There's no use in crying
All my tears won't drown my pain
Free me from your sorrow
I can't grieve you again

I watched you let yourself die
And now it's too late to save you this time

You bury me alive
And everybody's got to breathe somehow
Don't leave me to die
Too consumed by your own emptiness and lies

All I did was love you
And now I hate nightmare you've become
I can't let you fool me
I won't need you again

I watched you let yourself die
And now it's too late to save you this time

You bury me alive
And everybody's got to breathe somehow
Don't leave me to die
Too consumed by your own emptiness and lies

I can't feel this love we used to hold
All I see is black and cold
As I try to pull you down
To the ground, the ground

Everybody's got to breathe somehow
Don't leave me to die
You're too consumed by all your emptiness

You bury me alive
And everybody's got to breathe somehow
Don't leave me to die
Too consumed by your own emptiness and lies

– "Bury Me Alive" We Are the Fallen

Prologue

I've never been good at keeping a journal. We have been on the move for so long, I almost forgot what it feels like to be home. This may be the only time I ever write down anything of consequence, so I better make it meaningful. There is only one thing that has been truly meaningful in my extraordinarily long life. And that is the two men closest to me. My brothers, my best friends, my lovers. Since the moment we came together as children, I knew our destinies would be wrapped tightly together. I just didn't know it would be for eternity.

I wonder why I'm even bothering to write it all down, besides the fact that my story may take thousands of pages before it's complete? Honestly, there is only one reason. It's not for me. My memories don't fade. Not the ones that matter. It's for you. The one that will take the time to read my words. Maybe your a student in Mystic Falls High doing a history report. A historian on a quest for answers. Those I have plenty of. It's the questions you will ask yourself at the end that will puzzle you for a lifetime.

I have no idea what will happen to this journal when I am done. Will it be put beside Honoria Fell's in the library? Packed in a box for decades? Kept in a teacher's drawer? Or, maybe it will simply disappear, turned to dust in the winds of time. The winds that will see me young forever. I have no idea if my story will ever make a difference. But the world needs to know the truth. I have spent lifetimes being part of the darkness. Taking part in it's fear. But for now, I leave nothing unsaid. I will lay out the truth as I know it in these pages. Because you need to know that there is a whole new world to be discovered, that is part of your own. One that most simply ignore, or refuse to believe.

If there is nothing else you find in these pages to be true, please, believe this:

That magic is real. That there is a difference between good and evil. And there is a whole different world in the deepest shadows of the night.

My name is Jacqueline Vladimir. I was born in Romania in 1735. And I am a vampire.