AN: Hey! This is one of my first attempts at writing fanfiction, I'm planning on it being quite a long story. Feel free to offer any criticism and advice you may have, and of course, feel free to follow along! Thanks!


A sharp intake of breath, and it tasted like it never had before. It was how it all began.

I felt this breath travel through my body, just to dissipate in the chambers of my chest. It was wrong - I took another breath and almost choked on what it brought to me. The taste of iron and copper pennies filled my tongue, touching the roof of my mouth and every part of my being. It was delicious, and something made me want more - but it was wrong, a gut feeling told me, although I didn't exactly know why.

My eyes, finally opened and focus, fluttered about the room. White walls, bright lights that stung as I looked at them, and I was on a stretcher.

My eyes fell closed as fast as they had opened as the feeling of water flowing in sent me reeling - floating there, simple, free, but with no hope for anything good to come of it. I felt my arms release their tension, my body just relaxing to the fact that this was it, this was the end, and there was no saving me now. After everything, after dodging death like a bullet time and time again, it had finally caught up with me. But there was Stefan, and there was Matt ... Matt ...

"Matt?" I uttered, the sound of my voice sounding completely foreign to me. It was so loud, though the syllable was released in a whisper. I didn't know who I was speaking to until a voice, very quiet, as if cautious, spoke back to me.

"He's safe, don't worry." Looking over, my eyes met with Stefan's. His face was set, although his cheeks were wet and his eyes red and swollen. Why wasn't he happy? I was fine, wasn't I?

"What happened?"

He was quiet. There were very few occasions where Stefan couldn't bear to look me in the eyes, and on those occasions, something life changing had occurred. Usually the only subject where he would beat around the bush was death, the only subject where he couldn't look me in the eye and tell me how it was.

But if Matt was fine ... "Jeremy? Bonnie?" Stefan shook his bowed head. "Damon?" Another shake.

My eyes felt wild, catching every movement that was made out in the hall. My ears tingled with noises that were so small, so unimportant, but started to eat at my brain. My body didn't feel like mine - I felt as if I was being controlled by something, something heavy and unmoving. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

When Stefan failed to shake his head again, and simply remained still, I knew. "I couldn't save you in time," he said. I froze, knowing that I practically decided to die when I had told him to take Matt over myself, but this wasn't supposed to happen. What was dead, should stay dead, right? But of course, that one law of nature had kind of been thrown all over the place the last few years. I felt my hands start to shake as I brought them to my face. Everything seemed to hang in the air for a moment as a dark cloud of realization fell over me. Then it all crashed down, breaking into a million pieces that will never be one again.

"Oh god, I'm gonna' be sick," I whispered, my fingers bouncing off my forehead, my knees trembling so roughly that the stretcher was shaking with me. My brain slowly fell to mush as I realized that time no longer mattered - unless another factor, whether it be myself, another vampire, an original - I would live forever, except, there was no life anymore. There was no growing up, there was no more hope of doing the things that people do when they grow up: get married, have kids, have a career - it all escaped through my fingertips, and it had hit me at that exact moment.

Stefan was pulling my hair back as the last bit of food in my stomach landed in the bin he had brought to me.

He was saying words, nice sugar-coated phrases like it'll be okay, and it'll get harder but you have me, and maybe a you'll get through this, here and there as he patted my back. "No one is going to force you to do anything." This phrase of his had stuck out to me, and when the last of my last meal as a human left me, I turned to him, wiping the corner of my mouth shamelessly.

"What do you mean?"

"You already had this choice decided for you, so whether or not you go through the transformation is up to you. Of course everyone is here for you, Elena. But we won't hold you back if you decide not to go through with it." I stared at him, his words completely petrifying me. I hadn't thought about it, which was understandable, considering that it was still within the first half hour of my new existence. Everything I had been fighting for, all the people who I had been trying to protect - save a few, they were all still here. For once, it wasn't something else that had changed, it was me - it was me who was different, it was me who was gone. While letting myself die when I could go on felt silly, part of it had it's glamour.

I never wanted this.

In fact, it was the last thing I wanted.

Not knowing what else to say, I simply nodded my head and laid back down. I was not yet ready to face the world that waited for me outside those walls.