Chapter 1 — Nightmare


His name is Damon Salvatore.

He's a writer.

For several weeks now, Damon has been having a particularly unsettling recurring nightmare. He's always had a vivid imagination, but this individual dream unnerved him. It was dark, weird and at times bloody, even by his standards. He sped out of a cold, damp tunnel, his body gripped by a sense of cold determination to reach his destination—a light house—he just had to get there. He knew there was something waiting for him there. That was when a figure suddenly appeared.

Damon didn't see the hitchhiker until it was too late. It was night and he was tired, driving down the coastal road toward the lighthouse, driving too fast, as usual. The hitchhiker seemed to appear right out of the darkness, standing there in the middle of the road, just staring into his oncoming headlights. He didn't even have time to hit the brakes, reacting only after he heard the *thump* of metal against flesh.

Shaking, his head pounding profusely, he got out of the car to check on the hitchhiker. The front end of his precious Camaro was splattered with blood, the hood dented and crumpled. Steam rose from the crushed radiator. Damon bent over the body of the hitchhiker, the two of them caught in the headlights now as though they were onstage.

Looking back down at the hitchhiker his face was barely recognizable, from the black and blue bruises to the broken blood vessels swelling underneath the skin. The raven-haired man didn't even bother checking for a pulse, it was clear that the man was dead. He put his hand on the hitchhiker's bloody clothes, wanting to apologize, to explain, to ask the man why he had just stood there unmoving while his car hurtled at him. It wasn't the hitchhiker who was going to have to explain his actions, though.

"There were no skid marks on the road, Mr. Salvatore," the police would say. "Why didn't you slam on the brakes? Didn't you see him?"

"You're a writer; were you distracted, maybe thinking about your next book? Just for the record, exactly how fast were you going, Mr. Salvatore? Had you been drinking before the accident? Taken any pills? You look tired."

A raven cried out from a nearby tree, and Damon turned, seeing only its eyes shining in the darkness. When he looked back the hitchhiker was gone. He was literally gone. Damon had to actually put his two hands onto the spot where the hitchhiker had been lying, feeling around, as if he might find a hole, a deflated blow-up drifter, some sort of insurance scam fake out—something!

There was nothing and nobody there.

Just the pavement, cool in the night air.

Damon stood up, knees shaking. He looked around, and then started walking towards the lighthouse in the near distance, trying to stay upright, to stay steady. The man had been there. He hit him. Killed him. So where was the body? He turned back. The Camaro car was still there, water leaking onto the pavement, the hazard lights flashing against the night. Up ahead, a streetlight lit up a wooden, pedestrian walkway that wound its way to the lighthouse. He still wasn't sure about what he was going to tell the police when he reported the accident.

As the 27-year-old passed under the street light, about to descend a flight of stairs, there was a faint noise coming from where he had left the car, and turned to look. Immediately he froze, rooted in fear by what he saw by the vehicle—the hitchhiker had returned, and he was very much alive.

In the time it took him to blink, the man was suddenly right in front of him, sending Damon reeling back in terror and shock. With the hitchhiker only a few feet away from him, he saw that there was something very wrong about him. He was wrapped in shadows, which seemed to cover his entire body, obscuring his face to the point where he was unrecognizable. Even more chilling, the writer noticed that he held a weathered wood axe in his hands.

The hitchhiker suddenly spoke, the maliciousness in his voice almost unsurprising considering his appearance. Shadows billowed around him as a light breeze swept around them.

"You don't even recognize me, do you, Damon?" He asked. Damon could sense the maddening hate-filled grin on his face as he spoke. "You think you're God?"

All sense of delight in the hitchhiker's voice disappeared as he lifted the axe, continuing to rant as he swung it back and forth, tearing great chunks from the walkway's wooden handrails as he did so. Damon backed away in horror as the hitchhiker slowly advanced towards him, still swinging his axe wildly. "You think you can just make up stuff? Play with people's lives and kill them when you think it adds to the drama? You're in this story now, and I'LL MAKE YOU SUFFER!"

Those last few words were delivered in an inhuman roar. The axe's blade narrowly missed him as he stepped backwards, stopped from moving any further in that direction by the guardrail as the walkway turned into a collapsed set of stairs. The ax was thrown into the nearby street light, cutting its power and sending a shower of sparks down from the broken light. Damon ducked away from them as he rushed along the walkway, leaping across some broken stairs to the lower walkway a few feet below in an attempt to escape his attacker.

Panting for breath, the terrified writer realized that the hitchhiker's attacks, physical and verbal, had stopped, and he turned to look. His would-be murderer stood at the top of the stairs, watching him with invisible eyes.

"You're a joke Salvatore," he spat at him. "There wouldn't be a single readable sentence in one of your books if it wasn't for your editor. You'll never publish another one of your shitty stories, 'cause I'm going to kill you!"

Making sure that the hitchhiker—or whatever he now was—remained at the top of the stairs, Damon hurried down the walkway, now even more determined to reach the lighthouse. Behind him, his attacker called after him, the drifter's voice now constantly shifting between that of a human being and something much deeper and darker.

"It's not like your stories are any good—not like they have any artistic merit! You're a lousy writer. Cheap thrills and pretentious shit! That's all you're good for! Just look at me! Look at your work!"

Wanting to do anything but, he continued along the walkway as fast as he could, the wind now was picking up considerably. A sawhorse had been put across the path further down, but he would not be stopped. Damon climbed over it and into a small clearing doubling as a viewpoint, overlooking the lighthouse. The writer paused a moment to catch his breath—when a horribly familiar voice yelled out from right behind him: "YOU MISSED YOUR DEADLINE!"

The hitchhiker appeared out of thin air, just like how it did by the road. But Damon didn't have time to think as he threw himself to the ground just in time to hear something whistle by his head. Rolling over quickly, he realized that the shadowy monster had tried to decapitate him. Said monster raised the ax above his head and took a swing at Damon's head. Instinctively, the writer sidestepped around the hitchhiker. The ax embedding itself in the ground where he once stood, the blade wedged deep within the earth. Damon took the opportunity to kick the monster hard in the face causing the monstrous drifter to reel back. His bloody hands covering his face as he howled in faux pain: "That didn't hurt."

Desperately looking for an escape, the raven-haired 27-year-old spotted a gate across the clearing. Running for his life, Damon crossed the clearing as fast as possible. Silently thanking his doctor for getting him on that diet and muscle training program. He realized the hitchhiker was a character from a story he had been working on.

He sensed his presence and turned to find him standing on the side of the walkway he had just come from.

"How does it feel to die by the hand of your own creation?" he called out menacingly. Without warning, he suddenly and instantaneously disappeared again, consumed by a tornado seemingly composed of pure darkness in his place.

The wind whipped up violently as the tornado sucked up parts of the walkway he had used. Eager to avoid this new form of death, Damon turned and fled for his life down a hill. As he did so he felt the tornado in hot pursuit, the noise drawing closer even as he fled from it. At the same time it seemed to emit an awful sound, somewhere between a scream and a wail of utter agony.

Overhanging lights shattered as he rushed down the dirt path, unquestionably an effect of the shrieking shadow storm. The ground shook as he reached a long rope bridge crossing over another part of the gorge. He was about to set off across it when he suddenly spotted someone waiting at the other side, undoubtedly another shadow person. Even as Damon thought this he realized that he was wrong, from his far-off position he saw that the man was not engulfed in shadows. As if on cue, the stranger spotted him and called out, "This way! This way!"

Sprinting across the bridge even as it swung side-by-side due to the strong winds, miraculously, he managed to stumble his way across to the other side as the bridge seemingly collapsed.

Remembering the man that had called him over Damon practically hobbled his way to where the man was. As he got closer, he noticed that the man was in his late 40s, with thinning, dark brown hair and matching brown eyes. He wore a red and yellow football jacket, faded out jeans and work boots. He also noticed the revolver in his hand.

"Damon, it's me, Kol, remember?" The man said shakily, the fear in his voice unmistakable. Even with the grave situation that they were in, for the life of him, Damon had no idea who this man was. Nor did he know as to what kind of name was "Kol" and who in their right mind would name their child that.

Nevertheless Kol ushered him to head towards a nearby cabin, while he stayed a few yards behind making sure that no more monsters were out there. Once inside the door slammed shut, but Kol wasn't with inside. Both of them frantically wrestled with the door to try and open it, but it inexplicably would not move. Moments later though, Damon was diverted from the struggle as the winds and tornado died simultaneously.

Moving to a nearby window, he looked out to see that the tornado had returned to the form of the hitchhiker, still wielding his axe and now standing by the former bridge, from where he quickly headed towards Kol.

Kol must have noticed him too, as Damon heard him utter a terrified "Oh no!" from the other side of the door. Sure enough, his savior descended the cabin's porch steps and fired at the advancing evil, calling out for it to stop with no success. Amazingly, the revolver's bullets did nothing to damage the hitchhiker as it continued advancing unhindered even as he managed to shoot the bloodstained weapon out of the monster's hands. In sheer desperation, Kol unloaded the rest of the pistol's ammo into his enemy, crying out "Die, dammit, die!" before suddenly running out of bullets as the hitchhiker lunged after Kol, ripping his throat apart.

"No! No! Aaahhh!" cried Kol in sheer terror—before his cries were suddenly silenced, his body falling limp. Damon watched in horror as the hitchhiker removed himself from Kol's neck, allowing the latter's body to fall to the ground. No sooner had he done this that the attacker suddenly looked up, straight at Damon, causing said man to almost literally jump in fear.

Mouth and jaw covered in blood, the crimson liquid sloppily dripping down his chin onto his already stained shirt. The light on the porch illuminating Damon's now would be killer's mouth as he opened his deadly maw and roared. A pair of fangs gleaming in the dark.

He was trapped.

There was no way out.

The demonic drifter slammed his body against the fragile door, the force sending Damon flying onto his back with the door lying on top of him. In a high speed blur the hitchhiker stood above him, the weight of his foot pressing the door into his chest with another guttural roar that was between a scream and an agonizing wail.

At the same time Damon heard the chilling voice of a woman, no more than a whisper but somehow equally as terrifying as his own horrifying fate, uttering, "he's here." As the thing standing above him launched itself at him, Damon opened his mouth to scream in sheer terror, but before he could so much as draw in breath, another soothing voice whispered in his ear, right beside him.

"Wake up. Damon."


AUTHOR'S NOTES ON CHAPTER ONE:

Hey everyone, hoped you all enjoyed this chapter It is the first of many because a friend of mine challenged me to go on a "Writing Binge" and write out a new story (fanfic or original) and spend the rest of the month writing until I reached the end. What I would get out of this challenge if I won? The book "Inheritance" by Christopher Paolini which is the fourth and final book of the Inheritance Cycle fantasy series, of which I am a big fan.

And the practice of finishing things under a certain deadline, that way when I become and actual writer, it'd be a bit easier.

Also my lovely and annoying friend who I will call "Rex" because he doesn't want me using his real name, (he's a bit of a nut) said specifically that if I were to do a fanfic it would have to be based on the game "Alan Wake" developed by Remedy Entertainment. Me and him love the game and are big fans of it, plus I've been wanting to write something like this in TVD universe, so I gave it a shot.