Amurehna

I liked that the twists were surprises. I usually have a tiny thread of lucidity that makes me meta the hell out of my dreams.

Anyway. My starting point was a little confusing. First I see a wounded Damon Salvatore, on the phone with Elena. It's night, he's crusted with blood and looks ten kinds of awful. The camera pans over and I see a white figure standing at the corner of the frame. I' m worried because the thing looks like a threat. But then Damon says something about running into a Sarvati (the white figure, now wringing his hands). Elena asks if he's alright, because apparently Sarvati are dangerous.
"It's fine." Damon says with his trademark smirk. "I persuaded him to help." he pauses. "What about you?"
"Getting a little help of my own. Maybe." She says, and I finally see her. She's in a barn, the moonlight shining through the open door. "I have a plan, I'll let you know if it works." She seemed hurt, too, but it isn't apparent how. Hanging up the phone, opens her mouth wide and lifts her wrist. I assume she's going to feed on herself to heal...and I'm doubtful that would even work.
The camera pans out and I recognize the setting.

In this version of the story, Stefan became like Michael and only fed on vampires. Also being a ripper meant he hurt many people before his friends were able to subdue him. Weary of fighting his hunger, he allowed himself to desiccate and made a deal: he would sleep until they found a cure.
There he lay, under a bare foot of soil, in a weathered wooden crate. Elena meant to feed Stefan. Of course.
For a moment I am irrationally angry with Elena. They had promised him! And here she was, at the first sign of trouble, waking Stefan to his torment. It seems so selfish and, only for a moment, I hate her.

They will need him, though. He is a definite ally in a sea of mistrust. There's a new creature in Mystic Falls. They are vampire/zombie hybrids. In the early days of their Turning they drink the blood of humans, but then require flesh to survive. They can walk in the daylight and may subsist on human food for a time, if they are disciplined. Though the first was the result of a spell cast by a powerful sorcerer, it could be spread via saliva. So, naturally, the first Turned would be a whore of a football player.
A girl named Sandra who looked like the actress Annalynne Mccord is the only one who really notices that the school is slowly slipping into chaos. The faculty are nowhere to be found and sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, certain people have ashen skin. She used to be a cheerleader but has since lost her taste for it. No one knows that the hiatus she took from school wasn't a vacation, she actually went to a care facility for anorexia. There are students milling around, crowding the halls, and debris on the floor. Sandra walks into the locker room, uncertain, arms crossed over her abdomen. She spots Stacy who looks gray, talking to a chubby, blond, blue-eyed Davina Claire. Stacy asks her if she's thrown in her lot for the party food, that they were thinking about ordering pizza, but she has a better idea. In her hands is an advertisement for a company known as Meal A day. Sandra knows it well. Upon release from the hospital, Meal A Day had delivered healthy meals to her door three times a day, she checked her progress after every meal and they took the plates. Each seemed a small victory over the illness.
"So have you signed yet?" Stacy asks.
"You know me." Davina says, "Always hungry."
Sandra intuits that Davina is bulimic. She isn't sure if she can trust a near stranger with her secret, but it would be worth the risk if she could help.
The students don't realize that they are signing up to be the food and their dietary preferences will determine who will be consuming them.
Their hunger is a quiet, fervent energy, a slowly building frenzy. They are cunning in their design.
"I put a spell on you. You're mine now." A male voice says.

I return to the barn where Stefan shakes dirt from his hair. His eyes are an unnatural golden brown, he wipes Elena's blood from his mouth. Still disoriented, he asks how long it has been.
I loathe Elena's sheepish look, wishing she'd just left him alone.
"You've been down for a little over a day."
His expression twists in wry amusement, tinged with pain. "What's happened now?" He asks as she helps him stand.
"I'll explain on the way, we don't have a lot of time." Elena replies. She hopes Damon won't be too angry, he wanted to honor Stefan's wishes.
"I'm assuming you didn't bring a car?" He says this with an air of contained amusement that is achingly familiar. She smiles, casting her eyes to the dirt floor and dipping her head. He grins suddenly. "You always did love to run."
They had always loved to run together.
Yet, this is not a reunion of lovers, just friends who were lovers once upon a time. Their love has since mellowed into fondness. They exit the barn into the soft summer night. Lucidity here is a sweet thread that pulls me through Elena and then back out to observe. They are so happy to be together. Their hasty separation, though it seemed longer to him, had worn on them. This reunion is like the giddy absence of pain amidst torture. For a time, they don't think about what they will face when they arrive at town, or that Stefan will return to the ground when this new threat is stamped out, only that they are here again, running together.

The moon's cloak of clouds pulls apart to reveal swathes of landscape. The grass is deep blue-green, knee high and soft against my legs and bare feet, Elena is wearing a flowered dress. They run almost human slow. Then I am her, smiling as he draws up next to me. His silhouette is immensely comforting. I trip, tumbling into the sweet grass. I fall and roll, we laugh at my clumsiness. And like a dance, he is there to take my arm and help me up. I have been explaining the threat. This fits seamlessly with the male voice speaking at the end of the last segment. Elena tells him about what the sorcerer said.
"He didn't." Stefan says, smiling.
"He didn't even get it!" Elena laughs, then they share a joke, singing "I put a spell on you, and now you're mine." and express their disbelief that their new villain said it in all seriousness. I separate from Elena and pull back as they reach the river and leap across, as graceful as deer.

*sigh* I'm getting a little sick of the undead theme. Seriously.

First, a few fragments.
Fragment 1: Toes
I'm looking at my big toe, it looks like there's dead skin or something around the nail. So I pull at it and it rips off a couple layers of skin.

Fragment 2: Bugs
I walk into my kitchen and where the trash can is supposed to be, there are 5 small beetles and one large, green scarab beetle. By large, I mean it's larger than the other ones. It's not, say, the size of a cat. I lean forward to examine them, wondering why there are beetles in my kitchen. The scarab chitters its mandibles at me and chases me into the living room. I'm more startled than scared.
"Aggressive little bastard..."

Fragment 3: Hair
I'm looking in the mirror trying to fix my hair. Except I have bangs. I brush them out and am surprised that they look alright. I haven't had bangs like that since I was a kid.

Fragment 4: Infected
The infected have taken over our cities. There's a girl with short blond hair who has the innate ability to use telekinesis. She's in a room with a wide mahogany table, they're trying to draw out a plan of action. An older woman with red brown hair gives them a dismissive wave.
"Annaleigh," She begins, addressing the blond. "These plans are all well and good, be we all know how we're really meant to win this. The rest of us have to start learning the things you can do. Can you teach us?"
Anna responds with a resolute nod.
I see a coastal city at sunset, it's all narrow cobblestone streets and low flat buildings. There are undead everywhere. A man realizes that the zombies have cut off the larger group's escape route. He knows that blood will draw them. So he raises his hand in farewell, and the next time I see him his throat is slit and the knife hilt is sticking out the side of his neck.

Vampires
I'm a man in my early twenties. I'm of average height with deathly pale skin and short black hair, black-brown eyes. Half a year ago something happened to me, it left me in an unfortunate state of undeath. I'm not a zombie, I don't rot. I'm not a ghost, I'm definitely solid and other people can see me. I'm not a vampire, I don't crave blood and I can go out in the sun. I would not entertain such fantastic explanations, except for the fact that my skin is extremely pale, cold to the touch, and I don't have a pulse. Only my friend Simon knows my secret. I don't often go out, and he's the only real friend I have left.
Simon has a friend who is throwing a party, they used to be my friend too. I decide I'm going to go. I see the restaurant from outside, there's a wide wooden staircase leading to a deck, and a sliding glass door. I go inside and Simon freezes in shock. He comes to stand by me as I settle in next to two other people in a large booth seat.
"Are you sure you should be doing this?" He asks, pretending to smile. He's worried.
"Yes, It'll be fine."
"If you say so." He wanders off, but I can tell he's going to keep an eye on me. I smile and shake my head.
There's a sort of magician or storyteller. We all know the routine so well that we shout along with key points in the story. I catch Simon's attention and roll my eyes, wondering why we even bother to hire the guys if we already know the story.

I'm not sure what happens here. Someone sees me and I feel a shock of recognition though they are a stranger. I climb over the back of the booth and thrust the door open, I make for the stairs but my pursuer somehow beats me there, so I jump up onto the wide flat rail and run past them. They yell something at me. I know that they are a vampire. It feels like it shouldn't be possible.

There's a lapse and I'm standing in a dim stairwell. There's a girl with pail skin, bright red lips and chin length black hair, her bangs hang into her eyes. She's crumpled against one wall. She looks delirious and afraid. I go to help her. And so I learn her story, and the mystery of what happened to me six months ago.
She was attacked outside a bar and fought back, killing her assailant. She became sick and only just made it back to her apartment. She slept for three days straight and woke up ravenously hungry, but when she tried to leave the sun burned her. She came to the rather obvious conclusion that she's a vampire.
It sounds similar to my own story, except I was never certain of the fate of my assailant. She was sure she had killed hers. I only knew that I had wounded him. I realize that this is how vampires are made, you kill a vampire to become one. Since the vampire I wounded survived, I got stuck somehow.

There's another lapse. The vampires have found that two of their children were killed. They threaten the city, saying that anyone who knows of me and the girl should catch us and turn us over.
I decide differently. I need to finish what I started 6 months ago.
There's a wide, open courtyard, all concrete. It's sundown. In the far corner is a swirling gold and magenta portal. Standing in front of it are tall pale, elaborately dressed figures. They all wear gold and magenta. It's hard to describe, the women's dresses have long bell-shaped sleeves. The dress is all magenta with thick gold veins running from neckline to hem. Their hair is twisted around a kind of...y shaped headdress. They all have amber colored hair.
Their leader shouts an absurd challenge that a week ago I wouldn't have countered. Now I enter the courtyard directly into their fenced off area. They say they'll kill me. I laugh.
One of the women steps forward and draws a large thorn shaped weapon covered in the gold veining with hints of magenta underneath. She throws it at me. I snatch it out of the air, rush her and stab her in the chest. With her death my strength grows, she falls to the ground and I rush the next one. I take out five more this way before my alarm wakes me up.