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A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER
4 weeks. 1 month. Too many days. I hate that I've developed a routine. Then again, I guess I didn't have a choice but to when I was forced into the world of 'The Vampire Diaries'.
Two weeks past all the emotionless bull and I'm still here. I've been trapped behind the walls of the boarding house and kept in the dark about whether I'll ever get out. After aiding in switching Elena's humanity switch back on, she and Damon have been disgustingly in love, the brunette never holding back on thanking me for helping her and apologizing for trying to kill me once or twice. Stefan moved in with Caroline after everyone realized the sire bond was no more and that his ex-girlfriend really was in love with his brother--I think that's why hero hair doesn't like me the most. Because thanks to me showing up, his theory in a human Elena still being his Elena will never be put to the test...
"You're getting distracted again," I aggressively blew away a stray piece of hair with the voice's taunting tone.
"Don't start, Damon," I grumbled under my breath. But of course, he heard me.
"There's an original vampire on your ass, just 'cause he's held back on us since we stopped trying to find the cure doesn't mean you're any safer--"
"Don't you think I already know that!" The glass he held smashed with my voices raised volume. I flinched, "Sorry."
"You've gotten better," he wiped away the stray shards, "More focused, but it's still not enough. You need to be able to control it if you want to survive Kol."
"Why do you even care, Damon?"
He was silent for so long, I didn't expect him to answer me... "You remind me of a girl I knew when I was human," I frowned at the reply. "She was one of our maids' daughters, and she had this..." he struggled to find the words, "--Life in her that gave me life between obeying Father's orders and looking after Stefan. I guess you could say she was my best friend..."
"...What happened to her?" I built up the courage to probe.
"Father found out and said she was a distraction. Her mother was out of a job by the end of the week, and I never saw her again..."
"I'm sorry..." He finally met my eyes, "Your Dad did seem like a prick from what I saw," and then he laughed, loud and willing before picking up another glass.
"Again." And I did, because stupidly I've allowed myself to become attached to Damon Salvatore and the rest of this world's silly little cast. Besides, it's not all bad, they are helping me survive after all.
THE NEXT DAY
"What are you guys even doing?" I tried to muster up my annoyance and push back the humor I felt as one pair of hands covered my eyes and another guided me towards an unknown destination.
"It's a surprise!" Caroline chirped.
"I hate surprises," I grumbled.
"Well, you're gonna love this one!" Elena backed her friend.
"Did you guys kidnap David Tennant for me?!" My eyebrows raised in intrigue.
"Who?"
My enthusiasm dropped, "Does this world at least have a David Tennant?"
"We'll get back to that later," Care shushed me before I felt a breeze push up the hairs on my arms.
"A-a-are we...?"
"Ta-da!" They spoke in sync when my eyesight was returned, body freezing when I took in our surroundings.
My body did a 360 on the Salvatore's front lawn... "We're outside..." I noticed.
"We can't get anything past you, Sherlock(!)"
"Fuck off, Watson(!)" I pushed out my tongue at Damon's sarcasm, that single action kicking me in the ass as where I stood hit me. "I'm outside." I felt my lips pull upwards, "I'm outside!" Tears welled in my eyes, the overwhelming excitement bubbling just below the surface. Then reality hit me, and all happiness shrank when my skepticism grew. "Why?" I turned back to the grinning girls, "Why let me out now?" Their smiles dropped.
"Because I can't get you back, Madi..." I jumped with the Bennett witch's voice, "I'm sorry. The spirits wouldn't tell me much, it's taken the past three weeks for them to finally give me this but--...All I know is you were brought here by accident. In another reality of our world witches did a spell to force through the gaps to your universe, what they did was linked to someone you must have known and that's why you're here--"
"Get to the point, Bonnie."
"What you said about each of your friends dying, I don't think they died at all. I believe they were taken to another plane of our existence, another version of 'The Vampire Diaries'. That's the only way all of this can make sense--as unbelievable as that actually is. That's why you're really here, and I'm sorry that I can't send you back, but I am able to seal up the wounds between our realities that they created--stop any further accidental crossing from taking place between our worlds..." She grew closer in response to my silence, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah..." I hated how okay I was. I hated how content I was to just remain here, but--... I guess if there's no way back then there's no point in being miserable.
Then her words hit me a second time and I closed my eyes as tears fell... "Madi?"
"I'm fine," it may not be true, but it could be at the same time. My friends could have got their happily ever after instead of just rotting in a grave they slept in too soon, "I'm fine," I stepped away from comforting embraces, "I'm just gonna be in my--that room. The bedroom I've been staying in," I wiped away the water leaking from the corners of my eyes, glad no-one followed my retreat to a prison I'd finally been released from.
-TIME SKIP-
I held my hand out, grateful for the first time in my life to feel the rain on my skin--the cold breeze of the outside air pushing my hair from my shoulders as I sat under the shelter of the Salvatore's front porch. The stars struggle to gleam in the night sky under the cloak of fog and drizzle. A slight fear jolted through me now I was free of the confines of the Boarding house, the fear that I could run away and they'd let me. The fear of being alone again...
I'd miss all of their noise, all of their voices chattering away. It's being here that made me realize just how much I'd isolated myself after Adie and Angel's deaths--the only people I consistently talked to were their gravestones and the pizza guy. It was a depressing realization...And now that my one desire has been granted and I'm actually free, I don't know what to do. I have nowhere to go, no means of financing a trip. I know no people, or even what parts of this world are similar to my own. It's like I'm still stuck, just on a grander scale--
"Planning your escape?" I jumped with the voice, turning my head to find Damon casually leaning against the front doorway.
"More like figuring out how to survive..." A puff of smoke was produced with my heavy exhale, the space on the wall filled as Damon sat with me. "I didn't expect my freedom to be scary," I admitted with a downcast gaze. "But Bonnie telling me I'm here for good, I'm stuck between mourning my old life and conjuring up a new one. It's terrifying..."
"Tell me about it," his nudge of my shoulder forced a frown to draw in my eyebrows, "Your old life," he clarified. "Tell me about Madison Brooke," I scoffed out a smile at his suggestion, turning my head away to focus on the easing rainfall:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b8/ba/b7/b8bab7ed03123a02f47b4972a09184d5.gif.
"...She was lost," I admitted. "She was struggling to afford her rent thanks to a dead-end job caused by a failed college degree, cut-off from her Dad after deciding to move away from the family town. She never knew her mom, and she had an elder brother who basically ignored her existence..." I tugged at my sleeves, protecting my arms from the cold. "She dabbled with the party lifestyle and drank heavily for years to just numb--...everything. Then at 15, she met a new reason to live, moving out as soon as she could to follow them. She tried to get her life back on track with their help..."
"Your friends..." Damon deduced.
"And then she lost them...and she isolated herself from the only other person she had because every time she saw her it hurt--the memories of all four girls plaguing her as she deemed she couldn't be happy again...And then she wakes up here. A world where vampires and werewolves lurk in the shadows just waiting for their next victim to stumble into the picture, and although she couldn't stop dreaming about escaping this stuffy old house--" Chuckles were shared between us as I turned to meet his gaze. "She's terrified now she actually can...Because she can't be alone again--she can't handle this fucked up world."
"She doesn't have to handle it alone," an arm weighed over my shoulders, my head accepting the comfort of resting in the crook of his neck.
"She knows that..." And as I breathed in the night air, listening to the aggressive pummeling of rain on gravel, a thought sparked my interest-- "Bonnie."
"What?" I stood, entering the shade further while Damon turned to frown at me.
"Bonnie says all she can do is close the gap between mine and your world, right?" His nod confirmed, "What if she could open up to another one instead?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I can't go home, and you guys are great, but--...You can't help me like my friends can, and they're apparently stuck in just another version of your reality--"
"If Bonnie's theory is correct," he reminded me.
"But if it is...wouldn't it be easier for her to mumbo jumbo me to an alternate here over my world?"
"I-I don't know, Madi. I mean, even if she managed, there's no guarantee you'll go to the version your friends are in."
I pulled at my hair as Damon threw a spanner in the works... "What if I have a link to one?"
"What?"
"The night I came here, there was this silver plated necklace with a red gem that was in Adie's room when she died-- I touch it and bang I'm here. What if that's the reason she was taken, the reason I showed up?"
"Well, I suppose Bonnie could try something if she had it--"
"That's the only confirmation I need." I extended my right arm forward, "Hand over your keys, Damon."
"Why?"
"Because I currently don't have the necklace, but I landed at Elena's so it probably got flung into a nearby bush or something."
"And if it didn't?"
"Then I'll worry about whatever future I have here after I fail to find it," I held firm... "Please, Damon. I have nothing else..." My arm shook with persistence.
"...Fine," he caved, "But I'm driving."
"Thank you! Thank yo--"
"Yeah, yeah," he waved my words off, turning toward the Salvatores garage to pull the car around.
I grinned with new life, pulling out a replacement phone and clicking on the contact of 'badass witch':
'Bonnie! Hold off on sealing the gap to my world! I have something I want us to try first!'
I tucked the device into my pocket, a pep in my step when I moved to follow Damon's now absent form to the garage--
A firm body blocked my path. I frowned, my glance upward forcing my eyes to widen in fright, "Hello, Darling," a swift thump to my head had me blacking out in the vampires' arms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc3j9gTrpQc... (Solitaire By Marina And The Diamonds)
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