1993 — Mystic Falls, Virginia

   The moment the car hit the tree, Florence assumed she was dead. Then she kept waking and waking, because when she was awake she could taste the coppery blood pooling in her mouth. She could feel it grazing her teeth and soaking her tongue. She could feel the aching and crack of her bones, each crack like rocks burrowing into her skin. She sucked in cramped air, feeling her lungs caving into themselves. She saw spots in the corner of her vision, making her head feel like a television on static. She heard a buzzing noise fill her ears, drowning out the pitter-patter of the rain. She felt as if she were there for hours and hours, fading and waking. Fading and waking. Her agony was the only thing keeping her alive; it was the only thing she could feel anymore.

   That was when she died.

   The next moment Florence Gilbert woke, she sucked in a harsh breath and let out a whimper of pain. The rain was still falling, coming in from the broken windshield and bent metal. They ricocheted against what was left of the car, falling onto her as if it were trying to clean her of her blood. She felt it falling down the side of her face, felt it in the wounds created by the broken glass, tasted it on her tongue. She breathed again, then let out a scream.

   She realised she was pressed against the dashboard, her legs pressed against her seat tightly. If it weren't for the cold rain, she wouldn't be able to feel anything below her waist. She tried to push herself away, but she nor the car budged. Her arms burned and ached, her lunges felt as if they would run out of air at any moment. Another scream left her mouth, followed by broken sobs.

   "Dad!" she screamed. "Grayson!"

   When no one answered, her breathing began to accelerate. Her heart hammered against her chest, threatening to jump out and land on the jagged pieces of glass. Her breathing was ragged, as if she had finished a swimming meet. She swallowed hard and slowly turned her head to the driver's side, a silent scream escaping her mouth.

   Her was in the driver's seat, head bent to the side in an inhuman position with blood falling from his forehead, nose, and mouth. His eyes were wide open, looking right at her in a blank stare. 

   Florence reached for him, trembling fingers touching his shoulder. She saw the blood decorating her sleeve and hand, as if they had always been there. She ignored it and looked directly at her father's bleak face. "Dad," she called, her voice breaking. Her hand began to shake, either from the cold or the fact that she realised that her father was dead. "Dad!" The scream that escaped her mouth echoed through the night, just like the thunder. Every memory she had shared with her father, both precious and terrible, passed through her mind. She wanted to apologise for shouting at him, wanted to promise that she would go to Whitmore and swim, become an Olympian like he wanted.

   "Grayson!" she called, remembering her eldest brother in the back. "Grayson!"

   "Flo..." It was a soft and pained answer, but an answer nonetheless. 

   "Grayson!" she cried, trying to move to look back at her brother. "Grayson, don't leave me. P-please don't leave me!" There was no answer, no breathing, no indication that her brother was alive. She called his name over and over again, anxiously expecting for him to say her name. The memories of her brother ran through her mind, the times he had caught her sneaking out of the house, the times he had invited her over to his house because he knew how she felt when her parents fought.

   She especially remembered a hot summer afternoon two years ago. John had come back from college and Grayson decided to go the ice cream shop to celebrate the return of the middle Gilbert sibling. The eldest bought three scooped cones for each of them, saying that it was a great idea that they all got different flavours. Florence had gotten rocky road, raspberry, and the famous Superman. She could almost taste them then, feel the warmth of that hot day on her cold skin, remember her brother's laughing at her mouth covered in the assortment of colours from the Superman ice cream. For a moment, she was back in 1991, the summer before her parents began to fight louder and louder. She would always remember that summer.

   Florence couldn't breathe, it felt as if someone were choking her. Her heart was racing and all she wanted to do was let go of everything. But no one would, no one was there. A choked cry for help forced itself up her throat and out her mouth; she felt warm drops fall down her cheeks. 

   "Florence?" It was a soft voice, filled with more amazement than curiosity. "Florence Gilbert."

   With the force she had left, she turned her head to see a dark figure standing a couple of feet away from the car. She knew that dark figure well, was terrified of the man that donned the leather jacket.He had forced his blood down her throat during the Fourth of July, but at that moment she was relieved to see him there.

   A choked breath escaped her mouth. "Damon..." She said his name as if she were saying something else, like danger and snake. There was a sense of relief though, knowing that someone had heard her cries for help.

   He walked closer to the car and laid a hand on the roof, leaning against it to get a closer look at her. There was an unreadable expression, blue eyes appearing grey when lightning struck. "Well, it looks like you're in a bind." His eyes scanned the car until they landed on her again, amusement dancing on his lips as they spread to the right.

   "P-Please," she pleaded, lips trembling from both the cold and the fear. The tip of her nose began to sting as the back of her throat began to ache, a feeling she had come familiar with in her lifetime. "Please, Damon, help me. I-I don't want to die."

   He hummed and knocked on the roof with his hand. "The thing is, Florence, you're already dead." He sucked air between his teeth and leaned back, getting a better look at the car. "You should be thanking me, though. It seems that I gave you a second chance at life—you're welcome. If you want to keep living it, you're gonna have to drink some human blood in the next twenty-four hours." He chuckled and grabbed onto the door, pulling it from its hinges. He leaned in and pushed the dashboard away from her with just a shove of his hand, then stopped to look at her face. "If you don't drink, well, you're going to end up just like your father."

   His words rang in her ear. She was already dead. Memories of the fight—her screams, the car wrapping around the tree—passed through her mind. She recalled the taste of blood in her mouth, the aching and crack of her bones with each movement, how she breathed and it felt as if her lungs were caving in, the spots in her vision, the ringing in her ears. She had died. The moment the car hit the tree, the force of it broke her bones and crushed her chest. Her lungs had collapsed and she had asphyxiated, slowly, like drowning in her own blood.  She had died, and then she had woken up with a lesser pain.

   Florence Gilbert had died.

   A choked cry escaped her lips as she began to shake her head. "No, no, no!" she yelled. "I-I can't be dead! I can't..."

  "Florence!" Damon said her name loudly, but soft enough for her to hear him. "I need you to shut up, okay?" He looked away from her face and saw down at her legs, a breath between his teeth escaping his mouth. "Good thing you're all good now. If you had somehow survived this crash, you would have never been able to walk again." He laid his hand on glove compartment, but was stopped when a small hand was laid on his arm.

   "My brother," Florence said. "He's in the back. Please, get him out first."

   Damon rolled his eyes. "What do I look like?"

   "Please," she pleaded. "He has a wife and a baby, and..."

   Damon raised his hand to shut her up. "Don't move," he told her, a chuckle following after. He moved away from her. 

   The only sound she heard was a door being broken from its hinges and thrown against a tree, a groan of half disgust coming from the vampire. He appeared a few moments later, holding her brother in his arms and laying him against a tree. Her brother appeared broken, blood falling from his mouth. 

   Damon laid a hand on his neck, then stood as he clapped his hands together as if to clean some disgusting thing he had gotten on him. "He's alive," he said, turning back to the girl in the bent passenger's seat. "A few broken bones, but he's gonna live." He bit into his wrist and pushed it towards his mouth.

   "No!" Florence yelled, almost moving out of the car. She hissed as a pain in her abdomen spread through her body, down her legs and up her chest. "Don't give him blood," she breathed through the pain. "If he dies, he'll turn into this."

   "This?" Damon stood and slowly walked towards her. "Come on, Flo. Say what I am, what you'll become as soon as I force some human blood down your throat. Or better yet..." He easily pushed the glove compartment away from the girl and grabbed her, yanked her from the car and pulled her towards her brother. "How about I help you now?"

   Florence breathed through the pain, staring at her brother's face. He looked as if he were asleep, but there was pain in his features. If it weren't for the bobbing of his throat, she would have thought of him as dead. Her eyes travelled from his throat to the blood that decorated the side of his face, a sudden thirst making her throat go dry. The urge to drink dominated her thoughts. Even her saliva was thick like the wallpaper paste her mother used. Her throat felt parched, as if her skin had been extracted and laid out on scorching sun to dry. She swallowed hard and shut her eyes tightly.

   "Do you feel that?" Damon's voice slithered in her ear, soft as feathers and harsh as poison. "That's thirst, Florence. You want nothing more than to have a little taste of his blood. Go ahead" He pushed her head closer to him. "Have a bite."

   "No," she hissed, pushing herself back. "Stop it."

   "Have a bite, Florence." His voice slithered around her like a snake charmer, trying to charm her into doing his bidding. 

   The Gilbert girl turned her head to him sharply. "What have I done to you for you to hate me so much?" she asked, swallowing hard. She tasted her own blood falling down her throat, the residue of what pooled around her mouth when she died. "I met you at that venue in Lynchburg, where you teased Stefan. The next time I saw you was at the house, where you told me that Stefan and I would end like Romeo and Juliet." She swallowed hard and looked down at her hands, clean from the rainwater washing away the evidence that she had died. "I guess you were right about that..."

   Damon's jaw clenched as his back stiffened. His blue eyes were glued on hers for a couple of silent moments. He stood and pointed back with his chin. "The house is that way," he simply said. "You might want to get there and call 911 if you don't want your brother to die."

   Florence watched as he began to walk away, the rain hitting him hard. "Damon!" she called as she pushed herself up and ran towards him. Although there was pain in her abdomen and legs, she pushed through it and quickly followed after him. "Damon, wait!"

   "You better hurry," he said as he continued to walk, pushing his hands in the pocket of his jacket. "I can hear his heartbeat slowing."

   "Thank you!" she quickly said, stopping. "Thanks, Damon..." She watched his figure get smaller and smaller, the rain falling harder around them. He wasn't that far from her, but he had completely disappeared from her line of vision. When he completely disappeared, she hurried towards the direction she pointed. Through the rain, her surroundings looked the same, but she ran in order to save her brother. Her stomach hurt as if someone were digging a rusted knife, her legs hurt as if she had swam in a race, and her head was about to burst from the migraine that suddenly arrived. It was there in an instant, a constant drilling all around her cranium.

   The Salvatore Boarding House appeared through the rain, the windows bright. As she got closer, Florence's ears began to ring. She could hear the buzzing of the electricity through the walls, the small conversations inside of the house. The girl had to stop herself for a moment, her heart hammering against her chest and her hands shaking to her side. She took a deep breath and pushed through the pain, hurrying towards the front door. Her fist hit the door several times, her breathing ragged as the image of her father and brother passed through her mind.

   The door opened, revealing Zach Salvatore with furrowed brows. "Florence?"

   "Call 911," she immediately said, lips shivering from the cold. "Please, Zach, you have to call 911. We were in a crash and Grayson can die at any moment!"

   Zach stared, the confusion growing on his features. He stepped aside and ushered her in, pulling her with him towards the living room as he moved to the phone to do as he said. As he spoke to the operator, he kept his eyes on her. It took him a couple of minutes, but he realised what had happened. He stiffened and ended the call after giving all of the information, then called for Stefan. 

   Stefan came down the stairs with a confused expression, stopping when he entered the room. "Florence..." He said her name softly, eyes wide. It took him a small moment to realise what happened to her.

   Florence stood by Zach, shivering all around form the cold. She stared back at him, feeling every part of her break. Her face contorted in pain and she shook her head. "I-I don't want to be this..." she cried. "I don't want to..."

   Stefan closed the distance between them and immediately wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to his chest. "It's all right," he soothed, tightening his hold to keep her warm from the cold and from what was happening to her. "It's going to be okay, Flo."