Chapter 34 — "Ashes of the Forgotten"
The wind howled inside the barrier like a wandering mourner. The ground beneath them split into glowing veins of lava, as if it could no longer contain the rage of the beasts it once cradled. And at the center of this destruction—stood Alexander and Kol—entrenched in a battle so violent and primal, it seemed as though the world itself was on the verge of collapse.
Alexander stood tall, his shirt torn, his skin covered in blood. His right arm hung broken at the elbow, yet he kept moving forward without hesitation. His fangs were bared, but his expression was not feral—it was human, pure, sharp, lethal.
Kol, on the other hand, looked far worse. Half of his face was charred from a past flame, and his left eye was blinded, bleeding instead of weeping. The blood of the Forgotten still pulsed within him, keeping him alive, granting him strength... but it no longer controlled him. It was desperate. And desperation makes monsters reckless.
"You weren't supposed to win this fight," Kol gasped, panting as the blood inside him struggled to repair what Alexander had shattered. "You think rage makes you invincible?"
Alexander wiped the blood from his mouth. "No, but I've lived through worse than death."
Then he hurled a broken spearhead he had picked up from the battlefield—Kol barely dodged it, only to find Alexander had appeared behind him in a flash, swinging his other arm with crushing force until it snapped in two. Kol screamed, spinning with vampire speed, claws extended—but Alexander caught both his hands and headbutted him with all the pain centuries had buried.
The sound thundered like lightning across the sky.
Outside the dome, no one moved. Not Damon, not Stefan, not Elijah, not Rebekah, not Bonnie. Even Klaus—watched in solemn silence, his jaw clenched, his fists closed.
"Holy hell..." Stefan muttered.
Klaus's voice came low, but heavy. "He's not just fighting Kol. He's fighting everything that tried to break him."
Inside, Kol staggered, his body swaying as if about to fall. "You think killing me will bring you peace?" he spat blood as he spoke.
Alexander walked toward him with steady steps. "I don't believe in peace... but I believe in silence. So shut up, bitch ."
With one final roar, Kol tried to plunge a spear of dark blood magic into Alexander's chest—but the latter twisted his body, letting the weapon slice his side, and kept advancing, dragging himself forward by sheer will.
Kol's eyes widened in horror. This couldn't be happening.
Alexander's voice came like a growl from the underworld. "You killed my soul once... but now, I've become something else."
He plunged his fist into Kol's chest—past ribs and bone, until he reached the heart tainted by the magic of forgetting. And he looked straight into Kol's eyes.
"You will walk this earth no more."
And he tore the heart from his body—not just the physical one, but the very core of his power and dominion. A black pulse burst across the dome, cracking it in an instant. The sky above lit up with a bright white flare, and the circle finally broke.
Kol dropped to his knees.
Then collapsed.
Dead.
A suffocating stillness followed.
The dome vanished, and the sky returned to its usual ashen hue. The battlefield stilled. And Alexander... stood alone, covered in blood, still breathing.
Bonnie was the first to speak.
"It's over," she whispered. "It's finally over."
Damon exhaled as if he'd been holding his breath for days. Stefan dropped to one knee, overcome with emotion. Rebekah clung to Elijah's arm. Klaus stepped forward once—but said nothing. Not yet.
Kol had fallen.
And the heart in Alexander's hand turned to ash.
And silence fell.
The battlefield held its breath, and the magical dome dissolved into mist. Around them, the remnants of Kol's dark army faded. And the sky, which had remained dark for days, finally opened.
Alexander turned to his brothers.
Damon and Stefan stood there, exhaustion and relief etched onto their worn faces.
Alexander gave them a smile—small, but sincere. The first smile they'd seen from him untouched by war or pain.
But in that moment—before joy could settle, before breath could be drawn—something pierced his back.
A hand. Brutal. Ancient. Unnatural.
Alexander's body jerked forward as the breath was ripped from his lungs.
That hand gripped his heart.
"No—!" Stefan shouted.
Damon lunged forward, but it was already too late.
The dark hand burst through Alexander's chest, lifting his heart as if raising a bloody trophy.
The battlefield stilled once more.
Then… the truth came to light.
From Kol's fallen corpse, a shadow slipped out—not bound to a body, but hiding within it all along.
The deception dissolved.
And the true face emerged.
It wasn't Kol.
It had never been Kol.
The man who stepped into the open was no stranger to Damon and Stefan—though they hadn't seen him in centuries.
The monster who had raised them.
Giuseppe Salvatore.
He stood amid the red mist, his hand wrapped around Alexander's heart, veins of darkness coursing through his arm, his face disfigured by years of hatred and power.
"Hello, my sons," he said with contempt, blood dripping from his fingers. "Did you miss me?"
Stefan's voice broke. "No... this is impossible."
Damon stared in horror. "You... you're dead."
Giuseppe smiled—a cold, cruel smile. "Death is merely an inconvenience when you know the right kind of magic... and when blood older than vampires runs in your veins."
Alexander dropped to his knees, choking, blood pouring from his chest.
Giuseppe looked at him with disdain.
"I've always hated you. Bastard child. Not mine. A stain on my name. But I found a way to use that stain to make something beautiful... I made you cursed."
The blood of the Forgotten. The ancient magic. It had been Giuseppe from the start.
Damon's eyes turned black with rage. "You son of a—"
"Don't," Giuseppe warned, tossing Alexander's body to the ground like shattered glass. "Take one more step, and I'll finish what I started centuries ago."
Stefan trembled. "You cursed him... You destroyed him..."
Giuseppe's voice rose as he stepped toward them, his face cold, his tone sharp: "I made him strong. Turned a weak child into a ruler. And now... I will reclaim that power."
The Mikaelson family stood frozen. Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah—none dared move. Not yet. They felt it. The weight of what stood before them.
This wasn't just a man.
And not just a father.
It was something time had forgotten.
And as Alexander bled once more—dying under a sky not yet healed—the war had not ended.
No...
It had just begun.
Then silence thundered in his soul—
Total silence.
Not the silence of peace, nor the silence of death.
But a void. An endless stretch of gray mist and shadows. No sky, no ground. Just suspended stillness.
Alexander stood there, barefoot, his shirt torn and soaked in blood, the hole still visible in his chest—but he felt no pain. Only... emptiness.
He looked around, lost in that eternal fog.
"Where the hell... am I?"
His voice echoed no sound. It simply vanished, as if it had never been.
Then... he heard it.
Footsteps.
Soft. Familiar.
And from the heart of the mist, a young boy emerged.
Perhaps twelve years old. Messy hair, sharp eyes, wearing worn-out shoes... It was him, himself, as he had been in childhood.
Alexander stared at him, astonishment on his face.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," the boy said, smiling a mischievous smile, like something from another world.
Alexander frowned. "Because I have."
The boy tilted his head, his eyes glinting with cunning. "Or maybe, for once, you're looking at yourself... the part you buried long ago. The part that died... before your body ever did."
Alexander looked at his hands, stained with blood and silence. "Am I dead?"
The boy answered, "Half-dead. One more step... and it's over forever. But this door... it opens both ways."
Alexander stepped toward the mist, his breath seeming steadier. "Then I have to go back. I can't leave them."
"You want to go back," the boy corrected him. "But can you? You've died twice, Alexander. How many more times can your body be pulled from the abyss before that abyss decides to keep you forever?"
Alexander clenched his fists, his gaze burning. "I don't care. Stefan and Damon... they need me. Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah, Bonnie... they fought for me. Believed in me. I won't let that be in vain."
The boy came closer, his steps slow but his gaze sharper. "Even after all Giuseppe did to you? After he used you as a pawn, cursed you, broke your soul, and watched you suffer just because he hated your existence?"
Alexander's eyes turned red, fire kindling within.
"I will never forgive him," he murmured like a growl. "But I won't let him win either."
The boy smiled again—but this time it was a sad smile, gentle, laced with pain. "You look like me... before the pain. Before the silence. Before anger was all that remained."
Alexander looked around, at the dense mist that seemed to hold an entire past within it.
"What is this place really?"
The boy raised his hand, and the fog shifted around them.
A battlefield.
A hallway in the Salvatore manor.
A childhood memory.
And that post behind the house... where he'd once been tied.
Blood. Screams. Silence. Then screams again.
"This is where the broken pieces go," the boy whispered. "This is where they wait... until you choose what you'll become."
Alexander stared long at his childhood self, eyes full of resolve, and whispered, "Then... I choose."
The boy nodded. "Good. Because you're not just a Salvatore. Not just a vampire. Not just a curse or freedom."
He leaned in closer, and whispered in his ear—
"You are what comes next."
Suddenly... the mist shattered like fragile glass.
Pain returned.
And light burst from beneath his feet, like a star flaring in the darkness.
And Alexander screamed... crying out from the depths of his soul, awakening beneath the open sky, his eyes ablaze.
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