2-11
The wall was pleasing.
It was odd that it was the first time I was noticing it, but then I'd always been distracted. At the centre was a window that looked out into the grounds, a picturesque image of students sitting on the grass chatting, studying and a few even with instruments out. The latter would be more annoying to me, but so far away from it all, I could appreciate the aesthetic of the entirety of the scene.
Moving in and there was stuff bordering the window; two landscapes at either sight, one a dark forest while the other showed a stormy sea. Under both the paintings were four smaller, square shaped, pieces of art with symbols on them.
All of this was brought together by the muted colour of the wall on which everything hung. A colour that was somewhere in the middle between beige and puce. Dark enough that the overall theme could be felt, but with a lightness to the colour that made me think that it didn't want anyone to get sucked into the sombre nature of it.
"You're going to have to speak at some point," said Professor Shane and the image broke. All at once I was aware of where I was and why I was here: The image replayed in my mind and with it was the utter sense of hopelessness.
I let out a long breath, closing my eyes as the emotions worked up to reach a crescendo. I sucked in a breath and it was jerky, too sudden and too forceful, as though my body had entirely forgotten how to breathe. Above it all my eyes were burning.
Jeremy. Dead.
It was one thing to think that there were countermeasures, that I could lift the veil with sufficient effort, but another thing entirely when I'd watched as my best friend was killed in front of me.
I let out another long breath, then breathed in, slower this time, forcing my body to listen to me. I let that task becoming my centre, letting everything else bleed away as I focused solely on breathing.
"It helps to talk," said Professor Shane, breaking me out of the forced tranquillity.
"Talking isn't going to bring my friend back," I said, resentment and anger driving forward before they quickly petered out. Feeling angry helped nothing except make things worse. I could already picture it, me doing something else stupid and this time Bonnie or Enzo or Jared being the ones to be killed.
"No," said Professor Shane, "it isn't. But that's not what this is about. This about you and dealing with one amongst a series of traumatic events." He took a breath, leaning forward and levelling a sympathetic expression at me. "Things like this often break people if they don't work through them."
"Like you?" I said. There was no anger, just the need for him to be quiet, to stop forcing me to deal with something I didn't want to. "Killing people to get your wife back?"
"You're pushing me away," said the Professor. "This isn't something you want to deal with yet."
I snorted at that. "That's not a push," I said, a smirk gracing my expression. My emotions were all centred in my stomach, all of them bad and mixing into something ugly. I couldn't win against them and here he was, Professor Shane, a person I could still hurt without repercussions.
Except that wasn't entirely true, was it?
I stopped my mouth, clamping it down and biting my tongue as it was about to say, A push would be telling you that it ultimately amounted to nothing. All those people you killed. All those machinations. All that and even the visions of your wife weren't real. Only Silas playing with you like the pawn you are.
I looked to my right. There was a cupboard there and it was filled with all sorts of trinkets: A statue of an African mask, a part of me knew it belonged in the Central African region; a too realistic doll that made my core shake when I looked at it too long; the skin of an albino snake; a shrunken monkey's head; and a few small weapons.
The bottom of the cupboard had doors on it with large and bulky chains. So strange that I hadn't noticed all of this. Could it be a spell, or was it because I was so good at looking where I was going that I missed everything on the way side?
I glanced at my watch it was late in the afternoon, nearing evening. Two hours ago, my best friend had been killed and after recovering enough, my father had taken me while the discussions with Elijah were still on going in Mystic Falls. My phone had been taken away and I could guess that someone was making sure that I wasn't using a Tracking spell to watch over things.
Not that I would. I didn't really feel like it.
I forced my mind away from that and focused instead on the time.
"Our session's over," I said, coming to a stand. "Thank you for your time, Professor."
He nodded. "Though I'd prefer it if we had more sessions in a week," he said. "Three instead of one. At least until…"
"I'll tell Dad," I said and then turned and left. Enzo was waiting for me outside. He was shifting a little as he looked around, maybe it was being in Whitmore again or the fact that he might still have Vervain in his system. I didn't put the effort into figuring it out.
"Where's Dad?" I asked.
"He left. Bonnie's too close to Elijah for his liking," he said.
I nodded, but I couldn't help thinking that it would help. If Elijah wanted to kill my sister then he would just do it, much like he'd done so with Jeremy.
Enzo and I stood there, the both of quiet before I started walking, heading towards the car. Enzo followed, getting into the driver's seat. He didn't start the car, instead sitting in silence for a long moment before the car started and he started driving.
The road started to blur as he drove, more winding than it should have been but I didn't pay it any attention, instead watching as late afternoon turned into evening. I watched how the sun was setting, the red and orange stretching out, darker colours closing in on the fading warmth of the sun.
Enzo stopped and I became aware that we were in the middle of the woods and it was dark save for the headlights. I looked at Enzo but he was already getting out. He teleported and was at my side of the door just as his door shut. He opened it and I exited, following as we walked deeper into the woods. He stopped in a patch that looked no different than the others.
"What now?" I said.
"Now you scream," he said and then he was gone, leaving me surrounded by darkness.
Left alone, the emotions started doubling back, the anger and the fear and the desperation and the guilt and everything else mixing into a ball of ugliness that I pushed out as I screamed. I felt as the world around me exploded, trees shattering with a myriad of cracks, the ground starting to shake and a burst of wind erupting around me.
The scream stretched on, splitting the patch apart and decimating the clearing, pushing everything back and away. I felt as energy rushed out and I pulled in more energy, feeling the earth vibrating around me, the sound of a crackle fire, the wind surging inward and the rushing sound of water. It felt painful, having the element running through me all at once but I could ignore it because that pain was nothing compared to losing Jeremy.
There was crack and the wood was alight, a fire breaking out and spreading out much faster than it should have. The thing devoured, taking in the air, taking in the trees and it got larger; trees cracked, water spraying out but that seemed to feed the fire even more, pushing it to consume.
And then, it was all over, the fire gone.
Me, on my knees, with the ugliness gone and the only emotion remaining the badness of loss.
888
Enzo and I didn't go back to Mystic Falls, instead we spent the night in a motel. Sleeping hadn't been the best thing even though I'd been tired, especially since my mind had chosen instead to convince me that Jeremy was alive, that the waking world had been a dream. All of it to hit me hard when I finally woke.
I ate the offered breakfast from Enzo, letting myself wallow in the badness, hoping that I could ride it out and it would eventually go away. But it didn't. Six hours spent with the badness in my stomach, sometimes shifting into terribleness before it reverted to badness and I couldn't take it all.
"Turn me into a vampire," I said, breaking a silence that had settled. Enzo looked in my direction. "Please. I don't want to feel like this."
"You want to switch off your humanity," he said. "Micah—"
"Don't tell me that I'll regret it," I said, interrupting. "Don't tell me about the future when I'm feeling like this now. I want these feelings to go away," I said, my voice starting to break and the burn in my eyes getting fiercer.
"But you will," he said. "Micah. You can bring him back. You said it before. If you turn into a vampire—"
"It's not that simple!" I said. "It's not just me saying the right spell and everything working out. It's…complicated. I'd have to set things up. I'd have to push things faster. I'd have try and be smarter than all the variables that I'll be working with and I'd be doing all of that while distracted by this badness, while being weak."
"And you think you'll be stronger if you're a vampire?" said Enzo. "Micah, don't be stupid. Think about all the power you'd just be washing away. You can create. You can bend reality itself to your whims. Being a vampire is nothing compared to that."
"And how has that helped anyone?" I shouted, heat touching my voice. "How did it help Grams with she was killed? What did it mean when I was captured by Bree? What did it mean now? I couldn't do anything as Elijah killed him. I had all this power, this knowledge; I knew what he was going to do and yet I couldn't do anything. I'm weak and I want to be strong."
"Then become strong," he said. "You have your ancestors. You've still got time before the Martins are ready to accept the power from the witches, you could work quickly and form a link, accepting that power—"
"It still wouldn't be worth much," I said, shaking my head. "There are still three people in my coven. That sort of power…" I shook my head again. "But even then, going against Elijah. You saw what he did. What would he do if I rebelled again."
I couldn't help it, tears were starting to stream out. "This is all my fault. If I wasn't here then things would have been better. Jeremy would be alive."
Enzo shook his head. "You can't think that."
"I can," I said. "Because it's true." I wiped away the tears. "If I wasn't here. If I wasn't born, then things would have been vastly different. Jeremy would be alive right now. If I wasn't alive, I know that, no matter how bad things were, they would turn out alright. That no matter what threat everyone would be fine.
"But I'm here and that changes things. I was fucking born and that pushed the universe to react. Events changed way back before I was born, all of them pushing to this." I ran a hand through my hair. "I'm the worst thing to have ever happened to this universe."
Enzo wrapped me in a hug and I couldn't hold back the tears, the snort, how my throat hitched as it tried to get in air while also crying. But he didn't say anything.
888
"You should be with Elena," I said, my voice was hoarse and my eyes were puffy. Bonnie had arrived at some point during the night, probably when I had fallen asleep, and joined me in my bed.
"I think I've been with Elena long enough," she said. Her eyes were puffy too and she looked as though she hadn't slept that much.
"She lost her brother," I said.
"So did you," she answered. She was quiet looking at me before she said, "Enzo told me what you said." I felt a pit in my stomach. "That if you feel like if you weren't born things would have been better."
"I don't feel," I said. "I know."
"I don't think you do," said Bonnie. "I'm not as smart as you, at least not in the same way you are…but I'm smart in my own right." She swallowed. "I've been compiling a mental list of how your abilities works, or at least how your ability works. Knowledge, spread out over past and future, with blind spots where you and other clairsentients are. I could never get the full image until know.
"I kept asking, did you know the perfect future? Even researched a little how time worked to figure it out. It's supposed to be fixed, unable to be changed unless the branches of time theory is true. But, all of it gave me a headache when I tried to predict how your ability factored into all of it. Except you've just given me the final piece.
"Your ability," she said. "It allows you to see into a timeline where you weren't born in. How things would spread out, that sort of thing and that's the bases of your ability. But it's not just you, is it? It's the other blind spots, the other clairsentients. They weren't there too, in that timeline."
She sighed before she said, "This isn't all on you, Mike. It can't be all on you. You didn't choose all this. You didn't choose to get born. You didn't choose to get your ability. You just played the hand you were dealt."
"Except I did," I said. "Choose all this." I wanted to explain but I couldn't, to explain to Bonnie the nature of the universe would be disastrous. But even so the guilty was there, tied to the nebulous feeling that in a past life I'd longed to live in this world.
"Things are going to work out," said Bonnie. "We'll figure a way out of this."
I gave a her a smile, though I didn't feel it. I couldn't see how we'd get out of this, especially with Klaus so close.
888
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
I flinched as she neared, expecting a slap, for fists to pound into me because I'd killed her brother. Instead Elena hugged. The tears started again and for a while I couldn't do anything.
Hours passed when we finally disentangled ourselves. For a long moment Elena looked at me before she looked down.
"I want him to feel the same pain we're feeling right now," she whispered.
I didn't want to go against Elijah again. But the guilt was there and the anger took the chance to get a footing, making the world turn red around the edges.
I nodded and took her hand. "I promise."