Devil in Disguise (Kai Parker)

Chapter Five: Blast from the Past

Meg had closed her eyes. She hadn’t been aware of doing it; it was just something you did when you were scared. If someone was about to stab you, you’d close your eyes. If there was a tiger about to pounce on you, you’d close your eyes.

If your supernatural purgatory was about to blow up, taking you with it, you’d close your eyes.

The light shone through the skin of her eyelids, a glaring and bloody red. It burned so much, she may as well have left her eyes open and stared into the destroyed sun. But, suddenly, it started to fade. The light dissipated, and the darkness crept in, soothing on her stinging retinas.

All was still and silent. The wind had died down, lost along with the light. Time passed, and Meg didn’t feel anything. Was this it? Being eviscerated? It wasn’t much different than before. Something had to be wrong.

She should open her eyes. See what she was dealing with. But every time she tried, she kept wincing and closing them again. Her pulse was pounding in her veins, beating a violent tattoo against her skin. She was still terrified.

Then, Damon said, in his usual snarky way, "Well. That got awkward fast." And Meg was suddenly able to open her eyes.

It was dark, but otherwise, all seemed… normal. Average. There were no cracks appearing along the ground, no vortex sweeping up unsuspecting spirits. The black-and-white glow she associated with the Other Side was gone, replaced by normal colour. Good god, she hadn’t lived in a coloured world for nearly twenty years! This was incredible.

"What happened?’ asked Bonnie, looking around. ‘Where is everybody?"

Both of them, very good questions, but Meg was too busy trying to stifle hysterical laughter to ponder them. She was alive! She wasn’t a ghost or an apparition, she hadn’t been dissolved into nothingness, she was alive. "WOOHOO!" she crowed, overtaken by fierce joy.

Bonnie and Damon were looking at her like she was insane, but she was too jovial to care. After years of waiting, after months of hoping, after hours of thinking she’d messed it up, she’d got what she wanted. Meg was ecstatic.

"I wouldn’t celebrate just yet if I were you, Meggie." Damon drawled, looking around. "Even if we are alive, something’s not right."

"Oh, shut up. I haven’t been this happy since the day I died, give me a break!" Meg pulled her hands through her hair, grinning breathlessly and awing at the feel of real skin. Blood was being pumped with an actual purpose now. Her heart was beating inside her chest. She felt so warm. And her neck – it was fine! Something must’ve happened in the transition from dead to alive to restore it.

Bonnie walked away, staring at something in the distance. Damon called after her, "Where’re you going?" and started jogging after her. Meg, after a moment’s deliberation, followed. It wasn’t like there seemed to be anyone else here, and it made no sense to go off on her own.

The three of them walked back into Mystic Falls. They passed right over the anti-magic border without feeling a thing. Now that the initial pleasure at being found alive was over, Meg was starting to worry. Again.

"Well, I feel a fang, so I’m still a vampire. Now, either I’m a dead vampire, or Mystic Falls is no longer magic-free."

"We’re alive. We have to be." Meg could tell. Twenty years being dead, you learn to recognise the difference between the two.

"Look," Bonnie stopped.

It was the Mystic Grill. Before it got blown up. "I definitely blew that up about an hour ago." Damon observed, tilting his head at the completely rebuilt Grill.

"Why don’t we see any people? If we’re still on the Other Side, we should at least be able to see the living."

Damon narrowed his eyes, and asked the question everyone was dying to have answered. "Where the hell are we? And I don’t mean geographically."

"I have no idea." Bonnie shook her head, bewildered.

Meg said the same thing vehemently, but there was a pang in her conscience as she said it.

***

"How many more streets are we going to wander?" Damon asked, for the eighth time in an hour. Meg was keeping count.

"How many times are you gonna ask me questions I don’t have the answers to?" Bonnie retorted, for the third time this hour.

They were walking down yet another street in Mystic Falls. The sun was glaring at them from above, and Meg’s feet were turning to lead. She followed the bickering couple, eyes either on the floor or on her watch, counting the seconds.

Damon ignored her, and they walked in silence for a while longer. "There’s something weird about these cars." Bonnie stated suddenly, making Meg look up. She shrugged; she didn’t see anything weird about them.

"Yeah, they’re almost all twenty years old or more, and yet they look brand new…" Damon tapped the nearest car with his forefinger, glaring at it as if it was to blame for bringing them here.

"These were the cars I grew up driving." Meg said fondly, leaning against a pretty red one. "I owned a 1992 Volvo at one point."

Neither of them were listening to her. Instead, they were looking at a picturesque, all-American home standing near the end of the street. By the expression on their faces, you’d think they’d seen a ghost. "Guys...?" Meg asked cautiously, not understanding at all. ‘You OK?"

"That’s Elena’s house." Bonnie said numbly, still staring.

"Not as ‘burned-to-a-crisp’ as I remember it." Damon added grimly. He glanced at Meg. "Oh, you don’t even know who Elena is, do you?"

"Actually, I do."

Damon raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms as he faced her. "Oh?"

"I’ve been following you guys around for ages. I was going to use your spell to bring myself back to life." she frowned. "Enzo must’ve seen me a few times, because he recognised me. He’s the reason I didn’t get to the graveyard on time. He snapped my neck. Why didn’t he tell you I was following?"

"Because he’s an ass." Damon rolled his eyes, glaring at the ground for a while. "Bonnie?" he asked, since the witch hadn’t said a word for a few minutes. "Where’d – Bonnie?"

The dark-haired girl was leaning against a car next to Elena’s old house, a paper in her hands. She was peering at it, apparently flabbergasted. "Bonnie, what did you find?"

She looked up, holding the newspaper up in answer. Damon walked forward and took it off her, straightening it out and examining the front page. His eyes flickered as he read, and his face fell slightly. "Hm. That’s interesting…" he muttered.

"What?" Meg asked, leaning over his shoulder to look.

She soon found what he was interested by. The date. According to this newspaper, it was a very important date for her. May 10th, 1994.

"Oh my god." she snatched the paper from the vampire and turned away, reading the page in horror. May 10th. May 10th, 1994.

"What’s wrong? I mean, apart from it being twenty years too early." Damon wasn’t helping with his sarcasm right now.

"Well… you know how before I said, 'I haven’t been this happy since the day I died'?" 

"Yeah…?"

"According to this paper, this is the day I died."

Just then, darkness seemed to engulf the town. Meg looked up, knowing exactly what she was going to see. An eclipse. "And I know exactly where we are."  

Damon was the real threat. He was still a vampire. But Bonnie didn’t have her magic. She couldn’t do anything. Hoping to catch them by surprise, she opened a nearby car door and shouldered Damon so he fell inside. Slamming the door shut behind her, Meg started running. Where, she wasn’t certain. All she needed was a pager. She hoped his number hadn’t changed…