Nov. 9, 2007

Four days ago, the Alaric Saltzman that we all knew and loved died...and then he turned into one of the monsters that he hated, that he hunted. Vampirism for Ric made him even worse than even Isobel was. At least she had the excuse of having flipped her switch, shut off her humanity — he simply had no humanity at all. Like it had been stripped from him in the transformation, or perhaps it was slowly etched away every time he died.

How many times had it been anyway? And how could we not think sooner that dying would have such terrible consequences? After all, how much can the human body and mind really take?

The worst part is, after he turned, he really wasn't Ric anymore. While he was a vampire, he tried to kill one of the kids that he'd begun to look after. He tried to kill Caroline. I can't even imagine having to live with that memory. It must be terrible for the both of them.

Jeremy spoke to his ghost after he died, and he said that his death gave Ric back the piece of himself that was the man I called Dad. He said that Ric's on the Other Side now, and he's watching over us. But what's he going to see? Three orphans spiraling, unable to handle all that life has thrown at them?

And with Ric's death was Elena's — hers caused his.

Is it wrong that part of me hates witches when my best friend was one? When I still love Bonnie?

Now, my big sister's a vampire, and she's struggling with her new life. But I supposed that's nothing new for any of us. We're all struggling, and we have been for two years.

At least some things have changed for the better — Stefan's humanity switch has been flipped back to hero, and Tyler's no longer sired to Klaus. But with good news always comes bad.

Klaus can't be killed. And not because we simply don't possess the means to kill him, but because his death will cause the death of all our vampire friends. Damon's blood turned Elena and Abby Bennett into vampires. Katherine turned Stefan, Damon, and Caroline. Five hundred years ago, Rose turned Katherine; and centuries before that, a woman named Mary turned Rose; and Mary was turned by Klaus. If an original dies, so does their entire sire line.

As much as I want my mother's murderer dead, I need him alive. I get to go on fearing him for the rest of my life, and he'll live forever after that.

Nothing in our lives ever goes the way we want it to, does it? Nothing in our lives is ever simple or easy. Maybe we're all just cursed.

Maybe there really is no such thing as hope. It's nothing more than a lie that we tell ourselves to get us through the dark times. Lately, the dark is all I see.

Damon says that I'm becoming as pessimistic as he is.

The scariest thing is that I think he's actually right. And you know things are bad when I start to agree with Damon Salvatore.

Life was so much easier when it was him that I was afraid of. Now, he's one of the people that I actually trust...one of the people that I actually find myself depending on most these days.