Olivia Brewster's face claim is Lily Collins. I do not own the Vampire Diaries.

———

"She's my person. If I murdered someone, she's the person I'd call to help me drag the corpse across the living room floor. She's my person."

—Cristina Yang, Grey's Anatomy

———

Chapter One:

A Night Terror

———

This wasn't a normal situation.

Normal people don't dream of a beautiful man drowning forever in their childhood lake.

Normal people don't pack a duffel bag and fly back home to make sure that the man isn't actually drowning.

But here I was, in Mystic Falls, on the coast of the lake that I used to play in throughout my childhood, and I couldn't breathe. There was no mistaking the large object on the muddy shore, it looked exactly the same as it had in all of my dreams; there it was—the big, black safe. It's opening thankfully already facing towards the sky as it laid on its side.

Taking a deep, shuttering breath, I attempt to calm myself down with the confirmation that I wasn't absolutely insane. The black safe was large and covered in different types of mud and algae, clearly something that had recently been pulled up from the bottom of the lake, judging by the water drips still trailing down it's coarse metal walls.

Even looking at the safe instilled a good ounce of mind-numbing fear in me; memories of the trauma I've dreamt sending nearly paralyzing chills down my spine.

But, if this much was real, I needed to be sure.

My body had already started making steps towards the mass of metal, quickly escalating from my slow steps to full-on sprinting until I reached it, immediately reaching for the handle. My rainboots slid slowly in the mud as I tried opening it, the rusted metal not budging at all as I grunt against it. I try, again and again until my arms are aching and quivering at the effort, but nothing.

Grunting with a final shove, I slip in the wet mud, falling promptly onto my ass. The amount of disgust that rolls through my body when I feel the wet splat of my jeans smack against the sludge is overwhelming, and I sigh quietly, about to beg the universe for some patience as I stand once more from the mud. Looking around the dark forest, I can't believe that I'm actually out here and doing this.

I'm not a hero, so why am I trying to save the dream boy?

This wasn't me.

———

12 hours ago

———

I sit up in my bed with a silent scream, terror pouring out of my every pore.

It had happened again.

The nightmares would always start out the same.

I would wake up in a white room with no windows; just a large, swirling whirlpool of water in the center of the room, descending into a pit so deep that just the darkness of it was foreboding.

And yet, my body would walk to it without my permission, making me panic as my body took calm steps towards my own watery demise. The moment I step on the edge of the whirlpool, just the slightest bit of water touching my toes, the pool stills.

I can hear chimes and the sway of the wind in the empty room, even without the windows, and I find myself at the deep pool's epicenter, hovering over the dark pit. A sort of Lovecraftian fear fills me, a sort of terror that someone only feels when faced with the unknown, as if a tendril will hook out from the depths and drag me down, but no.

And here is where it has always differed. Throughout my life, whatever happened next in my dream would depend on what I'd say next. But for the last three months, it'd been the same.

Mouth opening without my permission, and I feel my eyes roll to the back of my head as I say in a voice much deeper than my own, "The Depths Do Hold Him. The Hero Must Go Free."

And then, it's like an immediate drop on a rollercoaster.

I sink.

Down, down, down into the darkness as my voice is choked by the water all around me, making me thrash around in search of an exit. Suddenly, it's as if the darkness itself is closing in around me, forming thick walls that ring hollow when my fists slam against them in the dark water. And then I feel something that makes my heart stop.

Warm, firm arms wrap around me, making me spin around in the watery darkness blindly before finding myself locked firmly in place by whatever is behind me. I pound against whatever flesh holds me, desperately fighting for air as I struggle against its strength, when suddenly, a ray of light shines down on me, revealing what the darkness has become. I'm surrounded by metal walls compressing against me in a way that makes me feel claustrophobic, but that's not what I'm looking at really.

I'm in the arms of a boy. A very pretty boy. The strange boy's coifed brown hair flowed freely in the water, his eyes closed as his arms firmly hold my wiggling form. We float together as I stare at him in silence, wondering what the poor man did to be sent to my personal hell.

And that's when the most beautiful green eyes I've ever seen meet mine; and for a split second, I forget that I'm drowning.

I forget that the depths hold me prisoner, that my lungs burn so intensely with the need to breathe that I taste something sour in the back of my throat.

And for a moment, there's peace.

His eyes flutter open again under the water, eventually rousing to where he snaps his handsome head down and looks at me blankly, as if he doesn't believe I'm real. The boy's eyes suddenly twist in unimaginable pain as he screams in agony, me unable to hear his cry under the water as bubbles blow out of his mouth in rapid succession.

Fear spikes violently through me as his face warps into something monstrous, but nonetheless, tortured; his visage morphing as veins appeared under his eyes and sharp teeth protruded from his gums as he continued to scream, squeezing me closer.

Desperately wanting to help him and for all of this to just stop and for me to be able to fucking breathe— I scream back.

My body is flung from his arms like a rag doll by an unseen force that threatens to knock me out, pulling me not only from the safe and tugging me through the dark waters, but revealing that the body of water that I've exited is Steven's Quarry and not the whirlpool from before. I'm pulled farther into the air, entering the clouds at a breakneck pace while I can't even scream, I'm so terrified.

I'm suddenly thrust hard and find myself back over Richmond, back over my home, and then I slowly descend onto my bed, waking up to the sound of a harsh male voice screaming, in a way that I think must've shredded the individual's vocal chords, "SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

And then, I wake up, and find myself here.

My face is damp as I run a trembling hand over it, desperately trying to ground myself as my other hand clutches my blanket tight. The impulse to grab the sleeping pills in my bathroom is there. But I resist it; the bitter feeling of knowing they don't really help me making me feel even more helpless to the night terrors.

Oh, but, introductions.

My name is Olivia Brewster. I am twenty years old, and live alone in Richmond. No family, just grew up as a ward of the state until I aged out of the foster care system. I'm in community college for a business degree that I'm not sure if I actually want, but I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I have no direction other then pay my rent, don't go crazy, and keep breathing.

Groaning, I slump back against my mattress, rubbing my still-teary eyes as I attempt to adjust back to the real world. The light streams in through my bedroom window, and my blue eyes narrow at it, wondering why it's so light out before my alarm has gone off. Glancing to my left, I spot the light of my cheap red alarm clock behind several half-empty water bottles, promptly sweeping them all into the floor to spot the time.

I gasp when I see that it's one-thirty in the afternoon, heart-pounding as I slam my hand down on my phone, quickly grabbing and unlocking it, seeing several messages from my boss, and none of them looking good for my employment at the daycare.

In fact, one tastefully says, 'Don't bother coming in. We'll mail you your last check.'

Pushing my fucked-up brown tresses off of my forehead, I pinch my nose, trying to not get mad so early in the morning. I need my meds.

Struggling briefly before finally freeing my legs from the tangle of hot sheets my bed has become, I woozily hop up, grabbing one of the half-empty water bottles. I down the rest of it, wetting my dry, sleep-tasting mouth in the half-assed way lukewarm water always soothes a dry throat.

Lukewarm water is the ruined orgasm of beverages, and I will live by that till the day I die.

Stumbling over several piles of laundry that I still need to do and have needed to do for like two weeks, I walk into my blue connecting bathroom, the obnoxious swan that's painted on the wall greeting me. I've always thought the thing has got to be possessed, because it feels like it's watching you everywhere. It's creepy, but so is this weird house, so whatever.

Closing my bathroom door, I reach over my makeup cluttered counter, grabbing the face wash above the sink. I rub my eye and groan when it fails the makeup test, a large smear of black stretching across my pale skin. I toss off my tank top and underwear, sliding into the warm welcoming shower with a sigh.

Lathering the soap and washing off whatever makeup I had on from dancing last night, it takes a couple goes with the face wash, but my face is finally cleaned. I reach for my wash cloth to wipe the rest of the soap off of my face, and as I'm scrubbing under the hot stream of water, I freeze when it feels like eyes are on my naked back.

I don't know what makes me think that someone is in here now, I haven't heard anyone enter, and I didn't bring anyone home last night.

But I do.

My throat contracts, and I honestly don't want to look, but my head turns anyway, shower pelting my collar bone unforgivingly as a spike of fear rushes through me yet again. Definitely with more shock this time around though.

I'm frozen as I see those green eyes from my darkest dreams this summer there. He's there. He's there.

He's completely drenched even without being under the shower with me, and his lips are pale blue and puffy, deep purple bags under his eyes. Water pours out of his mouth as he tries to tell me something, and I feel like I'm losing my mind. What was real? What the fuck?

In the muffled garble of the water flowing from his lips like a spigot, I hear the terrified, pained chokes of a dying man.

My body moving without my permission as I look into those panicked eyes, I try to reach out, try to save him from whatever horrible pain he's obviously in. His green eyes widen further in their horror, fading from the warm forest-y color to a milky white as he reaches out for my outstretched palm.

Then, he melts into a million droplets of blood and water, making me finally snap out of my terrified stupor and let out a blood-curdling scream. The red falls into the water, and my hands are gripping the sides of my wet hair as my body subconsciously moves as far away from where he had been as possible in the standing shower. I squeeze my eyes shut and all I see are those petrified eyes always suffering.

Opening them again with a gasp of fright, I see that there's no blood in the water at all, my shower appearing as it had always before. Not a speak of red to be seen.

Trying to calm down my racing heart, I try to also calm my racing mind.

The nightmares are coming out.

The guy was here.

I saw him, I heard him.

Am I finally losing my mind?

———

It had taken me a while to calm down and leave the shower, much after the water had turned cold, and I had the chills to prove it as I tried to drink more whiskey from the cheap glass bottle.

I'm not an alcoholic, but after seeing that type of shit, you need something strong to wash it down so you don't throw everything back up.

Trying to think, I realize just how bad today has gone so far and roll my eyes. Not only am I finally going full-on hallucinating crazy, I also lost my job, and I hadn't even started on that ten-page essay due in two days. I was losing my fucking marbles. How was I supposed to focus if I had all of this extra shit going on?

Easy, I couldn't.

Frowning, I think on what my eccentric therapist had recommended, remembering that I had scoffed at her at the time.

"Olivia," she leveled with me, setting down her clipboard for a moment as her warm brown gaze honed in on me. "If you want my professional advice, I'd say that we have some good medications that have proven to lessen the severity of nightmares. Also, we can do trauma work to lessen the effect that it has on you. But, as a trauma victim and a child of the universe myself, I'll tell you what I do when the nightmares start centering around something from my childhood. I find it. Go find whatever the universe is pointing you to, Olive."

Was this some metaphorical sign from the universe that I needed change? I didn't know for sure if I completely bought it, but I was at a loss. The night terrors have become more severe over the last two weeks, slowly increasing in intensity each time; and if I don't do something soon, I'm not going to be sleeping at all.

Standing from my couch, I grab my whiskey and my phone and proceed to walk back to my bedroom, thinking that maybe some self-care will bring about the answers I want. My footsteps creak through the aged carpet, announcing my arrival to my room well before I entered, and I knew that from experience. It's saved me from a robber or two.

I hop through the clothing obstacle course after closing my door, tiptoeing to make sure I didn't step on my charger.

I know it sounds oddly specific, but trust me, you have those metal prongs stuck in your foot, it hurts like a bitch, it's an entire ER visit if it gets infected, and then they charge you a cosmic ton for cleaning it.

I finally reach my bed and hop on top of the wadded-sheet mess, grabbing my laptop from the side of the bed and putting on my favorite movie illegally downloaded for my viewing pleasure: The Phantom of the Opera.

Pressing play, I hum to myself as I drink another gulp of whiskey, finally starting to feel somewhat soothed. Or at least I had been, when there's a pounding at my front door.

I jump briefly at the sudden noise, standing to peek out of my bedroom door to the straight hallway view I had of my front door, but then roll my eyes at the voice I hear from the other side.

"Livy! Open up the goddamn door!" Adley yells from outside, emphasizing his demand with another loud bang.

"See, I would," I call back, continuing to watch my movie placidly, "But that would require me moving, and the likelihood of that is slim at best, Ads. Also, you're a cheating piece of shit, so there's that," I finish offhandedly, starting to feel the pleasant warmth of the whiskey in my stomach.

"I didn't get you that damn job just so you could blow it off, Liv!" He yells back, and I hear him jimmying something into the door handle. Rolling my eyes at the knowledge that the pest would break in soon, I decide to just stay where I am.

I'm comfy.

"And I didn't become your girl just to watch you get your pathetic dick sucked by another. See? We both didn't get what we wanted," I reply, hearing my front door open and close with a loud thud, followed by footsteps headed down my hallway.

My bedroom door bursts open, and there's Adley in all of his piece-of-shit glory.

Sandy blonde hair and not-so-warm brown eyes, Adley was a pretty man. Stereotypical frat-bro trash, but he's pretty, so I can't question my taste there. I had met him about six months ago at a party, and while I might not actually like him too much right now, we had amazing sexual chemistry.

I'm not stupid, I know he's garbage, but he's just good enough in the sack for me to not delete his number. I'm going to guess we got together more out of peer pressure than anything, which had devolved into an on-again, off-again toxic hurricane over the last five months. On-again was about three days ago, off-again carrying from the day after that to now, and we were about ready to go at each other's throats. I'm going to guess his Dad let him know that I was let go.

This day is just turning out to be a peach.

"What the hell is all this?" He asks loudly, arching a critical brow at the mess while pacing angrily in front of my bed.

Adley obviously hadn't thought about what he wanted to say before he came over here, one of his more annoying traits, and was grasping at straws to start an argument.

"Depression, Adley. It's called having bipolar. It's funny that you don't know that, considering," I reply with an eye roll whilst begrudgingly pausing my movie.

This was clearly gonna take a minute.

"Look, I know I fucked up," Adley says after a moment, piercing me with those pretty chocolate eyes. "I don't expect you to take me back, or to forgive me, that's fine. But leave my dad's daycare out of it, Liv."

Brows furrowing in confusion at the accusation, I promptly close my computer and hit him with the dumbest look I can muster on my face.

"I know you have a big ego, but trust me, I'm not that broken up about us to where I'd take it out on your dad. I overslept."

"Oh, so you're totally fine after our break up?" Adley asks, eyes narrowing at me, and I can tell by the flustered look on his face that the fight is turning him on. Either that or the fact that I'm just in my sports bra and pajama shorts, and I just took a shower so I probably smell good.

Too bad for him, my lady boner was killed for good today when Ghostie popped up in my shower.

"Yes," I say, giving him a dead stare before glancing at the door behind him. He frowns at the directness in my tone, knowing from our many times around this carousel that it means my legs are closed for business.

I wait for him to say something, but he doesn't. He just has a pained expression on his face, and a small part of me wants to feel bad, but I know that's the point. I ask, "You got anything else? Or are you done?"

"I'm done, Olivia," he says with a degree of finality, and I wonder if it's going to actually stick this time. "We're done."

And with that Adley makes his dramatic exit, slamming both my bedroom door and my front door behind him as he goes. He's so over-the-top. Adley was the definition of a Leo, and with that came a degree of overdramatization. Rolling my eyes yet again, I press play to my dark musical and find some semblance of peace as the dark organ rings out.

Or at least I did, until I heard the creaking of my carpet in the hallway.

Did he not leave?

Frowning at the sound moving slowly towards my room, I keep the movie playing as I slide down my mattress, grabbing the aluminum bat under my bed and slowly crouching down to where I'm hidden if it's an attacker. The creaks get closer and closer, and I hear something dripping against the carpet, sending chills down my spine. I cover my mouth so I don't gasp when the creaks end at my door, just hearing the sound of something dripping heavily into the carpet.

I'm trembling as my hand squeezes tightly around the bat neck, reaching to open my bedroom door and swing at whoever was out there. The knob slowly twists on its own however, sending another ripple of absolute terror deep into the sour pits of my empty stomach.

I swing the bat as hard as my small body can at the intruder when my door opens with a burst.

Squeaking when I hit absolutely nothing, my foot slips on something as the bat makes a sizeable dent in my hallway, causing me to fall right on my ass. I can not describe to you the torrent of emotions that went through me when I landed in the deep puddle on my living room carpet.

Oh my god.

Jesus fuck.

He was here. He had to have been here. There's fucking water on my carpet to prove it. He needed my help.

Running my hands through my hair as I slump against the wall, I feel like my heart is beating a million miles per hour. A sense of duty settles in my chest for the first time in my twenty years of living, and I feel an odd sort of accomplishment at having a goal in my life.

I needed to go back home. Now.

———

Present

———

I drove straight here.

I didn't think about how long I'd be gone, or what all I needed outside of the regular vacation essentials, but I just drove out of Richmond. It had been a long and steady couple of hours, but I got a motel for the night and immediately set out to find the safe.

Slumping my head against the black walls of the safe as I look up at the night sky, I am still trying to catch my breath from trying to open the little shit. I try thinking, was there anything in my dream, anything that could help more to get the stupid thing open. I just wanted to get whatever was in there, out.

Suddenly, there's a loud click from above, and I scramble to look up and see what's happening. Standing up in my mud-crusted jeans, I watch, completely stunned, as the safe wheel slowly turns on it's own, with no assistance from anything I could see.

Maybe I was experiencing that Alice in Wonderland syndrome thing where my environment has been warped by my brain to make this visually possible.

Maybe I was just crazy.

But, at this point, even if I am crazy, there's not much I can do about it now. The safe lid opens like someone has lifted it gently, and I blink in absolute surprise when I see him.

The boy.

Well, the boy's corpse judging by the lack of movement. I bite back a hint of sadness that fills me at the realization, instead focusing on the positive.

He's real.

"What are you doing back there, ma'am?" A deep voice calls out from the distance, and I whirl my head around to see a middle-aged patrol officer with his flashlight on approaching me.

Wait.

No. No no no no.

A cop can't fucking be here, while I'm opening a safe revealing a corpse! I'm going to prison. The universe wanted me to go to prison.

Well, fuck you, too, Universe!

The cop gets closer and I'm just stuck. I've never been caught doing something this bad before, I have no idea where to even begin to explain without sounding like I should be put into a mental asylum instead of a prison. His blue eyes narrow on my nervous face, and his flashlight flicks over towards the open safe, him unable to see the corpse from his angle.

"What's in there, ma'am?" He asks, and I don't even get a moment to save myself as the cop walks over to the safe.

His pudgy face whitens at the reveal of the drowned boy, whispering incredulously, "Stefan Salvatore?"

Automatically, the cop grabs his gun and points it at me, yelling, "Freeze! You're under arrest—!!"

He's cut off by a blur smacking into him and pinning him to the floor, and my eyes widen when I see that the stranger is not only on top of the man, he looks just as monstrous as he did in my dreams. The cop doesn't even get a scream out when the boy lodges his canines into the pudgy crevice of the cop's neck, tearing viciously into the column of his throat.

I'm frozen.

I can't breathe.

If I thought I knew what being scared was before, it was nothing compared to seeing it in real life.

The beautiful boy pulls away from the now-dead cop, scarlet blood dripping down his chin as he finally notices me.

Nothing compares to the feeling I have when this stranger looks at me.

What I find in those green eyes is the firm feeling of torrential fear, followed closely behind by a torrential feeling of fate. That this was supposed to happen. That everything I had done so far had somehow been the right call in my fucked up life, because it was all leading up to letting him out of the safe.

"G-get away from me!" He yells at me blearily, fading in and out as the blood travels down his neck and onto that leather jacket I remembered so well from my night terrors. I take a step back out of self-preservation, but I don't go too far, somehow irrationally concerned that he'd fall with the way he was tripping over himself. Then, the man pauses his hungry, dizzy flailing.

Those veiny eyes squint at me shocked as he sniffs the air, slowly reverting back to their regular forest green as he gasps and stumbles in front of me.

"I don't... W-why can't I smell you? What are you?" He asks me blearily as he finally hits the deck, collapsing on his knees. For some reason, I don't run, I don't go and see if the cop is alive.

Instead, I run right towards the guy that could kill me, trying to help him out of the muddy mess that the forest floor has become, but instead, slipping myself and landing right in front of him. His eyes are wide, panicked that I'm this close, and he weakly tries to shove me.

"G-get out of here... I'll kill you," he grits out roughly, trying hard to focus, but clearly the cop wasn't enough to fully revitalize the guy.

My body moves almost without my permission, somehow already knowing exactly how to help the stranger, pulling off my jacket and covering the guy's bloody chest so that way I could actually focus on helping him and not the fact he just killed someone in front of me. Yanking my black long sleeve shirt off of my right wrist, I put it in front of his mouth.

"Shut the fuck up and drink this," I say as I grit my teeth, barely prepped for the pain when he actually sinks his teeth into my wrist as the veins return.

He holds my bleeding wrist to his mouth tightly, like he can't get enough, but I feel his other hand weakly pressing my arm away from him. Like he wants it, but also doesn't. And I have to think on what the hell I was thinking letting this guy snack on me to wake him up. I was probably going to die for it.

Who cares? You're no one, Olive.

Suddenly, there's a harsh thrill of something zap down the muscles of my arm, making the stranger pull harshly away from the skin of my bloody wrist looking much better. He has pulled several feet away from me in a blur, and I grunt, holding my now throbbing wrist.

The boy watches me cradle my wrist with almost a look of guilt mixed with the apparent shock on his face, and I feel a bit of joy at seeing it. Yeah, that hurt, you dickhead.

"Who are you?" He asks incredulously, and I pull my attention away from the pain in my arm to look at the newly revitalized stranger, looking much more like a very hot normal guy.

"Olive," I reply with a wince after a moment, my eyes focused on him as he moves closer to me.

I should be absolutely terrified. I should be running for the hills away from this freaky monster guy. But, instead, when he reaches me, I see a compassionate look in his eyes that's so drastically different from his other faces that I've seen that it makes me let him grab my injured wrist.

His large hands feel rough around my wrist, but he's otherwise gentle, inspecting the bite with a furrow of his thick brow before looking up at me apologetically.

"My name is Stefan," he says after a moment of silence.

Oh, like that cop said, I think to myself, so either he's a Mystic Falls local, or he's a criminal. Both very likely options from what I'd seen in the last fifteen minutes.

Stefan shrugs off his leather jacket, letting the water-logged material smack into the mud without a care, revealing strong muscular arms in a fitted t-shirt.

No time to be checking boys out. Focus.

He brings his forearm to his own wrist after gently setting down my wrist onto my lap. Freaking out when I hear a crunch of flesh, I panic when he extends his now bleeding arm towards me, gesturing for me to grab it.

"Oh, hell no. Nope. I'll live with it. I don't even care. There's no way in hell you're putting that in my mouth," I announce firmly, scootching away from him when his brows furrow. That seemed to be the place they usually were for him.

"Let me help you, please," Stefan pleas, closing the space between us yet again as he extended his now healing arm holy SHIT.

"I'm sorry. But, if you drink some of my blood, I promise I can heal you, Olive," he adds, probably noting my stunned face.

My brown eyes narrow on him suspiciously, not sure what to do, and not having an automatic knowing instinct like before.

"How do I know I can trust that you're not trying something?" I ask suspiciously, scooting away further, but Stefan continues his pursuit of staying firmly within three feet of me.

"I don't want to hurt you. I just want to help," he repeats firmly, looking deeply into my eyes, and for just a moment I'm breathless.

His green eyes are open and honest, if not a little bit hurt, and even as I say the last word of that accusation, I already know I trust him. If he wanted to kill me, he easily could've when I offered my wrist. I need to calm down. I need to relax.

Unless he was a real sicko, I didn't think he was lying.

I had no reason to, but for some reason, I trusted Stefan.

Slowly, I move back towards him, extending my arm to grab his. He bites through the skin of himself again, placing his wrist into my outreached hand gently, like he was afraid he'd break me. There's a zing that travels down my arm when we touch, but I ignore it fervently, not knowing how I felt about feeling that at this moment with this person in this forest.

I continue to eye him suspiciously as I lift his open bite wound towards my mouth, feeling an uneasy amount of tension as I prepped my self for the coppery taste. Finally, after seeing no sign of deceit on Stefan's face, I let my lips wrap around his wrist.

The blood tastes like all other blood: thick, bitter, and metallic; but there's a buzzing undercurrent to it that I feel in my very bones, and after a couple of gulps, I pull away when my wrist starts to tingle. Watching in awe, I see my skin slowly thread itself back together as if it had never been bitten in the first place, and I rub the newly-healed skin in fascination as a startled bark of laughter leaves my throat.

How crazycould this evening get?

Blinking up, I find myself smiling a bit at Stefan, more than happy that he didn't betray my trust and eat me like a turkey leg at a Renaissance Fair. He looks relieved that I'm not screaming or fainting, then turns back, seeing the cop's corpse off a bit from where we both sat in the mud. Furrowed, thick brows lower further as his eyes take on a guilty look; one of remorse, but acceptance.

"That's a nifty trick," I say sheepishly, hoping to distract him from what he'd done even for a moment.

Stefan doesn't answer, instead, solemnly standing and going over to the cop's body, looking very repentant altogether.

"This is still Mystic Falls, right?" He asks after a moment, and I nod once. Stefan seems to brighten a bit at that news. Or at least, he does before suddenly appearing in front of me with a gust of wind, making me jump as he puts his hands firmly on my shoulders.

I feel the zing again, and I see Stefan's eyes get slightly distracted for a moment. Wait. Did we both feel that? Feeling uncomfortable, I try to move away but he holds me there with a firm look in his eyes. Speaking of eyes, his pretty green's pupils fluctuate dramatically, and I feel my heart rate increase at the proximity.

I know I'm not scared of him for some reason, but he's still a stranger, and I don't want him so close to me.

"Olive, you're going to forget everything that has happened tonight, and you're going to go home. You slept through the night, in your warm bed," he says firmly, and his pupils continue to oscillate between huge to small. Green eyes to nearly-black.

Blinking, I push his hands off of my shoulders, suddenly feeling as though I'm about to vomit as Stefan looks down at me in shock.

"Fuck off, Stefan," I groan, clutching my stomach as I spin away from him. Feeling an overwhelming force take me over, I feel something come up from my stomach like a rocket, and suddenly, I'm not in the forest anymore.

I'm in the white room with the whirlpool.

Once again, it beckons me to it's center, but I'm much more willing to go this time for some reason. I take slow steps across the dark water, standing in the center in full acceptance of the overwhelming void beneath me. Something ancient awakens down there in the depths, and for the first time in any of my dreams, I look up towards the ceiling of the white room.

Above me is what I'd describe as the largest knot I've ever seen in my life. Millions of millions of gold, silver, and bronze threads weave together into a giant mass, all starting from one side of the room and stretching across to the other. They shimmer with a sort of bioluminescence, all constantly shifting, and I feel something rumble deep under the waters.

I know something is coming from the depths, but I don't know what. I just know that it's massive. The room is suddenly blasted with a bright white beam connecting me, the pool, and the threads.

In that suspended space of light, I feel my body go slack as I collapse onto the water's surface, still facing the ceiling. My hands fold together as if I'm saying a prayer as I'm laying on top the brightly lit water, my mouth slowly opening to speak.

"SHE COMES AS DEATH. THE HERO MUST LIVE."

And then the white walls all come crashing down, making me start to close my eyes as the threads get ever closer to me, seeing now that there are several threads here and there that glow in a nearly ethereal way. I wonder what those are.

I've lost my mind.

I've lost my mind.

I've finally done it and gone completely nuts.

I'm awakened by a harsh, burning pain across my cheek, blinking up and seeing Stefan staring at me in a way that makes me feel like I'm the freak here.

"Did you just slap me?" I ask incredulously as I touch my now throbbing cheek, not trying to let how the hallucination made me feel leak out.

Stefan looks panicked.

"No, no. Well, yes, but not for whatever you're thinking."

"I was thinking that you saw me do something weird and slapped me out of it," I reply with a challenging arch of my brow.

"Oh. Then it's exactly what you're thinking," Stefan says sheepishly before running a hand through his still damp hair, clearly a bit perplexed.

"Sorry," I immediately apologize out of habit, "I've got some mental stuff going on and—," Stefan cuts me off.

"No. You're not compelled right now, I can't smell you, and your eyes were glowing. That is not just 'mental stuff.'"

My brows furrow and my attention on Stefan is renewed, "Compelled?"

"Well, yes. It's what vampires use to get humans to do what they want," he replies, and I nod in acknowledgement, glad that I have an official name for what he is.

"I thought 'vampire' would be the right term, but I wasn't sure. Thanks for the clarification," I reply nonplussed, firmly accepting whatever reality my brain conjured up.

Who cares at this point? Why not surrender to the madness and see where it goes?

"Really?" Stefan asks incredulously, and almost sounding frustrated with me. Like I was the one causing problems for him. "That's it? I literally just killed someone in front of you."

I arch my brow at him, "You planning on killing me?"

"No—," I cut him off this time.

"Then I'm having a hard time seeing it as my problem. Remember? 'Mental stuff?'" I ask with emphasis, deciding that my brain must've officially gone in survival mode, because the dead body bothers me about as much as a telemarketer.

The cop has become just visually unappealing.

Ah, I see. I've semi-disassociated. Lovely. That means I'm pretty damn close to just straight-up having a panic attack, which is pretty reasonable considering my universe has flipped itself on its head.

The moment I have that thought, I see something move in the darkness of the forest, and Stefan's head snaps to that part of the forest, pulling my arm and tugging me a bit behind him as he peered into the forest. I subconsciously grab Stefan's arm as well, heart pounding as a shadow enters the clearing.

The woman that appears is beautiful, absolutely stunning as she enters our field of view. But I feel it deep within my very bones that this woman was not one to be trifled with, in fact, I didn't like her right off the bat. Stefan faces the woman.

"Who are you?" He calls out, probably noticing whatever it was about her that I noticed.

He doesn't get an answer. Instead, the woman pulls her hand in almost a 'screwing a lightbulb' kind of motion, and Stefan's head snaps to the left with a loud crack. Screaming, I bend down to look at Stefan, flipping him out of the mud he's landed face-first into and trying to hopelessly see if he's okay.

"Stefan?" I ask, slapping his muddied, handsome jaw several times, but it coming up slack.

Remembering that there's a very deadly woman on this shore, I quickly turn to look at where she was, but she's gone. Instead, I feel my spine stiffen at the familiar feeling of being watched from behind. I don't turn, I don't look, because I don't want to know.

If this is the end, I don't want to see it coming.

"Oh, what are you doing here?" I hear a melodic voice ask from behind me and trembles erupt from my body.

I hadn't done anything of purpose in my life until this very moment, and now, I'm going to die for it.

I don't even get a chance to scream, or say anything— instead, my world fades to black without a whisper of a breath from me.

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A/n: hey guys! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Savior. I have so much planned for this, but you guys should know that I'll still be updating The Therapist.

Have a good one!

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