How did this happen to me?
He grew up a happy child, despite being mocked frequently for his unusual name his parents gave him after a line of very dead relatives he hoped never to be like. An only child, he always held all of the attention and love of his parents and their support formed him into a reliable, responsible adult with good judgment and a pure soul.
Alaric Saltzman was never supposed to know vampires are real. He was meant to have a nice, quiet life, be satisfied by working as a mediocre history teacher at a local school, washing his car on weekends and loving his wife, despite her weird interests and shyness. He wanted to have a family, become the cool dad who trained the soccer team and die a badass grandfather who allowed everything your mom and dad never would.
He should never have had to see his wife die and bury an empty casket because her body was carried away. He never should have remembered the face of the vampire who drained Isobel and turned her, he never should have gone to hunt him down, and he should never have allowed that vampire to kill him. He absolutely shouldn't have become said vampire's best friend and trustee.
Never in his life did he imagine he would fall for another woman after Isobel. He never imagined that he would get a family through her, not the kind he imagined, but a family nevertheless, a family he felt obliged to protect as the world around them crashed and there was nothing they could do to stop it. He never imagined that the legacy of his new family would bring him face to face with death itself and the darkness it offers.
Sure, secretly he wanted to do something filled with action, but never did he think it would be making vervain-filled grenades or rifles loaded with wooden bullets, bows with wooden arrows or whittling stakes he would later plunge in another person's chest. He could ever only imagine be someone's true mentor and a role model, as he always underestimated himself and never thought himself worthy of respect.
Alaric was never supposed to lose himself. The darkest parts of him were always supposed to stay deeply stored inside, never reaching the surface as it was not truly him, but the complete opposite. Alaric would never taste human blood and he would never try to kill his best friend, his students or his family.
Alaric would die grey haired and calm. Not with a stake plunged in his chest, while not even being himself. Not in his best friend's arms after trying to kill him. Not as a monster everyone feared.
Once he was gone, he liked to think he really did die that night Esther turned him into an ultimate hunter. The night he felt appreciated, the night he felt everything flood him; the guilt, the sorrow, the love. The night he said his last goodbyes and the night they followed him into death.
How did this happen to him? Now he is no more than a cursed soul, roaming the world alone with regret.