Hey everybody :) so this is the last part of the sacrifice, and I would say that it's a doozy! It's also twice as long as normal, so hopefully that will make up for such short updates the last few weeks! So here we go, the beginning of the end (which won't end for a while, just to let you know)!
Elena was alive.
She didn't know how. It felt like she'd died a second earlier. Looking frantically around the clearing, she realized that the once fire-lit area had become one with the night. Chest heaving and eyes adjusting, she didn't even realize the stark quiet until she felt a pair of strong hands shaking her. Her body spun towards the opposite side of the forest, and realized that Stefan and Damon were kneeling directly next to her. Their mouths were moving, and she was sure that they were saying something—but her sense of hearing seemed to have taken a vacation for a moment until she could tell what they were saying.
"Elena..." Stefan exclaimed, but it came out as a whisper to the confused doppelganger, "Elena…"
She looked him directly in the eyes, and watched as he turned to Damon. But she could barely make out a word they were saying. Was this what it felt like to transition?
"Elena!" Stefan exclaimed, and finally Elena heard more than a whisper. "Elena! How do you feel?"
She looked down at herself, and suddenly realized that she had to complete the transition if she had any hope of taking down Klaus, who was currently unconscious at the base of a large pine tree. "Fine… I think…" she whispered, but began frantically searching her pockets for the small vial of blood she had collected earlier.
"What is that?" Elena heard Stefan ask loud and clear, but she simply looked up at him with a knowing glance. Stefan nodded his head and leaned back, watching Elena unscrew the top to the flight-sized Jack Daniel's bottle.
Looking at the two brothers, she sighed. "Bottom's up."
She tipped the bottle up perpendicular to the forest floor, and drank a mouth full of her blood. But instead of relishing in the taste as she had expected, she rolled it around in her mouth experimentally. Was it okay? Did she like it? How did she feel?
Quickly realizing the answer to her internal questions, she spun around a wretched up the blood that was supposed to complete her transition—disgusted at the taste. Stefan and Damon sat, shocked, as she attempted to remove the taste from her mouth to no avail.
Looking down at the floor, Elena began to shake her head, mumbling incoherent phrases as the Salvatore brothers looked on helplessly. "I don't understand. How is this possible? Shouldn't I like blood? I'm supposed to be transitioning!"
Stefan looked like he was trying to figure everything out, also. "I don't know, Elena. Nothing like this has ever happened before."
"How do you feel?" Damon asked, repeating Stefan's earlier question. Looking down at the half-full bottle of blood still in her hands, she flexed her fingers and gripped down lightly on the bottle. However, the pressure she exerted was enough to shatter the vial into thousands of tiny crystals. She gasped, realizing that all was not as it seemed—in other words, she didn't seem to be a vampire, but there was definitely something going on.
She frantically tried to stand up, and realized all too quickly that there was indeed something amiss. It seemed as though she had super-speed—which was impossible unless she was a vampire….that didn't drink blood? Elena's confusion was evident on her face as well as Stefan's and Damon's, so she decided to test herself. Sure enough, she ran across the clearing at record speeds to grab a huge, dead white-oak tree branch. Weighing it in her hands, she brought her arm back and tossed the limb at the opposite tree—only to have the branch break into shards of wood perfect for a camp fire.
"What the hell…?" all three of the conscious beings said nearly in unison. Elena glanced down at the blood on her hands from when she broke the glass. The way she took it, if she were transitioning there was absolutely no way she would be able to stand still and lick every drop of blood off of her palms. And yet, she felt no hunger, no thirst, towards the red, viscous fluid painting her hands.
"I don't understand what's going on," Elena stated, quickly walking back over to the boys, "I'm not a vampire, but I have the powers that a vampire has. How is that possible?"
"I don't know, Elena," Stefan answered honestly, still stunned by the turn of events. Gently holding her wrist, he felt her pulse—strong as ever. Elena was human. He never thought she would make it out alive—of course, who knew how long this would last?
Suddenly, Klaus groaned and stirred at the bottom of the tree. Elena spun to face her killer, and began to breathe erratically as she watched his eyes slowly open. As soon as Elena and Klaus's eyes met, he was on his feet—years of power allowing him to heal instantaneously. "Impossible…" he muttered, confusion and awe written on his face, but his emotions swiftly switched to anger as he realized his predicament. "The curse…You ruined it. You ruined everything!"
The furious original sped to the opposite side of the clearing, but Elena was already gone. Klaus spun on his heel, and found her standing over 100 feet away from him, with Stefan and Damon on the edge. "How…? Why am I not changing? I killed you; I killed a vampire; I killed a werewolf! I did everything they told me!" Klaus screamed to no one in particular as he punched the tree nearest to him.
"And you! How can you be so fast? If anything, you should be a vampire!" Klaus yelled at Elena, but she saw a flicker of shock across his face. "No…no, they said it wasn't possible. Sacrificial power? No, no—it's impossible!" Klaus whispered, and Elena wondered if the curse had taken away his sanity. He seemed to be more frazzled and psychotic than normal—but that was understandable, since the spell he'd been trying to break for over 1,000 years remained unbroken.
Suddenly, he was standing in front of Elena, and she could feel the anger and fury rolling off of him. His hand was grasping her throat so hard that she couldn't breathe, and she felt the world spinning around her as he growled at her. "You don't deserve to live. You destroyed everything I've wanted for over a millennia. I'm going to finish off the job that the curse should have accomplished 10 minutes ago—and then the damned Petrova line will be gone forever!"
Elena's eyes widened in fear, and she realized she didn't want to die. And she wasn't going to let him kill her after everything she'd been through—she wasn't going to waste John's sacrifice. Elena's fear turned into determination and she knew that she couldn't let the bastard kill her—she wouldn't.
As his hand tightened around her, intending to suffocate her, she reached up and grabbed his fist. She easily pulled his fingers from her throat, and shoved him to the ground. "I don't deserve to live? You've killed more people than you can count. You've destroyed thousands of lives, and don't even blink at their pain. You don't deserve to get what you want. You don't deserve to live. And I'm sure as hell not going to prevent you from getting what you deserve after years of torturing innocent lives."
Elena's anger was escalating as she picked Klaus up and launched him into a tree across the lawn. "They're humans, Elena. They mean nothing to me," Klaus griped at the girl.
Grasping him tightly by his throat, she sped over and slammed him into the tree as he had done to her just seconds before. "They were innocent people! And you destroyed their lives—just like you destroyed mine!" Elena screamed in his face as her vision took on a red hue. "I lost a friend! Jenna, John—they were the only family I had left! And you got them killed! All to break some stupid curse that would let you kill even more people!"
Her anger blinded her to his sudden shove, and she found herself lying on the ground gasping for breath. She looked around for Klaus, and found the clearing completely empty. Suddenly, she heard Klaus's accent from behind her. "You're right. I'm the reason you lost your family—and I won't hesitate to do it again."
Elena spun towards the voice, and gasped as she found Klaus with Stefan in a choke-hold. Part of her noticed Damon's struggling body staked to the tree behind Klaus, but her focus was solely on the love of her life in her killer's hands. She took a step forward, and Klaus wrenched Stefan back further. "Take one more step and I rip his head off. You think you can take me down, girl? You're weak. And I'm a 1,000 year old vampire that could destroy every living thing in this forest in 10 minutes. So you're going to let me fix this curse, and maybe I won't kill everyone you care about—starting with your boy-toy, here."
Elena quickly realized that she could lose another person she cared about. Thinking, she realized that taking the nice route of going with whatever her threatener said had never worked for her—so she decided to threaten Klaus, just as he had chosen to do to her. "Clearly, I'm not some weak little girl, Klaus, seeing as though I almost killed you without batting an eye less than two minutes ago. So let, Stefan go, and maybe I'll let you live."
Klaus's astonishment at her stubbornness made him pause for a moment—but it was just long enough for Elena to throw Stefan into the forest, grasp a large shard of wood she'd previously thrown, and ram it into Klaus's chest cavity.
"You missed," Klaus gasped through his pain, but his eyes grew in size as he saw a determined—and very Petrova-esque—expression flit across her face
"Don't worry—I won't again. You've caused so much pain, and I can't let you cause any more. Goodbye, Klaus."
And with those final words, Elena shoved her hand into his chest, ripping his heart out, and ending the original's life once and for all. Her eyes scanned the clearing, seeing all of the death and destruction surrounding her—the terror that she had caused simply by being born. All she could see was blood—her blood on Klaus's lips, John's blood on Klaus's hands, Klaus's blood on her hands—it all came back to Klaus. She killed Klaus.
She vaguely heard Damon's grunt in the background as he healed from the stake Stefan had removed earlier, Elena she couldn't respond. She couldn't move. She couldn't think. She couldn't sense anything around her. All she could do was feel; feel the loss of her friends and family, the loss of her innocence—of her sanity. The pain she was experiencing weighed on her so much that she fell to her knees under the pressure, tears rolling down her face and body shaking from the intense agony.
A pair of strong, loving hands slipped under her arms, leading her out of the forest and away from the bodies, but she couldn't stop seeing them—Jules, Maddox, her father, and Klaus, the man that she had just killed with her own hands. She was in shock—but it was so much more than that. The months of fear, pain, and sorrow had finally gotten to her, and as she was gently placed into the back seat of a car, black spots began to fill her vision—and she gladly accepted the darkness, hoping that unconsciousness would take away the pain.
It didn't.
Okay, so this is the darkest part of Elena's journey, so far. I know, I know-she's freaked out a lot in the story, but I'm pretty sure this is the last time. And the biggest. But who can blame her? She just killed someone after she watched pretty much her entire family die, so I think I'd break down, too! And see, I wasn't lying about this update being longer than normal! It was almost 1,900 words, and then my note is really long, today (but you guys will get to that. HA. I make myself laugh-I don't read author's notes, either!). But anyways, I hope you guys understood what was going on, and how Elena was feeling. If not, I'd love to hear how I can fix it. And if you thought it was good, I'd love to hear! Feedback is love, people, so read and review!
-kiki :)
ps: Let's see. This week's episode gets a 7.5 in my opinion. Not much really seemed to happen (which makes sense, since it's a flashback episode), but it was still exciting to watch :) Elena and Matt's scene in the kitchen was adorable (and tear-jerking!) because she finally admitted what everyone already knew-she originally liked Stefan because he couldn't die like everyone else seemed to. ORIGINALLY. As in, that was the initial appeal, not the only reason she still loves him! And I thought Damon was on his game! The episode made me laugh more than normal, which was nice since it seems to never have enough comic relief! It was a good episode, and the twist with Alaric at the end was awesome! I totally didn't see that coming, and yet I still can't seem to trust Meredith (which is sad, because I loved her in the books!)
pps: I just read the most recent book-The Hunters: Moonsong. It was great, for anyone who wants something to read :) I mean, it wasn't L.J. Smith, but the ghost writer didn't do too shabby of a job! Oh, and I have a question for you all. If everybody knows that the book is written by a ghost writer, is it still a ghost writer? Questions I ponder...
ppss: OHMYGOD! I was watching the Paleyfest interview, and Julie Plec said that they were debating having an Elena flashback episode! Guys, this is big. I have been waiting for this for almost 3 years now! And it seems very plausible-I mean, COME ON! They're trying to bring Matt and Elena back together, they're rebuilding Wickery Bridge, and they keep having these moments where Elena remembers stuff about her mom and dad. It would fit perfectly, and it would make me sooooo happy! IF THEY DON'T DO THIS EPISODE, I'M GOING TO SCREAM!
ppsss: sorry this author's note is so long, but I get so pumped up about this show! :) oh, and to reiterate my above point, THEY'D BETTER DO A FLASHBACK EPISODE TO ELENA'S PAST! That is all. By, everybody :)