Bad Blood || The Vampire Diaries [1]

08: Elijah

    "Who are you?"

   "My name is Elijah, and I am here to help you."

   "I don't need any help."

   The man laughed and looked around, slightly spreading his hands to show the carnage surrounding me. "You do," he chided. "If you didn't you would not be destroying towns. Look at that pile of bodies, Clara. As the pile gets bigger, so will your pain."

   "How do you know my name?"

   "That's a story for another time." The man, Elijah, walked to me and laid his hands on my cheek. He made me look into his eyes, which resembled burning ember due to the fire dancing around us. "Create a place in your mind to put your victims. Close them behind a red door and forget. Clean yourself up after every kill, look immaculate, and you'll never have to think of the pain again."

   I woke up to the sound of police and ambulance sirens. The sirens echoed around the room, and stayed longer than usual due to my vampire hearing. I sat up to look around, and noticed that I was thrown on a bed. The sheets were soft like silk, comfortable like a cloud. The only thing that illuminated the room was a small lamp to the other side and the open window. By the open window stood a man, his back to me. I stood up and pushed myself back, the wall being the only thing that stopped me from speeding out of the room.

   "You don't have to be afraid of an old friend," the man said, not turning around. Slowly, he turned.

   I gasped and pushed myself closer to the wall. "You... You died! I saw Damon stab you!"

    "You thought a mere coat rack would kill me?" he chuckled. "Come on, Clara. You should know better than that. After all, you spent more than half of your vampire life with me."

   I calmed down as he spoke. His voice had the effect of Ashwaganda tea; he promoted a general sense of well-being. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I went with him in the first place. I tilted my head to the side and took calculated steps to him. One could never be too careful around Elijah, around the original vampire.

   "You look so clean," I muttered, mostly to myself. "You always looked so clean."

   He pushed his hands to his pockets and tilted his head slightly to the right as he stared at me. It was as if he were trying to read my mind, to decipher the last fifteen years where I wasn't with him. And suddenly, I didn't remember why I left. I remembered living in New Orleans with Elijah as he taught me about being a vampire, but every other figure I tried to remember was a silhouette. There were parts of my memory that were as vague as the Barnum effect.

   "Why did I leave?" I asked him, frowning.

   "You tell me," he said before taking a sip from his glass. "You left in the middle of that disaster, Clara. The first time I heard from you since then was last night, when you saved that dopplegänger."

   "I said that I would protect her," I said, brushing my fingers against the wooden table that kept the bottle of whatever alcohol he was drinking. "It's noble to keep my word, you taught me that."

    Elijah smiled softly and nodded with the rim of the glass still on his lips. He drank what was left on the glass. "I've taught you many things, Clara. Keeping your word is one of them." He walked to the table I stood by and poured himself a bit more of the alcohol. "What have you been up to for the past fifteen years?"

   "I travelled," I answered. Elijah had something in him, just like Stefan did, that allowed me to tell him everything. Plus, it would be a bad idea to lie to the man that helped me.