Disclaimer: I don't own tvd, it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith.

Hunger. Starving. Blood.

Three thoughts, one purpose; to mindlessly feed until there was nothing left.

Stone cracking on his marble hard skin, cold and unyielding. Even after two thousand and twenty seven years, four months, and eight days, Silas was barely closer to escaping than the very day he'd been put here. His psychic abilities, useful, though waning, were enough to draw people to him, but not enough to get him out.

He wasn't strong enough because he was forgotten. No-one knew what he looked like, no-one knew his last name even, he was just a stony legend, rumoured to hold the one thing treasured and wanted above all; the cure for immortality.

He couldn't even really remember what was happening, why he was here, just that he wanted revenge, a burning desire to seek vengeance against Qetsiyah, to maim and destroy the world for abandoning him. But most of all he just wanted to find peace.

People came and went, dripping blood into his wasting cave for answers and the promise of their loved ones that they would never get.

One face kept him alive, from giving up and taking the cure; giving up the fight he swore to upkeep no matter what.

Amara.

-X-

The first thing that woke him up was the blood.

Rusty, warm, blood flooding down his throat in delicious waves. His eyes peeled open, stone melting and crumbling as blood poured freely from the neck his mouth was now pressed against. Blackness erupted in his vision, foggy and fuzzy as his eyesight cleared, and something else.

Over the head of the hunter whose blood he was drinking, the pale face of someone he used to know. Flickers of memories long since forgotten stirred in his mind, of the face that loomed above him.

She was Amara, but not Amara. A shadow self.

Interesting, but not as interesting as the blood gushing into his mouth. He didn't care, not about anything as his stomach filled and his strength grew. This was the most delicious thing he had tasted in at least a thousand years and he couldn't get enough. His hand loosened, gnarled stone and decay, reaching up towards his live meal. He grabbed the Hunter's neck, abandoning the vial containing his only hope.

His senses heightened - he was running on euphoria as the life drained into him from the man above him. He could see everything so clearly, every crevice, every rock...

The Amara look-a-like whisking away, clutching the cure in her hand, but he couldn't right now find it in him to care.

He was free. Free from the cursed stone that had entombed him here for years. Centuries, even. Relishing in his newfound power, he tightened his grip on the Hunter, draining him of the last of his blood, before snapping his neck, letting him drop to the ground.

Obviously that wasn't enough, not by a long shot, soon he would need to gorge on more blood to replenish himself, but it was enough for now.

The stone crumbled away as he sat up; tearing away the thorns and vines, scraping at the encased armour around his head, grimy fingernails ripping, bloody and stinging before they healed all over again, marveling at every moment he made, slow and rigid, but moving. Silas never thought he'd be grateful for something like that.

The blood was running through his veins, smoothing the cracks in his skin, the stiffness in his bones and muscles, as he slowly but surely gained speed, making his way out of the cave.

Silas needed to see the sunlight. Feel the warmth of its rays upon his face again, and taste the fresh air. He did just that, standing there, hidden in the forest, face up to the darkening (disappointedly) night sky, gulping down the cool, refreshing air that was useless to his lungs, but seemed as more of a wake-up call than anything. He didn't know how long he stood there; minutes, hours, perhaps; time had lost meaning to him.

A branch snapped behind him, alerting him to the presence of another. He whipped around, spotting a man with a thick curly beard and hair, dragging a clearly broken leg with him away from the cave, a short distance away. He triggered a faint memory in Silas' mind; he remembered posing as the man's wife through hallucinations, convincing him to complete the expression triangle and release him.

Curiosity led him on and, following behind, obscured by shadows, Silas saw the man stumble and trip until he arrived at a clearing that had clearly been previously occupied by other people. There was still a smoking bundle of wood in the middle, and the man quickly fumbled around in his pocket, pulling out an odd, small rectangular object that looked hard and shiny. He pressed a button on it and a flame flickered out the end, which he used to relight the wood.

This man - Shane - was the key. In order to complete the expression triangle, he needed to pose as him to the witch, the ancestor to Qetsiyah. Bonnie Bennett, he believed.

Who was currently lying in a pool of her own blood back in his tomb.

He sighed irritably to himself. In order to get the witch to help him, he would have to use another disguise, of one she trusted, who she knew had the information to help her. Shane was the perfect disguise.

He tore the rest of the stone helmet fixated onto his head off, tossing it aside with disgust, running his hands over his face, feeling the dry, flaky skin peeling off of his skin, the small, withered beard that had managed to grow underneath his stone casing. Then, he stepped up behind Shane, his list for blood soaring out of control, and swiftly kicked him in the back, shattering his spine, and effectively ending his life. From there, he sliced the man's wrist open with his teeth and drank greedily, every single drop until there was nothing left and still it wasn't enough.

The girl who looked like Amara flashed before his eyes again, a stubborn, wily look upon her face. He shook the image of her out of his head. She was a distraction he didn't quite need yet.

First things first. He decided, stomping back towards his cave.

Bonnie Bennett, then he needed to get off of this island.

-X-

He watched them all for weeks on end. Patiently biding his time, the opportunity to die. It hasn't been easy; he had to admit that. They lived in large houses, dotted around everywhere so it was hard to keep track. The Hunter's curse was also another affiliation that hindered him, though that was easily shoved aside within a few minutes - an easy enough task. His psychic powers were growing, and nothing would stop him from achieving what he came to Mystic Falls for - a peaceful afterlife.

He used them on Bonnie, manipulated her into channelling expression, to complete the last triangle, no matter the cost. Nothing mattered, not if it meant he would be with Amara again.

Getting her to kill those twelve witches was tricky. Especially as they extracted his power from her mind, loosening his hold and cleansing her body of expression. He was worried, for a time, until the blonde vampire saved her best friend, and in doing so sacrificed the twelve witches he needed to complete his expression triangle.

Then he saw her again. The Amara look-a-like. And another one. There were weaker, perverse versions of him known as vampires, with fangs and immortality, created a thousand years after him, that allowed more than one doppelgänger to exist at once. How he gloried at seeing her face again; like being in a dry desert for days and seeing a lake. They almost made up for her absence, especially the curly haired one who had fed him the Hunter and had a snarky attitude and a severe survival instinct. The other one was a poor substation for Amara; she didn't even deserve to exist, to wear that beautiful face every day, bearing the gift of the beauty of another.

Something tugged deep inside him as he thought of her, a feeling that swooped through his body, one he had almost forgotten about... he didn't care for Amara's shadow, did he? He must be imprinting his feelings for Amara onto her, using her as a substitution. Yes, yes that was it. A replacement for his true love.

Which is what he told himself, over and over again as he toyed with the Hybrid's mind, the one who had chased Amara's shadow for five hundred years and tormented her very soul. What he told himself when he stabbed Klaus with the white oak stake, making him think that an unbreakable object somehow got lodged inside him and was killing him. That had been particularly fun, though not for the reasons he tried to convince himself of.

No, Silas felt almost protective of her. Which he couldn't allow. He couldn't form an attachment to a woman he had never officially met. Especially since she was known as a heartbreaker, soul-stealer, manipulative bitch, etc. If he did, he knew he would never go through with his plan, which he was already beginning to rethink. He wanted to be with Amara. The only way to do that was to focus on his plan, without any distractions.

She was in love with the Hybrid's brother anyway. Not that he cared.

-X-

The veil was down. Sort of. Bonnie had betrayed him, but then, who hadn't seen that coming? He was always one step ahead, and always would be. Though what he didn't expect was Amara's shadow to be involved in the plan. He watched them from afar, pondering on how he was going to convince Bonnie to drop the veil completely so he could take the cure, and how to avoid getting the doppelgänger involved in the process.

Well, not so much convince, but threaten at this stage. Silas had the advantage; he had the cure, mental powers capable of deceiving anyone from discovering his true self, which he used to his upmost ability, choking Bonnie into a silent pact she didn't want to be apart of, before searching for her friends, fully intent on picking them off one by one if it meant her co-operation.

And if he went out of his way to see Amara's doppelgänger along the way, then that was purely coincidental.

-X-

He was turned to stone again. An agonising paralysing moment which had him on his knees in front of the Bennett witch writhing in agony, covering his face with his stony hands, hiding his identity once more.

Back to square one; and the anger and pain he felt was almost imaginable, but he had done this for two thousand years, he was sure he could do it again, if it meant being reunited with Amara in the end.

He was wrapped in a bag, discarded in the Boarding House basement, he felt he had nothing to lose.

But then, not a day later, he felt the spell relinquishing from his body, returning him to his glorified state of immortality and restoring his freedom. Bonnie must have died somehow; much to his relief. Another obstacle out of the way, though the one thing able to give him Amara also gone, but it didn't matter.

There would be other ways of getting what he wanted. And he had all the time in the world.

There were just a few things to do before that time came.

-X-

He revealed himself to his doppelgänger. Stefan Salvatore, pure heart and kind mind. Hard to believe he was related to a man who had let everything been taken from him so easily. Though it just made stealing his identity so much more simple.

At first he took on the form of Stefan's love, the other Amara look-alike, the one who wasn't worthy of the face she wore. Stefan's supposed fated love, though he much preferred the blonde vampire.

"I created the immortality spell two thousand years ago. I could never die. So nature needed to find a balance. A version of me that could die. A shadow self. A doppelgänger."

He let Stefan think he was just another Amara doppelgänger. "So, this is your real face. You're just another one of them?"

Silas smirked, relishing in the life he was about to destroy. "Not exactly."

Then he showed Stefan who he really was. Him. A copy, another doppelgänger, of Silas himself.

"Hello, my shadow self."

Stefan stood there, stupified into silence, as Silas approached him, wooden stake gripped into his hand. He moved, swiftly imbedding the wood into his doppelgängers stomach, even as Stefan realised what had happened, far, far too late.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to starve for two thousand years?" Silas hissed into his ear, the full brunt of his anger and hostility seeping into his voice, his actions as he twisted the stake in deeper. His question was meant to be a rhetorical one, though a rhetorical device was not what Silas had planned.

No, Stefan Salvatore would suffer as much as Silas had suffered. Soon he would learn what it was like to be forgotten. Left alone and afraid.

He dragged Stefan's now compliant body into the safe meant for him, locking it with final absolution, and then shoving it off the cliff, sending it tumbling down into the quarry below.

He smiled sadistically as the safe was swallowed up by the inky waters, immersed in suffering.

Now he could re-explore the world again, with a free alibi as Stefan Salvatore.

Starting with her.

Amara's true doppelgänger.

Katherine Pierce.

Thanks so much for your kind support in my previous version, I hope you'll like this one.