A/N: This is a sequel, of sorts, to my story Disposing With Damon, but you don't need to have read that to get this story. This is just what happens when Alaric wakes up burried alive. Spoilers in chapter 8 and beyond.

Alaric's eyes opened, but didn't see anything. Were they even open? He tried to breath, but a moist cloth filled his mouth to his throat, choking him. He shook his head to be free of it, but though the muscles in his neck strained, he was unsuccessful. Panicked, he moved his arm to assist, only it stayed in place. Just then he became aware of a pressure on his entire body, pressing, pinning, holding him down. Frantically, he thrashed out, mindlessly fighting for the oxygen his body knew it needed. His shoulders rocked, his legs kicked up and down, side to side, his fingers tore through the soft, cold, wet crumbling beneath his body, and he knew what it was. Dirt. His crazed movements increased, and in seconds, his body was making small burrows here and there, and he could move for a limited space in air, and not caked dirt. When he could, he turned his head to free his mouth and gasped that first breath of air in. What came in didn't feel like any air he'd ever felt. It was thick and barely reached the top of his lungs. He grew tired, and he couldn't tell if his eyes were closed or open, but hisf body's blood was still pumping from the adrenalin rush and Alaric knew that his only hope was to dig.

So he prayed, and he dug. His hands felt around the cloth and he dug with it over him, his forearms the only part of his body completely surrounded by earth. He dug until his arms burned, and he feared his fingernails would fall off, so caked with dirt they were. Finally, he wormed his way into an upright sitting position, and the cloth slipped from his face. Dirt poured in, filling his eyes I guess they were open and his mouth. Immediately, he hung his head so that the dirt above him that he dug through fell onto the back of his head and not his face. He coughed weakly to get the dirt outfrom his throat, but ended up swallowing the rest with a dry mouth. There was nothing to do about his eyes, they were pulsating they were so irritated, but since his hands felt like they were made of dirt at the moment, he knew it wouldn't do any good to rub his eyes. He kept his arms raised, and he ordered his hands to keep digging. Soon, he was nearly standing, and there was no sign the surface was near. He pounded the hard dirt over his head to see if he could crack it and glorious air would pour in. It didn't. He felt all around the dirt at his head, looking for some weak spot, until he found something hard that felt like a stick. He grasped it and pulled. Images of skeleton bones danced in his mind, but the fact it was apparently stable to pull on, and the fact he couldn't see it, made it so that he wouldn't have complained if it was someone's femur.

He pulled himself up with one arm while digging his feet into the dirt for purchase. With his free hand, he attacked the dirt above him. He slowly made progress, but as he scooted further up his stick, something odd started to happen. The dirt around him became wet, and clung to him even more. It was colder and it slid down to his face, and it became harder for Alaric to breath his stale air. He tried shaking it off and quickly waved his digging arm to the side so that the mud wouldn't fall to his face. It was hard work and when his hand broke through the surface of the ground, he became so impatient that he took in as big a breath of air he could, grabbed the branch with both arms and pulled himself up and through the mud, like a rope. That's it, just climbing a rope in gym class, showin' off for a girl. Only, it was more like swimming through sludge. Each pull was agony just to get his arm situated on the branch, let alone pull his whole body through. Mud rushed at him with every move he made, and he cursed his stupidity. It was taking a lot longer than he didn't think to think of, and he was getting more desperate for air with every millisecond. Stupid, stupid, slow and steady wins the fucking race, you idiot! He repeated things like that to himself, his own motivational mantra, but that only got him so far. Just when he was sure he was dead, he pulled himself free and took his first breath.

He stayed like that for just about forever. Gasping in however much air he could possibly take into his lungs, half out of the ground, and with a death grip on the-

He opened his eyes, and though they ached they still worked. The moonlight coming through the trees seemed downright blazing, and he actually squinted at first. Then he looked down at his savior. A goddamn tree root. He patted it and pulled the rest of himself out. He lay against the tree in question and closed his eyes, grateful for every breath, but unable to concentrate on that for so long. Questions eventually bubbled up in his head and hit him a thousand at once. Who did this to me? Why did they bury me? Where am I? How am I alive? How long have I been gone? All these questions flashed in his mind, sometimes different, sometimes repeated, but all-consuming and overpowering.

Just as quickly, the answers hit him and he remembered. Damon. Anger and hate warmed Alaric's limbs, and it was only then did he realize how cold he was. It was winter and damn near freezing. Not to mention the fact it was raining. The trees protected him from all but a few drops of the rain, but the woods he'd been buried in were downhill, and freezing cold rain was seeping down in small cold streams. In fact, Alaric felt one under his ass at that very second. Alaric looked down. His naked ass. What kind of a pervert was Damon? But Alaric didn't complain too much, for all he knew clothes would have made rising from the grave even harder. Which brought Alaric back to the question that was really bothering him. Well, more than any of the others, at least. How the hell was he back from the dead? He remembered the stake and the his heartbeat, how it had stopped. He twisted his ring from Isabel - a nervous habit - when he paused and looked down at it. She couldn't have known, could she?

He shivered, and not entirely from the cold. He needed to get warm. He wondered if he'd die of hypothermia, and if he did, would he come back from that? He stood, his hand on his guardian tree, and almost fell back down again. It had been a while since he used his legs, he was guessing. He looked to his left-uphill- and to his right-downhill, and he turned right. It wasn't just that it was downhill, it was because he knew the mansions were uphill of the woods, and he did not want to run into Damon again. If Damon saw Alaric again the bastard would probably bang him over the head with a cross and wreath garlic garland over his body as he buried him in a 12ft deep hole. Seriously? Killed with a stake by a vampire? In the living room, of course, he joked to himself. Killed with wood, and saved by it. He took one last look at his tree and started his walk. He shook the unwanted remembrances and thoughts off and tried to concentrate on saving himself.

Concentrating on that wasn't much better. He couldn't get past how much his feet and hands hurt. They hurt so bad he was afraid doctors would take them and cut them off. He felt every rock and pointy leaf that passed underfoot, so even though his damn feet were frozen, they obviously weren't numb. Figures. He even fell in a puddle at one point and just sat in it. It was so big that he could just lean back and his head would be engulfed. He wondered how much easier it would be to just stop. He sank into the puddle. NO! Gasping, though he had only been under for a second or two, Alaric sat up in the water. The dark encompassing water had reminded him too much of his suffocating grave. He looked down at his hands and almost cried, but then he saw smeared mud on his hands. It was washing off. In a frenzy, he splashed water all over his chest and face and hair. He rubbed until he felt clean. He looked at the pale skin of his hand again and noticed that he still had dirt underneath his fingernails. He would probably always have dirt underneath his fingernails.

Feeling childish, he climbed out of the water and continued on his walk. He didn't know his way out of these woods, but at least the walk had stabled out and wasn't downhill anymore, which might mean- Hell, he didn't know what it meant. Something good, hopefully. Alaric still struggled to retain energy and strength with every step. He started to run, jog really, in an effort to build up more body heat. He wouldn't deny it felt awkward, running through the woods naked, but it did help him stay warm and just focus on not hitting trees. He fell once, and landed horribly and ended up injuring the one part a guy never wants to injure. It took him ten whole minutes to recover. He decided to walk again after that.

After twenty minutes of more walking, he spotted something bright in the distance. A fire! Bless dumb high school kids and their dumb-ass bonfire irresponsibility parties. He weighed the pros and cons of running again, and decided on a brisk walk. As he got closer he noticed there was no music, no laughter, and when he was right next to it, he noticed there were no people. An abandoned bonfire, maybe? But he didn't care, he was too busy getting as close as he could to the fire without getting singed. The fire went all the way to his chest, and he held his hands out over it to warm them, then he'd rub them together, then he'd rub his arms to get them warm again. He did it with every part of his body. His eyes closed and he leaned into it and could see himself falling asleep. It was so warm, and bright. Bright was good. It was so bright his eyelids looked orange when he closed them. He'd ask someone, whoever started the fire, if they came back, for cloths, but right now he just wanted to-

Alaric heard a cough and turned around. The most beautiful girl he'd ever seen was smiling with a frown at him. Smiling with a frown. Hard to do, that. She was tall, with long brown hair and a long green dress on. She was close enough that you could tell she was beautiful, but far enough that details were difficult to see. Why anyone would wear a dress in the woods was beyond him. Although, she was probably thinking the same thing about him being naked. Yep, there she was, looking at him up and down, and lingering on his-Shit. He felt himself get hard. It usually didn't happen inappropriately, but he did just wake up, sorta...

He saw her grin a knowing smile and he blushed. She walked toward him, but inexplicably, he turned and ran away from her. He didn't know why, but he did. And he didn't even ask her if she had any clothes. Dammit!