Everything is on fire. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. Her clothes, her skin, her hair. Only, it's not her clothes. Or her even her body. This is someone else. Someone else is burning and she's stuck inside their body. Trapped along with this victim inside of their body as they burn and the room burns. She wonders why they aren't screaming or running. It takes her a moment, but she remembers how to move. She tries to move her arms, but they're stuck. Chained to the ceiling and it isn't burning fast enough for her to break free.
There's something in her mouth. It presses her tongue flat and holds her lips open. It tastes terrible, like sulfur. She would puke if her intestines hadn't burned away.
She twists around in her chains. There's a mirror on the wall. It's just the right size and shape that she almost mistakes it for a sort of door before she remembers there's no way out. There's only fire here and the helplessness of being unable to fight.
It's not her in the mirror. Why would it be? This isn't her body.
Dark hair, dark eyes, broad shoulders. His eyes are wide and his mouth is stretched obscenely around a gag of yellow.
There was no air in her lungs when she woke up. It had squeezed its way out of her as she screamed. She felt like she was still burning. Her skin was hot and she swore she could smell sulfur in her hair.
"Buffy? Are you okay?" Willow asked.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," Buffy apologized feeling guilty for keeping her friend from sleep after she'd spent the night slaying vampires in her place.
Willow smiled sympathetically. "It's okay. I've heard screaming is involuntary. Do you wanna talk about it?"
Buffy shook her head. "No, that's okay. Just go back to sleep."
Willow stretched and climbed out of bed. "Actually, it's about time to get up anyway. Are you coming to class today?"
Buffy groaned. "Guess I didn't do all that make-up work for nothing."
Willow smiled. "There's the girl scout spirit."
Willow went to the window and pulled the curtain open to let in the sun. Buffy glared at the light like it was somehow involved in her nightmare dilemma.
Willow grabbed her clothes and tooth brush and Buffy followed suit. They got ready in the shared dorm bathroom along with the six other girls on their hall. They all did their best to stay out of each other's way as showers were had and make-up was applied. Buffy settled for throwing on her clothes and scrapping her hair up into a pony tail before she went back to her room to grab her bag.
The girls walked together to their first class after a quickly swallowed breakfast of almost stale cereal. Willow was excited for Buffy to be back and she chatted about all the things Buffy had missed and spent the night cramming into her brain. Most of it Buffy didn't remember though it sounded familiar.
They grabbed a seat in the middle of the lecture hall and took out their notebooks. Buffy was determined to get caught up before teachers started removing her from her their rosters.
The short weaselly man who called himself their biology professor entered the room. He hadn't even set his bag down before he began his lecture. Before Buffy could take down the first point, the pencil slid from her hand and rolled into her lap as her body went limp and her eyes slid shut.
Willow noticed Buffy's slack form and nudged her friend. "Buffy," she whispered. "Buffy."
A few students behind them noticed as Buffy fell over in her seat and refused to wake up as her friend shook her.
"Is she okay?" a girl behind the whispered.
"I think she's just tired," Willow said.
"I don't know, man. She's out cold," said the guy beside the girl behind Willow.
"Maybe we should get a nurse," said the girl.
"Is there a problem up there?" asked the professor.
Buffy was shaking and sweating buckets. Willow was starting to panic. "Uh, it's Buffy. She passed out and now she's shaking and I don't think she's doing very well."
The professor seemed to think he knew what was happening as he went to the phone hanging on the wall and called a nurse to their room. Willow kept Buffy from dropping onto the floor as they waited.
Eventually, a pair of nurses arrived and helped Willow maneuver Buffy into a wheelchair. They rushed her down to the nurses station which had seen everything from impressively high blood alcohol levels to a pencil jammed up the nose of a freshman who should have paid more attention in his two o'clock physics class.
They asked Willow to wait in the lobby while they took Buffy into a room. They got her up on a table and checked her vitals. Her heart rate nearly gave the nurses heart attacks of their own as they could hardly imagine someone surviving such a condition, but before they could call in an ambulance, her heart slowed to a safer rate causing the nurses to question their eye sight.
An hour later, Buffy woke with no memory of where she was or how she'd gotten there. She was tired and cold and very happy to see Willow sitting the chair beside her.
"How are you feeling?" Willow said.
"Where are we?" Her throat was dry and her voice cracked as she spoke.
"Nurse's office. You fainted in class and you were shaking and wouldn't wake up. You've only been out an hour. One of the nurses keeps trying to put an IV in your arm, but they don't actually know what's wrong with you so there's been some arguing."
"I wish someone knew what's wrong with me."
Willow nodded. "Their best guess is dehydration, but they said you wouldn't able to sweat like that if you were. I am supposed to make you drink something before you leave though. Got a Gatorade."
She handed Buffy the bottle of blue liquid. "So what happened?"
Buffy took a sip before she tried talking again. "I don't really know. I was fine. Tired, but totally fine and then it was like... like the room melted away and I was somewhere else. It was really dark, but I felt like I was on fire."
Willow's eyes were wide as they locked on to Buffy's wrist. "That wasn't there when we brought you back here."
Buffy looked down at her wrist. It was red and the skin looked like it been torn open and then burned shut. As if she'd been chained up with burning shackles.
"I was there, Giles! I was actually physically there. Look at my wrists!" Buffy was near hysterical as she paced through Giles's apartment. The man wasn't doing much better since he'd seen his slayer's wrists.
"I've been through every volume. There are demons who can induce nightmares but they have to be physically present as in literally sitting right on top of you. Most them cause the victim to become dangerously ill. I don't believe this is a conscious being doing this to you." Giles tried to rationalize and sort through his thoughts. He's been trained for this. He wouldn't allow his emotions to get the better of him. He could figure this out.
Buffy collapsed onto the couch. "I'm so tired, Giles."
"You must try to remain wake for the time being. It isn't safe for you to go back there. Wherever 'there' is. No, you have to stay conscious until we've sorted this out."
"I don't think I can, not for much longer."
"Find something to occupy yourself. I'll start looking... everywhere."
He picked up the phone and called Xander. In no time at all he arrived with a less than enthusiastic Anya in tow.
Anya quickly decided that helping Buffy stay awake was a lot more fun than reading.
"Have you tried caffeine?" she asked. "It's pretty great at keeping me up. Me and Xander get these fruity energy drinks when we wanna..." Xander gave her a 'we talked about this' look. "Well, when we wanna stay up late. Or you could watch a horror movie. Those are really good at keeping Xander up. Last month we watched Hollow Man. He didn't sleep for two days."
"Anya," Xander complained.
"What? I'm trying to help your friend from being dragged into dream hell." She turned back to Buffy with her helpful advice. "Maybe you could try exercising. I hear that can really perk you up, but it just seems exhausting to me. Being the slayer it might work for you."
"Yeah," Buffy said grabbing her coat. "I think I'll go for a walk."
"Great! See Xander, I told you I could help," Anya said proudly.
"Wonderful. Maybe now you can help me and Giles find the actual problem." He handed her a big leather bound book. She gave him a dirty look, but she opened it and started skimming.
Buffy felt dead on her feet, but she pushed herself forward as she left Giles's and started down the sidewalk. The cool air helped even as it chilled her bones. She shivered a bit and rubbed her arms.
Her thoughts kept going back her dream hell. The fire, the chains, the screaming. It was all so real. It was real and Angel was there right that minute. Because she put him there. Because she went to LA when she could have just called.
The wind blew a plastic bottle across the street and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She took a deep breath before she started walking again. If her nightmares didn't drive her insane, she'd be impressed. If they didn't kill her that was. She examined the burns on her wrists. She wondered what sort of marks she'd wake up with the next time.
Her skin crawled and she imagined someone following her. She didn't hear anyone and when she turned her head there was no one there, but she had the feeling she wasn't entirely alone. It was far from a comforting feeling.
Her paranoia was hitting a panic inducing high. Her throat felt tight and she started running before she even thought about it.
The cemetery gate loomed up ahead. The idea of Spike's crypt promised sanctuary and tore through the head stones and right up to the door. She gave a last glance over her shoulder before she pushed the heavy door open.
The main chamber was empty, but there was light flickering up from the lower floor. She crossed the dirt covered floor and dropped down to the lower level.
"Spike?" she called.
There was no response. As she walked into the bedroom, she found Spike laying in his bed, ankles crossed, arms propping his head up, staring at the wall. He'd redecorated. He still had the same old canopy bed sitting in the center of the room, but the bedding was a light cream instead of burgundy. There were more candles on the tables. There was a simple dark wood dresser in place of the ornate wardrobe.
"Spike?" she said again as she looked from where he stared at the wall back to his face.
"I didn't expect to see you again," he said still seemingly entranced by the wall. "Not so soon anyway."
"Yeah, well. I was planning on ignoring you for a while, but... things are really bad right now. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't know who else to go to," she said quietly, rubbing her wrists.
She didn't notice when he finally looked at her, too concerned with her damaged skin. "What happened?"
"I don't know. I woke up like this."
His eyes widened a fraction before quickly returning his face to its usual masked state. "What did you dream about?"
"None of your business, Spike."
He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "Was it hell? Did you dream you were on fire?"
"How did you..."
Spike reached behind him and pulled his shirt off. He stood up so Buffy could see his back. There were long deep cuts criss-crossing his back like he'd been whipped. The skin around them had been burned to heal the cut closed.
Buffy couldn't stop herself from stepping forward and lightly touching his shoulder. "Does it hurt?"
"Not as much as you'd think. It aches a bit, but it feels old. Not like it happened this morning."
"Like it's old. Almost healed."
He turned around and caught her hand. "Yeah." He looked her wrist over.
"I passed out in class. Woke in the nurses office with those marks on me. Willow says they weren't there when they carried me down."
He didn't say anything, just stared at her marred wrist.
"What's happening to us?"
Spike didn't miss the fear in her voice. He rubbed her wrist with his thumb. His other hand came up to rest against her cheek. "We'll find out and we'll put a stop to it. I promise, slayer."
Buffy closed her eyes and let him soothe her. "You don't have to be alone through this."
He sat on the bed and laid back offering a hand to her. She looked at him tentatively. "Just rest with me. When this last time you got a good night's sleep?"
Hesitantly, she sat down beside him and pulled her down to lay her head on his chest. His closed his eyes and held her close breathing in the sweet scent of Buffy. His chest rumbled with a soft purr and slowly she was lulled to sleep.