Disclaimer: I make no money of this.
This is a slight crossover with Claymore. You don't need to know anything about Claymore to understand this.
Basically, Caroline wakes up with the memories and powers of a psychotic warrior called Ophélia, who is obsessed with killing and eating people.
This is as violent and bloody as canon. The endgame pairing will be Klaroline. This story features a powerful Caroline, because I really wanted to see her kicking ass, and those scenes where she's tortured by her dad or the werewolves make me want to write something where she can fight back.
-x-x-x-
Her head felt like it was about to explode, and memories were flitting about, memories of things she had never lived but someone felt like she had. Ever since the accident, she'd felt it, that strange presence in the back of her head, tempting her to go further. She'd ignored it, of course, knowing that she'd appear insane if she said anything.
When Elena came to visit her, she tried to follow the conversation as well as she could, but she was tired and out of sorts, so she could barely answer anything coherent. Hopefully, Elena would just think it was because of how sleepy Caroline was.
"What are you talking about? What message?" Caroline was squinting against the light of the bedside lamp as she said it. She really wanted to go back to bed and sleep.
She sat up, and looked at Elena, trying to ignore her pounding headache and the things in her mind that she knew for certain she had never lived. In one of those memories, she had a sword and was hacking to pieces a large monster. Caroline had never touched a sword in her whole life, so why could she remember it?
And then, the conversation took a bizarre turn.
"Game on."
"What?" asked Caroline, confused. Was that supposed to be a message? And why couldn't Elena tell Stefan and Damon that in person?
And then, before she'd realized what was happening, Elena had a pillow and was pressing it down on Caroline's face, suffocating her.
Caroline pushed, trying to shove her off. She was panicking, trying to breathe and failing, wondering why Elena was suddenly trying to kill her, and didn't Elena know that the only way to kill her was to behead her?
The strange thought was pushed aside in favour of struggling against Elena's tight hold. Caroline felt pathetic. In her head, she could remember being stronger. She could remember Awakening, becoming a monster, the kind she despised and had hunted. She'd been an Awakened being, like the horned woman of her childhood, who had killed her family and devoured them. Her brother had sacrificed himself to keep the monster distracted long enough for her to run like a coward.
Why was she so weak?!
The fury came, deep and intense, as well as a surge of power that felt addictive, good. She knew how to handle it, had once gone beyond her limit and had lost herself. But she was normal now, she looked human, and she could win. She wouldn't turn into a monster again, because she knew her limits better than ever before. She'd surpassed her limits, and that made it much easier to see just how far she could go.
She pushed, and ripped the pillow from a shocked Elena's hands, violently throwing it aside.
Caroline smiled. It was a nice smile, innocent and pure, the kind that belonged to a child. It was the smile Ophelia used to fool people into trusting her. It was the smile of a woman who had lost her touch with sanity long ago.
Elena tried to run, but Caroline was having none of that. She pushed herself up on her legs and jumped off her hospital bed at blinding speeds, the IV ripping itself from her arm soundlessly. She landed in the doorway, her back to Elena, who hadn't been fast enough to leave the room.
Slowly, Caroline turned her head backwards, keeping her back to Elena. Horrifyingly enough, her head didn't stop twisting, even when it should've snapped. Instead, it turned all the way like an owl, until her face was aligned with her spine, having turned 180 degrees. She was looking straight at Elena, who was looking worried, taking a step back.
Caroline's eyes were silver.
"Let's play a game," she said, her tone gleeful like a child's.
-x-x-x-
Morning came, and Caroline woke up with a smile on her face. She was on the floor, her back to one of the walls of her room. Last night, she hadn't been able to fall asleep in the bed so she'd decided to sleep like she was used to, during her time as a soldier of the organisation. She hadn't had her sword to lean against, so she'd sat down on the floor, her legs crossed, and had used the wall instead.
She stood and walked to the window. Briskly, she pulled the curtains to the side and let the sunlight in, revealing a nice view of the courtyard below.
It felt good to be alive.
She looked at the cars parked outside, at the people with their phones, at the man in an electric wheelchair, at the girl with her hair dyed pink, and wondered why it seemed so strange, to her. All those modern things suddenly felt incredibly foreign and unnatural, like something she hadn't known before. She remembered her mother's car, her own phone and the TV at home, yet she also remembered growing up as a peasant, a farmer's daughter in a small village, and how fearful she had sometimes been during the winter that she and her family would starve.
Things felt mixed up in her head and she wasn't sure of whom she was. Was she Caroline, the teenager, or Ophelia, the yoma hunter, the one who slayed monsters?
A noise made her turn around, and she saw her mother at the door, a tray of food in her hands.
"Hi," said Caroline, strangely timid. This was her mother, and yet not. She didn't know how to act because this woman felt like her mother and a stranger at the same time. So, she resorted to her infiltration training, and pretended.
"How are you?"
"Me?" asked her mother with a short laugh. "Honey, you're the one who is in the hospital." She came closer and placed the tray on the covers, where Caroline's thighs were.
"Is this all for me?" asked Caroline, looking at the large meal.
"Yes," said her mother. "You should get some food in your stomach. After what's happened, you need the energy."
Caroline looked down at the meal doubtfully.
"I'll try."
Evidently, her mother didn't believe she'd tried enough, because when her next visitor came several hours later, it was with yet another tray of food.
Why did humans need to eat so often?!
"Your mum said you're not eating," said Matt as he came in the room. He placed the food on a nearby table, while Caroline—Ophelia—tried to think of an adequate answer.
"It's gross," was all she could think of saying.
"It's hospital food," said Matt, coming closer. "It's supposed to be gross."
He bent down and gave her a chaste kiss. Caroline, eager to have him there (a human toy!), pulled him closer and deepened the kiss.
"Woah," he said, breaking apart to breathe. "What's with the warm welcome?"
"Can't I just enjoy having my boyfriend here?" asked Caroline, trying to forget that for a second, she'd wanted to play with him until he bled.
"Hey, I'm not complaining." He smiled against her lips, and held her as they kissed again.
Once they'd sufficiently greeted each other, he leaned back to continue where he'd left off.
"Oh yeah, I nearly forgot. You mum said you're getting released tomorrow, in the morning."
"Tomorrow morning?" Caroline asked with a small grimace. She was in charge of the carnival. If it hadn't been for the accident, she'd be there right now, taking care of the preparations. She'd said she'd do it, and she felt fine now, powerful. Surely she could leave the hospital a bit earlier? Without her, the carnival would be a complete disaster. "Can't I be released a bit earlier?"
Matt smiled. Well, it looked more like a playful smirk, as if she'd said something terribly amusing.
"No. I know it's hard for your neurotic self, but the carnival will have to happen without you."
That other part of her feels the urge to hurt him for the insult. Instead, she says:
"I'm not neurotic."
Neurotic implied psychological problems. Insanity. And with the fact that she's hearing voices and feeling things she shouldn't be feeling (and what she did to Elena, oh god—), she doesn't like anyone talking about anything that might have to do with her psychological self.
"Yeah, you are," said Matt. "But it's cute, so I forgive you."
And suddenly the earlier insult hurt less. She smiled at him, and tried to talk about what had been worrying her all day.
"So…" she said, "how are Elena and Bonnie?"
She hadn't dared ask her mother, because she knew that her mother would be the one in charge of Elena's disappearance, and it could appear strange for Caroline to ask about Elena just around the same time Elena would be reported missing.
So instead, she was asking Matt, who wouldn't be as suspicious. She needed to know the situation, know if people had realized Elena was gone yet.
"They're fine," said Matt. "Elena called me today and told me she'd be taking care of the carnival with Bonnie for you, since you can't."
Caroline blinked, her mask temporarily cracking. "Elena called you?"
Even if Elena had been like Caroline, a silver-eyed witch capable of regeneration, it was impossible for her to bounce back from what Caroline had done to her for daring to try and kill her. The body hadn't been whole enough for even the most powerful regeneration to heal.
Caroline remembered the claims of that girl being called Katherine, and wondered if it was possible that the one she had killed wasn't Elena.
"Yeah, Elena," said Matt. "You're going to have to learn to deal with it, Caroline. Just because we broke up doesn't mean I'm not still friends with her."
He frowned, suddenly.
"Hey, is it me, or do your eyes look different?"
Caroline sat up, her back straight.
"I'm feeling a little tired right now," she said. "Do you think we could talk more later? I'm a bit exhausted, honestly."
"… Sure."
Caroline could see she hadn't completely convinced him, but he left nonetheless.
I'm a murderer, she thought. A monster.
She thought back on Elena (Katherine?), who had tried to kill her and failed. She'd tried to bargain, to manipulate and to plead, but Caroline had still killed her in the end.
Ophelia had killed her. And she'd enjoyed it.
-x-x-x-
A/N: You do not need to know this, but you might want to anyway:
Claymore is a manga about a mediaeval world with monsters called yoma. They eat humans and are next to impossible to hunt.
To kill these yoma, there's this organisation that basically creates half-yoma, half-human warriors via demon flesh-implants. It gives them the strength of a yoma, but the control and intelligence of a human. So they are strong enough to detect and kill yoma. Using their yoma power/energy (called yoki), they can perform superhuman feats of strength. If the demonic energy is overused, the girls will become something worse than yoma, called Awakened beings. Since using this power feels extrememly good, it's difficult to stop using it before getting to the limit and actually becoming a monster.
All half-yoma warriors are female. They have silver eyes and whitish-blonde hair, traits that come from the yoma parts inside of them. When they become half-yoma, their hair loses most of its colour, as do their irises. Sometimes, these warriors can have pointed ears, but not always. Ophelia, the one who's memories Caroline will have, has such ears and generally wears her hair in a French braid.
Once they've reached their early twenties, these warriors stop aging. When a warrior begins using their yoki, their eyes turn gold, meaning they are channeling energy. When they use too much power and lose control over their yoki, they become Awakened beings. These beings all look different, but are generally huge, monstrous creatures. They all eat human flesh, like normal yoma, and are much more powerful and intelligent than normal yoma.