Word count: 1994

Genre: Mystery, Vampire, Boram losing her mind

Vampire Diaries crossover

Title: 'I Have Dropped The Veil. Again'

 Boram blew air into her hands to warm them to no avail because they remained as stiff as before. Dying of cold, can you believe? It was true she never had any allusions as to how she wanted to pass on but dying slowly in the frigid weather was definitely not a contender. She was alone in a mountain after her car broke down despite being absolutely sure she had it in top shape. To make it even worse, there was a snow storm that abruptly became fiercer when she left the car. Somehow she managed to find a cave, someway from the trail, that gave her shelter. There was no wood and therefore no fire. The air went in and out with such force she swayed. No one is going to find me. Why was there a storm? It was in the summer and when she had been looking around for a cabin to stay at, she was sure everything was calm. Also the mountain was not snowcapped.

 "I hate this town,"

 Mystic Falls was a circus disguised as a quaint normal town. The locals went on with their lives despite disappearances and the death of tens of people. Boram had been born in the town and was lucky enough to leave before it all went straight to hell. She only came back to bury a friend, a victim to whatever the hell took everyone else.

 "I really hate this place."

 She held herself even tighter and buried her face into her wet jacket. Maybe, just maybe, she could last long enough for the storm to subside. Until then she should focus on the noise, the echoes in the cave that sounded like wails. Almost like there were people dying all around her. The agony in their voices, almost like they were speaking to her. Almost like they want her to feel it. All she had to do was sleep. She should sleep. Sleep would take away the pain from them, right? From herself then? Well, she was in pain. The cold burnt like fire and her body felt old and heavy. If she slept, she would be back to normal. The screams amplified and she was hurting all over. It was too much to bear. Just a few minutes, then. No harm in that. No, you're imagining this. There are no people, no voices.... Wake up!

 Boram snorted and opened her eyes. It was dark and she was still alive. Her body was almost completely immobile but she could still see and hear. It was quiet and she could feel a subtle rise in the temperature. How many more hours? The darkness was almost absolute so maybe it was dawn. Boram's eyes began drooping. You should not sleep. But what else can she do? She could not move and call out for help. Sleep helped her get through the worst of the night. A search party could take a while. Stay awake, Boram. The voice in her head sounded foreign all of a sudden. It was a deeper and trembled with authority. Maybe she should listen.

 Who would come for her, though? The town was chaotic when she left; the power went out and there was talk of monsters. A mountain lion? That was what the news said when they found a teenage girl outside of her house. Mountain lions maul so she was lucky it was the cold that could kill her instead. Wait, could mountain lions survive a snow storm? They had thick fur but what she saw last night had to be one of the worst . It was on a scale of a natural disaster or unnatural since Mystic Falls never had a snowfall from what she could recall. There had to be at least a few feet of ice by now. How tall was the cave entrance? Oh God, was she trapped? Is that why there was no light and almost no sound? She was trapped in. Boram felt her eyes heat up but the heat cooled until it was frozen solid. This was bad. How quickly could you die from a lion? A lion... a mountain lion, one that had been in this town for a while. Surely, it would know its way around every part of the mountain. When the storm started, it could find a cave to hide. Calm down, Boram. There it was, that voice again. Was she hallucinating? A cave... there were other caves. That was what she was told by the sheriff earlier in the week before the funeral but there was something else.

 When Boram was young, she loved map reading. Her father had left her many of his own personally drawn maps and she felt connected to him whenever she traced the lines and names on the papers. Mystic Falls was one of the maps. The map itself was old, wrinkled but very detailed. Every part of that town from the buildings and woodland to the undergrounds. One thing she remembered was that there were a lot of caves and that they were all connected. If there was a mountain lion lurking in any of the caves, it will find her soon enough. You have nothing to be afraid of.

 "I do," Boram cried. It came out as a squeak as she was losing her ability to open .

Help is on the way. Don't sleep, Boram. How will they find her? She was enclosed and barely hanging on. Listen. Do you hear anything? It was deafeningly quiet. Listen harder. Boram, in spite of herself, strained her ears. What was she supposed to pick up on? Listen... Padding? Something soft was hitting stone. No, it was walking. Either it was far from her or her fears were proven true. The animal was stalking her.

 "Hello!" Boram was so startled, her breath hitched. That was a human. A man. "Hello?"

 "I'm here," she breathed.

 "Hello?" he called again sounding closer than before. Boram tried lifting her head but as she did so, she had something crack. "Found her,"

A second later, she felt warm hands on her face. Boram closed her eyes to relish the feeling and she could not open them again. She could hear words playing like a broken record before she slipped further. Only one word stood out. Bonnie.

~~~~~~~~

 Boram was scalding, or rather her skin was. The pain came in waves as if it was moving. Forward, then back and then forward again. Was this hell? If it was, she did not want to open her eyes. There might be a way to spend all of eternity without opening her eyes. Something rubber-like touched her eyelid and forced it open. Everything was blurry until it all became clear. She was looking at a friendly face. The eyes crinkled when he moved his hand away. Boram glanced around. There were three nurses dressed in blue and a two doctors judging by their coats.

 "Welcome back. You gave us quite a scare,"

 "Where am I?"

 "The hospital. Someone found you wandering and brought you here,"

 "Wandering?" That made little sense. She was in a cave half dead.

 "Let's leave the details for later." the doctor said. He turned to the nurses. "I think she is warm enough."

  Seeing her confused face, one of the nurses explained, “We had to use lukewarm water to get your body temp back up as a last resort,"

 "I don't know how to thank you," Boram said.

 "You just rest," the other doctor said. He had a stiff smile on her face. Boram nodded and was asleep before she realised it.

~~~~~~~~

According to the deputy who found her, Boram was running down one of the back roads. Apparently, she had blood around and on the front of her shirt. The blood was hers but she did not have any wounds on her, not even a scratch despite being bare footed and hysterical. She was mumbling and had no memory of where she was or where she had been. They found her car just before she woke up but the mechanic Boram hired over the phone could not explain what went wrong. While Boram was more than glad she was alive, it scared her how little she remembered. She was discharged after two days at her request. Boram never liked hospitals and was already feeling superb by then. Of course most of the last day was spent having more tests done.

"You really should stay," Dr Kimmel said as she was being wheeled for a CAT scan. "You are lucky to be alive and functioning well. I just want to make sure there is nothing we missed."

 Boram smiled. She had not said anything about her fears because they were honestly pathetic. The scan was like all the other tests; it showed that there was nothing wrong with her. This had gathered the attention of the staff, some of whom Boram saw whispering as she was taken back to her room. That was another reason she wanted to leave. The attention bothered her since she was never used to it.

 "Are you sure you want to go?" the doctor tried again. "I know there is nothing wrong with you right now but complications might arise later."

As much as Boram was grateful to the doctor for what he had done, she could not help but feel like it was less out of kindness and more of wanting to study her some more. Her mother agreed to something like that before and she wasted away in some room without her family.

 "Positive," she replied as she zipped up her jacket, not warm and smelt the same way the hospital. "I'd rather be an outpatient to be honest."

 "Tomorrow, then. How about at ten in the morning? I'm starting my clinic rounds then,"

 "I'll see if I can make it. Thank you,"

 She was back in her inn an hour later. Ann, the lady at the front desk, looked surprised to see her.

 "I didn't expect you to be back so soon after what happened." She said with a hint of concern. Boram found herself smiling until Ann continued. "What happened exactly?"

 This why was Boram could not like the woman. She was a chronic gossip. After the funeral, Ann had spent an hour regaling stories of Jihyun to Boram, not knowing that the latter was her best friend. The only reason Boram had not stopped her was because she was curious. Jihyun was very private, only relieving bits and pieces to her even though she, on the other hand, poured her heart out to her. Ann was careful to appear neutral and not at all judging but Boram saw through it.

 "Nothing," she answered. "My key, please."

 "Oh, right," Ann removed a plastic card from a stack. "Here you go. Anyways, the papers have your story and all but I figured they were just sensationalising. Did you really survive the night out there?"

 "Maybe. I can't remember anything-"

 "Ooh! That is so cool. Did you hit your head like in the movies?"

 "See you later, Ann."

 "But-"

 Boram ran up the steps to the second floor where her room was. It was just as she left it, clean and smelling like home cooking. The cook, a middle aged man who was missing a bit of her right index finger, had kindly agreed to make Korean food for her. It reminded her of home. Speaking of home, she had decided to go back earlier than before. There was no point staying in Mystic Falls since her plans were now ruined.

 "Three days or four," she murmured to herself. That was more than enough time to find out who Bonnie was. It had been nagging her for a while since she started trying to regain her memory and seemed extremely important for some reason. What was the worst that can happen?

~~~~~~~~

Author's Note: yay a long one shot. I recently watch Vampire Diaries season 4. At first, I was going to end the fic with Boram turning into a vampire but I felt that it was unreasonable. The only reason people got turned in the series was a) they were main characters  someone needed bodyguards/goons. Who would ever see Boram and think 'yup, she can definitely scare people'. So here, Stefan and Jeremy found her with Bonnie's help and gave her vampire blood because she was almost frozen solid. Plus she had broken something important in her neck- a muscle. After that they compel her and let her out of a cave near the Salvador manor. Tell me what you think.