Hell is Longing, Hell is Loneliness:
Hell was so lonely, Katherine Pierce decided.
The room (she didn't know if it was a room, but knew that it was easier to call it that instead of endless oblivion) was dark, so dark. She made sure her endless brown eyes were open, then feared that she'd gone blind. She couldn't see her own hand, even though it was literally an inch from her face. She gathered enough courage to call out a hoarse, shaky hello, hoping against hope that someone would answer. Nobody does.
She remembered getting dragged across the church. It was like she was non-existent, like no one even cared about the fear that was possessing her. An invisible force had thrown her to the floor, sending her spiraling across the floor, rolling and tumbling, gasping for breath that never came. She was dead, after all. But not before giving oh-so-perfect Elena Gilbert a little parting gift. She recalled the frustration of not being able to pass through, not being able to see her daughter again. Nadia was the only person she had ever truly loved, besides Stefan. She remembered the panic that clawed at her heart, the realization that she was going somewhere, somewhere that wasn't the other side. Bonnie's eyes, full of pity yet recognition, telling her that she couldn't help the curly-headed brunette, but not really caring after all that the elusive Katherine Pierce had done to her perfect little life. She was clinging to the floor, calling out to Bonnie Bennett to help, of all people. Her fingernails dragging against the hard floor, scraping. The wind picking up, the lights swaying and papers flying everywhere. I don't want to go to the darkness. It wasn't fair. But it was. She deserved it. But Nadia didn't.
Nadia had spent five hundred years looking for a mother that turned out to be such a meaningless disappointment, while Katherine had spent five hundred years running from problems. Running from enemies. And eluding every one. Including time. But she could not avoid the death of her daughter. And for once, she cared about someone's well-being more than her own.
She could've escaped the wanna-be breakfast bunch, most likely. But what was the point? She knew she couldn't live with the guilt of living another day-
"We had a little cottage..."
Without her daughter. Without the very purpose why she lived. Katherine loved her daughter, with her witty personality, her strong ways, and her perfect hair. She looked like her, even looked like her father, some stupid man she had naively fallen in love with. She always wondered what could've been. Those what-ifs. What would've happened if her judgmental father hadn't taken Nadia away? No, what would've happened if Katerina had fought harder for her. What would've happened if she hadn't let her father walk out that door with her crying daughter in his controlling arms. She would've raised her. She would've been human. She wouldn't be in hell, or whatever supernatural beings called this dark world.
She wasn't in the light.
She was in the dark side.
She was the dark side.
And without her daughter. Lonely and longing for those brown eyes that she had gazed into the moment Katherine had given birth to Nadia.
Panic. Panic shoots through the five hundred year old vampire who had been turned into a human by her doppelganger, the vampire who survived childbirth, the death of her entire family, and running from an immortal hybrid for five hundred years. She was the vampire who had all odds, survived everything. She overcame pain, she overcame everything. She just couldn't give up on love. She couldn't give up on Nadia, on Stefan. They were the only two people she cared about.
Of course, they weren't the only people she cared about throughout her entire long-lived life. There was a time when she cared about her little spoiled doppelganger Elena, a time when she even cared about little Gilbert. She cared about Elijah, even that blonde headed insecure girl who she suffocated. But now...She only cared about her daughter. And Stefan. But her daughter was her first priority at the moment.
"I'm looking for my mother."
"This is not what you're life should've been. Five hundred years...searching for a mother who ended up being me."
"No. No. NO!" She remembered yelling, clawing desperately for something to hold onto as she was propelled upward, away from the light and dragged into the void of darkness.
Katherine shivered as she continued through the cold darkness, hoping for some sign of light. She stuffed her trembling hands into her leather jacket pockets, her tangled curls blowing into her eyes continuously. She felt tired and awake at the same time. She felt thirsty and overly parched at the same time. She felt hated and loved, too. It was like there was a fruit that she was just about to reach, and then it would be tugged away from her grasp. The feeling was bittersweet.
Hell was longing.
Hell was loneliness.
Hell was dark. Fear pumped through her mind as she imagined the horrible things that could be lurking in the corner unseen, ready to attack at anytime. The pitch darkness threatened to envelope Katherine Pierce. She struggled there against herself in that endless oblivion of dark and cold, trying to not be consumed by the darkness, trying to keep her sanity intact.
This was her hell. This was her dark-side. Being alone forever, the one thing that she had always feared the most. And that fear was only educed when her daughter reappeared back into her life. She could feel her memories slipping, feel faces and images escape her grasp.
What...What was her name again?
Katerina. Katerina. Katherine.
Petrova. Petrova. Pierce.
"That is too sad for me to accept, my lord. If we cease to believe in love, why would we want to live?"
Who was she talking to?
What was her name again?
Katherine. Her jaw clenched in frustration. She couldn't forget- not after all that had happened. But the darkness seemed never ending. There was no time wherever she was. It was just...endless black. Time did not exist. She could've been here for hundreds of years and not even realize it.
Nadia. Her heart lurched. Stefan.
"Let me show you what you're perfect day would've been like."
"And I said, 'Good night, Nadia. Sleep well.'"
"I guess this is how our love story ends."
"Let me hold her once. Just once."
Was her life really that terrible? Had Katherine been really that bad to be banished to the dark world? Had she been worse than Kol? Than all the others that had managed to make it to the other side?
"I'm looking for my mother. She manipulates, she lies, she betrays...She'll do anything to stay alive."
Katherine winced as the freezing wind numbed her arms once again. She had been worse.
She deserved to be here.
She deserved to be concealed in this caliginous pit of nothingness. Most of her memories were already escaping her mind. The memory of the polite, kind Damon Salvatore was gone. She forgot who the blue-eyed boy was. She didn't remember a brunette who looked identical to her. Her mother's memory was gone. She barely remembered Stefan. Nadia was slowly slipping...Slipping away.
"Don't take her away," she begged to whoever was in the darkness, if someone was even there. "Please. She-she's my daughter and I love her."
"Your mother loves you."
Deprived and thirsty, she continued walking through the pit, her legs walking even when her mind protested against it. Did she even have a mind...? If she did, Katherine was sure that her sanity was far gone. And finally, Katherine Pierce forgot Nadia Petrova. Katerina Petrova's memory of a brown haired, caramel eyed baby seemed to evaporate from her mind, leaving her mind blank and confused, tormented and depressed.
She trudged onward, stumbling in the dark.
Who was she?
Why was she here?
What was this place?
Why couldn't she stop walking onward?
Her memories were gone, but a voice kept resurfacing in her mind. "Don't give up. Find a way out. You're Katherine Pierce. You're a survivor."
And Katherine did just that; she survived.