The Monster Within

Elena's POV

Elena woke up feeling strange. She tried to take in a breath but there was no air to fill her lungs with. All around her was darkness, and dirt fell into her eyes when she opened them. She began to freak out, wondering why she was in a grave. Names, faces flashed through her head: Katherine, Klaus, and of the Salvatore's rivals. She should be dead, but she wasn't. She started to try to claw her way through the mounds of dirt. Elena finally saw a faint ray of light coming through a ever so tiny hole. THis encouraged her to dig even faster. It seeemed like everything was happening very slowly but if she concentrated and watched her hands then they were moving a lot faster than she thought possible. Her throat was aching, she felt like she hadn't had a drink of water in a week. Elena drug herself out of the hole in which someone had placed her body and looked around. She was in a forest, not far from the tomb. Her bodily stiffly started walking towards where she thought the highway to be. As long as she made it to Damon, she would be safe. No one would die, he wouldn't let her hurt any of the people she loved. A sweet, pungent smell wafted to her nose, she could feel the stabbing pain as her fangs ripped out of her gums for the first time. She yelped in pain. THe burning in her throat intensified greatly. Instinct just took over, and she raced, faster than any car or plane could have ever gone, towards the smell. Two park rangers were walking up the steps toward their offices. She pounced on one of them, ripping her teeth into his flesh, letting the sweet liquid pour down her throat, relieving her thirst. She drained him in seconds before tackling the second man, draining him as well. As she came to the realization of what she had done, her eyes filled with tears, and she started sobbing uncontrollably. Her emotions were all over the place. She didn't know what to think, she just ran towards the boarding house. Elena tried to walk through the front door, but was stopped by an invisible barrier. She oculdn't cross it, so she tried ringing the doorbell. Nobody answered. If Damon was here, he would have already sensed her and come running towards her by now. Now that she thought about it, what would be his reaction to her? Would he mistake her for Katherine? Elena hoped that he knew her better than that, to think she would be her doppelganger. But she could only wait and see. She looked herself over, and she was a mess. Dirt and blood was all over her. She HAD to take a shower. Elena couldn't present herself to anyone looking like this. Next thing she knew she was standing outside her front door, she couldn't get in there either though. She rang the doorbell.
"Elena? Why didn't you just come in?" Jeremy asked.
"I forgot my key, sorry Jer." She replied.
The smell of his blood pulsing through his veins wafted to her nostrils, and she held her breath, trembling, trying to keep control.
"Well what are you waiting for? Don't just stand out there, come in!" Jeremy said.
Elena stepped in, and disappeared up the stairs into her bathroom. SHe quickly took a shower. While she was washing up, she thought to herself, why hadn't Jermey recognized the state I was in? Didn't he know I had been missing? Has he been compelled?
She got dressed and grabbed Jermey's phone off the counter, finding Damon's number and quickly dialing it.
"What do you want?"
"Uhm. Damon...this is Elena..."
"Why aren't you using your phone, Elena?" "Well...I don't really know where mine is..."
"Hmm well you had best find it. What can I do for you? I assume there is a reason you called."
"Yes well...can I just meet you at the Boarding house? It's kind of hard to explain...But just so you know, you might think I'm Katherine...I...well...you see...ARGH I'll just let you see for yourself."
"Are you saying...Ok. I'll meet you there in a half hour, I just got a call about what looks like a vampire attack on some park rangers...be careful."
Elena hesitated. "Uhh okay. See ya there."
She didn't know what to do. How to get herself out of this situation. Her emotions were everywhere, but the main emotion was scared. She didn't remember anything after she had drained the men, what if she got caught? Well Damon could compell the council for her but...she was always trying to get Damon to be the better person, and now look at what she had just done? With tears pouring down her face she ran to the boarding house, and sat on behind a bush by the front door. If anyone drove by they wouldn't be able to see her, unless they were a vampire that is. She thought about how her future might play out now. This all was too much, she couldn't take it. Would it be better to just do what Damon had done back before he had met her? Turn her emotions off, flip the switch? While she was contemplating all this, Damon's car pulled in half an hour later, and she pulled her wild thoughts to a halt. "Why are you sitting out here?" Damon asked.
"Because...I haven't been invited in." Elena replied grimly.
Damon rushed up to her then, looking her deep in the eyes, and moved his head to where it would rest just by her heart. Had it been beating it would have flown out of her chest. She felt that she didn't need to breathe, but it felt more comfortable to do it, so she inhaled an unsteady breath. "How? And do you know where you were for that whole day and a half you were missing? Do you remember anything at alll? "Nothing. I just woke up in a cramped, dark place. I couldn't breathe, couldn't open my eyes without having dirt falling in them..." Elena paused, took a deep breath, and continued. " I clawed my way through the dirt...and was planning on walking until I found the road. But then I...smelled...something..." Elena could feel her fangs threatening to burst out of her mouth as she remembered the smell, the taste of the sweet liquid.

Damon's POV

As Elena was talking, I felt myself sadden at the fact that I hadn't saved her, hadn't kept her safe. I didn't fufill my duty. The duty to my heart that was. I knew if my brother was here he would have been freaking out this entire time, causing this new vampire's emotions to go even more haywire than they already were. When Elena got to talking about the smell, I noticed her eyes darken, veins start to poke out around the top part of her face. She had to have been thinking of blood. There was no other thing on this planet that would have made her start to lose control as much as that luscious fluid. He firmly put his hands on her shoulders, pressing her down to the ground, not allowing any movement from her. "Elena,"
She didn't come back to her surroundings, just stood there, all vamped out. He shook her by her shoulders a couple times, and she finally came around. Looking around her, not wanting to look Damon in the eye. He already knew who had killed those rangers at the park. Didn't even need to ask. Compelling the whole council would be a hassel, but Elena was worth it. She was what kept him going, from not being the badder brother. Damon swore she could make his heart beat, he was sure he'd heard it a few times. He knew she wasn't Katherine by this point. She hadn't been able to get in the boarding house, which Katherine had already been invited in. Also, he knew it was Elena for the fact that she had a freckle on her right knee, which her doppelganger did not have. I felt a little guilty for not having been there to keep this kind of thing from happening. I hadn't done my duty to myself, to be the better brohter. To be better than Stefan. I could compell her to see where she was and what happened to her, but I would never do that without her permission. Elena couldn't run to Stefan now that he was with Klaus, she ran to Damon. Just the thought made him smile. He was her safehouse. Back when Stefan was still here, which had only been a few months ago, Damon had stepped aside, let Stefan have her. He wanted Elena to be happy, and if being with his brohter (and as a human) was what she wanted, then she would have it. There was a point in his life in which he wanted to steal Elena from his sibling, but the more he got to know Elena, the more he felt emotion for her. The more he loved her. Of course, he still wanted her to be his (as he had once called her) Princess of Darkness. Stealing her from Stefan and changing her into a vampire had been his goal at one point in life, before he had gotten to know her. Now he was happy he had taken the time to know her, to love her. She would never be like Katherine to him, she was too...opposite. And that was why he loved her. He was determined to make her see that she had feelings for him too, now that his brother was out of the way.

"When was the last time you fed?" Damon asked her, pulling himself out of his thoughts and concentrating on the girl in front of him.
"I-I...I think it was around 2 hours ago...I"m not really sure," she stuttered.

I walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and grabbed a blood bag, making sure to watch her carefully. She should've been launching herself at him by now, in bloodlust for the delicious liquid in his hand. "Do you want to mix it in with anything-" She had lunged across the kitchen and was draining the cup in seconds. Man, this girl had resistance. It took longer than I expected to have her lunging at me. Maybe she had been holding her breath. Elena had to have went somewhere and taken a shower, gotten cleaned up. There was no way from her story that she would have been able to just brush all that mud and crap off herself. He asked her about it, she told him about how she had gotten in, past Jeremy to get home and cleaned up. Elena had been around a human and not ripped his throat open after being changed not 2 hours before. Wow. When I was first changed, I was slaughtering people left and right, I couldn't help it. I had no one to help me along. I had Stefan, but of course he had enjoyed being a vampire back then. He didn't mind killing people. Now of course, they were opposites, but who got the girl in the end? Damon did.

Elena's POV

"We're going to have to keep you in the boarding house for about a year until we're sure you can be around humans without harming them..." Damon said. "Only I will get the blood, you can't get it yourself or we won't have any left for the rest of the day yet alone week. I want you to get your life back to normal as soon as possible. I know you'll be miserable here till you get out. And to make sure you stay here, you won't get your daylight ring until I'm sure you won't get loose, rouse suspicion, the normal. You know?

My mind was being overwhelmed. My life had just turned over, in only two days...

"Elena?"

Damon's voice roused me from my ever growing thoughts and questions.

"Look...I know this is a lot to take in...but it's all going to be all right. Being a vampire isn't the worst thing in the world." His eyes were sympathetic, yet with a glint of happiness buried deep down. He had always wanted me to be a vampire, and his alone. Not Stefan's. Now she would be moving in with him, spending time with Damon alone all the time. And to top is all off, she was exactly what he had wanted her to be when he had first met her. Damon's feelings about her being a vampire and wanting to be with her had changed, in fact his entire being had changed. He actually cared about her, she brought the emotions back to him when he had intentionally shut them off. He loved her, and no one else. Elena was his humanity. He was being very understanding about this whole situation, and wouldn't let anything happen to her that would compromise going back to her normal life.