My Hope That Keeps Me Going (Vampire Diaries Fanfic)

The Cell

The Cell

(Flashback scenes in Italics)

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"What the hell are you doing to me?" Damon groans as Dr. Maxfield injects him with vervain.

"Vervain. To keep you calm." Wes explains.

"Wes? Why am I here?" Damon asks.

"I lost a test subject last night, and you're gonna replace him." Wes says and leaves the basement after closing the gate.

The only thing that came to mind as Damon sat alone in the cell, 'It's a good thing Charlie left town.'

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"Come on, Elena. Wake up." Damon muttered looking through the small cell window to the other cell at Elena. "Hey." He says when she looks at him.

"Damon?" She says and starts crawling over to him. "Are you-"

"I'm fine. Wes injected you with vervain. Maybe when it wears off, we'll be able to break through these." He said and started shaking the bars to see how much give they had.

"What the hell is going on? Why are you here? Why am I here?" Elena asks frantically.

"Wes is carrying out the grand Augustine tradition. Getting his kicks off vampire torture." Damon explained.

"Did he tell you that?"

"He didn't have to. I've been here before. Someone in my family sold me out to the Augustines in 1953. Every day, this nut job Dr. Whitmore tortured us, cut into us, took pieces of our eyes out, pushed us to every limit he could imagine, and he had quite the imagination." Damon explained remembering all the terrible experiments done on him. "Kept me in this very cell, and don't think I haven't appreciated the irony."

"How long were you here?" Elena asked.

"5 years, give or take."

"Damon, how did you not go crazy?"

"Believe it or not, I made a friend." Damon said going into a flashback…

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"Welcome." Damon heard an unknown voice from the cell next to him. "Dr. Whitmore never gets tired of watching us vampires heal, but he gives us one glass of blood per day, just enough to keep us alive. Pick yourself up, soldier." The man said and crawled toward the bared window between cells. He held out his hand in greeting. "My name's Enzo."

Damon stood up in his cell. "He was a soldier in Europe during World War II."

"How did he end up here?" Elena asked her boyfriend.

"Dr. Whitmore was working in a battlefield hospital when he discovered Enzo was a vampire, so he drugged him, locked him in a coffin to ship him overseas. He'd been here for 10 years by the time I joined the party…"

Damon chugged down his glass of blood.

"You're doing it wrong." Enzo scolded. "You're living for the moment. You need to live for the future."

"What future?" Damon asked.

"The one where you get your revenge. For instance, in my future, my revenge will start with killing Whitmore's dog and mailing it to his house postage due." Enzo explained. "Go on. Picture your revenge. Use your imagination."

"I can see it." Damon says and starts to carve on the wall with a rock.

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"Damon, Wes knew my dad. They worked together. He said that my dad was an Augustine too. I know that my dad was a vampire hunter, but he was also the town doctor. He was kind and gentle and loving. He wouldn't be part of a place that would cut your eyes out." Elena said disgustedly.