White Blood | Klaus Mikaelson

SPECIAL CHAPTER - AFTER EVERYTHING, THIS IS THE END

   KLAUS MIKALESON COULD PAINT thousands of canvases red with the blood he had spilt over the years he lived. He could be the one who had created the Plague of Blood in Egypt, painted the river red like the stroke of a paintbrush. His hands had been permanently stained red, and those that loved him—as surprising as that was—could see it every moment he raised them. Paradise was never a thought in his mind.

   Yet, there he stood.

   The grand forest before him felt like pure spring, with flowering trees all around him and the scent of apples in the air. There was a gentle breeze that rustled the green leaves, the distant sound of water passing between rocks. Everything was unfamiliar, yet there was a calmness in his chest that he had not felt in so long. He felt human.

   Klaus took a step forward and everything crashed into him at once. A tsunami of thoughts that ravaged him apart like a beast, the countless torments that not only had gone through but those that had gone through by his hand. Their blood stained his fingers a brilliant ruby, their screams combined with his made him feel as if he were in the centre of a tornado. All of the sound made him grip the earth and dig his fingers into it, but it was futile. It was his own pain that made him feel so alive—so human.

    "Niklaus!"

      "Brother!" Klaus gasped in pain, his hand reaching out to the one who called his name. "Brother, help me!"

   A hand fell on his shoulder. "Take deep breaths, Niklaus. These are just thoughts, none of them are real."

   Klaus tried to take heed of the words, but every moment of the last thousands years cane to his mind like a catastrophic fire. It swallowed him whole. He tried his hardest to let the thoughts smother into a simple flame, not a wildfire that burned down everything around him. Moment after moment, another fire that burned brightly like the grand flames of a bonfire back when he was human. He remembered the laughter and the countless drink that left his head pounding, the yells of joy as they celebrated harvest. He focused on that. The scent of wood burning bright, the taste of honey bread and mead, the feeling in his fingertips as they brushed against the wooden table and the sound of laughter as he bantered with his siblings.

   Slowly, the feeling came back to the tip of his fingers and the tip of his toes. The pain was barely there, a flutter of the past that he thought of a few moments in his lifetime. It took him a while longer to realise that he had been speaking to his brother, that he was not alone. He looked up.

   Elijah knelt before him, his head tilted to the side. "Are you okay now?"

   "Elijah..." Klaus spoke his name in utter surprise. "What are you doing here?"

   Elijah laughed. "What am I doing here? I've been here for some time, Niklaus. It's I that should be asking that question."

   "What do you mean?"