Chapter Six: The Ones Who See
Bonnie woke just before dawn. She hadn't meant to. One moment she was asleep, curled beneath the comfort of thick blankets and dreams of nothing. The next, her eyes were wide open, her heart pounding like something had just screamed—and stopped—just before she could hear it.
Her bedroom was freezing. The candles on her dresser, unlit since yesterday, had melted an inch lower. Her protective circle of quartz and obsidian had shifted—every stone tilted inward.
And the mirror across from her bed… A thin crack had spidered across the bottom edge.
She sat up slowly, pressing a hand to her chest, trying to steady her breathing. This wasn't like before. This wasn't a flicker or a feeling or a brush of energy. Something had moved.
She wrapped herself in a thick sweater, pulled her grimoire from its place beneath her bed, and lit a few candles—small white tapers arranged in a tight triangle around her makeshift altar.
She breathed deep. Steadied her hands and whispered the spell her grandmother taught her when she was nine. "Spirits of peace, spirits of light, let no shadow pass this night. Guard my dreams and shield my mind, let harm and pain be left behind."
The flame nearest her sputtered. Then extinguished.
Bonnie stared at the darkened wick and whispered, "Okay. That's new."
She turned to the old leather-bound journal her Grams had kept—part spellbook, part diary, part warning label for the magical world. She flipped through its pages until she found something she didn't remember reading before. A single half-burned sheet, brittle at the corners. The ink had smudged in places, but the center held: "Not all hauntings are spirits. Some are echoes that grow teeth. Some are made not from death, but from suffering. If it knows your shame, it will wear your skin."
No name. No illustration. Just a faint charcoal smear at the bottom—almost like a handprint. Bonnie swallowed. Whatever was happening to Damon wasn't just magical. It was personal. And if her instincts were right, it wasn't done yet.
Elena leaned against her locker, watching the rain streak down the windows at the end of the hall. The sky was a soft, relentless gray, like the world had forgotten what sunlight felt like. She felt the same way.
Bonnie hadn't said much in her early morning text—just, "I think something's coming." That was it. No details. No jokes. No follow-up. Which made it worse.
Now Elena scanned the halls like something was going to step out of the shadows. And when she saw Stefan approaching, she already knew—before he said a word—that he hadn't slept.
He looked pale. Tense. His hair was slightly messier than usual, his walk slower, more deliberate. His smile didn't reach his eyes.
"Morning," he said, voice quieter than usual.
"Hey," she replied.
He leaned beside her locker, the proximity familiar now. Comfortable. But different.
"Rough night?" she asked gently.
He shrugged. "You could say that."
She waited, but he didn't elaborate.
"Elena—" he started, then hesitated.
She looked up at him. "Yeah?"
"I just… I feel like we got off track. And I'd like to fix that. If we can."
There it was. Soft. Careful. Hopeful. But Elena's heart didn't move.
Not the way it did around Damon. And maybe that was the problem.
She smiled gently. "Stefan, I really like spending time with you. But I don't think we're on the same page."
A pause, then he nodded slowly. "I thought maybe you just needed space."
"I did," she said. "But it wasn't about you. Not really. And now… I think I need to be honest with you. I care about you, Stefan. But I don't think it's ever going to be that kind of thing for us." It hurt her to say it, but it felt honest.
Stefan didn't flinch. He just nodded again. "I appreciate you saying that," he said softly.
She reached out and squeezed his hand. "I don't want this to be awkward."
"It won't be," he said. "I promise."
But as he walked away, she caught the way his shoulders curled inward—just slightly, like something had cracked. She wasn't sure it had anything to do with her at all.
The dream came harder this time. No build-up. No symbols. No warped hallway.
Just violence.
Just pain.
Just Damon—but wearing his skin.
It began with firelight flickering across stone walls. Shadows dancing.
Stefan—no, Damon—stood in the center of a dark room. Shirtless. Blood drying in a smear across his chest. His hands were trembling. His fangs had just retracted. He could feel the leftover burn in his throat. The taste of blood was still thick on his tongue.
There had been a girl. A human. She had cried. And now she was gone.
Voices echoed around him—two, layered over each other. One male, mocking. Cold. Familiar. "You wanted her to scream."
One female, cruel and sultry. "You're learning."
Stefan—Damon—staggered back, hands shaking. "No. I didn't want this."
A mirror appeared where a wall had been and he looked into it and saw both of their faces. Himself. And Damon. Layered. Bleeding in and out of each other.
"You let her do it," the image in the mirror whispered.
And then the scene shifted again.
Now he was standing outside the boarding house, but the sky above was pitch-black—no stars, no moon, just absence. He heard someone sob behind him. He turned.
It was Damon, kneeling on the ground. Barefoot. Shirtless. Covered in dirt and dried blood.
"I told them it was me," Damon said.
Stefan took a step closer.
"I told them it was always me."
"What was?"
Damon didn't look up. "Everything."
And then—his voice changed.
Became younger. Raw.
"It should've been me."
"What should've?"
"Our mother," Damon whispered. "You were the one she loved. You were the one she never touched."
Stefan staggered back.
"I took it," Damon said, voice breaking now. "So she'd leave you alone. I let her hate me."
The world blurred. Cracked. Unraveled like torn fabric.
Stefan gasped and jolted up in bed, heart slamming against his ribs, sweat slicking his chest and back. His sheets were tangled. His pillow was damp. The world around him was quiet—but not still.
Because the question finally came. Loud. Clear. Why do I remember things I never lived?
Bonnie sat cross-legged in the middle of her bedroom floor, the lights off, the door locked, and every curtain drawn.
She'd spent the afternoon gathering what she needed: a black obsidian bowl filled with water, a circle of salt and vervain, and two small sachets—one with Damon's blood on a handkerchief that Stefan had brought her, and one with a single strand of Stefan's hair.
She didn't know which brother was the key so she chose both.
A candle burned low between her knees. The water in the bowl reflected nothing but the flame. Bonnie took a breath and dropped the sachets into the bowl one by one. The water rippled, then stilled.
She whispered the incantation.
"Show me what hides in shadow.
Show me the place their dreams can't hold.
Show me what doesn't belong."
The flame flickered and the room dropped ten degrees. Then the surface of the water turned black. At first, she saw nothing. Then—eyes.
Not Stefan's.
Not Damon's.
Eyes with no color at all.
Wide. Watching.
The water hissed, and Bonnie gasped as the image changed— A flash of Damon's face, screaming silently, but his mouth was filled with blood. A woman's voice echoed: "You always come back to me."
Then a child's sobbing. Then Stefan—curled on the ground, shouting Damon's name.
Then…
A tall shape. Something shadow-born. Faceless. It was standing behind Damon with its hands pressed to his shoulders. And Damon just sat there. Still. Unmoving. Like it had always been there.
Bonnie's body seized. Her breath locked in her throat. Her hands went numb.
She tore herself out of the trance, the bowl spilling water across the floor as she scrambled backward, heart racing.
She barely whispered, voice hoarse and cracking: "They're not just haunting him…" A beat. "They're living inside him."