The rain had stopped falling, breaking the cruel rhythm that had hammered the empty road. The night sky remained heavy with swollen clouds, and the wind, like an invisible hand, gripped each tree to remind them of their solitude.
On the winding road snaking out of the forest, a couple was driving home from a concert. Darren, hesitant, had agreed to follow Brooke because he loved her, even if he didn't enjoy music as much as she did.
The tires slid gently over the wet asphalt, the wipers clearing the last drops. Brooke laughed, trying to soothe Darren's unease, while he stared at the black trees lining the road and the white mist rising, blurring his sight. He didn't know why… but something was wrong. Something felt out of place.
When the car approached a bend, a dark, fluid movement burst onto the road. Darren braked hard, but it was too late.
A humanoid figure now lay on the ground, almost swallowed by the mist.
He leapt out of the car in a heartbeat, heart pounding, and knelt beside what he had just struck. He reached out, searching for a pulse, found none, but still asked, voice breaking:
"Hey… are you okay?"
Inside the car, Brooke was calling the police, her hand covering her eyes to contain the rising panic. Tears shimmered on her pretty face.
She didn't see the figure rise in a single motion, nor the animal grace with which it threw itself at Darren.
She didn't feel the sharp pain that pierced through her lover.
Darren had one last broken breath, a rush of blood torn from his throat, and his eyes froze in endless horror.
He never saw the face of the monster that had taken him from the world.
The creature straightened. The veins under its cheeks receded. Its eyes flickered between abyssal black and steel blue, two existences searching, merging, struggling to coexist.
A dull buzzing shook its skull, pain surging in waves.
Brooke finally stepped out of the car.
"I don't have signal, Darren!… We might have killed someone, I—"
If only she had listened to Darren when he said he didn't want to go to that concert.
She walked forward, the mist warping the world.
"Darren?! Why aren't you answering me?"
Then the mist tore open.
She saw Darren.
His open eyes.
His drained, hollow body.
Her scream vanished into the forest and thunder.
She ran back to the car, but fear weighed on her legs. The creature reached her and pulled her close before she could take a second breath. The embrace was brief and lethal.
Brooke had joined Darren…
Her murder was not without consequence; her blood unlocked the final seal of a door that held back something ancient. Colossal. Primordial.
The creature—no, the man—stood up, staggering. The rain resumed, sliding over an angular face almost too beautiful to belong to a beast capable of such horrors.
Memories fell onto him as the rain did.
A sprawling house.
Damp earth. The scent of horses.
His brother's bright laugh.
A woman with pale golden hair.
Then another woman. Identical yet different.
"Stefan… Katherine… Elena…"
Damon managed to whisper before more visions drowned him.
He was no longer at the wheel of his life, but his body still moved. Instinctive. Automatic.
In a flash, he found himself inside his Camaro. The engine roared like a beast awakened. The rain intensified, mirroring the storm inside his mind. The clouds crushed the sky, and every memory seemed to trigger lightning, thunder following.
His hands trembled under the weight of the past returning.
Mist gathered around the car.
The rain seemed to follow his breath.
And at the heart of the storm, he sensed the truth: he could change shape. He could command the weather.
He was no longer only the century-old vampire, Damon Salvatore.
He was the other one.
The one from before.
Every turn brought back a memory.
Stefan, with almost-blond chestnut hair, eyes far too expressive for his liking.
Stefan, with dark hair, dark tortured eyes.
Both were real. Both were the brothers he called "baby brother."
Katherine, the sweet playful blonde.
Katherine, the cunning, free-spirited brunette.
Two beautiful women, a single breathtaking love.
And finally Elena.
Always the echo of his love, mocking the obsession that had lived in him. When he met her months ago, his heart had whispered and his voice had followed: "Katherine…" What a fool he was. He'd heard Elena's heartbeat yet still called her by a name that haunted his dreams, because how could he not link that face to another… when he saw it again in flesh and bone after more than a century?
The Camaro stopped in Mystic Falls.
Pain engulfed him. He had endured endless forms of suffering, torture taught you to feel much—but none matched this.
His vision went black. Then darker still in the real world.
Shapes appeared.
Kitsunes. Guardians. Werewolves. Ancient vampires.
And others, so many others.
Beings he had fought. Others he had admired from afar.
Some he had thought imaginary…
They watched him.
How did they see him? They were only echoes!
He trembled. From rage, fear, or lucidity—he no longer knew.
Then they vanished and the unbearable pain vanished with them.
He walked through Mystic Falls as if nothing had happened.
Every step strengthened his powers. Every breath reawakened a fragment of his story. The house in Italy. Stefan. His death. His killing. The tragedies. Katherine. Elena. Over and over.
A soft laugh escaped him. Bitter. Tender. Absurd.
He was two lives merged into one body.
Two men.
One essence.
He was the man in love with two women who shared the same name and the same doubles.
What a spectacular chaos his existence was…
His eyes settled into a magnificent ocean blue.
He looked at the Clock Tower, and his body dissolved into a swirl of bats.
He reappeared atop it, motionless beneath the sky.
Raindrops tried in vain to cling to his leather jacket.
"Nothing has changed," he said in a cold voice.
The last bolt split the clouds. Thunder rolled one final time. Then the rain stopped.
The sky opened, revealing the stars.
"My goal remains the same."
He was Damon Salvatore.
Ancient and new.
A fusion of two lives.
Bearer of a promise he would soon claim.
And his purpose…
was her.
Katherine.
Nothing had changed.
But everything had shifted.