A/N: Woohoo another story!

Hi guys. I was inspired by Memphis May Fire and their album The Hollow for this story. There will be either 9 or 10 chapter accordingly and it is one whole story but some chapter will not be related to the previous one and vice versa, the only thing that will be a consistent in this story is Bonnie and her malady .

I'll be posting it in order of the album so the next one will be The Unfaithful and in some ways it will be connected this this one and in some ways no, nuh uh. Urggh, it irks me that I can't give more in this AN. Just read and review okay guys. Love you all

- Nica

The Hollow

Part 1 – The Sinner

The magic had pooled over Bonnie's skin, giving her a strange buzz that she could only assume being high felt like. She frowned, she was searching for something, an emotion dancing just out of her reach, taunting her with incomprehension... the only thing she felt was a giddy nervousness over the fact that anyone could burst through the door of the supply closet and bust her for getting high off of dark magic.

Bonnie sat crossed-legged on the floor creating a mental image of Mr. Gardener's round face getting red with anger and him brandishing his plump finger like a weapon to tell her off. "Bonnie Bennett!" She could almost hear him yell "You have detention for a month for using dark magic in the supply closet!" A giggle bubbled up and escaped between Bonnie's lips. She pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle any more of her giggles. The high was wearing off leaving her with a feeling of dread and a strange hollowness that had her searching... for something, in the first place.

Bonnie shook her head to clear the mental image still floating around; an unnecessary movement because the thoughts just blurred together like dark tendrils, swirling and slithering. The strands moved against each other in an awkward limbo until it dissolved into ghostly, jumbled whispers. The whispers are like static; white noise on her brain, senseless and incomprehensible. She's screaming inside, her voice shrill and pained even to herself. She puts her hands over her ears pressing it closed as if it could contain her thoughts and emotions. Bonnie lets herself fall back onto the worn marble floor and she withes, the emotional pain actually taking on a physical form. The hot tears almost burn her skin and not for the first time she wishes she can turn it off. She didn't want to feel this, she didn't want to feel anything.

##

The manifestation of the dark magic that she had been dabbling in had made an appearance through her wardrobe, Damon had noticed. Gone were the girly floral shirts and blue skinny jeans.

She wore all black like himself, her lips were now always coated in fire engine red lipstick and a pair of Ray Ban shades stuck into her hair or poised on her face when she felt the need. Today she was wearing a sheer long sleeved black mini dress, black leather jacket and mid-calf black combat boots. Her shades were perched on her artfully messy chocolate locks that she had piled high onto her head in a bun. There was something that stopped Damon from thinking her pretty as he usually did.

It was the fact that her normally vibrant green eyes that sparkled with mischief and humour were flat and lifeless as if her soul had been sucked out of her body. And her smell; she always smelt slightly like cinnamon after doing a spell but now the smell was stronger, harsher on his nose but just as alluring. He wanted to shake her but he doubted she'd let him get within 100 feet.

He had helped kill her grandmother. He watches as Stefan stands at the door more concerned with hearing that he has received her forgiveness than noticing the flat, empty look her eyes have taken on

Digging a hole that I can't get out of

Deeper and deeper below the surface

To find that there's nothing there

The apologizes that come from Stefan are stifling. The way his voice fills with pity and he cocks his head to the side thinking that he knows her and how she feels. She wants to lash out at him, to get him to feel how much it hurts but she doesn't. She's getting better at pulling away from herself, becoming something she prides herself in and also something she thinks needs fixing.

So she just watches him for a long while before closing the door in her face.

Damon watches her carefully, notices when she shuts everything down and pushes everyone away. He lets her, knowing that for her to climb back out of the pit she has dug herself, that she must hit rock bottom. He isn't sure why he's watching her. Probably because her pain is intoxicating, more potent than his and he wants to concentrate on anything else besides the fact that Katherine is a manipulative bitch with a knack for ruining lives.

So he watches, enjoying the power he feels when he settles into her dreams knowing fully well that he has the power to change them at will. She dreams of digging holes with her bare hands, her nails breaking and bleeding as she screams, digging deeper yet even though she knows she will not be able to get out soon.

After a while she starts recognizing the hole as her grave and she stops screaming as her body compels her to dig deeper, she just moves robotically, her limbs co-ordinated and stiff.

Where do I go from here?

Give me something that I can feel!

Back and forth here we go again

What will it take to keep it together?

The night that he realizes that he's wrong about letting her hit rock bottom is eerily quiet and the moon is full casting light on the all the dark surfaces. She's silent as she digs, water brimming her eyes but not falling. Dirt smears her face and it's all over her but she doesn't seem to care. All she can do is dig. He thinks about twisting her dreams around her, pulling the nightmare from out under her but he resists.

A longing to see her raw, intoxicating pain holds him back. She's further than she's ever been before and the sky in her dreams cracks open pouring the elixir of the heavens down onto her. The sky around Damon mirrors her dreams. And then she's drowning, the muddy water being forced into her lungs and the bloody stubs she called fingers seeking purchase in the mud of the walls. Bonnie's panic gets too much and it's overwhelming them both, he reaches, with much difficulty into the dream.

"Bonnie," His voice startles her and the dream flashes to images of Damon with red eyes and black veins wriggling around them attacking her to a dejected looking Damon standing behind a invisible force field and then finally to her lifeless Grams before it returns to the hole and cements itself in it. Her pure hatred of him pushes him out, unable to intervene and Damon is reeling. It feels as if a 10 tonne metal door has slammed into him before slamming shut in front of him.

His head in pounding and he watches as Bonnie grits her teeth and spits the dirty water out of her mouth and sinks below the murky surface. He thinks that's she going to die in this dream, the vivid nature able to jar her out of her near comatose state but minutes pass by until a pale brown hand reaches beneath the surface and plucks her easily out of the water as if she weighed nothing

Keep me close, keep me close

Keep my head above water

I need to hear your voice

I can't do this on my own

He watches as Sheila Bennett cradles her granddaughter to her chest and hovers her face over Bonnie's letting her breath wash over her face until she sputters and coughs the water from her lungs. Bonnie's green eyes blink up at her until she gasps and they're gripping each other in bone crushing hugs and Bonnie's crying and screaming. Every ounce of pain she felt at the funeral weeks before is flooding back into her and Damon inexplicitly regrets his choice to revel in her misfortune.

He never thought that such a small girl could hold so much pain. He watches as Sheila leans in to whisper in Bonnie's ear so lowly that even his superior hearing cannot hear them over the roar of the wind and rain. Then the dream dissolves around her and he watches her unmoving form on her bed, her head twisted away from him but her breathing erratic.

Damon feels both the need to comfort her and run far away from her but he does neither just sits on his branch not daring to move as if that will break the spell and the pain that he was able to feel from her will shatter him.

##

Driving and blaring music at the highest possible levels without damaging her hearing was pretty distracting and she needed a distraction because she wanted to forget her dreams, the sympathetic looks at her Gram's funeral, all the pats on her back and the not so gentle speculation about what kind of father Rudy Hopkins was for missing his mother-in-law's funeral and leaving his daughter alone.

But most of all, she had wanted to forget her best friend's face; the pretty whiskey coloured eyes, her proud nose, her prominent cheekbones. The face the girl wore that originally belonged to a very old and very manipulative vamp bitch; the one whose little lapdog and Elena's nerve grating saviour complex (even though the girl knew full well she had no power to save anyone much less herself) had costed her her Grams.

"It's okay to be angry," Caroline had said rubbing slow circles on the bare skin of her lower back where her t-shirt had ridden up.

They were huddled up on her coach after the funeral, a foggy feeling still clouding her brain and the whole thing feeling like a dream, a horrible horrible dream that she would wake up from. "I know you love Elena but you just always seem to get hurt when she's involved." She scoffed in agreement? or contemplation?

Bonnie wanted to take Caroline's out and give into her anger but from Caroline's tone and her unfocused glare directed at the blank flat screen in from of them; Care was angry enough for the both of them.

So her anger forgotten but her resentment still very present, she mouthed the words to the song and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. Bonnie had never known her mother and held no curiosity to do so because the woman who had raised her was all she understood of that word and more and Bonnie needed her back.

She found her answer, with some difficulty in the depths of New Orleans amidst the shrouds of secrecy and fear of the vampire called Marcel. His tyranny spread far over the city making it hard to find any witches or warlocks willing to talk to her especially about what she wanted information on.

The girl who had spoken to her had gripped her hand with both of hers, the paleness of her skin an interesting contrast to Bonnie's, looked deep into her flat forest green eyes with startlingly grey eyes

"I'm only telling you this because I can see you're broken and if you don't find a sufficient answer you'll break everyone around you," She had said, "But this will eat you inside out. It's wrong for us as witches to tip the balance; we're its protectors. No one should have this power, especially not a broken little girl,"

Bonnie had pulled her hand out of the girl's grip as if she had been burnt, the girl looked at her and she had a feeling the girl wasn't just sprouting nonsense, that she was seeing what was to come. Somehow that did nothing to deter Bonnie, all she could think about was that Grams would fix everything.

Beneath the sun I am rotting

Just like the ones that came before me

I cannot deny my own walk has become a crawl

I've never felt so

I've never felt so lost

The night was darker than usual- the sky starless and the moon sinister in its fullness - when Bonnie stole back into town.

Any fear that she had contained slipped away as she stood inside the pentacle in salt that she had spelled in the middle of a field. The area had grown eerily quiet and Bonnie could almost hear her own heartbeat as she worked to light the fire in the large wrought iron basins. The Latin that she had memorized fell from her lips naturally and she winced when the wind picked up but continued her recital of the spell.

She gingerly picked up an antique hair clip that had been her Grams, a gift that she had received from an old boyfriend in her late teens. She threw it in and watched as the flames flared up to an intense heat and melted the solid silver hair clip like it was nothing. She gritted her teeth together in determination and unsheathed a jewel encrusted ceremonial dagger that was a family heirloom and sliced open the palm of her left hand and watched the blood from the wound drop into basin. Everything was still, too still for too long and them Bonnie dropped to her hands and knees, her upper torso burning and her body forcing her to retch. Her body dry heaved for a while before a dark, rich liquid spurted past her lips to stain the green grass. She blinked for a moment, not understanding what was going on.

What was this? This wasn't supposed to be part of it, she had already given of her blood willingly.

The ground shook beneath her hands and it split open and ghastly sounds that chilled her to her bones escaped. She let out a strangled cry and backed away on her haunches, away from the rapidly opening ground. She winced at the movement, it felt as if all her ribs were broken and from the hollow feeling in her stomach, something wasn't right. A skeletal hand reached up from crack and proceeded to pull itself up, tattered bits of ashen gray – brown skin clinging to dead muscles and tendons. Worn rags clung from its body and thin, lifeless curly hair clung to a semblance of a scalp.

The smell was putrid and Bonnie refrained from gagging again for the fear that blood instead of her lunch would find its way to the forefront. "Grams," Bonnie croaked and its head tilted up and sunken, brown eyes met her teary green ones.

"Grams," She cried "It's me, Bonnie," There was nothing there, no recognition for her only granddaughter only that look she had seen in Damon's eyes before he had attacked her, hunger. His was hunger for revenge but this, the look that – this- this thing gave her was pure unbidden cannibalistic hunger. Faster than she thought a skeleton figure could move, it lunged at her she threw her arms up to protect herself. It growled unnaturally as her magic sent it flying backwards.

Any hopes that she had that sense could be talked into her Grams were squashed and she trembled as her skeletal figure rose from the heap that she had sent it flying into and moved to attack once more. Bonnie rose her hand out in front of her and muttered the words that would freeze her Grams and then send her into flames. She looked away, taking solstice in the fact that her Grams – or what was left of her – wouldn't feel it.

She only looked up when her magic tugged wearily at the sleeves of her consciousness. She stood with some difficulty, her ribs hurt and her head and hand, where she had cut it, throbbed painfully. Casting her teary eyes at the charred heap on the floor she squeezed her eyes tightly together and turned her back on her selfish act that had damned her Grams – no matter how short an amount of time she was like that – to be that creature. In agony and eternal hunger.

##

I know I could never run far enough

To escape your love (To escape your love)

So why do I keep running?

She didn't well sleep that night or any night after for that matter. How could she?

She had went home, showered for an eternity and cried herself to sleep.

And in her dreams, it was the only place they could reach her and try to punish her. "Your magic is the only thing that's keeping you alive right now," A voice had whispered against the dark mass of her sleeping thoughts. "But it's not going to hold up much longer. It may go about letting you unrestricted access to magic but it's unnatural and self-serving and you'll just be another dead witch used to fuel its power."

She is made to recall her Gram's dead eyes and grey flesh, the unnatural shriek she made when she had lunged for Bonnie. She feels if she has been screaming for hours before she wakes up panting and sweat making the clothes stick to her small frame.

Now the chaos is all around me

Show me the light at the end of the tunnel

I need you to save me from myself

Give me something I can feel!

Bonnie pushes back her heavy comforters and makes her way over to open her window, before she moves away from it, a glimpse of black catches her eye. Perched on a tree in front of her window is a crow, so still that she would have missed it if not for the mischievous glint in its eye. She sighs and places her head into her hands.

The anger that she usually feels towards him isn't as easy to come by probably because she thinks she gets him on a certain level. He has no one and love has never been easy to come by and everything he touches goes to hell. She thinks it sounds familiar. So she sits on her window seat and stares at it, willing it to blink or move.

It doesn't.

After a while she feels ridiculous, for all she knows it could actually be an animal but then there is a gust of wind and Damon's clinging to her window, so close his finger brushes the invisible barrier stopping him from entering her home, and she can almost feel his breath on her face.

"I think this is called stalking," She quips unthinkingly. "I'm almost certain I can file a restraining order,"

His face is impassive and his methane eyes don't meet hers.

"Everyone's worried about you," She scoffs "I've been away from school for 2 weeks, if they were worried they could pop by or text," Damon shrugs unwilling to go further into the topic of how bad her friends suck.

"Where have you been?"

She mirrors his shrug "Around,"

The cold wind whips at her face but she's too numb to care. Damon finally looks at her, his curiosity peaking. She had stopped smelling like cinnamon after she came back into town; now she smelt like death. It clung to her like smoke and instead of being repulsive it draws him in and makes him notice how broken she is.

The silence stretches on and he hates it, hates that he still cannot sincerely apologize for his part in her Gram's death. Hates that she will never stop blaming him for everything, down to global warming. Hates that she cannot hold on to her anger for him and despises the fact that he has ruined another life. She would have never accepted his apology anyways because words are just that. They mean nothing in the end.

A countdown has started in her body, it hums with magic and she can tell how much time she has left. It's a ticking sound inside her head.

Tic

"I'm sorry Damon," The words that leaves her mouth are startling to them both and Bonnie leans back against her window frame and does a quick introspection, she finds that she means it. "I blame you for everything and I know it's not fair…It's just easy to blame someone else than to realize that my need to be a saviour is why I keep being trampled on and why I loose everyone."

Damon eyes searches hers "Sometimes it is my fault, I'm selfish and crass and I ruin everything I touch. I ruined you."

"What are you talking about?" He hesitates for a second before he looks up at the waning crescent in the sky, it's barely able to give off light to illuminate the darkness.

"You were the first person I met in this town," He started "It was really late and you had just walked out of the library, I was drunk and asked you directions,"

"Why don't I remember?" She frowns.

"I kissed you and compelled you to forget, I didn't want anyone knowing that I was back in town yet,"

Bonnie's hand reaches up to touch her lips and Damon's eyes follows her movement. When her fingers come in contact, she feels the hollowness inside her grow and she's slightly dizzy.

"I don't want to forget," She says and it shocks her, not for the first time, at how honest she's being.

"Come in," Damon gracefully slides through her window and they stand away from each other, searching for something… Bonnie steps closer and cradles his face in her hands.

She had never really thought of Damon in a romantic sense; he was just too cocky and infuriating to be around. Now like this, both of their amours down; she could see the beauty of his brokenness especially since she was just as broken. It was like looking into a mirror.

Tic

She stands on her tiptoes to gently press her lips against his. A caste peck that evolves once his hands move to her waist and lifts her up so she is forced to wrap her long legs around his midsection. His tongue seeks entry to her mouth and she obliges in surprise as he lowers them unto her bed.

They kiss for a while, Damon's hands never wandering further than necessary and hers staying laced in his hair. He pulls apart, letting her breathe and he takes in the sight of her eyes half lidded and her lips swollen from all his kisses. It stirs something inside of him and he wants her even more. They lie facing each other in a comfortable silence. Damon traces slow circles on the skin of her arms, collarbones, anywhere his hands could reach and Bonnie laces the fingers of his free hand together with hers.

Eerie. She supposed. That one week she hated him and the next… she could tolerate him. He was just a place holder she supposed. Something to place into that void inside her so she won't feel so hollowed out anymore. So empty.

No one or nothing was a substitute for her Grams, the woman who raised her but she could try to fill the void she left somehow.

Tic

Take all my guilt

Take all my pride

I want to know you sincerely

I'm on my knees

Take all of me

I want to feel you here with me

Feel you here with me!