Turn It Off:
I had hope.
Bonnie, sweet Bonnie, our own magical fixer-upper. No matter how much trouble we're in, no matter how dire the situation might be, Bonnie had a spell that could help us. That could fix everything. But not this time. She speaks to Caroline and Matt about committing a massacre, about literally bringing back every single supernatural creature that has died. All just to bring Jeremy back. But it wouldn't just bring him back. It'd bring back Jenna and Alaric too. It would resurrect Jeremy's lost love, a vampire named Anna, along with Matt's sister, Caroline's dad; we could all be reunited with those we had loved and those we had lost.
Unfortunately, it also includes every other murderous supernatural creature, literally bringing hell on earth. Our very own doomsday.
There is no hope.
I realize it's over. I realize that my baby brother is dead. I realize that my entire family is gone. And I realize that I'm completely alone.
Realistically speaking, I really should have lost my sanity around three family deaths ago. But I kept it together. I'm not sure if it was out of a sense of self-preservation, or to keep myself together for him. But it wasn't watching my parents drown that pushed me to my limit. Or the image of Isobel taking off her daylight ring and literally burning to a crisp right in front of me. It wasn't watching helplessly as my Aunt was staked by a murderous vampire who wanted to drain me of my blood to break his own curse. Watching John die just to save my life caused me incredible guilt, but it wasn't crippling. Finding out that Alaric would die in someone else's selfish supernatural plot almost destroyed me, but at least I still had someone to hold onto to keep me sane.
No, what sends me toppling over the edge is the realization that my brother, who has been 'sleeping' on his bed all day, who was meant to wake up just like all the other times... isn't really sleeping. I run up to his bedroom before anyone can stop me. I need to see. I need to know.
His room is dark, cold, empty and void of all life. Someone put a blanket over his face while I was gone. No, this doesn't feel like his bedroom anymore.
It feels like a morgue.
Slowly, I pull the blanket off of his face. While I know now that he's gone, that he's never coming back, what I see is something I never expected to see in my lifetime. An image that will be seared in my brain for the rest of eternity.
What lies under the blanket is not my brother. It is not Jeremy Gilbert; a charismatic, loving, sweet and kind teenage boy with a ridiculously bad sense of humour.
No. What lies under the blanket is an empty corpse. It's entire body has stiffened due to rigor mortis, though it's neck is limp due to it being snapped. It's eyes are closed, though they are not at peace. It's skin is almost blue, and...
Oh god.
I can smell it.
Though it's not an it.
The body that I have left on the bed all day, for such a long period it has begun to decompose, is my brother.
Jeremy Gilbert; a charismatic, loving, sweet and kind teenage boy with a ridiculously bad sense of humour, now reduced to a rotting corpse.
I left my brother to rot.
My brother is dead.
My entire family is dead.
And it's all my fault.
Everywhere I turn, people try to comfort me. "It's going to be okay," Damon tells me. (Why is he lying to me like this?) "It's okay to have hope," Matt says. (Lies. All lies. There was never hope.) "You still have me", Stefan pleads. (You're not my family. You mean nothing to me.)
And just like that, I snap.
I force Damon to take Jeremy's body down to the living room. Stefan and Caroline tell me Bonnie has left; Matt took her home after her insane ideas of how to bring my dead brother back to life came to light. "I guess we're just going to have to do this the old fashioned way," I say blankly.
Lighter fluid.
Stefan and Caroline jump off of their seats in shock, though I'm not sure why. What else did they expect?
I pour it over every available surface in my house. The kitchen bench where I used to cook dinner with Jenna, while Jeremy sat in his room blasting punk music to drown the pain of our parent's death. The table, where once I ate dinner with my parents and my brother, before vampires and murder were a common every day occurrence in our lives. The diary I would pour my emotions into day by day. I pour the lighter fluid on the body that lies on the couch, an empty vessel where the soul of my baby brother once lived. A body with no purpose.
I kick and I scream, I take Jeremy's ring off of him and throw it to Damon. "He won't be needing this anymore." And it's true, he won't. What's the use of a ring that can bring you back to life, if you're already dead?
"Stop it, you're scaring me!" Caroline yells. Of course I am. Caroline, my sweet best friend Caroline. Such a naive and kind little vampire she is. She's been my best friend ever since we were in diapers, but her caring and empathy only serves to aggravate me now. At least her mother is still alive.
"What else are we supposed to do with the body, Caroline?!", I scream. "I mean, there's no more room in the Gilbert family plot!" I smash a photo of Jenna and Alaric, pouring lighter fluid on that too. Besides, it's not like they care. They're a bit busy being dead.
"Elena, stop." Stefan pleads with me, almost begs me to stop this. The look in his eyes is one full of pain and sympathy, as well as complete and devoted love for me. But I don't care. He still has his brother.
I light a match, holding it in my hand as I continue to lose control, words falling out of my mouth as they appear in my brain. "There's nothing here for me anymore Stefan! Every inch of this is house is filled with memories of people I love that have died." I begin to list them, amazed and horrified by the amount of people I have lost. "My Mom. My Dad..." My voice falters before I utter the next name. "Jeremy." It's the first time I've said his name since I've come to the realization he is well and truly dead, and I never want to say it again. "Jenna. Alaric. John, even John. They're all dead."
Misery had become my friend in the past two years, a well acquainted feeling that kept me company during every minute of every day. But now, it consumes me. It swallows me whole into a never ending blackness that I don't know if I'll ever be able to reach out of, as I utter the next words.
"Everyone is dead."
The flame on the match reaches my fingertips, and it burns me. Without even thinking I drop it, and it's caught by Damon before it can even hit the floor. "Elena, I need you to calm down", he says in a soothing voice. My anger, my resentment towards everyone else in the room for still having living family members, is gone now. All I feel is pain.
"No. No. No. No. No. No. I can't!"
My knees buckle beneath me and I hit the floor. I'm sobbing and I'm wailing and there's only pain.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
"It hurts. Please make it stop. Just make it stop, it hurts."
Not one coherent thought exists in my mind. I'm not even aware of the words that are tumbling out of my mouth. All I can focus on is the grief and loss that is consuming me, the fact that I am now completely alone in the world.
Damon sits on the floor with me, clinging me to him as my body is racked with sobs. He looks me in the eye, and utters three little words, the only three words that have actually fully reached my conscience since I first found my brother's corpse on the ground.
"Turn it off."
My humanity. He wants me to turn off my humanity, to switch off my emotions, in order to no longer have to feel this pain anymore.
And it's the best idea that I've ever heard.
I flip the switch without a second to contemplate it.
As my emotions leave my body, memories flood my head, in the last few moments that I feel anything.
No, what sends me toppling over the edge is the realization that my brother, who has been 'sleeping' on his bed all day, who was meant to wake up just like all the other times... isn't really sleeping. I run up to his bedroom before anyone can stop me. I need to see. I need to know.
His room is dark, cold, empty and void of all life. Someone put a blanket over his face while I was gone. No, this doesn't feel like his bedroom anymore.
It feels like a morgue.
Slowly, I pull the blanket off of his face. While I know now that he's gone, that he's never coming back, what I see is something I never expected to see in my lifetime. An image that will be seared in my brain for the rest of eternity.
What lies under the blanket is not my brother. It is not Jeremy Gilbert; a charismatic, loving, sweet and kind teenage boy with a ridiculously bad sense of humour.
No. What lies under the blanket is an empty corpse. It's entire body has stiffened due to rigor mortis, though it's neck is limp due to it being snapped. It's eyes are closed, though they are not at peace. It's skin is almost blue, and...
Oh god.
I can smell it.
Though it's not an it.
The body that I have left on the bed all day, for such a long period it has begun to decompose, is my brother.
Jeremy Gilbert; a charismatic, loving, sweet and kind teenage boy with a ridiculously bad sense of humour, now reduced to a rotting corpse.
I left my brother to rot.
My brother is dead.
My entire family is dead.
And it's all my fault.
Everywhere I turn, people try to comfort me. "It's going to be okay," Damon tells me. (Why is he lying to me like this?) "It's okay to have hope," Matt says. (Lies. All lies. There was never hope.) "You still have me", Stefan pleads. (You're not my family. You mean nothing to me.)
And just like that, I snap.
I force Damon to take Jeremy's body down to the living room. Stefan and Caroline tell me Bonnie has left; Matt took her home after her insane ideas of how to bring my dead brother back to life came to light. "I guess we're just going to have to do this the old fashioned way," I say blankly.
Lighter fluid.
Stefan and Caroline jump off of their seats in shock, though I'm not sure why. What else did they expect?
I pour it over every available surface in my house. The kitchen bench where I used to cook dinner with Jenna, while Jeremy sat in his room blasting punk music to drown the pain of our parent's death. The table, where once I ate dinner with my parents and my brother, before vampires and murder were a common every day occurrence in our lives. The diary I would pour my emotions into day by day. I pour the lighter fluid on the body that lies on the couch, an empty vessel where the soul of my baby brother once lived. A body with no purpose.
I kick and I scream, I take Jeremy's ring off of him and throw it to Damon. "He won't be needing this anymore." And it's true, he won't. What's the use of a ring that can bring you back to life, if you're already dead?
"Stop it, you're scaring me!" Caroline yells. Of course I am. Caroline, my sweet best friend Caroline. Such a naive and kind little vampire she is. She's been my best friend ever since we were in diapers, but her caring and empathy only serves to aggravate me now. At least her mother is still alive.
"What else are we supposed to do with the body, Caroline?!", I scream. "I mean, there's no more room in the Gilbert family plot!" I smash a photo of Jenna and Alaric, pouring lighter fluid on that too. Besides, it's not like they care. They're a bit busy being dead.
"Elena, stop." Stefan pleads with me, almost begs me to stop this. The look in his eyes is one full of pain and sympathy, as well as complete and devoted love for me. But I don't care. He still has his brother.
I light a match, holding it in my hand as I continue to lose control, words falling out of my mouth as they appear in my brain. "There's nothing here for me anymore Stefan! Every inch of this is house is filled with memories of people I love that have died." I begin to list them, amazed and horrified by the amount of people I have lost. "My Mom. My Dad..." My voice falters before I utter the next name. "Jeremy." It's the first time I've said his name since I've come to the realization he is well and truly dead, and I never want to say it again. "Jenna. Alaric. John, even John. They're all dead."
Misery had become my friend in the past two years, a well acquainted feeling that kept me company during every minute of every day. But now, it consumes me. It swallows me whole into a never ending blackness that I don't know if I'll ever be able to reach out of, as I utter the next words.
"Everyone is dead."
The flame on the match reaches my fingertips, and it burns me. Without even thinking I drop it, and it's caught by Damon before it can even hit the floor. "Elena, I need you to calm down", he says in a soothing voice. My anger, my resentment towards everyone else in the room for still having living family members, is gone now. All I feel is pain.
"No. No. No. No. No. No. I can't!"
My knees buckle beneath me and I hit the floor. I'm sobbing and I'm wailing and there's only pain.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
"It hurts. Please make it stop. Just make it stop, it hurts."
Not one coherent thought exists in my mind. I'm not even aware of the words that are tumbling out of my mouth. All I can focus on is the grief and loss that is consuming me, the fact that I am now completely alone in the world.
Damon sits on the floor with me, clinging me to him as my body is racked with sobs. He looks me in the eye, and utters three little words, the only three words that have actually fully reached my conscience since I first found my brother's corpse on the ground.
"Turn it off."
My humanity. He wants me to turn off my humanity, to switch off my emotions, in order to no longer have to feel this pain anymore.
And it's the best idea that I've ever heard.
I flip the switch without a second to contemplate it.
As my emotions leave my body, memories flood my head, in the last few moments that I feel anything.
You won’t be sad forever.
That might be the biggest lie I've ever heard.
The hardest day of loving someone, is the day that you lose them.
The pain is leaving.
I don’t have anyone anymore.
It seeps out of my body, leaving an emptiness that I'm not sure will ever be filled.
I don’t want to be a vampire, Stefan.
God, the pity people must have felt for Jeremy and I.
My brother is the only thing that’s holding me together.
But don't take care of us. You'll end up six feet under too.
They’re all dead.
Rest In Peace, Gilbert family.
Everyone is dead.
There's only remnants left now. Soon I will be empty. Soon I will be free.
Snap.
One twist was all it took.
I’m sorry you’ve lost so many people.
I'm sorry you lost your life.
I still have you.
Two years.
That's all it took.
That's all it took.
The entire Gilbert family wiped out. All of us dead.
Even me. Because I'm no longer Elena Gilbert anymore. I'm a living corpse with not one emotion inside of her body.
Even me. Because I'm no longer Elena Gilbert anymore. I'm a living corpse with not one emotion inside of her body.
Turn it off.
It's all gone.
Very well done Ash! It is well written, flows nicely and over all it's a great story. Your grammar and punctuation is great and I don't think I'd change anything in this piece.
ReplyDeleteThe story almost makes me want to know more. You know this show very well it seems and it comes through in the writing.