"Hey, kiddo, wake up," a voice said to Maya, shaking her awake. She slowly opened her eyes and let out a shout of surprise when she saw who it was.
"You, you-your dead," she said freaking out slightly.
"Well, you aren't wrong, I am, but for some reason, I can touch and talk to you, and I need your help with something," Mason said before walking out her room.
Maya grabbed a sweatshirt before following him out. "What is going on?"
"No idea."
"You haven't done anything stupid yet, have you?"
"Define stupid."
"Mason..."
"I may have gotten revenge on Damon. Twice."
"Of course you did, and now I'm going to call him and he gets to help us on super this secret mission of yours."
"Not happening."
"Too late," she said holding up the ringing phone to her ear.
"What do you want wolfie?" Damon's voice rang in her ear.
"I have a surprise for you," Maya teased.
"What is it? I'm a little busy right now dealing with...a problem."
"Yeah, well, let's just say I'm pretty sure the surprise will be worth it, meet me at the old Lockwood cellar." She then hung up and threw on shoes, dragging Mason out of the door.
"I'm surprised you showed," Mason said emerging from the dark corner causing Damon to jump.
"You put a snag in my only other Klaus lead. So I'd say I'm highly motivated."
Mason handed Damon the other lantern, "Mikael? Yeah. That didn't turn out so great, did it?"
"How do you know so much?"
Mason frowned slightly before answering, "There isn't much to do over there, we pretty much just sit around and watch people screw up."
"What are we looking for?"
"There's an old Lockwood family legend about a weapon that can kill an Original vampire. Like the rest of their secrets, they kept it buried." Mason attempted to break down the wall but failed so Damon took the shovel and did it himself.
"Go for it," Mason said.
"You first."
"Oh come on," Maya said before pushing past them both.
They continued their walk through the hidden part of the cellar, "I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Your motives are deceptively pure."
"If you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop you won't be able to appreciate the good stuff," Maya pointed out.
"When did you become an optimist?"
"When did you become an asshole?" He glared at her.
"Which way?" Damon questioned as they came across a two way tunnel.
"Flip a coin," Mason remarked.
"Aren't you supposed to be all knowing?"
"He isn't God. Go left," Maya decided but noticed he hadn't moved, "Move it before I make you."
"Fine, mom," he groaned before he took a step forward. All of the sudden sharp wooden poles coated in vervain shot out of the walls. Mason walked away.
"I am having a horrible day," Damon complained before Mason came back with a shovel. He hit them and they broke. Maya and Mason pulled the stakes out of Damon.
"What's your game, man? I killed you. I jammed my fist into your chest. I ripped your heart out. There's no way this whole buddy-trust act it real."
"The other side sucks. We're all alone. We watch the people we left behind and regret all bad decisions. I can't change what happened to me, but I can change what happens to Tyler and Maya. I don't need revenge, I need redemption."
Maya and Mason proceeded ahead of Damon as he hit an invisible barrier. "God, this is not happening."
"What now?" Mason complained.
"I can't get through. It's like I'm not invited in," Damon explained as Maya and Mason continued, "Wait!"
"We aren't stopping just because you're stuck. We'll tell you what we find," Mason said.
"Yeah, but..."
"Looks like you're just going to have to trust us."
Mason and Maya stared at the wall in awe. "It's in..." Mason began before the sound of the lantern shattering echoed throughout the cave.
"Mason?" Damon shouted from where he was.
"No, no, no, no," Maya muttered, bending down and picking up pieces of the lantern.
"Maya, what happened?" Damon asked.
"He's gone, he just, vanished," she said before sitting back leaning against the wall.
"Come back out here," he suggested but she ignored him.
It was completely silent for a while until Damon spoke, "You're here. It's about time."
"Didn't have anyone else to call?" Alaric's voice echoed.
"No, actually, I don't. 'Cause I need a non-vamp, I wasn't gonna call Elena, and Maya won't get up."
"Maya's here?"
"If Mason can forgive me, can't you?"
"It shouldn't have happened in the first place."
"Sometimes I do things I don't have to do."
"You gonna recycle the same crap apology you used on Mason?"
"Well, with him, I didn't actually mean it."
Alaric entered where Maya sat and Mason had disappeared. "So was Mason screwing with me, or is there something there?" Alaric lifts the flashlight and looks at the wall.
"Ric. Ric?" Damon said getting antsy.
"I found something."
"What is it?"
"I have no idea."
Alaric took photos of everything. He knew he would need it for research purposes. As soon as he was done taking photos, he sat next to Maya on the floor. He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him.
"I know what you're going to say. And I'm fine. He was back for a short time, and then he was gone again. He left, I'm used to it," Maya finished before standing up and walking out, leaving Alaric to sit on the floor alone, and Damon standing at the entrance staring at Maya with a look that could only be identified as concern.
"Hey, sorry I'm late," Maya said entering the cave, leaving Damon alone. Even though Maya had been there when they first found it, she hasn't had a chance to actually look at it.
"What is all this?" Elena asked.
"Well, as far as I can tell, it's a story. In simple, archaeological terms, it's a really, really old story," Alaric explained.
"That's the moon cycle," Maya pointed out looking at the wall, "And that's a man and a wolf."
"A werewolf," Elena whispered, almost to herself.
"Yeah, it's the 'Lockwood Diaries: Pictionary-Style,'" Damon joked.
"I don't understand. I thought the Lockwoods came here with the Original Founders in the 1860s," Elena questioned.
"I don't know. Maybe the Lockwoods did, but according to this wall, these werewolves have been here a lot longer than that," Alaric pointed out.
"How long?"
"Long. It gets better. Show them, Ric," Damon added.
"Names. They're not native. They're written in Runic, a Viking script."
"Vikings?" Elena asked.
"This name here, I translated it and it reads Niklaus."
"Klaus."
"And Elijah...and Rebekah."
Maya suddenly let out a gasp as images suddenly flashed through her head.
It was Rebekah and Klaus, only they appeared to be younger.
"Rebekah, let me have at it!" Klaus exclaimed trying to grab the knife she currently held.
"Quiet, Niklaus! I am to have more concentration if I am not to slice off a finger."
"Father will not like you handling the blade."
"If I want to wield a blade, I shall wield a blade! Father need not know."
"He will find out. He always does."
"That is because you always tell him."
"I cannot help it...he frightens me."
"He frightens us all. That is why we stick together as one, always and forever. Right, traitor?" Rebekah asked, smiling at her brother.
"Right," he said smiling back.
"Here. You finish it. I am to help mother with the meal."
"Yes, go tend to dinner, and leave the blades to the men, little sister."
Rebekah didn't appear to happy with the comment and stabbed his hand with the knife.
"Agh, Bekah!" Klaus shouted in pain.
"It's just a little blood. Be a man about it."
Maya opened her eyes, feeling slightly unsteady, to see everyone staring at her.
"Are you okay?" Elena asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Maya said and Elena nodded, but Alaric didn't seem to believe her.
"These are the names of the Original Family?"
"Carved into a cave that's been here since way before the founding of Mystic Falls. Or even the entire New World, for that matter."
"Okay, this has gotta be one of Klaus's fakes."
"That's what I said."
"That could be true, except the last name up here made us think otherwise."
"What's the name?"
"Mikael."
"Mikael...Mikael, as in, the vampire hunter who knows how to kill Klaus?"
"Yep. I now like to call him 'Papa Original.'"
"He'll have to get over it. Call me later," Elena said into the phone before hanging up and turning to Alaric. "Rebekah will come around."
"You're sure about that? I mean a thousand-year-old vampire, I'm sure, has learned the art of patience."
Elena looks at her phone when it dinged and showed the text from Rebekah that said for her to come over to Maya and Alaric. "She's a thousand-year-old vampire, who's joined the cheerleader squad...There is a whole different set of rules that play here, Ric. I got this."
"I have full confidence that you believe you're right," Maya joked. Elena rolled her eyes before walking out the door leaving Maya and Alaric to decipher the pictures.
"What happened in the cave today?" Alaric's questioned Maya.
"I'm not sure. It was like, I was there but they couldn't see me."
"Where?"
"In the cave, with Rebekah and Klaus when they did this," she gesturing to their names, "it was before they were vampires."
"So you saw the past?"
"I guess so."
"How?"
"I don't know, I don't know what's wrong with me."
"There's nothing wrong with you."
"Yes, there is. I'm getting visions from the past, I can apparently control fire, and I have no idea what to do about it," Maya explained feeling a tear roll down her face. She hadn't even realized she was crying. Someone knocked at the door, causing Maya to jump and walk out of the room.
"Hey there!" Bonnie said from the door.
"Bonnie! Come on in!"
"Got your message."
"Yeah, great! Uh, I'm sorry the place is such a mess. I'm obsessed..."
Bonnie held up Elena's necklace, "I brought you the necklace that wouldn't die."
"Ahh, that's great," Alaric said looking at Bonnie who appeared upset. "You okay?"
"Been better..."
"Listen, Jeremy is an idiot. And I know this with certainty, because I was once a Jeremy. Trust me, we learn...eventually..."
He then held up a photo, "So, I've been staring at this image all day, wondering why it looked so familiar," he then held up the necklace with the identical symbol, "I was right."
"It's the same design."
"So, your grandmother said this necklace belonged to the witch that put the hybrid curse on Klaus, right? Well, this symbol is repeated all across the wall. I've been trying to figure out what it meant. And now I know..." He scribbled something down on a post it and put it on the photo. Witch.
Maya reappeared from the bathroom and joined the two looking at the pictures. Moving the pictures around she placed them how they were in the cage. She looked at the upside down bleeding heart, the witch and the hybrid symbol and furrowed her eyebrows.
"Rebekah believes Mikael killed her mother?" Maya asked while looking at the photos.
"Yeah, why?" Bonnie said confused.
"Because according to this, it wasn't Mikael who killed her. It was Klaus."
"We have to tell Elena," Bonnie immediately said pulling at her phone as Alaric stared at the photos in an attempt to understand how Maya figured it out.