Night 59: F01-F10 Hallway
Whoa, was that supposed to be normal? Alarms were going off, and the next thing she expected was some dudes coming in with heavy artillery to give her a hard time. This was pretty unusual, and it left Ramona on alert. In a way, she half-expected this to be some point in the story when there was a time limit keeping her on a set restriction. If she
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Dear Diary,
Today, oddly, was normal. I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There were no shocking discoveries, no tests of will against bossy doctors and nurses, only some time spent in the Sun Room, and eating meals. It's a little weird, how being here is almost starting to feel 'normal'. I know it's probably exactly what they want us to feel, but it's better than constantly trying to fight what has so easily become our new world. It's better than trying to fight what can't be fought like anything else we've ever dealt with.
Today was the first day I didn't wake up expecting to be back in my own bed, but instead of feeling shocked I actually was kind of glad for it. What does that even mean? Is this place finally getting to me?
Boring, concise, but to the point. Honest. Definite.
Which was exactly why she wasn't going to be writing any of it down. She knew she couldn't let herself grow comfortable here, because none of it had really proven to be worthy of that kind of trust. The only thing she knew she could count on here, besides the people that she'd already trusted before the institute, was that no matter how simple things seemed, how routine and redundant things felt during the day - that all disappeared at night.
A fact that became ridiculously clear when the words 'Code Red' broke her momentary existential crisis, followed by the blaring of alarms.
Well, that was certainly enough to get Elena to finally move off her bed. She had told Stefan she'd wait for him, but whatever. She knew, generally, which direction he'd be coming from, so she would just start heading that same way. No sweat.
With her flashlight in hand, she pulled open her door and stepped out into the hall, wincing a little as the alarms only seemed louder. Yikes. She couldn't tell if anyone else was there with here, even after taking a few steps away from her room, which meant she couldn't ask anyone if they even know what Code Red meant. Did it matter, though? It was bad. Definitely. Bad enough to make her feel slightly panicked and wanting to find Stefan even faster.
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She was standing in the hallway when Stefan turned the corner: a slim dark shape behind the glare of her flashlight, unmistakable to his unhindered sight. In the second it took to arrive at her side, he watched Elena turn the light around her, looking for danger, and by instinct, he dodged around it to finally appear behind her.
There was no reason to hide his true speed in this place, not right now, not with half the patient population apparently capable of supernatural feats. Of course Stefan knew this couldn't last the night, but he was hoping they wouldn't have to be here for that long.
"Elena," he said.
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"I thought we got over that. The sneaking thing." She was smiling though, even as she hugged her flashlight to her chest, trying to pretend her heart wasn't thudding in her chest from the momentary shock.
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"We did when I couldn't do it any more," he admitted. It wasn't that he specifically made a point of sneaking up on her; he just... didn't think about it. Although, he couldn't deny getting a little enjoyment out of her surprise sometimes. "But Elena, look." Before she could say anything, Stefan lifted the knife in his hand and drew it across his bare arm, near the elbow.
Why he thought of this as the best way to illustrate the return of his full vampire strength, Stefan wasn't quite sure, only that the healing of his extensive wounds was the first thing which had let him realize it was back. The sharp pain of the knife slicing into his skin was a nice reminder of why he didn't normally do this kind of thing. Even with his "powers" restored, he was still only as strong as the blood made him.
Said blood welled at the cut for a second before the skin knitted itself together again in front of their eyes. He rubbed his finger over it to wipe it away (a drop in the ocean compared to all the dead animal blood on his clothes right now), and there was no longer any sign of injury at all.
"Whatever device they were using to hold us all back, it's... off. Or broken. I'm not sure which one. But there's monsters everywhere - I think the military's sent them to stop us." Stefan flipped the knife in his hand and held the handle out to Elena, his expression suddenly serious again. "Hold onto this. I'll protect you, but in case we get swarmed before we find Damon..."
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She carefully took the knife from him, though she didn't know where to put it. Not that she was very focused on the knife. That smile sobered as she took in his clothes, and it was hard not to let her wariness show.
"Monsters... Did something attack you?" Strangely enough, or maybe not, she was hoping he'd tell her that he went hunting or something instead. It was better that trying to wrap her mind around him being tracked down by the monsters in this place. Though if he had gone hunting, there's no way a rabbit or something would have left that much blood behind. ..Right?
'Kay, maybe a rabbit living at Landel's would. God. She couldn't figure out if she was happy or nervous, at this point, she felt split down the middle between the two. Either way, she took a deep breath and moved closer to him, letting the knife settle at her side while she reached up with her other hand to brush her fingers along his cheek and really look at him.
"You're okay, right? You didn't... do anything to get your abilities back? Nothing weird happened? You can tell me." It just seemed to good to be true. Even with the monsters targeting them; that wasn't exactly new or different. But the last time she (well, the two of them) encountered a Stefan Salvatore with full vampire abilities, it had been the shadow of his past self. She didn't think for a second this was the same case, but something dark made that possible, so maybe something like that was happening again tonight. She hoped with everything she had that that wasn't the case.
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It felt nice, it felt good, to have the power to protect Elena now. Each thump of her heartbeat rang clear in his ears, but for once it was a comforting sound, the way it had been before they'd come here and he found himself hungry all the time. Stefan cupped her face with both hands, and leaned in to touch his forehead to hers.
"I wouldn't. I promise. Not without telling you." He pulled away in order to look at her face again. "It's everyone, not just me. I think they're sending the monsters to keep us contained until they can get our abilities under their control again." Stefan tensed suddenly and glanced back down the hall, where the pink glow of the walls faded into darkness again. Noises scraped behind the walls, inhuman and chittering. "Something's coming. We should go."
He took her free hand in his, and hurried out of the hall.
[to here]
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