This book is based and inspired by the Originals, with a tinge of the Vampire Diaries. I suggest that you watch the shows to understand some occurrences.
All rights go to The Originals television show on the CW, and Lisa Jane Smith (the author), except the characters and events that are purely of my imagination. PLEASE DO NOT COPY, OR ELSE YOU'LL BE REPORTED.
I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT IF ANYONE IS COPYING SECTIONS FROM THIS BOOK THAT ARE OF MY INVENTION, PLEASE TAKE ACTION.
(EDITED)
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The song of the chapter is: Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Miley Cyrus
Though it's been a while now
I can still feel so much pain
Like a knife that cuts you the wound heals
but that scar, that scar remains.
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CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE ― OF MONSTERS AND MEN
I TAKE IN A lungful of air, coughing laboriously. A sharp pain slices through my side, and I lean over the bed, vomiting into a red bucket. Shivering slightly, I fall back on to my mattress with a dulled thump.
Hayley comes into my view, her eyes crinkling in worry. She places the back of her hand to my forehead before snatching it back, her worry rising by a tenfold. "You're hot!"
"I know I am. It was only a matter of time until you agreed with me." I grin weakly. Hayley shoots me a glare, crossing her arms. "Melissa, be serious. You're dying." It's my turn to dispatch a glare to her. "God, woman. You need to work on your bedside manners." I snap.
"Melissa, you're not an Original. Elijah will eventually heal, yes, but you won't." Hayley voices. I crease my eyebrows harshly, gritting my teeth. I whip my head sharply as I turn to her, sitting up on my elbows. "You think I don't know that? Some werewolf or hybrid bit me." I stress my words. "I know that I'm going to die. So stop rubbing it in my face."
"I'm not rubbing it into your face ―"
"Yes, you are. And why do you suddenly care any more, hmm?" I pause before barrelling on. "You certainly didn't care when we talked about your baby yesterday. In fact, you only started talking to me when we were kidnapped. Tell me, how much does this friendship mean to you?" I didn't know why I was speaking like this. It seems like dying brought out my mean side.
Hayley appears lost for words, and I decide to end this conversation, this exhausting conversation we've had countless times, which never resolved our problems. If anything, it made our situation worse by going round and round in circles. "You're a liar to me. But what's worse is that you're a hypocrite, which I cannot stand. I won't take this any more. I'm done trying." I turn my head in towards my pillow, breathing heavily.
After a few moments of tense silence, I hear her chair scrape the floor, and her footsteps grow fainter as she leaves the cabin. I close my eyes, trying to catch my energy; whatever I had left of it. "Maybe I deserve to die." I sniff softly, remembering the nightmare I had a few minutes back which sent cold fingers trailing down my spine.
I had not thought of that night in a long time. I never forgot, I just did not think about it, I suppose. Apparently even with werewolf venom in my veins, the guilt did not stifle. I felt it in force, and I clap a hand hastily to my mouth to stop the sobs.
"Mellie . . ."
"You're beginning to hallucinate." Elijah speaks up from the bed beside mine. "Aren't you?" I ask weakly. "Of course I am. But I'll heal. You won't." I shut my eyes, pursing my lips. "You're just an incessant pair, are you not?"
"What did you see?" Elijah asks after a few moments of silence. I turn around and catch his curious gaze as I pull the white bedsheets up to my shoulders. We share a tiny look, before I break it. I might as well tell him. I was going to die soon, might as well get all the crap off my chest. I focus my stare onto the dusty ceiling and inhale.
"Emmanuel." I let Elijah in.
There. A tense laconism falls into a hush around us. Elijah shifts on his own bed, staring at the ceiling, like I was. "Emmanuel." He mutters. "It's been a while since I've thought of him." I rub my hands, trying to create some warmth before letting them fall to my sides. "I miss him." I whisper. "But in a way, it's good that he isn't here." Elijah turns his head once more to send a question to me. I don't look back at him, before murmuring softly.
"I don't want him to see the monster I've become."
"You know," Elijah speaks up after a while. "My brother, Niklaus, has quite the reputation for being a monster. He kills anything that gets in his way without regret. We wait for his redemption; a redemption that might come in the form of his child." Elijah pauses, coughing mildly.
"Sometimes I truly believe that my goal is unreachable, because of his violent tendencies, but then I see a glimmer of humanity in his eyes, a certain . . . vulnerability. His protectiveness over his child. And, somehow, Rebekah and I still stand by him. You know why?"
I don't reply, fingering the edge of the bed sheet thoughtfully. "Because we're family, and that's what family does." Elijah answers. At this, I turn my body slowly to face his, leaning on my arm. "Emmanuel is your family. He might be gone, but he still lives in your heart. And if his essence still resides within you, then you're not a monster because you still know how to love. I know this, because I see the way you still look at my brother."
I pause, catching the honesty in his brown eyes. I don't know what to say ― I know what I feel, yet I don't know how to express it to Elijah. I mean, what can you say to something like that?
"We are of monsters and men. It's onerous not to get anchored down to the churning abyss that is lost hope, but we have to live with it all the same, because that is what we are."
I get what he means. The monstrosity that is my vampirism consumes me, like an eclipse veiling the sun. And sometimes, the darkness is titanic and I can't find the light as I grasp through my tunnel of despair. But then there is the human, the one that still and always will love Niklaus Mikaelson. She is my sanity, the tether that will hold me down in times of madness.
At times, I might lose hold of the rope keeping me in place, but I hope ― I know― that she'll always bring me back, because of love. And that is what keeps me from being a behemoth, because I can love.
A few months ago, I said that being in love makes you weak, vulnerable. And I was right, because it does. Like a canyon, your heart is a chasm, that will hurt and writhe in dolour from the whip lashes inflicted by love. But the scars that remain are what make you stronger, because they are what keep you human.
"Thank you, Elijah," I sussurate, "thank you."
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Shakily, I walk backwards, one hand reaching out to a nearby tree to prevent me from falling to my knees. I was no stranger to blood, but right now there was so much of it swimming on the ground that it coated all the green. How much blood did humans have?
As the daughter of a renowned Huntsman, there was a clear, cynical region in my head, processing what was happening before me. However, the loving side, the one that Mother made sure I had, shook its head and denied it to the best of her abilities.
Even through the screams, the rationalist in me knows that he can't see me. Hell, I don't even want to see him! He can't know that I saw everything, he just can't.
Crouching, and transferring my weight to the balls of my feet, I pick up my skirts and carefully walk off in the opposite direction. When I'm sure that he can't hear me any more, I let the frightened girl out of her cage and begin to run to the best of my abilities.
Branches tear at my clothes, grabbing at my hair. I growl and cry at the same time as a particularly large tree root makes me fall to the ground, my entire body juddering at the shock. I gather back my breath, and attempt to stand up.
I reach out a hand to grab a branch that looked sturdy enough to pull me up, but instead, a frigid hand grasps mine. A scream lodges in my throat and I snatch it back, leaning as far as I could from him. No, no, no!
"H-how d-did you get here so f-fast?" I rattle, my heart beating wildly like a hummingbird's. He crouches on his legs and reaches out a hand to cup my face. I flinch away immediately at the sight of his blood-stained fingertips. "You're scared of me." He states plainly, a look of wonderment in his blue eyes, that look several shades darker than usual.
I eye him disbelievingly, my mouth twisting. "No fucking shit, I'm scared of you! What the hell did you think would happen?" I shout, letting out a string of profanities that would give my mother a heart attack.
He looks at me calmly, his eyes logical and mathematical. Strangely, this was the worst part. I didn't see any . . . Nik, in him. There wasn't any warm emotion. "I thought that you would believe in our love enough to know that I wouldn't ever hurt you."
I hesitate at his words.
He takes this chance and takes my hand, pulling me up. We share a brief look before he steps forward and captures me in a frosty kiss. I kiss him back, solely by instinct, and his lips are familiar, but at the same time it feels like it's not Nik that I'm kissing. He seems like a stranger, but not a stranger.
I pull back, feeling uncomfortable. His lips tasted metallic, and in my state, it takes a while to realise that it was the taste of blood. My stomach churns at the metallic tang that now resides in my own mouth and I grasp my stomach with one hand, taking precautions before anything started spewing out of my mouth.
I take a step backward, still clutching my stomach in disgust. "You're still scared of me." His voice rises in disbelief. "I would never hurt you, Mel! What can I do to make you understand that?" I let out an unwanted whimper as he embraces me. But I don't feel any spark; it's dead.
I shiver, my teeth rattling with a combination of fear and cold. "My love, I'm sorry you had to see that. I didn't want you to find out that way." He holds my head, forcing me to meet his gaze. "Does Tatia know?" I spit out, a spike of jealousy completely twisting me inside.
"Tatia?" He frowns in puzzlement, completely clueless. "What has she got to do with anything?" My body relaxes, and I nod in relief. "Love, I'm so sorry that I confided in her first regarding Mikael. I wanted to tell you so badly, but I was afraid you'd judge my family and I."
"Weren't you worried about Tatia's judgement?" I can't help but voice spitefully. "I didn't tell you because I actually care about your opinion! It matters to me, and I didn't want you to see me in a different light, or worse, that you'd pity me."
It occurs to me that he never answered my question.
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"Hayley, please. This fever will make me unstable. And once the hallucinations begin, I'll start to see things. You must leave me here." Elijah's voice drips into my consciousness. "I'm not leaving you like this." Hayley responds with determination.
Thanks for the pledge towards me too, sister.
A sharp tongue of heat latches in the depths of my body and I bite my lip, drawing blood. My vision yellowed and pulsed with neon colours like I had just swallowed a couple of hallucinogenic pills, but I force myself to keep any groan to a bare minimum.
I don't want to intrude on their conversation, but I've lived long enough to recognise the symptoms of hunger. "Guys, we have a problem." I wince. "What is it?"
"I'm starting to get hungry."
"So can't you just wait for it to pass?" Hayley stupidly asks. "Have you ever seen the effects of a werewolf bite? Oh, sorry, perhaps you just stayed to deliver the bite but left before the vampire crumbled to insanity." I scoff. "How bad is it?" Elijah cuts in before it gets too heated.
"I'm insatiable."
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I looked around wildly, not wanting to process what I knew happened already. I was not stupid. I knew what it looked like. The feeding, the speed.
The frigidness of their touch.
"You're a Demon of the Night." I whisper. Every single child knew the stories, about how they stole into people trust and then wiped out entire villages in just a few hours. Apparently, however, it wasn't just a story any more.
I did not want to believe it, but I had to; all the signs pointed to the same direction. I had just seen Nik feed from an innocent. Not only that, but I never saw any of the Mikaelsons out in the sun any more.
He takes a step forward and I instinctively take a step backward, stories, fables that weren't fables any more, prancing through my mind, attacking at the gilded cage that nestled my love for the man before me.
If he was still a man.
"I'm not a monster, Mel. I ―" He sussurates. "Really?" I whisper, my soul shattering. My eyes fall to the rips through his shirt, so much blood lathered onto his skin that I could not tell the white from the red. Then there was the darkness, the darkness that ate up his eyes, tossing out the chewed carcass of an inhumane, callous monster. "A man wouldn't kill another just for his blood."
We faced each other, the only thing keeping us apart being air. But there was a barrier, a palisade between me and him that was deeper than a physical state, a blockade that even I knew I couldn't break through. And it broke me, it broke me because I was always the one that could grip him tight and raise him from perdition. But now his perdition was lost to me too. I wasn't the One any more.
The man I loved had dispersed through the rivers of blood that now torrented through his blackened veins.
"That's the thing! You're human!" He suddenly shouts. I stay in my place, suddenly unable to tear my eyes away from his maddened pools of blue. "You don't understand, because you can't see the way I see, hear the things I hear, feel the way I feel. It's beautiful, Mel! It's a whole new world!"
He intertwines a hand with mine but I rip it away, the corners of panic beginning to eat at my vision. "It's a world I want no part of." I announce coldly, before starting to walk away from him, ignoring the branches that tugged at my ruined dress.
"I know about Luke."
I freeze in my steps, my breathing halting. "How ―?" I mutter, spinning around. "This strength, this . . . power, that comes with this blessing is . . . radiant." He mutters with an odd gleam in his eye, "you don't need to listen to your family any more, you have no need to heed your father. You don't need to marry him."
And for one mad moment, for one unhinged second, I sway.
Caliginous streaks of black streak underneath his eyes, like a spider's web, a disease. Smooth, yet bruising fingers push me roughly against a tree and I cry out in pain. I put all my strength in my hands and push against his chest, my heart beating erratically.
"Nik, no! Stop it!" I scream. All I know is terrible fear.
He holds me in place by blocking me with his own body. He raises an arm and bites into his forearm, his eyes gleaming a vicious equilibrium between topaz and ruby. "We can be together forever, now."
He smiles a bloody smile.
"Nik, please don't take this choice away from me, I don't want this life!" I gurgle, as I struggle to get away from this monster. He forcefully drags my chin upwards and jams his arm painfully against my mouth. Tears ooze out of my eyes and I suffocate as the hot blood pours drowningly down my throat, choking me.
That night, two flowers wilted, withered and died.
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A new kind of agony rips through me. He killed me, he killed me and that was it. He was the reason I went with my blood lust and left Emmanuel dead. Rose was right, I shouldn't harbour these kind of feelings for him. People die around Nik, by his hand or not.
But love is love. And like the poison in my veins, I couldn't get rid of it, no matter how hard I tried.
"Elijah, I need his blood." I say. "How do you propose you get it?" He responds after a while, his voice strained with the taint of his memories. "I need to get out from this cabin."
His neck snaps towards me, and he narrows his eyes. "Absolutely not! You're weak and hallucinogenic!"
"Then tell me what I should do!" I throw my hands up. "You're half-dead as well, and someone needs to stay here and look after your Original ass. The only person up for the job is me. I need to do this."
I swing my laden legs off the mattress and grip the wall as a spell of dizziness hits me. Elijah sends me an 'I-told-you-so' look. "I'll die someday, I know it. But today's not that day." I spit out determinedly.
I walk doggedly to the door, trying to keep my face void of pain spasms. "Melissa." He calls. I stop half-way to the door, my hand on the dusty knob. "Yeah?"
We share a long look, a look plagued by secrets and broken trust. But in the end, Elijah nods slowly, maintaining eye contact. I send a nod back in response, before exiting the cabin and shutting the door behind me.
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The Sun burns my back, which is strange because at the moment it seems to be dark now. I wheeze strenuously as I rest against the hood of a car as I catch my breath. You can do this. Get Nik's blood and heal yourself.
A Porsche races past and I wince, putting my hands to my ears as the shrill cacophony of rubber against tar scrapes the skin of my eardrums. After a few moments, the ringing dulls to a pounding thud and I begin to walk to the Mikaelson Mansion. "Did you hear? That bastard thinks he's king!" Someone behind me says. I slow down my walk. No human talked about Kings in New Orleans. They had to be part of Marcel's army.
"We've all heard the stories about how death follows him around: we can't let Klaus win." Another voice pops up. Male. "So you're going to fight against him?"
"Of course I am!"
Pause.
"You think Marcel's plan is going to work against him?" The first speaker asks, a note of nervousness spreading through his sentence. "Listen, Dory, Klaus might be powerful, but he's just one man. There are hundreds of us. He doesn't stand a chance." The male says.
I purse my lips and clench my fists in anger. Fools, they wouldn't be laughing when Marcel's 'M' on his doors were coated with his army's blood. Not thinking about it, I spin on my heel staring straight at them.
The duo stare at me, before Dory steps forward. " 'Mam, are you okay?" I touch my face, and feel the sweat painted on my face. I wasn't stupid, I knew I looked ill. "No, I kind of have a problem." I reply as I allow the rage to gradually increase. The pair look at each other, before staring back at me.
"Do you need a lift or something?" The man asks. "Yeah," I swing my arms back and forth, "I need a ride to the Abattoir."
For the last time, Dory and her friend share a panicked look before Dory mutters fearfully, "she's Klaus'."
I bare my teeth and let my claws do the dirty work.
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My breath rattles and a strange growling monster resides in my lungs. My body cringes before I am forced bend in double and cough, pebbles of crimson splattering on the ground. I drag myself up, my skin clammy.
A mirror hangs lonesomely on a plain wall. Almost hauntingly, I limp towards it. My hair flickers between red and black, and the red-head smiles charmingly while my actual reflection's mouth is thin and speckled with the blood of my fellow vampires.
Dark bags hang around my azure eyes and my skin is pale and unhealthy. My hair hangs around my haggard face in limp strings and it hits me just how hopeless I look.
"Mellie . . ."
A scream gurgles in my throat as someone slips their cold hand into mine. I look down at myself and see nothing, just me in my torn and dishevelled clothes. Then I look up at the mirror and see him.
His blonde hair is dull and there are black circles around his eyes. He's holding a teddy bear, its head hanging by a thread to its body. His lips are a sickening pale colour and his skin has adopted a chalky hue. Emmanuel peers deadly serious at me through the reflection of the mirror, his eyes hard like flint.
I take in sharp, quick breaths, my skin crawling. Fog swims out of my mouth and the hallway turns a frigid bone-chilling temperature that even I, a member of the undead, can feel. A collection of apologies gathers in my mouth, but I can't seem to speak them. Instead, tears burst out of my tear ducts and fall in shaky paths down my face.
Emmanuel tightens his hold on my hand, and a shock wave of ice transmits from his body to mine. Suddenly, a horrible sensation blankets me. I feel like someone's choking me, somehow squeezing any other veins in my body, blocking everything. I can't breath ― I can't breath!
The broken torso of the teddy bear writhes strangely, a seam beginning to form in its stomach. I am almost tempted to lean closer, to check what was making it move.
Maggots. Maggots crawling within the cavity of the stuffed animal, spreading their stain.
A pain-stricken yell strangles itself out of my body and I grab a nearby candelabra and fling it against the cool surface of the mirror. Shards of glass rain down its beauty ironically coinciding with it jagged edges.
Every rose has its thorns.
Like me.
I breathe heavily, almost panting, before straightening up. Miraculously, my murderous tendencies seem to have subsided when I murdered Dory and her companion. Instead, hallucinations seem to be my thing. I suppose each vampire's effects from being bitten were different.
But the hallucinations seemed so real . . . so vivid.
Stepping over the broken smithereens of glass, I walk slowly to the Abattoir's main courtyard. It was the central area where vampires spent their time when Marcel hosted that party. God, it seemed so long ago. I purse my lips grimly at the memory.
Broken bodies of broken soldiers lay haphazardly on the ground like toys. The fountain that stood proudly in the middle had a new meaning, it seemed, because the pure water had turned pink. A stream of moonlight scatters in shapes around the courtyard, illuminating the faces of the fallen.
And in the middle of all that chaos, stands Nik.
His back is to me, but his head is turned towards the moon. His black coat has turned a deeper colour of black with the crimson and his hands are filthy of the sins that he committed, sins that don't look like sins to him, but justice.
"Are you going to silently stand there, watching me?" He breaks the silence. I exhale tiredly, too emotionally strung out to bother with a witty response. "What happened here?" I ask instead, stepping around a man's torso.
"It was a trap. Marcel's army were fighting against me." He responds, eerily calm. "And you won." I observe.
"I always win, Melissa."
Another silence hits us, and in this moment, this tranquil, muted moment, I am tempted to tell him everything. Seeing those things like a movie reel, those memories, have awakened old wounds again, and I fear that I may not be the happy, party vampire Melissa for long.
I wanted him to know the pain he caused me.
"What happened to you in the bayou?" He turns around and faces me. His expression is void, but anyone can tell what an absolute wreck I look like right now. "After you left, I realised that I had been bitten." I reveal.
"Who did this to you?" He asks, frowning slightly. I shrug, before cringing as a whiplash aches through me. "I've no idea. Maybe it was Dwayne when I was fighting him off. Or Tyler."
He looks at me, like, he really looks at me. I feel like he's unravelling me, my very soul, as he peers into my eyes. "You're dead." He says simply. To anyone else, it might just imply the physical state of death. But to me, to us, it meant something worse.
You've seen your past.
You've revisited horrors in your life.
It's broken you, your eyes are dead; lifeless.
You've broken me.
"Klaus." I sigh deeply. "I know that you don't know me at all. I'm just Hayley's best friend who wants to keep her safe. And I've hallucinated spectres from my past that have crippled me. And it's made me remember that I'm a monster, that I've killed in cold blood; maybe I deserve to perish in pain." I hesitate. "But, if I die . . . I won't be able to protect Hayley any more, and she needs protection now more than ever. I mean, just look at Tyler. He was going to harm your child." I pause, thinking logically.
"I'm not going to beg, I'm just going to ask you if you could heal me. It's your choice. But if you decide against it, please just tell me outright, so I can end it myself, before I fall prey to this sickness." I exhale, waiting for his verdict.
Silence is a curious thing. It is soft, but it is loud at the same time. An oxymoron of sorts. It's serves as a temporary purgatory for your next step of your life. Waiting, waiting, waiting. It makes your stomach churn, and forces your eyes to look anywhere but your goal, a nauseous feeling clawing its way up your throat.
"Mellie . . ." He stands behind my possible saviour.
Nik's eyes don't reveal anything, but he steps forward to me, cupping my cheek softly with one hand before raising the other to his mouth. Then he places his forearm gently against my mouth and we look straight at each other as his medicine does its magic. It feels oddly intimate. I briefly flicker my eyes behind Nik and watch as Emmanuel disappears into the shadows, like a distant ghost fading into the punctures of memories.
One thousand years ago, Niklaus Mikaelson took my life. Today, he saved me.
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Why do I always feel so philosophical after writing a chapter from this book? :)
I need to say something guys: when I started this book back in 2013, I was a very different person. Two years later, in 2015, I've not only matured as a person, but as a writer as well. When I look back at my old chapters, I cringe at the horrible descriptions and the sarcasm I thought was so witty. Ugh. As a human being who coexists with writing, I pour some of my feelings that I feel onto the characters I write about.
I'm not in the best place right now, and this book has taken a very different turn than what it used to be. It's darker, and deals with life-changing questions regarding what separates a Monster and a Man.
This chapter not only coincides with the book title, but with the themes that shall be more prominent throughout the course of this book.
I think it fits, honestly. The Originals are extremely complex, and this dark, humanistic turn I'm using at the moment makes sense. Living for 1000 years is no joke, guys.
If you don't like it . . . what can I say? I'm sorry that you feel that way. If you like it, I'm glad! I'm excited to take you through Mel's journey.
So . . . regarding the past two chapters. I love them, honestly. I don't want to boast, but I'm proud of my achievements. They reveal a more vulnerable side to Mel, and I really enjoyed sharing what she lost.
Thank you for being so patient and for leaving me those awesome comments. I really appreciate them and I will genuinely try to reply to every single one of them!
Oh, and congratulations if you managed to spot all the parallels and references I created in this chapter.
Please don't forget to vote, comment and/or share.
inkblots
P.S: If it's not too much work, could you guys review this chapter? It would really help me as a writer. What did you think of it? Were the characters believable? What do you feel about these new themes that will be explored? Do you like the direction the story is going? The more detailed the review, the better. Thanks!