She hadn't meant to do it. Of course she hadn't meant to do it. Who would have? Who could have? She was staring at her hands and the mess on the floor in front of her, but her mind just would not accept what she was seeing. She couldn't have done it, it just wasn't possible. She found herself shaking her head in a negation that she was doomed to fail. She had done it, she knew she had, she remembered doing it, yet how could this be real? How could a normal night out with friends have turned so weird and, ultimately, fatal?
She'd been dancing in her local club when things had started to go wrong. One minute she was dancing, the next she felt a power surge through her. She felt a strength in her she'd never felt before, a euphoria that shot through her entire being and left her thoroughly elated yet confused. No longer in the mood for dancing she'd grabbed her coat and left. She got only a couple of hundred feet away before he attacked. Jumping out of a darkened street he'd lunged for her, one hand on her bag, the other holding a knife to her throat. The fear had shot through her and she'd reacted before she'd even had time to think about what she was doing. Her fist shot out, breaking the mans' nose and spraying them both with blood. They both stopped in shock, but it was the attacker who recovered first. In his shock at her retaliation he'd dropped his knife but instead of going to retrieve it, he'd lunged for her, grabbing her by the neck and pushing her against the wall. She struggled against him for a few seconds, panicking as she began to get dangerously short of breath. It was only as she was near passing out that her instincts took over. Her hands clamped around her attackers head and began to squeeze. She felt him remove his hands from her neck as he tried to pry her hands off his head. She heard him scream once, but her senses had clouded over and it was as though she heard it faintly through a deafening roar. She was reacting through fear, going completely on instinct, she could see what she was doing, but it just would not register with her logical brain.
As she saw blood begin to pour out of all his facial orifices the thought that she could not be doing this passed dully through her mind, but she didn't stop. Impossibly she increased the pressure on his head and seconds later she felt the skull crack and then break, she felt her fingers go through the relatively soft brain, and it was only then, as she released the pressure, as she felt the body fall to the fall, as she watched her former attacker crumple to the ground, it was only then she registered what she had done.
She'd killed a man.
She'd been attacked and she'd crushed his skull.
Her rational mind was telling her it was self defence, but she couldn't focus on that, all she could concentrate on was the dead body in front of her. She was confused, she was beyond scared, her heart was racing, and she couldn't think straight to decide on a course of action.
In the end she simply ran. When she reached home she spent over an hour in the shower trying to wash the blood off her hands. How could she have done it? Kill a man? Crush his skull? She was the girl who came last in gym class, who couldn't hit worth a damn. And yet she'd just broken a fully grown man's skull with her bare hands.
For a long time she stood under the almost scalding hot water, trying to wash away the blood on her conscience , for none was left on her skin. Her tears did naught to ease her mind. Eventually she left the shower, numbed finally after her long bout of crying, yet still no closer to answers. She sat on her bed for what seemed like hours, unable to really process what had happened, in a state of pure astonishment. It was only a loud pounding on her bedroom door that eventually broke her out of her stunned reverie.
She opened the door to find her father stood there in his dressing gown, clearly furious. She managed to understand his words enough to grasp that there was a man at the front door asking for her. So terrified was she that someone had discovered her murder already that her father's fury at being awakened at 2am by a complete stranger, didn't even register.
Once her father had stormed off back to his own room, she made her way downstairs to the front door, finding a man stood in her foyer. He looked to be in his mid-forties from what she could see of his face, partially obscured as it was by his hat. He wore a long coat and held an umbrella. In her shock she hadn't even realised it had started raining on her journey home.
For a few seconds there was silence before eventually the man spoke.
"Karen, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alon, I am a member of the Watcher's council."
"What's the Watcher's council?" Karen asked, barely able to keep her voice steady in her fear.
"Please, is there a sitting room we can retire to?"
Slowly she led him into the adjacent room before sitting on opposite sofa's.
"Thank you. Now Karen I do not want you to fear me, I am not associated with the law, I am not here to punish or imprison you, I am here to help you. I witnessed your assault earlier…"
In her fear at these words Karen scrambled to her feet, looking towards the door, intent on running, going anywhere to get away from this man who knew what she had done. Alon however raised a hand to calm her as he continued.
"Do not be alarmed, as I said I am not here to punish you. I have been watching you for some weeks now and what I saw tonight confirmed my suspicions."
His words did not abate her fear one bit, all they did was increase her confusion.
"Karen, what I am going to tell you will not be easy to accept, but you need to listen, you need to try to understand. Please, I ask you to sit once more."
Slowly she did as she was instructed, but always she was poised to run if the need should arise, she was only sorry now that she had not taken the couch closest to the door.
"Karen, all your life you have been told that monsters do not exist. This is simply not true. They do exist, but there also exists people to fight them. To every generation a slayer is born, one girl in all the world, she alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer. She is you."
Karen stayed silent, simply because she did not know what to say, and let him continue.
"I have been watching you for two reasons. One is that I suspected that you were a potential slayer. As one slayer dies, the next is called. I believed that you were one of the girls who had the potential to become a slayer once the current one died. The second was that all over the world, potentials have been targeted, been killed in an attempt to wipe out the slayer line. Not only potentials but Watchers too. It is us Watcher's who train the slayer, teach her all she needs to know about how to be the slayer, how to battle evil. Just as potentials have been targeted, so have their Watchers. I have been watching you in the hopes of warning you, should an attack ever come, but I was not sure you were ready to be approached by me, so I maintained my distance. However tonight, one of the council's powerful seer's saw events occur at the Hellmouth that no one could have predicted. An extremely powerful witch used an artifact linked to the Slayer line to cast a spell. The result of that spell was that all the potentials, every single one throughout the world, became a Slayer. At the time this happened I was watching you in the club, I'd seen your strange behaviour on the dancefloor, and followed you when you left. Almost immediately, our seer sent out a telepathic message informing all the watchers within her range of what had happened. The revelation left me distracted and for a minute I lost sight of you, when I found you, it was only in time to watch you kill that man, and what I had seen was confirmed, only a Slayer could have done what you did."
For a long time there was silence as Karen tried to come to terms with all she had heard. Alon left her to her thoughts, studying her expressions, wondering if he had done the right thing leaving her alone before. Wondering if he could turn her into a good Slayer. He himself was still reeling from the nights events, unsure how to continue with so much of the Watcher's council destroyed. Yet he knew he had to continue, they all did. The world was filled with potentials who had survived the First's slaughter, they were now all Slayers and too many of them, like this young girl, had no idea what was happening to them. They needed help, all of them. He just hoped they would accept it.
Neither of them was aware of the minutes ticking away, so engrossed with their own thoughts were they. After barely an hour though, Karen reached her decision. Her thoughts finally formed themselves into an understandable order and she raised her eyes to meet those of the man sat in front of her. For better or for worse, she knew what she had to do.
"Teach me…"