Stefan’s Diaries: Origins Chapter 29

When I next opened my oculusball, I knew I was dead. precisely this death wasnt the death of my nightmargons, with black cryptographness all around. Instead, I could smell the fara bureau scent of a fire, feel rough body politic beneath my body, could feel my hands resting by my sides. I didnt feel pain. I didnt feel anything. The blackness enveloped me in a flair that was almost comforting. Was this what endocarp was? If so, it was nothing care the horror and mayhem of last night. It was quiet, peaceful.I tentatively moved my arm, surprised when my hand touched straw. I pushed myself up to a sitting position, surprised that I still had a body, surprised that nothing hurt. I looked around and realized that I wasnt suspended in nothingness. To my leave were the rough-hewn slats of a wall of a down in the mouth shack. If I squinted, I could beguile sky between the cracks. I was somewhere, but where? My hand fluttered to my chest. I remembered the gunslinger hedgeing out, t he sound of my body thudding to the ground, the way I was prodded with boots and sticks. The way my heart had stopped beating and there had been a cheer that flush up before everything was quiet. I was dead. So then Hello? I called hoarsely.Stefan, a womans voice verbalize. I felt up a hand backside my back. I realized I was wearing a simple, faded, blue like shirt and tan linen pants, clothes I didnt recognize as my own. And though they were old, they were clean. I struggled to stand, but the small, yet surprisingly strong, hand held me imbibe by my shoulder. Y ouve had a long night.I blinked, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized that the voice belonged to Emily.Y oure alive, I said in wonderment.She laughed, a low, lazy chuckle. I should be saying that to you. How atomic number 18 you feeling? she asked, bringing a tin cup of water to my lips.I drank, allowing the cool liquid to trickle down my throat. Id never tasted anything so pure, so good. I touched my neck where Katherine had bit me. It felt clean and smooth. I hastily yanked the shirt open, popping several(prenominal) buttons in the process. My chest was smooth, no hint of a bullet wound.Keep drinking, Emily clucked in a way a mother might do to her child.Damon? I asked roughly.Hes out there. Emily pointed her chin to the door. I followed her glance outside, where I see a shadowy go steady sitting by the waters edge. Hes recovering, just as you are.But how Notice your ring. Emily tapped my hand. On my ring finger was a gleaming lapis-lazuli stone, inset in silver. Its a remedy and a protection. inset in silver. Its a remedy and a protection. Katherine had me make it for you the night she marked you.pronounced me, I repeated dumbly, erst spell again touching my neck, then allowing my fingers to drop to the smooth stone of the ring.Marked you to be like her. Y oure almost a vampire, Stefan. Y oure well into the transformation, Emily said, as if she were a doctor diagnosing a pat ient with a terminal illness.I nodded as if I understood what Emily was saying, all the same so though it might as well have been a completely several(predicate) language. Transformation?Who found me? I asked, starting with the question I cared to the lowest degree about.I did. After the shots were fired on you and your brother, everyone ran. The house burned down. spate died. Not just vampires. Emily shook her head, her plaque deeply troubled. They brought all the vampires to the church building and burned them there. Including her, Emily said, her tone impossible to comprehend.Did she make me a vampire, then? I asked, touching my neck.Y But in order to complete the transition,es. you essential feed. Its a choice you have to make. Katherine had the power of destruction and death, but even she had to allow her victims that choice.She killed Rosalyn. I knew it in the same way Id known Damon love Katherine. It was as if a cloud had lifted, only to reveal more blackness.She did, Emily said, her face inscrutable. But that has nothing to do with what happens. If you choose, you can feed and complete the transition, or let yourself Die?Emily nodded.I didnt want to feed. I didnt want Katherines telephone line inside me. All I wanted was to go back several months, before Id ever heard the name Katherine Pierce. My heart twisted in agony for all Id lost. But there was someone whod lost more.As if shed read my perspicacity, Emily processed me to my feet. She was tiny, but strong. I stood up and shakily walked outside.Brother I called. Damon turned, his eyes shining. The water reflected the rising sun, and smoke billowed through the trees in the distance. But the clearing was eerily quiet and peaceful, harkening back to an earlier, simpler quantify.Damon didnt answer. And before I even realized what I was doing, I walked to the edge of the water. Without bothering to take shoot my clothes, I dove in. I came up for air and breathed out, but my mind still felt dark and dirty.Damon stared down at me from the waters edge. The church burned. Katherine was inside, he said tonelessly.Y I didnt feel satisfaction or sadness. I justes. felt deep, deep sorrow. For myself, for Damon, for felt deep, deep sorrow. For myself, for Damon, for Rosalyn, for everyone whod gotten caught in this sack up of destruction. come had been right. There were demons who walked the earth, and if you didnt fight them, then you became one.Do you know what we are? Damon asked bitterly.We locked eyes, and instantly I realized that I didnt want to live like Katherine. I didnt want to see the sunlight only with the aid of the ring on my finger. I didnt want to always gaze at a humans neck as if contemplating my next feeding. I didnt want to live forever.I ducked down under the surface of the water and opened my eyes. The pond was dark and cool, just like the shack. If this was what death was, it wasnt bad. It was peaceful. Quiet. There was no passion, but in like manner no danger.I surfaced and pushed my hair off my face, my borrowed clothes hanging off my soaked limbs. Even though I knew what my fate was, I felt remarkably alive. Then Ill die.Damon nodded, his eyes dull and listless. Theres no life without Katherine.I climbed out of the water and hugged my brother. His body felt warm, real. Damon briefly returned my embrace, then hugged his knees again, his gaze fixed on a spot far away from the waters edge.I want it done, Damon said, standing up and walking farther away toward the quarry. I watched his retreating back, remembering the time when I was eight or nine that my convey and I had gone buck hunting. It was right after my mother had died, and while Damon had immersed himself in schoolboy antics like gambling and riding horses, Id clung to my father. One day, to cheer me up, don took me to the woods with our rifles.Wed spent over an hour tracking a buck. Father and I headed deeper and deeper into the forest, watching the animals every mov e. Finally, we were in a spot where we saw the buck bowing down, eating from a berry bush.Shoot, Father murmured, manoeuvre my rifle over my shoulder. I trembled as I kept my eye on the deer and reached for the trigger. But at the moment I released the trigger, a baby deer scampered into the field. The buck sprinted away, and the bullet hit the fawn in the belly. Its wobbly legs crumpled beneath it, and it fell to the ground.Id run to try to help it, but Father had stopped me, holding on to my shoulder.Animals know when its time to die. Lets at least allow it the peace to do it alone, Father said, forcibly marching me away. Id wailed, but he was relentless. Now, watching Damon, I understood. Damon was the same way.Good-bye, brother, I whispered.