People never take time to be with their thoughts. There is always something to do, a person to see, a task to be done, that people in the 21st century never have time to sit and be alone with their thoughts. It is something that Kol always laughed about with Elijah. When Elijah was undaggered at least. Kol never considered himself to be one of those people who were out of touch with himself. He was living every moment in the present. Always in sound mind and body. But this. This was different.
Here sitting in the recesses of his mind, he was trapped in with his thoughts. Everything that he had ever done, all of his dark desires. Everything was laid bare for him to look and review over and over again. It was like a B-reel of all the things that he wanted to forget and all his shames. Trapped in his mind all he could do was watch.
The impostor that took over his body smiled at his brother and tossed Caroline into the back of the trunk. His heart stuttered in his chest. He watched as the wound that Caroline got from the vampire festered and the trunk slammed close. He wanted nothing more than to cry out and reach for his sister. God, this was hard.
Kol was soon distracted as another memory floated past. This was one of the more upsetting ones. His brother, Klaus, and him were fighting about something. God, what were they ever fighting about. It must have been important because Klaus pulled out the dagger.
One thing that Klaus did not know about the dagger, because of his immunity, was that it burned when it went white oak ash of those daggers burned as they bit into their skin and made it so that they could do nothing else but gasp for air. Kol could feel the pain of the dagger right now in his chest. The burning as the dagger entered and the zinging pain as his body shut down.
Contrary to popular belief, while it may have looked like their bodies shut down right away that could not be farther from the truth. Their organs shut down one by one leaving their hearts as the only thing left beating. Kol could feel, his lungs and stomach shutting down. The acid rolling around in his chest growing heavy and fat. His blood vessels turned to stone just as it did in the memory and Kol cried out.
This was hell, pure and simple, this was hell in its most simplest form. Here Kol could do nothing but scream in pain as he relived every memory every pain and ill that he had ever had. He cried out as he felt the dagger stab into him over and over again. As he felt the pain of swords slicing in him as he fought for his life. The burning of the sun in the brief moments when he was newly turned vampire.
He opened his eyes and was face to face with his mother. It was a memory from when he was young. He was a young boy and came up a little taller than his mother's knees. His mother was singing as she folded clothing and Kol lived through the moment. She sang and Kol wanted nothing more than to reach out. To feel the warmth of the woman who he thought lost so long ago. It felt like eons since she had last enjoyed her touch. His fingers reached out just barely grazing the olive green dress she wore.
"You know she is going to kill you all," a voice said behind him.
Kol whirled around. The memory fading away and Kol coming face to face with his Passenger. He was tall mad with olive tone skin and bright brown eyes. He was donned in casual clothing and smirked at Kol. Kol frowned.
"Well Mother dearest was always known to have a temper," Kol said. The Passenger smiled.
"She is going to get rid of all vampires and her little Expression friend is going to free us Travelers."
Kol cocked his head. He tried to remember everything that he knew about Travelers. It was scarce. He knew that they were a sect of witches that believed in very different things from regular witches. Hell, they did not even consider themselves witches, adopting the name of Traveler as their distinctive title.
"Why do you need the Expression witch?" Kol asked.
"You know that Travelers cannot gather or else the curse will be enacted. We just need her to break that curse and then we will be free to make it so that us Travelers are the ones on top."
"I presume that the Expression witch does not know of your grand designs?"
"Oh she knows and she doesn't care. As long as she can take down the Original family."
Well that narrowed down the list considerably. There were many witches that his family had pissed off. But which one did they piss off enough for them to turn to Expression magic? Kol racked his head trying to choose a line of witches that would do such a thing, but could not come up with a name.
"You know, you need to let me go. My family will be quite made that you are holding me hostage in my own mind," Kol said with a feral grin. The Traveler looked nonplussed.
"I have been studying you for years. I have your mannerisms down pat. I should get an award for how good I am at impersonating you."
Kol pulled on the dregs of power that lingered inside of him. Since the explosion at the Bennett house he was low on power. The magic power had been drained out of him like a battery and he was having trouble filling up. He needed a huge magical sure, a ley line or a black of power from a witch, to recharge him but it had not happened in the recent years. Kol focused his energy on the lingering power within him.
He tried to push it outwards, but all that did was exhaust him. He crumpled to his feet and the Traveler laughed.
"The mighty Originals, reduced to this," the Traveler said with a smile. He stalked over to Kol and dropped down so that the two of them could be face to face. The Traveler smiled and then tilted his head. "It is going to be so much fun to end all vampires."
Kol closed his eyes as he was swept into another living memory.

There was something different about having air whistle through your lungs after so long. Esther breathed in through her nose and then out through her mouth. There was something therapeutic about it. She breathed in again, closing her eyes while she did.
On the Other Side everything was a haze. Everything was a shadow of what it once was. She breathed but there was no relief tied to the action. She moved around, walking, but there was no reverb when her foot touched the ground. It was a horrible half life, living on the Other Side. It was something that only the worst of the worst should have been subjected to.
And she was going to subject her family to that Half Life. She could heard Mikael on the Other Side always foaming at the mouth to have Niklaus there with him. How he would torture to boy and their family. Something in Esther unsettled itself. Why had she let herself get caught up with such a brute man. She paused and then reconsidered.
He had not always been a brute. But the lost of their first child and the stress of living next to a village of monsters had changed him. And the five hundred years that he had spent alone, hunting their mistake, her mistake. Gods, and her infidelity had not made his life any easier. Mikael was who he was because of circumstance and not by choice. She shook her head and opened her eyes.
They were at a beach someplace warm. Esther had said that she wanted to go someplace warm and the witch and Katherine had gotten them on the first plane there. Now she was somewhere she had her toes in the sand and was watching the sunset.
A door opened behind her and Esther's back was buffeted with the cool breeze of the house. The Air conditioner was so cold in there and Esther had enough could to last her a lifetime. She was done with the cold. And so she stood outside, digging her toes into the sand and breathing in the warm sea breeze.
The witch stopped beside her and watched the melding colors of the sunset. Esther closed her eyes again.
"You have something that you want to talk to me about," the witch said. It was a statement and not a question. This girl was so intuitive and keen. In the times that Esther spoke with her from the Other Side, she could glean that the witch's mind was addled but sharp.
"Yes I do," Esther said. Another breath in and out. "We need to speak about Silas."
The man wanted to take down the Other Side and the witches screamed about how he would rise before Esther returned to life. She tilted her head and let the breeze ruffle her blonde locks.
Silas was someone that she did not factor into her plans. It was his spell that allowed her to turn her children into the monsters that they were today, but his rise, the rise of a true immortal, was something that the world was not ready for. The balance of nature would be tipped and that would leave to horrible things going on. The witch sighed.
"Ah, yes, Silas. You know the other witches believe I will allow him to rise," the witch said.
Esther's eyes popped open and she turned her head to look at the witch. "And will you?"
"I will not," the witch said.
"But you use Expression magic."
"Magic is a tool to me. A means to an end. After I end the Original Family I have no intention of using magic again."
A witch that never wanted to use magic again. Esther smiled at her and then turned back to the sunset. The sun had almost disappeared from the horizon and the sky was beginning to show the stars. Esther sighed.
"You know I was like you once," Esther said. "I wanted to give up magic too. But there was always one more spell. One more problem that could be fixed with magic. Then my son died and I had to make sure that my other children were safe. There was always something to be fixed."
The witch stayed silent besides her and Esther thought to the version of herself in the past. She was so reluctant to use her magic. She wanted to be independent and magic was nothing more than a crutch or so Mikael had convinced her. But the world made no sense unless she used magic. The world was scary unless she had her magic to defend herself and her children.
"Witches are nothing without their magic. Witches need food to eat, a place to sleep, air to breathe and magic to live. Witches will always have need of their magic." She turned to look at the witch. "You will never not be without your magic."
The witch pouted at her. She was childish. She still had to fat of youth on her face, but Esther ignored that to look into her eyes. The witch's eyes were erratic. They held a turning sea of emotion, but the most dominant one was anger. The witch shrugged her shoulders.
"That may have been true for you. But I am witch cut from a different cloth. After this I intend to get rid of my magic. Forever."
The witch turned and walked into the house leaving Esther alone. Esther turned her eyes towards the sunset, but the sun had long since dipped below the horizon. It was night now and she could see the stars dotting the sky. She looked up and looked for the constellations that she knew as a child. There was Tjaste's eyes and Orwandil. There were no stars in the sky and other constellations that she did not know, but most of the sky was unchanged.
A witch without her magic, huh? That was something that she had never thought of before. It was something that she had never dreamed out, but this witch wanted to do it. Esther tilted her head. She would like to see it.

Her body was sweaty. Caroline awoke feeling gross. She sighed trying to stretch her body but her hands clacked and the muscles pulled against the chains that tied her to the was left sitting on the ground with her hands chained to the wall. She sighed and winced in pain.
The wolf had bit her once, thank God. But she could feel the wound in her side festering. She needed Klaus's blood. But she needed to get out of here first. Caroline tried to rise from the ground, but her legs were weak beneath her and the wound ached with every moment that she made.
"Hello?" Caroline called out. "Is anybody there?" The room that she was in was obviously an unfinished basement of some kind. The room was just gray cement walls and floors and boxes of things. Whoever had done this to her obviously did not plan on having a dungeon.
She thought back to the moment before the wolf bit her. Kol. Kol was the one who had brought her to the warehouse where the wolf was houses. And he had laughed — laughed! — while the world had bitten her. And then he had shoved her into the trunk of his car and Caroline could barely remember the rest. The venom was working quick on her.
Caroline tugged on the chains again but she was as weak as a human with the venom coursing through her veins. She cried out again.
"Hello? Is anyone there? You know Klaus is going to be very upset when he finds me! Hello!" Caroline tugged and rattled her chains and then she heard it. The quiet thumping of footsteps above her. A door open and light flooded into the room. Caroline raised her hands to cover her eyes. The shadowed figure of a woman walked down the stairs and flipped a switch.
Suddenly the whole basement was flooded with light and Caroline groaned. She covered her eyes for a moment but as her eyes adjusted she looked at the person who had kidnapped her.
"Katherine?" Caroline said looking into the eyes of her best friend. "Oh, thank God it's you. Let me out of this thing and give me your phone to call Klaus to come and get me."
But Katherine just stood there and tilted her head. She leaned against the wall with her legs crossed at the ankle. Caroline raised a brow and looked at her.
"Hello. Do you not see how gross I look right now? God, when I get my hands on Kol—"
"You really don't know do you?" Katherine said.
Caroline looked at her with a huff, "Know what?"
"Know the situation that you are in," Katherine said.
"And what would that be?"
Katherine looked away from her and sighed. Her hands clenched and unclenched and then Caroline frowned as she looked at her friend.
"Katherine. Let me out of here," she said slowly.
"I think you know that I cannot do that," Katherine said. She pulled the keys from her belt and played around with the keys. Something in Caroline sank. Was it her heart? Who knew, but the sinking feeling in Caroline got worse as she looked at her friend, her best friend.
"Why did you do this Katherine?" Caroline asking turning away from her friend. She did not want Katherine to see the tears gathering in her eyes.
"You know there is something that I noticed about you over the years," Katherine said as she stalked the length of the basement. "When the going gets tough you always rely on someone to bail you out. When we were human it was me and now as a vampire it is Klaus. Never once have you saved yourself."
Caroline felt the tears drip off her nose and her voice was thick as she spoke to Katherine. "Why are you doing this to me Kat. After everything—"
"After everything? Pray tell what exactly have we been through together. We ran away together and slogged through that opera house together but from then on we have lived totally separate lives."
Katherine stepped closer and looked down her nose at Caroline, but Caroline could not even begin to look at her. "I slogged through the shit and mud to survive while you lived in the lap of luxury with that monster. I ran and hid and I had to do it all alone because you wanted to live out some fucked up Beauty and the Beast fantasy. And never once did you help me."
"I gave you information—"
"Information that I could have come by on my own. Don't act like you helped me. You just did it in order to have a clean conscious. In order to feel like you didn't abandon me. But in actuality you did. You chose that monster over me. You chose Klaus over your best friend."
Caroline shuddered as she heard the words. It hurt, but it wasn't true. It wasn't.
"And now look. You're going to sit there and cry and Katherine is going to have to be the bad guy. Well let me tell you something Caroline. In the time that I have spent alone, I've found that being the bad guy isn't the worst thing you can be. There are worst positions to play."
She knew that she shouldn't ask. But she did, "Like what?"
"Like the loser. And that is a role that I have been stuck in for far too long. I'm going to be the winner this time around. And Klaus is going to be the loser this time."
"K-Katherine. I'm sorry. Let's talk about this and think of a way—"
"You think I trust you? After all the years you spent by that man's side. No, I don't trust you. Not like before. Not like when we were human. You know, that Caroline I would have trust with my life. You… well I don't even trust you with my phone."
Katherine shuffled away from her and Caroline cried as she felt her heart get stabbed with invisible knives. Katherine shut off the lights and made her way up the stairs before she paused for a moment.
"I want you to know, if you had just gone with Kol instead of Klaus. If you had chosen the right man, none of this would have to happen."
The door slammed shut leaving Caroline in darkness.

Author's Note: I have a week off so expect a lot of updates. Things are getting spicy!