ghost [k. parker]

• CHAPTER 1 •

CHAPTER 1 : the witchman

THE FIRST TIME ROMA had her heart broken was when she was twelve; old enough to feel the destruction it had caused in full effect but too young to know vengeance. The girl grieved and grieved to her heart's content but mended herself slowly with clay whispers and promises that in the end, turned out to be empty vows. She had told herself, that devastation like she had known was only cruel enough to bestow itself upon someone just once in their lifetime. This was not true.

Roma Sterling, seventeen, lost everything and everyone. Her heart cracked wide open and this time, there was not a damn thing she could do to mend it.

That was the moment when a good soul turned bitter. That was the moment when Roma learnt of the desire for retribution. She had been kind in all her years of living and seemingly made all the right sorts of friends. This was where she met the devorantis blade. It was a friend disguised as a weapon, a means to kill the man who made her suffer. After all, before the blade she was a vulnerable human. With the blade, she was immortal.

It was this that sealed her fate, when she took the knife. She had chosen this life for herself and now she could never shake it. With a thousand witches on her back, she left her home and didn't stop to mourn. If it took ten days or ten years, she would find Joshua Parker, the stranger who had ruined her life and came and went as he pleases. That girl would find him and she would demand revenge.

____

Roma had never killed a soul in her life, but she always clutched her knife like she had. Today, she was on the road, heading to Virginia to visit someone whose name was the only thing she knew. Mystic Falls was the name of the town- odd, she thought to herself. Her radio was playing quietly, her only accompaniment in the lonely car. It did get lonely, yes, but she would always tell herself that she could have her life back once the Parker was dead. But she knew this wasn't true.

There was no going back, for her. This was her life now: magic. There was no word for her- not human as she was immortal, not witch as she had no magic of her own. She was an inbetween girl stuck in an inbetween world, one was reality and the other was supernatural. Roma was in the limbo between them both and there truly was no getting out.

She stopped at a gas station since it was a long ride, to refuel and to get something to eat. The man inside barely noticed her, she appeared and left like a ghost. With her water and Twister in hand, she left pleased with life's simple pleasures like the ice-cream she ate whilst driving one handed. She had the window rolled down, breathing in the scent of a new state. Virginia was new to her- as was most of the world. Roma had never left America; this small world was all she knew.

Mystic Falls, though a small town, was well known to everyone involved in supernatural business. Some time ago there was talk of the myth, Klaus Mikaelson, returning to Mystic Falls to plague it's streets. Recently, there'd been an outburst of magic there and she'd learnt that a group called the Travellers had resided there to achieve god-knows-what task. Roma hoped there would be no magical disturbances this time so that she could find who she was looking for with ease.

It had been hours, and soon she drove down the path to Mystic Falls, she squinted out of the window to see a blur of two blonde women having a picnic at the town border sign. Albeit, an odd spot for lunch, she couldn't help but feel a twinge in her heart. However, she also felt a twinge in her leg- more specifically her knife that she had strapped inside her boot started getting warm and glow-y. She quickly pulled the car over and grabbed the blade from her boot, inspecting it.