Today
New Orleans, Louisiana
"I'm telling you, Maddie, she's legit. I wouldn't drag you across the Atlantic ocean for some pathetic con artist" Emma insisted, as we walked through the streets of the great city of New Orleans. We had landed roughly 3 hours ago, after a 12 hour flight all the way from London. Though, I insisted for us to go back to the hotel to take a nap, Emma couldn't wait a single second more to meet up with some weird-ass 'fortune teller'.
"About that, remind me why am I here again?" I ask as if I already don't know the answer.
"Because I'm your best friend in the whole wide world" she said with the biggest smile and I just laugh at the statement, rolling my eyes at her "and because we needed a break from the most boring city ever, don't get me wrong, London can be pretty amazing but all that rain seriously makes me want to drown myself in it"
"And that's why we decide to chase a 'fortune teller' in New Orleans as a fun vacation, well now I can at least check that off my bucket list" I say as my eyes travel from one store to another, after a moment I realize I'm not looking at the stores but rather at the people hanging out around inside or outside them, as well as everyone who walks past us.
"Well, you're welcome" she said teasing me back "It's just one of the many milestones on this trip, after this we can go wherever you want but for now I have- we have - to do this" I notice her sudden voice shift at the last few words and my eyes focus on her instead.
"Why 'we'? Last I checked you were the only one that had to see her-" I asked confused at her change of words but she interrupts me before I can finish.
"I meant that maybe you can... take this opportunity to ask a little about your future, and I know you don't like talking about any supernatural related stuff but it's just for fun"
"My future? I know my future. I will have a happy normal life and grow old with whoever I fall in love with. And it's not that I don't like talking about supernatural things, I'm just... over that kind of stuff" I said and the urge of changing the conversation rises in me.
"Freaky. You know for someone who accuses me of being a control freak, that sounds weirdly controlling. And over that kind of stuff? More like avoiding that kind of stuff. Remember when we were so sick with the flu and decided to watch those awful movies with the vampires and the werewolves?" began Emma, as if the conversation had suddenly turned into an interrogation "You got so weird about the whole thing, that you couldn't even make it through the first one. And don't blame the whole bottle of NyQuil you took because I had the same amount and I was pretty fine myself"
"Because the movie... was bad" I retorted at her accusation but she really had a point, the thing is, I couldn't really explain it myself. Every time I thought about vampires, werewolves or anything like it, I would suddenly get a weird feeling... like a warning that prohibited me to speak or even think about anything that wasn't as ordinary as a human being.
"What about the vampires and werewolves? Was it because they were bad too?" she asks again stopping to stand right in front of me, as if she was confronting me and to be honest it felt like she was.
"Em, I'm tired. I barely slept on the plane, my feet are killing me, I'm also starving and all I want to do is take a nap. Yet here I am as a good friend looking for a con artist" I excused myself, giving her a fake smile as I continued walking.
"Avoiding" she chanted in victory and continued walking with me. I ignored her as I knew she would at least stop pushing the subject, after all she had proven her point. I was avoiding the supernatural but only because everything around it seemed so foggy, literally, not only because of the feeling I would get but also because my mind would get all fuzzy around anything that had to do with that word. Like when you hear a song on the radio and you know it, so your brain tries to recall the lyrics to it and the title but only in this case, as hard as my brain tried to recall whatever memory or knowledge it had about any supernatural related thing... it just failed. Leaving me feeling pretty useless and confused, but what it was more annoying, it's that the supernatural wasn't the only thing my brain would get all messy about. And I hated it.
"Earth to Maddie, we're here" Emma's voice brings me back to reality as we stand in front of one of the oldest stores I've ever seen since we got here, though I haven't seen a lot of New Orleans, it sure was something. The whole place seemed so rusty, almost abandoned, you would think the place was closed if you didn't bother to fully look at it. Until your eyes would land at the weirdly modern 'open' shinny sign at the door, breaking the whole 'creepy abandoned store' illusion the owner was maybe going for.
"Here as in here to get killed by whatever creep awaits inside?" I snorted but the feeling begins to rise up inside me.
"It's not that bad, I mean the place could totally use an extreme makeover '21st century' edition but maybe it's not too creepy on the inside," she said walking towards the door but she stopped before she walked in noticing I wasn't following her "Really? it's not like the wicked witch it's waiting inside to eat you"
I rolled my eyes at her as I walked towards the entry, Emma was right behind me holding the door open for us, it's when I first notice that it's not a store, the place it's actually a bar. And it's quite nice inside and a lot more modern than the exterior facade. Nothing too fancy, but like a good old local bar you would visit every friday to kill some time. "Hate to tell you, but 'told you so" says Emma as I follow her to one of the empty tables. "Thank God, it's not busy"
"Makes sense, it's like what? 1 pm?" I said looking around at the other three people in the bar, one is a guy probably in his mid forties drowning himself in alcohol near the counter. The other two are a couple way in the back, too far for me to see their faces but I can tell it's a guy and a girl "I'm just glad it's actually a bar, because now we can get something to eat without any excuse from you"
"I'm glad too, I'm actually starving... weird, I didn't notice it before" she said a bit confused and for a few seconds she spaces out like she's in some sort of trance but she snaps out of it as soon as her eye catches something at the back of the room "I'll get us some drinks and something to eat, while I try to contact the lady"
"I'll come with you" I said standing up with her but she stops me before I can finish.
"No need, why don't you text Logan and tell him we're fine. Just stay here" she demanded and walked to the counter before I could say anything else.
"But he's your boyfriend, shouldn't you text him?" I asked confused knowing she wouldn't hear me but for some reason I still do. I take out my phone and look up Logan's number, texting him like Emma had told me to but the message doesn't goes through letting me know there's no signal. "Of course there's no signal, requisite number 3 in the creepy haunted bars qualifications book" I say letting out a frustrated sigh.
I glance at Emma who's now talking with a blonde guy who appears to be the bartender, he leaves for a few seconds and then an old lady comes out from the back, greeting Emma like if they were old friends reuniting after not seeing each other for years. Which is odd, since she never mentioned she knew the 'fortune teller', if that was her but I can't see anything else as they enter whatever place the old lady just came from.
Maybe she did know her but it just made zero sense, when Emma told me about this trip, she said it was sort of a 'spring break' in the middle of august and out of the nowhere, which is not something she would do, not at least when she's sober. Then, after I only agreed to come with her if she had an actual plan of what we would do in her so called 'spring break', she said she wanted to do a road trip through some states in the US. But I honestly thought she meant a road trip to Santa Monica Beach, Yosemite or to the freaking Texas Canyon, not to a lonely-creepy looking bar in the middle of New Orleans to see a Fortune Teller. It was our first stop, and she only mentioned it a week before our trip, of course I would have backed out because the whole thing seemed so sketchy and out of the blue but for that same reason I knew I couldn't let her go by herself. For all I knew, she could have been tricked by some serial killer and it's not like if I didn't want to come to New Orleans, there's something in New Orleans but I just couldn't remember-
Mama take this badge from me
I can't use it anymore
The sudden song change makes me loose the trace of my inner conversation, focusing on it instead. A few seconds ago a 1920's ballad was filling out the awfully quiet bar but now Bob Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door was coming out of the old jukebox standing in the corner at the back of the room.
It's getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I'm knockin' on heaven's door
"Ironic" I whispered and I glanced to the couple in the back, who were the only people near enough the jukebox to change the song but I notice the girl is gone, now there's just the guy sitting by himself... eating? I couldn't quite see him as his back was the only thing I could make out from where I was sitting.
"Burger and fries, plus a drink with some jam. Enjoy" said the bartender, leaving everything Emma must have ordered for us, except there was only one set of everything, not two.
"I'm sorry did you just said jam?" I asked him and he raised his eyebrows looking as confused as I was about the jam.
"I don't know, that's what they told me to bring to this table" he answered genuinely "Quite a a popular order today, actually"
"I get why the whole burger, fries and drink would be a popular order but with the jam as well?" I asked and I couldn't help but laugh at how strange that was.
"I know, thought so too. Anyway, enjoy" he agrees with a chuckle as he was about to walk away.
"You can just take the jam, we won't need it and I don't think my friend even likes jam" I suggested handing him the little container with the jam packets but I was taken back when he didn't extend his hand to take them.
"Actually, I can't. That's what they told me to bring to this table. They didn't say anything about taking something back" he answered in the most stiffest way possible.
I frowned not even sure if I understood what he just said "Wait, Emma said that?" I asked confused giving him a puzzled look but he almost gave me the exact same look when I mentioned Emma's name.
"Who's Emma?" he asked tilting his head to the side as if the conversation had turned ten times more complicated than it already was.
"The blonde girl who was talking to you about 15 minutes ago, she was with me when we came inside" I replied and he nodded immediately.
"Oh, that girl. She didn't order anything. Do you want to order something for her? Wait, I actually don't know if I can do that either. This is so confusing" he said almost exhausted from whatever thinking process was going inside his head.
"Wait, what did you just say? Then who ordered this? You must have the wrong table, I can't believe Emma would forget to order something. And why can't you take an order? Don't you like work here or something?" Surely I was being rude, but the whole thing was just a mess, nothing made sense.
"I'm pretty sure I have the right table. They said to bring this exact order: burger, fries, zima and 10 packets of jam" he reads from a notepad which I guess he used for taking orders "to table 10, this is table 10, about 40 seconds in Knocking On Heaven's Door and not to make too much small talk which you're forcing me to do and if I didn't, they would snap my neck. So, enjoy."
I was too shocked to even ask anything else, as I watched him leave to clean the front counter, I wasn't even sure if I had actually listened to what he said.
Knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door
Knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door
"If I didn't they would snap my neck" I can hear his words repeating in my head over and over again, maybe it was a joke. I mean he was pretty calm cleaning a freaking counter and not getting the hell out of here like any sane person would do if someone just told them they would snap their neck. Maybe that was the way his bosses treated him, if it was, what kind of establishment was this? They just make orders for their customers and snap the waiter's neck if he serves them wrong?
Knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door
Knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door
And what was I even doing? Sitting around and waiting for someone to snap my neck? I needed to get Emma and leave this place but the feeling wasn't there, the warning, like if my brain was still processing everything that was happening around me. Did he say zima? Didn't that get discontinued like 10 years ago? I looked at the clear glass placed next to the plate with the untouched food, it did seem like zima, the liquid was clear as day and it had a few ice cubes in it. Before thinking it twice I took a sip, confirming what the blonde waiter had said, it was zima.
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Was this even real? The whole scene was like taken out of a dream or nightmare that my brain could barely wrap my head around. Was I really sitting in a random bar in New Orleans drinking zima, an extinct drink, while Emma was god knows where with a witch?... with a witch? Then it hits me, how this is the first time I've said witch in what feels like years. How I've avoided to call the fortune teller 'witch' since Emma first brought it up but it has never occurred to me before. It's like the word had been erased from my head completely. Forgotten. How was I in London and never mentioned the 'w' word, in the place that gave birth to Harry Potter? Now that was pretty stupid. "Witch" I said out loud and the warning feeling multiplies by what it feels like a million times, now I was beginning to feel terrified and I wanted to think of something else.
I got up quickly and began walking towards the front where I first saw Emma disappear but I become aware that I'm all alone now. The bartender or waiter is gone, the forty-something man is gone too and so is the guy who was all alone at one of the tables at the back, and before I can think of anything else, I rush to the door where that lady had taken Emma only to find it locked.
"You know you're quite the ungrateful brat, but that's nothing new" a chill goes through my spine when I first hear her voice coming from the table where I was just sitting "All that hard work we had to go through, to find this stinky drink, who even liked this thing anyway? Oh, I tell you who: sociopaths"
The feeling is just way too overwhelming and I refuse to turn around to face her, because the same part of my brain that warns me and forces me to leave all supernatural behind, as well as other things, tells me who I will face once I do: my sister... there are so many thoughts rushing through my head as I remember her name... her face and maybe it's what finally gives me the courage to turn around, and that's when I finally see her... Elena.
⚜
Author's Note*:
Well, this is some sort of test, as I know I'm about a thousand years late with this fic but I miss my weekly kai&tvd dosis, and unless they somehow make him appear in the originals, he is gone for good :( So I decided to finally write this fic that's been in my head for quite some time now but I don't know if anyone will actually read this story? So I'll give it a try, if you're reading this: hi, ily, let's be friends. You're in for a hell of a ride, I have so many great things planned for this fic and i really hope you guys like it. Sorry about any grammar mistakes, english is not my first language. Also sorry about my crappy photoshop skills, I tried.
*EDIT: hey y'all, so I think the first chapters are not that great™ and to be fair i was just getting into writing & i sincerely apologize lmao, BUT!!! It gets WAY BETTER later on(at least i think it does), trust me, I will sort this mess out in the future.