New Beginning

Chapter One

"W- what are you?" She shrieked, rising to her feet and stepping backward away from me, "Some kind of-of- monster?"

Did she really think I was a monster? I had helped her, fixed her pain, what kind of a monster would do that?! I recognize now that I scared her, that I caught her off guard, but, I never expected my sister would've been afraid of me.

My blood began to boil, and my heart pounded violently in my chest. I was so angry, so hurt. In my short life, I had never felt that type of angry and betrayal before, and I reacted. I stepped toward her, ignoring the way she flinched back, the disgust plain on her pale features. I slammed my fist square into her face, enjoying the crunch against my knuckles as her nose shattered. Blood poured down her front as she stumbled backward, falling onto her bum.

"You FREAK!" she hissed, grasping her nose. "You're a freak, Elara!"

I earned a nice sentence of four weeks locked in my room for punching my sister. My parents didn't believe it when Elena told them what had happened to her arm. They thought we had been playing, and it had gotten out of hand. I think they recognized Elena was angry and assumed she was trying to get me in more trouble by making up my pretend 'freak powers.' As much as I'd tried to get my mother to believe in my gifts, after that day, I was thankful she thought it was all in my head. I couldn't, or wouldn't, allow myself to imagine how my parents would react if they saw me heal Elena. Would they have thought me a monster too? Would they have sent me away?

From then on, I started to be very careful about who I trusted. From that day forward, I never said another word about the things I could see or do. My sister showed me that I would be viewed as something scary or unnatural. Telling anyone could potentially bring me one of two things: pain or punishment. I chose to keep to myself — I was afraid I would hurt someone again. I had reacted so violently to rejection, and I didn't want to be the monster my sister accused me of being.

Elena and I were never the same after that day. We started doing everything separately instead of together; I honestly doubt she even remembers why. As we grew, she found her own group of friends, and I found mine. Well, I found one really, one person that was capable of pulling me out of the darkness I had surrounded myself with — Caroline Forbes, who, funny enough, I didn't even like at first. I couldn't stand her; she was so insufferable. She had been Elena's friend first and was always in my face, wanting me to go here and there with their group. I'd agree to go wherever she was corralling the group just so I didn't have to listen to her complain about how "I never want to hang out with them."

The more she bugged me, however, the more I started to like her. She had a fiery personality, one that you couldn't help but be drawn to, and she actually seemed to enjoy being around me, so that was a plus. Our friendship continued how it started. I was usually hidden away in my room until Caroline showed up, dragging me out to a party or school function that I really didn't want to go to. I'd insist that we stay in, get some takeout and watch a movie, but Caroline would have none of that. As I was pushed further into Elena's little group of friends, I was reintroduced to Tyler Lockwood, who I also grew close to. Not as close as I had with Caroline, but close enough to count him as another unlikely friend.

I kept mostly to myself until the Salvatore's moved back into town. I had known from the minute Stefan knocked into my sister in the hallway at school that he wasn't human. I could feel it, and not to mention, I had seen him before. He had shown up in one of the many memories that took me years to figure out — they were from past lives I'd lived. I'm not yet sure how many times I've lived and died, but I know it's numerous.

Every night, the memories come to me like nightmares. For the longest time, that's what I thought they were, just nightmares, that the imaginative brain my mother always claimed I had was working in overdrive while I slept. I never had anyone to talk to about what I was experiencing, and I certainly wasn't going to go down that road again. I suffered silently for years until I was visited by a spirit.

This particular spirit, Rebekah, was my personal favorite. We had been friends quite a few times in my colorful history. Her spirit form had plagued me off and on for as long as I could remember. She isn't exactly a ghost, but someone who tends to get stuck in the in-between. I've seen different spirits throughout my many lives — some dead, some trapped in limbo, or the 'in-between,' as I call it. It's my way of saying they are stuck in a realm somewhere between life and death. It's not common for someone to be stuck where Rebekah is, but thanks to a very long story full of family drama, she is where she is. We'll get to that later.

With Rebekah's help, she was able to help me through the painful process of unlocking my past lives. Even now, new information from one of my lives comes through randomly, giving me a migraine that feels like hot pokers pressing into my eyeballs. At least thanks to these random dumps of information, when Stefan showed up, I knew exactly who and what he was.

And the fact that he was here, now, in the present? I knew exactly what he wanted.

Rebekah had come to me the night before and told me everything was about to change. She told me that once again, I was going to be drawn into her family drama.

YAY. Just what I'd always wanted.

Even without Rebekah's warning, I had remembered a bit about Stefan. I had run into him before, just as I had the Mikaelsons. I was sure he had come back to town the minute he heard there was a doppelganger of the woman who had sired him, Katherine Peirce, or as I at first known her Katerina Petrova.

Lucky me, this specific doppelganger happened to be my sister. Note the sarcasm.

Thankfully, he hadn't noticed me playing creepy stalker at the other end of the hall as he spoke to Elena for the first time. I made sure I steered clear of him the entire day. It hadn't been easy, we all shared the same classes, but I made sure to play hooky.

I wasn't sure if he would recognize or remember me, but I didn't want to take the chance of him giving me away in front of Elena. The last thing I needed was my sister reminded of just how much of a 'freak' I was.

I needed to speak to him alone, so that's what I planned on doing. I would follow a vampire home, knock on the door, and ask to chat.

Sounds smart, right?