WARNING: SELF-HARM

If any of you get triggered in situations or scenes like this, I highly suggest that you skip over that part.

[Paris' outfit is the same as the one she's wearing in the previous chapter.]

꧁ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɴɪɴᴇ ꧂
sᴍᴇʟʟs ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴏ+

❝It's gonna be alright, Paris. I promise.❞

♠

     PARIS LOOKS DOWN to the ground as she listens to the voice inside of her head. It was in the sound of her voice, but what it's saying is outrageous. Crazy, even. But Paris couldn't do anything but obey.

She glances at the people around her before she spoke. "I have to go home." She said with a monotone voice and a furrowed eyebrows.

Each and every one of them notices the change of her mood but none of them questions it because they only thought that she needed time to absorb everything since what she found out isn't really normal.

"Okay, I'll take you home before I go to my night shift at the hospital." Meredith offered, but Paris quickly refused.

"No, it's okay. I'll see you later." Paris said. Before Meredith or any of them say otherwise, Paris stands and heads towards the front door. She brings out her car keys and opens the driver's seat before she starts the engine.

The drive from the Salvatore House to her house took a couple of minutes before she finally arrived. Throughout the quick drive, Paris thought of nothing but the same thing that the voice inside her head kept repeating.

From the outside, she looks fine and calm. But from the inside, she's quaking with fear. She's aware of what her mind is telling her and yet she can't make herself disobey. It's like she's trapped inside a shell of what looks like her body.

Do it.

Her voice inside her head said. She keeps screaming internally, saying no repeatedly, but the voice is too strong. The last time she felt like she has no control over herself was when she was compelled by Damon to always go to the Wickery Bridge.

And that's it. That's all she needed to know to figure out what's happening to her. But she knows that Damon wouldn't let her do this. Although she can think of someone who is more than willing to see her suffer.

She struggles to fight herself and only manages to make a tear escape from her eye, but still maintaining a straight face as she walks up the stairs to her bedroom.

Do it.

The voice repeated again.

She finally reaches her bedroom and she immediately makes her way to her study table. She pulls out her drawer to take out something and it happens to be a cutter.

The young brunette looks at the blade with nonchalant as she makes her way to her bed.

She takes off her jacket and drops it on the ground before she sits in the middle of her bed. Paris looks down to her arm as she holds it out in front of her.

Unconsciously, Paris brings the pointy end of the cutter towards her skin and cuts her skin open. Drops of blood start to stain her bedsheets as she looks at it without an expression on her face.

She continues to cut herself repeatedly and then moves on to her other arm and does the same. Not once did she wince while she did all of it.

Her once clean white sheets are now covered with blood. Her blood. Paris lays down and rests her head on her pillow as she stares blankly at the ceiling as she waited for herself to bleed to death.

Meanwhile, on their way to the Fell's Residence are Alaric, Meredith, and Damon. Ric and Damon were going to do something Klaus-related after they drop Meredith off to work but she forgot her wallet at home.

The three of them climb out of the vehicle as soon as they reached their destination. They make their way to the porch and Meredith fiddled with her keys as she finds the one that's for the house.

They stand on their porch without uttering any word until Damon notices something out of the ordinary. Meredith, who finally found the right key for the door, was held back by Damon as he looks at her with a puzzled and anxious expression.

"What?" Meredith asked. Ric turns to him with the same expression Meredith has and that's bafflement.

"Something's not right... It smells like O+" Damon replied. The couple looked at the vampire in confusion until they finally got what he meant.

All of them panicked as they remember Paris being home. Damon, since he's already been invited before, uses his vampire speed to rush inside the house and towards upstairs where he smells the familiar scent of blood.

He destroys the doorknob from which he assumes is Paris's door since it was locked, then pushes the door open revealing a half-awake brunette lying on the bed with her arms sliced open and her bed coated in blood.

The veins around his eyes start to bulge and his eyes darken at the sight and smell of human blood, but he soon composes himself and runs towards the brunette.

"No." He growls as he quickly approaches Paris.

He sits beside her and lifts her up to place her head on his lap. Alaric and Meredith finally came and the two of them gasp at the sight of Paris soaked in blood.

"Oh my God, Paris!" Meredith shrieked while she runs towards her sister, Alaric following her.

The three of them hover around Paris and they look at her with fear in their eyes. "Do something!" Ric yelled.

Damon looks at Paris with forced calmness in his expression before he spoke. "Hey, hey. You need to stay awake for me, okay? Can you do that for me?" Damon said.

The young brunette, with her eyes already half-lidded, slightly nod as a response.

As soon as Damon saw her nod, he bites his wrist and places it on her mouth to let his blood flow through. The taste of the warm and metallic liquid makes her want to spit it out but she remembers what she recently learns about vampires, so she allows herself to drink his blood until Damon removes it.

The three of them glance to Paris's arms and saw the healing process happen. Her wounds begin to close until her arms had nothing but dried blood on it.

Damon, Ric, and Meredith sigh in relief knowing that their dear Paris would be okay.

"She lost a lot of blood, we need to get her to the hospital, now!" Meredith said.

Damon carries brunette bridal style and they made their way out of the house and into the car to go to the hospital.

Paris looks up at the worried vampire and weakly holds on to Damon's arm. The action made Damon look down to the human he's carrying only to see her weak and fragile.

"It's gonna be alright, Paris. I promise." said the vampire. And with that, Paris let herself fall asleep.

♠

"She's gonna be okay. S-She... uhmm... lost a lot of blood. But she's gonna be okay." Meredith informed Damon and the others.

As soon as they had taken Paris to the hospital, they had contacted the others to inform them of the incident. They wasted no time in getting here to see how she's doing.

Noticing how shaken up Meredith still is, Ric comes to comfort his girlfriend and she starts to cry.

"I have no idea why she would do this to herself." Meredith said, her voice cracking in the process.

Stefan, Ric, Matt, and Jeremy hold concerned expressions for Paris while Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline look hurt as they thought about what Paris mist be going through.

Damon, on the other hand, just frowns. Suppressing his own feelings to get the best of him. Keeping himself from totally going out of his mind and lash out.

He thought seeing Paris with a damp face and a broken expression was hurtful enough. But seeing her covered in blood and fighting to stay awake broke him the most.

He wasn't aware that he was gripping the metal bar attached to the wall so tightly that it crushed. His jaw that was tightened eventually loosens as he noticed the stares he was getting.

Stefan approaches his brother to place a hand on his shoulder to calm him down and it did. The two brothers exchanged glances before they glance back at everyone.

All of a sudden, Damon's phone started ringing and he releases an annoyed sigh as he reaches into his pocket to get it.

His annoyance grew bigger when he read the ID of the caller. He answers the call and brings the phone to his ears.

"A word of warning, I'm in a very crappy mood right now. So you better make this quick." Damon immediately said the instant he answers the call.

"So I've heard. Poor Paris. About that, I always like to take credits on my doings and I'd like to inform you that, that is one of mine." The hybrid said from the other end of the line, making the vampire's body tense and his expression deadly.

"You did this to her?" Damon said through his greeted teeth.

Klaus could only laugh at his obvious rage towards him before he could speak again. "Well, technically, she did all the cutting. I just compelled her that once you lads inform her all about the darker side of the world, she would immediately go home, slice her arms open and bleed to death." said Klaus.

The others with vampire hearing have a look of shock in their faces when they heard what Klaus had said, leaving the others without vampire hearing bewildered.

"Sorry to break it to you, but the bleed to death part isn't actually fulfilled." Damon responded.

"Well, you better keep an eye on her then. Compulsion's a very strong element. She won't stop until she finally fulfills that last part." Klaus said before he hangs up.

Damon, with his eyebrows furrowed, looks at Bonnie before he spoke.

"I've got a job for you."

♠

Surprise! Two updates in one day! I'm feeling inspired so I took advantage of it. Anyways, it's quite a short chapter but I wanted the next scene to be in the next chapter so I just stopped it here. Hope you guys enjoyed it!