#semi-rendered sorta gave up half way

[kunimiri]

Friend and foe

[sunshineandfangs]

Klaroween || Corn Maze

Caroline finally showed up at Klaus’ door, but this is not what he intended when he promised to show her the world.

Warnings: this one got weird...show typical violence, some semi-graphic gore, implied past rape and cannibalism (NOT of Klaroline, and they get their comeuppance)

"Caroline when you showed up at my door and asked to see the world, I didn't think our first stop would be a bloody corn maze."

Klaus cast his unimpressed gaze around the farm in Indiana, hands shoved in his jean pockets. The perfect picture of sulking hybrid.

"Oh, lighten up Klaus! I always wanted to do one of these, and I like Stranger Things. It was the perfect combo."

Caroline, meanwhile, was bouncing on the balls of her feet. The perfect picture of giddy teenager, albeit a decade or so removed.

Klaus just heaved a sigh, knowing he would concede in the end. He found it was very hard to resist Caroline Forbes. At least she wasn't attempting to get him to wear ridiculous Halloween costumes again. Or decorate The Abattoir for Easter of all things. And despite what Kol said, he didn't capitulate to all of Caroline's whims. Just some of them. Most of the time.

Taking his hand, Caroline tugged him forward and out of his drifting thoughts.

"Now we have options," she said brightly, gesturing at the posted map on their website. Tapping on her phone to zoom in, she scrolled the image around, holding it in his direction. "See, it's technically four interconnected labyrinthine style mazes." She ignored Klaus' derisive muttering about giving people a map. "Together it totals 10 miles of pathway spread across 20 acres." She gave Klaus a pointed look, "And I know you can hear clear across it, but us mere mortals can't. So try to contain yourself."

"There's nothing mere or mortal about you, love," he whispered in her ear.

She pushed him away with an eye roll.

"You know what I meant, Klaus, stop trying to distract me with flirting. We're going to do this corn maze! Now here's what's going to happen…"

Caroline laughed as she occasionally blurred through empty sections of the maze, making to sure to wander at a human pace whenever she heard others come near. Klaus was somewhere in the opposite corner of the maze. The goal, as she had told him, was to find one another while exploring as many pathways as possible. And she had very strictly forbidden his Original Hybrid hearing, knowing he could tune most of it out if he so chose.

She carefully planned it that way as Caroline had a secret goal of her own. She was hoping she could give him a wide enough berth to circle around and sneak up on him. She was well aware it was very unlikely, but that was half the fun. Plus, if she actually managed it, she would hold it over his head for years!

Focused on her musings as she was, she didn't register the people who snuck up on her. She had just enough time to think that Klaus would kill her for getting kidnapped in a damned corn maze.

Returning to consciousness as a vampire was still a bit of an odd experience for Caroline. Unlike humans who woke slowly, all faculties returned to a vampire in an instant. It was like blinking, if blinking could change the surroundings in what seemed like an instant.

After several years as a vampire, and an irritating number of kidnappings, Caroline had long since mastered the art of controlling the instinct to immediately open her eyes. Taking stock of her surroundings, Caroline noted a few very surprising things.

First, while she was bound, it was with plain rope. Not vervain soaked rope. Not chains. Second, no one was posted nearby to monitor her. Third, she couldn't detect the odd buzzing hum on her skin that she had learned to associate with witchcraft.

Was-was she taken by a run of the mill serial killer or something?!

While it was the best case scenario, it was embarrassing for humans to have gotten the jump on her. Sure, she was technically still a baby vamp, and she would be for several more decades, but she had lived through Mystic Falls, for God's sake!

Withholding her desire to voice her exasperation audibly, in case she missed something, she strained her ears to listen for her soon to be very regretful kidnappers. A floor above her she caught their mutterings.

"'Ey Pete, we got ourselves a pretty one."

"Very pretty, very soft."

Withholding a shudder of revulsion, Caroline wondered what kind of sickos had her. Now, she was actually rather glad they managed to take her. Better her than some actual teenaged girl, because Caroline had fangs, and she could bite back.

She tuned back into their conversation.

"She'll be delicious. First to play with. Then to eat!"

Okay, what the fuck? Were they cannibals?!

Having heard enough, Caroline opened her eyes and easily snapped the ropes that had been knotted around her wrists and ankles. She stood and took a quick glance around, checking for any evidence that they weren't humans. She still wasn't sure how they knocked her out after all. However, she saw nothing but a barren and dark cell

Slipping out of it was simple. There was a barred door, not unlike an old-style prison cell, but it too easily yielded to her. Refusing to drop her guard a second time in one day, Caroline carefully crept down a rather short hallway that ended in stairs. She opted to head down first, just to survey everything.

She was glad she did.

Even having lived with Klaus and the rest of his often psychotic siblings for a few years now, she was disgusted by what she found. The rooms were somehow sealed off, as even looking right at the horror show before her, she didn't smell anything. And in each room was one macabre display after another.

Gnawed on bones. Entire sheets of dried blood. Most of the bodies were old and completely decomposed. Others were in varying stages of rotting and she could tell they had been brutalized in every sense of the word. All the identifiable corpses were women and some of their stomachs curved to suggest they died just after a pregnancy.

Revolted and appalled, Caroline quickly blurred down the corridor checking for hidden doors or possible survivors. There were none. Just tens and tens of rooms filled with rot and body parts. She quickly left, promising the dead their tormentors would pay.

Stealthily, Caroline moved upstairs to where she had heard the voices, listening closely to every heartbeat. 

It was shockingly easy to sneak up on them. 

Without mercy she snapped every neck, noting how they were all filthy and deformed. Unsure if they were mutated humans or a creature she hadn't heard of, she returned to every body and ripped off heads and tore out hearts.

She continued through all of the rooms making sure to double and triple check for stairs or hidden passage ways. Once she was assured she had destroyed them all, she found a chair to wait in, mentally and emotionally exhausted. She knew Klaus would come for her and he would hopefully be more knowledgeable about what she had stumbled in to. Settling in to wait, she kept her back to the wall.

It didn't take him long. A few minutes later a door few off its hinges and across the room where it slammed into the wall. In the entrance way stood Klaus, eyes blazing gold, a web of black veins bulging angrily, fangs fully descended. The vicious snarl across his face vanished as soon as he set eyes on her.

In an instant he was crouched before her, eyes and hands scanning for any hidden injuries.

"What happened, Caroline?" He asked, a growl in his tone, eyes blazing with a rage that currently had no target.

"I'm not sure. Something knocked me out and I woke up here. They didn't seem to realize I was a vampire, and killing them was easy." Caroline's relayed succinctly, still disturbed by what she had seen. Her voiced dropped as she uttered the next part, "Klaus, their basement was horrific and their forms were... warped."

His gaze sharpened.

"Warped how?" He asked in clipped tones.

"Mutated or deformed or something. Their bodies had odd bulges and a few of them had growths that covered an eye. Rotted teeth. Filthy. Potentially diseased,” she rattled off.

"Show me."

Caroline blurred toward the rooms she had left their dismembered bodies, Klaus on her heels. They were still in pieces, seemingly dead, and for once Caroline wished she could have inflicted more suffering.

"They're Çarpık," Klaus answered her unvoiced question. "Cannibals who failed to become wendigos." He walked over, toeing one of the severed heads with his boot. "I appreciate your caution, but they're only a little more durable than regular humans. Their strength is in the tiny amount of magic they possess that lets them hide scents and render their prey unconscious."

Stalking over to her, he tipped her chin with his fingers.

"How did they take you down, Caroline? They have to have physical contact to knock people unconscious."

Caroline glanced away, a little ashamed.

"I was distracted," she muttered.

Klaus clenched his jaw imagining all the terrible things that could have happened to her, had they chosen to keep her unconscious.

"Right, we'll... discuss this at home."

He gathered her in his arms, needing to hold her, touch gentle despite his protective anger, and whisked them in the direction of their car.

AN: Yeah, idk where this came from. It started cute and then got decidedly less so...I guess sorta inspired by the mutants in The Hills Have Eyes (even if I barely watched it a few years ago and didn’t particularly like it? Brains are weird)