There’s something primal about flat out running. It’s freeing, or at least it’s supposed to be.
Caroline didn’t have any time to contemplate how much freedom one can feel when running when she was quite literally running for her very life.
Again.
She didn’t bother to look over her shoulder, didn’t bother to think about the bag she left in the alleyway. All she allowed herself to think about was the creature from the swamp she met under similar circumstances.
How would she find him? Because here she was again speeding through the marshlands that are the bayou. Last time she stumbled through this place, but now? Now she is here of her own accord, now she’s here intentionally.
With her thoughts turned solely onto the creature she searches for, she thinks about what all this could mean for her.
She knows the creature is a vampire but she can’t help but feel as if he’s so much more than that. Determination pumped through her veins almost as much as adrenaline as she ran through the trees. There would be no time for fear, she couldn’t let herself feel that now. She lived for two years under a madman, fear got her nowhere.
She ran.
Blindly.
She ran as far as the adrenaline would let her.
She didn’t know where she was going, only that her heart burned for a way out of her torment… for good. She needed a permanent solution to all her problems. Temporary comforts would no longer suffice.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, she tripped. Because of course, she would make her way back to the hill that assisted her tumble the first time.
She kept rolling until she felt the wetness of the murky waters she encountered a week ago. This time, she sank willingly. She didn’t fight the burn as her lungs fought to keep her alive. She welcomed the discomfort because if it was easy to free herself of the life she had come to know, she would have done it already. She welcomed the pain, it was normal for her.
As the last of the oxygen left her lungs, too warm skin brushed her side. Lazily she looked to her right to see the creature swimming beside her.
She gasped and nearly blacked out from taking water into her lungs. The creature snatched her up and dragged her to the surface before tossing her onto the ground like a rag doll.
She coughed up the water and heaved until she once again had control over her vocal cords.
“You’ve retuned,” a voice hissed from the somewhere. She couldn’t see, everything was shrouded in darkness. “No one’s ever returned.”
The man-beast circled Caroline like a wolf does its prey.
“It seems no one has been given the chance to leave either,” she murmured under her breath, finally taking in what she could see of her surroundings. There were skulls and broken bones everywhere. Proof of the victims that never again saw the light of day.
“Neither will you.”
He appeared suddenly in front of her with his fangs out, black and gold eyes, spider-like veins below them. Blood covered his naked body and she stiffened slightly when he sniffed her.
“Those who enter reek of fear. The last time you stumbled into my abode, I sensed nothing but a scattered mind broken by compulsion and now…” he said trailing off in curiosity. “I sense hope. What kind of horrors would lead a creature such as yourself into her own grave in search of hope, hmm?”
“I don’t want to be a doll, an empty shell on the inside and a pretty face on the outside. I don’t want to be a mindless fucktoy for some depraved vampire for the rest of my life.”
“I see,” the man said. “So the compulsion finally wore off.”
“My abuser released it.”
“And your purpose for seeking out the Devil of the Bayou?” He asked. “Or whatever they’re calling me in this time.”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve been out of it for the better part of two years now.” The bitterness potent in her voice. “I need help, Niklaus. That is your name, right? I need power to stop this from happening again… to me and anyone else.”
“That is my name,” he said in thought. “Interesting that you would remember that.”
“Don’t think too much of it.”
Niklaus tilted his head back and barked a sharp laugh before cutting it short, turning his piercing gaze back on her.
“Such a righteous cause for someone so broken by the abuse they have endured. Fallacies and folly are what your words are filled with when you wish for more than that. So, I’ll give you one more chance to answer my question. Think carefully now,” he said. “Lie to me again and I’ll tear out your entrails with my teeth, then I’ll feed them to you.”
Once again she found herself held in the air by her throat. But this time, her back was up against a rough tree.
“What is it that you truly desire?” He asked, squeezing her neck for emphasis. “What did you really darken my doorstep for?”
“Rules that govern the human world do not work on people like Damon Salvatore,” she spat, completely missing the way Niklaus’ eyes flashed in recognition at the name. “They only fear monsters, they run from them. Sometimes, the world no longer needs a hero. Sometimes, it needs a monster.”
“And you believe you know what it means to be a monster?”
It was clearly a rhetorical question, but she couldn’t help answering in kind with a snarky tone. Perhaps her old self was recovering from her ordeal.
“No, but I have been a victim of one for more days that I care to count.”
The devil smirked.
He stepped back from her, dropping her in the process. He considered her with a sinister twinkle in his eye. She stumbled a little but used the tree as leverage to keep her standing.
Snatching her wrist up to his mouth, she watched as he took a surprisingly gentle bite. He drank deeply, making her feel a little faint.
Upon finishing, her smirked her way again.
“You have no idea what it means to be a monster.” He beckoned her to follow him deeper into the swamp. “But, I’m going to show you.”
Minutes passed before they came to a decrepit cabin made solely of bone.
“It appears that I have been gifted a rare opportunity,” he said leading her inside. “Let not the size of the bayou lead your thoughts astray, it is a prison nonetheless. For a millennia, this swamp has been my cage. I am bound to this place, condemned by the woman who bore me and the man who calls himself my father.”
She watched as the devil himself paced. As if it was possible for him to be plagued with a terrible past.
“I have waited an eternity for a creature of your strength, your will, the gifts that you do not even know you possess. A woman worthy of the darkness and all it’s powers,” he said as he took one of the many skulls lying across the gritty floor and crushed it, forming a makeshift cup. “If I am to be your salvation, you are mine.”
She watched as he bit into his wrist, transfixed as the lifeblood from his veins flowed into the broken skull.
“Take it and drink, you will have but a taste of my power. Your perception of time will be drastically altered, human ideals will no longer bind you to a meaningless existence. You will watch dynasties rise and fall, you will witness a multitude of sights, and gain wisdom beyond that of a mere human.”
“What’s the price?” She asked. This sounded like everything she could have ever dreamed of, but nothing of this magnitude could come without a price.
“The taste of human blood will be all that you crave for eternity.”
At this point, she understood one thing.
That she is dealing with something infinitely darker than the one who abused her.
“Human blood will be the catalyst of your change. You will become a vampire, but you can become so much more. You could become a hybrid if your drink the blood of a human doppelgänger. Then the magic that lies dormant just beneath your skin will burst forth. You would truly become the monster that you so desperately wish to be. A being with infinite abilities and a thirst that could level cities.”
“What’s the catch?” She asked.
“Clever girl,” he said with a feral grin and a wild look in his eyes. “A human doppelgänger calls herself your friend. If you can resist the temptation of feeding from her, I will personally see to it that you return to your human state. Perhaps your desires for revenge and the like will be met, perhaps not. But you will have sampled my power, you will know what it means to become a monster.”
“And if I… feed… from this doppelgänger?” She asked with uncertainty. “The one that’s supposed to be my friend?”
“Your path forward will be far bloodier than it would have been had you not returned to this place, to me. You will become the vessel of darkness that my begetters tried to make me and…” he trailed off. “I will be free. Free to dole out a long overdue punishment on those who have betrayed me. Succumbing to the blood will make you my pawn forever in this immortal game of revenge.”
She let his words sink in, struggling with the knowledge that making a deal with this creature will somehow release the devil onto the wilds of the world. She knows she can’t allow that to happen but cannot bring herself to do more than use her words against that fact in this moment. She needs this. She needs to hurt Damon, he needs to fear her.
“It’ll be my pleasure to prove you wrong then, Niklaus. You will never be free.”
He handed her the cup.
“Drink.”
She does, tilting the cup to her lips and letting the rancid liquid slide down her throat.
“And let the games begin.”
His words faded into the background as the blood sent her psyche into another plane.
It tasted like copper… but as she kept drinking, it became more.
It tasted like all the bad decisions she made as a child, the mischief she got up to with her friends. It tasted like pain, worse than what she experienced during the worst time of her life. It tasted like liquid fire, the spiciness of it scorching her throat on the way down.
It tasted like hope. Hope of a better future, of a life much more fulfilling than the one she had. It tasted like love, what love was supposed to feel like. It tasted like power, all encompassing power, a mere drop of what she is to experience and gain if she fully completes her transition into a monster.
She finished the cup, tossing it away from her as if it burned her skin like battery acid.
“What now?” She rasped out, her throat feeling unnaturally dry.
“Now, you die.”
Pain wrenched through her. Agonizing pain.
The devil had thrust his arm into her chest and ripped out her heart. She could plainly see it in his hands.
It was the last thing she saw before falling over, dead.
ns 15.158.61.5da2
