The allure of darkness

Guilt

Chapter 11

Klaus couldn´t sleep for hours. Every five minutes he would whisper something to Caroline who wouldn´t answer but let out a quiet sob. With every sob his heart would break a little more and his eyes would sting more. He heard his own voice getting quieter every minute and it sounded throatier than ever before in his life. He couldn´t remember a single moment he felt so much guilt and shame at once. He knew he had done terrible things, he tortured, he slaughtered, he murdered. Yes, he was a killer, a murderer. It was the same with every victim – three phases. Number one, the hunt: It was thrilling to hunt your victim down, making them afraid, making them run before you finally catch them. He had always enjoyed the hunt, it was in his nature. Number two, the kill: when your canines lightly scratch at the skin, when you hear the hitched breath of fear paired with the sound of blood rushing through your victim´s veins, when you feel the desire coming up in you, the desire to kill. Then the final bite into you victim´s neck, the art of puncturing the neck artery so that you don´t spill a single drop of blood. You drain your victim completely out of blood until you hear the last heartbeat. He had always enjoyed the kill, it was in his nature. Number three, the guilt: When your victim´s heart stops beating, when the blood leaves the body, when the skin gets white and cold. When you let go of the lifeless body, watching it fall to the ground, not moving, not breathing, dead – that´s when you slowly feel the guilt coming up. If you shut it off, you don´t have to feel it. But if you keep your humanity, you feel it all. Seeing a lifeless body isn´t easy, but seeing a lifeless body, whose life you drained completely out of, was the worst feeling in the world. You feel the guilt and the loneliness. The thrill of the hunt disappears with the light of life out of your victim´s eyes. He had never enjoyed the guilt, it was his humanity. In the thousands of years he walked on this planet, he learned to feel less guilt but never to feel nothing. Klaus shook his head to vanish those thoughts from his mind. The point was: he felt guilt, he knew the worst feeling in the world, at least he thought so. But when he saw Caroline running away from him, her eyes filled with tears, her body shaking heavily...that was the worst feeling in the world. He felt the guilt overwhelming him, like never before. But he didn´t care about himself, he didn´t care about the others seeing him cry, he only cared about Caroline. After a while he noticed how Caroline´s sobs got quieter and how her breath slowed down. Her heartbeat finally calmed to a steady and slow point and he sighed in relief when he realized she fell asleep. On the one hand he just wanted to hold her, talk to her, mighty god – just look at her once. But on the other hand he couldn´t stand hearing Caroline cry and her uneven breath made him sick. Her quick but heavy heartbeat broke his heart into pieces, every time it jumped as she hiccupped under tears. He was the one who made her cry, it was all his fault. How could he possibly think Caroline would ever be able to love him when he made her cry? He was being a fool and a horrible person. He wasn´t good enough for her, nor for anyone else – he was bad. His eyes stung once more because of the salty tears that now ran down his face and he buried his face in his hands. Klaus had no idea what was happening to him, why he suddenly felt all those emotions he never felt before in his life and why of all the sudden he sat on the ground in front of a locked door, crying his eyes out. He didn´t know this side of him, but although it frightened him a bit, he knew it was good because it had something to do with Caroline. Only she made him act the way he acted, only she made him think the way he thought and only she made him feel the way he felt. His thoughts got interrupted when he heard quiet steps of high heels walking towards him. They weren´t just quiet, they were more muffled noises and he only could hardly make out it was a pair of high heels. Bewildered he noticed that his head was trapped between his arms, burying his ears in his jacket, causing every sound around him to sound like it was wrapped in cotton. As the steps drew closer, he slowly lifted his head to face the person who came. “Nik”, Rebekah´s voice bellowed through the hallway as she saw him, though wondering why he was sitting on the ground. Klaus didn´t bother to say a word, he just pressed his finger in front of his lips, telling her to be quiet. Rebekah understood his movement as she assumed he didn´t want Caroline to wake up as she had possibly fallen asleep already. “Nik, why are you sitt-”, she started but she cut off right away, now standing right in front of her brother. “Are you...bloody hell, are you crying?”, Rebekah asked under her breath, though knowing he heard her perfectly well. Klaus, tired of thinking, shrugged his shoulders, dropping his head to look back at his hands. He didn´t care that his sister now saw him crying, sitting in the middle of the hallway, he just didn´t care. For his liking even the whole town could now come and look at him while he was crying, it wouldn´t make any difference. The only one he cared about right now was Caroline. After minutes of silence, Rebekah kneed down next to her older brother, looking at him worriedly. She didn´t know how to react in such situation, after nothing like this ever happened before. She loved her brother but she had to admit that she had never seen such feelings in his face. Although he was glaring at his hands, she could tell his face looked disgusted by himself. She had seen his expression before he turned away and it made her feel bad. “She doesn´t want to open?”, Rebekah asked quietly, already knowing the answer. Klaus shook his head, still not bothering to look up at his sister. “She did fall asleep already, didn´t she?”, she continued asking questions, she already knew the answer of, just to comfort her brother. After he nodded, silence fell between the siblings again. After a while of just sitting there, Rebekah stood up, looking down at her brother who still glared at his own hands. “I´ll be downstairs if you need anything”, she offered quietly, waiting for an answer patiently, but not getting any. Klaus glared at his hands as he heard his sister finally heading to the staircase again. When the sound of her steps completely disappeared from his hearing, he lifted his head and leaned it against the door behind him. He could feel how her almost-no-weight body leant against the other side of the door, making him feel more comfortable. He thought back to the scene in the living room, back to the fight and back to them screaming at each other. Klaus felt like the white oak steak was pressed into his chest, when he thought about her face when she cried, causing him to start sobbing again.

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“Elena, you don´t see the point: I´m her best friend, I have to talk to her!”, Stefan moaned, standing opposite Elena who glared at him. “I know how you feel, she´s my best friend too, but you need to understand...”, she started again, she had repeated that sentence at least five times now. “What is it there to understand? I´m her friend, she needs help, I have to comfort her”, Stefan cut into her sentence once again, as he also did for the other five times she tried saying what she wanted. “Stefan, just...alright, you know, there is no point of us fighting now too. She needs to be alone right now, she made that very clear”, Elena sighed relieved when Stefan finally sat down, nodding in agreement. Just then, Rebekah entered the living room. At once all the conversations in the room fell silent and everyone looked at her, urging her to tell what she knew. When Rebekah didn´t say anything but walked over to the bar, pouring herself a glass of wine, Bonnie broke the silence. “Well?”, she said, looking at the Original blonde. “Well what?”, Rebekah answered, acting like she didn´t have a clue what the green eyed women wanted from her. “She won´t open, I guess she fell asleep already”, she simply stated, taking a sip of her wine. Moaning, Bonnie threw her head back and rolled her eyes on the blonde. “No – where is this bloody moron?”, Kol asked, his mischievous grin weaker than normally but still visible. Rebekah felt uncomfortable, telling everyone that her brother, also known as a mass murderer, cruel and cold-hearted, was sitting in front of Caroline´s room, crying like never before, disgusted by himself. But at the other hand Rebekah knew that she could trust every last one of those who were in the room, after they were her family, her friends or her secret boyfriend. She smiled at that thought but she vanished it immediately, knowing there were more important things at the very moment. After a last careful thought, she told them the whole story of how he was sitting there, not talking, barely even looking at her and how she never saw him like that before. Elijah and Kol had to admit, they never did either and after all, Rebekah spent the most time with their brother, although she was daggered for almost 90 years. After a while of silence, they agreed to go to bed but also that no one would talk to Klaus and that they just would let him be, because that was the best solution they could think of right then.

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Later that night, it must have already been early in the morning, Klaus still sat on the ground, not moving an inch. The tears had stopped falling after a while but probably just because he had run out of them. There was no tear left, so he just sat there, his head leant against the door, staring at his own door. He was tired, very tired actually, but he didn´t dare closing his eyes, afraid he would actually fall asleep. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn´t hear a door opening. “Nik, why are you still here?”, Rebekah asked quietly, her voice still sleepy. No answer. “You really need to go to bed, Nik. Sleep, wake up, take a shower – clear your mind”, she said, coming closer to him. No answer. Rebekah could barely make out that he was shaking his head but she continued. “Come one, go to bed, sleep – you need sleep”, she added, preparing herself not to get an answer but at once his head shot up, glaring at her. His glare probably should have been filled with anger but it was a weak expression, ready to struggle, ready to fall. “Why bother sleeping if she keeps me awake? I can´t sleep, Bekah, I can´t and I won´t!”, he said, giving his voice as much power as possible. “I won´t leave her”, he added quieter. Rebekah didn´t really understand what he meant by that. Why bother sleeping if she keeps me awake – what was that supposed to mean? Possibly he wanted to tell her that Caroline was a good reason not to sleep, because she was Caroline. Rebekah wasn´t sure but she didn´t dare asking her older brother either. She nodded slightly before she turned around and went back into her room, closing the door silently. Klaus knew she was right, he really needed to sleep but he didn´t want to. He wanted to be there when Caroline woke up, he wanted to be there for her, trying his best to make her talk to him again. He closed his eyes for a moment to take a deep breath, realizing his mistake right away – but he had already fallen asleep.