Hello! So I finished The Beast Within after like forever, but on top of that story, I was working on two others as well. This is the unpublished one of them. Creepy post apocalypse appeal to anyone, with Faith as the main character? :P
Daylight reveals a husk of a city. Its long, meandering roads are devoid of even the remotest scrap of life. Where the skies teemed once with greasy smog from a snake-line of cars, and the streets were packed with people weaving through each other to their own odds and ends; where laughter and shrieks rang out from the playgrounds in the middle of a wave of green, and neon signs flickered brightly outside their respective buildings in their blaze of colours - there is now nothing.
Years of dust have accumulated on the shop windows. Shelves are stripped bare of every item they displayed. The asphalt is brittle and worn. Shadows reach across from each side of the street. A rat scurries along, gaunt and sickly looking, grey fur blending into the gutters. Other than that and the tumbling rustle of loose paper - it's empty.
Faith Lehane wanders in stone silence, tense and prowling like a predator. Every step is full of awareness of her surroundings and the expectation of danger that goes with them. A wickedly curved sword hangs down her back in a polished brown sheath. It reflects the sun, partially concealed by grey clouds.
She crawls in through the broken window of a house with a sturdy oaken door. The walls are smeared with graffiti - and the house is unfurnished and abandoned.
This whole thing is a routine for her. She often scavenges amongst streets like this, checking into buildings for anything to salvage: tinned condiments, clothes, weapons - just to help make one day easier, to make survival less of a struggle.
Most days turn out empty handed. Anything of value has long since been looted. Supplies of food have either perished or been eaten. The people are dead or gone. Sometimes, dried spots of blood can be seen scattered along a door knob or the floor, telling her something terrible has happened here.
Much like the rest of the city. Much like the rest of the world.
She finds her way to the lowest level of the house, to the basement with its rotten wooden stairs and dust-choked interior. At first it seems deceptively barren. She searches the floor until her sharp eyes spot an almost indiscernible rise. With feral hunger she tears open the cemented workings to reveal treasures, and begins to scoop as much as she possibly can into the burlap sack she tugs from her belt.
She holds up a jar of peanut butter. It's funny, the things Faith misses the most from the old world at times. She stares at the jar with rising feelings of nostalgia, trying to recall the taste of something her tongue has long forgotten before placing it in the sack. There's tuna tins, noodle sachets, hot dogs; beans, pickled onions, pickled cabbage and a whole bunch of items she never thought she'd see again. Her hands tremble at the sight of so much glorious produce, right here for the taking. Marmalade. Chocolate. Faith inhales sharply and tears open the wrapper of one of the bars to take a huge bite. Oh God, she misses chocolate. She finishes off the slice of heaven and carries on packing.
The sack bulges to near bursting point before she finally stops in her plundering. Luxuries like this will become rarer and rarer. The world is locked in a coma, enduring a twisted nightmare from which it cannot escape. She takes each moment in her stride, knowing that one of them might be the last.
She critically examines the still large sprawl of condiments, mentally noting to tell the others about this spot. They need every last morsel for the journey ahead. The world is cold and full of shadows - and humanity nears extinction. Small remnants wander the landscape as nomads, their numbers decimated.
Their time is over. They do what they can.
If only it were a dream. Sometimes she wakes up and forgets where she is. There's the smell of fresh food in the air. There's the warm covers of a bed and the comforting walls of a house. Everyone's still alive. Everything makes sense. And Buffy's there, her nemesis and comrade all in one, dancing the same dance they've always done.
But that is the dream.
This is reality.