Four months after a tragic car accident killed their parents, 17-year-old Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev, "DeGrassi: The Next Generation") and her 15-year-old brother, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen, "Everwood"), are still adjusting to their new reality. Elena finds comfort with her best friend Bonnie (Katerina Graham, "17 Again"), frenemy Caroline (Candice Accola, "Juno"), and former boyfriend Matt (Zach Roerig, "Friday Night Lights"), but Jeremy is trying to figure out why Matt's sister, Vicki (Kayla Ewell, "The Bold and The Beautiful"), is suddenly rejecting him and hanging out with his rival, Tyler (Michael Trevino, "Cane"). As the school year begins, Elena and her friends are fascinated by a handsome and mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley, "Fallen"). Stefan and Elena are immediately drawn to one another, but Elena doesn't realize that Stefan is hiding a dark, deadly secret the fact that he's a vampire. At a nighttime bonfire party, Elena and Stefan are getting to know each other when chaos erupts after Vicki is attacked and left bleeding from a savage bite to the neck. Fearing that he knows who is responsible for the attack, Stefan finds that his older brother, Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder, "Lost"), has returned to town. Now these two vampire brothers one good, one evil are at war for Elena's soul and for the souls of her friends, family and all the residents of Mystic Falls, Virginia.
