Eventually, Laura had cried herself to sleep.
She stayed in a near comatose state pretty much the entire next day. It was impossible to tell when exactly she finally started moving again, but it was surely a very long time.
When she did move, it was naturally partially driven by hunger pangs. Scrounging around the latest bag, she pulled out some food and apathetically forced it down. In doing so however, she also noticed something else: a USB portable battery. Obviously intended for her to use to keep her computer charged.
Not that it had even died yet, as she had only powered it up in order to record her videos, each only a few minutes long. However it served as a reminder that she had an outlet to both create some record of this and help make sense of it.
With an exhausted release of breath, she retrieved her laptop and booted it up.
"Hey again possibly-some-future-day viewers. It seems I really know how to pick 'em." She tried an enthusiastic punching motion, but halfway through her eyes were already leaking fresh tears. "As you probably just guessed, I've been kidnapped by my own girlfriend who is currently holding me captive indefinitely."
She chuckled lightly. "So yes: I left the slightly too overbearing and controlling Danny for the—apparently—psychotically controlling Carmilla. In my defense she had a lot of plusses at the time!"
The short girl could be seen staring off camera wistfully for a moment before remembering herself and snapping back to the present.
"Anyway, now I guess I have to figure out how to escape from my own vampire girlfriend. Why does this whole scenario feel like a sleazy erotic novel?"
She then shut off the camera and closed the computer.
"Well one step down: I know who the kidnapper is. Sure, it had to be the person I thought might be the love of my life. Still; making progress Hollis."
The captured girl sat back and started planning from square one again.
Her planning failed to make much progress (or any at all really) by the time she heard the door opening some hours, and a quick nap, later.
"Hey. Since you know everything anyway, I thought I might as well drop off some of your books and junk from back in the dorm room. "
Carmilla emerged into the room again. This time gently lowering a sack to the ground rather than throwing it in.
Laura just glared daggers at her. Her scowl so deep it could possibly have frightened even Perry.
"It's ok, I know you probably aren't ready to talk yet. I just want you to know that even if you don't understand it, I am trying to take care of you. The world is a stupid, cruel, and bitter place. It would love nothing more than to take a wondrous fruit like you and destroy it, just to take pride in knowing that they ruined something truly beautiful."
The darkly gorgeous woman sighed wistfully, looking out the door across the shadowy mountain.
"My mother is essentially an embodiment of all that spite. I can't even fathom in the most horrible and pained places deep within my nightmares what she would do to you. The way she made certain to turn Ell against me rather than just killing her."
She shook her head in sadness and disgust.
"I can't let that happen. I can't let her win. And I need you Laura. You are something truly special, beautiful. An anchor just barely keeping my mind still within the storm of centuries old torment. I'm not ready to go mad yet, like my mothers failed children. Hunted as beasts by self-styled 'vampire slayers' or sealed in tombs by their sane siblings. I had to seal more than one."
She interrupted her speech to look at Laura grimly.
"I see the same look in my eyes that they all bore in my own reflection, at least when I think of losing you."
Laura felt a mix of sadness and anger. On the one hand Carmilla's speech actually began to touch her, she truly felt empathy for her desperate girlfriend and most of all she remembered a time when these long broody speeches actually helped her to fall in love with the tragically romantic vampire. On the other hand she felt a disturbing shiver of revulsion as she only know realized the signs of how disturbed and emotionally dependent her lover was becoming. Know she could only see their history through the lens of what symptom of her lover's growing madness it was displaying at the time.
The smaller girl decided to hold her tongue still.
"I'll visit again soon. Don't worry, even if you never decide you're ready to speak I won't abandon you."
The vampire stood up and left.
Laura had to deal with another days wait.
Her plans of escape always led to the same grim conclusion: If Carmilla could not be talked into letting her go, then it would be impossible for both of them to walk away intact.
The problem was that she couldn't imagine, even now, hurting the vampire. She knew Carmilla still loved her a disturbed way, and that her madness wasn't entirely her fault. If it was just a crazy obsession, that would be one thing, but The Dean had done truly awful things to Carm, things that didn't make this right, but did provide all too clear a reason for her breakdown.
Laura knew she had to set aside her anger and at least make one last try at talking her girlfriend down. So she waited once again, waiting had become something of a habit now. Her computer provided at least one outlet to kill the boredom. She used it to look over past videos, ones from Silas that she still had saved offline, to find hints of how she might reach Carm.
It was an emotional experience, watching her own romance bloom. One that furthered her resolve, both to escape, and do so without anyone getting hurt.
Eventually the time came again. Carmilla entered the cabin silently, holding a bag of supplies. She laid it on the ground, and with a slight nod to Laura wordlessly began to leave.
"Wait Carm." The younger girl spoke up at last. "We need to talk."
The vampire stopped in place and faced her, her expression kept strictly neutral.
"Okay Creampuff. You seemed pretty certain that we had nothing to talk about though."
Laura let out a conciliatory sigh.
"I'm not going to say that I overreacted, you did kidnap me, but I might possibly have reacted better. We did just kill your psychotic mother, and a lot of terrible things have happened to you. So I understand why you reacted poorly. Can we please just try to go back to before? Make things right again?"
Carmilla sniffed as her face took on an expression both amused and sad.
"You were just so recently shouting to anybody who would listen that things were never right here. 'Normal' doesn't work at Silas, Laura. It never did. Nothing changed over night, and I am truly sorry, but if I let you out that door Mother will kill you."
Once again, Laura found herself becoming angry.
"You're just using your fear of the Dean coming back as an excuse for your fear of change. You are afraid of me leaving, that things might not work out as expected, that you might just screw up. If you just dump me in a closet you can always have a Laura around. No need for things like a real, healthy relationship! Just stow her away! You need to actually face your fears. Not of your mother, not of fish monsters, of people. Your fear of actually knowing people."
Carmilla's face was held in a chilling mask of emotionless calm.
"Are you done?" She slowly intoned the words, as if in great difficulty speaking steadily.
Laura found herself unable to respond.
"Good." Carm nodded. "Maybe you should ask Ell how I face my fears? I'm sorry." She mocked. "You can't. Mother killed her. There was Eliza… No? Mother killed her too? Well, if it isn't a pattern emerging. Every time I 'overcome my fears and find the woman I love', Mother kills them. Just maybe, you aren't as special as you think Hollis."
"I seem to be awful special for you to stuff me in here!" The small girl shouted. "Did you ever think to face her together? You yourself admitted that you never told your lovers about being a vampire. I know. I know about the Dean. She can't turn me on you. We just needed to try to escape together, or fight together."
"And the power of love would carry us through!" The vampire bitterly laughed. "What a perfect fairytale world you live in Hollis."
She stood up and opened the door.
"Unfortunately, that isn't the real world. This is going nowhere. I still truly wish it didn't have to be this way Laura. But just try to remember in some small way, that you are alive in here to hate me. Every other soul I've loved has lost that privilege."
She retreated once again into the night.
Laura cursed and punched the floor.
Now it was too late to pretend no one would get hurt.