The Girl in the Woods

Chapter 16: Our World

Chapter 16: Our World

OUR WORLD. 2019 A.D.

Faith's eyes were dark brown like the earth. Her hair was jet black. But when light fell on it in a certain way, her hair becomes a warm brown color like it was now. She tucked a loose hair behind her ear and wiped a tear from her eye.

Right now, she was trying not to break down in tears as she drove. She had been driving aimlessly, with no clear destination in mind. She just had to get away.

She missed her family.

She turned off the music so she can hear her thoughts. For a while, only the sound of the engine whirling could be heard. Then a memory played in her head.

Pride. Stupid pride.

It had started out small. Her mom was nagging at her as usual, complaining about money and bills. Finally, she lashed out at her. Faith wasn't even really mad at her mom or at the issues she brought up. She had just been bottling up all her feelings and now they gushed out of her, out of her control.

The tears rolled down her cheeks. She was frustrated that she was in this position yet again. She was mad. She was upset. All the feelings she had buried beneath came surging up.

Then her dad tried to intervene. That was rich coming from him, Faith had thought sarcastically. Now her dad was trying to be there for her mom when just a couple of hours ago, they had been fighting. The hypocrisy of it all. She voiced her thoughts out loud: "You're the cause of most of her heartbreak."

All the hurt and anger and pain caused by her father came out. She hated him. She hated him for hurting her mother. She hated him because he never changes. But most of all she hated herself because she was exactly like him.

Faith locked herself in her basement room and sat on her bed. She hugged a pillow and buried her faced in it to snuff out her cries.

Before long, her mother came into her room hugging her while sobbing uncontrollably. In that moment, all Faith's anger disappeared. She embraced her mother back. Faith rubbed her hand against her mother's back trying to soothe her.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Her mother kept apologizing.

"It's ok." Faith reassured her. "You need to stop saying sorry. I'm not mad at you."

And it was true, she wasn't mad at her. She was mad at her dad. She was mad at herself.

A stop sign pulled Faith out of her thoughts. She waited a bit before proceeding away from the intersection.

That had always been the way her relationship with her mom had gone. Yes, they might have fought, but at the end of the day, they still loved each other. There was a solid bedrock of trust that withstood anything that was thrown at it. It reminded her of what her brother did after the fight.

Moments after her mom had left the room, her brother knocked on her door and opened it. Seeing his face peek out from behind the room felt strangely familiar to her. Faith patted the bed beside her. He came in and jumped unto the bed to sit beside her. She leaned her head on his shoulder and the tears burst out. Before he could react, she sat back up.

"I know it's my fault. I overreacted. That's what you are here for right?" Faith looked to him with a sober expression.

"No."

She had thought he was going to scold her, but sometimes not a lot of words needed to be said. Faith grew quiet. Breaking the silence her brother started telling her stories from the past making her laugh. He teased her and she punched him playfully on the shoulder.

Her brother was one of her best friends in the world. He understood her and could put a smile on her face. Faith chuckled as she recalled how her normally patient brother could also get really mad.

It wasn't often that her brother would get mad. But every so often, Faith would end up pushing him too far and he would get angry at her. And it was never pleasant. This was one of those times. She had pushed and pushed, and he was so angry at her that he refused to speak to her. Finally, she asked him what made him mad. After hearing his explanation, she apologized and locked herself in her room.

It felt awful making her brother mad. She cried in her room berating herself for being so foolish. Why did she had to be mean and manipulative? Why did she had to constantly hurt those she loved?

Her actions towards her brother reminded her of someone else. She had just finished watching the last episode of The Originals earlier that day and the character Klaus came to mind. She really identified with the character. They were so alike in many ways. Bad relationship with their fathers. Quick-tempered. Stubborn. Constantly hurting the people they cared for. That's why Faith envied Klaus' relationship with Elijah. She loved the character Elijah. She loved how he was faithful to his promise. She loved how he was protective of his loved ones. She loved how he was always forgiving Klaus and never giving up on him.

Faith sighed. It had started to snow now. The specks of white flying in the sky reminded her of Klaus' and Elijah's death. It was awful to watch the death of these two characters. She had been heartbroken. It was actually the reason why she was out on a drive. She had never felt so upset about a character's death until now.

It wasn't fair. After all they've gone through, it was tragic that they did not get a "happy ending".

Faith tried to shake off all thoughts about the Mikaelsons. It just reminded her of her own family and how much she missed them.

Instead, she thought about the new information she had found out about her ancestors. She had been working on a project which involved tracing her lineage and ancestry.

She had recently discovered evidence of her oldest known ancestor living in ancient Greece. He had been infamous for being a "sorcerer". Others had described him as a madman raving about travelling to foreign lands and times. From what she could piece together, he would be what fiction writers call an "interdimensional being". He himself had claimed being able to travel to different worlds and different times.

What was most interesting was the name Qetsiyah that appeared in the same documents as her ancestor. It was interesting to Faith because it was the same name of the ancient witch in The Vampire Diaries. Or perhaps, she had been watching too much Vampire Diaries and was finding connections where there were none.

It was all very strange yet fascinating to Faith. She let her imagination run wild for a while thinking about what she would do if her ancestor were indeed an interdimensional being.

As the snow fell heavily, the skies darkened, making visibility low. What started up as light snow soon became an all-out blizzard. Faith didn't hear anything about a snowstorm on the forecast, but then again, she hardly paid attention to such things. She was getting nervous now though, worried if her old car could pull through this storm.

She was deep in her thoughts and did not notice a truck that had suddenly swerved. She tried to avoid it, but it was too late. Her car hit the truck and the impact caused her car to spin out of control and into a lamppost. Within seconds, Faith blacked out.

~TGITW~

TVD WORLD. MYSTIC FALLS. 1000 A.D.

Faith woke up with a start. What happened? Where was she?

She got out of the bed and started pacing back and forth, mumbling her questions. The unfamiliar surroundings did not help and was starting to freak her out.

Out of nowhere, a hand reached out and held her wrist. She turned around and found a man exactly like Elijah Mikaelson from The Originals.

"What's your name?" He asked. His soft voice somehow calming her down.

"Faith." She answered. "My name is Faith Mikaelson."