Shades
All quiver, who see them standing there, in the breath of darkness, bleak shades of a nightmare.
“Dawn!” Buffy shouted into the darkness. Her flare hissed madly in the oppressive silence. She had been shouting ever since she had found herself in the dark place. She knew that there was some real logic to her plan. The tunnel out of the white place had been straight ahead of where they had originally exited from the dark place. Dawn had been almost on a direct line from there back to the inferno. “Dawn” she shouted again.
Finally, she spotted motion at the edge of her vision. She rushed forward until the two huddling figures were inside her circle of light. The taller of them stood and walked away into the darkness, leaving Dawn alone on the floor. Buffy rushed for her, worried about the identity of the visitor.
Dawn accepted her sister’s hug as if her previous abandonment had been nothing. She said nothing as Buffy apologized again and again, begging for Dawn’s forgiveness. Dawn simply nodded and forgave her. She allowed herself to be led by the hand to the edge of the inferno where Buffy paused and took Dawn by the shoulders.
Buffy wasn’t entirely sure why Dawn was being so nice about this, forgiving her, not biting her head off or even crying, she noted. “It’s okay,” Dawn said calmly as Buffy looked at her with worried eyes. “Mom explained everything,”she said simply, then walked ahead of her sister into the inferno.
Past the chain workers, past the Guardian who sat very still in his throne, a bead of black blood marking where Angel had ensured the others’ escape. The sisters walked out through the door with the spot to see Giles, Andrew and Xander standing by the stairs. Dawn walked quietly forward to them and turned. “You have to go back now, Buffy,” she said.
Buffy blinked. “What?” She looked to the faces of the others. “I’m taking you all home, just as soon as Willow gets here,” she argued.
“Willow is with Spike,” Giles informed her. “They need you now.”
Buffy’s frown deepened. “How do you know-” she began.
“Trust us,” Xander answered, his eyes remarkably soothing considering the bullet hole in his forehead.
“They need the other Challenger,” Andrew said, stuffing his hands into his suit pockets. “It’s not complete without you.”
Buffy was very confused. Slowly, however, it dawned on her. “You’re not real, are you?” There was no accusation, just contemplative observation.
“We’re real enough,” was Dawn’s reply. Her voice had none of the emotion of before. It was collected as if this was all some sort of business meeting.
“Are they really dead?” Buffy asked, looking from one to the other.
“Yes,” was Giles’ reply.
Buffy worked her jaw. “Can they be brought back?” Her voice was losing some of the calm.
“Yes,” Xander answered. “If you hurry.”
Buffy’s eyes widened. She turned, dropping the flare, running back for the inferno. At the door she stopped and turned. The four of them stood together, like a eerie family photograph. Their eyes were calm and steady, their expressions unreadable. “Who are you?” She asked.
All four of them smiled as one.
Buffy ran through the dark place as fast as her legs would carry her. She had ditched her rucksack and the flare, making the journey as light on her aching legs as possible. In a painful instant, she was running through the bright place, the loud place.
She searched ahead of her as she ran for the dark spot that was the low tunnel. She spotted a dark spot to her left and ran towards it, realizing too late that it was, instead, a hole in the floor. With a shout she fell through the hole into a cavern.
Luckily for her it was only about fifteen feet high and she was able to roll to break her fall. She stood and looked around. Two beady eyes looked back at her from a flabby face, set above a wide grinning mouth. There was a sound like a sneeze.
Buffy slowly reached to the ground and picked up a short sword which was conveniently laying in a pile of dust. “Okay...” she said uncertainly. “This may not have been the smartest refuge...”
“Buffy!” Willow shouted from the partially concealed door, behind the fat thing. “We’re almost at the end,” she explained. “Try and get past it!”
“That’s not looking too promising,” Buffy answered. She held the sword out in front of her as the creature leaned forward and then straightened, standing to its full height. It took a lumbering step forward. “If I don’t kill it now,” she said to herself, “I’ll just have to kill it on our way out.”
Fatty waddled a bit farther forward, ignoring Buffy and picking up a small dead body which seemed to be missing its head. The monster dangled the corpse over its enormous mouth and swallowed it whole.
Buffy, meanwhile, was slowly moving towards Willow’s shape in the entrance. She heard the thunk of the thing’s footsteps behind her just as she saw the face of the figure behind Willow.
“Angel-” she whispered, stopping dead.
“Buffy-!” Angel warned.
In one fluid motion which seemed to run in her mind in slow motion, Buffy turned and hurled the sword into the air. It sang as it spun through the column of light from the ceiling. It twisted and flashed in the bright light as it neared the monster’s ugly face, all in slow motion in the Slayer’s eyes. The flash off its surface drove a blinding glare into the monster’s eyes, it howled, opening its mouth to bring its eyes away from the light, just as the sword, in a singing arc spun clean through the back of the monster’s throat, severing its spine.
There was a terrible gurgling and the thing reached up for its head, which had fallen with a squishing sound to the stone floor. Its hands dropped to its sides and it fell backwards, crashing into the stone wall. Gallons of evil smelling bile poured out from its throat, or neck. It jiggled on the floor for a moment, then settled in on itself, expelling a last bubble of breath through the dark fluid.
Buffy turned, the slow motion feeling subsiding. She walked to where Angel and Willow were standing, just outside the doorway. They were in awe.
“Angel,” Buffy said quietly, as if the Goliath behind her meant nothing. “I thought you were dead.” It sounded corny in her own ears, but it expressed too perfectly how she felt. “I... Thought you were dead,” she said again.
“So did I,” he answered. “Apparently Spike was good enough to lend me his... existence,” Angel was obviously none too sure of this himself, “but all I know is I’ve died about half a dozen times in an hour or so, and each time I wake up after Spike has apparently done the same.”
“I see,” Buffy was emotionally battered. She was honestly not sure what was real anymore. For the first time since arriving there she let out a heart felt laugh. It occurred to her for the very first time that all of this could be a dream. She looked with amused eyes at her two friends, and simply sighed. No, it wasn’t a dream. It made too much sense.
The three walked through the tunnel in silence, the darkness opening up again to the final chamber. None of them said anything, but somehow they each knew this was the end. The one defining feature of this cave, among all the others, besides its residents, was its lack of a second door. It was a bubble in a tube of solidified lava, buried deep in a volcano, lost in a valley in Spain.
The scars under their eyes burned hot. Before them waited the Senior Partners.
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