Ruins || The Vampire Diaries [2]

20. Man on Fire

   As an old Scottish woman, my grandmother believed that she had the blood of Celtic druids running through her veins. When I was born, she prophesied that I was cursed to forever feel pain. She said that I had several riotous past lives with murder, and hate, and blood, and heartbreak. My grandmother stared down at me in my mother's arms, and said that I would experience heartbreak over and over again, because I was cursed with past lives that had done the same thing. My mother had laughed at her, saying that she was too old, that her mind was already wandering from reality. 

   When I was ten, Grandmother Geillis had grabbed me by the arm and told me that I would experience the worst heartbreak of my life when I was older. Being ten, the worst heartbreak I could think of was someone close to me dying. I thought it would have been one of my siblings, maybe my mother or father, her or Grandfather Angus, or maybe the person I would marry. As I thought about it now, I thought that maybe it could have been my unborn child. 

   My hand reached for my stomach as I stared at nothing. I wondered how it would have felt like to feel a kick on my hand, a touch. I wondered how it would feel like to hold my child for the first time, see their face as it looked up at me, inhale that baby smell that all babies seem to have. It was a life I would never be able to have, a life that maybe was the terrible heartbreak my grandmother warned me about when I was ten.

   When I turned fifteen, my grandmother died. The day that she died, I saw her sitting on the chair of my bedroom with a solemn look in her eyes. She was translucent, cold, her voice sounding as if she were covered by a veil. Her ghost warned me about heartbreak once again, just like she had done when I was ten. But, this time, her warning was that my heart would break constantly. I would have a moment of happiness, and then it would be taken away, because I was born to feast on heartbreak and pain. 

   I somehow had daydreams, or whatever the hell they were called, about a life that could have been possible. I was human, I was in a relationship, I had children—I was happy. The strange thing about those daydreams was that it was Damon. I was human with Damon, in a relationship with Damon, had children with Damon—was happy with Damon. In those dreams, I lived in a house with Damon, and I greeted him when he came from work with a kiss, and we spent time with our children, and I saw him read books to our children.

   I told these dreams to Damon, who stared at me with a strange look full of confusion. He said that I was daydreaming, that I was going crazy. I thought the first thing at first, but the strange thing was that they felt real. It was so real that I could actually feel the touch, the kisses, every little thing around me. 

   Then, the Travelers took over Mystic Falls.

   "How is it Travelers are everywhere until you actually need to find one?" a voice asked as the front door opened and closed. Damon was walking in, phone to his ear. "That's what I get for working with the Hardy Boys." He stopped in front of the parlour when he saw me, brows furrowed but still paying attention to the conversation he was having on the phone. "Stefan burned his journals a while ago. He was in a mood. Why?" He pushed the phone slightly away from his ear and mouthed Enzo at me, as if I was wondering who he was talking to. "How'd you hear that? Are you with them right now?" His eyes widened a bit as the other person spoke. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Enzo! You have your murder voice on. I need you to speak very slowly and calmly tell me what the hell the problem is."

   At that moment, I decided to listen in to the conversation.

   "The problem, if you must know, is that my girl Maggie, the one who got away, it turns out that she didn't get away for long. Your ripper of a brother took a big bite out of her neck membrane in the sixties."

   Damon's brows furrowed. "Sixties? Stefan wasn't even—"

   "Got to jet, mate," Enzo said. "Nothing personal, just a bit of revenge, you understand?" The call ended at that moment.