Old Lockwood Cellar
September 26, 2010
As the light from her flashlight danced along the rock walls of the tunnel, Elena was really relieved that she had listened to Ric's advice about having a package of spare batteries in her car. If she hadn't, she would have gone home. Then either her brother, Ric, or even Damon would have done their very best to keep her safe. Truth be told, Elena thought she was getting rather sick of other people trying to keep her safe. Not that she was ungrateful; it was just the simple fact that every time they tried someone she knew or worse cared about they, died as the result either directly or not.
Damon would have kittens right about now if he knew she was essentially out in the open like this being underground, not withstanding. Never mind that she had a tentative agreement with the Original Hybrid who if she had to guess was already working up a way to sidestep their agreement. But Klaus would naturally still expect her to uphold her promise of voluntarily donating some of her blood to his never-ending quest to build up his own subservient hybrid army. Just the thought of what he could now do to her friend Tyler Lockwood made her shudder. Just like all the children of the founding families they had literally grownup around each other and even back then Tyler had always prided himself on his own independence.
As her thoughts wandered, it wasn't long before she was standing just outside the entrance to the chamber with all the cave pictograms. They had once placed much of their hopes that it would help them ultimately get rid of the cause of their problems. Just as she started for the entrance she paused recalling that cell phone reception was very spotty down in these tunnels and if she remembered correctly, there was none once anyone was inside the pictogram chamber. With that thought in mind, she fired off a quick text to Bonnie that she was following up on her own dream and will let her know what she found.
Then Elena, still nursing her bruised hip, edged her way into the opening and took a moment to admire the pictograms. I can't believe that she actually have met the two people that had a hand in crafting this cave drawings, Elena thought as she took in each one. Until she found the set of pictograms that sent her on her errand down here. In her dream she was looking at the true story of how Klaus had been the one who had killed their mother, but there had been something that had always bothered her about these pictograms.
"If these where made after the death of the Original Witch that would have had to happen just after they had become the first vampires. If that was the case, how did they even get into the chamber?" Elena said aloud.
Maybe she was over thinking it, she thought, but a part of her told her she was on the right path. As she stood there in the chamber, she could help to feel that she wasn't entirely alone. There was of course the bats she had to be mindful of, but still she couldn't shake the feeling that she wasn't alone.
"Elena?" A oddly familiar voice called out and Elena froze. When she did she accidentally dropped her cell phone which had been still clutched into her hand.
"This was entirely too much like my dream to be a coincidence," she muttered and swung her flashlight around. As far as she could tell, she was alone. However, the odd feeling that she wasn't hadn't gone away either.
"Who's there?" She called out, but only silence greeted her. Feeling suddenly unnerved, she back up against the cave wall and leaned against it just to collect her breath. What she didn't expect to fall through it as if it didn't exist. She stumbled and fell down on to her sore hip, which only caused her to cry out in pain. The added shock of falling through a cave wall had caused her to drop her flashlight, too. When she finally twisted around in the dark, it didn't take her long to find it, and once she had, she knew her dream had sent her here for a reason.
The part of the cave with the pictograms was just an antechamber to this inner sanctum. Unlike the other chamber, the cave walls looked as if someone had smoothed them flat and the vaulted cave ceiling was a near perfect dome with a large crystalline structure growing out the center. As she panned the light around the edge of the dome, it didn't take long for her to guess the shape of the room was in fact cylindrical. As she slowly swept her light beam lower, she could make out crudely made wooden furniture of tables a broken bed, and shelving pushed up against the walls of the chamber. That wasn't her primary focus because in the center of the room was the thing from her dream and finding it scared her to her core.
"Oh, my God! It… It's a statue of me?!" Elena spoke in a hoarse voice. Trembling from the pain and from fear, she slowly stood up on some rather shaky legs and moved towards the statue of her.
"This is incredible!" Elena said finally. It still was unsettling to see Katherine, and this was no different, but the craftsmanship and attention to the deal of this statue was astounding. Whoever had created it had been a true master. It looks so lifelike, she thought. But as she studied it, she was finding details she couldn't quite explain or yet understand.
The stone doppelgänger of herself was clothed in what, if she had to guess was homespun clothing, and they did its hair up into an intricate set of hair plaits. They shaped the face that the stone copy appeared to be fatigued, and they set the eyes and mouth into an all too familiar look of despair and sadness.
"What the hell!" Elena continued to mutter to herself as she lowered her light down the neck again more slowly so she wouldn't miss it a second time, but she had enough experience to know what a vampire's bite mark on the neck would look like stone or not. Elena backed away from the statue and pointed at the light, taking it in the beam's entirety. Only then did she truly look at her stone doppelgänger in its two arms were what she first assumed were only bundles of clothing had been a pair of two small swaddled infants.
"Elena?" A voice called from what she recalled was the entrance made her twist to face the interloper but once again she found no one present but the entrance she had to assume would be there since it was in the direction she had entered from was not apparent.
"Oh, God! I… I'm trapped!" Elena spoke aloud, and she instinctively backed into the statue till it pressed into her back.
"Elena Gilbert, it's time." The familiar voice spoke again, but this time it came distinctly from behind her and she twisted around to face it. What happened next was also from her dream, which only heightened her growing apprehension. Who or whatever it was quickly engulfed the round chamber with a bright flash of white light and she felt herself slipping into a void and as she drifted off into unconsciousness. A small part of her actually welcomed it.
