Ruins || The Vampire Diaries [2]

09: Graduation

   Back in 1997, I was very good friends with a witch named Helen Otto. At the time that I met her, she was twenty-two, loved to laugh, and was practising a very old kind of magic she had read about in one of the books her mother passed down to her. Arcane magic, as Helen and her mother liked to call it, was poorly understood. Even though the word arcane means known or understood, that branch of magic was very poorly understood even by those born with the powers. That kind of magic was came from reaching into a realm outside our typical reality. Their talents, from what I have read, was disturbing. The ability to manifestation of creatures, the ability to bind something found in the arcane realm to the human host with the purpose of giving new magic powers. It sort of reminded me of Bonnie when she was under Professor Shane's influence.

   Helen Otto tapped into arcane magic, into one of the darkest kinds of magic in the world. She became someone I didn't know, a new person that found the opposite of what she enjoyed repulsing. To save her, to stop her from torturing both herself and the people in the room, I pulled her heart out of her chest. The magic stop, peace spread around the room, and I was surrounded by eight dead bodies, one of them being my very good friend Helen Otto. It was the first time I ever killed someone for mercy, the hundredth time I felt horrible for a murder I had done.

   After being knocked out by her when I left The Grill, I woke up tied to a chair and my arms burning. I came to realise that the ropes that burned were soaked in vervain, something which made me both angry and groan out in pain. Each movement made the ropes burn just a bit more, just enough to draw blood and cover my clothes in red. I threw my head back and shut my eyes as tight as I could to stop myself from crying.

   "What is it that you want, Helen?" I panted, opening my eyes to stare at flickering light that swung on the ceiling.

   Someone laid a hand on my shoulder, and it burned. I screamed out as the hand stayed there, its nails digging into the back of my shoulder. The owner of the hand laughed. "Oh, Clara, it's been too long."

   "What do you want?" I cried, glaring at her. 

   "Isn't it obvious?" she asked, finally pulling her hand away. "I want to give you a lot of pain. I've been watching you for quite some time and I've come to learn that your life is already a pain in the ass. I mean: loving two boys, being a dopplegänger, taking care of another dopplegänger that is such a pain in the ass, all while pretending to be human. Tell me, Clara, is it fun pretending to be human when you have killed so many innocent people?" There was a grin around her lips, wide, a teasing one. "The only other vampire that is just as bad as you at being human us that hottie with the hero hair. You know, the other brother, the one you're sleeping with now. Stefan, right? Ugh, so cute!"

   I rolled my eyes and tightened my grip on the arms of the chair so I would stop crying. "What do you want, Helen?"

   "To make you suffer!" she hissed. She appeared in front of me, her hands tightening on my wrists, nails digging into my skin, nostrils flaring in anger. "You killed me, Clara. I thought we were good friends."

   "You were insane," I softly said. "You were killing innocent people."

   "Sort of like you," she smirked. "You've killed so many innocent people, Clara, just like I have. So, doesn't that mean that you should die, too?" She pulled away and strutted around me, keeping her hands behind her back. "I'd love to kill you; the problem is that you'd find peace if I do. So, me and my new friends are going to drag this on for a long, long time."

   "Friends?" I asked, swallowing hard. At that moment, I was scared. My hands shook and it felt like my heart was right at my throat.

   Helen smirked. "Oh, you know, just every vampire, witch, and werewolf you have ever killed." She giggled, like she were enjoying it. "That's a lot of people, Clara. A lot of pain. Trust me, we're going to have so much fun together." She walked back to the table at the corner of the room and picked up a cellphone, my cellphone. She leaned against the table and waved it in the air. "To be honest, these new phones are so much better than the ones in 1997. Remember then? Big and bulky and didn't fit in your pocket. They only had three games, a calculator, clock and calendar, and it also worked as a pager. Now, this thing is ten times better: a computer right on the palm of my hand."