chapter 5

Me on my own, out of control
Everything I touch turns to stone
Me on my own, living a lie
No, I need to buckle down
Need to do it now
Now change my situation

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jade did not want to get out of bed that day. A week passed after her outing on the swimming hole and her mental state could not have been more at the bottom of the ocean, two miles buried deep in the muck. She felt that all of this was slowly overtaking her, a constant battle with her own mind, with each day new walls kept her from functioning properly. She felt uncomfortable in her own skin, as if it wasn't her veins, her blood, her cells inside her body allowing her to live, to breathe. Her brain let no other thoughts except those about her constant memory holes, no matter how much she tried to fill them, minute by minute recalling past events, nothing worked.

"Jade, are you... crying? What happened?" Camille's worried voice echoed on the other side of the line.

"I don't know what happened! And that's the fucking problem!" Jade exclaimed, voice trembling. "I don't have an absolute fucking clue what I meant by those texts... I don't remember shit." She covered her face with her free hand.

Cami could be heard opening and closing her mouth, thinking what to say."But what do you mean... you don't remember? Have you been━"

"Yes, I was drinking, but not to that extent! And it wasn't even the first time.... I got these fucking memory holes at random times of the day." Jade cried, gesturing with her hands. "And it's killing me, 'cause i have no fucking idea what's going on."

"Okay, first of all, calm down. Count to ten. Second, why don't you ask your sister? Maybe she knows something? Because I'm guessing you haven't stopped taking your medication, right?"

Jade chuckled darkly. "Like that would be what I would fucking need right know."

So she asked. She heard in reply that she was crazy. Go figure.

A defeated moan left her lips as she lifted her heavy body from the very comfortable and warm bed. It's too early to start functioning, but so what━Jade couldn't sleep a wink most of the night anyway. She kept tossing and turning, unable to stop thinking about her memory blackouts and her sister's recent bizarre behavior.

Like, nothing happened between them. Nothing serious, at least. Just some sisterly name-calling, you know, the norm. Although sometimes the atmosphere between them got so thick that Jade could push herself off the ground and start actually flying. They could talk normally, laugh, eat breakfast or lunch, and suddenly Caroline's mood would change 180 degrees. She would start fidgeting nervously, cutting off conversation, looking for the quickest possible way out of both the conversation and the house. Oh right, not out of the room. Out of the house. Who does that? What is she hiding? What did Jade do to her? Did she do anything, anyway?

Oh, and something else joined her endless list of concerns━ she felt as if someone was watching her all the time. She felt eyes on her back not only outside, but also in her own home. Even when she knew full well that she was alone and that it was practically impossible.

Is it time to visit a psychiatric facility?

She didn't know. But it damn felt like it.

With lazy steps, still dressed in her pajamas, she walked down to the kitchen, already seeing Caroline attacking the fridge. Sighing, she set the water to make herself much needed coffee. "Good morning." She muttered.

"What are you doing here?" Caroline stuck her head out of the refrigerator with a puzzled look on her face. It was a rare sight when even the sun didn't rise properly.

Jade narrowed her eyes at the question. "As far as I remember, this is where I live." She replied in a mocking voice, her eyes focused on the boiling water. "For now, at least." She murmured to herself.

"Duh. But what are you doing here at this hour? You usually emerge at noon." Caroline grunted, closing the refrigerator with a full bowl of cereal in hand and sitting down at the table. It wasn't even an regular soup bowl, its size resembled one where chips are poured at parties. Jade raised an eyebrow at the sight.

"Couldn't sleep." Jade replied shortly. How could she sleep when as soon as she closes her eyes her brain feels like it's burning out? Oh, and then there's the fact that she's crazy. Of course she is dear Caroline, she takes pills every day to remind her of that.

"Oh." Caroline nodded, hoping to choke on these corn flakes sooner than on the guilt.

"Yup." Jade dragged out, pouring hot water into a coffee mug.

"I hope your plan today is not to get drunk at the Grill again. It's obviously no good." Caroline said, too cheerfully than Jade would have preferred. Caroline wanted to slap herself, why the hell did she say that? Knowing damn well that her sister's mood was her own fault? Yup, keep fueling the fire Care, good job.

Something inside of Jade snapped. No shit. Also, what's up with the tone? She didn't even have it in her plans, they surely must've put something in the fucking alcohol there, because every time she drinks there, she loses her memory. She, at least, thought that was the issue. Jade was still mad at her when Caroline dismissed her with her brain puzzliness, not taking her seriously. And she did it too quickly, too. Something wasn't right, and it wasn't her. Or it was. Fuck knows at this point.

She decided to ignore her last comment. "What's up with the family sized breakfast?" Jade asked through clenched teeth.

"I'm so hungry, all I think about is b━" Caroline stopped herself. "Breakfast." She finished with a forced smile. Fuck her and her big mouth. Stefan told her that food helps dampen her bloodthirsty instincts, so that's how she spent the morning before school━stuffing herself with whatever she could to keep herself from snapping Mrs. Dallas' head off during math class.

The two sisters looked at each other for a while. Jade's eyes were squinted, her face contorted into a grimace. It's far too early to have the strength to decipher this. Caroline, on the other hand, looked at Jade with her lips tightened, praying in her head that she would not comment on anything.

Jade kissed her teeth and nodded. "Alrighty then. I'm gonna pretend your behavior makes total sense right now and excuse myself to my room." She took her hot mug of coffee and turned on her heel. "Toodles." She chirped, wiggling her fingers, already on the stairs.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Jade walked down the familiar road with headphones in her ears, an unlit cigarette sticking out of her mouth. No, she really had no plans to get drunk today, she wasn't lying. Today she was in the mood for a little self-torture, a little trip down memory lane. She had had the urge to visit this place since the beginning of her arrival here, but she hadn't... the courage? The willpower? Who knows. That's how she found herself under the rusty gates to the Fell's house.

She looked at the falling building and sighed. It was more overgrown, moss had taken over half the house, more windows were broken, the blue paint more faded than she remembered. But it was still the same building, a safe house from childhood problems, a place once  Jade associated with freedom, happiness, peace. Now she looks at it and all she feels is bittersweet.

She pulled a lighter from her pants pocket and held it up to the cigarette, lighting it up. Taking one long puff, she muttered. "Now or never."

With that said, she pushed the rusty metal and began walking toward the large, shattered window that would serve as an entrance. Quickly leaping over the sill, she found herself inside. She looked around, taking in her surroundings. Not much had changed, there was still a mess everywhere, empty beer bottles decorated the entire floor, along with pieces of glass and old furniture. Ignoring the first floor, she made her way up to the second, heading for one particular room. Their room.

Did she still go here? She couldn't help asking herself. She had to, didn't she? This was their safe haven that no one else knew about, no one had heard of. Where they could be themselves and they knew no one would find them. Ugh, just open the fucking door and you'll find out, coward.

So she did, she pushed open the old cracked door and stepped inside. After a few coughs from the dust, she looked around her, swallowing the heavy nostalgia. A couple of pieces of furniture they had once scavenged from different corners of the house were more or less in the same place, christmas lights still decorated the ceiling. But the rest of the decorations were scattered all over the room, dirty pillows and blankets lay at two ends of the room, the coffee table was turned upside down, their posters were torn from the walls. Jade took a deep breath and sat down on the old couch, leaning on it, looking mindlessly ahead.

Why did she come here? To torture herself? To see if, in spite of everything, Vicki was still using this place for relief? Vicki left, Jade should let go. She didn't bother calling her for five years, then why was she's suddenly acting like a teenager again? She knows very well why, coming to Mystic Falls made it all real. Jade just wanted to apologize, and she can't even do that. She deserved that.

Jade sighed and did a scan of the room again. Five years had passed, and there was still a calmness emanating from here, as if the very air here had magical ingredients that regulated the stress in her body.  Of course, that left out the dust she inhaled with every breath. That was hardly magical.

She stated that she would pick up the table that was lying upside down next to the couch, she had nowhere to put her feet, duh. Grabbing the table's protruding legs, she turned it to its correct place in one smooth motion. This revealed the enormity of the sheets of paper that layed covered under the furniture. Jade contorted her expression, not remembering leaving her drawings here. She picked up one sheet and studied it, finding only some crossed-out words. Okay, it was definitely not her. She gathered all the pieces of paper from the ground and spread them out on the table.

Reading page after page, none of them made sense. Either there was some shit scribbled on, or parts of them were torn up, completely unreadable. Picking up another, and reading its contents, Jade froze.

She let out some unintelligible sound, her eyes slightly widened in shock. The piece of paper contained words she hadn't thought of in a long, long time.

"FUTURUM SANGUINUM, INGRATUM"

Um.

Vicki wrote this? Why? What in the world made her think of it? Jade was even more confused than before. And that was saying a lot. She felt that confusion was her default mood lately. She took the paper closer and leaned back on the couch with a sigh, studying the writing. She hadn't thought about it in almost ten years, the strange situation long buried in her memory.

october, 2001

"I'm telling you, that meant something."  Vicki huffed, pointing her index finger at Jade, shaking it. The two girls were now in their detective mood, missing only their berets and pipes. "But what?" She hissed, scratching the top of her head.

Jade raised one of her eyebrows, scanning Vicki from top to bottom. "Do I look like a linguist to you?" She pushed her face toward the other girl with a questioning look.

Vicki snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "No, you look like a poor imitation of Avril Lavigne."

Jade gasped, putting her hand to her heart, a shocked look on her face. "Thank you." She breathed. "But back to the point. It's impossible for something to just... appear." She said with a grimace, gently shaking her head. "It was probably there all the time and we didn't... notice it."

Vicki scoffed. "We shined a light on that fucking wall and there was nothing, don't bullshit me."

Jade slapped her crossed legs in frustration. "Ugh, I want to explain this somehow! Logically, if that's possible!"

"There was nothing logical about that night!"

"Eh... you're right." Jade sighed, recalling seeing... a fucking ghost. She didn't share this with Vicki, in fact, she doesn't even know why. Maybe to more easily convince her to leave the subject alone. Anyway, a ghost? It surely must have been a product of her imagination. There's no fucking way.

"Fuck, I won't sleep until I know what it meant."  Vicki grumbled quietly. "Me too." Jade whispered to herself, wearily.

"But what could we even do? We don't even know what the language is." Vicki dragged the impossible subject.

"Oh fuck it, it was probably a shitty joke and we're falling for it." Jade muttered, looking for a pack of cigarettes in her pocket.

"You think so?" Vicki asked weakly, looking at Jade.

Jade sighed, pulling one cigarette from the found pack and putting it in her mouth. "Yup."

Jade looked at the paper with a wry expression. She didn't know whether she should feel concerned or intrigued. After few seconds, she decided on intrigued.

She had no idea why Vicki remembered the weird adventures of the past, but she knew enough to know that the girls had never deciphered the message. Not only was it 2001, where the internet was an unattainable thing, but they had no idea what the language even was, so they could look it up at the library. Showing it to anyone involved an explanation, and the two girls somehow didn't want to share their adventures with adults.

Perhaps out of nostalgia? Was she sitting here thinking about the two of them and remembering their past adventures? That would be nice, a selfish voice whispered in her ear.

You don't deserve something like that, so that's not it, another voice chimed in.

But damn, she was curious, did Vicki found out what it meant?

Well, and now she was sitting like that, pathetic, pondering past events, which further on she didn't know if they were even true. But they saw it both, at the same moment, that had to mean something, right? Her restless mind wouldn't let go, she needed to know every answer to every question, even to the one she hadn't thought of in almost ten years.

But also why exactly this moment? The girls had a lot of strange adventures, such as when they broke into the house of the late Mr. Davis... only it turned out that he wasn't dead at all. They had a bit of trouble then, too many screams, too many police sirens, too many... whatever. Jade grunted and got up from the couch, putting the note in the back pocket of her pants.

In doing so, she kicked something with her foot. Turning her gaze to the ground, she saw that she had slipped something under the couch she had just sat on. Leaning over, she pulled out a mysterious object from under the couch and froze when she saw what it was.

Mystic Falls Hospital, VOLUNTEER DONOR, 0rh-.

She threw the empty blood bag on the ground, her eyes widening, eyebrows meeting the hairline.

Ew. But also, what?

She stared at the bag with a frown on her face, cocking her head from side to side, trying to find some, at least one logical reason why such a thing could be there.

She found none.

But wait a second. Since one was here...

With this thought in her head, she pushed the couch back with a kick of her leg. To her already bewildered eyes appeared dozens of different blood bags, all empty, some torn in half.

She didn't know if she should get the fuck out of there or not.

She took a step back at this sight. The fact that it was fucking weird was a misunderstanding. Why? What is this supposed to be? She asked herself. Of course, she didn't come up with any logical answer to these questions. Did they belong to... Vicki?

She took another step back, her face contorted with confusion. First of all, ew. Second of all, ew.

Yup, too much. She nodded to herself, pursing her lips.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

She sat with her legs crossed on her old bed, her head resting on her hand, eyes fixed on the laptop screen. Mind reeling.

She couldn't push the sight of the pile of blood bags out of her head. What possible, logical reason could there be? Because she doubted that Vicki was there organizing a charity blood donation. But she also couldn't hide the fact that she was somewhat... disturbed by the sight. Surely they weren't there legally, so she must have stolen them, and.... and what the fuck? For what? The only thing she could think of was that Vicki had completely lost her mind and gotten into witchcraft. What else?

But one problem at a time. The writing. She was supposed to check the writing, yes. A strange writing that suddenly appeared in a haunted house that was probably some kind of childish prank. And now, almost then years later, Jade was sitting down to check what it meant. God, it's a good thing no one was home to caught her, othervise she'd have cried from the embarrassment.

So she pulled the laptop closer and got down to business. She quickly found some universal translator and typed in the necessary words. She checked a few times to make sure everything was correct and pressed enter.

Jade stared for a few moments at the English words on the right side of the screen with her mouth formed in a pout. Moving her jaw as if chewing on something, she began to rapidly nod, couple of 'mhm's escaping her lips. Suddenly, she slid the laptop off her lap and quickly got out of bed, heading for the kitchen, or more precisely, the liquor cabinet.

With a bottle of whiskey in her hand, she quickly returned to her place on her bed, at such pace that she almost fell down the stairs. She fixed her gaze on the laptop screen, and it caused her to almost rip the cork out of the bottle and take a few, deep gulps of the amber liquid.

"Future blood drinkers to come, unwelcome."

"Yup. Nice. Cool." She mumbled to herself, in between the sips.

Her brain was not big enough to absorb something like that. Jade checked a few more times that she was sure she had transcribed the words correctly from the page she had taken from the Fell house. And she did. The translator detected that it was Latin, which put Jade even more in a state of perplexity. That crossed out her theories about the childish joke━at least that's what she thought, though. None of their friends had enough brain cells to come up with something like that, so she guessed that was out. Jade started blinking rapidly, hoping it would help her head to let the information pass more easily and magically come up with a reason. It didn't work.

So. To put the obtained information in a little nutshell: Jade and Vicki, when they were thirteen, met a ghost who told them to get the fuck out of the haunted house because.... it wouldn't even cross her mind. Because they would be... blood drinkers. The fuck. Okay, Jade might have thought it was either a product of their imagination with the help of the beer they were drinking at the time, but...

But.

Those bags of blood that Jade found...

And the fact that Vicki just happen to reminisce that particular little escapade?

Not a fucking coincidence in hell.

And also in the way they were written? There were a lot of pieces of paper there, some torn, some so scrawled that it was impossible to read. It was as if she was trying with all her might to remember the three Latin words. Her handwriting was ragged, hastily written, as if she was afraid.

Jade rubbed her hands over her face, trying to draw her mind away from the one thought that overshadowed all others. Whispered that it was the correct one.

It was impossible, right?

Yes.

Absolutely impossible.

There is no at all, a small, tiny, in the atomic size hint of a breath, chance that that was true. That Vicki... drank all of these. Jade imagined her brain as a vast thicket of tunnel networks in an anthill, each shot through with a lightning bolt of her neurons that demanded some sort of rational explanation for it all. Yet, where it didn't go, it met a dead end. Maybe she did. Drank the blood bags. Jade grimaced at the thought. Was she sick? Jade had heard of cases of Renfield's syndrome, better known as clinical vampirism, she heard about it on some strange medical show on some abandoned TV channel at 3 am. Jade recommended those channels, you could learn the weirdest shit. Like the one she was dealing with right now. Even thinking about such a probability made her feel insane. That Vicki... could do that.

Anyway, what was that Latin shit supposed to be? A prophecy? That was some deep Donnie Darko shit, and Jade was not having it. Even if. If. Jade would accept for a moment that all this was true, then... she will also... drink blood? What the fuck was that supposed to be, Twilight? Jade shook her head from side to side and let out a humorless laugh, taking a big sip of the whiskey.

But in a moment she almost spat it out, choking on the alcohol in her mouth, when one, certain story popped into her head.

The New Orleans nuthead of a tattoo client's story.

His vampire story.

Jade widened her eyes and wiped her wet chin with the back of her hand, head shaking. No... he was full of shit, wasn't he? Unless...

Look at her, contemplating the reality of the ridiculous story she and Cami recently laughed about. She looked insane. But what else could she do, when all the information she had gathered directed her that it might have been true after all? Although looking from a logical point of view, her information was based on some fucked up writing from ten years ago, that appeared quite literally out of nowhere, and the fact that she found dozens of empty blood bags. It was all some kind of paradox, nothing could be looked at from a logical point of view, because there was none.

She didn't know what to do. She didn't even know what to think. It was all too surreal. Vampires? What's next, werewolves? Jade snorted at the thought. This wasn't a movie. It wasn't a book. It was real life, and in real life there are no people with fucking fangs who drink other people's blood. Period. Even her sick, unrepairable brain could grasp that. What is wrong with this devil town? First the fucking brain holes, then some strange bruises from nowhere, time running out, now this? Is Mystic Falls located on some kind of Bermuda triangle that just loves to fuck with her?

She didn't even notice when she got out of bed and started pacing around the room, whiskey bottle still firmly in her hand. From the outside, she looked normal, her hair tied up in a high ponytail, makeup in place, clothes neat. But if anyone found out what was racing through her head, they wouldn't ask, they would immediately pull out a straitjacket and a cozy corner in some Mental Asylum.

She was about to take another sip when she felt a breeze coming from behind her. She was standing in front of the vanity, so lifting her gaze from the bottle, she turned it to the mirror, and nearly had the expensive liquor fall out of her hand at the sight.

"What the fuck?!" She shouted, immidiately turning around and fixing her eyes on her bed, more importantly, on the person sitting on it.

"Gilbert, are you insane?" She exclaimed, pointing her hand to her forehead, complete shock on her face, immediately followed by anger. Fucking Elena Gilbert was just chilling on her bed. She looked as if she had managed to steal some clothes from Jade's closet, her usually straight hair was styled in curls, a strange, mismatched smirk on her face. "What are you━"

"Hello Jade, I think me and you have a lot to talk about." Katherine said sweetly, settling more comfortably on Jade's bed, a smirk firmly plastered on her pretty face.