[ when elena blacks out, it's in the passenger seat of a car careening toward the wickery bridge. when she wakes up, it's in a strange bed in a strange facility with no idea how she got there, the sound of rustling bushes filling her ears until it slowly fades. she sits up in bed, looking around herself slowly, before a terrifying thought occurs to her. it drives her out of the bed and to the nearest mirror, where she can be find baring her teeth and pulling at the skin around her eyes, looking worried.

after she's ascertained that she's probably not a vampire, she begins to explore the facility she's found herself in, walking around with no particular aim in mind. the starbucks coupon she woke up with fell from her hand when she launched herself out of bed, but she puts that in her back pocket when she finds it, along with the picture she finds under the bed when she crouches down to get the coupon. who knows what will be important here, after all?

first she can be found checking the doors to see if there's anyone else around her. after that, she passes through the kitchen to pick up a knife, and makes her way through the rest of the facility with it in hand. it's when she gets to the doors leading outside the compound that she stops, dread settling in her stomach. ]

2015...?

[ last she knew, it was 2010. was she really asleep for five years? she looked exactly the same as when she'd last seen herself when she looked in the mirror, how could she possibly have missed five years? elena stares at the doors with mounting horror, frozen in place as she tries to rationalize what happened. ]

ii. keep razor in the cheek, robin in the birdcage. (closed to varvatos)

[ after calming down from her near meltdown over the lost five years, elena goes to the armoury to grab a crossbow and a hunting knife, having already taken a canteen of water from the kitchen. she has to investigate this hollows place and find out how far from mystic falls she is -- no one she's talked to yet seems to know where they are or what's going on, and elena has too many questions to just stick around and wait for answers. she has to go find them for herself. if it's really been five years, then who knows what klaus has done to everyone else in her absence -- elena shudders to think what could have happened to her friends, to damon, to jeremy... she has to find all of them.

it takes her forty five minutes to make her way to what she assumes is hollows, and when she gets there, she doesn't quite know what to make of it. the whole town is abandoned, as far as she can tell, other than the others from the compound who might be here with her. it's a ghost town, and that doesn't bode well -- elena feels a mounting sense of forboding the more she looks around the town.

it's when she steps foot inside a building that that sense is rewarded -- out of nowhere something attacks her, pushing her against the wall before she can grab her gun. she barely keeps it from getting its teeth in her when she realizes what it is -- human-shaped, but with no fangs, no veins around the eyes. it's rotting, smells of death, and there's only one word she can think of to describe the creature currently snapping its teeth at her. ]

Zombies? Seriously?

[ without waiting for a response from the zombie, she elbows it in the face and then ducks out from under its grip, moving so that she's no longer pinned. there's nowhere for her to go, but at least she's not dealing with a zombie in her face anymore. elena aims her crossbow at it and fires off a shot -- it goes through the zombie's neck, not its brain, and it keeps shambling toward her. it'll take her a few seconds to reload the crossbow -- this one requires more strength to nock than the ones she's practiced with -- and while she moves away from the zombie she starts yelling. ]

Hey! Is there anyone out there? I need help!