When the clock strikes 12 [On Hiatus Indefinitely]

Chapter 2

Damon was surprised when he woke up in a lush, green meadow and noticed that when he tried to sit up his movements came out a little stiff and robotic. He was a vampire for god’s sake. All his movements were supposed to be smooth, silent and graceful, and he wasn’t supposed to be making squeaky noises like a machine that had never been oiled before.

“That stupid witch,” he murmured under his breath, thinking about Bonnie, as he stood up and glanced down at himself. He almost had a mini heart attack when he did. He wasn’t wearing his normal, all-black clothes that he usually wore. He was wearing some stupid tinfoil costume that he was sure made him look almost as stupid as Stefan.

“Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed as headed over to the only normal road in this whole meadow. But he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why it was painted yellow. Were the people here partially blind or something?

Damon just shrugged and decided to walk along the path to see where it led. He looked up ahead to see if he could get any idea of where it ended up and when he narrowed his eyes he could see something that looked like a castle in a distance. He shrugged again. Damon had been in weirder situations before and he had learned to not bombard his brain with questions, but instead trust his instincts.

So he did just that as walked along the road, deciding not to use his vampire powers unless he absolutely needed to. He didn’t know where he was and it could turn out to be dangerous if someone saw him use his powers.

As Damon thought these thoughts, he didn’t notice the shadow that was looking at him through the trees and smiling as it realised that its plan was set in motion.

 

Caroline winced as she woke up with a start. What the hell was she doing standing up in the middle of nowhere in this unbearable heat? And why the hell were there crows circling around her head? She even saw a few of them fly down low as if heading towards her and a few of them even pecked her on her head.

“Guess I’ll be having a crow’s blood instead of the usual bunny’s blood today,” Caroline said out loud, making sure the crows could hear her. That seemed to do the trick because the crows seemed to keep their distance from her and as she saw so many of them flying in the sky, she realised that they reminded her of Damon.

“Well, they both have one thing in common-they’re both a pain in the ass,” Caroline muttered as she started to brush the dirt off of her clothes, but the material and the texture just seemed wrong somehow. When she looked down at herself, she got the shock of her life.

She was wearing what looked like some cheap outfit made of hay or something and as she touched her hair, she almost let out a scream of terror. Her hair was sticking out all over the place and it wasn’t soft and silky like it was supposed to be. It was rough and felt like it hadn’t been shampooed for a week.

Caroline spent the next few minutes smoothing her hair down and putting her fingers through her messy hair to make sure that none of them were sticking out in a weird angle anymore. She breathed a relieved sigh as she looked around and noticed a yellow brick road nearby.

“Finally,” Caroline said out loud, “a road.” She didn’t care whether it was yellow or red or pink even, she was just happy that her heels wouldn’t break because of walking in the meadows for too long.

The same shadow that had been observing Damon earlier, now watched Caroline making her way to the yellow brick road that led to the castle straight ahead. It smiled its most evil smile that would’ve made even Damon shiver, because it knew that Caroline and Damon would never reach their destination…and neither would anyone else. It would make sure of it.

 

Stefan groaned as his eyes fluttered opened and he was greeted by the sight of the clear blue sky. He stood up in one fluid motion and looked around alert, ready for some action. So he was quite surprised when he looked around and realised that he had been sleeping in the meadows.

He tried to think of the last thing he remembered and it was the tornado that had somehow consumed them all. Suddenly his heart fluttered in panic when he thought about how he had woken up in the middle of nowhere with no memories in the past. It had been those times when he’d been in his ‘ripper mode’ as Damon put it and he really hoped that that wasn’t what had happened here.

He couldn’t see any bodies nearby and he didn’t feel that intense hunger inside of him that would rip him apart, nor was he drenched in blood and he definitely couldn’t smell any. And that was when he noticed it. He didn’t register it at first, but when he did, he almost jumped up in shock.

Stefan had a tail! It wasn’t a real tail, it was attached to the rest of the crappy costume that he was wearing, but it was still a tail. So for the first time since he had woken up, Stefan actually felt grateful that he was alone because he knew that Damon would have never let him hear the end of it if he saw Stefan wearing-was it a lion’s?-costume.

The shadow lurked behind Stefan, too. Observing and trying to blend into the background for the third time now. It didn’t know who these people were, but it knew that they were a part of the plan. It also knew that it’s work wasn’t over yet. It had to go check on all the rest of the people who had already woken up or were waking up now.

Because the Queen’s wish was it’s command.