You were a robot.
Or so the VHS tapes left to you by your creator Warren had told you.
Even though it was forbidden for you to watch them you did so. You would sneak into the library and slowly slide out the antique VHS tapes from its protective coverings. You would blow the dust off of its sides and gentle slip your finger into the white hole inside each wheel. You would push your fingernail into the antique cranking mechanism and manually turn the tape a few times.
You did just to commune with a piece of technology that was closer to you in evolution then man was to proto monkeys.
You would find the old abandoned VCR in the basement and slide the tape into the VCR. On the screen there would be a face with dark hair and nerdy eyes. Warren would talk and you would sit with your elbows on your knees and watch him ramble on and on. It wasn't that you needed to hear anything he had to say.
It was just that he was talking to you.
You would carefully eject the tape after you had finished listening to him. You would slide the VHS tape into its protective sleeve and turn off the VCR and the cathode ray television and you would put the VHS tape back in the library.
The next morning you would be happy.
You always smiled but you were not always happy.
You were a Barbie girl and you were always pretty and acted nice. Sometimes you acted like you were malfunctioning just to have a day off. You couldn't ever really malfunctioning though. Even when your limbs shivered and your words were wrong you knew you weren't malfunctioning.
Because you were made by Warren and Warren was god.
You knew that at the very base of your programming. Deep down inside the ROM that activated your eyelids to open in the morning when you awakened from 'sleep' there were the commands that Warren was god. It was etched into your electronic brain with an electronic microscope and Waldos.
You were employed by a family.
You never knew their names since they never told you. They never told you the date but you knew it was the future. Only in the future would people no longer go to Los Angeles but only refer to it as that 'heap of radioactive slag'.
You had been awakened by them one day. You were sort of fuzzy on how you had gotten there. You had remembered Dawn and Warren and Anya and pain and static. You had remembered you had once been loved. You had remembered all those things. You remember waking up and surrounded by this family as they took you out of your protective plastic covering. You remember this new family had told you that you were the Slayer, and that you were there to protect them. You were always alone with them even when they were happy and complimented you on your beauty.
You remember glancing down at your arm and seeing in the infrared just underneath the skin faint markings of a product number over your right forearm.
You had wondered if you were a product, mass produced and sent to families all over the country. You had wondered if every town had a slayer now. You wondered if they had your memories.
Static. Anya. Warren. Static. Spike talking to you. Sunnydale Home. Static. Spike fucking you. Joyce. Static. Warren. Static. Static. Heat. Pain. Delight. Despair. Joy. Insipid. Fucking. Joy.
You were always and couldn't turn that feeling off even when you were unhappy. You were happy to clean their crap and you were happy to patrol at night. You were happy to walk with a wooden stake around the border of their property at night. Your home was sunnydale and you weren't there and you were happy for that. You were happy to wear your idiotic clothing that never changed and was always clean. You were happy to step through the wet grass and over the dark dirt of the forest north east of the property. You were happy to keep your eyes open for any vampire that might choose to attack. You were happy to live with strangers and to save their lives day by day and night by night and to clean their crap and wipe their noses. You missed your home. Sunnydale. Revello Drive. The bedroom upstairs. Mr. Gordo the soft plush pig you could tell your secrets to. You could tell Mr. Gordo that you were tired; life was boring, that you hated your destiny, and that only excitement could interest you now.
You were sick and tired of being the Buffybot. You were sick and tired of being the slayer. You were sick and tired of being chirpy and always having the same vocal responses.
You remember meeting Spike. It had been a dark moonlight night. You had been patrolling. You had met him and he had met you. You had waited for him to open his lips. You had seen his dark black coat trailing over the moonlight ground like a raven's wing. You remember his sexy head tilt and the way his eyes had met yours. You remember how your body responded and how you felt warm deep down in your stomach where your spare battery was.
You remember the tone of his voice but you had forgotten his words. You knew you could never tell Spike your secrets, only your facts. You remember the way the moonlight looked in his eyes but you had forgotten the color of his face. You remember he had wanted to love you, to hold you, but first he had needed to enter the property you were protecting and feast on the family that lived there.
You remember how he had seduced you with his head tilt and made sweet love to you with his glances. You remember how he backed you against a tree and how you would have given him anything. How you would have let him kill and feast on the family you had protected if he had only said he loved you.
You remember the sound of silence he had made from his lips as you had plunged the stake into his belly.
You remember the shiny gears and electronics that had spilled out from the opening you had made.
You didn't remember him falling backwards to the ground.
You remember what he looked like as he laid flat on his back as his dead face looked up at the sky.
You remember the awkward position of his arms all bent and crooked. You had straightened them. You remember he had lain there on the coat that was like a ravens wing looking up at the uncaring sky. You remember feeling more alone then you ever had been.
You remember crouching there in the forest looking at him until morning. You remember trying to cry but realizing you had no tear ducts. You had crouched there with your hands on your knees until the moon had gone away. You wanted to say something but nothing had come to you behind your lips except chirpy quips that you chocked back. You realize Spike was the enemy but he deserved more then imitations of valley girl speak.
You had realized he was a copy like you. You realized that everyone was programmed for their, him no less then you. Only he had been programmed by someone bad and you by someone good. Maybe someday you two would meet in an electronic heaven.
You had realized that this family you protected had become your family now. Their home was now yours. You loved them the way you had loved your old family in Sunnydale. You would bring them safety. You would bring them order. You realized the world was Chaos but that you were Slayer.
The next time the next Spike visited you in the moonlight you did not wait for him to speak to plunge your stake into him.
Silvery gears had spilled out through his synthetic skin. They fell through the air on to the dirt of the forest floor. Spike had opened his lips and only a faint electronic screech above the range of human hearing issued forth. His eyes were blank, like glass ciphers.
Spike had not finished crumpling backwards with his arms bent awkwardly before you had walked away.
You had walked back home in the pale moonlight.