✔ | Allure, S. Salvatore

✔ | 1 - 𝑽𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝑨𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓

The seatbelts don't give out under the water, the girls trying to break through the windows. Murky water rushes in and Kat gasps over the surface "Dad...! Da-"

Their mother doesn't move, blood mixing with the brown deluge around them. Kat opens her mouth in a silent scream, trying to free her sister. Breath starts becoming foreign, life being dragged out of their body. The sisters look to each other, eyes drooping and arms shaking. The last thing she sees is a dark swirling mass dragging her sister away from her. 

Kat Gilbert gasps awake out of her dream. It wasn't new to her since the accident three months ago, but her fisted fingers don't really let go of the warm sheets that once offered her peace. Elena slept beside her, up on the bed while she was down on a mattress to calm her sister if she had any of her screaming nightmares 

"It was a dream.... It was a dream..." Kat mumbles to herself, looking at the clock.

5:13 a.m.

Sighing, she gets up, tiptoeing around her sleeping twin and darts into the bathroom with a towel "It was a dream" she mumbles through her toothpaste.

"It was just a dream" she gasps when her feet touch the shower.

"It was just a dream Kat" she repeats again, with a proud nod at herself as she darts out downstairs.  She leaves her hair loose around her shoulders, letting her locks touch her waist. For the next hour, she works on breakfast. Jenna has a meeting at Whitmore and both she and Elena can't cook. Setting waffles down in plates, she calls out for everyone "We're running out time! Everyone get your asses down here now!"

Jenna is the first one to stumble down, almost tripping down the stairs as she hears food calling to her "I was gonna try toast today, I swear"

Kat chuckles, "It's okay, I woke up early Jenna, I had the time" Though waffles are pretty simple, she took her time doing everything in the kitchen. That's her trick these days, stretch every second out to the maximum. That's what you do when time stops moving for you.

Jenna dutifully calls out to the remaining children of the house and sits down, waiting. If it was three months ago, she would have been gobbling up the contents of her plate, but now, being a legal guardian to three teens means squeezing in adulthood in her time.

Elena comes down, not really smiling "What's the discussion?" 

"Waffles, sit, eat" Kat orders with an authoritative smoky voice, her green eyes flitting around. Elena sighs "I don't care about waffles Kat, it's all about the coffe-" her words halt mid-word when the elder twin holds up a full pot of hot coffee triumphantly. "Sit"

"Is there coffee?" the youngest Gilbert finally presents himself - laces untied, wrinkled pants and ruffled hair. He snatches the cup out of Elena's hand with a teasing lilt and sits beside Kat on the other side of the platform.