• Mystic Falls, 1864•
Once the vervain had worn off, the younger vampires went crazy inside our tomb. They were screaming off the top of their lungs and punching at varies walls hoping they could break through the rock. But I knew their efforts were useless, Katherine had a plan and she clearly wanted us gone. Out of her way, so she could have a happy life without us around to bother her.
When I woke up, Pearl had been sitting next to me and once I saw her, relief filled me because I had someone here with me. Someone who hadn't betrayed me and cared for me as if I was her daughter. But it didn't take me long to realize there was tears running down her cheeks and one look at me, she burst into tears. After a few minutes, her tears ran out and that's when she told me that Annabelle wasn't here. When she woke up, her first instinct was to see if her daughter was among us. When Pearl came up empty handed, she began to fear the worst. But once she found me, some hope came back to her, but she was hurting.
As we sat on the floor, we watched the younger vampires waste their energy in trying to get out. I pity them, they were so young vampires, most of them had been turned by Katherine and some of them were still trying to learn how to control the urges. The ones who had learned control hadn't even gotten their daylight rings yet because Emily was too busy doing things for Katherine that require her immediate attention. Things that involved us being sealed in this tomb.
"I never saw it coming." Pearl whispered. "Katherine played us all, even me."
A tear fell down my cheek, "She left me. She walked right out of that church, and left me there."
"All for her own selfish reasons." Pearl actually chuckled as a tear fell down her cheek. "But she will finally get what she wants, Niklaus thinking that she is dead. Death by fire and with that Katerina Petrova has her freedom at the cost of ours."
Silence fell between us, with the echo of the other vampires starting to fight each other in the background. I glanced down at my hands, my memory flashing back to me reaching out for Katherine to take me with her. I had surrendered myself to her in that moment and that wasn't enough for her.
"She said she would come back for me, do you believe she was speaking the truth?" I asked, breaking the silence.
I could feel Pearl eyes on me while I continued to look down at my hands, before she sighed. "I think there was some truth in her promise, Juliana. Had she only locked you in here, I believe yes, she would come back for you because she knowns you would never breath a word about this incident. But if she was to come back to you now, it would be at the cost of all of us and she would never risk it."
I felt myself beginning to get choked up over hearing Pearl's words and I finally looked up at her with tear filled eyes. "Had I listened to her from the beginning, I would not be in this situation. She would have taken me with her." I cried out before crying into my hands.
Pearl put her hand on my back and began to rub it, "I do not know about that, Juliana." My head quickly shot up and looked at her with confusion. "If Katherine was to choose between you and her freedom, her freedom would come first and you would be a piece of dirt beneath her shoe."
I stared at her, shocked from her words but I knew she only meant the truth behind them. I looked back at the vampires, "Will we ever see the outside again?"
~
• Mystic Falls, Present Day•
Pain.
That is all I felt at this point for there was nothing else to feel. Each time I died, I thanked it. It put an end to my pain, even if it was for a little bit, but it was a relief from my struggling.
I knew some time had pass, how much though? I could never tell you the answer. Only that in the beginning, it was awful. My body was fighting to stay alive, even though there was no point. I would die and not long after I would wake up to the darkness, struggle, and die again. But slowly my body was giving up the fight for I found myself staying dead longer after each time and I welcomed it. I stopped banging against the door, stopped trying to break the handcuffs, or moved the piece of metal that was lunged inside me. My hope was lost.
But being trapped in this darkness, made my past look like children's play and I found myself chuckling looking back. I wish I had those same deaths. I wanted to be suffering of the Yellow Fever again, I wanted someone snap my neck instead of this, and that tomb, I begged to be back in that place. It was paradise compared to this misery.
I found myself laughing at how pathetic I was. I begged countless people to kill me once I got out of the tomb because I couldn't do it myself and all of those choices led me to right to this point. Trapped in a safe, somewhere deep in water, drowning every time my body healed itself. But my body found no relief for water was always in my lungs, and it never left.
But there was one thing I knew coming out of this dark place. My loyalty would solely be to Katherine and nothing less. She had won. I would become that young child that knew nothing more than to follow Katherine and her guidance. She had taken what little was left of me and shoved it into this safe and left it to drown.
~
Katherine stared down into the quarry for it had been months since she had last been here. Things in Mystic Falls became hectic since the last time she had been here, which was when she dropped her phone into the water after her call with Fallon and Abby. Things such as Klaus turning into the first hybrid, learning of the cure and Silas, the Originals coming back to town, and finally when poor little Elena turned into a vampire and she lost her humanity after you know who killed her brother. Katherine became so occupy that Juliana slipped her mind completely.
But the time had finally come, for Katherine was in need of a friend. Especially ever since she used Jeremy to wake Silas and stole the cure and ran off. It was humiliating having Elena and Rebekah controlling her around, partly because Elena was involved with it and had an Original backing her. Katherine had to bow down to her lesser self and she hated it.
In all honesty, Katherine was feeling left out, but made damn sure it was never shown. Ever since Elena turned into a vampire, the attention once again was all about her and making sure that the girl was okay during her transition. She was an embarrassment to vampires for how she was being treated, everything was handed to her and she didn't have to lift a muscle. But when Katherine took away her brother, Katherine was happy. For once, no one could protect Elena and she finally felt what real pain felt like and Katherine enjoyed every last part. Especially when she got a torture Elena just to get her to turn her humanity back on.
But now, once again, the earth revolved around Elena Gilbert for she had turned on her humanity and she wanted Katherine's blood. Except, Katherine had been offered something she couldn't refused from one Bonnie Bennett, her complete freedom. Immortality just like Silas. And Katherine wanted Julia to be there when it happened. To see her dream finally come to light of having complete freedom.
Had Katherine known the trouble to get Juliana out of the quarry, she would have done something completely different. First, she had to compel some scuba divers to first locate the exact location of where the safe was located in the quarry. Then she had to find a company that could actually fish out the safe and that was a nightmare, but it was only the beginning of the nightmare. The worst came when the ship crane entered the picture. They first had to make sure that the ship could enter the quarry safely and that the water was deep enough for it. Then it took them three long hours just to fish the safe out of the water. Three hours. The reasons were valid, for the line kept breaking due to the weight of the safe and the water in it and the line had a hard time staying attached to the safe.
Once the safe did come out of the water, Katherine was shocked to see the condition that it was in. Rust and algae had built up on it during its short time in the water. Then once the crew was able to get the entire safe out of the water and back on land, Katherine was surprised that she was able to break the rebar that stuck out from the back, instead of it bending. But Katherine was grateful that it broke for it would make get Juliana out a lot easier.
She had the crew load the safe on the back of the truck she rented and had a couple of the men from the crew to follow her to the house she had taken residence in for this very moment. Upon arrival, she had the crew men carry the safe down to the basement and had the men leave. So it was just her and Juliana in a box.
Katherine put in the combination and pulled on the door of the safe, and with a lot of tugging on the door, it finally broke open. And once Katherine saw the inside of the safe, she immediately regretted her decision of putting Julia into the water and wish she had just put her into the ground. Katherine actually gagged at the sight of Juliana's body and condition.
It was an awful sight to see, for the water really had taken a total on Juliana's body. Her body was discolored and some spots of her body were bloated. Her hands and wrist looked disgusting, for the skin around her wrist had not healed at all and there were deep indentions from the handcuffs. Her hands were beyond waterlogged and some parts of her skin were peeling off from it.
Katherine felt nauseous, but decided the only way to help the situation was to fix it. She knew that Juliana wouldn't wake up anytime soon, especially from the condition her body was in and the little she could see that had healed already meant it would be a while. The first thing she did was pull out rusty bar from Julia's stomach and when doing so, water trickled out of the wound. Katherine gulped upon seeing this and so wish she had done something different. Next, she pulled out the key that went to the handcuffs and hoped that the mechanism would still work after being submerged in water. Relief filled her when she heard the small click and pulled the cuffs off and threw them aside.
Then it was the process of taking Julia's body out. Katherine had no clue how to do so because her body just looked so fragile. But Katherine was slow in lifting her body out, as water slowly leaked from her friends body and onto Katherine and the floor. Katherine had no other choice but to ignore this and continued to move her body, but at a much faster pace. She laid Julia on the floor against the wall in an upright position and steady her so she wouldn't fall over.
Once Katherine was satisfy, she went upstairs to the living to find one of the members of the household. Yes, Katherine had simply compelled a family to allow her to take residence in for she didn't feel like searching for a foreclosure house. The entire family had already been compelled to follow all of Katherine's needs and they were not to question any of her actions. Plus, Katherine took in the time to have the family sign the deed to Katherine since she knew no vampire would come and bother her, especially since all the vampires in Mystic Falls were focus on her weaker doppelgänger and could care less about Katherine.
The first person she came across was the families sixteen-year-old boy and had him follow her downstairs to the basement. The boy was emotionless upon following her and didn't move a muscle with seeing Juliana's body, he only knew that he had to do as Katherine told him to do. Katherine pulled out a chair and had the boy sit down as she went over to the workbench, that held her bag of goodies, and pulled out a large empty syringe. Then she walked over to the boy, found a vein in this arm, poked him with the needle, and began to draw blood from him.
Yes, Katherine could have just cut his wrist and placed it along Juliana's mouth, but Katherine knew that Julia would need every drop of blood she could get and didn't want to waste it. Of course Katherine could have gotten blood from the hospital, but she knew that it Julia needed warm, fresh blood.
Once the syringe was full of the boy's blood, she pulled the needle from the boy's skin and walked over to Julia, only to notice that her body hadn't heal even in the slightest. Katherine sighed and bent down and pulled Julia's mouth open, only to cringe at the sound it made but Katherine continued anyway. Once her mouth was open enough, Katherine brought the needle up to her mouth and push down on the plunger and the boy's blood was released into her mouth.
When Katherine saw that there was no more blood left in the syringe, she pulled away and right away, she could see a difference in Julia's body. Her wrist had already began to heal and her hands slowly began to return to their natural self.
Katherine smile, for it only took a little bit of blood to bring back her best friend to her original self, but she knew she had a long way to go before Julia would wake.
"Wake up, Juliana. I have so much to tell you."
~
I gasped, waiting for the water to once again fill my lungs. But the pressure on my chest didn't come. In fact, I noticed that I wasn't freezing cold either and I shifted myself, and for once, there wasn't an extreme pain in my stomach. But I refused to open my eyes in case this was a way of my brain playing tricks on me to subdue the constant misery my body goes through. I pulled down my hands towards my stomach, but then I was met with resistance above my head and that's what it took for me to open my eyes and I was surprised by the bright lights that on me instead of usually darkness.
For a split second, I relief washed over me because I realized I wasn't in the safe. I was quick to take in my surroundings, noticing that I was in an unfinished basement. To my right, there was a set of stairs that led up the upper floor and just opposite of them was a workbench. Next to me was a stray chair that seemed out of place. Looking further in front of me, it was a little darker but on the left side of the room, there was a wash machine and dryer, and a sink by the machines. But that was all I noticed before my mind went back to the fact I couldn't pull down my hands.
I glanced above me and saw that my hands were chained up to a metal bar that was imbedded in the concrete wall that I was sitting against. I pulled down on them, but nothing happened.
And that's when I realized I was once again trapped and my vision became blurry, and my mind starting playing tricks on me. The bright room began to transform into the dark abyss I had grown used to. Then I felt a large pressure on my chest, even though nothing was there. Then it became hard to breathe. I tried, but I was panicking. I started thrashing around, but the pain in my chest increase and darkness started to fill the corner of my eyes.
At this point, I was trying to do anything to get any kind of air, but I was getting nothing and the dark corners of my eyes only grew larger.
"Juliana?" I heard a voice ask, but before I could process who the voice was, I felt myself pass out.
~
When I woke again, I tried to bring my hands down to my chest, and this time, I was able to do it easily. I sighed in relief, and closed my eyes once again and pulled myself into the fetal position. For once, nothing was happening to me. No more drowning, no more darkness, and no more torment to my body. I was at peace again.
And finally for the first time in a long time, I thought about Peyton and Abby, and I wondered how they were doing. In the beginning, they were the only ones I thought about, but my thoughts were always cut short by my deaths. After going through so many deaths, I thought it was best to stop adding more to that pain and thinking about them. It hurt me to think that Peyton probably already moved on while Abby was probably sitting miserable wondering where I was.
But just as I felt some kind of happiness build up in me, my mind flashed back to me being trapped inside that safe. The days I spent thrashing in that small, dark space just to go no where. The constant pain in my chest from not being able to breathe. The longer I kept my eyes closed, I felt myself falling back into that place.
Soon, I felt myself falling into that dark place in my mind and opened my eyes, only to stare at the bare concrete wall, and tried to get my thoughts off of the place.
When I remembered something. When I was having my panic attack, someone called out my name. Upon realizing this, I slowly lifted myself off the cold floor and turned around.
And there she was. The person who had put me into that dark place, just because she could. Her back was turned to me and in front of her was a workbench that clearly had her attention.
I gulped but began to call out her name. "Kat-" I chocked up on my own words and it sounded like a whisper, because how I hadn't used my voice in quite some time. Katherine froze up in her place, she clearly wasn't ready to face me yet after having seen my anxiety attack. "Katherine." I called out again, this time much better than before. She was slow to turn around, but eventually she did. I felt tears forming at the edge of my eyes, "H-h-how-" I paused to swallow, hoping it would become earlier to speak. "How l-long was I in the-e-re?" I asked with it coming out very choppy, but I could feel myself getting used to speaking again.
Katherine leaned back on the work bench, "A few months. Not sure exactly how long, but let's just say that Elena is about to graduate soon from high school."
My eyes widened upon her words. I thought I was in there so much longer than a couple of months but who was I to say how long? I sat in literal darkness the entire time, either dead or suffocating. At lease in the tomb, someone had a pocket watch and we were able to keep up with the time, for a while until the gears in the watch broke. But deep down, I was grateful I wasn't in there for that long, at lease I knew for sure that Peyton was still around and hadn't died of old age.
"And Elena is a vampire now."
This really caught my attention and I readjust myself against the wall to get more comfortable. "How?" I asked.
Katherine chuckled, "It's ironic actually. She drowned, the same place her parents did, and Rebekah Mikaelson caused it." She paused and rolled her eyes. "Everyone was so worried about poor Elena, they didn't even realize she had vampire blood in her system, at the time of course. And everyone hated Matty because she told Stefan to save him, but everything is good now." I could hear the sarcasm in her voice and I knew she had done something.
"What did you do?"
She smirked, before pushing herself off the table. "And this is why I brought you back, you know me so well!" Katherine began to walk over to me. "Let's just say I killed her brother."
I slowly pushed myself off the ground. "I bet you enjoy that." I groaned before leaning against the wall, to steady myself.
Soon she was next to me and grabbed my arm, "Yes, I did." Then she started leading me towards the chair that sat in the middle of the room. "But that wasn't the best part. The best part was when I got to torture Elena to get her to turn her humanity back on." She pushed me into the chair and I fell into it. I groaned at the discomfort, but situated myself in the seat. "But Bonnie has offered me something, and I want you to be there when I get it."
I chuckled and looked up at her with amusement on my face. "What could Bonnie possibly offer you?"
Her face stay emotionless for a second but then she leaned forward so she was eye level with me. Then she smiled, "She offered me complete immortality." My face dropped. No one was going to be able to kill Katherine? My nightmare would never end? She would always be there?
She chuckled before patted the side of my face with her hand and stood up. "Cheer up Juliana. It'll be fun." Then she went over to the wall that I had previous been at and leaned up against and sighed. "Just imagine how much fun we'll have together. Maybe I'll put myself in good terms with your family and we'll live there in New York together."
Deep down, I wanted to punch her. I wanted to run out of this chair and beat the living crap out of her, but then I remind myself what I promised myself in that safe. I would do as she asked, no matter the cost. I was swallowed my anger towards her, and pushed myself out of the chair, wobbling as I stood up.
"What do you want me to do?"
Katherine smirked and crossed her arms, "I knew that safe would do you some good. Too bad I don't need you right at this moment." She paused, "In fact, I don't need much from you." Her eyes darted behind me and I turned around and found a white refrigerator. The one thing I hadn't noticed when I opened my eyes earlier. It was on the opposite side of the wash machine and dyer, and I didn't have the chance to look at the refrigerator earlier before my pain attack took over.
My stomach dropped upon looking at it and I knew what she wanted. "I need you to gather your strength again. No more animal blood, but think of it as a blessing that all I'm making you drink is hospital blood rather than from the source." She said behind me as I walked towards the refrigerator and opened the door. The entire door was fill of donors blood but on the shelves there was varies foods. Seeing it brought some relief to me, because I knew that there could have been so much more blood in there than there was.
I gulped and turned around to her. "All of it?"
She tilted her head and smiled. "Every last drop." Katherine then approached the stairs that led up. "I have some business to attend to with Bonnie to get my immortality and by the time I'm back, I want it all gone."
_____________________________________
not going to lie, when I was talking about Julia's body at the beginning of this chapter, it grossed me out so much. like ew. but heyyyyyyyyyyy, we all love our gross stuff some times... maybe... maybe not.
but the question is... whose ready for some human Katherine??
BUT GUYS. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH 60k VIEWS???? I NEVER THOUGHT IT WAS POSSIBLE. BUT YOU GUYS TOTALLY PROVED ME WRONG. I LOVE YOU. MY HEART BELONGS TO YOU GUYS AND KATHERINE PIERCE.
also, I'm sorry this is coming out a little later than usual. I just started my online summer classes for college and you know, great fun... especially engineering physics two...