Gumboy's Challenge: The Wish: Wishing for Normality
by Shay
As she gazed out into the pitch black void of the outside world she realized how cruel fate could be.

The Power’s had wrapped her up-an all powerful cosmic whatchamacallit into a human box, complete with ribbon but no return receipt.

Sometimes she wished she could revert back to it-back into whatever ‘it’ was. The monks had created a false life for her, adorned with false memories for anyone who had ever come in contact with her.

And her whole life had been one disaster after another. First her parents divorced, and then her father ran off with his secretary, and then Buffy died, and then mom died and then Buffy died again. Death and destruction, and she was leaving out the countless others who had died because of her. And Cassie-she had been a puppet to the fates too.

She had caused so much pain. The monks had been killed by Glory for creating her, and as Glory searched for her Glory had killed hundreds of innocents in the struggle between good and evil. The knights of Byzantium had all been murdered in seconds by Glory because of her. She still remembered vividly the slurp of their spilt blood and the crack of their breaking bones. None of them screamed, silent cries etched on their faces for eternity after Glory plowed them over.

And yet-she was still here. Buffy had died to save her, and to protect the world from a hell her blood had unleashed. It hardly seemed fair that so much despair and decay could befall such good people.

Xander had lost Anya in the battle against the First, and he had lost his eye not long before. Giles had lost Jenny to the constant good .vs. evil fight, and then lost Joyce to science. Willow had Tara snatched away from her, and at the same time her innocence was stolen by a tiny piece of metal.

Everyone had lost something, and they all had lost the chance at a normal life. And she could always connect herself back to the pain, even if there was no logical reason that she was at fault.

She was sitting in Rome, living in a nice apartment with Buffy and Andrew. They all had a place in the world, where was hers? Xander once told her that her power was seeing, but as time went by she didn’t ‘see’ anymore.

How could one girl cause so much heartache?

All of these thoughts and memories flooded her mind as she considered the letter in her hand.

“It can all change-just make a wish”

Was all the letter held. There was no address, no instructions, jus at promise that she had one wish that could be granted.

She had been sitting, staring out the frosted window, since the sun began to softly fade.

Her life seemed bleak- as thought defeating the ultimate evil had not raised her ability to feel joy.

As she watched the night slowly turning gray, she decided on her wish.

She jotted a quick note to Buffy and the others, and prayed for normality to come after her wish was finished.

“Why are you still up?” Buffy walked into the room from her bedroom.

“Hello?” Buffy asked, worry slipping into her voice at seeing an empty room. She saw a note folded on the chair by the window and picked it up.

“Hi guys! I don’t have much time to explain, but I got a wish. Some mysterious letter came for me and I took the wish. What is my wish? I’m sure you wanna know! Well, I wished to be the Key again. I know my leaving won’t change what happened in the past, and I seriously considered making a world with no shrimp, but oh well! I love you all so much and I know your lives were better before the monks forced memories of me into your brains. So, goodbye and I love you, I guess I’m back to being cosmic or whatever, and you guys can be happy again. I guess it is time for me to leave, the wind is blowing in the room and the window is not open, gushing wind is always a sign of-

The letter ended there. Buffy felt angry at not getting to say goodbye, and then she felt fear. Finally a wave of bitter grief washed over her and she crumbled to the floor.

“Dawn?” Her sobs reverberated through the lonely rooms, as hot tears rolled down her cheeks.


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