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THE GRILL
"HEY, STEFAN. YOU just missed Elena," Elsie informs a few days later while she's working a shift. "She waited for you for like... two hours. What happened?"
"I got held up," Stefan breathes, feeling guilty for standing his girlfriend up. "There was this thing with my uncle."
"You could've called her and told her you were gonna be late," Elsie counters, crossing her arms expectantly as an older dark skinned man intervenes, his eyes fixated on Stefan.
"I know you. My God. I know you. How can it be?"
"I think you have the wrong person, Sir," Stefan insists, not recognizing him since he's aged.
"You haven't aged a day."
"Excuse us," Stefan huffs, directing his friend to the other side of the restaurant. "Sorry about that... I don't know what that was."
"Never mind that. Go find your girlfriend and beg for forgiveness for blowing her off."
"But-" he begins, only for her to cut him off.
"Go. I'll see you at the car wash later."
--
MYSTIC FALLS HIGH
After her shift ends, Elsie changes into a bikini top and shorts and heads to the high school's parking lot for a car wash fundraiser. She joins Matt and gets to work cleaning off a car when she notices him staring at Stefan and Elena. The pair have already made up, and are kissing. "Stop it, Matt. It's time for you to stop pining and move on."
"I'm just observing," Matt defends himself as Elsie shrugs.
A fellow cheerleader, Tiki, scoffs when a boy in an older car that looks like it's been in an accident drives up. "Why do I always get the homely ones? Just to be clear, your car's a P.O.S. I mean, we can wash it, but it's still a P.O.S."
"You don't have to be a bitch," Elsie scoffs, narrowing her eyes at Tiki. She's never really liked Tiki, because she has a superiority complex.
"I might be a bitch, but this junker is uglying up the road."
She then moves to pick up a hose, and Elsie feels something bubble up inside of her. An anger she's never felt before. The next thing she knows is that the hose oddly goes out of control, soaking Tiki in water. She smirks, not knowing that she just did that.
Matt hurries over to her, getting the hose under control and handing her a towel. He can't help but laugh. "Wet and wild, Tik."
It's then that she spots the man from the Grill, and she allows her curiosity to get the better of her. She walks over to him, smiling warmly at him. "Uh... I saw you at the Grill earlier. You said you knew a friend of mine."
"Well, I-I thought I knew him," he deadpans, not so sure now. Stefan looks exactly like he did the day they met, but he hasn't aged a day in that time. "It can't be. It's just my mind playing tricks on me."
"Where do you think you've seen him before?" Elsie questions.
"When I first moved here, I stayed at the Salvatore Boarding House. Stefan was just passing through to visit his uncle. I mean, none of us even knew he was here until the attack. His uncle, Joseph, got killed. Mauled by an animal in the woods. I mean, this happened years ago. I'm sure that was him, though. I remember his ring and his brother... Damon. Stefan and Damon Salvatore. It was early June, 1953. Yeah. June, 1953-"
He trails off as Elsie notices a fire has formed. "Uh- thank you."
She leaves him and rushes over to Bonnie, who stands at the edge of the flames. People yell all around them, but Bonnie tunes them out, appearing to be in a haze.
"Bonnie!" Elsie shakes the Bennett girl gently, and eventually Bonnie snaps out of it. "Bonnie, you were just... in some sort of a haze."
"Did I do this?" Bonnie questions in horror, watching as the flames go out. Elsie nods, not so sure what to believe anymore.
"Yeah, I think you might have."
"Nobody else saw, did they?"
"No," Elsie shakes her head as Bonnie runs away from her, leaving her speechless.
Not sure what else to do, Elsie tracks down Elena. Elena seems spooked and the moment their hands touch, she's sucked into another vision of an old news story that Elena just saw.
"This is Michael Fell. Reporting to you from the Salvatore Boarding House, where a brutal animal attack has ended in tragedy. Ok, they're bringing out the bodies. See if you can get any closer. Is that the nephew?"
The news story then zooms in on a familiar looking boy. He looks exactly like Stefan, except he's dressed like he's from the 1950's.
Elsie jerks away from Elena, her eyes growing wide. Elena watches Elsie snap out of her haze, looking at her friend in concern. "Elsie, are you okay?"
"Uh... yeah," the Donavan girl deadpans, feeling lightheaded as she backs away from Elena. "Fine. I just have a headache, so I'm gonna go lay down."
She breaks away from her friend before walking to her car. She climbs into the Ford vehicle, locks the door, and sits there for a long, long time, attempting to process everything that's happened.
She's been getting visions and she has no idea where they're coming from or why they started. She doesn't know why she saw two girls that looked exactly like her and Elena in one vision and why she saw that news report when she touched Elena.
She knows that the boy from the news report looked exactly like Stefan. But vision of the video was quick and grainy, so Elsie chalks it up to Stefan looking a lot like his family members. She's a rational thinker, so that's why she tries to rationalize what's right in front of her.
The thought of there being a whole supernatural world out there terrifies her. A dangerous, mystical world that's been hidden from her for so long. Little does she know that she's about to be thrown into it.
UNEDITED
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