(All flashbacks are written in italics to avoid confusion.)

The Looking Glass

Chapter 3

Bending over double, Buffy wrapped her bruised and beaten arms around her stomach. The floor wobbled beneath her half-open eyes. Blood welled beneath her tongue, sliding out over her lower lip. With effort, she spit, splashing a puddle of saliva and blood onto the dirty steps. Breaths staggered out of her lungs. From the hunt, she'd run through a series of alleyways to throw off her attackers. Finally, after seventeen blocks out of her way, they'd fallen back to feast on other things. The slayer then stumbled back to the eighth floor apartment, stopping to rest at the top of the stairs. After several minutes of nausea and hard, ragged breath, Buffy stumbled down the hall and shoved her shoulder against the door, pushing it open. The sofa she'd used to stop up the door sat in the same place she'd left it. The candle on the table had just enough wick and wax left to perform one last duty before bed. The slayer struck a match and carried the candle with her into the bath room.

In the shadows, the mildewed avocado tiles were noticeable only by their damp, dingy smell. The candle flickered with the movement of a slight draft. Buffy bent down over the faucet and turned on the water, as high as each handle could go. At first, nothing happened. The plumbing remained silent. The slayer slumped onto the toilet seat, reaching scraped arms out to untie the laces of her boots. Beside her, the pipes began to bang, scooping up water from the bowels of the city. The boots came off slowly, heaping dust and dirt onto the beige floor. The socks peeled from her feet like the skin of an onion. Several days of sweat mixed with bacterial infection and blood, an odor that filled the small room. Buffy stared miserably at the oozing blisters and scabs that covered her feet.

Finally, the faucet belched, forcing an inch of murky, muddy water into the basin of the tub. Buffy lurched over the room, banging her knees into the porcelain wall as she shoved the stopper into the drain. The pipes banged again, once, twice, and fell silent.

"Now where's the rubber duckie?" Buffy grimaced as she returned to her feet and unbuttoned the jeans she'd been wearing for two weeks straight. Dust and blood caked most of the material, making the cloth fit snuggly against her thinning frame. They barely crumpled as she threw them on the pile with her socks and shoes. Chips of paint and concrete stuck to the shredded skin around a freshly scraped knee. A deep scratch on her calf had scabbed over and begun to heal, though it was only a day old. There were blood and dirt stains on the hole-filled cotton panties she pulled down around her ankles and kicked away. A streak of pus and blood shone on the floor.

She sat carefully on the edge of the tub and sank her feet into the cold filth that had emerged from the pipes. Stirring up the water with her toes, it splashed over her ankles, leaving a grayish stain in the place of an open wound. As her feet soaked, Buffy raised her arms over her head and slid out of the shirt she'd worn since the battle. It had once smelled of work and commitment, of the girls ready to fight to the death, of triumph and success. Now, it smelled only of blood and decay, and it fell on the top of the laundry pile. The flame wavered from its perch on the kitchen sink, illuminating the milky pink scar that stretched from her shoulder to her opposite hip. Above the shoulder, the two prong scar of a vampire bite glistened as a reminder of the past. Buffy slid down off the edge of the basin and immersed herself in the water, splashing the sludge against her bruised arms, the scrapes on her legs, and the dust in her hair.

The candle had gone out by the time Buffy emerged from the tub, her arms tucked around her breasts to hide her nakedness from the empty apartment. Her once shiny, wavy golden hair hung loose and damp around her shoulders, matted and knotted from lack of a comb. A thin film of soap lingered on some parts of her skin, unnoticed in the darkness. Still, much of the blood she'd expelled that night had been washed down the drain, leaving her as clean as she could be.

Buffy sighed and wandered into the bedroom, stepping cautiously over the dirty brown shag carpeting that lined every room except the bath. The bed, though stripped of everything but a worn rag blanket, looked incredibly comfortable beneath a single window. Already she could see the sky filling with the soft hue of dawn. Tearing her eyes away, Buffy dug into the drawers in search of new clothing. It seemed as though the evacuees had had more room for blankets and sheets than unseasonal clothing. It was as though they'd thought pants and long sleeves wouldn't be useful wherever they were going. She shrugged and pulled out a new-to-her pair of denim jeans two sizes too large, a pair of ragged cotton panties a size too small, and a soft black turtleneck sweater that fit wonderfully except in the arms, which were too long.

Dressed, the bed called to her, pulling her toward the stained mattress and old blanket. Carefully removing the photographs from her old pants, Buffy fell onto the creaking mattress and scrambled up toward the wall that served as a headboard. Snuggling under the abandoned blanket, she set out each photograph like a playing card on a solitaire board.

Her ankles wound around the legs of the kitchen stool as Willow leaned over a dusty volume written in a demonic tongue. The script looked curiously like a child's drawing, a manuscript of sideways hearts and off center stars. Across the counter, Giles bent over a yellow notepad, scribbling notes in a furious hand. Sun filtered in through the large bay window, casting a perfect yellow glaze on the assembled Scooby team.

"It's totally not a thing. We'll definitely figure it out. I mean, you could always mix them together." Dawn shrugged, scooping a spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth. She'd worn pink sheep pajamas that day, betraying the fact that she'd recently turned eighteen.

"Mix…what? Mix the Fyaral and the Vampiric myths together?" Willow stammered, looking up from her translation.

"No, she meant mix the Cheerios with the Fruit Loops. I'm having a tough time deciding." Xander smirked, setting down a cereal box and picking up another. Dawn wiggled across the kitchen counter and peered over his shoulder, nuzzling her cheek briefly against his. Their eyes closed in sync, and opened again. Xander tossed a cup of cereal into his bowl.

"Getting back to the translation…" Giles growled, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"So, what you're saying is that we don't know anything," Buffy frowned as she leaned over Willow's shoulder.

"It's really no big. We'll figure it out like we always do. It's not like it's the end of the world right?"

"Please tell me you're talking about the Big Bad now, Dawnie," Willow sighed.

"What? Oh yeah. I am! I mean, look, there's never been anything we couldn't handle right? And besides, we have like 300 slayers now. Whatever it is, we'll deal."

"There's definitely deal-age." Xander added.

"Right. You're right. Everything will be fine."

Shoving the photos back into a pile, Buffy slid the bundle into her pocket and lifted the stake from its position beside her hand. Beyond the window, warm rays of hazy sunlight burst into the new day. The mewling, yowling sound of demons had quieted. The exodus had ceased for another long day of quiet. The slayer yawned and stretched, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. The bed squeaked as she rolled off the side. Digging into the drawer she'd left open, Buffy pulled out a new pair of socks. Her stomach rumbled uneasily as she slid her feet into her boots. Beyond the apartment, day 43 called out to her. The banister shook as Buffy ran down the stairs.

The commercial district taped off as Buffy walked toward the edge of another city. The last of the shops had fallen to looting first and decay second. Shards of glass covered the ground in half-circles. The displays had been emptied, the shelves turned over, and most of the goods scooped up for use elsewhere. A shotgun sat in an empty store window. The counter tops were covered in spattered blood. Still, there were no bodies. There were rarely any bodies anymore.

To her left, the streets were clogged with cars. This far out from the center of town, a few drivers still remained trapped in their cars, many of them infested with scavengers. Buffy pulled the edge of her turtleneck over her nose and mouth and dipped into the sea of vehicles, squirming through the inches of space existing between them. From the ground, it was difficult to find anything useful in a sea of collisions. Buffy leapt up atop the hood of a yellow Cadillac, walking casually from one car to the other. A hand poked out of the window of one car, covered in boils from rotting in the sun. On the edge of the road, she found it. A small Geo sat empty, evacuated or excavated, it didn't matter which. The keys still sat in the ignition.

The engine puttered pathetically, guiding the slayer off the crowded road and onto the parched brown earth that lined the highway. Grunting in complaint, the vehicle stumbled over rocks and through tumble weeds, dragging Buffy past a warped green road sign with dingy white letters. She leaned out of the window and released a grin from the depths of her consciousness. The sign caught a sliver of real, unpolluted sunlight, making the letters shine with blinding brightness. Buffy shoved her foot against the gas and sped up to a meager twenty-five miles an hour. The sign, reading Los Angeles: 100 miles stretched proudly over the highway, shielding the vehicular graves from the sun.