I used to be human, I used to have a mother and a father to take care of us, I used to have a simple, uneventful life and the truth is I miss it more than anything in the world. I should have grown old, married and had children…I should have died in order for others to live but the truth is I didn't, no matter how hard I tried. I have 3 brothers; two of them are older than me- Klaus and Elijah- and one younger named Kol. Our parents were peasants and they worked really hard to put food on the table each day…it was not easy but we managed, as long as we were together, anything else mattered little. But as any other good thing, there must be an end- some sort of ripple effect was created and my mother fell ill with a disease we knew nothing of so it was impossible for us to treat it and she died. We prayed every night for a miracle to happen but when the end came we lost any faith in God and some of us lost their selves in the process. The pain and loneliness captured my father's body and it practically suffocated the life out of him until all was left was a human shell; he went mad with grief and after one year of confusion, he decided to follow our mother into wherever she was headed by taking his own life. Klaus found him in the woods later that day- he had hanged himself by a tree, putting an end to his misery but not to ours. He never was a good dad and after mom passed away he just forgot about us, left us to take care of each other; but even though we had food and a shelter we never found a way to heal our broken hearts because you don't recover after watching your father commit suicide, taking the easy way out and leaving us to deal with the heartache and desperation of not being able to change a thing…
We mourned them for the rest of our human lives, coping with the loss and wondering what could have been if life wasn't such a bitch to us. Klaus never got over it; he always looked up to father and wanted to make him proud so you can imagine what it did to him to see his lifeless body hanging in mid air by the big, white oak that had been there for as long as the planet itself.
One day, like usual, Kol and I stayed home to prepare dinner while our brothers went to hunt. I was only seventeen and little brother was 2 years younger so he was not ready to wield a crossbow into the wild forest filled with beasts. While Elijah and Klaus were following their pray, a horrible accident happened and it changed who we were- one moment of distraction and the need to kill in order to bring food back to us- drove my brother to aim at the wrong target which turned out to be a young woman covered in the skin of a deer…they did their best to save her but the damage had been done, her left lung had been pierced by the arrow and they could not stop the bleeding so she died; but before she took her last breath, she cursed my brothers and I into becoming the monsters we are today. Apparently she was a powerful witch and was running from the town's people who were planning on burning her alive because she possessed the gift of magic. Well, at that time it was considered more like a curse; but even though it was all a horrible misunderstanding and no one was to blame, she blamed us, the entire family so she put a spell on us. We had no idea what was happening until it was too late to do a thing about it…we died in our sleep that night and woke up to a very different world.
A world where we were no longer weak but strong, our vision and hearing were ten times better, we could run at inhumanly speed and hunt down even the deadlier beasts without getting even a scratch on our bodies… we healed miraculously and our smell did not betray our needs. But it was two days later that we discovered it wasn't a gift but a curse. We came across a small village, south from our home and when the smell of human blood hit our nostrils we became savage beasts, drinking their life essence until nothing was left but cold bodies on the ground. The horror of it all hit us only in the morning, after the monster had gone to sleep, happy and satisfied with the murders he had done. From that day on, animal blood was no longer an option and many, many lives were taken because of one dead witch. We tried killing each other in so many ways because none of us wanted this type of life, solitude, guilt and remorse soon started creeping their way into our dead hearts. Needless to say nothing worked, we were invincible, immortal, and no one could stop us from being the creatures of darkness that would always visit them in their worst nightmares.
We all gave in to the bloodlust, feeding the monster blood in order to survive, killing anyone that stood in our way or crossed path with us…until it got better; we got better at controlling the hunger, the need. We no longer had to kill in order to feed but we still did, it brought an indescribable power and satisfaction with it- we had the world at our feet and we planned to do anything we wanted to it, regardless the consequences…
We found the switch and shut the emotions off; we drowned the sounds our victims were making while they provided blood to feed our addiction and we no longer cared. Why should we care…no one cared about us before, not God when he took our mother away, not her when she left us and more importantly not our father when he decided he had nothing to live for anymore and chose death over his own children. So we killed, slaughtered, terrorized the world for the longest of time, until it became unbearable and we separated, each one following his own path in life, but no matter how hard we tried, the bloodlust would forever keep up with our running and held us prisoners…
I have no idea how I managed to tell them the whole story without breaking apart right in front of them… it was not something I did, revealing my past and my emotions. I drank the whole bottle of bourbon out of 3 swings, trying desperately to drown my pain so it would not surface to the exterior but the broken looks I saw staring at me from the Salvatore brothers almost did the trick and I felt a tear running down my cheek but before anyone could comment I wiped it away, and with her the sadness…
I was beginning to feel a pleasurably buzz from the alcohol and it got easier to look at them without wanting to scratch my eyes out…they had yet failed to say anything but from where I stood it seemed like they wanted to hug me and kiss the pain away.
"So there you go; the story of how your ancestors came to life. No need to be s ad about it, it's not all black and white; there are some shades of grey. However I had 1145 years to get used to the truth…" I started pacing the living room, suddenly feeling like in a cage with no way out, cornered by my catchers. "Also, if I was not an Original, I could not have met the great Cesar, or Cleopatra; what about Hitler- he was a terrible man, I remember I scared the shit out of him before he died. I got to learn so much from Joanne of Arc, Louis XIV or Abraham Lincoln and so many others. I saw the world from every corner no matter what season and I watched civilization evolve into what it is today- those are some of the perks of being as old as I am…"
"I'm sorry…" I watched Damon with interest, trying to figure out where he was heading with this, hopefully not to an emotional moment, I could not take more of those. "I'm sorry for what happened to you and your brothers…it wasn't fair." Even though I was expecting to hear it, I was not ready for the honesty in his tone. He really meant it…
"You really mean it, don't you?" He was uncomfortable to say it but he did anyway and in that moment I realized saving Damon will not be a hard task…
"Yes, I do. It was cruel and I am very sorry you had to go through all that."
I watched Stefan, he looked like he wanted to say something to make it all better but he refrained at the last moment. I guess expressing his feelings was not something he did very often…so I put it aside and it made me want to break through to him all the more.
"Thank you. It means a lot…" I smiled at him to reassure him and he responded with a sincere smile, the first one I have seen since meeting him. "But I remember we were playing a game and it is my turn to ask the questions, is it not?"
I took my place on the couch after taking another drink from the bar. This night required a lot of alcohol and I was all for getting drunk in the company of two handsome vampires…
"Stefan, why do you treat people like that? Why play with them, kill them and rip them into pieces after? Who screwed you up so badly? "I already knew who had turned them but I had no idea if she was the reason they were like this.
He threw me a warning look as in to say 'You don't want to go there…' but I did. I wanted to go the whole way…
"I don't want to talk about it…"
"Common Stefan, I know nothing about you yet you know almost everything about me. I believe I have earned the right to ask you this, have I not?" I knew I was testing deep waters but I needed to do this, to break through his shield and warm my way into his heart.
"Alright…I kill because I like it, okay? Just like you said, it gives me a sense of power and control, and that's something I did not have when I turned. I did not want to be this monster, I still don't…but I did not get a say in it. I…I rip people because that's how I am, broken in pieces, just like my victims, and it gives me some sick comfort to know I'm not the only one…to know I can do it to others just like she did it to me."
He threw the empty bottle into the fireplace and that was the first time I saw humanity in him and it made me feel proud of him. He wasn't that gone after all; he was hurt and angry and all those feelings were making him vulnerable. I wanted to pick up the shattered pieces of his heart and glue them together until you could not tell his soul was ever broken.
"It's okay to be angry. I know the feeling all too well, I've been there. I went through the same thing and it took me centuries to amend my broken heart. But I did it in the end. I saved my humanity and I'm not going to let you lose yours. You deserve better, both of you do, and I'll be there to make that happen. I will heal your wounds and help you live again, even if it's the last thing I do…"
They were both speechless after my outburst and most of all they were both confused.
"Why would you do that, why save us? We did nothing to deserve your kindness…"
"I have nothing better to do and, in a way, I'm saving myself by making up for all the pain I caused to others. I will fight for you because you are worth fighting for and whoever says otherwise is a big, fat liar." My blood boiled thinking of all the bad things that happened to my poor boys, all the heartbreak they went through…"The question is: do you want to be saved? Do you want to feel again?"
They searched for a meaning in my eyes, an ulterior motive or something to tell them if I was stall playing games but when they found only sincerity in them, they really started worrying… could they turn the switch on after all the horrible things they've done?
"We'll see…"
It was Stefan's answer and it was better than nothing. I could work with the hope I saw behind his cold front; I will day by day dig into his walls of protection and discover that big heart of his that he keeps under lock. Because the Salvatore brothers had been once the sweetest men you could ever encounter…it would be a shame to let the monster take them away, right?
"We'll see…" I retorted with the biggest smile plastered on my face. Damon was smiling too, but at his brother for showing signs of remorse and for wanting to get better. The truth was he never agreed to what his brother did but he loved him that much- that he never argued the way he did things…