Damon Salvatore: I will always choose you.

Epilogue: Ghost World

So I guess being a Petrova doppelgänger that was sacrificed in a supernatural ritual earns you a place on the other side. Who would have thought? Certainly not me, that's for sure.

I was thinking I'd maybe get a flashback of my life and maybe go to the afterlife, or be reincarnated as a giraffe or something cool like that, but no. Not long after I died I woke up in this place.

It took me a while to get used to it because I could see everyone but they couldn't see me. It got quite depressing some days, the loneliness excruciatingly loud. However, the worst part about being on the other side was witnessing everyone's grief. Not just for me but for John and Jenna too. It was too difficult to watch so I spent most of my time in Alaric's apartment because he was sleeping on the coach in my house. At least there I didn't have to hear the deafening sobs of Elena or see the state Damon would get himself into after finishing his sixth bottle of bourbon for the night.

I couldn't even leave Mystic Falls so I wasn't able to check up on Stefan who had gone off with Klaus to do God knows what. I prayed every night that he was okay. Especially ever since I found articles that Damon had been collecting about brutal deaths all along the east coast, evidently the work of the so called Ripper Stefan.

It took three months for things to start to become normal again in Mystic Falls. I had no choice but to sit and watch everything unfold around me like Elena and I's 18th birthday which I celebrated alone in the Grill, as well as the first day of senior year.

I felt so helpless and I hated it.

Especially when Klaus came back to town with Stefan. He also brought along his sister who, I'm not going to lie, seemed like an absolute girl boss.

I watched as Jeremy started speaking to himself and when he told Matt he was seeing Vicki and Anna - pretty rude if you ask me, was I not good enough to be seen?

However, that all changed when I was just chilling in my bedroom, doing my usual ghosty things, and Elena looked directly at me as she walked towards her room. I thought it must have been a coincidence but that wasn't the case as her jaw dropped and she went paper white. I decided to test my luck and make a light-hearted joke.

"Are you okay, Elena? It looks like you've just seen a ghost."

That was all it took for her to come charging into my room and engulf me in a suffocating hug, her body racking with sobs - guess she could see me after all.

What had Bonnie been up to?

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God..." Were the only words Elena could muster in the state she was in, saying the phrase several times as I patiently waited for her to calm down a bit. "You're here. You're real." She cried as she pulled away and desperately grabbed the sides of my face to check if I was actually there.

"I'm real." I assured her, my voice trembling slightly as a lump formed in the back of my throat.

I was almost as emotional as Elena was as I realised I wasn't alone anymore, that she could actually see me. That I didn't have to pretend to have conversations with her. I was real. And there were no words to describe just how extraordinary it felt. 

We cried until no more tears could be shed, holding each other tightly on my bed for what felt like forever but neither of us minded. I wish it could've stayed like that forever.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end so when everything had calmed down and we were wiping our faces dry with our sleeves, laughing at how surreal and outlandish this situation was, we were faced with the reality of what it meant. Something had gone terribly wrong.