Darkness Stole Her Heart
1
Blue Ribbon
She was lost.
Forgotten.
Revenge. Anger. Cruelty. Everything that drove her on to continue her existence, pounded like a meticulous drum, thrumming through her body like a heartbeat; the ever-growing darkness.
"Elena, you are not in control!" hissed a feminine voice.
A beautiful, tall girl with blonde curls and pretty blue eyes looked over, concerned, as she pushed back the girl standing across from her.
She had a red cheerleading outfit on, her hair tied back in a high pigtail, childishly with a blue ribbon. She had the same doe eyes, high cheekbones, and features of Katerina Petrova. She assumed an air of nonchalant behaviour. Irina confirmed that this was the legendary doppelgänger.
"Who are you?" the blonde girl questioned suspiciously, on edge, noticing Irina.
The doppelgänger squirmed under the blonde girl's restrain, her fangs stretching out, her veins protruding, licking the blood feverishly off of her lips.
"Someone whom you should fear."
And the darkness enclosed in again, cloaking the monster's veil over her mind in a firm, cool clasp. She let the darkness overwhelm her, welcoming it as an old friend. It was ever-present in her heart, consuming her more and more when she called upon it.
Irina snapped Caroline's neck smoothly, letting her body fall to the floor with ease. She pivoted towards the doppelgänger.
Elena ignored the comment. "Thanks," she said, indicating towards her fallen friend. "She was bothering me. She can't tell me what to do. She's not my mother."
"A humanity switch. But why?...What was so important that made you want to forget everything, Elena?" Irina speculated, enjoying the girl's attempts to refrain from feeling again. She stepped closer, knowing the proximity would push fear instead of no-humanity into her mind. Elena wanted to live, she assumed. Irina was, of course, the much older, stronger vampire, and she could kill the doppelgänger any time she wanted to.
"It wasn't...dear brother, was it?" The words were sickly sweet, and a small, fractured part of Elena, hidden somewhere deep, began to feel sick. Jeremy.
They stood staring down at each other, before Irina turned away. Elena had refused to succumb to the part of her that was still human.
"Very well...what does the doppelgänger think about this?" Irina grabbed Caroline upright and held a poised stake to her heart.
"Do it," Elena said recklessly. "It would be one more person to grieve over, right? In my never-ending funeral of a life. But I don't care anymore. So do it."
Irina dropped Caroline carelessly and turned back to Elena. "No regrets. No sadness. That's all good, Elena." She took a step closer to the girl, hoping to again drive fear into her. "But when you turn it back on, it'll all come crashing down on you. You want to know a little secret?" She leaned in close, whispering in Elena's ear.
"I don't care either."
Irina was the predator; she could kill Elena right now, if she chose to. Her lethal words crept into Elena's flesh and held there tight. "So I suggest you turn everything back on."
"Why?" Elena snapped back, chin raising defiantly. The glare in her eyes marched forward to challenge Irina's.
Irina flashed a smile, eyes holding dark mirth. "A doppelgänger is no use to me dead. If you keep going like this, when you finally turn it back on, you'll kill yourself. You'll feel sorry about everything you've done, won't you? Your compassionate heart? Ruined. Tainted. You'll be dead before they know it," she said, a snarl rippling through her throat.
"So what, now I'm just a pawn in one of your little games?"
"You don't want to play?" she challenged.
"Oh I want to play." The girl smiled wickedly.
"Good."
Irina slammed the stake into Caroline's chest hollowly. Caroline gasped, bright blue eyes opening wide, before her skin turned ashen grey.
"Let's start."
The look on Elena's face completely changed in those five seconds. Her blank, carefree expression was replaced with fear. "Caroline!" she screamed, and she kneeled down in a blur to face her friend. "Caroline!?"
In the end, Caroline Forbes was the one who restored the doppelgänger's humanity.
Irina backhanded Elena harshly, causing her to fly into a tree, dirt flying up wildly around her like a tornado. The doppelgänger recovered quickly, getting to her feet with a growl, her fangs sharpening. "I'll kill you!" she screamed in a rage so fierce and sudden that it stirred Irina's amusement.
"Come and play, little girl." Irina's voice echoed off the trees, her physical form shifting out of sight. The trees seemed to press into Elena menacingly, as if in a warning for the storm ahead.
Elena snarled in an outrage, in response, trying to track Irina's scent.
Within a split second the vampire was behind the doppelgänger, popping her neck with a satisfying crack.
"Too bad. You wouldn't last one second."
She stalked off, leaving Elena's body and Caroline's corpse behind. They were of as much importance to Irina as the blue ribbon that had weaved its way out of Elena's hair, fluttering away into the depths of the clear, vast sky.