Aleksandrina Petrova, the name I had gone by for twenty-one years had been discarded and replaced with Alexandria Pierce or Alex in some towns. Katerina Petrova, my sister I had escaped with, was now Katherine Pierce or Kat. As vampires, our morals and aspirations changed over time. We became different versions of our former selves. What hadn't changed, was the way we stayed with one another, protecting ourselves and each other.

My sister and I, we were the ones who always escaped with our lives. When Katerina been impregnated out of wedlock, Papa banished her from Bulgaria. I went -even as he protested angrily- with her into a foreign world. That was the first time I'd actually been glad for being taught English. Of course, I'd never used it in Bulgaria.

Katerina and I, we died together. We died with held hands and reassuring smiles. Telling one another that there was something better after death. We weren't expecting to wake up again, to be vampires. Actually, I am not sure what she had expected, but I was simply hoping to see the gates of Heaven and not that of Hell. Hoping to see a smiling Katerina alongside me like we'd always been.

Together, we reigned. Traveling from country to country and watching as new ones got made. Running from Niklaus in the midst of it all. Katerina and I were inseparable. We turned many, broke the hearts of many others. Even with the Salvatore brothers, we toyed. That was when Katerina and I feuded without realization. As the brothers fought for our attention, we glared daggers into each other's backs.

I remember killing Stefan's forced fiancé as my sister got the privilege of actually talking to the Salvatore. As the older sister, I was angered that Katerina had always bossed me around and I simply complied. I felt, listening to their innocent little conversation, like snapping her neck and sending her off to another state then and there.

When the town of Mystic Falls had hurried to burn all the demons- the vampires- Katherine promised we'd be safe. She promised me a new life with the Salvatores after the town's church was burnt. Stefan Salvatore had ratted us out subtly, but his father had cleverly caught it. Vervain found it's way into his whiskey and burnt the tongue of Katherine. The Salvatore brothers, my sister had always said, were to be trusted. I had an eerie feeling they weren't, but my attraction to them was stronger than anything, even my love for Katerina.

She felt the same, leaving me to decay under the church tomb. I watched as she waltzed away, not a sorry glance behind her and back at me. I had hoped, for my own sanity, that she turned off her humanity, that she hadn't meant what she was doing. But had she meant it?

"Katherine!" I screamed, trying to force my way through the crowd of vampires, some littered on the floor and others standing. "Katerina! сестра!"

But she disappeared and I had to live with my undoable fate of forever in a tomb. What more unbearable than years of silence, desiccating in the corner while your veins scratch painfully together? A forever alone, with vampires you barely knew? Time passes slowly when you're waiting for a death that never arrives. It had felt more than a thousand years before the door rolled open again.