my body.

"Good plan. Smart plan. Safe plan. Let's go"

Once Stefan adjusted my bodyweight around his shoulders, the two of us made our way through the dense fog that settled around us as we ventured into the night not knowing what the future may hold.

XXX

So... was that a chaotic introduction or what? Please let me know your thoughts!