Hey guys! I am sorry it took so long for me to publish this Chapter. I will try to publish the next ones asap! Hope you like it :)

Sheriff, a death has been reported by a woman driving near the woods. It's apparently a young man in his early twenties. She informed that it seems to be an animal attack as he had a fatal bite bruise on his neck.

Matt shuddered at the information that his co-worker, Jim, had just told him. It had been a long time since the last "animal attack" in Mystic Falls - about three years. Since Matt joined the police, he hadn't seen a case like this one. After everything he had witnessed in this town, he had learned to always be alert. His latest teenage years made him loose all the naiveness and optimism he used to have. But after these three peaceful last years, maybe Matt let his guard down a little bit, growing hope that maybe they were finally free from all this threats.

He could hear his heart pounding and, for a moment he felt as his lungs were being crushed - since although the enormous effort to inhale, he felt completely out of breath. Damn it. It couldn't be starting again, it just couldn't. He had lost so much, way too much. Matt tried to close his eyes and take a deep breath. That was the reason he joined the police in the first place. He couldn't let his past traumas stop him from doing the best possible job to protect his homeland from this sort of threat.

Matt tried to prepare himself psychologically for the worst, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he arrived at the crime scene. The young man laying dead in the snow that covered the forest's ground was Tyler Lockwood. His best friend since he was a child, his chosen brother. God. Matt couldn't describe the feeling - he felt empty, in literal desperation: it was happening all over again and now, Tyler… A man had his whole life ahead of him, a a brilliant life as human where he would finish college, meet someone special, start a family, travel the world… And now, this young man full of dreams was just a cold corpse laying in the floor, camouflaging in the snow.

When Caroline called Stefan to tell him Tyler was dead, he knew it was by Damon's hands. His brother had explicitly warned him that if they didn't stop looking for him, he would make them stop looking. Damon had already done several killing-sprees right after they went after him, but now, he showed he wasn't in control of himself and his humanity anymore and would do anything to serve the syren's interests. Killing Tyler was his way to show them that he didn't want to be saved, and by trying so, others would die.

- It's Damon, Caroline. Is his way of telling us to get out of his way.

- Stefan...

- We have to save him, Care. - he said fighting the tears that were threatening to run from his eyes. He couldn't loose his brother.

- We will. - she said. - We will, Stefan. I promise.

-Hello, Damon. - she appeared right out of nowhere, in the middle of the dark empty street he walked in. Even as a human she was still resourceful and managed to surprise him.

-Katherine. - he said looking straight at her. For days, he wished he could see her as she was one of the few people that he cared about - at least, he used to- that that he actually remembered. But of course he didn't have a fucking clue of how he could find her, he never did. Katherine, even as a human wasn't one to be found, if she wanted to show up, she , you'd never be able find her, never knowing what she was up to. Damon hated her little mind games, but right now, anything was better than Sybil.

- I heard you killed that Lockwood boy off. Guess Mystic Falls little gang is not very happy with you right now. - she knew it was exactly what Sybil wanted, to make push people away from him.

- Since when are you the murder patrol? And mind telling me why my relationship with them is any of your business, Kat?

- Well, I am not. I couldn't care less about Timmy or whatever his name was. -she smirked. - But I guessed you did. - she finally said.

- She made me killed Tyler. And now that they came back trying to rescue me, she is telling me to kill Alaric's children. -he told Katherine. He hoped he didn't have to explain the miracle children's story, because damn, that one would take a while. But Katherine didn't seemed at all surprised, she apparently had already gotten the memo as usual, Damon figured out.

- That's pretty nasty.

- I don't feel anything, Katherine. -he said. - I tried to. I tried to think about them, remember their faces. I just can't feel a thing. -he looked very tormented. -Lately everything is so numb. I don't feel happy, neither sad, or angry, anything…

Katherine knew what that meant, he was increasingly becoming less "human", losing his soul. Each time Sybil hypnotized him, she pulled him further into her domination, and with that, gradually he lost himself more and more each time. He was losing his ability to feel. And it was not like turning off humanity - it was an even greater darkness. However, hewn one turn of the humanity switch, it is possible to connect humanity again - actually, completely turning it off was impossible, really. Humanity always tried to fight her way back in, and, eventually there was an emotional trigger strong enough to make it come back. But, in Damon's case right now, loosing his humanity would mean loosing it for good. When it came to hell and its devils, emptiness meant emptiness, darkness was the total absence of light. If he had his soul destroyed, he would be lost. In other words, he would be just as good as dead, if not worse.

-Fight it. -she said - she got closer to him. - Try to hold on to yourself. Think about your brother.

- I don't have a brother. - Damon said. Katherine looked at him with sorrow in her eyes. Just... Hold on. Feel something, Damon, anything. -she put her forehead against his and looked right onto his deep into his sapphire eyes. - I did love you. -she said. - Never got to tell you that. -and suddenly he pressed his lips against hers. Katherine returned the unexpected kiss. But he was kissing her frantically, without feeling. It was physically good. But it had nothing to do with the way he used to kiss her. As if the world was going to end and nothing mattered. Intense, full of desire, passion, love. Now it felt like an emotionless exercise. Katherine finally stepped back.

-I just wanted to feel something. -Damon finally said, looking at her. Katherine had always been the person who had made him feel the most intense feelings. When he loved her, he had loved her unconditionally, he had loved her more than anything. He had tried to give his life for her and for more than 140 years, it was all Katherine, Katherine, Katherine. His obsession, his feverish passion. When he realized that she had never loved him, he lived the darkest period of his life, melancholy, tears, whiskey and more whiskey. Then he had lived through a period of bitterness, of fury, of hatred. But she had always provoked strong feelings in him. Looking at her and not feeling anything at all wasn't something he was used to.

-Did you?

-I wish I did.

-You're loosing yourself, Damon.

- I know. - but he didn't look sad, neither did he looked desperate. He had the same numb expression. Katherine looked right into his eyes and she didn't see half of the deep, powerful intense spark they used to have.

- Just… I will… help you. -she finally said, knowing she would regret ever saying that. - I just need you to hold on for a little longer.

- I don't have nothing to hold on to. Really. It seems like when se enters my head she has it all. I don't have anywhere else to escape.

- You don't need someone to hold on to. - she finally said analyzing what Damon just said. He was always so passionate. Once for her, now for Elena… He was selfish, indeed, and cruel. But he was driven by love and the way he loved was intense, reckless. He somehow always held on to his humanity, which for him was always in form of one of the two doppelgängers. - Just, hold on to your damn life. Damon, just survive. - Katherine said thinking about how that was the only thing she had held on to for most of her life. He looked at her, that same numb expression, yet, she could see something in his eyes and she swear that never in more than a century and a half she knew Damon she ever saw he looked so hopeless

Katherine honestly didn't know what she felt for Damon. What she knew is that she wasn't very fond of him since he handed her over to Silas and tortured her in her death bed, blaming her for all the bad choices he ever made. But, however, that didn't automatically meant that she hated him or that she wanted him have his soul devoured by a devil. Not only because he was Stefan's brother but also because she had loved him once, and he was one of the few people she could actually said she cared about in the last half a millennium.

-Goodbye Damon. - she said, looking straight into his eyes getting one last glimpse while she touched his cheek with her tiny hand. Damon felt the warmth of her touch against his face and was surprised that now she was the one that had warm human temperature and he was the one that had icing cold vampire skin. Her warm human hand touching his face made him shiver, it seemed he was having a deja vu tho during all of the time they were together, either she was a vampire and he was a human, or they were both vampires. But he guessed it reminded him of someone else and even tho he didn't have a clue who would that be, it made him feel something. And after feeling completely empty inside and numb to everything, it was a relieve to actually feel something, even though he didn't know why he felt it.