Fandom(s): The Vampire Diaries (post-season 4: episode 15)
Bit shorter but I've had this OC in my head since I was 14 and I love her to pieces and didn't wanna overdue it.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Her clothes felt heavy on her back. The twenty dollars in her pocket weighed her down (she never did make it to the Grill; their food had probably gone cold by now). Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the slight shine of her charm bracelet. It was a light sterling silver that she usually forgot was there. Over the years she'd worn it, it had simply become a part of her that she rarely took off; similar to the worn, nearly falling apart brown boots that adorned her feet.
Now, as she approached the Now Leaving Mystic Falls sign, the loose, dainty bracelet felt constricting. Like a handcuff that was put on too tight, cutting off her circulation. She could feel it growing ever tighter as she got nearer to the green sign.
It didn't want her to leave.
Throughout her journey, it had developed a ball and chain, dragging her down and attempting to pull her back to a home that no longer existed. A home that had been slowly disappearing into nothing but a house since her parents passed. With every death-of which there were many-she could feel not only it but her innocence get stripped away.
And now the were both gone. Up in flames and burnt to ash by the ones that were meant to protect her.
Nothing existed anymore.
Least of all her.
She stopped in front of the sign, a blank look on her face despite the tear streaks down her cheeks. As she eyed the cursive words, seeing but not reading, she realized how seldom she had actually passed that sign; how little she had left the small confines of Mystic Falls. Now, she hoped to never see either sign again.
For a moment more, she stared. She may have stood all night, but she knew how dangerous Mystic Falls was after dark. Even without her knowledge of the unknown, the many 'mysterious' animal attacks could've told her that.
Eventually, she got the strength to move on. With the forest as her witness, she removed her ball and chain and hooked it through one of the poles holding up the sign. She ran her fingers over each charm, remembering briefly how she got each one. The bird had been a gift from her mother and the fish from her father. Jeremy had gotten her the feather charm and Elena the letter M. Her twin brother, whose body now lies with Jeremy's in her burning house, had bought her a charm the shape of a tree.
Her favorite was one she never remembered getting. She'd woken up one morning with a incomprehensible charm next to her fish. She couldn't understand what the charm was supposed to be then, nor did she know now. But it was profoundly beautiful. And despite the less than favorable implications of its mysterious appearance on her wrist, it had grown to be her favorite.
She ran her thumb over the strange shape, admiring the detail. In a spur of the moment decision, she detached it from the chain and shoved the charm into her pocket to join the twenty bucks and lint.
All the others had a person attached to them, someone she would never see again. She didn't want that with her-the memories of those she already lost or was about to lose-as she tried to start anew. But the enigmatic charm was purely hers.
A gift from no one.
There were no memories in it. No one to cry over, to scream over, to rage over. If the charm held anything, it held fear. Fear of the unknown. But not quite.
Not dissimilar to how she felt as she stepped over the town limits. And never looked back.
