01 | kenopsia
the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.

dedicated to twenty_nine_

"CORA?" THE MALE'S thick accent repeated. He took a step forward into the light, causing the shadows to retreat from his face. I gasped. Just reaching six foot, with sun-kissed skin and eyes that glimmered against the backdrop like cracked diamonds, only one word could describe him; beautiful. High cheekbones were matched with tanned skin, and stubble lined his untimely jaw. His pitch-black hair was shaved at the sides to give his face more definition. Half of his right eyebrow was missing due to a slim white scar, the white top beneath his black suit stained with a substance, but he was too far away for me to make out what it was.

I couldn't place his age. He was neither young, nor old. In human years, my guess would be late twenties, but it didn't feel right to place him in an age bracket when he appeared so young yet ancient.

My stomach stirred. Bile rose in my throat. I had never seen this man before in my life. How did he know my name?

"How do you know my name?" I whispered. I couldn't bring myself to raise my voice, afraid that it would disrupt the flow of the night.

The man strutted forward, opening up his arms in question. "Come on, princess, what're you talking about?" He enquired, refusing to halt as he walked closer and closer by the second.

Something inside me cracked, like an egg being smashed until its shell was nothing more than irreparable fragments. "Stop," I shouted, biting down on my tongue. "I'm one shit explanation away from breaking your nose."

The man scoffed, only to glare at me. I could feel the rich hazel of his eyes prying into my soul. "Knowing you, I'd say that's very unlikely."

"'Knowing me'? I don't know who the fuck you are!" My fingers rearranged themselves into fists.

The man raised two fingers to each side of his nose. "Right, that's just great," he uttered into his hand. "I'm Damon. Ring any bells?"

Damon.

"I've never met a Damon in my life," I retorted, teeth chinking together as they sank deep into the flesh of my cheek. Pain spiralled through my gums, but it kept me on edge.

The man – Damon – threw up his arms in frustration and closed the gap between us in a blur. I turned to run, but his hand enclosed around my upper arm and brutally pulled me back to reality. I was no match for his strength, and gasped as I stumbled into his firm chest.

"I," I pushed the loose strands of my red-gold hair behind my eyes, "am going to break your fucking leg if you don't let me go, or tell me what's happening." I wasn't one to threaten others, nor did I have the power to pull off any of the threats that came from the confine of my lips, but fear did something strange to me. It woke me up. It felt like a lightning bolt had struck me, and turned the blood in my veins into electricity. And I had created plenty of scars to prove it.

Damon pushed me away from his chest, but his hand remained on my arm. His touch burnt like a blowtorch. "You want to know what's happening? Really? Do you have amnesia?"

"Yes!" I shouted in frustration.

Damon rolled his perfect hazel eyes. I was close enough to see the spiral of yellow situated around his pupils, infiltrating the light brown in a swarm of colour. "I was kidding."

"I wasn't," I muttered. "I have no idea what's happened to me for the past eight days of my life, and I keep coming back to this shitty alleyway. I have two holes in my neck, and I have no idea what they are, or how they got there! So I'm kind of freaking out right now, and you're really not helping." The words escaped my mouth before I could question why I was telling all this to a stranger, but it felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest: I was no longer drowning at the bottom of the ocean.

"You don't remember anything?" Damon exhaled. There was something about him that I knew. His odd choice of clothing stuck out in the alleyway like a sore thumb, mismatching the thick stubble which was due a shave. I shook my head to dissipate my thoughts. He reminded me of multiple male models I had seen in fashion magazines, and that was where the familiarity stopped.

I shook my head again slowly. Damon watched my reaction with keen eyes, the gold prominent against his tanned skin. He retreated his hand from my forearm, and I drew it back in a millisecond.

"Eight days," Damon muttered under his breath, hoping I wouldn't hear but my sensitive eardrums picked up every syllable. "Huh."

"'Huh' what? Real words would be appreciated." My eyes narrowed to slits. They were slowly drooping – I would be falling asleep if it weren't for the adrenaline pumping through my veins. My body yearned for the soft sheets of my bed.

"Someone did a bad job, that's what," Damon replied stoutly, straightening his back until he towered over me even more. "I was worried about you, Cora."

I folded my arms over my chest to prevent him from trying to touch me again. "Well, I didn't know you existed. And what are you on about?"

"The bite marks."

My hand flies to the pair of incisions at the base of my neck, which were shielded by the navy material of my sweatshirt. Bite marks. I creased my brows, studying my reddened fingers as they pulled away from the area of infliction. I had to admit, the fork theory was a long way off.

"God, you don't remember anything, do you?" Damon grimaced. It sounded like he was in pain. "Literally anything."

"What is there to remember?" I enquired out of curiosity. I had always been the student at school who asked too many questions, and burrowed deeper than I was supposed to.

Damon held up a hand, before using it to unbutton his suit. "Too much."

I felt like part of me was missing. The days I had forgotten pried through the cracks of my fragmented memories, but they had been purposely hidden at the back of my mind. It didn't want me to find out. It was protecting me – but from what?

"So you're not going to help," I uttered, glancing up through my thick lashes at Damon.

"I don't think I can."

"Great." My hands clutched at my hair. The tresses felt sticky between my fingers. "I'm going to go home."

I turned on my heel, letting the wind gather behind me and push me from the alleyway. But Damon was in front of me in a blink, reaching out to unfold my arms and grip them.

"You're not safe, Cora. Especially not for the next week," Damon sighed as I attempted to wriggle out of his drip. My leg found his stomach, but the male didn't flinch. "Whoever did this to you, they did it for a reason."

"Someone did this to me?" I pointed to the scars on my neck as best I could in his hold.

"I definitely preferred it when you remembered everything."

"That wasn't my decision, dickhead," I growled, slamming my fists into his chest before pulling them away from his tanned hands. I staggered back, wiping my sleeve against my face to collect the sweat beading on my forehead. "I'm going home. And forget that any of this ever happened."

Damon's jaw fell open as I turned my back to him. "Hey, stop."

I waved my middle finger in his face, unable to see his reaction. I was further into the alleyway than I had anticipated, and scrunched my nose as I stepped over the carcass of a deceased rat. Shadows quaked around me, encapsulating the night like an expensive painting.

Up ahead, I could see the light of the street, and made a bee-line for the lifeless road. The light was abruptly cut off by three moving shadows, which cut off my path back home. I froze, reaching for my pocket to grab my phone and call the emergency services before realising that was the reason I was stuck on Seventeenth Cannonball Street at midnight in the first place.

A howling breeze rushed in my ears, and muffled the sound of the cars on the horizon. Something brushed against my arm, and I flinched away, only to find Damon staring ahead at the three figures blocking my path. His jaw was clenched, making his face angular like a knife.

"Look what we have here," one of the men snarled as he promenaded forwards, body clouded by ebony. The whites of his eyes appeared as though they were glowing. "Weren't going to share, Damon?"

Panic seeped into my body like a plague of locust. "Share what?"

"Shh," Damon shushed calmly, and used his muscular arm to push me behind him. "You're not going to touch her." He spoke up, addressing the three men.

"We'll see about that," The man chuckled.

Damon turned towards me. "Now look what you've done. For God's sake, why are you always like this?"

I drew my face into a scowl. "How the hell is this my fault?"

"Just shut up, princess." He waved a finger in my face.

"Stop calling me that," I hissed.

"Would you rather I call you ginger?"

"I'm not ginger."

"I'll take that as a yes," Damon sighed, cracking the bones in his fingers as they formed fists. The skin around his knuckles were white. "I'd take a step back, if I were you, Ginger. It's about to get messy."

"Please tell me you're not going to fight the-" I was cut off by Damon as he roughly shoved me further behind him. I tripped on the cobblestones, and wheeled my arms in circles to regain my balance. My hands unconsciously formed fists, ready to land a punch to the man's beautiful face when the first man appeared before Damon in a blink. Unable to believe my eyes, my mouth fell agape without the ability to close.

"What the actual-" I began, but my words were too strained to make sense, and were immediately cut off when Damon reached forwards with his arm, and knocked the man out cold. "Oh my fucking God!"

Violence had been in my nature from a young age. At fourteen years old, my mother had forced me to take self defence classes in her anxiety that I wouldn't be able to protect myself if I happened to walk down an alleyway at midnight. I knew how to punch and leave a bruise, and I had broken my fair share of noses. Yet watching a man I barely knew knock another man to the ground had my stomach erupt into a flock of butterflies.

One of the other men growled, Damon pulling at his imperfect attire and ruffling his already messy hair. If it weren't for the perpetual light, he would've looked much more beautiful.

The man darted forwards, landing a fist in Damon's stomach. He flailed backwards, only to rear out with his leg and kick his attacker to the floor. The stranger was back on his feet in a split second, and grabbed Damon's shirt before slamming him against the wall. He pressed an arm against Damon's throat, refusing him access to oxygen.

I stood there frozen, my limbs refusing to react. Tonight was supposed to be a trip down memory lane, not a fucking bloodbath. It had turned out to be both, despite my refusal to believe that anything happening before me was actually real.

Damon's face turned blue from the lack of oxygen, his muscular arms desperately pounding against his attacker's to gain him some freedom. Time was ticking, the fictional hands of time spiralling away, and Damon didn't have many seconds left. His life was slipping through my fingers like sand caught in the wind.

Finally, Damon swung a foot into the man's groin. He groaned, and the brunette man was swift to land a punch to his opponent's face. The attacker cowered away, clutching what I presumed to be a broken nose, but Damon lengthened his strides to keep up. Without hesitation, he pushed his hand into the man's chest with a horrifying crunch, and pulled out the man's heart.

Bile rose in my throat, threatening to choke me. The only time I had seen something as equally grotesque was in frequent episodes of The Vampire Diaries.

"Holy shit," I murmured, placing my palms on my head to try and wipe away the sweat beaded on it. Damon was a monster, and there was no doubt in my mind that the other men were too. My legs began to run in the opposite without my command, only for me to run straight into the chest of the final brute blocking my path.

He was taller than my father, who stood at six-foot-three, with wide shoulders and a bald head that reflected the limited light glaring from the rooftops of the alleyway. A sinister smirk lined his mouth, lips curled until the man before me looked like a feral animal stalking its prey. The stench of smoke hit my nostrils like a sledgehammer, my throat tightening from the thick fumes escaping the male's mouth.

"Where do you think you're going, sweetheart?" The bald man jeered sadistically.

Fear ricocheted through every single cell in my body, but it was quickly channelled into adrenaline as my face flushed from the nerves writhing through me. Yes, I had broken noses – the most notable was my ex-boyfriend's, Adam, who still had a crooked nose from my attack, and had landed me a week of suspension – but this was nothing in comparison.

I didn't hesitate to punch the man in the stomach, agony spiralling through my knuckles as though they had hit a stone wall.

"What the hell?" I muttered under my breath when the man didn't even flinch. I turned to run back to Damon, but he was nowhere in sight, and the bald man had a hold on my sweatshirt before I could move a meter away from him. Without exerting any strength, my attacker effortlessly turned me around to face him, eyes black like obsidian – like his non-existent soul. "I swear to God, if you don't get off me, I will stab your eyes out with my nail, and it will hurt like a bitch."

Tilting his head, the man looked at me up and down and fastened his grip on my shoulders until the skin around his fingertips turned as white as a blank sheet of paper.

I didn't have time to think as the bald man pulled me closer towards him. The only thing I could do was bring up my knee and make contact with his groin, but that only resulted in him gripping my flesh tighter as though I was nothing more than an object.

Congrats, Cora, you're going to fucking die.

I tried to distance myself from the giant as he leant in towards my neck, something white gleaming in his mouth. A scream finally ripped through my throat, and tore at my vocal chords until they were shredded. I hated feeling weak – powerless – and screaming was rarely on my agenda. Yet, alike the previous hour, this was an exception.

Abruptly, my attacker spewed blood from his mouth in a fountain of red liquid. Ruby droplets splattered across my face, hot and scalding. They found their way into my screaming mouth, bitter against my taste-buds. His hands loosened until they could no longer hold on, and fell towards the ground followed by his towering figure as though he were nothing more than a penny being accidentally dropped on the pavement.

I shifted my eyes to the street ahead, shocked and astounded by the corpse lying at my feet. Being charged for murder had never been part of my life plan, either, and like hell was I going to get a criminal record when I had finally managed to achieve the right grades to attend university. Hoping to see an empty street ahead of me, I was bitterly disappointed when my eyes landed on a familiar set of fluctuating hazel orbs and ruffled almost-ebony tresses.

"Cora?" Damon whispered, bowing his head as he stepped closer towards me. He reached out his hand, but I flinched away before he could touch me. He was covered in blood, the scarlet substance coating his hands in a fine layer like a pair of rubber gloves. "Look, I'll explain everything, I promise. But we need to go."

I shook my head, and fumbled for the phone in my pocket before realising I had lost it. "W- We need to call the police."

"You can't," Damon answered, and waved a bloodied arm to his surroundings. "Especially when there's no evidence."

Immediately discombobulated, I glanced at the ground only to find that the tall man who weighed more than double I did, had simply vanished without a trace. A thousand questions went to my head, and the world began to spin before my eyes. The bile I had previously swallowed came back up.

"We need to go, Cora," Damon reiterated.

I narrowed my eyes at his demand. "Like hell I'm going anywhere with you. You're a stranger."

"Funny thing is you said that the first time we met," Damon exhaled, and stretched out to enclose his hand around my wrist before I could jerk my arm away. His touch searing, but it was manageable – perhaps more like a blaze of sparks than a wildfire. I pinched at the tanned man's skin as he began hauling me away towards a set of wrought iron stairs leading up to the rooftop. Any chances of returning to my halls of residence vanished like dust caught in the wind, and with it, my hope. The fleeting feeling of Damon's protection, and his promise to explain what had happened in the eight previous days of my life was the only thing that kept me from breaking his arm. "After all, I did save your life, Ginger. Now come on."

I can't even apologise enough for not updating this! I'm so sorry to everyone who has been incredible and read the first chapter <3 your comments meant the world to me, and reading them gave me inspiration to continue writing this.

I hope you all enjoyed!! sorry it's not too realistic, but I'm trying my best, and oml I love damon so so much like ugh can he marry me please (apart from killing those men, but eh i'll forgive him)

hope you all enjoyed! once again i'm sorry for being a terrible author, but I do have a levels coming up, and finding time to write has been extremely hard.

lots of love, lotte xxx