another chance

PROLOGUE

Prologue

Natalia wanted to cry. Her head was buzzing painfully and the constant chit chat around her wasn't helping at all.

The last thing she remembered was driving out to Target to buy something for her mom... she couldn't remember what. In fact, she was having a hard time remembering her mom's name. Weird.

She didn't know where she was or what the voices around her were; she didn't know anything about what was happening, but she didn't care. She just wanted this headache to stop.

"Open your eyes, little one." A soft voice soothed.

"I- I can't." Her eyes felt like they were glued shut.

"You can. Try harder." Another voice urged. This voice wasn't quite as calming.

She listened to the voice and forced her lids open. Her vision was blurry and her eyes felt dry and strained.

"There you go." The first voice said with a hint of pride.

It took a few seconds, but her vision cleared and she took in her surroundings. She was in what looked like a plain white void.

There were four people hovering around her. They were all beautiful . Like, drop dead gorgeous.

"How do you feel?" The soft voice asked.

The voice belonged to a man. He had fair skin and floppy brown hair. He looked no older than twenty, but he looked so knowing . Like he'd seen everything. No twenty year old could look like that. He was smiling sweetly at her. Something in her knew she could trust him.

"Um, I feel okay."

He chuckled. "No you don't."

"Nobody could feel okay after going through what you just went through." The other voice added. She turned to see that it was a blonde man. He looked very similar to the brunette, but he was a bit more rugged. Just as handsome, though.

"What did I go through?" She asked.

Natalia looked over to the other two people. They were both women. One of them had a large afro, it looked like a halo. Her skin was light brown and her face donned a huge smile. She was gorgeous.

The other woman's stunning features were shaped into a dark scowl. Her hair was black and wavy and her eyes were blue.

"You died." The black haired woman said. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay." Natalia replied quietly.

"It isn't." The woman sighed. "You deserved more time."

"Oh." She replied dumbly.

"We'll get into the details in a minute. Let us introduce ourselves first." The soft spoken brown haired man said. "My name is James."

"Hi, James." She replied with a weak smile.

"I'm Dorothy, but you can call me Dot or Dottie." The brown skinned smiler said.

"Cadence." The black haired woman said.

"I'm Oliver." The blonde man said.

She didn't introduce herself because she had a feeling they all knew her name already.

"Nice to meet you guys." She said politely. "Um, I have a few questions."

"We know, sweetheart. We'll explain everything." Dottie said softly.

"I assume your first question is something along the lines of 'who are these people?' " James asked. Natalia nodded.

"You see, Oliver, Dottie, Cadence and I are siblings." He started, "Well, half-siblings, but that makes no difference. We share the same mother. Hundreds of years ago, when we ranged from the ages of seventeen to twenty-one, our mother had another child."

All of their expressions became wistful as they recalled their youngest sibling.

"Little Natalia."

Natalia's eyes went wide. That was her name!

James chuckled. "Before you ask, yes, you are little Natalia."

"What? How- I'm not-"

"I know it's confusing, but I promise you'll get all of your answers." Oliver said.

"You were only ten when you died." Cadence said sadly. "At least in your most recent life you made it to seventeen."

Natalia was so confused. Her brain wasn't fully contemplating anything because of her headache that seemed to grow by the second.

"After you died, we were heartbroken." Oliver explained. "Mother said that she could give you a new life, it just wouldn't be with us. We were so desperate for you to be able to live that we accepted her deal. She did a spell-"

"Spell?" Natalia asked breathlessly.

"Ah, we forgot to mention. We're witches." James hummed.

"Our mother was a very powerful witch." Cadence remarked.

"We aren't from your universe. In fact where we're from is the home universe of one of your favorite shows. The Vampire Diaries." Dottie said. Natalia's eyebrows shot up.

"Anyways, mother did a spell that allowed you to be reincarnated into a different universe." Oliver said. "You were reborn at least twenty times, and you died young each and every time."

"And we had to watch each and every time." Cadence said.

"You had to watch me die?"

"Yes. We checked in on you all the time, and we always caught the deaths." She answered.

"If I've lived twenty lifetimes-"

"Twenty short lifetimes." Oliver corrected under his breath.

"Then how have you guys lived to see me through all of them? You should be dead by now."

"We are extremely powerful. So powerful that we have the ability to jump through universes. So as long as we don't stay in one universe for too long, we don't age." James answered.

"And where exactly are we now?" Natalia asked, motioning to the blankness around them.

"We're in between universes at the moment. If you walk too far left you'll be sucked into The Hunger Games." James joked.

"You're not funny." Oliver said.

"I am. But that's not the point." James remarked. "We just watched you have an alcoholic mother and a dead father, and then we watched you die in a car crash, all before the age of twenty."

"We want you to have a happy life. Preferably a long one." Cadence said. "It's just hard when you're a magnet for death."

"We figured the only way for that to happen is if you're in a universe that you know well." Dottie said.

"So we're sending you back to our home universe." Oliver said.

"The Vampire Diaries Universe?" Natalia asked.

"It's not just the TVDU. It has other things too. You're speaking as if our whole universe revolves around Elena Gilbert." Cadence scoffed, clear distaste in her voice.

Natalia chuckled. "It kind of does."

"You take that back!" Cadence hissed.

"You will keep your memories of The Vampire Diaries from your most recent life so that you can navigate the plot, but all of your other memories from that life may fade." James said.

"There's no way to tell who you'll be reborn as, it could be one of the main characters, a background character, a new character, maybe you won't even be in Mystic Falls - the possibilities are endless. All we know is that you'll be in The Vampire Diaries universe." Dottie said.

"Wait, so you're going to rebirth me into The Vampire Diaries? Meaning I'll be a baby again?" She questioned.

"Yep. You'll get a chance to actually be a child." Cadence smiled for the first time since Natalia got there.

"But you guys won't be with me."

"Nope. This is your own journey, little one."

And with that, the four snapped their fingers and transported Natalia into Abby Bennett's uterus.