A/N1: Just to make sure everyone is certain, this story will not focus on relationships so much. Canon couples only, but as I said with no focus on them.

A/N2: All forms of feedback are more than welcome, even flames.


Finn Hudson awoke with a sharp grasp and a scream that died strangled and silent in his throat. He was drenched in sweat and out of breath, his heart racing in his chest. Swinging his legs over the side of his bed, he sat up and took a look at the time. It was four fifty in the morning, too early to get up and too late to go back to sleep. Great.

He rubbed his face with a tired hand and thought about the dream that he had just woken from. Dream didn't really describe it though, nightmare was far more accurate and it wasn't even the first time. This was the third night in a row that he had this nightmare.

It was never him, always a girl, a bunch of different girls. And they all fought. And they all died He saw things in the shadows, things that terrified him. Many were images from deep in the past and others that could've happened that very night for all he knew. And every single one was the same. A girl, all alone and on the hunt; she finds what she's looking for . . . or it finds her. No matter what, Finn Hudson watches them fight, and they all fight like powerful warriors, they really do and each one just gives it her all. But every single time one of these girls, the oldest of which never seems to be much if any older than himself, is killed violently. Some deaths are more brutal than others. Some are quick and others slower, more horrifying. But all of them are witnessed by Finn.

Shaking his head in an attempt to shake free the memories still lingering, Finn sighed and pushed himself up out of bed and stumbled off to the bathroom to take a leak. When he was finished there, he padded silently down the hall, being extra careful not to wake anyone up. He crept down the stairs, somehow finding all the sweet spots that didn't creak.

Heading into the kitchen, silently triumphant at not waking anybody (. . . or at least he didn't think he did), Finn went straight for the fridge. He pulled out a carton of orange juice and a gallon of milk from within, setting both items on the counter. Then he poked his head inside again and pulled out a carton of eggs, a pack of lean ham, and a pack of bacon, placing them next to the milk and juice. Not finished, he reached back in the fridge once more and pulled out a wheel of unopened gouda, something Kurt insisted on having in the fridge at all times, and set it next to everything else.

Finn proceeded to fry up the entire package of bacon, made enough scrambled eggs with cheese to feed a small army, cooked Burt's piece of lean ham, dumped a package of bagels on a large plate to be set on the table, set out Burt's healthy bread, grabbed some cream cheese and jam from the fridge, set out a stack of plates and glasses, cut up a bunch of different fruits and tossed them in a large serving bowl, and made a pot of coffee (using the fancy stuff Kurt always bought). Ah, breakfast.

He was finishing up cooking when Burt and his mom wandered in, yawning their 'goodmornings' at him. Kurt wouldn't be home until this afternoon when he came back for the weekend.

Burt was reaching for the bacon when Finn said, "uh uh, you can't have that, Kurt's orders. No bacon or eggs. Ham, dry toast, and fruit only. Oh, and no coffee either."

His stepfather grumbled something under his breath, but backed off and settled for the healthier food instead. Satisfied, Finn piled his own plate high with bacon and eggs and a variety of fruit, with a toasted bagel with cream cheese on the side. He had a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a glass of milk to wash it all down.

"You only make breakfast like this when you've had a hard time sleeping," observed his mom as she sat down. "And I know you don't ever get up this early if you can help it. Are you okay?"

Choosing not to look at her, Finn nodded and said, "I'm fine. I just have a big day today is all."

He wasn't even looking at her and he knew she didn't really buy it, but she remained silent anyway. Finn gratefully kept his mouth shut after that and used stuffing his face with food as an excuse to not talk. His morning flew by with his parents finishing their own breakfasts and getting up to get ready for their days. Finn went up to dress and get ready himself as quickly as possible.

Soon, he was out the door and on his way to school. Finn pulled his pick up into an empty spot and grabbed his backpack, opening the door and stepping out into the brisk morning air. He trudged his way towards the school, not really feeling up to it all of a sudden. A brief flash of dread crept up his spine as he approached the entrance and he had to fight to ignore it as he took the steps up to the front doors.

Finn's day started as any other day, with him talking to Mike and Sam, and rushing to his first class so as to not be late after he lost track of time. He made great time across the school, dodging his way around other students and teachers, and ducked into class just before the bell rang.

Things didn't get weird until P.E. when the class was faced with climbing the rope. Mercedes was right behind him in line and was issuing a constant litany of quietly uttered complaints about having to do this at all. He was trying his best to tune her out, but Tina wasn't helping by adding comments about not trusting it to hold anybody being so old and worn.

It was his turn to climb it and so he turned to Mercedes and Tina, smiled and said, "the rope is perfectly secure. It's not gonna break." He emphasized his point with a good two-handed tug on the rope that failed to do what he intended it to do.

Instead of showing them that it was safe, the thick rope broke free of what it was connected to and fell to the floor next to him. The girls shrieked and several students jumped back in shock. The P.E. teacher came running over to see what had happened. Unable to give him an answer, Finn could only stare at the man mutely. He looked down at the coiled pile of rope right next to him. His eyes settled on the end of the rope that had given way and saw that the steel harness that it was connected to was bent severely out of shape and the four huge bolts that connected it to rafters had all been completely stripped.

The entire class was staring at him in shock, nobody clearly able to say what they were thinking at first. Finn himself had no clue at all what to say about it. The teacher just stood there as well, jaw hung open in a profoundly dumb expression.

Finally, it was Tina who broke the silence by turning towards Mercedes and saying, "see, I told you."


After the rope incident that morning, Finn's day had settled into something a little more normal, at least for a little while. He was heading down the hall during his one free period, humming some nameless tune to himself. Turning a corner, he bumped into someone. Finn muttered an apology and had to do a double-take to realize that the guy was seriously rocking an eye patch. The man ignored him and went off down the hall.

Pushing the one-eyed dude in the school out of his mind, Finn continued down the hall in the hopes to get to the choir room for some practice time on a new number he was working on. Ahead of him, he saw two ladies standing next to each other looking and talking quietly like staff. He didn't recognize them, but that didn't mean anything. Both were hot. One was blonde and the other was a redhead. Blondie had a nice rack, but Reddie was wearing some Rachel-style sweater that ensured that almost all trace of cleavage was completely hidden away from even the most leering of eyes. Still, Puck told him redheads were crazy –like freaky –in the sack. Thinking that the only redhead he'd ever really known was actually kind of crazy in other parts of her life, Finn had to assume the statement to be true.

A large duffle bag was sitting on the floor at their feet. As Finn was walking by, the redhead turned to him and said, "young man, would you be willing to take this bag to our colleague? It appears he forgot it when he went off for his demonstration. He's heading down to the library and it's a little on the heavy side."

Feeling awkward, Finn knew he would do it because he just couldn't ignore the request. First, a lady asked and second, she was also his elder. He nodded his head and said, "of course, ma'am. What does he look like?"

"He'll be the one in the eye-patch," offered the blonde.

"Thanks," he said, reaching down and picking up the bag. It clinked and clanked oddly when he jostled it around, but he dismissed the noise almost immediately. Though, he had to admit it was a little bit on the heavy side of things. He started rushing back the other way, hoping to catch the guy in the hallway and therefore not have to go so far to get back over to the choir room.

Rounding the corner, he saw nothing but the flash of a body disappearing around another corner further down. Damnit! The hallway the guy ducked down led right to the library. No way was he going to catch up before then. Finn started running down the hallway, very nearly losing his balance as he tried to round the corner. In the back of his mind, he thought it was a little funny seeing how even he wasn't so clumsy as to smash into a wall running around a corner like that at any other time. Maybe he was more tired than he thought he was.

He saw a figure entering the set of doors at the far end of the hall where the library was located. Cursing under his breath, Finn charged down the hallway, practically slamming his way through the heavy wood doors. He barely noticed the doors slamming loudly against the doorstops. His mind was already occupied on other things. Right by a study table near the entrance, the one-eyed man was standing there facing him, a friendly smile on his face.

"Oh they must've sent you with the bag, thanks. If you could just set it on the table over here, I'd be eternally grateful."

Finn shrugged and said, "You're welcome. It was no problem at all."

He set it on the table and was about to leave when the man spoke up again. "I swear I'd lose my head if it wasn't permanently attached. Hey! You wanna get a peek! We're supposed to demonstrate it later, but we can take just one peek now if you'd like."

"What's in it?" asked Finn, curious in spite of himself.

"Oh just some cool props we're using to make a point about what someone can do with their life if they wanted to."

Great, more motivational speakers, he thought. Still, he nodded along to be polite. The man unzipped the bag and pulled both sides apart to open it. "Look inside," he said.

Shrugging, Finn looked down into the bag at something that just boggled his mind. Sitting inside were what looked like a bunch of anvils.

"Yes, those are anvils, as made famous by almost every single Warner Brothers cartoon to date. I chose them to illustrate a point, Finn."

Whoa, the dude knew his name? What the Hell was going on!

"See, each one weighs just about two hundred pounds and there are five of them. That's roughly a thousand pounds. We had to special order a bag from the company that makes Samsonite just to be able to hold them. Finn, no ordinary person could've lifted that bag at all, let alone run down the hall with it like that."

"Wh, wha?" he managed to choke out, taking an awkward step back. Putting a little bit of distance between himself and this crazy man before him, between himself and the bag, he hoped that things would seem a little less crazy in general.

"You're not like the other kids in this school. You're different, special."

"I," he paused to think of what he wanted to say next, "I don't know what's goin' on? But I, I gotta go."

With that, Finn Hudson ran from the room. He flew past both the blonde and the redhead on his way away from the library. He always knew it was a bad place to go. There were just too many books in it and now there were crazy one-eyed assholes and their impossible things, as well. No, libraries were bad and nothing was going to make him think otherwise.

In what seemed like seconds, he was safely tucked away in the choir room. This place was safe from faulty gym ropes and crazy one-eyed dudes with their fucking bags. It was a sacred space and there was no freaking way he was going to let anyone take that from him. He set his backpack down and started up on his song, content in the knowledge that no one ever bothered him here other than his fellow glee clubbers.

And true enough, he was not bothered by one-eyed psychos or hot blondes with amazing racks and their shy but sexy redheaded friends. The rest of his school day was uneventful and he drove straight home afterward.

Nobody else was home yet, so he made himself a sandwich and stuffed it down with half a bag of potato chips and half a two-liter bottle of soda. He played some Left 4 Dead after that and then took a short nap. By the time his head hit the pillow, he had all but forgotten about the weird events of the day.


Finn was woken from his nap by Kurt. He must've been out for a while if his brother had made it home.

"Hey Finn," he said, "There're some people here to see you."

"Who?" he mumbled groggily from under his pillow.

"I don't know. Football recruiters, I think."

"Wait," he said, sounding more awake as he sat up. "There are recruiters here at our house, right now! How! Why! Are you sure!"

Rolling his eyes, Kurt said, "no, I'm not. I just told you that. Now get up and make yourself look somewhat respecta –oh, who am I kidding? Just get up."

Kurt left him alone after that. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he stumbled off to the bathroom to splash some water on his face. He gave himself a few seconds to straighten out his appearance a little and headed downstairs. His mom and Burt were in the living room and as he passed by, spotted Kurt in the kitchen pretending to do anything but look like he was about to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Finn entered the living room and froze in his tracks after setting no more than a foot inside. Sitting on the couch were three people. He recognized them instantly as the weird people from the school. A sense of dread and fear clutched at his spine. No, no impossible things; he didn't want them in his life.

"Finn, honey," said his mother, "please come join us; we have some company. These people are here to talk with you about your future."

"Now, what were you sayin'?" asked Burt, steering them back to whatever conversation they were having before.

The man replied, saying, "well, we were at the school today for recruiting purposes when Finn here came by. We asked for his help with something and ended up giving him an aptitude test on the spot. He scored very highly."

"On what sort of test?"

"Well, why don't we have Finn answer that?" said the blonde.

All eyes turned on him. Before he knew it, before he could stop it, the words were flying out of his mouth. "Who are you people?"

Blushing in embarrassment, the blonde said, "sorry, I forgot that we never gave you our names. How embarrassing. My name is . . . Elizabeth, Elizabeth Summers."

By the stifled laughter of her two companions, it seemed like there was a bit of a story with her name.

"These are my associates," she continued, "Willow Rosenberg and Alexander Harris. We're with an organization known as the Watcher's Council. We'll get into more of what we do there in just a minute. I was just telling you that we had performed an aptitude test on Finn today with big results."

"What was the test?" asked his mom.

"Well," she said, picking something up from next to the couch, "I had your son carry this bag to my colleague, Mr. Harris."

Finn's eyes went wide at the sight of the duffle bag from earlier, the one he had been trying very hard not to think about. She unzipped it and started pulling out the anvils and setting them on the floor. Then she explained how they weighed up to half a ton, but he could still lift it easily. Then she started talking about why he was this way. A fantastical and sinister story was told to all of them then and throughout it, Finn Hudson felt strips and pieces of his life, of everything he loved and that loved him in return, being pulled from him one by one until it seemed there was nothing left.