"and once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through...you won't be the same person who walked in. that's what a storm is all about."
03 | PHOENIX
May, 1854
Her braids bounced against her back as she ran, bare feet feeling the cool grass underneath as she spread out her arms to either side. She laughed, the sound seeming to echo through the small clearing where her house sat. Her bright blue eyes sparkled in the morning light, and she was happy.
"Charlie, wait!" A voice called from behind her and she looked over her shoulder to see her older brother, Stefan, running after her. He was stumbling, trying to keep up with her fast pace and looking completely ridiculous whilst he did so. He wore brown pants and an oversized shirt that must've been Damon's before it was his. Charlotte, on the other hand, wore a pretty pink dress that didn't suit her complexion at all; her father liked pink though, so her mother made her wear it. She would much rather be wearing trousers like her brother; it would make playing their game so much easier if she didn't have to worry about trippping over the long trim. Her small hands came to pick the fabric up, turning around and running backwards as she faced Stefan.
"This is part of the game, Stefan!" She reminded him, and he rolled his green eyes before continuing to run toward her. She giggled, her small body turning back around and almost immediately running into someone else.
Before she could think or do anything, the seven year old girl was lifted up into the air. She let out a yelp of surprise which almost instantly turned into a fit of laughs and giggles. She thrashed in their arms, shaking her head.
"Damon!" She whined, trying to wiggle out of his arms but he had gotten much stronger than either Stefan or her. He was now sixteen years old, where Charlotte was only seven and Stefan was eight. He knew how to use his strength now, which caused for a very unhappy Charlotte whenever they played games together. He always managed to beat her with everything.
"Yes, Charlie?" He asked playfully, not letting her down from her perch over his shoulder. She frowned and started hitting his back with her tiny fists; she hit harder when he started to laugh.
"Let me down!" She screamed and she noticed that Stefan had finally caught up to them, his brown hair ruffled from chasing Charlotte for the past hour or so. He eyed his brother and sister in amusement. Charlotte wanted to smack that small smirk off his face if she could actually reach.
"Hmm, I don't think so," he replied, and she pursed her small lips, pouting even as she hung upside down. Her oldest brother was standing in the clearing with black trousers and a light blue shirt that brought out the pretty color of his eyes. Charlotte had the same eyes and wanted to wear blue just like him, so her eyes could be that bright. She hated wearing pink.
She had to grab onto his waist when he started walking back to their house, and then she began to hit his back even more. "Damon!" She cried, shaking her head. "Don't make me go back in."
"Your tutor was just telling me to go find you after you ran from your lesson," he reminded her, sounding like he was trying not to laugh. He shook his head, his curly black hair going every which way as he did so. "She looked very distraught, Charlotte."
She rolled her eyes as Damon finally put her down. But before she could escape, he set his hands on her shoulders, keeping her in place as his blue eyes stared deep into her own. Charlotte could see a sprinkle of freckles on his nose from this close, and smiled as she realized that she had the same freckles in the same spot. She had a little more than Damon, and much more than Stefan, but nowhere near the amount that their mother had.
"You can't just run away from your classes whenever you don't want to do them," Damon told her seriously, his smile gone as he looked at her. In this crouched position, they were at the same eye level. "Father will get angry."
She looked at the ground, nodding her head slightly as she sighed. "I know," she told him, biting her lip. "But I just don't get any of the stuff she's teaching," she confessed, looking up at Damon and seeing him melt under her sad eyes. "I don't get it at all, and then she gets mad at me for not understanding."
Stefan stepped forward, tilting his head at his sister who seemed very shy right now—a far cry from her usual personality. "Why didn't you just ask me for help?" He asked, concern in his eyes.
Charlotte shrugged, still feeling Damon's hands as they moved up and down with her small movement. "I don't know..." She trailed off. "I didn't want to bother you."
"Charlotte," Damon told her firmly, shaking his head. "You would never bother me or Stefan, alright? And if you did, then we would tell you," he smirked as she let out a tiny laugh. He brushed back a piece of her dark hair that had fallen in front of her face, smiling gently. "We'll always be here for you, whenever you need us."
She nodded, but then furrowed her eyebrows when she looked up at him. "What if you can't help me?" She asked. "What if you don't understand either?"
Damon opened his mouth to say something but stopped, not quite knowing what to reply with. If he didn't understand something, he didn't know what he would do, especially with Damon being so much more older than his baby sister. If she were to encounter or go through something that he didn't understand... He didn't really think he could actually help her, and that hurt him just thinking about it.
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, okay?" He told her, suddenly smirking. "I don't think there will be anything that I won't understand. Have you met me? I know everything."
Charlotte laughed and Damon stood up once more, leading his baby sister back toward the house. He smiled as he watched her skip past Stefan, making the younger boy roll his eyes as he chased her again. Damon couldn't help but shake his head, content as he watched his two little siblings.
<<>>
June, 1863
Like a phoenix, she awoke.
She gasped, eyes flying open only for dirt to immediately fill her mouth and cloud her sight. She clenched her eyes shut at the intrusion, her heart pounding in her chest as she began to hyperventilate. What happened? Where was she? Did she...? She remembered dying. She remembered as her heart stopped and her eyes closed to the beautiful light above. She remembered death, and now she was... She was alive again.
Her hands left her sides to try and shield her from the dirt, but it was everywhere, all around. Her chest heaved up and down as she quickly ran out of air. Her hands, knowing that she had to get out of wherever she was, began to dig upwards. As her thoughts gathered she realized that she was buried underneath the earth, discarded after her death as if she were nothing.
She kept digging for what felt like years when in reality it was only about a minute. In the dark, everything was so much more scarier and unknown. It made Charlotte cry, tears streaming down her cheeks as the dirt around her stuck to her face in the process. Her fingernails were turning black and her clothes—which were ripped and torn in so many places—were now completely ruined from the dirt. She tried to scream, but she choked on it, muffling any sound.
She reached up to dig for more when her hand suddenly ripped through into empty space. At the feel of the air and the wet ground from the rain, Charlotte dug faster, pushing everything away as she hauled herself up from the tiny hole she managed to create. Her face felt the fresh air and she immediately sucked in a large gasp of oxygen, her lungs inflating to the max—until it burned. Her eyes were wide as she tried to understand all that had happened and why she had just dug herself out of a shallow grave.
She flipped to her right side, pulling her legs out of the hole before scrambling away, her chest moving so quickly that she was surprised that she didn't pass out from a panic attack. Her entire body was trembling as she cried out, confusion and fear gripping onto her skin like a parasite while she curled up, rocking slowly in the grass. She didn't understand. What was happening?
She began searching her thoughts quickly when it all hit her like a freight train. Her shaking stopped, her rocking slowed, and her eyes slowly narrowed as a fury she didn't know existed grew inside of her. Her hands turned into claws as they gripped her legs tightly, images of the men grabbing her, cutting her, killing her, flashing through her mind. She remembered every single face, every single laugh, every single name that John had drunkenly spoken. She remembered the slurred words, and the darkness of the woods. It was still dark out now, and—as she looked around—she realized that she was in the exact same spot that they had killed her. She grew even angrier at the fact that they didn't even have the decency to move her body or give her a proper burial. They just left her here. Alone.
But, as Charlotte realized that yes, she did in fact die, the next question that entered her head was how, exactly, was she alive right now? How had she breathed once more, blinked once more, when she remembered her organs ceasing to function? How was her heart beating when she remembered it stuttering to a stop?
She didn't know, but for some reason, she didn't care. All that she cared about right now was those men, and how they had destroyed her. They had taken everything from her, and now...
Now, it was her turn.
Slowly, Charlotte stood up, her bare feet not feeling the cold and damp ground. She did not shiver, nor did she flinch at the feeling. Her blue eyes were still narrowed, a look of unsettling blankness on her face. Her hair was tangled around her, and the tear streaks had created tracks of pale skin down her otherwise dirty face. She gave one more glance to the makeshift grave at her feet—her expression unchanging—before looking back up and walking away. Her body felt stronger, yet she knew there was something more that she needed to do. It was like an instinct, a burning sensation in her throat that ceased to go away as she entered the nearest town. As she walked in, she realized what she had become.
Her father always told her and her brothers bedtime stories of the demons in the night: monsters who survived off of human blood. She remembered clutching her blanket in fear, wide-eyed as her father told her of their enhanced abilities, and how easily they could break a human's neck. She remembered the fear, but that fear was gone.
She didn't know how, or why, she had managed to become the creature her father and much of Mystic Falls hated, but she knew that she did not care of what they thought. All she thought about was how she could not enact her revenge all in one night, and she needed something to give her strength. She needed to be stronger than them, to watch as they crumpled before her.
She killed a man for the first time that night, a drunken fool stumbling and slurring as he tried to find his way home from a local bar. Charlotte knew that she was not in Mystic Falls anymore, and did not care about who the identity of the man was. All she saw as he grumbled and hiccuped to himself was John. All she saw was a disgrace to anything good and pure. All she saw was hate.
She lured him into the alley easily, her innocent yet beautiful look brought the perfect bait for a man like him. He had grinned, walking into the dark alley and asking her if she knew where she was. She didn't. His grin widened.
She smiled as well, pretending that she was glad to see him, to see help. He seemed to take advantage of that and tried to rush at her, which fatally backfired as he slipped, scraping his hand.
It seemed like destiny was begging her to turn into what she knew was inevitable. It was like the universe begged her for it, to take a drink from the rude and vulnerable man before her. The smell wafted around her and she couldn't resist even if she tried, desperately needing the blood that coated his palm. And so—knowing that she couldn't stop the wonderful smell that was urging her on—she had grabbed his hand, bringing it to her lips.
The taste was euphoric, like an out-of-body experience, and she closed her eyes as he pulled away from her. She heard him calling her a freak, trying to tear his hand away, but somehow, her grip had turned stronger in seconds and she opened her eyes, smiling wildly at him. She saw his fear, could practically smell it, and she knew that it was too late to turn back now.
She had silenced his screams that night, and as he uselessly struggled against her, she felt something inside of her head snap, like a switch. She felt nothing as he tried to pull at her clothes, or as his eyes lost the glint they held. She felt nothing as she felt fangs grow out of her teeth, giving her the ability to bite into the skin at his neck. She felt absolutely nothing as more and more of his blood was brought to her mouth, strengthening her body even more. She felt nothing as he died, and she continued to slurp at his body. However—as she dropped him on the ground—she did feel something swirling throughout her, and she smiled.
She felt power.
And she loved it.
<<>>
January, 1864
He clenched at his hair, pulling and straining at the locks; it hurt his head, but not doing it hurt even more. His hands shook—his whole body did—as his paranoia wrapped itself around his mind, bleeeding itself into his bloodstream so that it was useless to try and get rid of it. Agony and pain stemmed from all parts of his body, soreness coursing through his limbs from being tense too long. He couldn't relax; it was impossible to do so now. He wore a suit still, but it was disheveled, and made him look pathetic as he trembled in the corner of the large room. His tie hung loosely around his neck as he brought up the bottle of whiskey to his lips once again, the glass bottle shaking. His throat moved up and down in short bursts, the bags under his eyes standing out prominently against his hollow skin. He had gotten paler over the past few months. He could barely trust his own shadow let alone his servants, who he had fired not long ago. They could be working with her.
The room he had barricaded himself in was large, and looked bigger now that all of the furniture was pushed up against the doors and windows. His bed had been torn apart only two nights ago as he crazily used the wood to block any light from filtering into the nice house. The dresser and side tables were stacked against the door, but he still thought that all of these precautions would be useless. She had found the others, and now it was his turn.
The wooden floor chilled him to the bone when he thought of how far he had fallen after Charlotte's demise. He had graciously and perfectly showed how falsely worried he was about Charlotte's sudden disappearance to her family, watching as they confided in him what they would do to try and find her. The brother was the most distraught it seemed, more so than the father, but John had quickly left Mystic Falls after everything happened, explaining to Giuseppe that he had business elsewhere. Everything had been fine until last July.
Only a month after Charlotte's death, a friend of John's—Peter Miller—had been brutally and gruesomely murdered, found in his bedroom by his wife. He had been sprawled on the red mattress, his eyes torn out of his head and blood dripping from the now-gaping holes. He had bite marks on his neck and wrists, his blood completely drained from his body. It was a horrific scene, and the town of Maryland had swarmed with rumors of a beast in the night, coming to his house and tearing him apart. John had mourned his friend's death, but didn't think much of it until later.
Then came another death, this time of Lenord Johnson in Pennsylvania. He was murdered in the exact same way, with blood splattered all across his room and a look of agony and fear permanently etched into his face. More rumors of spread, this time of a girl walking the streets completely covered in blood. The whispered stories made John's stomach churn, but he ignored it yet again.
He shouldn't have.
Next came Tommy Rossellini in Florida, then Oscar Lupin in Georgia, then Carlisle Fern in South Carolina. All were murdered in the exact same way, and slowly, very slowly, as John continued to bury some of his closest friends, he started to look closer into the murders. He began to see connections, and his heart had stopped when he realized that all of these men had aided John in taking care of the Charlotte Salvatore issue. They helped him kill—and then bury—her, agreeing that they would part ways for good afterwards. They went to different parts of the country to cover their tracks, hardly ever corresponding unless it was about certain business conventions.
John would've thought he was just looking too much into it if it weren't for the fact that at every crime scene, he noticed something that everyone had waved away. He had blanched with fear every time he saw the tiny, almost nonexistent "C.S" written on the floor near the beds with the men's blood. It was like she wanted him to know that she was coming for him—as if she were simply playing some sick game—and John knew that he couldn't be imagining this. Charlotte Salvatore was somehow alive and killing everyone that was there that fateful night. And now that she had gone through everyone else, John was the only one left.
He cried to himself, running his hands through his blonde hair again, ripping at it to try and distract him from the fate that she had promised him. He tried to tell the authorities or neighbors or anyone about what was happening, but they all thought he was crazy. They believed that he didn't know how to deal with the deaths of his friends so close after the disappearance of the girl he was supposed to marry. They didn't see that he was desperately trying to stay inside of his large house in New York to hide from the monster Charlotte had become. He didn't know how she did it. How could she have survived what they did to her? How could she be causing all of this havoc when John remembered burying her lifeless body underneath the dirt in the rain? How... How could this be happening?
Suddenly, he heard the front door downstairs fly open, slamming on the wall behind it before footsteps pounded on the stairs. John shook his head, trying to ignore the sounds and the fact that she was almost here. He was folding in on himself in the corner like a little kid afraid of the monster under the bed. It wasn't too far from the truth.
He wanted to take back every single thing he had done to her—take it all back and never touch a bottle of alcohol ever again—but it was too late. He had done the things he did, and he had made his bed; now, it was time to lie in it.
The door echoed with reverberations, rattling the furniture trying to block it. The sound made John take another drink, shaking so hard that the bottle almost slipped from his lips. He clenched his eyes shut, accepting that these would be his last moments if what he thought was behind the door was actually real. He wanted to pray that it wasn't, but he wasn't naive enough to believe himself.
Dark wood from the furniture suddenly went flying as the doors were pushed open with so much force that it frightened John even more. He watched with wide eyes as she stepped into the room, her dark hair done up and her blue eyes just the way he remembered: bright and wild. The white wedding dress she wore trailed behind her, and John started screaming.
She smiled.
"Hi John," she spoke happily, her voice higher than normal. However, John could hear the darkness underneath the light and excited words. He could hear her anger even as she tried to quell it. She tilted her head, blinking at him. "Long time, no see."
He tried to close his eyes against the picture of her standing there in a beautiful white dress. The fabric clutched at her breasts in a heart shaped neckline, but just after her waist, the dress flared out, making her look like a fairytale princess. Her dark brown hair was tied up intricately, and he could see beautiful diamond bobby pins between the knots. Her blue eyes bore into his own as she lifted the lace veil to trail behind her, revealing her pale skin. She looked different; she looked stronger. Gone was the petrified girl that he'd killed and buried, and something like a demon had taken up residency inside of her.
She cupped her hands together at her stomach, watching silently as John opened his eyes to look at her, his lips trembling at just the sight. She watched with a small, content smile while he shook his head, as if trying to rid her of this place. When he spoke her name, his voice shook badly. "Charlotte—"
"I thought you called me Charlie?" She asked innocently, looking confused and yet, and allowed another smile grace her lips when he flinched at her voice. It had changed slightly after her transformation. Instead of her normal light banter, her voice sounded prettier, like an angel's singing. It was so much more graceful and beautiful than the human version of herself, and Charlotte was happy about the interesting revelation. She didn't mind the change. It furthered her ideology that this new life was much better than her first one.
He shook his head. "No, y-you told me n-not to call you that anymore," he stuttered, and she blinked, keeping her fury at bay. The nerve of this man.
She laughed loudly, shaking her head as she waved his words away. "Oh that," she giggled. "That was just me being dramatic. Besides, you never really listened to me, did you? Even on the night you killed me."
Her sentence made his pale skin blanch further, looking sickly as he shook his head rapidly. "I didn't mean any of it," he tried to amend, his heart sinking while her smile widened. "I swear, I didn't mean it."
"Oh, Johnny boy," she tsked, taking a step closer so that he could see that her feet were completely bare. "You always were a terrible liar."
John blinked once, and she was suddenly standing in front of him, her face transformed darkly as she gripped his throat tightly. She cut off his air supply, watching as his eyes widened in surprise of her sudden movement and the new characteristics of her face. The whites of her eyes had turned blood red, and the black veins underneath them swirled in anticipation. Her white fangs looked like pearls in the dim lighting, and John screamed, the bottle slipping from his fingers. It shattered on the ground, staining the bottom of her dress. She smiled at his reaction, her hands turning into claws and swiping at his eyes, the grip on his throat giving her leverage against him.
The next thing he felt was extreme pain shooting through his head. He tried to open his eyes, but found that there was no longer any possible way to see. Agony spread through his body and he yelled, crying at the unimaginable pain that he was forced to experience. The sobs were cut off by her hand on his throat before he felt pinkpricks in his neck, then his wrist, taking his energy with every bite. Charlotte giggled in glee; her white dress turned red until she was practically drenched in it. With the others, she simply ripped their eyes out of their heads, but with John, she wanted to do so much more.
Bringing his ear close to her mouth, she breathed, "Everything's more fun in the dark, isn't it?" She relished in his trembling, in the way he tried to plead with her despite all the damage she had already done. Ignoring his cries just as he had ignored hers was easy, especially with the absence of emotions that would normally keep her from doing such gruesome and sadistic things.
She tore him apart that night, biting until his bones broke, listening as his screams were cut off after his head rolled away from the rest of his body. His limbs scattered the room, and after she was done, Charlotte Salvatore grabbed the candle nearby and threw it on the ground. His remains immediately caught fire.
She watched everything burn, just as she had promised him months ago. She smiled at the flames licking up his body, which looked so unrecognizable that Charlotte knew nobody would know who he had once been. His identity was hidden by the extensive damage she'd done, and she relished in her victory.
Turning around, she stepped out of the room, down the stairs, and off the front porch, leaving the house behind as it burned.
She did not look back.
<<>>
September, 1864
It was months after John's death when Charlotte finally flipped her emotions back on. It was months of ravaging towns with fire and blood, watching the streets run red as she enjoyed this new life that she had been given. She killed many; they were mostly men who abused their families with the help of the Devil's drink. She killed them all in the same way, tearing out their eyes first and listening to their terrified screams for a while before finally ending them. After all...
Everything's scarier in the dark.
But she also had her fair share of accidental kills; she didn't think that much of them at all, preferring to stay in her bubble of death and destruction for a little longer. However, when she was visiting Florida for maybe the third time that year, she heard startling news from Virginia. She had informants there—people she had turned in her short time as a vampire to keep her in the loop of Mystic Falls. What she heard made her flip on her emotions within the second.
Now, she stood at the back of the funeral, watching with bright blue eyes—blinded by tears—as two caskets were slowly lowered into the ground. Her black dress was beautiful, but it was stolen from a nice lady on the way to Virginia. Charlotte was happy she didn't kill her, especially after a lot of the guilt from her kills returned.
She did not regret killing John and his businessmen friends, nor did she mind the cities that suffered from her hand. She did not regret her time as the Infernal Queen—something that townsfolk had started to call her—nor the way that she acted. But as she stood, watching her brothers get buried into the ground behind a black veil, she regretted not being there. Oh, how she regretted leaving her home. She should've revealed herself, but she thought that it would put her family into danger, and she would never want that. She wanted them to live normal lives after the loss of their sister, and they couldn't do that if she accidentally killed them. That was her one condition with being without her emotions; she would not hurt any members of her family. She also had a rule against children, but that was another story for another day.
She just wished that she could hold Stefan's hand or cause mischief with Damon again. She wished she had seen her oldest brother after he had come home from the war. She wished she could look into those blue eyes that she shared with him. She just wished that...that they were alive. That she could cry into their shoulders about her grief and sorrow of this existence she no longer wanted. She got her revenge, and now she just wanted to go back to the way things used to be. She wanted to go home.
But she knew that was impossible.
She heard that Mystic Falls had a large-scale vampire lockdown the night that her brothers were killed. She knew that it had been an accident on some fool's part that killed them, and she also knew that her brothers had been trying to save the one and only Katherine Pierce.
When she found out that Katherine had been a vampire the whole time, she couldn't help but feel betrayed. One of her first real girlfriends had been lying to her about what she was all along. She had been using the Salvatore hospitality for her own gain, and it had ended up with her brothers dead and the female vampire in question stuck in a tomb under the church. Charlotte felt no need to try to save her from the fate she had received.
"Did you know them well?" A voice beside her asked curiously, and Charlotte slowly turned to see a young woman that she briefly remembered seeing around the town. However, the woman did not see Charlotte's face clearly from behind the black, lace veil she wore. It made her look even more glum and depressing than the funeral itself, which was quite a feat indeed. Her lace gloves matched the veil as she held onto the cloth of the dress for support. She relished in the feel of the sun on her skin, only just recently meeting a witch who could give her a way to enjoy the sun's presence once again.
When Charlotte learned about witches and werewolves, she wasn't overly surprised, understanding that if there were vampires in the world, then there had to be other supernatural creatures roaming around as well. There had to be more, and while Charlotte's witch friend made it clear that her kind despised all vampires, she couldn't help but think that all of the creatures relied on one another to keep a sense of balance. Or at least, that's what her witch friend told her before Charlotte killed her.
She needed to keep her presence quiet in the world after her murderous crimes, after all. She didn't need any loose ends once the witch had given her the daylight ring.
Charlotte shook her head slowly. "No, I didn't," she replied quietly, and it was true. Her brothers had never met this version of herself that she had become, and now they never will. They did not know each other like they used to, and that thought alone made Charlotte's heart ache.
Before the woman could respond, Charlotte walked past her, digging into the small purse she held and bringing out two, vibrant red roses. The crowd seemed to part at the mysterious figure approaching the graves. She bent down, sighing softly as she let one rose fall on Stefan's casket, and another on Damon's. Feeling like she couldn't stay there for a second longer without having another breakdown, she quickly stood, turning around and leaving the sight of the graves. She did not spare her father a single glance, disappearing from Mystic Falls for good.
She wasn't sure exactly where she would go next, not until she heard word of a backwater town in Louisiana that was quickly gaining more and more settlers by the day. Not only that, but she heard that vampires ruled the city, controlling anybody who entered, and Charlotte couldn't help but be drawn to such a community. She didn't want to hide at the extreme measures that she was doing now, trying desperately to not get caught feeding on some innocent bystander. She had to be careful, but in this town, New Orleans, perhaps she didn't. Perhaps there would be so much other supernatural activity that nobody would notice the small town girl walking in.
Oh, how she was wrong.
<<>>
okay guys, here's the next chapter!
i really loved this update and i'm excited to hear all your opinions on how charlotte's character is evolving. if you'd like, you can also leave suggestions or ideas for what's to come once she reaches new orleans. the next few chapters are going to be really fun, and i can't wait!!
props to anyone who can guess where i pulled inspiration from for charlotte's revenge against john. ;)
thank you so much for reading and i hope you liked it!
-kay <3