"Don't wanna be

No one but me.

You are moving through the crowd,

Trying to find yourself.

Feeling like a doll left on a shelf.

Will someone take you down?

And you ask yourself,

'Who do I wanna be?

Do I wanna throw away the key

And invent a whole new me?'"

We were all completely blindsided.

What had started as a crazy night, which might end with all of our problems finally being put to rest, became something much different, something we were left without explanation.

He was supposed to die. All the effort and work that went into the plan, all the backstabbing that had to be done to make it happen, it was all for nothing.

The only answer we had was that everything we had done was for nothing. Klaus was still alive.

As I laid in bed that fateful night, my mind wouldn't stop working in overdrive, thinking through each and every step we had taken, but I couldn't find the step that was wrong, that ended with the epic failure of our plan.

Stefan wanted him dead more than anyone else. He hated him, hated being under his compulsion, and he blamed him for everything that had happened since the day he left Mystic Falls.

So why did he get in our way?

Everyone was distressed. We all spent the next day sulking, with the feeling of defeat keeping us locked in our homes.

Would he finally be out of our lives, though? He had spent so long running for his father, and now that Mikael was dead, he could start a life somewhere.

That was a stupid thought—of course he wasn't going anywhere. He had his family, aside from his sister who I'm sure he would find eventually, but more than his family, he wanted an army of hybrids. To create that army, he needed the blood of a Petrova doppelgänger.

That just so happened to be my sister, my twin sister to be exact. We were identical in almost every way, with the same wide, round shape of our eyes and the same chestnut brown iris on the right one. Where we first differed was the left eye color—Elena was fortunate, and her eyes were both the same. Mine weren't. At first, my parents hoped that I would develop pigment in the left eye, but after the doctor looked at it, he told them that I wouldn't. It was both a mixture of partial albinism, ocular albinism to be exact, and heterochromia.

That was why my skin wasn't the same tawny color of hers, as if the sun itself had wrapped its warm glow around what was the natural tan of her skin. She was stunning in so many ways, and I had always been the weird looking one of the two of us; two different eye colors, an extremely pale color in comparison to Elena's, with a silver glow that resembled that of the moon.

It was the same story with my hair. I wasn't fully albino, so instead of being the warm, rich brown of Elena's hair, mine was a dull ash brown, though it helped hide how pale my skin was.

Everything else was the same, down to the exact same lip shape, with a slightly bigger bottom lip and an arched upper lip, and the same nose shape—we believed we were identical twins whose albinism and heterochromia worked differently. We also thought that our parents were our biological parents, but that was proven false as well.

Everything we had once thought we knew about ourselves was turned upside, but in typical Mystic Falls fashion, we didn't get the chance to grieve about it, to try and figure things out. Too much happened at the same time, and we were left with an afterthought.

Just when we thought we had it figured out, however, things took another turn. In an attempt to rid the town of vampires, including the ones we all cared about, the man who Elena and I had once thought our uncle, who we had just recently discovered to be our biological father, turned on a device, known as the Gilbert device, which would incapacitate any vampires within a certain radius while it was on.

No one knew it would also incapacitate anyone with the werewolf curse in their bloodline, whether the curse was triggered or not; so the mayor ended up dead, Tyler almost killed Caroline after falling unconscious and running the car they were in off the road, and I found myself in a basement full of unconscious vampires. One of my friends, a rather sadistic vampire who I had grown to care about despite all that he had done and would probably continue to do, was down there as well, and he was confused by the fact that the mayor and me ended up down there.

John knew I wasn't a vampire, and even if I was, he thought I was his daughter. He didn't hate vampires so much that he would kill his own daughter, so he got me out.

It took a little bit more digging to realize that I wasn't his daughter, and Elena, who I had always known as my identical twin sister, was only my half-sister.

Life became complicated for a while. We learned about the werewolf curse, learned that it was the reason Tyler crashed the car, the reason Mayor Lockwood fell unconscious when the Gilbert device went off, and the reason I did as well.

We tried to piece together a timeline of Elena and my birth, to figure out who else our mother could've been with that might be my father, but the only werewolves we knew were the Lockwoods. Richard was off at college around the time Isobel got pregnant, but even if he hadn't been, or if his brother Mason had been in town at that time, they couldn't have been my father. Along with the werewolf curse, I was also a witch, and they weren't.

The isolation that followed was hard. Elena tried to be there for me, but she couldn't understand trying to go through life, with emotions that flared up so easily, to go through life with everyone mocking you behind your back because your eyes were different colors, because you were so pale and ugly compared to your almost identical sister. Everything I had known was different, even if our friends were the same.

Not only was I a witch, which should've been the first clue we were only half-siblings since Elena wasn't, but I was also a werewolf. At least I had the werewolf curse in my blood, and if I killed anyone, it was off to turning for me.

When Klaus first came to town, after hearing of the doppelgänger that lived in Mystic Falls, it became everyone's mission to ensure he didn't find out I existed at all. We weren't really sure if I was a doppelgänger, since I didn't look exactly like the Petrova women, but on the chance that I was, they didn't want Klaus to know.

They tried to make me leave town, through begging, screaming, failed attempts at compulsion—I reminded Damon that I was a witch, albeit a weak one, and witches can't be compelled.

Their desire to make sure Klaus never found out about me almost got Elena killed. It got John killed, and he told me that even if I wasn't his daughter, he watched me grow up believing that I was, that he loved me just as much as he loved Elena.

That was the last thing he said to me before his life essence left his body and went to find Elena, before she could wake up in transition.

After Damon fed Elena and I both his blood, Elena insisted that she be the one to go. If someone was going to wake up as a vampire, it needed to be her, as we didn't even know what might happen with the werewolf blood I had. I didn't wanna go along with that, but Bonnie kept me at the Salvatore's, with a barrier spell she thought would hold until the end of the night.

It didn't, and at the time, I couldn't understand what it was I had done, why I could suddenly feel so much power in my veins. All I had done was press my hands against the barrier spell, and they began to glow red, which I had never seen happen before. They glowed until suddenly, the magic from the barrier spell was gone, and I didn't realize it at the time, but I had consumed it. It had become fuel for my own power.

That was something we couldn't explain. I went from thinking that I was just extremely weak to finding out that I wasn't actually pulling magic from nature. Any time I tried to use a spell, I was pulling it out of my own blood, without even realizing it. I was a witch who couldn't pull power from nature, and when I didn't know that, I was weak because of it. After I did, no one allowed me to practice with more magic, so I remained weak.

Even after it all changed, after the safety of my sister and me was compromised, no one wanted to help me learn what I was doing.

After Stefan left town with Klaus, it was only a matter of time before Klaus found out I existed as well. Stefan loved Elena, and he loved me like one might love their girlfriend's sister, but that was all I was to him: someone Elena cared about.

If it meant protecting Elena over me, he would in a heartbeat, unless Elena asked him to choose me. He'd hate every second of it, but he would.

Damon would've struggled to choose, but it was because he loved us both. He was deeply in love with Elena, but he loved me in a much different way. To him, I was his little sister, and losing me would truly be as hard on him as losing Elena or Stefan.

In such a short time, we had become so important to one another, and sometimes, I trusted him more than I trusted Elena. It worked the same both ways. Sometimes, he just couldn't talk to Stefan about the things he could talk to me about, and we became the best of friends, even if the rest of my friends hated him.

Damon was a vampire who learned to cope with all the horrible things vampires do by learning to just accept it. There were probably times he sat there and let the guilt come creeping in, but most times, he didn't think twice about what he did, never hesitated to act.

That also got him in trouble sometimes.

This plan hadn't been one of his brash, violent decisions. It had been well thought out, without room for error. Elena daggered Rebekah in the back to ensure no siblings got in the way this time.

A sibling had, though.

Once Klaus killed Elena to remove the curse his mother put on him, to keep his hybrid side dormant, we figured that it didn't matter if he found out about me. Stefan left town with him, and I figured it would probably come up—"Oh, by the way, there are possibly two doppelgängers." If not from him, surely Elijah would tell him, even if he had given me his word that he wouldn't.

Elijah didn't get the chance to tell him. Klaus daggered him and put him in a coffin with the rest of his siblings.

Stefan was the only other person around Klaus who knew I existed. It probably never really came up, but until Stefan and Klaus came to town, the night of senior prank night, Klaus was shocked when I walked into the gym behind Elena, that being the grand reveal that potentially two Petrova doppelgängers were alive and well.

That was also the night we learned that doppelgänger blood was needed to complete the transition of hybrids. What was meant to be a loophole, ensuring that even if Klaus broke the curse, he wouldn't be able to create hybrids, ended up working against nature—he had two blood sources to feed them from now, if my blood was, in fact, the blood of a doppelgänger.

Of course, he had to test it out, and it turned out that I was, in fact, a doppelgänger. When he realized that, it was how we learned that I hadn't been pulling my magic from nature ever. It had always been the power within my blood, and I was weak because it was limited, even if doppelgänger blood was the most powerful binding source for any spell. I was still a human.

We thought he would kill one of us for a time, but he insisted that he liked the idea of having two, in case something tragic were to happen to one. He would often remark that he believed Elena would be turned before the end of her senior year, so he needed me for when that happened.

The secret about my magic, about my werewolf blood, was more crucial to keep than ever. If he knew, with his search for werewolves to make hybrids from expanding all across the world, he wouldn't hesitate to make me a werewolf, and then I would end up sired like the rest of them.

I didn't want to be sired, not to Klaus. The idea of being a hybrid had always appealed to me, since I never really figured out how to do much with my magic. Any time I would try and practice, everyone would remind me that anyone knowing about my magic was dangerous, that I shouldn't even bother. They would remind me that no one knew anything about what I could do, that it was dangerous if kept unchecked, so I had to stop around people.

Some nights, I would hide under the covers and practice lighting a candle. What seemed simple to witches, such as Bonnie, was incredible to me.

The most powerful thing I had done so far was perform a locator spell on Elena, when she was in her room asleep. The proximity might've had something to do with how easy it was, or maybe it was easy because I was her twin sister, because I was fueling my spell with the magic from my blood.

The front door slammed downstairs, and I was on my feet and running in that direction in an instant.

Elena had been the only one who had the desire to leave the house, only because she mentioned Bonnie needing to talk to her about something. Klaus knew I existed, but with his hunt for werewolves becoming more prominent in his life, they wanted to keep me indoors as much as possible.

How long would it be until I accidentally hit someone with my car?

In this town, anything could happen at any time, so going out was never really a good idea for me, at least while Klaus was in town.

Truthfully, I didn't want to trigger my curse, not without knowing I was going to be a hybrid. Until we knew how to break the sire bond hybrids had towards Klaus, I couldn't do that either.

Basically, nature wanted to ensure that the Petrova doppelgänger line continued by making me the hardest person to make immortal. Aside from being bound to Klaus, I would lose what little magic I had.

Immortality just wasn't in the cards for me, no matter how much I wanted it to be.

After years of seeing the spitting image of what I would look like without my genetic disorders in my sister, it had become normal, something that didn't even make me flinch anymore. When Katherine came into the picture, it was a bit weird for me, seeing what should've been Elena and me, but it wasn't because I was only her half-sister, not her identical twin like we had once believed.

Her face was flustered, flushed with pinks that stained her high cheekbones. There was something frantic about the gleam in her eye, her fast-paced movement into the room. She didn't even notice me at first.

It was easy to miss someone standing at the top of the stairwell. The dark wooden stairs to the home that we had lived in our whole lives went up for a few stairs and then took a sharp left the rest of the way up.

Though my feet were only covered with thin socks, they stomped down onto the wood. The normally loud sound was muffled, barely audible to me. The only reason Elena noticed was because she happened to look up at me as I turned the corner.

"We have a big problem, Darcy."

That was me: Darcy Katherine Gilbert. What had been a hint of modern mixed with the classic name like Katherine became rather horrible the moment Katherine Pierce came to town, came in and destroyed our lives in her typical Katherine Pierce way.

Honestly, I had contemplated changing my middle name, but that was senseless since it'd change when I got married anyways.

"Problem?" With Elena's attention, I no longer had to attempt to stomp my way down the stairs, so my steps quickened. "What's going on?"

She waited until I was on the ground level to speak, only after folding her arms over her chest. "Klaus didn't leave town."

"What?!"

"It gets worse." She took a deep breath. "Stefan has gone crazy. He's-He's gotten the freedom he wanted, so what does he decide to do with it? He decides that it's a good idea to piss off Klaus, after just barely getting out alive."

"Piss him off?" I asked, but just the idea was horrifying. It was a good thing I wasn't mayor or sheriff because hearing that would've had me evacuating the city—Klaus can't get angry and kill innocent people if there are no innocent people around. "What did he do?"

"You remember that we mentioned that Klaus travels with the things that matter most to him at all times?"

It felt good to feel something again besides the empty sense of worthlessness that came after failing to kill Klaus, once again. How many times had we tried now?

Admittedly, it was only twice, but they had been our only shots. Bonnie no longer had access to the kind of magic that it would take to kill Klaus, as he was much stronger than he ever was, and the one weapon that could kill him had been burned up when he stabbed his father with it.

Even if feeling fear and anger—how could Stefan be so stupid to think that he could piss off Klaus and live again?—was what it took to feel, I was okay with that. I'd felt empty for far too long, just recently being able to pull myself out of the rut I'd fallen into.

When Stefan left and Elena needed her sister, that was all the pull I needed to get off my ass and make the decision that it didn't matter whose blood was in my veins. I was Darcy Gilbert, and the choices I made, the way I chose to be and act in life, were the only things that got to decide who I was.

I nodded. "Of course."

"He decided it'd be a good idea to steal those things," she said.

"What?!"

"Klaus didn't say what he stole, only that he did. He's out of his mind! We now have to find Stefan and whatever it was he stole, or Klaus is going to kill us and everyone we've ever spoken to."

A/N: Hey everyone! Phenax here. :) So it's been a long time since I've posted anything anywhere, after having my son and all. I stopped writing for a while but got back into it almost a year or so ago. After that, it became writing that no one ever saw, except my little sister. Today, I was working on chapter 19 for this story and realized that it's time to get back into publishing stuff online, even if it is just fanfiction. How can I ever reach my dream of publishing a book if I never even get things like my fanfiction out there?

So without further ado, here is my new Vampire Diaries story, Flicker. I hope you guys enjoy it! I'm having a lot of fun writing it, and I'm learning to write better along the way. I still have a ways to go, different ways to improve, but I hope you enjoy it anyways.

The lyrics at the beginning of the chapter are from the song No One by Aly & AJ.