Title: 100 Years
Author: Zoe Saugin/PrincessFaith/Frostybyte
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I own Kat, Claire, Joy, Meghan, Antonia, Julie, Angela, Cassie, Kitty, and Brian, though.
Dedication: For Aimee and Samantha, though they'll never read this. And for the Fireplace, for being wonderful, particularly—Casa, Queenie, Auntie Pie, Snapple, Cass, Vin, Kosmic, BD, Blur, ED, Mellie, anime, dark, Blaq, Elfy, Miko, Mex, and all the rest of the wonderful people that inhabit the chat thread, and will probably yell at me for forgetting them, and of course, F/R. :)
Acknowledgement: This could not have been written without help from Katie—the mind behind most of Kat's music choices—or my Biology teacher—for explaining at what point a person can bleed to death, though that fact never actually got used.
This could
not have been written without help from the wonderful RumQueen, who
read it and beta-ed it. Thanks so much.
January 27, 2008
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: "I Wanna Be Sedated" — The Ramones
I woke up screaming for the third time this week. My mom is beginning to think something is wrong with me. She doesn't say anything, but I know she and Daddy are worried.
I keep having these dreams. I read somewhere that if you die in a dream, then your body starts to shut down, which would mean my body would be halfway to Hellville if such a statistic was true. I have this reoccurring dream where I'm in this big battle, and there's a hot bleached blonde guy fighting nearby, and this blonde girl who, by all medical reasoning, should be dead, and then this huge monster overwhelms my vision.
And then all I can feel is pain.
I tried talking to my Mom about it, but I think she thought I was talking about sex dreams, so she was a little awkward about it.
"Mom, I had this dream – "
"Kat, can you clean up Anna-Marie before your grandmother gets here?"
"Kitty's as clean as possible. Can I talk to you?"
"Well, hon, I'm not sure I'm the person to be talking to. I mean, you know you can come to me for anything else, but I'm not good at listening to my daughter talk about her sex dreams."
"Mom! It wasn't a sex dream!"
"Oh. Well … why don't you go ask your father?"
But Daddy wouldn't get it. Neither would Julie, or Angela, or any of the girls at school. Brian would laugh at me (ass) and Kitty is too wrapped up in herself to care.
So, I'm reduced to telling you. This inanimate book of paper that my collegiate brother got me for Christmas when he was too lazy to come back to Boston and actually spend time with us.
I, Katherine Isabelle Falene, have hit rock bottom.
Stupid nightmares.
January 28, 2008
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: "Get This Party Started" — Pink
This totally weird thing happened on the bus this morning. I was sitting with Ange and Jules, like always, and we were talking about the jujitsu class that we have on Wednesdays. Ange takes jujitsu because she has this fear of cannibals that just makes her really scared of serial killers, and Jules takes it because Jules is Jules and super athletic and didn't want to be left out. And I take it because my doctor says if I gain any more weight, I'm going to die. Or something. I wasn't really paying attention to him. But my mom was, thus the jujitsu.
Anyway, we were sitting there, and I decided to take the plunge and I told them about my nightmares. And Jules thinks it's just my psyche responding to the pressures that school puts on us.
Jules's parents are psychologists.
Ange thinks I should get a boyfriend, and these dreams are a result of my subconscious fear that I'm going to die alone.
Ange's dad runs a dating service.
But when we were talking, there were these two people who were, like, listening to our conversations and exchanging "meaningful glances" or something. It was this pretty brunette and this old guy. He wasn't old-old, I mean, I could totally see women being all over him, but he was old.
And I had this weird tingling in my stomach the whole time they were nearby.
Freaky, no?
Anyways, it was about then that Ange realized she hadn't done her math homework, so Jules and I helped her.
And the next time I looked up, the girl and guy were gone, and Jules asked me if I had Tourettes syndromesince I kept jerking my body.
I asked her what Tourettes syndrome was, and she (and I quote) said that Tourette syndrome is an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by the presence of multiple physical tics and at least one vocal tic
Whatevs, Jules.
At school, I was talking to Jake in English class about fears, and Jake has this huge fear of monster movies. And I told him I have a huge fear of being buried alive, like on Bones when Brennan and Hodgins get buried by the Gravedigger.
Jake said he always had a fear of saran wrap. Like, it was going to suffocate him in the middle of the night. At that point we were both laughing, and then our English teacher yelled us and gave us detention.
Where I am now, with headphones hidden cunningly under my hair. Jake is across the room trying to make me laugh, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction, and am ignoring him.
I think I like him.
Scary.
January 29, 2008
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" — Nirvana
I'm kinda freaked.
So, today, I had to go on the bus by myself. Jules had Asian Students in Action after school, and Ange had Show Choir. I was sitting on the bus, catching up on my reading in the book I have to read for English class ("Not Without Laughter" by Langston Hughes) and lip-synching along to the Sex Pistols.
Anyways, I was perfectly fine until I felt the tingling. The stupid, brainless, dazed, deficient, dense, dim, dodo, doltish, dopy, dotterel, dull, dumb, dummy, foolish, futile, gullible, half-baked, half-witted, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, indiscreet, insensate, irrelevant, irresponsible, laughable, loser, ludicrous, meaningless, mindless, moronic, naive, nonsensical, obtuse, pointless, puerile, rash, senseless, short-sighted, simple, simple-minded, slow, sluggish, stolid, stupefied, thick, thickheaded, trivial, unintelligent, unthinking, witless tingling.
And yes, I did just look up every synonym for "stupid" in my handy-dandy pocket thesaurus.
I look up, and the girl from yesterday morning is sitting next to me. She smirked at me and motioned for me to take off my headphones. I complied, thinking maybe they were bothering her. She initiated conversation:
"Hey."
I, raising my eyebrows, replied: "…Hey…"
"So, I heard you talking to those two girls – "
"Angela Kerrington and Julie Zhou."
"Right. About your nightmares."
"It's rude to listening to other peoples' conversations."
She shrugged. "I was bored. What's you name, by the way?"
Suspicious, I answered, "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
"I won't tell if you don't."
"I'm Kat."
She wrinkled her nose, like my name was an infectious disease or something. "Kat?"
I remained indifferent. "Yep."
"So, in your dreams, do you ever see a blonde girl? About yay high – " She motioned with her hand. " – cute little thing, big green eyes?"
"Sometimes … sometimes, there's this other guy, he's blonde, too." I wrinkled my nose. "I think he's British. And we're following him and this other girl — she's brunette … actually, you look — hey!"
My exclamation at that point was prompted by the fact that the girl was gone from the seat.
So, I am a teensy bit freaked. I mean, hello? How come she knows who's in my dreams? And, most importantly, can she see who is in my sex dreams? She's totally too old to go to my school, but still, she could have a little sister, in which case I am TOTALLY SCREWED.
Plus, that would mean totally awkward conversations if I ever see this girl again.
Kitty just barged in here to tell me it's time for dinner. She says if I'm quite done writing in my nerdy diary, the pizza just came.
February 2, 2008
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: "Sound of Your Voice" — Barenaked Ladies.
Whoa, busy couple of days. I have a shitload of stuff to write down, if I can remember it all.
Okay, so Wednesday, after school, I was totally cornered by the mysterious girl and the older guy, as well as a younger dude who said his name was Andrew. The girl was named Faith, by the way, and the older guy was Giles — he must hate his dad for giving him that name.
Anyway, they told me that I'm part of a whole organization of girls who were "chosen" except when the choosing happened I was only eleven, and therefore too young to get chosen, but since I'm now sixteen, I'm getting my share of the "Slayer power" which means I'm stronger than most people. It used to be this girl named Buffy (nice porn star name – what is it with these people and the names?) was the only Slayer, but then she drowned, and got brought back (which is what I don't get, but we'll get to that later) and this chick Kendra was called, but she died, so Faith was called, and then she and Buffy did this spell with this gay Wiccan chick named Willow so that all the girls started becoming Slayers.
And I was like, Puh-leeze. What insane asylum did you escape from?
I almost called the cops, but I figured that any connection I had to the cops would make Daddy freak — that kind of thing looks terrible in the polls — so I just threatened to call the cops and walked away.
And then ran, catching the bus right in time.
Then, Jules, Ange, and I had jujitsu, so I walked to Ange's, where I hung out in her kitchen until her mom could give us a ride. That part is kind of blurry, though the class itself will be crystallized in my mind forever.
We were divided into pairs to spar — Ange and Jules were a pair, and I was with this girl Cassie. We started out with a routine pattern, slowly adding more routine moves, and I kicked her into a wall.
Seriously, picture a girl-shaped dent in the wall. She might have gone through, but the wall was stronger than her.
I flipped out and started crying hysterically. The teacher grabbed Jules cell phone, dialing 911. He told me to stay calm, but I was already hyperventilating.
Everyone was staring at me, and I took a deep breath.
And bolted.
I could hear Jules' and Ange's voices calling from behind me, but I was already running too fast to stop — faster than I had every run before.
And then I made contact with something.
Actually, someone.
I ran into Faith.
Literally.
It's kind of embarrassing to write about, since it involves a lot of stupidity and anger on my part, and also I got my ass handed to me on a silver platter when I tried to hit her.
Key word being tried.
Anyways, after my little freak-out, Faith took me to what she called "HQ for the Slayerettes."
Giles was there, and Andrew, and there were these four other girls: Joy (not so good in the intelligence department, but she has great hair), Claire (Total. Bitch. She doesn't like me, because we just don't mesh too well), Antonia (sweetest girl I've ever met), and Meghan (she's really smart. It's slightly intimidating. I mean, I'm just trying to pass Algebra II, and she's in AP Calc).
And then we went out and hunted vampires.
And if you don't think that sentence looked weird, maybe you should read it again.
But we fought them. Well, they fought them. I was instructed to stay out of the fighting, but I can't follow a rule if my life depended on it (which is did — fancy that!) and I jumped on a vampire that was about to bite Joy.
And then Antonia was distracted from her fight by my little intervention, and before anyone could do anything she was in a chokehold.
Faith staked the vampire holding her, and a couple of the others, until they were all dust. Then she rounded on me, and her and Giles chewed me out for being a liability. Yes, I had taken martial arts, but if Faith could kick my ass, then any vampire could. Until I can hold my own with Joy, at least, I'm not supposed to even look at a vampire.
Antonia was very sympathetic — which is nice, considering I was the reason for her bruises. Claire smirked at me. Joy shrugged, following Faith and Giles, while Meghan shot me a frown, forehead wrinkled.
Great way to make a first impression, no?
Anyway, so we returned to the warehouse that was serving as HQ where the real training began. Antonia and Joy were paired up, as were Meghan and Claire. That left me with Faith. She and Giles began teaching me some fighting techniques, while Andrew directed the other Slayers.
At the end, I was exhausted and sweating like a pig. Faith unsympathetically informed me that I had a lot of work to do before I was anywhere near as good as any of the other girls.
Antonia squeezed my shoulder, smiling, and told me that Faith didn't get attached to newbies, since she had seen too many stupid ones killed in the line of battle, and said that she would warm up to me the better I got, and also if I needed a training partner, I could call her anytime.
It's nice to have an ally.
So I got home, and Mom and Daddy were freaking out, about how Jules and Ange had called, about irresponsibility, and how the hell I managed to kick someone into a wall.
I sort of brushed them off, and I think they got kinda angry.
Fast-forward through me faking sick to get out of school, several distressed phone calls from Ange and Jules asking if I was in jail, to Antonia standing on my porch and ringing the doorbell. As luck would have it, my little sister answered, and started berating Antonia with a bunch of questions, until I successfully extracted her.
"You're so lucky." She gushed, as we walked along. Antonia is the type of girl who is always bubbly. Like, always. She's happiness, and light, and I cannot understand how she, let alone me, got pulled into this whole "Chosen" thing.
"How am I lucky?" I responded.
"You have a sister." She smiled at me.
I snorted, which in retrospect was not the best idea. "She steals my clothes."
"Mine did too." Antonia admitted.
"What happened to her?" I asked. Antonia looked down, picking at her sleeve. "Oh. Ohh." I felt like an idiot. "Was it … vampires?"
Her mouth twisted angrily. "I wish it was. But, no, I get the Batman scenario."
I responded the only way I could think of: "I am so sorry."
She smiled humorlessly. "Everybody's sorry." She sighed, then brightened. "C'mon, we don't want to be late."
I marvel at Antonia's outlook on life. I mean, she's had this tragic life, but she's still sweet. And she doesn't care about the fact that she's not the prettiest, or the most popular, or anything. She says she got so used to people treating her differently that she doesn't care how people treat her anymore.
But, I think she's just pushing it down. Which, according to Jules, equals badness.
So, yet another night of me not fighting and being yelled at, though apparently I'm making progress, since I didn't land on my ass every time Faith and I sparred.
Only most of the time.
And then, yesterday? Nada. Nothing. Except for Jules and Ange complaining that I'm distancing myself, nothing has happened.
So here I am, Saturday morning, wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do.
I'll write again if anything happens.
February 10, 2008
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: The tears of several teenage girls, including myself
Joy died last night. In the hospital. Death by vampire, thought the official explanation is a bar fight.
She came with Antonia to get me, bubbling about how they were taking care of this super-bad demon, which was why they hadn't been around at all, and how Claire totally had a crush on this guy.
And then we ran into Jake. Only, he wasn't Jake anymore. He was, like … Jake but not Jake. Anyways, I said "hello" and Antonia and Joy exchanged this weird look that totally makes sense now, because, shocker, JAKE IS A VAMPIRE.
I say is, because we haven't been able to stake him yet.
Anyways, I was in a totally compromising position, not knowing he was a vampire, until Joy rushed in, and took a couple of punches, landing on the sidewalk. I was only able to stand there, like an idiot, until Antonia's yelling brought me back.
Jake (who suddenly was very bumpy and evil-looking) looked at me, then picked up Joy. "Slayer. Hmmm." He said, as if musing, then cocked his head at me. "You too, Kat. Wow. Small world, right? I'm sure we'll meet again soon."
And then he threw Joy against the corner of a building, her head cracking against the wall, a sound I will never be able to forget, and then he strode away, laughing. Antonia rushed to Joy, then told me to pick her up. She was surprisingly light for such a strong girl. Then, Antonia urged me to run as fast as possible to HQ. So we did.
And then, Faith and Giles rushed her to the hospital, and Antonia and I fell asleep on the couch, where I woke up this morning, Giles gently shaking me and telling me that Joy had "passed on."
What does that even mean? "Passed on." She's here, and then she isn't. It's not like she had a choice. No, the choice was made for us, by Buffy and her friends. And now Joy is dead, and Jake is a vampire. And Joy "passed on"? No, she was shoved through the door without a choice. It's not fair.
And Antonia is crying, and I realize I need to get home, which is stupid, but I do. Kitty is probably wondering where I am (Mom and Dad are out of town).
Antonia offered to walk me home.
He has Kitty. Antonia and I came in to find an empty house and a note, telling me to come alone to a Pennington graveyard, and that he has Kitty.
Signed, Jake.
Antonia told me that she'd run and get Faith, but I say no, we have to go now. She pulled out a phone, and called Faith, who told us to wait, but I can't. Kitty's my little sister, and shouldn't have gotten drawn into this.
Antonia says she's coming with me.
I'm just writing this in case something happens and Kitty needs to know what went on. Not that I'll die or anything, just in case I get injured, or something, or … I don't know. I just want a record that all this is actually happening.
I'll write when I get back with Kitty.
May 3, 2008
My sister, Katherine "Kat" Isabelle Falene, died over two months ago. I didn't find this until a few days ago, when we were clearing her stuff.
Kat and a girl I assume was Antonia came to rescue me. And they did. Unfortunately.
The official report says that Kat and Antonia were killed in a gang war — something that comes up slightly more often these days then it used to.
The last I saw of Kat and Antonia, my vision was slowly being blocked by several … well, what can only be described now as vampires. Kat's last words were to tell me to run, and to tell Antonia she loved her. I don't know if it was a gay thing, or a friend thing, or even just a fear thing.
It's probably a death thing.
It's still difficult, knowing I'm responsible for my sister's death. It's something I have to live with every day, in the form of my mother's drinking, my father's constant absence, and worst of all, my sister's grave. There wasn't much left, but Mom insisted on a Christian burial.
I'm giving this diary to a woman named Faith who was at Kat's funeral, who asked for it, saying she had seen Kat writing in it. I don't know who she is, but she looked sad, so I said if I ever found it, I would. I forgot about my promise until I did.
So I'm giving this to her.
Anna-Marie "Kitty" Falene
Archived in the Watcher Diaries on 6/08/08 by Kristen Markeowitz.