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"Flame you came to me, fire meet gasoline. I'm burning alive, I can barely breathe."

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THEY SAY that during a car crash, everything seems to happen in slow motion. That you see the car come over the horizon in front of you, that you see what's about to unfold but you can't respond fast enough as in reality it all unfolds much quicker.

It's as if you pressed pause on something, and then abruptly fast forward it. You miss vital pieces of information between the time missed, but before you know it, it's too late.

I've never been in a car accident. I don't know how to respond, or what to expect. Christ, I don't even know what it would look like. Until now.

There's a ringing, a constant ringing in my ears as my lungs fill up with smoke coming from the hood of James's truck that so peacefully lays upside down along side the bank of the dark road. It was so dark, so quiet, so chaotic that all it took was a deer to throw us off guard. Us and the car ahead of us.

Only now do I realize we aren't the only car in this accident, as our two cars collided head on, not with the deer. My breaths quicken as my lungs struggle for oxygen and worry for the people in the other car. James and I are fine; we're vampires. Or are we fine? For all I know James could've died while this all unfolded; maybe he died at the steering wheel thus causing this accident. It was only a matter of time he was going to die once Klaus was dead. I knew it was coming, yet I allowed him to keep driving back home. Back to our family. Back to my brothers, and Joel, and Caroline. For all I know they could be dead too.

I lift my head up the best I can and glance over beside me where James lays unconscious in his chair, the seatbelt holding him in place. His face is bloodied from the cuts that have healed, but other than that he seems to be fine. No grey veins, no silent heartbeat. He's alive, for now.

"J-James?" I cough, waving off the smoke. As I wave a hand in front of my face I realize my fingers are in different places, random places that aren't natural.

My head aches and my vision is blurry as I feel a warm liquid seep through my hair. As I moan and reach for my seatbelt I can feel my body attempting to heal itself, but it's overwhelmed. Slowly my ears pop back into working order and my head calms down leaving me with a dysfunctional hand.

I reach and unclip myself from the seatbelt with my free hand, soon realizing it was a big mistake. I fall onto the roof of the car, banging my hand against the broken glass sending chards into my scalp. I scream in agony, a real scream that I rarely let escape from my mouth. I can't find the strength to hold it in this time though, but thankfully it's loud enough to awaken James from his unconscious state.

"B-Blair?" he croaks, his voice raspy and tired, his mind still trying to understand what happened. "I- I-what's going on?"

I find the strength to push myself off the front window of the car, my motivation being that of James and the other people in the other car. "There was a crash," I explain, shifting my fingers back into place. Once they pop back in and my flesh begins to heal I unbuckle James from his seat belt, helping him down so he doesn't crash on the windshield like I did.

We both kneel in the small confinement of what use to be his truck. Now it's nothing but a bent piece of metal, totally destroyed. The front window has caved in and the doors are smashed giving us no clear way out. However, I see a small opening in the back window where the light of the moon is visible. "Back window," I say, pointing to the exit.

James nods and follows after me. We both crawl on the roof of the car, ignoring the pieces of glass that ease their way into the palms of our skin. Everything seems so surreal, so not real. You see these kinds of things in movies, yet you never expect them to actually happen to you. The shock still hasn't set in, yet I find myself fighting to get out just to help the other people. I can't live with myself if I can't save them. James and I should be dead. It's not fair that we survived while others died. I can't have it, and I won't have it. So many people have died the past week, and I can't allow myself to let another life go to waste.

James and I finally make our way out the window and take it all in. The truck lays on the bank, completely totalled. I can't imagine what the other car looks like, and I begin fearing what we'll see over the hill back on the road. Together James and I trudge up the bank and onto the road where it's filled with a car identical to ours.

I can tell it was a fairly large vehicle, possibly a van or SUV, but it's almost impossible to tell from the amount of damage that's been done to it. Just like James's truck, there's smoke forming from the hood, although this vehicle is positioned up right with a large hole in the front window on the driver's side. My stomach turns as I put the pieces together, following the path on the road to a body laying several feet from the car. James sees it too, and immediately sprints to the body, rolling it over. It's a male, and I can tell he's dead by the expression on James's face.

I turn to the car and notice a woman sitting in the passenger seat, her body reaching for the back seats, making it so I can't see her face. I immediately sprint to the wreck, ripping off the door and turning the woman over. To my horror I see her face covered with blood, but I can hear a faint heart beat. I fearfully carry her out of the car, James appearing at my side wasting no time to bite into his wrist and feed it to her, but by the time he gets his wrist to her mouth her heart beat stops, leaving nothing but a screaming silence, everything around us still a haze.

"No," I whisper. "No, this can't be happening." I start to panic.

James takes two fingers and gently drags them over the woman's eyes, closing them. I sit back and stare at her body, still trying to figure out if any of this is real. Things like this don't usually happen in our lives. Usually when people die around us, it's because of supernatural causes. But this, this is nothing but a terrible accident. A terrible, terrible accident that can't be undone, and now has resulted in the loss of two lives. I know that I don't know these people, but they were still people.

Just as I feel a tear leak out of my eyes, a faint cry is heard coming from the back of the smashed car. James hears it too, but I react quicker, hoping that whoever is still inside stays alive. It would make some of the guilt go away, not all but some.

I rip open the back door revealing a baby carrier strapped in with a seatbelt, deflated air bags surrounding the small child. "Oh my god," I gasp, reaching to unbuckle the seat. My hands fumble and shake with fear making it hard to do such easy task leaving me with no choice but to rip the baby seat out of the car.

The baby boy starts crying, and although that's painful to some ears, it's music to mine. The baby is alive, and appears to be fine. This was the reason the woman was reaching for the back seat. She was trying to save her child, and maybe she's the reason he's still alive. He has a small scratch on his forehead, but that's about all. Still panicked and shocked I turn to James.

"What do we do?" I ask.

"We call 9-11." He replies.

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Never in my life have I had to call 9-11, and never did I ever think I would have to. Minutes after James called the number, several vehicles with flashing lights showed up, people jumping out of them to assist us. Vampires hardly ever need to call for medical help, but there was no way we could walk away after this. No way we could just dump the bodies and clean it up ourselves. Especially when there was a baby involved, a baby that was now an orphan.

With no other vehicle to drive in, we drive in the back of the ambulance beside the paramedic who takes care of the baby. I look over at James and see he's staring out the back window, staring at the officers who load the bodies into black bags. They pack up the bodies, the husband and wife who were probably just driving home on a regular evening, but it turned out to be anything but. It's a crime now a crime scene.

Soon after we arrive at the hospital, the paramedics carry the baby into the emergency doors. James and I quickly follow, wanting to make sure the little guy survives. It's as if we've forgotten all about our problems. Like we've forgotten all about the fact that James could die any second now, like this might be our lest second together. However, when our eyes land on the crying baby being hooked up to the incubator, we can't help but forget about our own problems. I don't know why we are still sticking around with the baby when it's in good care, but it's something about the little guy that makes me want to stay, and I know James feels it too.

Having to call an ambulance and having a car crash because of a deer feels all too human-like, and I can't remember the last time I felt such raw fear. I know James and I could just feed the child our blood, but given it's a baby we're talking about we know it's not the best choice. Wouldn't want anything to happen and have the baby come back to life.

James and I stand outside the window, compelling away every doctor that demands us to be looked at considering our faces are full of blood, our clothes ripped and dyed with the red substance. We watch as the doctors treat the baby, and soon once everything's settled the doctor comes out to see us.

"How is he?" I ask immediately.

"Are you family?" The doctor asks.

"A-are you serious? His parent's are dead, read the goddamn clipboard! He doesn't have any family left!" I say, anger getting the best of me. James places a hand on my shoulder before compelling the doctor.

"Tell us the full report of the accident, and his condition," James compels him. "Please," he adds.

The doctor nods before looking down at the clipboard, reading it as if it's a script. "At approximately eleven p.m tonight, a head on crash involving two vehicles occurred by an unknown cause. This resulted in the death of Rhonda and Anthony Bridges," the doctor reads. Although the names don't ring a bell, the thought that a child lost their parents was what was killing me the most.

"And the baby?" I ask.

"Theodore Bridges is expected to make a full recovery," the doctor replies sending a wave of relief washing over James and I.

For now the guilt seems to subside, but for some reason I find myself wanting to become more invested in this problem out of fear of having to confront the other problem at hand - the Klaus problem.

"May we speak to the person driving please?" an Officer asks from behind us.

James nods and steps forwards, but I grab his arm. "James, you may not have a lot of time," I say, referring to how his bloodline has died.

"I'll be fine," he assures me, before speaking in my mind. "I'll compel them, or tell them the truth rather. It's the right thing to do, I'll be right back."

I nod as James walks off with the officers, oblivious to the fact that he's a thousand year old vampire. I know James feels guilty, and I know he feels responsible for Theodore Bridge's parents deaths. All we can do it wait, and all I can do at the moment is wait for James to get back so we can figure out how to handle the whole Klaus thing.

Today has been the craziest day in my entire life, and that's pretty short considering I spent 145 years of it locked up in a tomb. I know it's going to get a whole lot worse as soon as I hear James's confused voice in my head, sounding genuinely concerned.

"Blair, I just passed the emergency rooms and your brothers are sitting outside one of them," James says.

"Why?" I ask, immediately getting up out of the waiting chair.

"I don't know," he replies.

With curiosity getting the best of me, I run as fast as I can without being suspected of anything inhuman like down the hallway towards the emergency rooms. One I enter the waiting area, my eyes land on Stefan and Damon, who sit grimly on the hospital waiting chairs, staring at the floor.

"Rough night?" I ask, relieved that they're still alive.

They both look up at me at the sound of my voice, but as soon as they take in my appearance they stare at me wide-eyed, jumping out of their seats. I wipe my finger across my forehead only to see it's still caked with blood. I haven't bothered to clean myself up yet. As they stare at me, I stare at them, confused by their gloomy state. I may be wrong, but I can see redness in Stefan's eyes, and dried tears on Damon's face.

"Blair, what are you doing here?" Stefan asks, breaking the silence. "Are you okay?"

"James and I- we got into a crash, but we're okay," I say quickly. "Why are you guys here?"

"Elena, she..." Stefan begins, but he turns away unable to continue.

"She died," Damon continues. "Rebekah caused them to crash Matt's truck in the lake," he says.

Before I can come up with some kind words to say knowing how much Elena meant to my brothers, a scream from the room beside us alerts our attention.

We run into the room finding the nurse passed out on the floor, Elena's body laying on the table, only this time she doesn't look dead. She sits up, gasping for breath while looking frantically around the room.

"Oh my god. She's a vampire," I say.

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[completed & edited: 08/29/2021]