The Forgotten One (The Vampire Diaries)

Prologue

My lungs were screaming for air as I ran through the streets of Mystic Falls. I only had one goal in mind. Get to the library. It was my favorite place to go when I needed to cool down and unwind.

I came to a slow stop at the entrance and pulled out the spare key. The librarian knew me well enough to trust me with a key. She knew I would never do anything to damage those books. I love them too much.

Once I entered the dark building, I made my way to the back where all the best books were. I hoped that I would find one to occupy the memories of what had just occurred.

I sighed and sat down onto one of the empty desks. Before I could even open the book, my mind had already wandered back to earlier. The reason why I was here.

**

"I swear it wasn't me!" I shouted back at my mother. "I wasn't even there! I was playing with Elena!" I pointed to the little baby who was still giggling from when I had made funny faces at her.

"There's a video, Scarlett! That's clearly you in it!" She presses play on the TV that had the recoding from a high school party given to her by the Sheriff.

The video starts off with some drunken high school boy pulling out his camera and panning over the crowd of other drunk teens.

"Hell Yeah! We rule!" He drunkenly slurs and flips the camera to the corner of the room where two people are making out.

I cringe and look at my mom. "Why are we watching this? I already said I wasn't there."

She looks at me with utter disappointment in her eyes. "Oh yeah?" She grabs the remote and presses the fast forward button until she gets to the part she wants to show me so badly. "So, this isn't you?" She presses play and my eyes travel over to the screen.

This is almost thirty minutes later after some other teen found the phone and started filming what was going on. It panned to the stairs where two people were coming down. One girl and one boy.

My eyes widened. I didn't know who the boy was but, the girl, that girl was me. She had my face. My body figure: she even had my smile. That was certainly me on the screen but, there was absolutely no way that was me because I really was with Elena, babysitting like I was supposed to.

"No! I swear! If Elena could talk, she would be able to tell you! Mom, I didn't want to go to that party, so I didn't." I plead. "You have to believe me."

She sighs. "That's your face, Scarlett!" She argues.

"Hun." Dad walks into the room. "What if she's telling the truth?"

I frown. "What if?! I am!"

Dad holds his hand out and gestures for me to calm down before turning to my mother. "I think it's time we tell her."

"Tell me what?"

My mother sighs and drops her body down onto the couch. "You don't remember anything before last year, right?"

My brows furrow. "No, you know that, why?"

They share a look.

"What's going on?"

"We found you." My mom grasps my hand. "Last year, on the way home from a trip, we found you lying on the side of the road." She explains.

"You had no memory." My dad continues. "But you were freezing, and you had a lot of open wounds on you. We took you in and when you woke up, we figured it was best to try and figure out who you were, but you couldn't remember anything. You were so scared."

"So, we told you we were your parents."

All the breath ran out of me. It was like I couldn't get any more air into my lungs. I could hear them calling my name, but it sounded so distant even though they were mere inches from me.

It makes sense. They were too young to have a nineteen-year-old like me. I always wondered how that came to be and I guess I got my answer.

I don't remember what happened after that, all I knew was that I had to get out of there.

**

And I did. Which is why I'm here at the library.

I drop my head down into my arms. This whole thing is a mess. Maybe I should have let them explain. It would definitely clear up a lot of things for me.

Am I being too dramatic about this?

Before I could think on it further, the chime above the front door rings.

"Uh, we're closed!" I yell out. I should've locked the door behind me.

Silence greets me and I look around. "Hello?" I quietly push my chair back and slip between the shelves. Whoever came in is still in here, the door chimes didn't ring again.

Someone knocks into the shelf behind me, taunting me. A few seconds later, I hear them getting closer. A book gets thrown off the shelf in front of me and I lock eyes with a pair of blue ones. When I blink, they're gone. As I take a step forward, I feel it. The presence directly behind me.

I close my eyes and wrap my arms around my stomach. This is it. This is where I die. Dammit! I should've just let them explain.

The last thing I feel before the world goes black is something piercing the side of my neck.