It was dark. He wasn't sure how long it had been that way, but knew it hadn't always been. He could remember light, and warmth. Not everything was bleak. And lonely.
He tried to blink. Couldn't tell if he had, 'cause his view never changed. Black is black. Tried to move, but there was nothing to touch, nothing to reference from. Couldn't really feel, granted, so moving was a little pointless. Nowhere to go anyway.
No sound. No smell. There was nothing here. He existed in nothing. But if there was nowhere to exist, could he really be existing?
****
Ping.
Ping? Was that a ping? He tried to turn to the sound, but couldn't move. Besides, it was so echoey in the vast dark that he couldn't tell where it came from.
There it goes again, louder now. Definitely a sound, not something he imagined he could hear to pass the time.
Not like those voices. The never ending cacophony that he knew, yet couldn't place.
Don't worry. Everything's switching. Outside to inside.
I'm in a band.
What kind of band?
A rock band.
You'll do what, lick me to death?
She's a god. Let's think *outside* the box.
Til the end of the world. Even if that happens to be tonight.
I could never trust you enough to love you.
I believe in you.
I spy with my little eye something that starts with 'T'.
I love you.
They don't make sense. Nothing makes sense. But the sound, it's real. Now there's light. A pinprick in the dark. He frowns. Or he tries to.
It gets bigger, and warmer, and suddenly he realizes that he's feeling the heat. He can feel the sun poking through the gaping hole. Larger, larger still. He reaches for it, or he thinks he does, because a breeze touches him.
He can see his hand - white, thin. It moves out of the dark and into the light. The light pulls him, tugs him through the hole.
'Damn, I don't remember grass being this itchy.'
****
When he opened his eyes, truly opened his eyes, it was dark again. Not the all-encompassing, suffocating dark of before, but the kind of dark that still has light to it. The dark of a room, the dark where the edges are black but the middle is grey.
He sat up. Looked around. Bed? No, too scratchy. Couch. He swung his legs around, put his feet tentatively on the floor. Cool, textured. Wood. He sniffed the air, caught a whiff of chicken broth and fresh-baked bread. Dying fire. Woman.
She came into the room. Looked surprised to find him awake. She walked towards him.
"Hello, William."
He frowned momentarily, then his confusion cleared.
"'S not my name," he replied. Gave a small smile. "They call me Spike."
"Who does?" she asked. He frowned again.
"Them. The ones I remember. The ones from before."
She turned from him. Walked out of the room. He followed.
****
"Cynthia."
"What?"
"My name."
She put a plate of food in front of him. The food he'd smelt before. He stared at it, then at her.
"Where am I?"
She laughed, a true laugh. Like it was the funniest thing she'd heard.
"Well, I suppose that's the question of the century."
****
He rolled over in his sleep. Reached out for the woman who wasn't there.
****
"Don't take it personally," she said over breakfast. He glanced at her before choosing to ignore her altogether.
"It's just that I don't get many visitors. Haven't for years. I'm sorry if I'm rude. Or obnoxious. Or -"
"Actually, I find you quite irritating. You don't know where we are, or why I'm here, or where I was before I was here. You won't tell me how I know you. Or even if I know you. So what good is it to talk to you?"
"None."
He glared at her over his oatmeal. She stared out the window.
"You should go for a walk," she said. "It's a beautiful day."
****
A few hours later, he stormed into the cottage. She looked up from her quilting and regarded him quizzically.
"I think you know more than you're letting on!" he yelled. She raised her eyebrows, but remained silent. "There are graves out there. In the forest. Thousands of them."
He looks like he's going to be sick. She puts aside her needle and thread and folds her hands demurely in her lap.
"They're children, aren't they?" he whispers. She tilts her head slightly, but still does not answer him.
"God damn it, Cynthia! Those graves are marked dates only three or four years apart, sometimes only months. What the fuck is going on?!"
"Did you read them?"
"What?"
"Did.you.read.them."
His lips press together and he turns an interesting shade of red. "There were a few hundred too many for me to read them all."
"I suggest starting with the most recent ones."
She picks up her work and continues it like the interruption never occurred. He stands there, waiting for her to continue. Realizing she won't say another word to him, he slams out the door.
****
All of them are the same dull grey, the same slab of stone with names and dates carved into them. The same memoriam for some three thousand girls.
All girls, all dead. Except one.
He stands before the empty grave. It isn't freshly dug - he can tell because the dirt is packed and there is moss growing on the headstone.
But she should be dead. The inscription reads: December 1996 - May 1997. That was six years ago. Six long years ago.
"Buffy," he whispers, as he traces her name with the tips of his fingers. "Buffy."
He looks to his left, down a long line of graves. He's read them all, all their names, all their lives, on these cold stones. That's where he found Cynthia.
She died when this girl was born. Or the other way around. Something in the back of his mind was nagging at him. He was supposed to know this. Supposed to know the significance here.
To his right lay only one grave. Kendra, May 1997 - May 1998. But why did she die, and this girl live? This Buffy?
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," came a voice from behind him.
Spike turned, and saw Cynthia approaching through the trees. She walked gracefully, with a confidence he recognized. Cynthia looked up at the canopy and smiled into the sunlight.
"There was a time when I thought I would never see the sun again," she said. He looked up as well, as if noticing for the first time that it was day. "I suppose," she continued, "that you could say the same."
"I don't understand," he mumbled, eyes returning to the name on the stone before him. Buffy.
"You will, in time."
She held her hand out to him. He regarded it warily, and used the headstone to pull himself up. Buffy.
Cynthia turned and began moving away from the graves, away from what should have been her final resting place.
Spike followed her out of the make-shift cemetery. He only looked back once.
Buffy.
****
To be continued...
