"OW!" 'THAT PINCHES!' "UH!" 'GET OFF!' "MOVE!" 'THAT'S MY LEG!' "I CAN'T BREATHE!" 'ROLL OFF!'
"BLOODY HELL!" Spike found himself on top of a mountain of bodies. His head was resting on something soft until some hands roughly pushed him into an elbow. Skip's ridges were now pressing painfully into his back and his legs were trapped beneath someone else's. Spike tried to find a place to put his hands, found hair and a bony plate and pushed until his feet hit the floor. Turning around he witnessed the comical sight of Tara, Xander, Dawn, Skip, Buffy, Ethan, Willow and Anya all struggling to disentangle themselves from the pile. Reaching in his duster, he found a cigarette and his lighter and settled in to watch the show.
"Well, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun." Ethan's sarcasm bit through the quiet and bounced off the gray walls surrounding them as he gingerly stretched out his arm and flexed his hand, testing for mobility.
"Shut up." Buffy bit out as her eyes took in their surroundings. Grey rock walls made up the room they were in, with a doorway at each end. She hadn't known exactly what to expect, but this seemingly innocuous stone was not what she had envisioned.
Finally standing up, tentatively feeling his horns, Skip groaned, "Oh great."
"Could you clarify?" Buffy looked at him.
"Well. I'm in hell. And so are you. Is it clear now?" Skip bounced on his knees looking like a prizefighter waiting for the bell. "Oy… my ankles are killing me."
Xander leaned against a nearby wall and lifted a foot in the air, "Hey there messenger man. How's about some explaining now?"
"I can't do much more for you. I told you the basics outside the portal. This," Skip looked around, "particular hell isn't anything I'm familiar with. There are details of this little trip that…weren't in THE BRIEFING!" He shouted the last in the direction of the ceiling.
Dawn glanced up when Skip did and noticed something peculiar. "Hey guys." The group was now babbling amongst themselves paying her little attention. She tried again a bit louder, "Guys!" Still no response. She screamed. A high, piercing, shriek. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged, "Sorry, but, you weren't listening… look," she pointed at the ceiling, or where the ceiling should have been.
The stone walls stretched high, at least 4-5 people high, and at the top, in place of more stone or a ceiling was, nothing. A vast upness. Like looking up from the bottom of a bottomless well.
"That doesn't look promising. Has anyone seen my shoe?" Anya resumed scouring the floor for her missing shoe, walking with a stumping gait.
Buffy did a quick headcount and found that everyone who had been near the portal before she and Dawn entered had ended up in the stone room. Willow and Tara were holding hands, Skip was standing with his arms crossed, Spike was perched on a small ledge smoking, Ethan was standing near one of the doorways with a furtive look on his face, Anya was still questing for her shoe, Xander was watching every move Anya made, and there was Dawn, standing close behind her.
"We need to get moving," Buffy looked towards both archways and then at Skip, "Which way?"
"Please don't look to me for your answers. I am supposed to be ambiguous, even if I know something. However, I know nothing; never been to this particular hell before. This is your adventure, not mine, Goldilocks."
Buffy cringed visibly while Spike smirked in the corner as Skip unwittingly called her by the name she had come to detest. Having finally located her shoe, Anya made her way back to the group.
"What's the matter B? Can't function without your Watcher?" Buffy whirled around at the sound of the all-too-familiar voice. There she was, vivid and mocking as ever. Gum snapping, hands on her leather-clad hips, whorish lips twisted into a derisive smile. Faith taunted her again, "You and your precious Scoobies seem to be lost."
"You're not real. You're locked up behind bars where you belong." Buffy tried to sound convincing. "You are not here."
"You sure about that B? How's this," Faith sprang forward and hammered a swift blow to Buffy's midsection then landed just behind her, "for reality?"
Buffy doubled over at the abrupt loss of breath, and surprise from the punch. She turned to face Faith and found the cavern empty… except for the two of them.
*****
Skip had closed his eyes in concentration to reach a particularly bothersome back plate that had suffered a dent during the people pile-up. Exhaling in relief he opened them again and found the cavern deserted save the blonde witch standing next to him, open-mouthed, eyes focused on something in front of her. He followed her gaze, "Great googly-moogly."
*****
Somehow, this hell was worse than he had imagined. One minute he was watching Anya pull her shoe on and the next Xander found himself standing on a stage in front of an endless audience. Xander heard a resounding baritone voice, "Welcome to Everything you Learned in College!" The crowd erupted into applause and whistles. Blinking, Xander tried to focus on the voice, but all he could see was the immense amount of people sitting in front of him. "Joining us today is Alexander Harris." The spotlight hit Xander full in the face and he tentatively waved, while the crowed booed. "He'll be playing for the lives of his companions… Spike and Dawn!" Xander heard more applause and whistles as a curtain opened in front of him revealing Spike and Dawn suspended above a frothing tank of sharks. "For every wrong answer, Spike and Dawn get lowered 5 feet closer to the tank!" There was thunderous applause. "For every answer Mr. Harris gets correct, his friends will rise 1 foot away from danger." Catcalls and sounds of loud displeasure followed this announcement. Xander began to sweat, and started shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Here's your first question: Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day; concentrate especially..."
*****
Buffy was just beginning to get her breath back when Faith twisted her hand into her hair and painfully yanked her head back. Buffy looked into Faith's glittering, slitted eyes, "You are such a spoiled bitch. You expect help at every turn. Your Watcher, the Scoobies, even from the boys upstairs. It's about time you understood what it's like for the rest of us." Faith spat in her face and then delivered a ferocious strike to her chest while simultaneously hurling her knee into Buffy's back. Faith let go and Buffy collapsed to the floor. Seizing the opportunity, Faith drove kick after kick into her torso.
*****
Anya had moved to stand next to Willow when the earth underneath them began to rumble. Anya looked down and found that a crack had begun to make its way across the ground. Instinctively the nearest people began to huddle together. In an instant it had become a bottomless trench, effectively separating Willow, that detestable warlock Ethan Rayne and herself from the rest of the group. The crevasse widened and spread until the three were trapped on a singular up-thrust of rock surrounded by a vast expanse of nothing. Willow was clutching her hand desperately, eyes wide with fear while Ethan would have made a comical sight in any other situation, head waggling back and forth, searching for some way off the spire. "I've always hated hell-dimensions," Anya muttered to no one in particular.