"Who are you?"

   "My name is Elijah, and I am here to help you."

   "I don't need any help."

   The man laughed and looked around, slightly spreading his hands to show the carnage surrounding me. "You do," he chided. "If you didn't you would not be destroying towns. Look at that pile of bodies, Clara. As the pile gets bigger, so will your pain."

   "How do you know my name?"

   "That's a story for another time." The man, Elijah, walked to me and laid his hands on my cheek. He made me look into his eyes, which resembled burning ember due to the fire dancing around us. "Create a place in your mind to put your victims. Close them behind a red door and forget. Clean yourself up after every kill, look immaculate, and you'll never have to think of the pain again."

   I woke up to the sound of police and ambulance sirens. The sirens echoed around the room, and stayed longer than usual due to my vampire hearing. I sat up to look around, and noticed that I was thrown on a bed. The sheets were soft like silk, comfortable like a cloud. The only thing that illuminated the room was a small lamp to the other side and the open window. By the open window stood a man, his back to me. I stood up and pushed myself back, the wall being the only thing that stopped me from speeding out of the room.

   "You don't have to be afraid of an old friend," the man said, not turning around. Slowly, he turned.

   I gasped and pushed myself closer to the wall. "You... You died! I saw Damon stab you!"

    "You thought a mere coat rack would kill me?" he chuckled. "Come on, Clara. You should know better than that. After all, you spent more than half of your vampire life with me."

   I calmed down as he spoke. His voice had the effect of Ashwaganda tea; he promoted a general sense of well-being. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I went with him in the first place. I tilted my head to the side and took calculated steps to him. One could never be too careful around Elijah, around the original vampire.

   "You look so clean," I muttered, mostly to myself. "You always looked so clean."

   He pushed his hands to his pockets and tilted his head slightly to the right as he stared at me. It was as if he were trying to read my mind, to decipher the last fifteen years where I wasn't with him. And suddenly, I didn't remember why I left. I remembered living in New Orleans with Elijah as he taught me about being a vampire, but every other figure I tried to remember was a silhouette. There were parts of my memory that were as vague as the Barnum effect.

   "Why did I leave?" I asked him, frowning.

   "You tell me," he said before taking a sip from his glass. "You left in the middle of that disaster, Clara. The first time I heard from you since then was last night, when you saved that dopplegänger."

   "I said that I would protect her," I said, brushing my fingers against the wooden table that kept the bottle of whatever alcohol he was drinking. "It's noble to keep my word, you taught me that."

    Elijah smiled softly and nodded with the rim of the glass still on his lips. He drank what was left on the glass. "I've taught you many things, Clara. Keeping your word is one of them." He walked to the table I stood by and poured himself a bit more of the alcohol. "What have you been up to for the past fifteen years?"

   "I travelled," I answered. Elijah had something in him, just like Stefan did, that allowed me to tell him everything. Plus, it would be a bad idea to lie to the man that helped me.

   "More?" he laughed. "You always did tell me that you wanted to travel. Where did you go?"

   "Czech Republic," I said. "I had a small apartment in Prague. I went to South Africa, Greece, Croatia, China, Cambodia, Peru... I travelled the world."

   "What were you doing in Mystic Falls, then?" he asked, raising a brow. "I would have imagined that you would have stayed in one of those places."

   "I wanted to see how much it had changed since 1864," I answered him honestly. "To be honest, it changed a lot."

   "Are you sure that's the only reason why you went back?" He sauntered back to the window, a hand in his pocket while the other held on to the glass.

   "Yes," I said, taking a stand next to him. "I just wanted to see my birthplace. My home is destroyed; its a ruin now. There are trees and wild flowers growing in the places where I used to walk, where I used to dance, where I spent my human years." I looked up at him and smiled softly. "It's tragically beautiful." 

   Whenever one was with Elijah, the poetic side one didn't know they had came out. With him, things looked like other things and expressive words became adjectives and verbs. It was as if your inner Shakespeare had awaken, as if Robert Frost took over your tongue and spoke as if it were interpreting one of his poems. And, I like that about his company. It reminded me of those uneventful afternoons where I sat in the study and read books aloud to my mother and siblings. My mother didn't listen, she was too busy with her stitch work, but my younger siblings did. 

   "It seems that your friends have been snooping around," Elijah suddenly said, making me realise that the morning sun was illuminating the outside. "They're here. Come along, Clara."

   It would be a mistake to not do as he said, so I followed behind him. We left the hotel room, and walked between people until we reached the front of a coffee shop. A man was playing a guitar, and Elijah gave him money in exchange for a handful of coins. He then decanted the coins to his other hand and looked to the window. I followed his eyes and saw Damon sitting across from a man and Rose, the woman that had Elena. Elijah was listening to them closely. They spoke of a man named Klaus, of Elijah, and werewolves. 

    "You want to walk in the sun?" Damon asked the man. "I can make that happen if you help us."

   And suddenly, Elijah threw the coins from his hand to the window. All of the windows broke, causing a rain of glass to fall on everyone that was inside the building. Rose and the man's skin began to burn, and they began to yell from the pain. That was when Elijah took a hold of my arms and sped away. When we stopped, I looked up at him. 

   "What were they doing there?" I asked, looking into his hazel eyes. "Elijah, what is Damon doing here? And where is here, anyway?" Even after hours of being with him, I not once think I was kidnapped. I had spent so much time with him in the past that his company came to me naturally.

   "Like I said, they were snooping around when they shouldn't be," he answered. He also answered as vaguely as possible, which was a new thing. 

   A few hours passed and Elijah brought me along to another house. When he walked in, I noticed that the house belonged to the man that was talking to Damon at the coffee shop. He looked scared when he saw Elijah, and I would be as well. He was a thousand year old vampire, and one had every reason to be afraid of such a strong vampire. 

   "I want you to call your friends," Elijah said, compelling the man. "Tell them that to break the curse, they need a witch."

   The man did as he said almost immediately. He picked up his phone and called Rose, telling her that if she could get the moonstone, all she needed was to get a witch, and that a witch would figure out the rest. The man hung up the phone. From the phone call, I found out that his name was Slater.

   "Very nicely done," Elijah said to him.

   "Thanks," Slater said, confused. "I have a degree in theatre. How can you compel me? A vampire can't compel another vampire."

   "I'm a special vampire," Elijah mused. 

   "What?" the man stumbled back. "Because you're an original?"

   "Hmm," Elijah hummed. "Now, I want you to take this and drive it through your heart." He pulled out a stake and handed it to Slater.

   Slater took the stake and shook as he glanced from it to Elijah. "But that would kill me forever."

   "I know." Elijah began to compel him. "But it's necessary." The man drove the stake through his heart, and then fell on the floor dead. 

   I frowned and looked up at Elijah. "Was it, really?"

   "It had to be done, Clara," he said, turning back to look at me. "He delivered his message. Won't be long now."

   I took a step back, realizing that I had somehow become part of his plan. That meant that I was against Elena, Damon, and Stefan. I didn't want to be, so I sped to the door. His figure stopped me from exiting. There was no smile around his lips, only a straight line that told me he was in no way amused that I tried to run away. 

   "Please, Elijah!" I pleaded, trying to pry my arm away from his hold. "I said that I would hep protect Elena, and I keep my word!"

   "So noble," he sarcastically praised. "You will forget what we did now, and you will sleep." I fell back, closing my eyes. 

    I had been with Elijah for several days now. It wasn't horrible, in fact it was like returning with an old friend.  We walked through Richmond at times, enjoying the few things that were around the city. At times, we would stop at a restaurant and enjoy the human food. Instead of feeding on humans, Elijah thought best to feed on blood bags he had gotten from a doctor at the hospital. My mind became blank at times, and I couldn't remember what had happened for several hours. It came to me that he had compelled me to forget. I became uneasy. When he was around, I began to get jittery. It wasn't the good kind, either. It was the kind of jitter when you knew something bad had or will happen, and you just couldn't stand still.

   "I need to go back to my house," I said to Elijah as he drove. "The movers' came a few days ago and probably left them outside."

   "After fifteen years, you want to leave me again?" he teased. His lips were in a straight line, though. 

   "Please," I quietly pleaded, looking down at the skirt of my dress. "I feel like I need to go back to my friends."

   "Yes, they keep calling your phone non-stop." He pulled out something from his pocket and handed it to me. I took it, feeling the structure of my phone. "The most calls must be from Damon."

   Overall, I had a few hundred miss calls. The voicemail was full, so it seemed that they took it to text messages. There were over two hundred text messages, all of them asking where I was or depicting what had happened while I was gone. It surprised me to see that all of the Save Elena Squad had been messaging me: Damon, Stefan, Caroline, Elena, the littlest Gilbert, and surprisingly even Bonnie.

   "I want to go home," I said once again, putting the phone in the pocket of my sweater. "Could I please leave?"

   "You don't need my permission, Clara," he said, smiling in my direction. "You left fifteen years ago, you can leave again."

   "I..." I frowned. "Please, stop the car." He did as I said. 

   When the car stopped, I got out. Elijah was in front of me in a second, his eyes boring into mine. He grabbed me by my arms. "Feed," he ordered. "You will feed until you arrive at the Salvatore's home. You will be covered in blood, just like first time we met. And the only thing you'll remember is the immense hunger you had."

   "I will feed," I repeated. "I will feed until I arrive at the boarding house."

   "Good," Elijah breathed, taking his hand from my arm. "I will see you again, Clara."

   Everything became black until my feet touched the entrance of the boarding house. What had happened came back to me like an old film, and it repeated like a broken record. I gasped at the remembrance, and held in a sob as I pulled my arms around me. Slowly, I walked up to the front of the house and opened the door. The inside was silent, and I wanted nothing more than to hear words of comfort. I closed the door loudly and looked around.

   As I moved, my feet created bloody footprints on the floor. I stumbled over my own feet as I moved, feeling like a drunk. The blood dripped from my dress, my lips were decorated in red and my tongue tasted of the metallic substance that was like a drug to a vampire. The back of my throat burned with the taste, and it was teasing me for me to grab more. 

   "Hey, what's..." Damon stood by the entrance of the parlour and looked horrified at me. "Clara... What did you do?"

   "I don't..." I frowned. "I... I don't know..." I fell to my knees and began to cry while staring at my hands. They were covered in hues of red; some corners were dried and the others were fresh. How many people had I killed? How many lives had I destroyed? I only remembered that I had this intense thirst and I couldn't help myself.

   "Hey, hey..." I felt arms around me, and then a chest pressed to my cheek. I took hold of the body and began to sob into their chest. "Everything will be okay, Clara..." Damon's voice was soothing. It was like cold water on burning skin, like a deep breath after being underwater for so long. He was refreshing, and I hated that. I was supposed to hate him, to forget about the feelings that surged through me whenever he touched me. But, as he hugged me, as he brushed his arm up and down my blood covered arm, I come back to those feelings.

   Just when I began to think all hope was lost I hear his voice calling my name. It's like a ray of light in the darkness of my memories. It guides me back to reality. I feel him brush his fingers through my hair, just like a child. The sobs die down, and he tells me everything is alright. I rest my head on his chest. It came to me that Damon was my anchor, he gave me hope when the darkness crept in. Yet, another voice speaks its hope as just an illusion that is unreachable and unapproachable. Is it to fool my mind and defy logic? 

   "I killed them," I whimpered against Damon's chest. "I killed them."

   "Who?" he asked, pulling me away. He took my cheeks in his hand and made me look at him. "Who did you kill?"

   "I killed them, Damon," I repeated. "I killed them all..."

   "Who?" His voice was louder this time, and his fingers pressed to the side of my head. "Who did you kill, Clara?"

   "A family," I said, staring at nothing. "There was a mother, and a father, and a child... I killed them all, Damon."

   "Damon?" A new voice joined. I slowly glanced up to look at the owner, seeing Rose dressed in a violet robe. "You just left. What... What happened?"

   "Help me," Damon said, lifting me up in his arms. He cradled me against his chest as he sped up the stairs and into a bathroom. There was warmth all around me from the hot water that came from the bath. When Damon sat me down, he began to take off my clothes. It wasn't in any way sexual; it felt as if he were taking care of me. 

   The hot water surrounded me a few seconds later. It was warm and inviting, but I didn't enjoy it. The crystal clear water became tainted red with the blood that surrounded me. I hugged my legs to my chest. Someone kept their hand on my back as they poured water over my shoulders. 

   "What happened?" Damon asked, his voice coming behind me. It was him that was helping me. 

   "I killed them," I responded, looking down at the red water. 

   "Before that," he sighed. "You were missing for a few days. We all called you and you didn't pick up. Even Little Gilbert and Bonnie were worried for you, and they're not in Team Vampire."

   "I was..." I furrowed my brows and turned my head to look at him. "I was with Elijah..."

   "Elijah?" he asked, surprised. There was a bit of anger in his voice. "Why the hell with you with him, Clara? He almost killed Rose, and he probably killed Slater, too!"

   "I remember talking to him about what I was doing for the past fifteen years," I said. My voice was drifting with the sound of the water dripping. "I don't... I don't remember what else... We walked around Richmond, and went sightseeing. I was the one that spoke, he... He didn't."

   "And why didn't you bother to at least call?" he asked, glaring. "You could have told me-us that you were with him!"

   "I'm..." I looked at the red water and passed my hand to it. "I'm sorry." I said, taking a deep breath. "Could you please leave? I don't want to see this blood any more."

   "It's not like I haven't seen any of it," he smirked, wiggling his brows. 

   I looked at him and blinked. "Please, Damon."

   His expression changed. No longer did he have the teasing look around his face. He looked taken aback, surprised. Maybe he expected me to have some witty saying, something like how he should bite me or a teasing sentence. But, I didn't have the strength to say something like that. I felt like crying instead of teasing him.

   "I'll be..." He cleared his throat. "I'll be downstairs if you need me." He kept staring at me as he walked out and closed the door behind him. 

   As soon as he left, I stood up and went to the shower. Clear water spread over my head, and red water fell down my skin. The water around my feet was red, the silver drain becoming a coloured show of different hues. When the water around my feet became clear, I began to wash every inch of my body. I scrubbed till my skin turned pink, till I thought every inch of the remembrance of the family that I killed was gone. 

   I took a deep breath and shut my eyes, concentrating. When I was in the early years of my new life, Elijah told me to place my victims behind a red door, and then forget them. That was what I did with the family. I placed each face behind the red door, and shut it with lock and key. The key, I threw that as far as possible. I opened my eyes, and immediately felt better. 

   I got out of the shower and dressed myself in the first clothes my hands touched, which happened to be one of Damon's t-shirts and a pair of boxers I could put over my own underwear. Running my hands through my hair to untangle it, I walked down the stairs. I could hear Damon speaking with Rose, about how her shoulder hurt. 

   "How does it look?" I heard her ask.

   "It looks better," Damon replied. He turned his head when I arrived, and smirked. "Hmm, you look nice with my clothes."

   I rolled my eyes. "Whatever," I sighed. My eyes strained on Rose, who had the robe falling from a shoulder. "What happened?"

   "Werewolf bite," she responded with a soft hiss. "A lot of things happened while you were gone."

   "Apparently," I chuckled, walking over to her. The bite had open sores and blisters, and the veins and arteries in the area looked blackened and diseased. I made a face and took a step back, watching as she pulled up the robe to cover it. She looked paler than the first time I saw her. It was because of the venom that ran through her veins, the same one that would kill her.

   "How does it look?" she asked me.

   I shot a look at Damon, who in return did the same. He meant that I should lie, that I should make her feel comfortable. I laid a hand on her other shoulder and smiled. "It looks okay."

   "Thank god," she breathed, standing. "I'm going to take a bath. It will calm my nerves."

   As soon as she left, Damon walked up to me with his arms crossed. "Are you going to spend the night here or do you want to go back to your house?"

   "Where's Stefan?" I changed the subject.

   "Elena's," Damon answered, staring at me. "Clara, please respond to my question. Are you staying here or going back to your place?"

   "Hmm," I hummed as a response, brushing my hand against the couch. "Which one do you prefer?" I teased with a small smile. 

   He furrowed his brows and shook his head, almost in disbelief. "What is wrong with you?" he spat. "You were all moody and sad not even twenty minutes ago. Now it's just like nothing even happened!"

   "I need to get over it," I said with a bored sigh, grabbing one of the many books on the shelves to see its title. "They're dead, what can I do? Mourn? Nah, that's just a waste of time."

   "Clara." He sped over to me and grabbed me by my shoulders, making me look at him. "Seriously, what the hell?"

   I smiled and patted his cheek gentle. "I'm fine, Damon," I said. "Now, I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted and could use some well-deserved rest." I brushed past him and walked up the stairs, straight to the room that I used when I first came. My smile disappeared the moment I closed the door behind me. Just like Elijah had taught me; once I put something behind the red door, I would forget.