She woke with soil in her throat.
A scream tore through the silence of the earth, muffled by layers of forgotten time. Her hands clawed through rot and stone, fingers cracking, healing, cracking again until they met air. When she broke through the ground, it wasn't light that greeted her-it was hunger.
Violent, empty, unbearable hunger.
Her name-she didn't know it. Her body-she didn't understand it. She had no memory, no past, no breath.
Only need.
She stumbled out of the earth, bare and cold, a grave behind her and a pulsing ache inside her that was louder than thought. She walked blindly through the trees until she saw them.
A man and a woman, laughing under the moonlight.
She didn't understand what they were, but her eyes locked on their necks-she could see the blood. The rhythm. The warmth. Her legs moved on their own. Her body didn't ask permission.
She was upon them before the woman could scream.
She tore into them-not with teeth at first, but with a primal strength she didn't know she had. And when her mouth found flesh, something long and sharp slid out from her gums, and she drank.
And drank.
And drank.
She didn't know she could feel this alive.
When she pulled away, their bodies were limp. The woman's neck torn. The man's chest gashed. Her lips were painted red, her nails stained. She touched her mouth. Fangs.
She backed away.
She looked down at her hands. Her nails-longer now. Sharper. And her ears-were those whispers from a mile away? A heartbeat?
A memory came. Blurred. A face she couldn't make out. Fangs piercing her throat. A voice that whispered, *"You were never meant to survive."*
And then... darkness.
Someone had drained her. Someone had buried her. Someone had meant for her to vanish.
But she was awake now.
And something deep inside whispered that her name... was **Annabelle**.
No-*Queen Annabelle*.
And whoever tried to erase her... would regret they failed.
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