☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒

THIRTY;

SAGE CONNELLY

White walls impaired her vision.

The overbearingly dull color was enough for her eyes to water, trying to focus on her clothes considering they were the only thing with hue in the entire room. The second that she was capable of seeing properly, continuing to rapidly move her eyelashes, she caught on quickly that she wasn't alone in the barren place. Just a few inches from where she woke up on the ground were three tubs, all too familiar as the last sight she saw before she died. Her brain worked against her confusion and she lifted herself off of the ground, moving slowly over to the iced objects in fear that there would be no one inside of them — that she was alone in this place wondering how to find herself when she didn't even know who she was.

The second that she could see the ice floating, three figures burst from the water, all gasping for air like it hadn't been granted to them in years. Which, Sage feared, could be a possibility as she realized that there was no sense of time in this place. It was all moving slowly, and the blonde could only watch as the three in front of her whipped their heads around while their bodies dripped water. All of them stared at one another, but it didn't seem like the right time or place to be entering a conversation while in a foreign area. So, instead, their eyes just wandered around the room to try and find any sort of hint as to what they were supposed to be doing.

Sage's eyes landed on something differently than the others. While Allison, Stiles, and Scott all caught sight of the root of what must be the Nemeton, she had been given a different option. While her friends moved to find their parents, she was to find herself; and, she assumed that herself lay beyond the door on the opposite side of the room from her friends.

Without sparing another glance at the other three, she took slow strides over to the white door. She wouldn't have noticed it even being there had it not been marked with a black doorknob, screaming at her to pull it open and walk through. When she got in front of it, though, she began to question whether or not she actually wanted to open it— if she truly wanted to find out who she was was and what lay beyond the door.

She opened it anyway. The first thing that she felt when she walked through was warmth. Not heat warmth, but familiarity warmth. By the time she was glancing around, she realized why that was running through her veins, why she felt such a sense of familiarity. Sage was back where everything started.

The Hale house looked different than the way it was in present day. It looked like what it used to be, not a building set to be demolished with one too many memories. Everything was clean and fine cut, only the best for the Hale family. Sage remembered coming to the house every day to visit and immediately feel as though this was where she truly belonged. Wherever she felt safe was where the Hale's were. This was her home.

"Ready or not, here I come!"

Sage's eyebrows furred and she whipped her head around to see that coming from behind her was a young blonde, pigtails slapping against her face as she began to run through the corridor of the house. A bright smile was shining on her face, large enough for Sage to smile herself, watching as the ten year old giggled while searching through the place. Sage quickly turned around a corner, careful to make sure that the girl didn't notice her.

The corner that she had turned around happened to lead her to see a face she wished she hadn't— or, rather three. Sage felt her chest begin to constrict as she realized she was now in the kitchen, out of sight from the three people but close enough to hear them; close enough that she could reach out her hand and touch them.

"She can't be a part of this, Mom," he snapped, his hands pressed tightly against the marble counter as he glared at the woman, the anger radiating off his body obvious as he practically snarled out his words.

Sage let out a small cry when she heard the voice of the teenage boy, hand moving her mouth the second it escaped when she realized she could have blown her whole cover. She couldn't help it though, not when her older brother was standing right before her eyes again, alive and healthy.

Luke looked the same as he had the morning she last saw him seven years ago: pissed at the whole world yet striving to be better. His entire posture screamed fury, something that she had grown accustomed to with how many times she saw it. It was a different emotion, though, to see him now. She was seventeen, and he was a sixteen-year-old standing in front of her.

She wasn't supposed to be older than him.

He was sporting the leather jacket that Sage had wrapped around her own body, a reminder to the blonde that what was happening right now had to have happened in the past, or at the very least something she forgot about a long time ago. It had to have been something that her ten year old self shoved deep into the darkest pits of her mind. Then, another face came into view and Sage's heart broke even more at the site of her mother, the woman that she had once thought only great things of but now knew nothing about. The woman that lied to her too many times as a child and hid the truth from her for too many years. Mallory Connelly was a mystery to even her own family, and now that she was seeing her mother's face again, the replica of her own, she couldn't help but feel nauseous.

"She already is, Luke. You're trying so hard to protect her from her true nature when you know that she is destined to be exactly like me. She is destined to become the heart to the Hale pack. She will be there for them when I am no longer able," Mallory Connelly explained, her hands moving to grab a hold of her son's.

Luke refused, jerking his hands away. "Don't you dare touch me. Not after everything you hid from me. You want Sage to turn out like you, but I refuse to let that happen, Mom. I refuse to let my little sister grow up to be a lunatic thinking that what she is doing is for the greater good of the world. She deserves so much more than that. She deserves so much more than you."

"I'm only trying to protect the two of you!" Mallory denied, appalled at her son's accusations. "Your father and I never wanted this life for you or your sister!"

Sage's eyes flickered over to her father, who had been silently standing behind his wife. A lump formed in her throat, something she tried to swallow to keep away the tears. She was always a Daddy's girl, had always enjoyed spending time with him and her brother opposed to going shopping with her mother. It was odd to see him stand so quiet behind Mallory when he had always been the one to stand up to his wife alongside Luke. It seemed as though something had changed in his eyes, a sense of defeat washing over them as he stared at the ground to try and ignore the whole conversation. Only when he heard the words of the woman he married did he wince and look up.

While Mallory Connelly thought she was protecting her, Luke and Hal actually had.

"Mallory," Hal muttered, laying a hand on his wife's shoulder.

Luke was outraged though, his jaw tightening. "You're not doing shit to protect us, Mom. All that you're doing is sitting around waiting for Sage and I to lose our fucking minds because of what you created. If you were actually trying to protect us, you would have already told Sage what she was instead of just leaving her in the dark about all of this."

"Tell her what?" Mallory hissed back, eyes narrowing on her son. "You want me to tell her that she's going to feel pain every second of every day for the rest of her life because of what I am, and what I made her? You want me to tell her that she is going to destroy herself just like me? That you and I are disgraces to the world and that we shouldn't exist because altors are abominations? Is that what you want me to tell her?"

The room went quiet after the words drifted through the house, the air cold as the mother and son both took deep breaths to control their anger towards one another. Sage blinked, barely aware of the hot tears rushing down her face while she flickered her eyes to her right after seeing movement. That was when she noticed that a blonde head was peeking through the corner, witnessing the whole conversation right as it happened. Sage had heard this before.

"When I turn eighteen, I'm taking her away from you," Luke answered, his voice cold as the anger turned into a void nothing. "I'm not going to have her grow up around an insane bitch that can barely think about anyone but herself. When you actually learn how to take care of your children, let me know."

Luke briskly left the conversation, bumping shoulders with his father as he went down the hallway where his younger sister was located. Sage watched with watered eyes as her older brother stopped in front of her ten year old self, having noticed that she was eavesdropping in on the conversation.

"Hey, munchkin," Luke muttered, smiling at his little sister. "You want to go to practice with me?"

The blonde beamed immediately after the question, nodding rapidly as she gestured her hands out so that Luke would pick her up. The boy did so, his sister being placed on his back as he moved to walk out the door, completely abandoning the conversation he had once been a part of as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Sage felt a sting in her heart, realizing that her brother was gone and that all of this was just a memory. Her brother wasn't coming back and he wasn't going to be the one there to threaten her boyfriends when they asked her on a date. He wasn't there to listen to her cry her eyes out over a boy she thought she loved. Luke was gone, and although she had Derek, he would never be a consolation to the boy that had swore to protect her since the day she was born.

She never understood until now just how much she truly missed him.

Taking a deep gasp to try and control her shaking, she turned back to look at her parents. The whole conversation had been about her, about who she would grow up to become. Sage had always assumed that altors were abominations of true druids, mostly considering Deaton hadn't spoken any more of them than he actually needed to. Even in the Argent bestiary, there wasn't much said about the druids. Now, she knew why.

Sage refused to hear any more of the conversation, slowly backing away from the kitchen and through the room she entered in. She didn't want to know who she was, she didn't want to know why she was created the way she was, and she didn't want to know that she was an abomination. She just wanted to leave this house before any more secrets came spilling out.

The blonde nearly tripped on the carpet, swallowing hard before she turned around completely to grip tightly onto the door handle. To her horror, the door refused to open no matter how many times she tugged at it. A small sting formed in her stomach, growing panicked as she continued to jiggle the door knob to try and escape her own personal hell.

Only when a small cough escaped from her lips and the stinging in her eyes got much worse did she turn around to see that the house that was once shining beauty was now up in flames in just a matter of moments. In just the split second of her trying to unlock the door did she realize that all of those nightmares she had when she was eleven and twelve were coming true. She was in the center of the Hale fire.

"Sage!" someone cried, sobs strangling afterwards as the voice echoed throughout the blazing building.The blonde coughed hard when her lungs filled with smoke, eyes squinting as she tried to figure out who was calling her name. Through the burning hues of the flame, she caught sight of a faint figure in the distance and that figure happened to be her worst vision of torture. The blonde's hair was still tightly tied in pigtails, and Sage didn't waste a single second going after the young girl.

"Wait!" Sage called out, trying to ignore the singe of her jacket as she chased after the blonde, wishing that the young girl would slow down and stop going further into the heart of the fire.

The girl traveled down another hallway, and soon enough, Sage was lost as she shoved her face into the inside of her jacket to keep from inhaling the smoke any more than she already had. There was no way she could get out of this place alive if she didn't leave now, and she knew that she had to go no matter how much she wanted to save that little girl.

Slowly backing up, letting out a startled weep when a piece of debris came falling just before her eyes, the girl nearly fell as she ran through the burning house. When she got back to the front of the home, the door that had once been locked was now wide open, practically tempting her to exit as quickly as possible. And, she did, not wasting a single second as she ran out of the house, getting only far enough away for her go tumbling to her knees as she coughed hard, feeling as though her lungs had caught flame and were burning her alive from the inside-out.

"Well, that was a close one."

Sage had to squint to see who was speaking, her eyes watering from the amount of smoke that she had just battled her way through. Standing in front of her was her mother, the same woman that had been in the fire just before her and the same woman that had wholeheartedly called her own daughter and son abominations.

The same woman that ruined Sage's life.

The blonde struggled to speak, and her mother quickly caught on. "Oh, don't exert yourself, sweetheart. I always knew that you would save yourself before you saved your friends. Luke said you were just like him, going in to save that stupid Hale girl and getting himself killed in the process because he was so naive, but we all know that you're just like me. You don't save people. You run away and save yourself."

"What?" Sage choked out, her hands digging into the dirt on the ground as tears continued to burn her vision, face coated in the dark tint of ash.

She didn't know what her mother was talking about, or that the woman was even completely sane as she spoke. She didn't know what any of this was, or what any of this meant. She didn't know how the whole scene could completely change in just the moments she struggled to get the door open. All she wanted to know was how.

All she wanted to know was why.

"Turn around," Mallory jeered, a wicked grin on her face as she turned her attention back over to the burning house, a pleased expression shining through while crossing her arms over her chest.

With what strength Sage had left, the teenage girl tumbled from her knees and onto her back. Only when she glanced back at the same thing her mother was staring at did she realize what the older woman had meant when she said that Sage saved herself before she saved her friends.

Through the busted windows of the Hale house, the silhouettes of Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Allison Argent, Derek Hale, and so many others banged hard to try and get themselves free of the smoke. Danny Mahealani and the twins resided on the other side, Jackson Whittemore next to them as they all struggled to break free.

The people she loved were trapped, dying inside of the house that killed who she used to be.

Sage didn't waste a second before she was up off her knees, moving to run back to the house so that she could save them before it was too late and the smoke became too much. Her mother's cackling was heard from behind her, but the blonde hadn't even acknowledged it as she raced towards the front door of the Hale house.

Her hand reached out to grab a hold of the door knob, but had been denied access as it burned the skin from her palm. The blonde jumped back, letting out a pained cry as she stared at the searing scorch that was now bubbling in agony. She quickly took off the leather jacket that resided on her body, wrapping it around her hand as she tried to push the door open again. It was another failure.

"Come on!" Sage screamed, a strangled sob falling from her mouth as she continued to push hard on the door. "Open!"

She couldn't lose them, she couldn't lose the only people in her life that actually cared about her and loved her enough that they saw past her flaws. She couldn't just lose the people that sacrificed everything that they were to protect her and help her when she couldn't find the strength to help herself. She couldn't lose the only people she had left.

Only when sweat and tears fell down her face did she finally understand that there was no point anymore, and the sounds of her friends' screams pierced her ears louder than her family's had seven years ago. Only when she realized there wasn't any hope left did she slowly stumble back until the weight in her knees had her buckling to the ground, hands over her ears as she tried to tune out the pleads for help. She would never be able to save them.

The blonde knew, as she cried on the ground in front of the Hale house, who she was. She supposed she knew the second that she ran away with Derek and Laura Hale all of those years ago, she supposed she knew when she came back to town only to step foot in this place. She supposed she knew all of those times she cried over her family.

Sage Connelly knew all this time who she really was, but she refused to believe that it was all she would ever be. She refused to believe that the only thing she would ever be is the shadow of the girl that burned alive in the house seven years ago. She refused to believe that everything she worked to become since then was ablaze just like her family. She refused to believe that she would be the cause of the deaths of the people she loved, unable to help any of them.

Everyone that loved her got hurt. Everyone that cared about her only died, or ended up damaged in some way beyond repair. Nothing would ever be a consolation in her life because she didn't deserve comfort after all of the pain she has inflicted towards the people in this town. The only thing that she deserved was to burn alive just like her family, and just like the Hale's.

She tried, though; for seven years, she tried to become a better person. She tried to become someone that her mother and father would be proud of, and now she realized that nothing would give her that satisfaction. Never would her mother be capable of understanding what pride meant if it wasn't about herself, and never would her father have the ability to stand up for his children because he continued to hide beyond the shadow of Mallory Connelly.

And she couldn't die knowing that she was only meant to live up to the expectation her mother had set for her eleven years ago. Sage couldn't believe in the idea that her whole life was nothing but a lie, and that everything that she grew up around had all been for nothing. She couldn't just accept the fact that all of those days and all of those nights she spent mourning her mother and father had been for nothing.

She couldn't accept it.

But she knew she had to. She knew she had to accept the fact that Sage Connelly was nothing more than a girl who lost everything too young, and a girl that would continue to lose everything until she lost herself. She knew that she couldn't let her friends continue to sacrifice themselves for her when she was nothing more than a dead weight destined for death and insanity. Sage Connelly had always known she was an abomination.

That was all she has ever been and all she will ever be.

☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒ ☒