Based on TVD episode 5x09, "The Cell"
I faintly awoke to the shadowed familiar of iron and blood. My body was weak and every breath that I took was a harsh reminder of the atomized vervain I had previously inhaled. Moaning from the stiff ache in my back, I shifted my weight; vision blurry and fading. Feeling around with my hand, I touched the cold concrete beneath me and then the abrasive rock wall I was propped up against. The tiny fragments of light that shown in through the bars of my solid prison gave way to a carving in the stone that flashed miserable images of my affliction at the grievous hands of a mad-eyed doctor. Reaching up to touch the engravement in the wall, my vision came into focus: D.S. 53
I slumped back against the wall defeated, giving in to the vervain lulling me back into unconsciousness. Drifting between sleep and awake, mere moments had passed before a click of the door to my cell opened, jumpstarting my attention. I groaned feebly as the silhouette of a man entered the room and slowly approached me.
"Hello, 21051."
I glanced up at the figure, my vision still too drugged and fuzzy to make out a face. "Who are you?" I uttered with heavy breath as my expression turned tense at the burning of vervain in my throat from speaking.
The man bent to one knee in front of me and lifted his hand to my face, locking a firm grip around the back of my neck with his thumb impeding against my cheek. I tried my damndest to jerk away, but his strength far exceeded my own. I stopped struggling and nearly fell limp as all my energy expended. The faint raise of his free hand widened my gaze at the unclear image of an uncapped needle held like a sword to the air.
"What are you doing to me?" I weakly questioned, my sole focus on the blurry outline of the syringe betwixt his eager digits. "Vervain," he answered, grabbing my left arm and extended my elbow. "To keep you calm." Powerless, I muttered a pleading "No," just before the needle penetrated through my skin and into my veins, filling them with conscious poison.
Slowly, my eyes opened to a bright light shining over the spectrum of my entire body. I tried to sit up, but to no avail as I was entirely restrained from chest to ankle. Craning my neck and glancing around, the unsettling feeling of déjà vu presented itself in cruelest form. I had been in this room before; sixty years ago and counting. The smell of blood and all that death loomed in every corner, though the lab was kept untraceably clean.
The flashes in my head started again. The knife. The cut. The searing pain. My head jerked from one side to the next. I could feel it all over it again. The shiny silver blade, his hand holding my face as the scalpel cut out my eyeball. I gasped for sudden breath as my eyes flashed open from such a surreal dream, my body tensing against the metal table I was strapped down to.
"Relax, Damon," Maxfield announced with a chuckle as he closed the air-tight keypaded door behind him and entered further into the lab. "I haven't done anything to you yet." A rather arrogant smirk crossed his lips at that denotation whilst he crossed the room, gathering things from shelves and cabinets.
"Come on, man," I pleaded with him. "You don't want to do this."
He rounded the table and sat a bag of clanky items on the stainless steel trolley, rolling it to the edge of his new test subject: me.
"I want to do this," he reiterated, nodding to agree with himself, a callous sneer spreading smoothly across his expression. Turning his attention to the trolley, he rolled out the bag containing various surgical instruments and picked one to his satisfaction.
"No. Please. Don't." I begged of him, wriggling beneath the tight restraints. "Pain is so temporary, Damon. You'll learn that once you stop being so human about it. Just think of this as you sacrificing for science," Maxfield so cruelly advised before pressing the blade against the flesh of my bare chest and dragging it down the center of my pectorals. I screamed out in wretched agony as he slit me open like he cutting into apple pie, but on the inside I was burning just to die already.
Blood oozed and dripped from the edges of the metal table and onto the floor, a dark reminder of the torturous experiments being performed on me unwillingly. My fingers twitched, body seizing beneath the uncomfortable company of restraints. I was barely coherent. I ached all over. My resilience was resisting itself. I could not heal, I could not breathe, I could not end this torment and fall to sleep. All I wanted was for someone—ANYONE to save me; put me out of my misery, even if death were to be as so kind. My eyelids drifted between opened and closed, the chronic habitualness of unnerving pain radiating through me so intensely that my tear ducts could not stop leaking. Footsteps echoing from somewhere in the room sent a terrible chill through the core of me, and my hands strained into fists with compelling fear for the stranger unknown.
"Welcome back, 21051," the deep voice of Augustine addressed. Petrified, I did not move nor speak. One click and a bright white light shined into my eyes. I tried to close them shut; squeeze them tight and keep the harsh light out, but he was holding them open. "Great work you're doing here, Wesley," Augustine commended, releasing me from his subjection. "It's time we take the next step." He cocked a smile at Maxfield and my vervained gaze widened.
"Get on with it then," Maxfield replied, taking a seat on a rolling stool and sliding forth a vile of some strange liquid across the cold metal surface of the trolley toward the Augustine Vampire. Before I could blink, the sting of a needle entered into my flesh, harpooning a vein in my arm. I wanted to protest. I wanted to scream profanities and vicious threats marking my words that I would have my freedom from this hell, but I was suddenly paralyzed from the neck down.
A cool wave of numbness rushed over my body as the asshole pushed a syringe full of chemicals into my bloodstream and set the room spinning. I lifted my head, drunken and drugged. Helplessly falling back against the table, my eyes relaxed closed as a thwarted breath left my lungs.
"Start the drip," Augustine requested, and Wesley moved from his seat to carry out the task. Rolling an intravenous pole to the side of the examination table I was bound to, Maxfield pressed into the crook of my arm, inserted an IV line and taped it in place.
Turning my head toward him, my eyes lazily opened to glance up at the man submitting me to unending infliction. "So I'm guessing you're the bitch of this mad scientist operation," I muttered to Wesley, the slightest hint of a frail smile tugging at my lips.
"At least I'm not the experiment," Maxfiled dickishly countered as he hung a barcoded bloodbag on the hook of the pole above me and connected the tubing to my IV line.
"What are you giving me, you bastard," I groaned.
"My blood," Augustine interjected.
It had been hours—maybe even days but hell, I couldn't tell. I drifted in and out of a dosed kind of consciousness, laid flat on my back and unable to move; only I felt everything. My arms tingled with a sensation like sharp needle pricks, each one drawing out a bit more of my blood and replacing it with Augustine's. I let my head fall to one side, gazing at my arm to be sure that the discomfort wasn't as terrible as I had imagined it. My nostrils flared at the sight of an IV line still connected to me, but that was the least of my worries as Wesley made himself known.
"You're awake," he said, mockingly thrilled by the sight of me. "Excellent. We can finish your transition then."
My brows creased together as I watched incapacitated while Dr. Maxfield readied the final injections. When the last and largest syringe was filled with a substance I was sure would turn me into the vampire-feeding monster that Augustine was, I couldn't help but think about Elena. Did she even realize I was missing? Not that it mattered. I couldn't be saved. Allowing my eyelids to droop closed, the subtle sweetness of Elena filtered through my memories. Just the thought of her eased my suffering and let me feel something wonderful again. I knew that no matter what Dr. Maxfield turned me into, I had to hold on to my undying love for Elena if I ever wanted to be anything other than a lab rat for the rest of my existence. When my eyes opened again, Wesley was staring at me with scrutiny; like he was searching for something. Touching the base of my neck with his fingertips, he pressed upon my carotid artery and shot me up with toxins. My eyes rolled to the back of my head; pieces of my human life flashing like lightening striking through the pit of me. Stefan. My father. The vampires. Katherine. The gunshot and its bullet in my chest as I drew my final breath despite my best efforts to save her. I gasped for air as I came back from whatever hell ride Dr. Assfield had just sent me on.
"He's responding well," I heard the voice of Augustine say, although I did not see him in the blurred space above me.
"No," I feebly protested, fighting hard to keep the part of me that I knew I was losing. A twinge resonating from my bicep caused my jaw to tighten with discomfort as the second needle stabbed into my arm and released its obligated venom. My eyes clouded over with bloodlust, but it was strange because I wanted a taste of something dead over the sweet essence of mortal nectar. My mind raced with the equivocal of ripping into soft human flesh or gorging on the blood of vampire bred. I snarled and attempted to rip away from my challenging thirst.
"This should help you give in," Maxfield stated assuredly just before jabbing a large long needle straight into my heart and plunging the contents of the syringe. I hollered out in grueling agony, gripping the sides of the metal table with all the strength I had left in me. A cloud of darkness rolled over my being and before I could feel another pang or think another thing, I fell helplessly into an abyss of unconsciousness.
Laid in misery, I was just a shell of my former self that took up a bit of space in a cell where Dr. Maxfield had stored me after his cruel experimentations. In my subconscious, my memories fleeted from me like birds scattering at the sound of a gunshot ringing out through the air. Seemingly, the harder I tried to hold onto who I was, the faster it dissipated—vapors in the passing night. My eyes flickered opened and I gazed around taking in shallow breaths, not knowing if I should move for fear I would once more be wrecked by pain. Still, I heaved my body to one side and rolled over, my hands pressing against the floor as I pushed myself up in an attempt to stand. Once on my feet, I staggering over to the bars of the cage I'd been locked in, wrapping my fingers around the iron poles and peering out into the hallway. Although I did not see anyone, the crescendo sound of impending footsteps echoed through the corridor. Stepping back into the shadows, I propped my shoulder against the wall and waited for the worst possibility to enter into view.
The silhouette of a stranger cast a shadow on the brickwork, and I stayed rooted where I stood with widened eyes as they approached from down the hall. The scent of a familiar fragrance filled my nostrils, and in the next moment my heart dropped from my chest at the sight of Elena as she rounded the corner and looked in on me through the iron rods of my prison.
"Damon!" she shrieked, rushing to the bars and halting. Her slender fingers wrapped around the poles, face peeking between them.
"You can't be here," I said with a passing breath and converging brows. "Maxfield will hurt you." I stumbled over to Elena, nearly dropping to my knees at the stringent pull of vervain still coursing beneath my skin. My eyes rolled back in my head and I could I feel the energy in me diminishing as I made it to the bars.
"I don't care!" Elena gasped, wrapping her hands around my face to console me. "I'm getting you out of here." Leaning into her touch, I pulled myself together and gazed up at her with some semblance of a smile on my all too drained face.
"Please go," I asked of her with a plea so soaked in my eyes that they nearly bled tears. Elena nodded ever so slightly, giving courtesy to my only wish.
"I will come back for you, Damon, as soon as I can. And then you and I are leaving this damn place together, you understand me?" Her thumb stroked my cheek and I closed my eyes to absorb the joy of the moment. She was so full of hope. Then again, I knew she never would give up on finding a way to save me. It wasn't in her nature. She was too full of kindness and grace.
Opening my eyes, all I saw were the bars in the dim light before me. She had subtly slipped away, leaving me with her hand pressed to my cheek as a lasting sentiment. I managed a smile at the thought, staggering over to drop down and sit at the wall. A long exhausted sigh escaped from lungs and I tilted my head back, resting against the thick stone behind me.
Time ticked by wasted and useless to me. I was nothing more than a crow in a cage whose wings had been clipped and broken. All I could do was stare into the darkness and continue breathing, waiting for the moment when Maxfield would find himself bored and use me again for another agonizing experiment. As I faded into somewhere between sleep and awake, the makings of an infernal dream filtered through to my subconscious. There I was, standing at the precipice of all I had known; ready to jump into a sea of my own blood and let the waters of hell take me. I wanted to step over the edge, drown myself and end this pain; turn off my humanity and let my true nature reign, but someone was holding me back. "Damon," Stefan's voice echoed from behind me, his hand on my shoulder. I looked up from the edge with a stare of realization, and taking in a steady breath, I turned around to see that my brother had just saved me.
"I'm so sorry, Stef," I confessed, my eyes stricken with a raw dolefulness to them. "I never wanted this." Stefan lowered his head and nodded to himself, drawing his gaze back to mine again.
"Promise me you will not let go, Damon," he asked of me, his hands gripping my shoulders with brotherly firmness.
I looked at him for the tick of a minute, a bittersweet taste of nostalgia on my dry tongue and assuredly said, "I will not let go."
Maxfield smacked my face with his hand and awoke me from the confines of my reposed mind. I groaned and blinked several times in the process of opening my eyes, attempting to regain focus from my rather weak vision.
"You have a visitor," Maxfield teemed with a maniacal grin. I sneered with a quivering lip before realizing that he had bolted iron chains to the floor and shackled my ankles and wrists to them. My expression dropped into confusion, and casting my stare back up at him, saw that he held one finger to the air for a request of patience. Turning to walk out of the cell, he bent down and dragged a body from the hallway into the room and dropped the body a short distance from my feet. My brows bowed against one another as my perception became clearer and I could distinguish her face. My lungs swallowed a sudden sharp breath at the sight of Elena unconscious with a broken neck in front of me. "Why?" I croaked, glancing back up at Wesley with dread filling my core. He snickered evasively, extracting a scalpel from his lab coat.
"No!" I shouted, pulling against the resistance of my restraints as I lunged at him. Maxfield's wry smile spread wider by the moment as he lifted Elena's head from the floor and pressed the blade of the scalpel into her flesh, dragging it across her neck. Blood rushed from the fresh wound and I could do nothing but stare at it; frozen from the sight, the smell, the want…the need.
I inhaled a lusty breath of bloodthirsty urgency, the need consuming me like I was cursed to it. Every bit of my humanity faded and replaced itself with the darkest part of me; impulsive and blinded by my own carnal desires. The takeover happened so quickly that I didn't stand a chance in hell of trying to fight against it—not with how weak I already was. The blood flowing from the girl's neck smelled of sweet death and I slowly moved towards her, my gaze fixed on the Wonderfall of vampire nectar spilling down her shoulder and chest. Entranced by its trickles, the mere sight of an undead's deep red poison caused thirst to cloud my judgment. Knowing that the darkness was taking over in me, Elena started to move away, frightened by the side effects of Maxfield's latest lab rat...
Me.