Nightmares…We all experience them. I’m talking about those heart-hammering ones that start to lose coherence even as you're waking up from them, but that still manage to leave their moldering fingerprints all across your day. We all go through those; even the monsters, even the martyrs, the best and the worst of us. My younger brother is the most careful. The decency of his lies hiding his PTSD; saves us all on daily basis. He so generously opens the ground for my littlest sister, #Tia, who wakes up screaming for help. Not tonight though. Tonight is silent and cold. This night’s cruelty is specifically designed to torment /me/. Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear. And this is the fear.
We pad over the brown trembling floor of the boarding house, with our arms shielding our faces, to the edge of the hall where the door is visible. Swirling flames rising from the furniture is so bright that the wind blows hot and rich with the smell of blood and burnt meat, so strong we begin to slaver. Yet as one smell, the smell of blood, draws us onward, others such as smell of roasted meat, warns us back. I sniff at the drifting smoke. Fire, fire, fire. No smell is more dangerous than the smell of vervain burning in the air. The smoke and ashes cloud our eyes and just as they begin to water, we reach the door.
Clean cool fresh midnight air slaps our faces a few times with its cruelty, as if we weren’t already awake from the burning floor beneath us!
The ashes fall like a soft grey snow even outside and here it’s all clearer too. Top of the building is doing its best at not falling but won’t be long now. The crackling of dancing fire is going to make sure of that.
“Vervain!” Says a choking #Katherine, coughing with her hands on her knees and her chestnut curly hair messy about her shoulders.
I just noticed the hole in her palm; healing slowly and its effect making her hands shake unsteady enough for me to catch it by the eye. Vervain, an herb on the verge of extinctions, is something like acid for humans to vampires, it burns through our flesh and weakens us the way it has us now.
#Katherine would have ran away by now in any other situation, she is not used to staying for the after math, she gets targeted, she runs away. Yet she’s standing…because I am, because this is our home, and in the wake of a burning fire in your home, you don’t run, you fight.
“It’s…” I try to catch my breath, both hands on my waists, pushing back the jacket. I was planning on telling her, it’s not that I am a deceiver; it’s that…She is not to be taken lightly. Must be done at the right time, in the right place. Now is definitely not the ideal situation for it to spill out of my mouth.
The rolling sound of wheels on stone accompanied by a roaring old engine, a sound as sweet as a lullaby to a child, saves me from having to speak. The light blue of the vehicle is barely noticeable on a normal night however it is shining under the orange from a burning house at the moment. Its rough sports structure is visible to my good eyes.
My younger brother, #Stefan, and his blonde former ripper lover frantically get out of the car. In the chilly white raincoat my little brother looks like a corpse in a shroud. A side effect of keeping an unhealthy diet. Both his hands hold the back of his head in the anticipation of the scenery before him.
“What happened?” Asks the half baby vampire, glaring at us with great concern in her expression.
“Fire department?” #Stefan points at me.
I shake my head lightly and result in him snapping with a “My whole life is in there!” before he heads for the car to supposedly make a call.
I /could/ bicker but a burning sensation in my chest overwhelms me all of a sudden. I wish that was it but now I can feel the smoke inside of me. It’s swallowing me all but isn’t at the same time. My long fangs drop out without my control, speaking of danger I can’t see but feel. “Tia!”
“No, Damon!” Nails pierce my forearm before I know it and scratch all the way down to my elbow but I manage to throw her out of my way, shouting at #Stefan “Get her!”
It’s not until my eyes have watered from the vapor in the living room that I stop hearing her screams. The rational behavior in a situation like this would be to stay outside and await the fire department’s arrival, enter only after it’s safe, wish for the best but a vampire always knows when the vampire he’s created is in danger. It’s one of the unexplainable things about our nature. #Tia however is different…When she wakes up crying for one of her nightmares, /I/ would stay with her, brush her hair with my hands, collect her tears in thimbles for her to drink the next morning, the only way to overcome sadness is to consume it, and more than that: once her eyes close and she falls back asleep, I am left to bear the insomnia. There is a complete transfer, like a speeding billiard ball colliding with a resting one. Should she feel depressed - she was always depressed – I would sit with her until I can convince her that it’s OK. It is. Really. And when she would move on with her day, I would stay behind, paralyzed with a grief I can’t name and that wasn’t mine. Should Tia become sick, it was /I/ that would be bedridden by week’s end. Should Tia feel bored, knowing too many languages, too many facts, with too much knowledge to be happy, /I/ would stay up all night studying her books, studying the pictures, so the next day I could try to make the kind of small talk that would please my young mortal sister. It has been this way since I first laid eyes on her, before she was reborn as a vampire.
Has a nice symmetry to it, doesn’t it? We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.
“Damon?” The neediest, helpless, scared voice calls for me from the basement. “Pomogitye!”
“What are you doing there??” I snap, trying to find a route down stairs but everything seems to be burning. Fire, fire fucking burning fire.
“Damon? Mnye plokho”
Throwing the half burnt desk away to make way for the door she seems to be trapped behind, I clench my jaws, smelling my own insides roasting with the inhaled vervain.
“Devay, devay!” I yell, holding my arm for her.
She takes the aid with trembling hands not only hold her dagger but that reveal her burnt forearm, proving my theories of an attack correct. The symbol as big as they come, is a giant circle melting her flesh to her bones.
“Ti spyatila??” I scold my sister, forcing her towards the only route out.
“Mnye plokho” She says faintly, almost dropping to her knees in an effect of the vervain in her system.
Protecting her side even with the fire kissing our skins here and there, we manage to pull through to the door. My vision becomes foggy with a heat inside of my lungs, my body stopping to work properly, I start coughing hysterically. Fortunately flames are now behind us.
Fresh air makes the red dance when I open the door, though as per usual, instead of taking my command seriously, #Tia slips away from my hold, running towards the stairs. “My sister!”
“Tia!” Shielding my face, I kick away the hundred year old coffee table.
“I’m coming!” Says a softly spoken voice, similar to #Tia’s with her bags in her hands but the following sound of destruction coming from above overpowers her.
Instinct helps us out of the house and not one of the three, turns to watch the floor fall behind us.
Night’s air is now polluted and not one truck here to help clear it.
“What the hell were you thinking running back in???” My naturally lent forward body jolts towards my little sister aggressively.
“She’s my sister!” She complains as loudly as I.
“Helena” says a voice in my head.
“Brother, don’t!” Tia tries to stop me but it’s too late. I’m already running after the bitch.
The smells of blood and shit and burnt flesh poisons the air and the air, the cruelest smacks my face when I run to the woods. The night is full of acrid smoke. Voices are groaning and whimpering all around me, and from time to time a scream pierces the air, thick with pain, as feminine as hers, a voice silenced many years before. When ravens soared through a grey sky on wide black wings, while carrion crows rose from their feasts in furious clouds wherever I set my steps. White maggots burrowed through black corruption. The wolves were grey, and so were the sisters; together they stripped the flesh from the fallen. There were corpses strewn all over the field. The sun was a hot white penny, shining down upon the grey river as it rushed around the charred bones of sunken ships. From the pyres of the dead rose black columns of smoke and white-hot ashes, and there she laid, with a stake in her chest and her eyes as blue as the open sea, /my doing!/ I sent her to her death, I commanded it.
At first there is no sound in the world, but after a time of running in the woods, I begin to hear the voices of the dead, soft and terrible, calling for me. They weep and moan with their sinister nature reminding me of /it/.
Men used to beg for an end to pain, they used to cry for help and ask for their mothers in a battlefield but never her. She was never weak, she never begged forgiveness. She was born a lioness and died a lioness. Which is why it is unfair.
I walk alone amidst grey shadows, trying to remember, to gather all the rage stored up inside of me for half a century.
I’ve seen so many dead, so very many. Their corpses hung limply, their faces slack or stiff or swollen with gas, unrecognizable, but none has enraged me more than this one.
“It’s okay, Damon” Says the voice I’ve been meaning to muffle since the day I’ve heard it. She speaks but #Helena’s words come out. “It’s okay, Damon. I’m not afraid. It has to be me. Save /her/. I’ll be okay. I’m not afraid”
My fangs aroused with the aching need to tear, I keep my cool, listening for vitals, for any kind. It’s dark but I can see beneath the moonlight. It’s time.
“You’re going to get me?” A sick laughter fills my ears yet I know I am hearing it only in my head. I know it only by my heart beat which pounds more real than of the voice in my head.
“Vengeance is sweet isn’t it?” She says. “Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn't sure who the venger is, is sweeter still”
“And you, you better run because I'm going to destroy you for what you've taken from me” I say beneath my breath.
“DAMON!!!!” #Katherine’s voice mixed with #Stefan’s reaches me from afar. I can even hear #Tia’s light footsteps as she runs.
Only a laughter is heard inside my head this time.
“Vengeance is one of life's great motivators and I’m so /fucking/ motivated!” I say angrily.
“You Salvatores…Always quick with the sword and slow in the head” She giggles, this time, for the first time, I hear her whispering.
“Damon?” #Tia appears out of the darkness, forcing me to turn towards her. “The vault!”
“Bingo!” Says the red head, now only a few meters away from me. That smug smirk tugging the corner of her lips up makes me want to rip her head off.
“Go get the vault, little one” I whisper.
There it is! That sudden change in attitude with her realizing I am not going back to save my hard work. That glimmer of ‘Oh fuck’ in her face. Nothing is more pleasurable.
“You gonna run?” I ask wickedly.
Again alone with my prey who has managed to trick me out of the house to get to the one thing capable of ending an old one, I smile, instead of retrieving my properties.
Vengeance has always driven me and the ecstasy of wrath is not enough for vengeance! Vengeance is a selfish emotion, demanding to be taken brutally.
She didn’t anticipate me staying or running after her the way I did, I hadn’t two minutes ago, I was actually shocked, knowing she did what she did but every time my latest progeny’s name is mentioned, all I can do is…act.
“Do you know why the neck is a vampire’s weakness?” I whisper when my hands have wrapped themselves around her pretty little neck. “When you press, the tightness closes the air that goes to brain.” I can’t help my chuckle. “Body’s normal reaction is to signal the brain, thinking it’s dying without oxygen, releasing agonizing adrenaline, entering panic mode in the fear of death, suffering every second the body fails to breathe without ever actually dying.”
It's harder to heal than it is to kill, so today, I kill.
With a strike, my right hand penetrates her chest, breaking the rib cage to get to the squishy bloody muscle that is my intended and I lean closer to her as her eyes grow wide and large as though they were about to pop and whisper softly before I take from her what she values the most “Love is not the strongest power, pain is.”
*****
Killing makes me feel good. There I said it. It makes me feel light and hazy in a euphoria people usually don’t get to have. It’s exhausting too.
I rub my hand against the darkness of my jeans to wipe the blood and the remainings, even though I know it won’t do any good, you can’t exactly blame a killer for trying.
Though no one heard. No one came. Alone in the dark, I headed back to what stands.
I can see the house in its marvelous status, falling down in the biggest T I’ve ever seen, a secret message. It has to be a dream, they should be all thousands of miles away, this should be the little slut wanting to taunt me not /them/. Just can’t be. Bloody treacherous bastards!
Sometimes I can hear them talking to one another, I can’t understand the words. Their voices buzz in my ears like wasps muffled in thick felt.
Hands pat my nearly brunt jacket, poking and investigating, but they are not my hands. More delicate, more experienced feminine hands. “You got it? Yes I know you did!” She exclaims.
“Katherine…” I try pushing her away by her shoulder, shaking my head negatively.
“No, I know you did! Give it back!” She whispers, smacking her palm to my chest accusingly.
“Please!!!” moans #Katherine, tugging at my arm. Finding no answer, she quickly goes from denial to grief, hiding her face in my chest.
The boarding house is burning down. The dancing flames strangely the only sound I can hear. It’s not just a house and there’s a moment that it hits us all…Now.
Tia is now done making sure of her other half’s wellbeing and is holding an arm around her, watching the biggest fire we’ve seen. #Katherine, disappointed and in a loss for words, for the first time in five centuries, around people when she is suffering, is probably counting way in which she could get out of it all.
No one hears any of us and no firetruck comes to put the last of the fire out, and at least…at least brighten the night with a color that is not the color of fifteen years falling down. Even the dark forest behind us looks and feels on fire. The trees are lit up like funeral pyres.
The boarding house carried our name, its walls were the warmth of Italy. The Salvatore boarding house was Tia’s salvation in her endless nights, Adria’s only habitation, The Salvatore boarding house was my brother’s only hope, it wasn’t only a place we lived in, it was our home. It was Florence.
“Not only intentional but it was meant for you, wasn’t it?” Says #Stefan with eyes that are pale grey, oddly flat and lifeless in regards with me.
His voice was enough to snap me out of my phase, and now I am too busy, investigating the open garage, finding nothing but burnt paper. They’ve already got it.
“How…How did they find us?” I question breathlessly, pushing Katherine away.
“You don’t even have the decency to deny?”
“They found us /because/ of you!” I burst out, going after #Tia.
She doesn’t take a step back in weakness; she stands where she is, still and with her head held high. Her clenching jaws resemble my own but her eyes falter, trying to push back tears that are making them wet like shinning crystal.
“We were /FINE/ before you came!” I spit out venomously.
“All on me, brother, is it not? Are you too afraid to admit your own faults? It was you after all who wanted to join yet you were the one too much of a coward to stay with your men after being defeated” She says calmly.
“The brotherhood had fell! They would have fought over the throne like beasts; they would’ve torn you to bits for being royalty.” I point out. “When a man is the problem, kill the man, no problem.”
“Just admit you don’t do well with responsibility” Tia says softly.
“I did what I had to do for the good of this family”
“WHAT Family?” Stefan forces his way towards us, me to be specific. “You bring savages into /my/ home and call it yours? You even dragged our sisters into your filth!”
“Little brother, I /will/ end you if you keep talking!” I put a hand on his chest, pushing him back so I can finish my words with my sister first.
“Liar…” murmurs #Katherine, joining Stefan’s side. “You’re one of them?”
“I can’t deal with you now…” Biting my fist, I turn to Tia. “How long the attack took last time we sent a message?”
“I don’t…I can’t remember. Less than a day.” She responds.
“Who were the operators?”
“Russel..you, I can’t..”
“You have to go to the quarters.” I say eventually.
“No…” Tia shakes her head, stepping back for the first time. “You can’t make me”
“I can, I am.” I pace towards her, bringing her to me by her neck. She seems so childlike and helpless, fear flashing through her blue eyes for the first time in centuries.
“Brother, please…They’ll kill me. I can’t”
“I must…” I breath out. “Go to the headquarters and report in. Take the girls with you. They won’t hurt you without me being there. They’ll take you to the fourth room till I get there.”
“No…” she holds my wrist, fighting hard to control her emotions, it’s difficult for her to hide her true intentions. “They’ll kill you too, let’s run, Stefan’s here, we go together. Cassie’s here too, you’ve got Katherine. Let’s just go, we’ll disappear. Us against the world, remember?”
“That is not the respectful thing to do, little one.” My hand cups the back of her neck. “When they attack us in our home, we don’t run, we fight…Forgive me for what I must do, it’s the only way…Tia Serenity Salvatore, as your maker , I command you to go to the headquarters and turn yourself in till I get there.”
“They’ll kill us, Damon…They will. They’ll kill us all” She points out, nearly in tears.
I laugh bitterly. “Well that makes it simple, then.”
