SANA MOAZZAM

1826

He was running for life, running as fast as his legs would

take him, he doesn’t even know how many times he tripped
and stood up again to keep his pace but they were coming,
they were close enough that he could sense them. His
stupid heart was thumping so hard that he was worried it
would give him away. He couldn’t stop to gather his
breathe. He was in the woods, the woods which was his
second home. He had never imagined that one day he will
have to run for life, that he will have to seek shelter in these
trees. And worst of all was that every tree, every bird that
sung in those trees reminded him of Katherine, his
Katherine.
Lost in her thoughts he tripped once again and sprained his
ankle “O God! Dammit! He sweared hard and got up again.
“Come on, he went this way,” he heard Stefan’s voice,
which made him get up and start running again. If only
Katherine was here to see all this, she would have come up
with an idea by now, she would have gotten him out of this
mess. But then it dawned on him, and it hit him hard “No,
this is not happening, This can’t be happening to me.” He
lost it, the moment he remembered the reason of his
running away he lost it and started crying as if he was five.
He kept running and crying until he couldn’t breathe and his
legs wouldn’t move and the police was right behind him.
“There he is,” said the policeman, “go get him”
“Be careful he could be armed he has already killed once.” A
policeman approached him with his gun ready. He was
trapped. There was nowhere to go. He was at a dead end.
“Damon Salowski, You are under arrest for the murder of
Katherine Powell. You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court
of law."
EARLIER THAT YEAR
Damon woke up because of the sunlight pouring through
the window piercing his eyes. “Why can’t you just leave me
alone, and let me sleep” he grumbled and turned his back to
the window. But in the very next second he was out of bed
into the shower because he had accidently seen the time
and he was going to be late again!
Grabbing his bag he went down the stairs. Whistling merrily
until John stopped him. “Damon, you are late again, you
really need to be punctual, man. Or the school is gonna kick
you out.”
“Don’t worry, uncle, I’ll be alright!”, replied Damon.
In the parking lot, he was looking for a place to park his bike
and then he saw it, that guy from the history class, Stefan
was standing there talking to a group of students and he
halted when he saw Damon looking towards them, “Hey,
Damon, what are you looking at mate ?”
“Want a place to park your baby?” he turned toward the
group again and started telling them, “this is Damon
Salowski, he lives with his uncle in the Salowski Mansion
downtown.” Everybody knew where the Salowski Mansion
was, it was such a grand place in that relatively small town
no one could actually miss it.”His uncle loves him with all his
heart and after his parents death he has brought him up,
But, for the record, he is a jerk, he can’t even win a single
game of basketball, can you ?”
With that all of them laughed but Damon ignored them
because he was already late for class and secondly he didn’t
want to get into a fight on his first day back to high school.
When he looked back at the place where Stefan and his
friends were standing he saw the addition of another girl in
the group who wasn’t there a moment ago. He hadn’t seen
her before, not in school, not in the town either.
Stefan, by now had lost interest in talking about Damon and
his failures instead he was now making a fun of that girl with
curly brown hair, and tall lean body. “Why don’t ya come
with me, I’ll give you a tour around the school hon!” Stefan
was saying, before the girl had a chance to say something to
that Damon walked in and told Stefan to back off, “oh, I’m
terrorized for what will happen to me if I don’t back off
Damon!” Stefan laughed.
“If you don’t back off Stefan then you will regret it, so get
the hell out of here and leave her alone!”
“Otherwise you will hit me, I guess?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
Stefan replied with a blow at his cheek which made him go
blind for a second he could taste his blood, before he could
get up he saw that girl giving Stefan a kick which landed him
to the ground, “that’s enough I think” she said, and turned
towards Damon giving him her hand to help him up, “By the
way thanks for your help, I am Katherine, Katherine Powell.”
He took her hand and replied in a daze “Well, umm , you are
welcome, oh I mean I am Damon Salowski, nice to meet you
Katherine.”
“Here, take this, you are not hurt much, are you ?” she
asked looking concerned handing him a tissue.
“No its just a scratch, I’m fine, by the way I haven’t seen you
around before, I mean to say are you new in town?” Damon
asked, not wanting to end the conversation “Yeah, we have
just moved in, my dad got retired and he wanted a quite
place to live and Mystic Falls seems like a good place.”
“Sure, it is, I have lived my whole life here, and I still love the
place, if you wanna see around some places, you know I am
free tonight, so may be we can just hang out visit a few
places”
“Do you have any such place on your mind, or are you just
asking me out after just five minutes of meeting me?”
“No, I mean yes, I had a really beautiful place in my mind,
but its ok if you don’t wanna come.”
“I didn’t say that, may be I will come” she gave him a
brilliant smile and walked away.
The rest of the day was a blur he kept dreaming about his
hang out with Katherine, he kept reminding himself that its
not a date, and also that most probably she won’t even
show up. But she did show up at 8.30 outside the school
gate and together the two of them went from shop to shop
eating icecream, talking about life sharing their past
discussing their present both of them were having a good
time. It was almost midnight when they reached the woods
“we will go hunting someday” he promised to her.
on their way back home she told him how much she hated
her father sometimes, this stunned him, and then she told
him that he was on drugs and he didn’t give a damn about
his daughter, and also that “This is the actual reason of our
moving here, because I wanted to get him into a rehab but
he wouldn’t agree, in this small town nobody knows him
and he has promised to give up on drugs so I wish that he
may keep his promise.”
Damon was out of words, he didn’t know how to respond to
this, he debated telling her the truth, but then decided
against it “she is never gonna know anyway, why do I need
to tell her that I’m involved with the drug mafia downtown,
she doesn’t need to know, I will never let her know, like no
one else knows” satisfied with himself he told her that its
really bad, drugs should be checked upon.
With this he left her and went straight to Marcel, the man
who gave him orders, Damon worked as a supplier for them.
Time passed slowly and he got close to Katherine, they
started spending quite a lot of time together the woods
become their hideout every weekend they would go there
and cuddle in the warm sunlight. They were perfectly happy
for months.
Until a day came when she called him at 2 in the morning he
picked up with a sleepy hello. He didn’t know that after this
one call nothing is gonna be the same for him.
“You bastard, you lying ass, all you ever said was a lie and I
trusted you with everything, how dare you, how could you
do this to me, all this time I thought we had something real
between us” she screamed through the phone and burst
into tears crying silently.
“What have I done Kath, what are you talking about?” his
heart jumped into his throat, he could see his life falling
apart. He never wanted this to happen.
“Don’t you know what am I talking about Damon?”
“Kathy look I have no idea who told you, but believe me I
am winding it all up, I was planning to leave it all just give
me two weeks and I will finish it all, we will start fresh Kathy
just give me another chance.”
She hanged up without replying, and his world had fallen
apart, he was driven to hell in the past five minutes.
Katherine Powell had no idea how much she meant to him.
The next two weeks were not less than hell for him. He went
through everything he had never imagined will ever happen
to him. He payed all his debts to Marcel and his people. He
kept trying to contact Katherine but she never returned his
calls and he went to her place she shut the door at his face.
After telling him that she once loved him and that was
willing to give him a chance only if he completely leaves this
business behind, to which he readily agreed.
But when he cleared every debt they weren’t willing to let
him go alive. They wanted to kill him. So he decided to leave
town and run away. But he went to meet Katherine for the
last time to tell her that he has left all that because of her,
to tell her that he loved her.
But when he reached the Powell’s house he was torn to
pieces by the scene he saw, he saw them into each other’s
arms kissing passionately, Katherine and Stefan.
He quietly went back to his home packed his bags and took
a last look at the house before leaving it forever. He hadn’t
gone far when he was woken up by the noise in the train
people were looking at him as if he was gonna kill them, he
was perplexed. Then one of them shouted he is the girl’s
murderer, the one from the news.
He didn’t know what was happening all he knew was that
Katherine was hurt, he just knew it. He left the train and
went running back to the town hospital there was police
everywhere. He asked for Katherine and no one told him
where she was. And then he saw her, her body was
mercilessly literally torn to pieces, he was told that the
murder weapon was an axe!
This couldn’t be happening he was numb and in a daze
nothing seemed real until he found himself in a situation
which waked him up. Stefan was also in the hospital quite
hurt but not dead as soon as he gained consciousness he
started screaming that Damon is a murderer!
Damon couldn’t believe Stefan’s hatred towards him. How
could he accuse Damon of murder but even the police
believed Stefan. When no one listened to him he was scared
and he ran for the hills.
He was running for life, running as fast as his legs would
take him, he doesn’t even know how many times he tripped
and stood up again to keep his pace but they were coming,
they were close enough that he could sense them. His
stupid heart was thumping so hard that he was worried it
would give him away.
Afterwards when he was arrested by the police the courts
proved him innocent because at the end of the day truth
wins and he walked out of the court free but without the
will to live.
He went back home and his uncle told him to never come
back as he had disgraced the family and his uncle had also
brought home his son who was 5 and lived with her mother
before.
He was about to leave when the 5 years old Tyler came
running towards his father and Damon grabbed the child
and kicked his uncle out of reach. He himself didn’t quite
understand his weird actions and just left without saying a
word.
A WEEK LATER
“Mysterious Deaths By The Serial Killer
The Body Count Has Turned To Three”
Was the headline news in every newspaper of Mystic Falls.
Damon was sitting in the woods with his hands full of blood
writing in his journal.
“Now I remember everything, how he had turned me into a
psychopath, now I remembered how I had killed Katherine
Powell, Stefan Salvatore and my uncle John Salowski.”
“The moment I saw Tyler running towards him I was
terrified because I remembered myself running towards
John as a kid and then remembered what an animal he was,
a child molester, a peadophile, he had ruined me, he had
created in me a double personality, another person who
couldn’t stand betrayal. A murderer”
“That murderer in me killed Katherine and Stefan. But, I
confess, I myself killed John in all my senses, and now m
gonna turn myself in.”