Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries! I only own my OCs, "Juliet Jordan Gilbert" and "Ivan Christos" and any other characters or plotlines I make up along the way!
Author's Note: This is literally the shortest chapter ever because the entire thing is Damon's personal hell and I'm not gonna lie I don't want to rewrite the whole thing so I promise that the next chapter will be longer!
ENJOY!
We were all gathered around Damon's body in the Salvatore boarding house, waiting for him to wake up. Bonnie had done the spell thousands of times, but he just wasn't waking up. She was still chanting the spell to reunite his soul with his body as I nervously chewed on my fingernails.
"Ababbas dagoineh mateesah elunatan. Damon melunaweh washaset. Ababbas dagoineh mateesah elunatan. Damon melunaweh washaset..." She chanted.
I leaned my head on a (thankfully) newly resurrected Stefan's shoulder as I looked over at Caroline, Matt and Ivan, who all looked distressed over the fact that Damon still hadn't woken up yet.
Bonnie finally growled in frustration. "The spell's not working."
That caused Stefan to sigh in frustration as well, rubbing his eyebrows with his hand. I put my hand on his back and rubbed soft circles on it soothingly.
"I don't understand. It's like the stone is hiding his spirit," Bonnie went on.
"Then maybe you should take a break, all right? You've been trying all day," Matt offered.
"Matt's right," Ivan added. "You're gonna drain yourself to exhaustion and then you'll be no help to anyone." We all turned to look at the kinda insensitive way he had phrased that sentence. "I didn't mean that in a bad way."
"We know you didn't," Caroline assured him, moving one hand from her big pregnant belly to pat him comfortingly on the knee.
"She can't," Stefan insisted urgently. "The longer he stays in there, the more damaged he'll be when he gets out."
Bonnie gave Stefan an annoyed look and scoffed. "And who's fault is that? You, of all people, don't get to lecture me."
That was when I cut in. "All right, that's enough, you guys. We're all just a little freaked out and stressed, so let's just take a deep breath and a small break and let Bonnie try again when she's up for it."
"I don't get it," Matt shook his head in frustration. "We pulled Stefan out no problem. What's different now?"
Stefan got that haunting, brooding look in his eye as he answered, "Because he's not ready yet. When I was in there, I could barely remember who I was, and then I was hit with visions and tests. But the worst part of hell isn't what you're going through- it's the sliver of hope that you can actually get out on your own."
"How come we had no trouble reuniting your soul with your body?" Caroline asked.
"Because eventually, I submitted to the kind of suffering that just breaks you. Knowing Damon, he'll do anything he can to avoid that kind of pain, which means we may never be able to get him out," Stefan answered, giving the rest of us a grim look, and we all looked back to Damon in worry.
We finally convinced Bonnie to take a break, and Caroline and Ivan were making her something to eat. Matt was in the kitchen with them, and Stefan needed a blood bag break, so it was just me and Damon in the living room for a while.
I sat down next to him and took his hand in my own. He looked so dead; still, cold, pale. I couldn't look at this man and see Damon Salvatore.
"Hey," I whispered as I lifted his hand and put it to my lips. "It's me. Obviously, though, you can't hear me. It's just...we're all kinda just sitting around you...waiting. I know what you're going through can't be easy-living as a vampire for over a hundred years will give you demons. That's actually one of the things that I'm looking forward too, mainly so that I can drink glasses and glasses of bourbon and stare broodingly into the fire and look cool like you and Stefan do." I wiped a small tear that escaped me. "So listen...I actually made a promise to my sister that I'd look after you. She knew that you'd completely fall apart without her, and she made the stupid decision of leaving it up to me to make sure that you were safe and okay. And I can't do that if you're trapped in the Phoenix Stone. So do me a favour and save me from Elena's bitching in sixty years and wake up, okay? You owe me one. I don't know exactly why you owe me one, but you do. So just...wake up."
With that, everyone had come back into the room, and I moved from Damon's side back to Stefan's so that Bonnie could continue the spell. She did so for another hour or so, tightly holding his hand, when he finally gasped awake. The Phoenix Stone glowed a little when he opened his eyes. "No. No. No," were the first words out of his mouth.
Stefan got to his feet and rushed over to his brother, who was starting to sit up. I followed closely on his heels.
"No, we weren't done! I gotta get her back. I gotta get her back!" Damon began shouting but none of us knew what he meant.
"Hey, its me. It's me! You're safe. It's okay. It's okay," Stefan said as he held out his hands in front of Damon, trying to calm him down, but Stefan was obviously worried.
"No. No! One more time. One more time!" Damon said frantically.
Caroline and Ivan had gone over to Bonnie's side, because she had been extremely weakened by the spell and could barely stand by herself. The two of them each held one arm of Bonnie's to help keep her standing up.
"Send me back. I know what to do now," Damon insisted.
"Damon, it's not real-" Stefan started, but his brother cut him off.
"I know it's not real. None of this is real!" Damon thundered.
To everyone's surprise, Damon reached over and grabbed Stefan by the arm. He twisted it, snapping the bone in half. As Stefan screamed, Damon leaned over and broke Stefan's neck, letting his now dead body drop down to the ground.
Matt and Ivan got to their feet as I dropped down to Stefan's side. I checked his neck just to make sure that it was broken, and it was. Caroline rushed over to Damon and held her hands out. "Damon, don't-" She started.
But Damon smashed a chair, and, using the broken chair leg as a stake, rammed it right through Caroline's chest, causing her to gasp loudly in pain. She fell backwards into Bonnie's arms as Ivan charged Damon. "Damon!" He shouted.
Damon turned around and grabbed my brother by the throat and squeezed tightly. Ivan began gasping for air as Damon crushed his windpipe into dust and finally let him drop down to the ground. Ivan landed with a hard thud on the ground next to Stefan.
Matt then went after Damon, but Damon backhanded Matt so hard that his neck snapped, and he fell to the ground.
"MATTY!" I screamed as I grabbed his body before it could hit the ground. I gently laid him down on the floor and moved to brush his hair from his face so that I could properly assess him, but I felt a hand on my upper arm, and I looked over my shoulder to see Damon pulling me away from Matt.
He tugged so hard on my arm that my shoulder popped right out, and I screamed in pain. He moved his hand from my arm to my throat and lifted me up and off the ground as he squeezed my throat. Damon then took that opportunity to shove his free hand into my stomach, and I screamed at the top of my lungs as he brought his hand back out, but with my lower intestines in his tight grip. He squeezed them until they burst, my blood splattering all over him and all over the floor, furniture, and the walls. All the blood in my stomach rushed into my throat and dribbled past my lips. The pain was so bad that it was pretty much numbing, and my head lolled backwards as I lost the strength to keep myself upright. He let go of my throat, and I fell to the ground, landing hard on my back. The impact caused the wound in my stomach to widen, blooding gushing out of the wound like a geyser on impact.
Out of my shaky vision, I saw Damon grab a fireplace poker and vamp-speed over to Bonnie. He pinned her to the wall using the poker to press against her throat, choking her. Bonnie desperately gasped for breath as she tried to reason with him. "Oh! UGH! Damon- Ahhh!"
"I have to get back to her," Damon said frantically.
Damon finally managed to crush Bonnie's airways, and she slid down to the ground leaving a blood stain on the wall behind as she dropped. Damon dropped the poker on to the ground and looked around expectantly.
"Why am I still here? It wasn't real... This isn't real..." He said to himself, and the frantic look on his face was the last thing that I saw when I finally blacked out.
TBC...
It's hilarious, the last chapter was the longest chapter of the story (so far) and it looks like this will be the shortest chapter of the story.
Also, now that Jules is a vampire, we can do cool stuff like ripping her insides out without it killing her!
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Next chapter...
Things We Lost in the Fire...
With the traumatic effects of the Phoenix Stone taking a toll on his brother, Stefan attempts to help Damon regain his grip on reality, while secretly struggling with his own experience in the stone as Juliet attempts to help him through it. Elsewhere, Matt and Bonnie deal with the fallout after Julian and his men take over Mystic Falls, leading Matt to spiral out of control and into trouble with an officer named Penny. Meanwhile, Tyler returns to town for Alaric's baby shower and Caroline makes an upsetting discovery involving Alaric and his future plan for the babies.
