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PRE-S1 / 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖔𝖓𝖊
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The week her parents died, it rained more in Mystic Falls than it had over the last ten years.
This is the Mystic Falls sheriff's department...
That's how Jeanie Gilbert would remember the drive from New York to Virginia: the kind of violent downpour that had left her in laybys on rural roads, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth as the walls closed in.
It had kept going and going. Going and going and going.
...calling for Miss Jeanette Gilbert...
She'd watched the rain swirl against the windshield, radio crackling with stormy static as she tried to reason with herself that this wasn't the bad omen her head was saying it was.
...we regret to inform you...
It's how she'd remember the parking lot at the hospital too–– the fatal pause in between the engine cutting and opening the drivers door. She'd just sat in that car and taken a deep breath––
...a car accident...
It'd been the slight blip of radio interference, a hesitation with her hand on the handle. She'd squeezed her eyes tight as the rain thudded, heavy, against the car roof. When she'd opened them, for a second, she'd wondered if she was drowning too––
...Wickery Bridge...
And then she'd held a broken umbrella over her head and walked through every puddle on her way into the ER, and somehow, just somehow, it'd been enough to keep most of her dry.
...both parents...
But that hadn't really been enough.
A shitty umbrella didn't cut out the harsh, scathing light overhead and her old hiking boots didn't wash out the sound of her water-logged footsteps against hospital tile. Going from a lonely, disassociated overnight drive into the sudden hustle of a trauma ward had been a shock to the system––
