The Wind Beyond the Walls of the Mind: The Beginning and a Farewell part 2
by Gaius Petronius
The Wind Beyond the Walls of the Mind
Chapter 1 - The Beginning and a Farewell - continued

Buffy Summers, stake drawn, eyes glaring tensely ahead, strode purposefully from between the tombstones in the Sunnydale Cemetery as she moved on patrol. Clearly nervous, she sensed something just beyond the limits of her vision. She
stepped out into a clearing between two crypts and came to a sudden halt.

Emanating from beyond the surrounding monuments, a red glow rose from one focused point out in the darkness. It built in intensity as it floated forward into the clearing towards Buffy. She raised her arms in a defensive stance.

"All right, that's it!" she yelled defiantly at the phenomenon. "You've been stalking me for three nights now! Get out here so I can kick your butt!"

Suddenly Riley Finn slipped sheepishly out from a border of bushes on the edge of the clearing where he had been hiding. Clothed in his camouflage outfit, he carried an electronic rifle mounted with an infrared scope. In surprise, Buffy glanced over her shoulder. The fury welled up in her again, the fury at his constant meddling in her work, the fact that he continually followed her while on patrol as if she couldn't take care of herself.

"Shit! Not you, you jerk face!"

Ignoring the insult, Riley raised his rifle and took aim at the threatening red light, now coalescing into an oval shape. Within the sphere, the light formed into three separate orbs each with a central focal point. Around its outer perimeter, the red light started to whirl about the focus in a sweep of growing flames. At the same time, the voices of Xander, Anya and Willow shouted from out in the darkness. The beam of a flashlight, penetrating through the bushes, waved wildly in the air.

"Will! I know it's this way!" Xander announced, trying his best to be assertive.

"Xander! Buffy's over here."

"No Will! This is the path! I'm sure of it!"

Suddenly Buffy and Riley heard the dull thud of flesh hitting stone . The flashlight beam suddenly dropped to the ground.

"OW!" Xander squalled from out of the bushes.

"Is this fun?" Anya's sarcastic voice cut through the darkness like a loosed arrow. "You said when Willow called we were going to go have fun. I don't see any fun here, just a lot of dead people."

Finally Willow stepped into the clearing followed by Anya who held up a limping Xander. Xander nursed his bruised knee with one hand and waved the flashlight around with the other.

"What the hell are you guys doing?! Get outta here!!" Buffy screamed.

The coalescing red form floated in ever closer. A stench from the crimson shape swept around them all, and Willow began to gag. Buffy stepped back as Riley advanced to her side. Anya's eyes fell on the entity which she recognized immediately.

"This . . . is not fun!" she announced firmly.

Quickly, she grabbed Xander's flashlight and directed the beam into the center of the three forming red orbs. A rush of air swept by them. Buffy imagined that the entity was emitting some kind of silent scream. Then, like the vanishing ripples where a stone has fallen into a still pond, in an instant, the blazing phenomenon dissolved away as the artificial light made contact. Buffy, Riley, Xander, Anya and Willow were left standing in the darkness with only the beam of Xander's flashlight to illuminate the surrounding graveyard.

Buffy dropped her defensive stance and glared in anger at each one of the Scooby Gang.

"Oh, oh, here it comes," Anya said under her breath.

Buffy's last look of fury was reserved for Riley. She tried to speak but at first she couldn't form the words to express how furious she was with them all for following her.

So instead she just seethed while the rest of the Scooby Gang stood waiting for the explosion.

"This is not good! This is sooo not good!" Buffy finally spat out as she turned in disgust and stormed out of the clearing.

No one moved.

"Well, . . . that wasn't so bad," Anya finally announced with a perky grin.

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