Death.
Something Caroline ached for once upon a time to release her from the shackles that had become her life.
Death.
A force that with it brought overwhelming darkness and a deep-seated nothingness that spread throughout her entire body.
A body that she could no longer even feel. It was as if her soul had been completely detached from its resting place.
She didn’t know how long the darkness kept her but when she finally opened her eyes, she was in a familiar place. The sun appeared to be setting swiftly and a cool breeze blew through. Gone was the bayou and the devil that called it home, gone was the marshlands that had caught her in its snare.
Noises could be heard in the distance. The telltale sounds of conversations being had by students as they walked to class. It was then that she realized she was back in the vicinity of the university, in the dense woods behind the campus.
All of a sudden, she was overwhelmed by a peculiar scent.
It smelled like nothing she had ever encountered. Better than any food or drink, better than anything she’d ever dreamed of.
It was the smell of human blood.
It had to be.
The scent was coming from just beyond the trees, all she had to do was get there.
Following the savory aroma, she glided to its epicenter.
And there it was.
The person responsible for such an irresistible scent.
Matt Donovan.
Then as if she were in a trance, she was hit with another set of memories. Memories of a terrible time.
FLASHBACK
“Yes, Damon!” A feminine voice wailed. “HARDER!”
All Caroline could do was sit there on her knees and watch as her supposed boyfriend and abuser railed her friend. She had been compelled to kneel and wait patiently until he was done.
So, here she was. Internally screaming to be released from such torment.
How could Elena willingly be with someone who would force her to watch them have sex. It couldn’t be that great, all that unnecessary screaming the girl was doing.
To make matters worse, she was now complicit in enabling said girl to cheat on her actual boyfriend. Matt Donovan.
Her thoughts were a whirlwind. How would she save herself, how would she keep this from Matt? He was another good friend of hers. But how good of a friend could he really be if he hadn’t noticed anything was wrong with her?
PRESENT
A harsh gasp was wrenched from her throat as she stumbled in her pursuit of blood.
“Care?” A voice asked, laced with concern. She felt hands help her stand properly. “Are you alright?”
“Oh Matt, you poor dear.” She said, tutting with her newfound memories in mind. “I’m so sorry.”
“What do you mean?” He asked, confusion apparent on his furrowed brows.
“I won’t let you suffer from knowing the real Elena behind the charade she puts on around you.”
“Huh?” He asked before a strangled cry slipped from his lips.
Caroline had latched onto his neck like a babe to it’s mother’s breast.
The pain in her gums increased as she tore through his skin with her human teeth. She used brute force. As soon as a drop of his blood hit her tongue, she moaned in delight. This was the best thing she had ever tasted. Way better than the best slice of cake, better than a juicy burger, better than… well, everything.
Then, she felt it.
She let go of her prey as she felt the veins below her eyes pool with blood, as her teeth elongated into fangs. Running her tongue over them, a satisfied smile graced her lips before she dove back into Matt.
A noise to her right caused her eyes to snap open as she drank. Her sight was ten times what it used to be, she could see the details in the smallest blade of grass to the details on the buildings beyond that of the college campus. She could hear the sound of the wind whipping as the breeze picked up, she could even feel it as it brushed her skin. Closing her eyes again, she gave in as she drank deeply.
Once there was nothing left of her victim she dragged his body deeper into the woods behind the school.
“Thank you, for your sacrifice.” She closed his eyes. “It’s better this way, Matt. Now you’ll never know of Elena’s treachery.”
She stood back and closed her own eyes, relishing in the newfound power that filled her veins. A seemingly innocent laugh slipped from her lips. It was her turn to cause some damage, it was her turn to be the tormentor.
Her blood buzzed with energy. It sent her into a frenzy.
So she ran.
Faster than she ever did before. It felt like she could outrun a shooting star she was going so fast. The wind seemed to propel her forward as she weaved through the streets of New Orleans with one destination in mind. The Garden District. To the home of one Damon Salvatore.
As she came to the front porch of the massive house, she stopped to listen. She almost gagged in disgust at what she heard. Damon was apparently railing away on Elena again. No matter. She would deal with them both, killing two birds with one stone.
She was about to march through the house when she realized something. How would she incapacitate Damon? She didn’t know much about vampires outside of what she learned in her studies with Professor Shane. But how much stock should she put in his words? Could she believe his teachings? That a wooden stake could put down a vampire forever? That removing the head or the heart would cause such a creature to cease to exist?
Not willing to take any chances, she tore a couple of branches from a nearby tree and began to fashion stakes for herself.
Coming back to the porch she focused her hearing again, they were still at it.
Before she could retch in disgust and in turn bring attention to herself, she crept into the house and grabbed a poker from near the fire place. Placing it into the fire, she watched the flames eat it up. She waited until it was nice and hot. Pairing it with her makeshift stakes, she braced herself before running directly into the lion’s den.
Silently and swiftly, she moved. The couple didn’t even know what hit them before one of them flew through the air, only to land on a wall.
“Hello, Damon.” She said with a smirk as both their eyes widened when they took in her new look. Bloodied eyes flashing, fangs bared, veins popping out against her skin.
Before the other vampire could react to the stakes in his hands pinning him to the wall, she raced over and used her nails to dig into his groin.
“You won’t be needing these anymore,” she said as she ripped his testicles straight off.
Blood sprayed her in the face as he yelled in pain.
“Oh did that hurt?” She asked with faux concern before grimacing. “All that yelling is unnecessary. Perhaps you need something to shut you up.”
She considered the organs in her hand before a smile graced her lips. Without a second thought, she force fed him his own balls.
“That’s better, don’t you think?”
“CAROLINE! STOP THIS, YOU’RE HURTING HIM!”
She sharply turned to the bed where Elena was covering herself as she stood on the mattress. Rolling her eyes, she sent the poker sailing through the air. The force of her throw pinning Elena to the wall above the headboard. She smiled at the poker jutting out from the welp’s belly.
“I could give a flying fuck about how he feels or what’s hurting him right now, Elena. The bastard is a monster who takes away the power of women he’s supposedly interested in. He uses this,” she said as she stalked toward Damon and grabbed his flaccid dick in her hand. She squeezed, relishing in his groan from the pain. “He uses this as a weapon! He doesn’t deserve to even have this!”
She looked at it again and nodded, deciding the fate of the limp organ as well. She ripped it clean off and tossed it onto the bed with Elena. Poor girl squealed.
“STOP IT CAROLINE!” The brunette yelled helplessly. “This isn’t you!”
“Oh yeah?!” She asked incredulously. “And how the hell would you even know?! You don’t even know me! You barely even cared who I was. As long as I was the one taking the abuse so you can benefit from the love he saw fit to give you! You let him abuse me, torture me. You didn’t even care that he made me sit and watch the two of you have sex! Or whatever the hell you wanna call what y’all do. You don’t even realize how deep you’re in it. You don’t even know how close to being in my place you are!”
The girl snorted.
“I could never be in your place,” Elena sighed in exasperation. “He wouldn’t do that to me, he loves me. Just because he didn’t love you doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Are you dumb or are you stupid, Elena?” She asked incredulously, marching toward the girl and snatching her off the wall. The poker ripping through her skin.
“You’re completely off your rocker if you think he actually loves you. Hell, he told me that he was sick of needing consent to be with you!” She exclaimed tossing her like a rag doll onto the floor at Damon’s feet. “That when he was done with me, he would move onto abusing you. You really think a monster like him would want anything from you?! Do you even know what he is??”
“He’s a vampire, like you are now apparently. That’s how I know he would never do those things to me,” the idiot said from the ground. “He told me the truth when all he ever did was lie to you.”
“Oh, you poor dear. You’ll never learn,” the blonde vampire said. “I guess it’s up to me then. There’s no way you’ll believe the truth even if it ripped your heart out of your chest. I’m going to save you, Elena. I’m going to save you before you ever experience the torment that I went through.”
Looking back to Damon, she noticed his wounds had healed and that he was starting to move toward his beloved.
“Oh, now this won’t do.”
She grabbed the poker that had fallen onto the bed and whooshed into his face, kicking Elena to the side in the process.
“Can’t have you getting out that easily,” she said driving the poker through his nonexistent genitals and embedding it into the wall.
“There, that’s better. Now… where was I?” She posed the question and scratched her chin. “Oh right, Elena.”
The girl in question was trying in vain to get away. Like dragging oneself across the floor was actually going to do anything.
She flashed to the girl and watched in glee as the realization of what was about to happen flickered in her eyes.
“I was serious about saving you, Elena.” The words left her mouth as she picked the brunette up by her hair, smirking as the girl struggled. “I just never meant that you would actually live.”
She didn’t waste another second with meaningless chit chat.
Caroline sank her razor sharp fang’s into Elena’s neck. It was brutal, the way she devoured her. She gnawed at the muscle, and paused as she reached bone in her thirst.
The girl was positively mauled. Still recognizable, of course. Her plans required that. But the girl’s head hung at an awkward angle. Too much jostling and it might actually fall off.
She snickered at the thought.
“You’ve just… sealed your death.”
“What was that?” She asked. “I’m already dead and there’s nothing else you could possibly do to me. Get over yourself, you’re the one whose existence will be over as soon as I walk out of here.”
“You murdered the love of my life,” the broken vampire said. “Even if she was the spitting image of my maker, it didn’t matter to me. I loved her, she was way better than you. How is it that a carbon copy always will be superior to you? I’ll find a way to end everything about you, though. There’s no doubt about it. You’ll never be rid of me, Caroline.”
“Au contraire,” she said humorlessly. “You’ll never harm me again. You’ll never harm anyone else again.”
She stalked toward him for the last time.
“Goodbye, Damon. May the devil torment you forever and ever, amen.”
She leaned forward and cackled in glee as she tore out his throat with her bare teeth before reaching into his chest and ripping out his heart.
She watched as his body lost it’s color transforming into a corpse, dark veins stretching from the hole in his thoracic cavity out to the furthest of limbs.
Her revenge was finally sated. She had done it.
All of a sudden her body began to radiate energy. She lifted her hand as saw the black and grey tendrils surrounding it.
“Is this—
The realization hit her like a ton of bricks.
Even if she was the spitting image of my maker…
You could become a hybrid if your drink the blood of a human doppelgänger…
The 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…
Succumbing to the blood will make you my pawn forever in this immortal game of revenge…
Damon’s words surged to the forefront of her thoughts. Niklaus’ words registered deep within her very being.
Spitting image, carbon copy, doppelgänger.
“I drank… from the doppelgänger…”
Elena. It was her.
She was the human doppelgänger that was supposed to be her friend.
She stumbled as she realized her grave mistake.
At moment, she felt something in her break, something inside her finally shattered completely at the thought at never being human again. But… she realized she didn’t care. Whatever it was that broke, took something with it.
It was her psyche, or rather… her humanity. She didn’t even know the switch existed, but it was already long gone by now. A result of the torment she endured.
Now she had to deal with the repercussions of what she had done. She knew that one day she would have to wrestle with the devil, but today was not that day. Today was the day she reveled in the darkness within.
ns 15.158.61.12da2
