A cloud of dust coiled up into the heavy air of the small lobby office within the Hyperion. Stuffed into a cramped chair, Angel sat behind a pile of musty volumes prophesizing the end of days, the apocalypse, and the casting of the world into infinite darkness. He sighed vaguely, as though only obtusely aware of how familiar these texts were, in the grand scheme of his work.
"Every day, a new prophecy about the end of the world as we know it," he muttered.
"What?" Wesley chirped, poking his head in from the adjoining office. He'd pulled his glasses down to the end of his nose, and held a book precariously in one hand. The pages fluttered under his nose.
"Nothing yet." The vampire uttered in response as he smoothed his hand over an image of some spike-crested demon, and turned the page.
"Right. Well, let me know the moment you find something of use!" With that, the former watcher pulled the oak door shut with a bang.
Somewhere far beyond the Sunnydale Hospital, Buffy listened to the irritating beeping of an alarm clock. From the smooth sheets, she reached out her fingers and slid them over a snooze button, buried under a thick layer of dust and debris.
"It's time to get up!" Joyce called from somewhere on the first floor of the house.
"I totally get the bathroom first!" Dawn mused excitedly, her voice closer than that of the eldest Summers, but still far beyond Buffy's reach.
Sleepily, the Slayer turned onto her side and crawled out of bed. A sliver of pain, sharp like a knife, shot through her chest. She winced, widening her groggy green eyes, and held tightly to the side of the bed until the sensation passed. Her left hand rose to cup the location of the sting, nursing it tenderly with a sweeping stroke of the fingers.
"Heartburn," she muttered to herself. "I must be getting old."
Satisfied, she got to her feet, only to hear the whoosh of the showerhead throwing water against the bathroom tile. The sound seemed to drone inside her head, though the upstairs bathroom was across the hall and down two doors on the other side of the staircase. Buffy shrugged thoughtlessly and moved to the mirror to fix her hair and rub the sleep from her eyes. There, hidden in the reflection, a small plush pig hovered as though held by two unseen hands.
A cool breeze drifted through the empty room, fluttering the pages of old, open texts. Grumpily, Angel averted his eyes to the door, expecting to see Wesley's head poked back through the portal, waiting for the answer to life's questions. Yet, when his brooding brown eyes rose to stare menacingly at Wesley's wire-rimmed glasses and beady little eyes, he found that the door was still shut and that the breeze had dissipated to stillness once again.
Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Angel dropped his gaze back to the volume he was studying. He skimmed the words, written in ancient Greek, and then read them a second time, trying to decipher the code of nouns and verbs in reverse order. Just as he was ready to move on to the next paragraph, the corners of the book flickered and a gentle swirling breeze eased over the small hairs on the back of his neck.
"I said nothing yet, Wes…" Angel barked as he lifted his head angrily toward the old oak door. There, in front of the door, luminescent particles of dust appeared to assemble in the shape of a young woman. Soundlessly, the vampire rose from his chair and leaned over the desk, his mouth hanging wide open.
"Angel?" Buffy whispered into the mirror, reflecting only her self and the floating toy pig a short distance behind her. Timid fingers reached up toward the pane of glass and left smudged prints. In her reflection, the Slayer's eyes seem to fog. "We're caught in a fire."
Angel gulped at the air, as though trying to draw in breath for the first time in more than two hundred years. His hands trembled against the desk, making a slight rattling noise on the varnished wood. Before him, the rolling dust collected into the fully-formed reflection of a familiar woman. A few waves of shimmering blond hair framed her sweet face, but the smile he remembered in his dreams had wilted to a worried frown. The girl's brow was creased with apparent pain, and the scent of fear rose to Angel's demonic nostrils as though the apparition were real.
"Buffy?" His voice was uncharacteristically small, buried deep within his throat and warbling with uncertainty. Before he could process another thought, Angel scrambled around the side of his desk and ran toward the ghostly vision.
Beyond the mirror, the alarm clock began to beep again. It echoed in her ears and ached inside her skull. Through the looking glass, it flashed illegible green numbers over and over again.
"Buffy, it's time to go!" Joyce called from far away. She was no longer at the bottom of the stairs, but had made it as far as the driveway. Her manicured fingernails hung over the passenger door of the Jeep, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her daughter.
"We've got to stop this bleeding…" Dawn mused pleasantly from inside the bathroom.
"It's the point of no return," the Slayer sighed, stepping closer to the mirror. The glass seemed to warp as she approached, and the tips of her fingers slid through, like a cat's paw dipping into a rippling pond.
"Buffy!" Angel cried out, grasping at the dust-formed girl hovering a few inches above the floor. It was only then that he noticed she wore a filmy hospital gown with small blue flowers printed on the front. A dark grey stain saturated the front of the loose garment, and it seemed to grow larger with each passing second.
Angel reached out with both hands, straining to get a grip on the illusion, grasping at falling straws. The dust swirled from his hands each time his fists closed, and moved to rejoin the image. Tears glazed his eyes while he watched her ghostly lips move without sound to join them. The movements were so vague that even if he could read lips, the words would be lost.
Reluctantly, she pressed her face against the glass, pushing through as she walked toward the flashing clock and away from the persistent beep. Her fingers outstretched, reaching for the switch to shut down the sound, but it was still too far away. Beyond the clock, Angel sat on the edge of Buffy's unmade bed, hidden partially by shadows. She paused briefly to gaze at him.
"We've got more bleeding…" Dawn's voice echoed from the downstairs landing.
"We'll walk through the fire," Buffy murmured, passing almost completely through the reflective glass. Only her left ankle and the fingers of her right hand remained on Dawn's side of the house. It seemed as though the closer she got to the blinking alarm, the more distant and repressive the incessant noise became.
"Buffy! Hold on! Don't…!" Angel pleaded as the dust recoiled, returning to its places of origin around the small office. Beyond her fading figure, the door knob rattled and turned but refused to open. Sharp bangs echoed through the heavy oak and the voices of Wesley and Fred cried out in muffled pleas.
Angel fell to his knees as the remainder of the image disappeared and a handful of dust dropped toward the carpet. Reaching out his empty hands, Angel caught the tiny pile of debris and cradled it, as though it were a part of the woman that had appeared before him only moments ago. The room lay still again, as though nothing had happened, and the lock loosened on the door, allowing it to burst open. Wesley fell against the ground with a grunt, knocking his glasses loose.
Trembling, Angel lifted the small pile of grey matter toward his face and inhaled the scent. Wesley and Fred watched wordlessly as he rubbed the dust between two fingers and sniffed it a second time. The smell was, unmistakably, gunpowder. Angel parted his lips to speak when a tiny swirl of wind brushed against his skull, tickling the lobe of his ear. Buffy's voice was distinct, and Angel's still heart fluttered.
"Let it burn."
End.