Faded • The Originals [3]

FOUR

|04.| JUDGMENTAL

1864

AT NIGHT IN PHILADELPHIA the true monsters lurked in the shadows. People of color were allowed to ride streetcars, so majority of the time they were packed. A beautiful, black woman gets off of the streetcar and walks down the street with her guard up as she does not trust any white man or woman walking around at this time at night. She walks in between two buildings as a short cut back home, but soon runs into a group of white men. Her heart skips a beat and freezes as they stare her down with hatred.

"You ain't supposed to be around here," one man says hastily, but the woman has nothing to say. "Y'all people stupid. Guess we gotta teach you n—"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence."

The men look behind the frightful black woman to see a silhouette of a woman, wearing nicer clothes than the black woman which indicated she's not a person of color. The man standing next to the other who called the woman an ignorant name snickers.

"What're you doing it out here, little lady? Get back into the house where ya belong," the man laughs and the others join along excluding one.

She steps out from the shadows and into the streetlight, her icy blue eyes staring at the men. Her turned from a blue to a dark red color with veins popping out from the bottom of her eyes. The men step back in surprise by the unexpected transformation.

"Hell Mary, it's some monster!"

They all run away from the vampire, scared out of their minds since they never seen something like that. The black woman remains in her spot where she stood, her hands shaking in fear as if her whole soul had left her body. The vampire walks close to the woman and showing her face again, but it's back to normal.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'm not going to hurt you." She holds her hand out with a small smile. "My name's Cora. What's yours?"

After Cora had showed her vampiric side, the scared woman had calmed down. "I'm Anita." Anita shakes her hand.

"It's very nice to meet you, Anita," Cora happily shakes it and smiles. "I'm terribly sorry those ridiculous men were bothering you, darling."

"They ain't nothing but a bunch of bullies. If they had tried anythin' on me, I would've showed them what a woman could do in defense," Anita states and Cora smiles at her courage.