Her breaths came out in harsh pants as she ran through the swamp that is the bayou. The moon was her only guiding light as the creatures of the night seemed to taunt her as she made haste through the sweltering marshlands. Her heartbeat pumped loudly in her ears as her feet carried her to places unknown. She payed as much attention to her surroundings as she could but ultimately, it did not help at all. The trees, the mucky grass, the river on her right, all blurred together as she fled for her life. She can’t remember why her life is on the line or why she’s being chased, but she does know that she cannot stop.
She doesn’t stop until she feels it.
The pain that seared through her senses as what felt like knives sank into the flesh of her side then her shoulder.
She let out a blood-curdling scream as her back was torn open before being tossed down a small hill.
Tears sprang from her eyes as the adrenaline seeped out of her body from her deep wounds. She felt everything even more potently than before.
She didn’t stop crying as she felt herself stop rolling down the hill only to stop and find something much worse.
Murky water.
It pulled her under.
The oxygen in her lungs could only sustain her for so long before the burn began to set in.
She fought to breathe until the peace of not having to overcame her.
Deeper and deeper she sank into the waters whose depths knew no bounds.
All was for naught until it wasn’t.
Hands too warm to be human grabbed her before she could be completely lost to the world.
She could barely feel it as her body rose to the surface before finally being able to breathe in the sweltering air.
She felt the wet ground below her knees and coughed up blood and water before turning to her savior.
Only she couldn’t fathom if he truly was her savior or not.
Her gaze traveled up the creature’s body in front of her. His naked and unblemished porcelain skin, his bloodied arms, chest, and hands. She froze when she finally reached his face.
His countenance was blank but that wasn’t what frightened her, or what would have frightened her if she could feel anything other than the need to run.
His bloodied lips were pulled back behind his teeth, as if permanently set into a snarl. Two sets of razor sharp fangs pulled the word vampire from the depths of her addled mind.
However it was his eyes that caught her attention the most.
They weren’t like the man she had come to know as her abuser. These eyes were surely of the devil. The true devil behind all the stories parents told their children at night.
These eyes were black and gold, piercing her soul, terrifying in nature. Deep set veins pulsed from beneath his seemingly curious but sinister gaze.
Her blank stare was all she could give this creature before her vision faded in and out.
Before darkness was all she knew.
She didn’t know how long she was unconscious, but it didn’t much matter at this point. She would rather not wake up. She would rather succumb to the never-ending darkness that brought her comfort every time she fell sleep. To the overwhelming nothingness she felt now.
“I see that you have finally awoken.”
The gravelly voice startled her, causing her eyes to snap open in surprise.
The voice was rough with a thick accent, as if it hadn’t been in use for years. Almost as if this creature was a man out of his own time, displaced by forces unknown.
“These marshlands are far beyond the beaten path, knowledge of the route has been lost to time. No sane being intentionally sojourns to this place,” the creature drawled. “So, how did you merely stumble across it?”
She opened and closed her mouth in reply. She struggled to speak through the compulsion that she still didn’t realize was placed on her by a malevolent tormentor. She didn’t even remember the word itself.
“I don’t know, my mind’s all messed up,” she said, pulling the hair from her scalp. “I don’t even remember the past two weeks, let alone how I got here. I know I’m missing something big, but I just don’t know what the hell it is!”
Her eyes searched her surroundings with a frantic back and forth motion before sliding back to look at the creature with devilish eyes. What she saw reflected back at her was something she would rather not see.
It was the look of pity.
A look she’d seen before on her friend Elena from school. She could never figure out why the girl she met in her freshman year of college would always glance at her like that. Before she could have gotten too deep into her thoughts about the girl, her torment at Damon’s hand had begun rendering her mind as useless as it is now.
“Niklaus, what have I told you about playing with your food?” A voice with an accent she can’t really place called out. This voice was different from the creature who had possibly saved her.
“I’m not, brother.” The creature that apparently had a name rolled his hauntingly beautiful eyes. “She stumbled into my prison all on her own. The poor thing’s little more than a doll, she’s not even all there. The girl doesn’t even realize that there is much more to her than the seemingly human blood that runs in her veins.”
The conversation continued to flow around her but she was still stuck on what Niklaus had just said.
How was there more to her when she really was just a doll condemned to live under the shadow of a menace.
She could barely see, her eyesight had been reduced to nearly nothing with all the blood she had lost.
What she did see was that the two of them had been joined by a man and a woman.
She paused for a moment.
Was that Elena?
“El- Elena?” She called out weakly, raising her hand as if to reach out to her friend. “Please, help me.”
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she began to shake.
Her body convulsed as she succumbed to the darkness for the second time that night.
A week had passed Caroline by since the incident in the bayou. She had no clue how she made it back to her off-campus apartment, but that mattered not as she was back in the hands of Damon Salvatore. It seemed that she would never be rid of his oppression.
“Did you know that it was me chasing you through those woods?”
The words stung as the memories of that night flew to the forefront of her mind.
“It was so fun watching you run in circles,” he said taunting her from the chair he always kept in the corner of her room. “Tearing through your flesh like an animal was the best part! And your screams? Chef’s kiss.”
Her stomach churned as he laughed manically, as if he had said something that warranted such a response.
“I thought you had finally died and that I would be able to move onto your little friend Elena for my games. Wooing her is such a drag sometimes, I tire of all the consent! If she wasn’t with Matt, I would have broken her already. Just like I’m breaking you.”
She tried not to let the tears fall at his words.
She never understood the pitiful looks her friend threw her way at times, but the knowledge that this monster wanted to target someone else made her own saliva burn as it slid down her throat.
“Trust and believe that when I’m done with you, she’ll get her turn.”
“One day, you’ll get what’s coming to you. One day, you’ll curse the day you were born,” she spat.
He chuckled. “You seem to beg for punishment.”
“No—
She knew what was coming. He’s done this to her so many time before. The first time was always a shock, the rest was merely routine.
She thrashed as he bound her arms and legs together, she wailed as he tilted her head and rammed it through the opening in her footboard until it was hanging over the edge. She begged for him to stop as he fastened a damp covering over her head. She screamed as water filled her nostrils.
“I can’t wait to chase you through the bayou again and this time,” he said with glee. “I’ll make sure that you don’t come out alive.”
“NO!”
It was the last word to come out of her mouth before more water assaulted her senses.
Again and again, he plunged her world into darkness as he waterboarded her until she passed out.
Damon had let her remember everything from the past week. It was an uncommon but welcome occurrence because this time, she was finally going to do something about it. She was finally going to be rid of her tormentor, even if it killed her.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
