Who: Cora Hale What: De-aged. Panic. Things. When: Early hours of 13 October Where: Foster home in Northern California to Stilinkshi home to the woods to the woods Warnings: Violence Status: Narrative | Complete
She had to. He was going to keep hurting her. He was going to keep hurting the others. She had to kill him. But the knife in her hand felt heavy as she pulled it out of the back of her foster father. The bastard who tried to.. no. She wasn't going to think about it. She'd been doing this dance for too long. There was no way that the system would listen. They would see that she had stabbed someone in the back and killed him. Self defense didn't matter. They never listened to kids like her.
A look to the the other girl was all she needed. She needed to run. Now. Pulling the knife out, Cora turned to run and suddenly she.. was in a strange house, blood spattered on her face and hands and the murder weapon still on her.
"Oh god...."
She felt sick. She didn't know where she was, just that she wasn't safe. She also needed to get rid of the evidence. Cora Hale was supposed to be dead. Something with her prints could get the people who killed her family back on her trail. It had to be murder. They would have noticed a gas leak. She was cold. And shaking. She didn't know where she was going, just away from the house she suddenly was in. So she ran. It was when she started noticing familiar street signs that she realized where she was.
"....No...."
How had she gotten back to Beacon Hills?! Now she really needed to get out. Clutching the knife, now for protection yet again, she girl ran through the early morning to the woods. She would get out. She would start over. No more foster system. She'd just leave and stick it on her own. Her lung burned, her limbs felt on fire as she pushed herself, adrenaline coursing through her. She was close to the city limits and....
She was at a tree stump. How the hell had THAT happened?! Shaking, Cora looked around. The ground was disturbed some. She didn't want to be here. She could survive for a while in the woods, if she really needed to. But that didn't answer the how or why. That didn't answer the questions that Cora's survival instincts demanded. But she couldn't go back to town. She could be killed and then what?
Not that she was living a life. But she had survived, and that counted for something, right?
Cora tried to leave the town borders five more times before giving up. How could this happen? What was keeping her here? Why did she end up at a tree stump whenever she thought she finally was out? Sinking to her knees, the girl clutched the knife and bowed her head as she felt the strong desire to cry take over. She had cried when she ran from the fire, the smoke in her lungs causing her to choke. She would wake up in a panic, tangled in sheets. But she hadn't cried in over two years and now.....
"You have to be stronger than this....You can't be weak. Not anymore." The comment was mumbled under her breath. A mantra for whenever she had gotten herself kicked out of a home. A mantra to remind herself she would never be weak again. Never caught off guard. "You need answers."
Which meant... the library. Maybe she could find something there. Wiping the blood off the knife, as well as her hands and face with some leaves so as not to raise any alarms, Cora slipped the weapon into the boot she'd been wearing. She would need to wait for the library to open, but she could do a more proper washing of her face and hands once she got back to the town that killed her family. And then she'd find a way out again.