Hellmouth Ascendant Trilogy Book 2 Midnight: Chapter 4 Nightmares and Dreamscapes
by Deacon Rayne
**Disclaimer: This chapter contains disturbing imagery, reader discretion is advised**

Chapter 4
Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Dusk wandered through the cracked streets warily. He realized that this place was nothing less than a hideous parody of the semi-familiar streets of New York. Things scuttled unseen in the dripped shadows. Occasionally a wraith-like form would drift closely to him, only to retreat the moment Dusk fixed it with a shadowy glare of his own.
he thought to himself grimly as the wraiths retreated. He turned a corner-
His hands were up before his brain was even fully cognizant of the beast before him. The creature roared and lashed out at him, Dusk blocked it and stumbled back. It was astonishingly strong. Was everything in this realm supercharged? he wondered.
The creature was humanoid with large fanged maw, gray, mottled skin, and a shock of white hair. It launched into a flurry of punches and though Dusk was able to block them, inwardly he grimaced. Not only was the thing slayer-strong, it also had comparable speed and training.
The creature backhanded him, hard, sending him sprawling to the ground.

Dusk rolled back onto his hands and flipped his feet up hard, catching the beast under the chin. It screeched and fell back as Dusk rolled up easily to his feet then lashed with a cartwheel kick, slamming two feet in rapid succession into the beast’s head, causing it to fall back hard. It slowly re-oriented itself, eyeing him now very warily.
Slowly the creature advanced, then launched a roundhouse kick, Dusk blocked it easily, after all he’d seen it a thousand times befo-

He lowered his arms warily, peering at the beast. Reaching a decision he made a gamble, if he was wrong the beast would surely tear him apart.
But if he was right…
Closing his eyes, he began a kata, a precise set of martial arts moves.
Then he smiled when he felt the ‘beast’ respond in perfect time. Punches were blocked slowly, almost languidly. Kicks made light contact against torsos. Each move was measured, careful and mirrored perfectly by the other.
Finally Dusk relaxed his muscles and opened his eyes, smiling as he saw his sister standing before him.
“How did you know?” he asked her, still amazed. She winked,
“Well who else throws themselves around in the air like that?” she replied grinning. He laughed and reached over snatching her up in a tight embrace. She squeezed him tightly before letting him go.
“I really didn’t want to be alone in this place,” she confessed. He nodded emphatically,
“No argument there,” he replied as they parted. He sighed and looked around, “So, now which way do we go?” Buffy looked around and sighed,
“Which ever direction looks the least freakish?” she offered vainly.
“I can tell you,” a small voice sounded out. Buffy and Dusk whirled around to face a small boy, no older than 9 with blond hair and pale blue eyes.
“I know where to go,” he repeated. Buffy kneeled down in front of him, even as Dusk kept his guard up, just in case. Things in the Nightmare world were rarely what they appeared to be; he’d learned that the hard way.
“Hi there, I’m Buffy, what’s your name?” she asked the boy. The boy smiled gap-toothed smile,
“Seth,” he replied, “You’re looking for him aren’t you? The bad man?”
Dusk and Buffy exchanged looks at that.
“Yes, yes, we are Seth, can you take us to him?” she asked quietly. He shook his head,
“You have to go somewhere else first,” he said pointing towards a decrepit warehouse like building down the street.
“Charming,” Dusk quipped dryly as he took in the looming, gutted silhouette of the warehouse.
“You have to go their first, there’s things you need to see,” Seth told them, taking their hands and leading them down the street,
“You know,” Buffy commented thoughtfully, “The last time I was lead somewhere by a child, it ended badly,”
“How badly?” Dusk asked.
“I died,” she replied. Dusk blanched inwardly,
“Yes, that qualifies,” he confirmed, suddenly acquiring his father’s nervous stutter. Buffy smiled humorlessly as they were led to the gaping entrance.
The boy stopped at the entrance,
“I can’t go with you,” he informed them in a small voice. Dusk and Buffy sent each other suffering looks before plodding into the gloom.
The stench was unbelievable, like raw death, malaria and nightmares.
“Boy, I wish we had some backup,” Dusk commented peering this way and that into the gloom.
“Sounds like a great plan. Know any armies for rent?” Buffy replied. Dusk barked out a humorless laugh. Even more so than the caverns of the Deadlands, the darkness here was choking and oppressive. It was a like a cold hand clutched at his heart as Dusk scanned the room for danger.
There was no warning, a sudden creak, a CRACK! And with a roar of shattered wood, the siblings fell through the floor into the darkness below.
They landed hard on a cold surface, Dusk’s addled senses told him. A few stray pieces of rotted wood rained down upon them as they groaned and checked themselves for injuries,
“I REALLY hate this place,” Buffy growled. She peered around the room. The scent of the air was different, musty and dry, yet very familiar.
“Smells like a basement,” Dusk commented saying out loud what she had been thinking all along. He peered at the various piles of clutter throughout the room, “Baby pictures, old tricycles, broken refrigerators, yeah it’s a basement,” he confirmed.
“Okay so the next question would be why the hell are we in a basement?” Buffy asked. Suddenly there was a loud whining mew from somewhere in the basement. Both Dusk and Buffy tensed, their muscles trembling with tension,
“No, the next question is, what the hell was that?” Dusk replied. Scanning the darkness he peered into a particularly cluttered corner. Moving over to it, he tossed away a rusted bicycle frame and a box of hideous lawn ornaments.
“What are you doing?” Buffy asked fiercely. Dusk ignored her as he reached a large, locked wooden cabinet. He tore the lock off and ripped the doors open.
A small child, bound head to toe and wrapped in what looked like cellophane stood there, whimpering quietly. Buffy’s hand flew to her mouth,
“Oh God,” she whispered hoarsely. The tiny bundle thrashed weakly from side to side. Dusk knelt down and started pulling at the plastic,
“It won’t come off,” he exclaimed, trying to work his fingernails under the binding plastic, to no avail.
Suddenly the door above them opened flooding the room with light, revealing a hulking shape,
“What the hell’s all this noise,” it demanded. The wrapped bundle trembled as much as it could with its constraints. Dusk stood tall, Buffy flanking him,
“You are about to have every square inch of your ass kicked,” Dusk informed the hulking shape darkly. Buffy just readied herself as the form advanced. Dusk lashed out with a fist and stumbled as it passed clean through the form. A moment later the hulking form walked right through both Dusk and Buffy, snatching the bound child from the cabinet roughly and dragging it across the floor.
“What the hell?” Dusk asked bewildered. The hulking man heaved the plastic bundle onto a large work table and flicked on a blinding florescent light. His features were ugly and piggish, with tiny eyes, fat jowls and more than his share of chins.
“I told you to shut up!” the man slurred, clearly drunk. He took a large knife and brought it to the child’s head. Dusk lashed out again with a fist and growled in frustration as it passed through the man. Clearly, the man did not even notice they were there. He slit the bag open around the child’s face. The child wailed loudly in pain as the fat man clamped a meaty hand over his face, nearly smothering him.
“I said SHUT UP!” he growled, squeezing his massive hand over the child’s face, there was a tiny ‘crack’ and twin rivulets of blood started to run out from underneath the man’s hand. Buffy looked sick,
“I can’t stand this,” she whispered hoarsely. Dusk nodded in agreement and took his eyes off the horrid spectacle before them. His eyes widened when he spied a family portrait on the wall. He instantly recognized the fat man in the picture, alongside a pale, thin woman and-
“Seth!” Dusk yelled in recognition.
And without warning his feet were yanked out from under him. Buffy cried out as Dusk was hoisted upside down and higher into the air than a basement should allow.
A creature, clad in rags and wrapped in shreds of plastic grinned evilly at him. It had a narrow jaw and a wasted form. Attached to its legs were prosthetic extensions. Bits of plastic clung to the creatures form and created a mummy like mask around its face, revealing nothing but a pair of crazed red eyes and tufts of stringy black hair.
It reached out with a bandaged hand, tipped with gleaming claws and with a shout Dusk lashed out with his hands. A large blade lashed out from his palm, slicing at the creature. It cried out and Dusk had a split second to recognize the voice as human albeit barely so, before it released its grip on him, sending him plummeting to the stone floor below.
Buffy was ready and grabbing a hold of several large garbage bags created a makeshift cushion for the plummeting man. There was a loud WHUMP as bits of stuffing and pillow casing exploded into the air and came raining down like snow.
The bandaged man cackled manically before leaping like some kind of spider towards the wall, only to disappear within it, leaving a trace of crackling energy.
Buffy rushed over to Dusk, “Are you okay?” she asked frantically, helping him to his feet. Dusk groaned and rubbed his back, which was very sore at this point.
“Thing looked like a cross between Marilyn Manson and Freddy Kruger,” he winced as his fingers touched upon a very sore spot on his spine.
“That was the bad man,” a small voice said.
The pair turned quickly to spy Seth standing before them, looking very grave for a small child. The room around them melted away and once again they were standing outside the large rotted warehouse. Buffy knelt and gathered the boy in a hug,
“That was you, wasn’t it? The boy in the closet?” she whispered tearfully. Seth didn’t return the hug but he didn’t struggle either. Rather he simply stood there, limp in the embrace. She released him to see the boy regarding her with wide, blue eyes.
“Come on, we don’t have much time,” he told them, taking their hands and leading them further down the street.
They walked perhaps five minutes before coming to suburban-style single story home. It might have been pretty in the real world, a white picket fence and an expansive lawn. Instead the fence was barbed wire, the lawn was brown and dead and the house itself resembled a festering wound, containing within rape, abuse and every suburban horror that gets swept under the rug and glossed over in the real world.
“Fantastic, it’s like ‘Leave it to Beaver’ on crack,” Dusk commented sourly as they approached the house. He turned to Seth,
“Don’t tell me, in there, right?” he inquired dryly. Seth nodded. Dusk sighed, “Okay, right,” Dusk and Buffy approached the house even as Seth hung back. Placing his thumb on the large brass release in the handle, there was a CLICK and the door creaked open and they stepped forward quickly swallowed by the gloom inside the house. The door slowly creaked close and sealed with another ominous click.
The house had a late seventies motif. Stained linoleum floors dominated a kitchen that had clearly seen better days. Plate of crusted food were stacked overflowing into a sink filled to the brim with brown, soiled water that occasionally sloshed over the rim onto the floor below. Cockroaches crawled over most of the surfaces and feasted on rotted, half eaten piles of food pasted to the countertop, table and floor.
“Who remembers ‘Seven’?” Dusk commented taking in the filth.
“We find a fat guy with ‘Gluttony’ written on the wall, I’m leaving,” Buffy replied. They slowly made their way through the kitchen, trying to ignore most of it and entered as cramped hallway littered with bits of trash and debris. The carpet was cheap shag and so heavily stained that the original color was indiscernible. All along the hallway cracked pictures of Jesus and other religious depictions lined the walls.
“Could this place BE anymore of a cliché?” Buffy commented dryly. Dusk nodded distracted. There was a strange sound coming from the room at the end of the hallway, a muffled grunting, the occasional loud slap of skin on skin and a quiet sobbing. Dusk held up a hand for Buffy to stay where she was. Buffy froze as Dusk peered around the corner and turned gray, quickly ducking back around the corner and away from the scene in the living room. Buffy approached him concerned,
“What is it?” she hissed. Dusk just gestured around the corner. Buffy peered and gasped putting a hand over her mouth, trying very hard not to be sick as she ducked back around to join her brother, who was bent over at the waist, hands at his knees and inhaling deeply.
“That’s..that’s-“ she sputtered out looking very ill.
“-Called ’Rape’ and ‘Misogyny’ where I come from,” Dusk commented shakily. “That’s Seth’s mother, I recognize her from a picture down in the basement before I got snagged by Bandage Boy,” Taking Buffy’s wrists in his hands, he positioned her hands over her ears. She nodded and trembling, put her hands over her ears and pressed them there until the skin flushed, then turned white. Dusk leaned against the wall and tried to ignore the pleading sounds from the next room.
After what felt like an eternity, he exhaled hard and peered around the corner a moment before coming back,
“It’s over, he’s…it’s done,” he told her still sounding ill. Slowly Buffy released the death grip over her ears and nodded wiping away a few tears of sympathy and horror,
“That poor woman…” she whispered. Dusk nodded.
“Agreed. Come on,” he said, taking her hand and leading her into the den.
The hulking of the father was there; now clad in a white sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of boxers, reclined in an oversized and badly enduring recliner, which creaked under his weight. Dusk tried to ignore the scent of fear and stale sweat, those being the least offensive odors in the room. As Buffy made her way past the man, who stared seemingly through her and at a flickering television, she grimaced,
“Never thought I’d be happy to see a guy like this in his boxers,” she muttered.
“Beats seeing him out of them,” Dusk replied evenly. Buffy nodded her head so vehemently, Dusk was worried it was going to come off,
“Scarred for life,” Buffy told him fervently as Dusk approached the sounds of a woman sobbing. Dusk slowly opened the door and stepped inside.
The woman was standing there in front of a mirror, sniffling and wiping her eyes staring at her reflection. She was nude and might have once been pretty, before all the beauty had been starved and beaten out of her. Dusk considered averting his eyes, but considering the position he’d just seen her not ten minutes ago in, this was tame. The woman climbed inside an old-fashioned and heavily discolored porcelain tub, she shivered and clutched at herself as she turned one of the knobs and the tub began to fill with brackish water. Dusk gave Buffy the ‘all clear’ sign and she stepped inside. Instantly her heart broke,
“Oh God,” she whispered, closing the bathroom door behind her and coming to sit upon the rim of tub beside the woman. She reached out a hand to stroke her hair then snatched her hand back when her fingers passed through the woman’s head.
“I figured as much,” Dusk commented sourly, “It was the same thing in the basement,” Dusk sighed and looked around the bathroom trying to ignore the woman’s sobbing in the bathtub.
Then the sobbing stopped, and Dusk’s intuition told him that something was very wrong.
“Alec…” Buffy whispered hoarsely, Dusk turned and froze.
The woman was holding an old-fashioned men’s straight razor staring obsessively at her own tortured expression in the dull blade’s reflection.
“Oh no, no, no,” Dusk muttered, at once grasping both the events that were about to transpire and the utter lack of power he had over them.
“Hey!’ Buffy yelled futilely waving her hands frantically in front of the woman, trying to grab the razor blade and only succeeding in passing through her body like smoke. “Come on, don’t do this!” she cried.
Suddenly there was a tiny tapping at the door. Buffy and Dusk whirled around at the sound. The woman in contrast, didn’t even seem to register it as she put the blade to her wrist testing.
“Mommy?” a small voice said. Buffy gasped as Dusk reached over and tried to yank the door open, it wouldn’t budge. Dusk growled and pulled, uncomprehending as to why the door that had only just a few moments ago admitted the in three occupants of the room with no difficulty was now utterly implacable now in its refusal to budge.
“Alec!” Buffy cried out, Dusk turned and with a shriek the woman dug the blade hard into the veins of her wrist and slashed downwards, hard, there was a sick sound, like skin being peeled off a chicken and a spray of blood. Buffy screamed as Dusk pounded on the door in frustration,
“Open, damn you, open!” he raged.
“Mommy?” the voice came again.
“Mommy’s busy,” the woman spoke for the first time, her voice eerily calm and dreamy, whether that was from insanity or blood loss was anyone’s guess.
And then, it was all over. The gory razor dropped from the woman’s hand with a loud CLACK. Her head lolled over to one side eyes staring blankly ahead and glazing over with death, there was a rasping gurgle and then nothing at all, only the thick, steady drip-drip of blood on the bathroom floor trickling down the wrist, palm and fingertips of the dead hand that hung over the rim like a broken wing.
Buffy cried now, having never witnessed anything like this before. Dusk just sagged to the floor, crouched and resting heavily on the balls of his feet, wrists at his knees, hands dangling limp. He raised his hands up with agonizing slowness and ran his hands through his hair, making tight fists of bunched hair until his knuckles were white and his whole body was shaking.
Suddenly the door exploded, Dusk and Buffy leapt to their feet as the father stormed in, followed closely by a young and emaciated-looking Seth. He took in the scene with horror that quickly melted into rage.
“Mommy?!” Seth cried, taking his mother’s bloody and cold hand in his two tiny hands.
Then a meaty hand snatched up a heedful of the boy’s hair and tore him away from his mother’s hand and instead, smashing his face against her dead face.
“This is your fault, you little bastard,” the father hissed through clenched teeth, “See what you did?”
“Mommy!” the child cried out again, hysterically as his father pried open his eyelids to peer into his mothers glazed, dead eyes.
“Look at her! Look at her, you little puke!” The father bellowed to the sobbing child. Then he plunged the boy’s head into the bloody water and holding him there.
“Leave him alone!” Buffy screamed and launched herself at him.
“Buffy, no!” Dusk cried out, fearing she would pass through the phantasms and dash her head against the wall.
Instead, with a shriek the dead woman lunged out of the water with the razor blade and slashed at Buffy catching her across the arm. Buffy cried out in pain as the blade tore through cloth and flesh, spinning her around to collide hard with the floor.
The scene had completely transformed, Seth and his father were gone, the bathroom had transformed into a gutted and blackened rendition of what it had been. The woman stood before them nude, her flesh, now bone white, accompanied with the purple blotches of advanced rigor mortis, her eyes blackened, swollen and empty.
The dead woman screeched again, black blood welling up in her mouth and overflowing past her decaying lips, and advanced on Buffy.
And then Dusk sprang into action.
Snatching the porcelain top off the toilet, he hefted it around,
“Heads up!” he yelled. The dead woman turned, razor blade gleaming brightly as Buffy ducked. The blow caught her across the head, shattering her jaw and crushing bone. The woman wailed in pain and fell against the bathtub hard, her head dangling over the rim. Dusk brought up the heavy porcelain slab slammed it hard down onto the back of her neck. There was a sickening CRACK and the body jerked once, then laid still. Dusk tossed the slab away with a weary grin,
“That’s one for the books,” he frowned as he reached out to his wounded sister, “You okay?” he asked.
Buffy’s nod turned into a frantic scream!
“Behind yo-!”
It was too late.
Dusk heard the rustling of cloth a fraction of a second too late and as he turned, a searing pain lanced through his back and side. He screamed in pain and pitched forward onto his knees, blood pouring out of him. He felt cold suddenly and as his legs gave way, his last sight was of the bandaged man wielding an axe stained with his own blood.

With a cackle, the Bandaged Man raised the axe up again over the prone man, ready to finish the deed.
And then with a scream of rage, Buffy plowed into the man like a blond freight train.
“Bastard!” she screeched and slammed a fist hard into the man’s gut. Bones gave way with a wet sound as the man folded over hard at the waist. Buffy formed a hammer-fist and slammed upward hard, shattering the man’s nose and lifting him off his feet.
“Die!” she screamed, tearing a rusted towel rack out of the wall and bludgeoning the man with it over and over again. Through the haze of red, Buffy could hear the man cackling still.
Buffy brought up the makeshift weapon up one more time…and with another cackle, the bloodied man melted into the floor leaving only a black stain.
“No!” Buffy cursed throwing the metal rod hard against the floor in frustration.
“Ooooh….man,” a weak voice rasped. Buffy gasped and ran over to her brother, kneeling down and trying to ignore the amount of blood on the floor,
“You’re alive!” she cried out. Dusk smiled slightly, very weak. Buffy peered at the axe wound, it was quite deep, she could see the dark slick of muscle tissue and beneath that, the off-yellow of a badly broken rib. Already though, the damaged tissue was starting to mend itself and in a few moments, the blood flow stopped entirely as the wound slowly began to heal.
“Looks like you caught most of it on a rib,” she commented. Dusk nodded and coughed weakly, then checking his lips for blood.
“No blood, I don’t think any vitals were damaged,” he replied.
“Can you move?” she asked gently as she tried to clean some of the blood off his face. Dusk cocked an eyebrow,
“What’s my motivation?” he rasped wryly. Buffy snorted gently,
“Survival,” she replied. Dusk nodded and swallowed hard,
“Then, yes. I can move,” he replied evenly. He struggled to sit up and Buffy helped him up into a sitting position,
“I can move,” he amended, “with a little help,” Buffy nodded and put his arm over her and hoisted him up to his feet. Dusk groaned loudly as still-healing muscle tissue screamed in protest,
“This sucks,” he commented. Buffy nodded,
“Amen,” she replied as she helped her brother out of the ruined bathroom and back into the red-tainted skies of the nightmare realm.

As the pair hobbled out of the ruins of the house, Dusk spared a look backwards and snorted weakly,
“What is it?” Buffy asked as she craned her neck to see.
The house was gone.
“All those who are not surprised…or not suffering from an axe wound, raise your hand,” Dusk commented wryly. Buffy chuckled and then gasped as Dusk's legs fell out of from under him. Buffy lurched, catching him and lowering him to the ground.
“I think I’m in trouble,” Dusk commented, coughing again, “My legs are completely numb, either from blood loss or nerve damage,”
“Let’s hope blood loss,” Buffy whispered, sounding very worried as she stroked her brother’s face gently,
Dusk nodded then his eyes widened,
“Hey Buffy, when did we wind up on top of a lake?”
Buffy frowned and looked down, then gasped, as her mind comprehended what Dusk was talking about. Where there was once ground, now Dusk and Buffy were upon a still pool of deep red water.
Or what she thought may have been water, carefully and still not understanding completely how they were managing to be resting on TOP of the surface of the water, she ran her fingers over it and brought them back, a red and very familiar smear coated her fingertips, she sniffed it then winced,
“Blood,” she stated flatly. Dusk chuckled,
“No thanks, sis, I’m full.” Buffy looked down and gasped as she realized she was dripping blood on Alec’s face from her fingers. Hurriedly she wiped it off and as she leaned over, Dusk looked up past her and froze.
“Uh-oh,” he croaked. Buffy spun around,
Three forms clawed their way up from underneath the ocean of blood. The first was the bandaged man, cackling with axe in tow, the second: the mother, dead blue skin and wielding a straight razor that glittered red.
But the third was a hulking beast, bulbous and covered in a gray flabby hide with tufts of hair that sprung out from various portions of its body. Warts and sores oozed pus freely as it gurgled and belched, producing what looked like an oversized baseball bat in its huge meaty hands.
“Oh this is going to suck,” she growled getting to her feet as the horribly misshapen creatures began to flank her, cackling and snarling.
“Last time I had dreams like this, three-day old nachos were involved,” she quipped to cover her fear.
“These are the bad people,” a voice informed her from behind. She spared a look back to see Seth sitting cross-legged on the surface of the blood.
“Thanks for the tip, ki-,”
“Behind you!” Dusk yelled out. Buffy turned just in time to dodge the mother’s glittering straight razor, Buffy gasped and fell back as the zombie-like corpse screeched in rage and hissed at her slashing with the razor and clawing at the air with dirty broken fingernails. Buffy dodged and smashed her palm into the woman’s nose, the creature screeched, falling back…
…and without warning the axe blade came down slicing open the top of Buffy’s hand almost down to the bone. She cried out and clutched her wounded hand to her as the cackling bandaged man swung and chopped, the blade of the axe gleaming bright red against the ocean of blood. Buffy fell back against the onslaught and raised her uninjured hand to ward off what was to be a deadly blow when suddenly the demons feet shot out from underneath it and he crashed to the floor his axe spinning away, two tendrils of darkness wrapped around his feet.
“Sibling Slayer team: One, Freddy Krugger: Zero,” Dusk commented wryly. Buffy nodded in appreciation then started as the hulking monster, which could only be the father of this group roared and brought his bat down hard. The crack of impact was deafening but even more devastating were the effects as a shockwave rise high and hard racing towards the siblings. Buffy leapt high into the air to avoid the crushing wave and noticed that the axe the laughing demon dropped was sent flying up and then crashing down punching through the surface of the blood and sinking out of sight.
And then the wave reached Alec, and with a thunderbolt blast of horror, she realized that in his weakened condition there’d be no way he could avoid it.
“ALEC!!!” she screamed. The younger Giles watched the approaching wave with almost a wry smile,
he had time to think. And then the wave hit, he bounced high into the air, every bone in his body cracking and then breaking, he dimly felt the sensation of flying and then landing on something that gave way. His vision was filled with red, his lungs with coppery salt and then nothing.
Too tired to even cry, Buffy watched her brother sink beneath the crimson surface of the blood as the last ripples from the monsters' attack faded. She landed and looked at them all with cold, dead eyes.
“You’re all dead,” she informed them simply and then with a war cry she charged.
She reached the woman first, batting aside the razor, she grappled with her, putting her arm in a lock and then with a violent twist broke it. The woman shrieked in pain as Buffy plucked the razor form her limp hand, reversed the grip and with a backhand spin drove the razor into the creature’s eye. The monster fell to it's knees clutching at it's ruined eye socket as Buffy placed both of her hands on either side of her head and twisted hard. There was a snap and the creature lay still.
She turned to face the other two demons when her side exploded into a white light of pain, she flew through the air and landed hard on the slippery liquid surface skidding across it and coating herself in blood. She coughed hard, feeling things broken inside. There was blood on her lips, salty and metallic, whether it was a result from internal injuries or just her landing she didn’t know. Weakly, she looked through swollen eyes to see the bulky form of father monster finishing it's follow through from the blow of the bat that had sent her flying. The cackling bandaged demon by comparison seemed almost lost without its trademark axe, then it threw its head back, stringy black hair flowing out behind it and laughed high and insane as barbed claws grew out from underneath its fingertips. Buffy coughed wetly as she watched the two advance on her, “Neat trick,” she commented dryly as she struggled to her feet to attack the two oncoming demons. She came in hard snapping a kick to the head of the bandaged monster, then dodging out of the way as the ham-sized fists of the father monster which came crashing down with enough force to split her skull. She traded blows with the smaller of the two, trying to keep it between herself and the hulking abomination that even now was grunting and glaring, looking for another chance to brutalize the young girl.
The bandaged monster came in cackling wildly with its claws; Buffy dodged and repaid in kind smashing her fists over and over into the creatures abdomen and head, it continued to laugh but there was definitely a note of desperation as Buffy beat it severely, breaking bones with every blow.
Finally the bandaged creature, wounded and broken and with a hysterical shriek lunged at the slayer. She caught its wrists high and the two strained against each other mightily, maimed and bleeding. With agonizing slowness, Buffy brought the clawed hands down to mid level and met the gaze from behind the soiled bandages.
Those eyes held fear, and misery and a plea for release.
Buffy was stunned by what she saw, so much so that she didn’t hear the hulking abomination behind her. The creature roared and lunged at the vulnerable slayer…and with a snarl Buffy twisted the arms of the bandaged creature and drove its claws right up into the guts of the hulking monster behind her.
“DIE!” she screamed, tearing her throat with its rage and spitting a glob of blood onto the hulking beast as it wailed in pain. She pushed the other creature's claws deeper and deeper into its flabby flesh as the bandaged monster bizarrely laughed even louder as it was unwittingly killing its compatriot.
With a roar, the father creature smashed them both aside, Buffy fell to the “ground” spent, and the bandaged demon collapsed under the blow as the father creature likewise fell back clutching at its oversized belly. Buffy weakly sat up and watched the trio in shock; the bandaged with its skeleton almost broken by the blow, bits of ragged bone peeking out of its body, the father, partially gutted with one meaty hand clutching its stomach trying to keep everything in, and with a look of shock, Buffy watched the mother monster as it got to its feet, head lolling crazily, the razor still embedded in its eye socket and lurch/stumbled towards her.
The bandaged demon, shambling towards Buffy, lashed out with a gory arm and bandages leaped form its body to wrap around the Slayer’s legs. She struggled weakly as she was dragged towards the demonic trio. She felt herself being lifted up as her body was suspended and splayed by the ever-tightening bandages spooling off the creature’s body. She opened her eyes and saw that her arms and legs we bound and splayed wide in all four directions, her bones and muscles throbbed in pain. She lolled her head from side to side in pain-filled deliria and despair. Her brother was dead and she was next, it would be so easy to just.
No.
She may die, but she’d be damned before she surrendered.
She shook her head to clear the blood from her vision and watched. The scenario was depressingly clear. While the bandaged monster kept her bound and splayed, mommy and daddy were going to finish her off. She watched nauseated as the mother monster pulled the razor from her eye, black ooze pouring out of the wound as she prepared to return the favor to Buffy. The father demon readied the huge splintered bat for the final blow; Buffy could actually see where her blood stained the wood.
And then Seth walked in front of her, his eyes filled with…something.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and then it clicked. Buffy opened her mouth to speak when the mother demon lashed out with the razor. Straining, fueled by pain and rage and shock, she felt her shoulders pop as the joints gave way, the ligaments tearing with a red- hot ripping sensation. The blade passed through where Buffy’s face had been not a moment before and sliced through one of the bandages binding her. It wasn’t much but it was enough, Buffy ducked as the mother creature fell forward overextended and right into the path of the oncoming bat swung by the father monster. The bat crunched into the skull of the dead woman, her skull compressed instantly and with a wet shriek she dropped as the bat bounced off her skull out of control. Buffy wrapped her arm around the cut bandage and pulled hard, the bandaged demon stop laughing abruptly as, weakened and wounded as it was, could not keep from stumbling forward right into the path of the wayward bat. The creature shrieked as its bones which were already broken and battered, were jellied on impact. Buffy grabbed the broken monster and swinging it like a club, struck the bat, ricocheting the bat its wielders face. The enormous monster wailed in pain as its own bat pulverized its face and it toppled to the ground.
Her bindings long gone slack, Buffy pulled herself free and toppled away from the bloodied trio. She stared at Seth in shock. Wordlessly the young boy pointed behind her, his face calm. Buffy turned and choked out a sob as the trio got back up. No longer even remotely whole looking, they resembled nothing so much as car accident victims that had been given animation. Their bones pulped, their organs split, their guts pierced, the bloody trio shambled towards Buffy, mouths open and making horrible gurgling sounds.
“They can’t be stopped. I’m sorry,” Seth said, his little boy voice breaking into a near sob. Buffy looked blankly in near shock as one of them reached towards her.
And with an explosion of blood that sprayed Buffy’s back in gore, Seth screamed. Buffy spun around to see Alec standing there, covered in blood from head to toe and wielding the axe that had been dropped.
Which was now embedded in Seth.
Seth tried to look behind him in shock, his little eyes wide in shock.
“W…why?” he asked stunned at his murderer. Dusk gave no reply instead with a feral snarl he tore the blade from the boy’s body. Seth looked down at himself then back at Buffy, whose eyes were wide with shock and horror.
Then he crumpled to the ground and lay still.
There was an ear-piercing shriek Buffy wrenched her gaze away from the horrific sight only to be greeted by a second one. The trio of monsters had split open right down the middle, even more blood sprayed out of them like a geyser as they wailed and thrashed in their death throes.
First the mother dropped, its body split down the middle and oozing red blood this time, not black. It flopped much like a beached fish its mouth opening and closing rapidly making gasping noises before it lay still. It proceeded to sink beneath the blood.
The father dropped next with a colossal impact sending ripples through the multiple rolls of fat around its grotesque belly, which had also been split open down to the bone. It likewise, sank underneath the surface.
Finally, the bandages from around the last monsters head began to unravel revealing a young man with a scarred and pitted face accompanied by haunted eyes.
“Seth,” Buffy whispered. The elder Seth almost smiled before lightly touching his own mortal wound. Then he collapsed and lay still. Buffy turned to face the child Seth. Coated in blood, he too, was dead.
She knelt by Alec who’s breathing was shallow and pained, much like her own. Alec took her bloody hand in his,
“I’m sorry, Buffy. It was…the only way,” he whispered, his face and tone spoke of volumes of pain. Buffy just nodded, resting her cheek on his chest. The two were so thoroughly saturated with blood they barely noticed it anymore. She closed her eyes and felt his chest rise and fall rapidly, she could hear his breath rattling painfully in his body and feel her own doing the same.
A gasp from Dusk caused her to turn to look and tears sprung in her eyes.
It was a sunrise. A bright cleansing sun rising over the horizon of blood, bathing their battered bodies both in beautiful gentle light banishing their horror and pain, it warmed them and she clung to her brother as their two hearts filled with hope that rose, just as a sun now rose over this place of nightmares to herald the coming dawn and glory.
Suddenly, with a rush of blood, a whirlpool began to take shape. Buffy, too tired to feel anything, simply held her brother tightly and felt him hold her just as tightly. They bodies slid around and around as they clung to each other neither tearing their eyes from the awesome spectacle of the sunrise. Their hands entwined, knuckles white. And as brother and sister, they disappeared under the whirling waves and vanished.
Together and alive.

It began as a sub-sonic rumble, more felt than heard, then the rumbling grew, became violent, candelabras toppled, chairs tipped and fell and with an explosion of glass, the stained glass window dominating the space above the altar erupted in a deluge of blood depositing the two battered warriors onto the stone floor below. Buffy coughed and spat up blood rolling onto her hands and knees, pushing aside her gore-matted hair.
“I’m going to be cream-rinsing for a week,” she grumbled before wincing in pain, touching her broken ribs and myriad of other injuries gingerly. She looked around and spied her brother in a sitting position propped up against a wall, chin resting lightly against his chest. She crawled to him and stroked his hair back.
“Hey? Alec?” she whispered. She took his hand in hers and pressed the palm to her face. Smiling, she felt the fingers lightly stroke her cheek. Dusk took her bloody hand in his and kissed. Buffy giggled and made a face.
“Yuck,” she commented. Then he grinned and with a whoop, Buffy leapt into his arms hugging him tightly tears leaking down her face, washing away the blood from her eyes and leaving twin trails of clean skin in their wakes.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered hoarsely. Dusk shook his head and kissed her hair gently. “I love you, big brother,”
“I love you too, kid sister,” he replied. They held each other like that for a few moments, each taking a moment to cry and rid themselves of the horror of the nightmare world. Their tears were cool and pure, like water for a fevered man, they washed away the pain and in their wake left peace and the knowledge that they had won and they were alive.
After a while, the tears ceased and the looked into each other’s face for a moment.
“You know, you kind of look like Sissy Spacek at the end of “Carrie,” Dusk commented dryly reaching out to clean the blood off her face with his hand. Buffy chuckled and wiped some blood from Dusk’s face.
“Hell, so do you, Alec,” She replied smiling, deliberately rubbing her hand against his eyes and nose. He swatted her hand away and placed a kiss on it, chuckling.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone’s a critic. Can you walk?” he asked her. Buffy nodded and got to her feet slowly and very unsteadily. She turned to look down at her brother,
“Okay, that’s me. How about you?” she asked. Dusk chuckled and nodded,
“Yeah, just give me a second to get the pins and needles out of my legs from you sitting on them,” he retorted wryly then stopped when he noticed the look on Buffy’s face.
“What?” he asked.
“I haven’t been sitting on your legs,” she replied quietly. Dusk frowned in disbelief,
“But…I can’t feel my legs” he whispered. He struggled to his feet trying to push himself up, with a cry Buffy raced to him helping him to his feet…only to have to hold him up as his legs gave way from underneath him.
“My legs…I can’t…move my legs,” Dusk talked, pale and terrified. Buffy shook her head violently,
“It’s nothing we’ll wait until your regenerative abilities kick in,” she began to cry as over and over she’d lift him up only to have him fall. Finally in a cry of frustration, she dropped him he landed heavily into a chair cracking his back against the wood. Buffy sank to her knees weeping,
“No, oh no, oh Alec, oh I’m so sorry,” she looked up at him her eyes tear stained, “It’s my fault. I should have covered you when that thing smashed the ground and the shockwave came,”
“You didn’t have time,” Dusk replied evenly, regaining some of his composure. “If you had tried to make it back to me, the shockwave would have hit us both and we would both be dead,” he took her chin and forced her eyes to meet his, “You saved us, and I for one am grateful.” He looked down at his now-useless legs, “Besides, Spike managed to recover from his time in a wheelchair and if that great lout can…” he smiled.
Buffy despite herself laughed and wiped at her eyes, “Cheap shot, but okay. Maybe Willow or Marlena can do something about it,” Dusk nodded, clinging to that hope as well.
Buffy reached down and helped her brother to his feet. He grunted in pain as she looked around the now blood stained temple,
“Boy, that Rabbi is going to be….” Her voice trailed off as she and her brother had the same thought.
“I was wondering where he’d gone,” Dusk mumbled quietly as they scanned the room for any sign of the young Rabbi. Buffy gestured to a door then lurched as the movement threw the weakened pair off balance. She placed a hand steadying on his chest and nodded towards the door.
“Let’s try there,” the pair hobbled towards the door, upon reaching it Buffy grasped the doorknob and twisted hard.
“Locked,” she commented rubbing her hand gingerly and trying to cover the wound on top of it at the same time. Dusk lurched forward and plowed a large steel hammerhead into the door splintering it and sending it flying open. A rancid smell nearly bowled them both. Buffy nearly retched but was mindful of dropping her brother, who was busy transmuting the hammer back into a hand.
Lying face down on the floor was the body of a young man dressed in the trappings of a Rabbi.
“Uh-oh,” Buffy commented, Dusk peered at the corpse,
“Judging by the flies, condition of the corpse and the-“ he coughed, “-smell. I’d say this man’s been dead a good long while.” Conjuring a sword-blade from his hand, he gently slide the flat of the blade up under the face of the corpse to turn it over, then frowned when he felt resistance.
“Uh, it’s stuck,” he commented. Buffy made a face,
“Could this get any more yucky?” She asked, helping Dusk get a better leverage and together, putting their weight behind it.
There was a loud ripping sound and with a thump, the body flopped over onto its back. Buffy immediately retched with Dusk not far behind.
The front half of the skull was missing. Not only the face but the muscle tissue and even the front of the skull was gone. It was if his entire face down to the brain was scooped out of his head.
Coughing, trying to ignore the smell coming out of the cadaver, as well as the shreds of flesh lingering on the floor where the body has been fused to the floor, Dusk leaned over as best he could and fingered a medallion; the Star of David, around the corpses neck.
“This is definitely the Rabbi and he’s been dead a heck of a lot longer than we were gone,” he informed his pale sister.
“Which means the Rabbi we met was an imposter,” she replied. Dusk sighed,
“Houston, we have a problem.”

The ragged pair, still caked in dried blood from their time in the Nightmare Realm, hobbled towards the doors. Buffy, still carrying her now-paralyzed brother leaned forward to open it.
An explosion of light followed by a deafening roar as a spotlight from a helicopter painted them in a burst of blinding light. Buffy and Dusk shielded their eyes vainly, blinking back a world of multi-colored blobs from their eyes. As their vision cleared, an amplified voice rang out,
“This is the NYPD, throw down your weapons and lie down on your stomachs. Now!”
“Yes, Houston,” Dusk commented stunned at the sea of shotgun-toting policemen that had appeared, “We definitely have a problem.”


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