Chapter 4

Chapter 4

**** rebirth

I knew it was going to happen, expected it to happen, but seeing it was different, as I looked at my youngest brother's mauled corpse, I was hit by grief and guilt in equal measure. I could have done something, anything to try and save his life, but I knew that this was necessary; his **** would allow me to live for centuries, perhaps longer. Perhaps I may be able to right this wrong, reuniting him with the rest of us again.

Hours later, we sat eating a meagre meal of rabbit stew, the atmosphere was tense, and none of us spoke. I looked around at my family, grief evident on the faces of all present. Klaus had not said a word in hours, but I could see the guilt plastered on his face, the same look he had had since he told us that he took Henrik to see the wolves turn, resulting in his ****. My other brothers sat equally quiet, even Kol, usually the joker, had been left silent at this turn of events. Rebekah stood next to me, frozen in grief, her eyes red from crying. Only father was absent, he had been since we buried Henrik a few hours ago and I knew why, I was the only one that did.

The door to the room opened, and Mikael stepped through, with one hand a bottle of wine, his face blank, not a hint of grief on it. He got to the table and started pouring the wine into the goblets that sat in front of us before muttering one word, "drink", more of a command than a request. I looked around, my siblings frozen at his sudden and odd request, but I knew that this needed to be done. I grasped the goblet and looked into the wine inside. The rich red liquid looked no different than one would expect. I brought it to my lips and drank deeply, not stopping until the goblet was empty. Brought out of their stupor by me putting the goblet on the table, each of my siblings started to do the same until eventually all the goblets were empty.

I stayed awake, lying in bed, listening to the breathing of my siblings inside the room we shared. I could not sleep, especially knowing what was to come next. My thoughts were interrupted by the door creaking open ever so slightly. Father entered, sword in hand, our eyes met briefly before he thrust the blade into my heart.

My eyes opened suddenly, light spilling in before a familiar blonde head blocked my vision. Blinking rapidly to clear my eyes, I realised that the head belonged to Rebekah. I stood just barely getting my balance, I felt weak and a great hunger burned inside me, inside the room, only myself and Rebekah had awoke; my brothers were still lying unmoving on the floor. "What happened?" Rebekah asked, breaking the silence, just as I was about to answer, Klaus awoke, taking great gulps of air and looking around frantically. Within the next five minutes, he rest of my brothers awoke all with the same confused, frantic looks decorating their faces. The door slammed open, and father came through this time, with a new blade present, but in one arm, he dragged a young woman, not much older than Rebekah. I felt the hunger rise within myself, and just as I heard Father tell us to drink if we wanted to live, I pounced on her. I could not describe it, the taste was divine, blood flooded into my mouth and I greedily drank, the weakness I awoke with replaced by strength the likes of which I had never previously experienced. Again, I was knocked from my thoughts, this time by my father pulling me away from the women, before allowing my siblings to drink as well. His strength was great, surpassing even mine, so I stopped. One by one, my siblings drank until the women's blood ran dry, Elijah claiming her last breath before unceremoniously dropping her corpse to the ground.

I looked around at my siblings and my father, all now having completed the change and become vampires. It surprised me to see how different we were from our show counterparts, our fangs were longer and sharper, mine being almost three inches long they were also a brilliant ivory white. Claws extended from our fingertips, completely different to the show where vampires had no claws, the veins around our eyes were extremely noticeable, covering most of our upper faces. Then there were our eyes, the whites had turned completely black, and the iris and pupil were dark red, giving off a haunting look. Once our bloodlust had subsided, I watched as all my siblings turned back to normal, all the vampire features disappearing back into their bodies. Mikael looked at us all, pride evident on his face, "Children, your mother and I have given you a gift. No more of you shall die, especially not to the wolves, you are faster and stronger than they, and you will never die". There was silence for a long while after that, as we all took in his words. Some of my siblings bore horrified expressions, the rest looked amazed, while I remained calm a blank look on my face.

The sun was starting to rise, and I saw the opportunity to show one of our weaknesses and opened the door, stepping forward. I was hit with agonising pain as my skin started blistering. Jumping back, I let out a hiss of pain, my healing factor immediately setting in to heal my damaged flesh. Mikael, seeing this, shouted to our mother. She rushed in, explaining the problem. He demanded a solution, so a few hours later, the first daylight rings were made.

Over the next few days, we discovered our other weaknesses, vervain burning us like the sun did, being unable to enter a house without an invitation, and the worst was the hunger, an all-consuming desire to feed on blood. With these weaknesses, we gained a whole host of strengths from being able to shatter trees with a single strike, being able to run faster than any other being could hope to. Our senses were heightened to a degree that seeing in total darkness was easy, we could hear a heartbeat on the other side of town, smell blood for miles and feel the softest breath from metres away. Though for some of us the curse became apparent that vampirism was more of a curse, Kol soon discovered that he could no longer perform magic, and as it turned out, we were no longer fertile.

Within the first week of our transformation into vampires, rumours had begun to spread around the village, neighbours began to talk in hushed whispers, friends had started to disappear as soon as we appeared, and at night, nobody ventured out of their homes. Our feeding habits had not helped. I had already known of compulsion and as such started to use it, but the others had not yet learned to use it, so rumours spread unchallenged.

Our second week of being vampires, I was taking a walk through the woods near the village, when my hearing picked up a scream, I dashed towards it, but it was too late. Elijah was kneeling on the ground, the corpse of Tatia in his arms. I could smell the blood in the air and knew what had happened; he had lost control and killed her. I approached, putting my arm on his shoulder, and he turned, tears in his eyes "I did not mean to, I-I tried to stop, but" his voice trailed off. Nodding, I tried to help, "let's take her to mother, she will help", I responded to him. He looked at me for a minute, sighing. I picked up Tatia's body and we sped towards home, taking her body to her mother. Elijah told her what happened, and she looked at us both before telling Elijah to get cleaned up. "Asmund, go get a shovel, I need to bury her before anyone comes to find her". I sped off towards the outskirts of the village to do as she said, with my strength and speed it took me a short amount of time to dig a grave. When I got home, my mother had prepared Tatia's body. I picked it up, looking down at it one last time before speeding off to the freshly dug grave.

I walked back towards the village, thinking back towards the last couple of weeks, the strength we had gained, all that we had lost, Henrik, Tatia and the trust of the village being just the beginning. I was knocked out of my thoughts by arguing, it was Mikael and Rebekah, odd, I thought, as they came into view just as Mikael struck her. Rage coursed through me. Our entire lives, Mikael had never hit Rebekah, but he had now. I charged at him, claws and fangs bared. I struck him in the chest, his skin enhanced so that no blade would cut him, and he gave way to my claws. Mikael looked at me hatred filling his eyes and struck back, he was stronger, faster and the better fighter, but I was pissed. He slashed back, carving up my arms and knocking me back. I struck back with a punch, feeling the wet crunch of his nose as it broke. I tried to deliver another blow, he caught my wrist, I felt a hand grasp my neck and lift me off the ground, he twisted my arm snapping it painfully before tightening his grip on my neck.