OUR HOPE

Family reunion

THE NEXT MORNING

NEW ORLEANS

Vincent says, " New Orleans currently is thriving with action and vampires. In the main church area, Vincent can be seen talking to the witches. He says, " It's a beautiful day outside. Streets are packed with tourists. They're drinking beers, they're chasing beads, headed out on the vampire walking tour of New Orleans. They think it's just a myth. Just part of our city's charm.

Well, we know better. Just like we know that there's a storm coming. This week marks five years since the fall of the Mikaelsons. Five years of peace. And we paid a high price for that peace. We witches we earned that peace. We snatched back our freedom, we severed our link with our ancestors. To take back our city, we backed Marcel Gerard. Now, since then, we fought hard to build this community. And today, as we celebrate our independence, that community will be challenged because every year we get visitors."

Sofya is sitting at a café table watching as a vampire leaves a car, having fatally fed on a women.

" Vampires from all over the world. They come here, and they want to see firsthand the suffering of Klaus Mikaelson. Now some of those vampires, they're gonna be well-behaved. Others... not so much. You see, out-of-town vampires they don't care about our city. They don't follow our rules. They will instigate trouble. They will attempt to upset our peace and the only way that we're gonna get through that is if we get through that together."

Mikaelson compound closed off and a "Condemned" sing on the gate

"Now, this ain't the first time that we faced conflict. Each and every single one of us here has faced their fair share of monsters. I swear, I feel sometimes the city just has evil lurking in the shadows. For a long time, we've managed to keep our monsters buried. And now we've got to make sure that they stay buried."

deep into the Abattoir, underground. Gated off, chained and behind a salt boundary spell, Niklaus Mikaelson sits, awoken from his torture from Tunde's blade

"Otherwise, we will lose everything that we've built... we will lose it, forever."

THE ABBATOIR

Klaus gasps in pain.

Caroline says, "You just had to piss him off again, didn't you?"
Klaus, looks up and says, "Caroline?". Klaus is imagining Caroline standing right in front of him.

Caroline smiles and says, "Not exactly. I'm a figment of your imagination, remember? Your brain's way of distracting yourself from all the pain, same as the last time Marcel stabbed you with that blade. Your subconscious fabricates the illusion of my presence in order to escape unendurable agony. Like the kind you're experiencing right now."

Klaus says, "I can endure this pain."

Caroline says," Sure, but paired with the solitude? Your great existential fear is of being utterly alone, down here in the dark."

Klaus says, " Don't speak of it!". Caroline continues, "Irritability is another form of sublimation. You're not so annoyed with me. You blame yourself for getting into this mess. It's okay to admit.  Plus, you know, I'm not even here."

Klaus says, " I miss you, Caroline. But I'm ashamed for you to see me like this. You believe there was a light in me. That I could be a light for our daughter. But outside these walls are legions of vampires who wish me dead, and the man I called my son has left me here to rot. I'm not a light. I am darkness... made of flesh.".

Caroline says, " You are the reason you're family is alive. You bought me the time I needed... and now they've woken up. Come on, you can feel it. The link you shared with them is broken, so now they're awake. And you know we are not just gonna leave you here.".
Klaus whispers, " If they come for me, they will be caught. Marcel will kill Elijah."
Caroline says, " Then it looks like you're gonna have to find your own way out of here."