2. Broken
This was the third time Dawn Summers had experienced the nightmare. It was always the same.
She wandered, slowly, aimlessly through a maze of dark caverns. Then, off to the side, she saw one passage entrance with a dull reddish glow, flickering weakly. She slowly entered the passage, the glow growing stronger and brighter. She turned a corner and found herself in a brightly glowing chamber. The light hurt her eyes, and took a few seconds for her to get used to the light, like it always did.
In the center of the room blazed the source of the light - a burning ball of fire, more than 12 feet across in diameter. The ball, though, was not solid; a shape writhed and twisted inside it.
Dawn always approached the ball automatically, always drawn to it, and she always saw what the shape was. A body - bent, twisted, burning - writhed in agony.
[He's being burned alive,] she always thought. [I must be having a nightmare about what Willow did to Warren. It was horrible.]
Then, Dawn noticed a pile of black clothing to the side of the fireball. She recognized the clothes all too well.
[Willow! Oh, God, no!]
She jerked back towards the fireball, stifling a scream. The writhing, burning thing turned towards her. Its eyes opened - pools of swirling blackness, far darker than even the most charred bones.
[Dawnie? Is that you?]
Dawn froze.
[Goddess, Dawnie, what are you doing here? Oh, Dawnie, I'm sorry, Dawnie, I'm so sorry, I'm so bad Dawnie, so evil ... you've got to tell them I'm so sorry, please make them see I'm so sorry for what I did and that I can never make up for it, please I'm a monster, I'm evil, I can never be forgiven, I'm sorry...]
Dawn let out a scream.
[so sorry Dawnie, I'm sorry, so sorry, sorry... sorry...]
She kept screaming - and then she always woke up, hearing Buffy scrambling down the hall. And right before Buffy burst in, she always heard the same voice in her head. A quiet voice, firm, but pleading.
[You have to help her, Dawn. You have to help her put the pieces together. You are the only one who can.]
* * *
"You need to find a way to relax your mind in the evenings," said Buffy. "You've been putting a serious cramp in my beauty sleep."
Dawn nodded, and stared into her cereal bowl.
"Think it means anything?"
"I don't know. It seems awfully real. I wonder if that's what's going on inside Willow's head - oh God, I hope not."
Buffy turned from the kitchen sink. "I hope not, too. I think it's just a nightmare, something from all the stress. It should stop soon. I'll ask Giles the next time I see him, though."
A brief silence fell over the room.
"Any word from Giles?" asked Dawn.
Buffy turned again. "Yeah. He called this morning. He said - he said the latest attempt by the coven failed. No change. She still isn't responding to anything."
Dawn looked down. "They have to find a way to get bring her back, don't they?"
"Yeah, Dawn, I'm sure they'll find something eventually."
"I don't want to hear 'eventually'. I want to hear them taking more action. Do you know what these nightmares are like? What if they're real? What if she's really burning herself over and over in her mind?"
"Well, Dawn..."
"Why don't they enter her mind and get her? Willow did it for you, Buffy. Someone should do it for her."
Buffy came over to the table and embraced her sister. "Dawn, I wish they would as much as you do, but its not that simple. They don't have any idea what they'd find in there. Giles said they've probed a few times, and they keep hitting a wall. An inky black wall they can't get through without diving in. Right now it's too dangerous."
"It's too dangerous for Willow. It's way past too dangerous for Willow. Buffy - you were there. She sacrificed herself for us."
Buffy nodded.
* * *
Two months earlier, Dawn was feeling a little proud of herself by the time she arrived at the demonic temple. After all, Dawn thought, she had held her own against real monsters. That someone who was almost family had summoned them to try to kill her, as well as her sister, was something she shoved out of her mind. [No more "if it's Tuesday, helpless Dawn must be rescued"], she thought.
Then they reached the temple, and saw Willow. More accurately, they heard her screaming first. Then they could hear her sobbing, unable to make out anything besides "I'm sorry," repeated over and over.
When they finally climbed over the crest of the hill and saw Willow, Dawn felt her heart sink. There was Xander, desperately trying to cradle what looked like a shivering rag doll.
The rag doll looked up and saw Buffy and Dawn. The shivering stopped, as did the crying. She looked directly at Buffy, and then stared at Dawn. She kept staring. Dawn began to feel uncomfortable. Willow's eyes began to fill with black ink.
Suddenly, Willow jerked backwards, and she blinked repeatedly. Her eyes went back to being green - mostly. She collapsed to the ground, and seemed to struggle with an unseen force.
Willow managed to get out a few words, barely above a whisper. "No, she's coming back, I can't let her come back, Goddess... One final spell... Buffy... Xander... Dawnie... goodbye."
And with that, Willow shut her eyes. She hadn't opened them in two months.
* * *
It took Dawn a long time to drift off to sleep the following night. But, drift off she eventually did. She was quite relieved when she did not find herself floating aimlessly down dark caves, but was watching Giles instead.
Giles seemed quite agitated as he was led down a brick hallway. The two darkly robed women leading him down the hallway seemed no less concerned. [I wonder if those two are members of the coven who sent Giles back to Sunnydale], Dawn thought.
Dawn's thoughts were quickly confirmed. Giles and his two escorts passed through what looked like an iron door, and entered a large, well-lit brick chamber. Willow was lying on a large stone table in the center of the chamber. [Poor Willow - she looks no better than when we last saw her], Dawn thought.
Giles quickly went over to Willow, and gently pried her eyelids open. He was taken aback to find swirling black ink.
"How long has she been like this?" Giles asked. Dawn noted a tone of excessive politeness in his voice.
"Only about an hour. We felt the disturbance first, and saw it pretty quickly. We called you as soon as we could."
"I sense it as well - it's the same thing we felt two months ago. Not as strong yet, but - bloody hell, the dark energy, the rage, the sorrow, and now the guilt, are building even faster than before. Where's the Leader?"
"We summoned her the same time we summoned you. She told me to tell you that she shares your grave concern, and suggests that we retry the cleansing ritual..."
"The cleansing ritual." Giles made a slight hissing noise. "A perfectly safe and pure affair. We have already tried it fourteen times. It will not work. You know it, and the Leader knows it as well."
"Mr. Giles, I appreciate your concern, but."
Giles cut her off. "And, you know what will work. The time for cleansing is over. Now is the time for action. Help me - I'm going in."
"Ahem. Mr. Giles, the Leader reiterates that projecting yourself into her mind is strictly forbidden, as the risk to you may..."
The politeness was gone.
"Risk? Damn it, I will tell you about risk, child. If I don't go in, Willow will die. We may all die in the process. Forget that, the whole planet may die. Now help me do what I have to do."
The escorts hesitated. "But the Leader..."
"Can damn well cleanse us when we're done. Now help."
The escorts stopped hesitating, and approached Giles. The former watcher sat down on a small chair at the head of the bed. Dawn watched as Giles gently embraced Willow's face. "I'm coming, love. I'm sorry it took so long," he whispered.
The escorts began chanting. The chamber shifted, and wavered - and Giles was no longer there. Giles was nowhere.
Instead, Dawn was suddenly hurled into a flashing whirlwind of images, roars, piercing screams and clashing voices. All making no sense, but all seemingly terrifying. And then, as suddenly as the whirlwind began, it stopped. All was completely dark and quiet.
Then Dawn heard a small voice that chilled her. It was the same voice she had heard just a few months ago, after she saw Rack's body hanging from the ceiling.
"Oh, good. Daddy's all through the nasty wall she made. Now I can have some fun," said the voice.
"Willow, is that you?" asked the disembodied voice of Giles. "We need to talk, Willow."
"Uh oh, Daddy's mad. I've been a bad girl. Very bad."
"Willow," said Giles, "I'm not angry with you. But we need to talk about this."
"Oh good. Don't be mad, Daddy. Play with me! I'm bored. I played with them, but they weren't any fun. No fun at all."
"Who are you talking about, Willow?"
"Warren and Rack. I played with them, but they broke. It's no fun when they break."
The voice of Giles gasped. "Now, Willow, I know you may be feeling..."
The other voice cut him off. "Been months of no fun, now. Just here, in the dark and cold and boring. But now you're here. Play now."
"Willow, this is no time for games," Giles snapped. "This is a very serious matter. I want to help you, but you have to let me..."
"Bored now," said the voice. "Want to play. It's been so boring and no fun since she broke."
The voice of Giles paused. "She? Who else broke, Willow?"
"I did."
The blackness ripped apart and shattered, and Dawn felt herself falling.
A few seconds later, Dawn found herself watching Giles, who was now inside a dark cavern. Off to the side, one entrance to a passage flickered weakly with a dull reddish glow. Giles resolutely walked towards the entrance.
[Oh, no], thought Dawn. [He's going to walk through the passage, and enter a chamber with a ball of fire.] Dawn's thoughts were cut off by a loud sound coming from the sides of the cavern. Giles did not enter the passage. Instead he assumed a ready position, just in time for scores of rotting skeletons to burst from the cavern walls.
Dawn yelped mentally, and hoped that Giles would be able to mentally conjure a weapon to fight them. Giles, however, was not perturbed.
"Disbelieve."
The skeletons immediately vanished. [Cool], thought Dawn.
Then Dawn heard a low, guttural growl. "Bother. But then, I hardly expected to get rid of you the easy way. Come on in, Daddy."
Giles said nothing, but soldiered through the passage entrance. Dawn braced herself to see the fireball yet again. Instead, she was pleasantly surprised to find herself in a classroom. And there - yes! - was a perfectly normal-looking Willow. Not quite normal, perhaps - she looked much younger, as Dawn remembered her from her first year in Sunnydale. She had long straight hair, and was wearing, from Dawn's perspective, a really conservative "schoolgirl" outfit. Dawn softly giggled to herself.
"Sit down, class. Come to attention!"
Giles sat down at a desk. Willow smiled and blushed.
"Why, Mr. Giles, welcome to our class! It's so great to have you as our guest today. And I'm going to report on a special book, Mr. Giles. C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This book has many themes, not just the obvious ones."
Dawn smiled to herself. This was turning out not to be such a bad dream after all. It was, after all, a really good book. She almost did not notice a growling noise that slowly grew louder, and louder.
"Actually, Mr. Giles, there's so much about this book, that I'm only going to report one part of it. My favorite character."
Even Giles smiled, and seemed to relax a little.
"Who do you think my favorite character is, Mr. Giles?"
"I don't know," said Giles. "Lucy or Susan, maybe?"
Willow giggled. Then she laughed. Then the laughing turned into a deep growling - and Dawn began to sense something was wrong.
"Why, no, Daddy, my favorite character is the Witch, the rightful empress of Narnia. I, like, so identify with her, you know? And we'll have so much to say about her, won't we? Hmm?"
Willow blinked, and her eyes turned black.
"But first, though, this costume is getting so uncomfortable. Why, for God's sake, I'm just going to take it off."
Willow grabbed the front of her outfit, and then grabbed deeper into her body than her outfit could possibly go - and Dawn mentally screamed and looked away. She heard an awful ripping sound. When she was able to bring herself to look, she was relieved to see that she was not looking at a skinned Willow, but just barely. Instead, she was looking at a demonic thing with gray skin, gray fur, six-inch long claws, and fangs that stayed visible even when the thing's mouth was closed. The thing had jet black eyes, which she (it?) used to stare at Giles for a few seconds.
Then she let out a horrible laugh. Her gaze shifted, and now seemed to be looking at Dawn. [That's impossible. It's only a dream], thought Dawn.
"But before we continue, Mister Giles, there's something we need to take care of. We have an absent student. The Sunnydale School Board, I remind you, frowns upon truancy. In a sense, she's already here in spirit, but that won't meet the school's requirements. Let's bring her in, shall we?"
Giles slowly stirred. "Willow, what are you talking about."
"Silence. I need concentration." Arcs of energy began to form at the end of the thing's claws. "And we need our fellow classmate - DAWN SUMMERS!"
There was a flash and a sharp jerk. Suddenly, Dawn found herself sitting in the classroom, only a few feet away from the thing formerly known as Willow Rosenberg. The thing grinned at her.
She turned to Giles, who looked completely shaken. "Dawn," he slowly got out, "what are you doing here?"
"I don't know," Dawn said. "I thought I was asleep. I don't think I'm dreaming anymore."
The thing let out an awful laugh. "Why no, Dawnie, you aren't in Dreamland. You sure as hell aren't in Kansas, either. Class is now in session. And there will be very strict penalties for not making satisfactory progress."
An urge shot through Dawn, but she suppressed it. With all her might, she sent a command to her body.
[I am not going to cry. And I am not going to scream.]
* * *
Buffy exploded out her bed, instinctively knowing something was wrong. She could hear Xander scrambling out of the living room couch, too. The two of them rushed into Dawn's room just seconds apart, to see Dawn apparently sleeping peacefully.
Buffy breathed a sigh of relief, but then stopped. "Xan, I think we need to check up on her. Just a little." Xander nodded.
Buffy quiely sat on Dawn's bed, and gently caressed her hair. "Hey Dawn, sorry to bother you," she whispered, "but I felt something strange, y' know? How are you doing?"
Dawn gave no reply.
"Dawnie?"
Nothing.
"Dawn? Wake up! Please!"
Still nothing. Buffy and Xander rolled her over, and Dawn's eyelids opened, revealing black pools of swirling ink.
"No! Oh, God - Xander, call England, call England now! Go!" Xander needed little prompting.
Buffy pressed Dawn to her chest, sobbing. After what seemed to be days, Xander reappeared. One look at his face told Buffy the news was not good.
"Something's gone wrong, Buffy. Giles dove into her mind and tried to reach her, but something went wrong. He's trapped, and it looks like, somehow, Dawn is trapped, too. And... Willow... the dark magic is building again."
* * *
To be continued in Chapter 3.
This was the third time Dawn Summers had experienced the nightmare. It was always the same.
She wandered, slowly, aimlessly through a maze of dark caverns. Then, off to the side, she saw one passage entrance with a dull reddish glow, flickering weakly. She slowly entered the passage, the glow growing stronger and brighter. She turned a corner and found herself in a brightly glowing chamber. The light hurt her eyes, and took a few seconds for her to get used to the light, like it always did.
In the center of the room blazed the source of the light - a burning ball of fire, more than 12 feet across in diameter. The ball, though, was not solid; a shape writhed and twisted inside it.
Dawn always approached the ball automatically, always drawn to it, and she always saw what the shape was. A body - bent, twisted, burning - writhed in agony.
[He's being burned alive,] she always thought. [I must be having a nightmare about what Willow did to Warren. It was horrible.]
Then, Dawn noticed a pile of black clothing to the side of the fireball. She recognized the clothes all too well.
[Willow! Oh, God, no!]
She jerked back towards the fireball, stifling a scream. The writhing, burning thing turned towards her. Its eyes opened - pools of swirling blackness, far darker than even the most charred bones.
[Dawnie? Is that you?]
Dawn froze.
[Goddess, Dawnie, what are you doing here? Oh, Dawnie, I'm sorry, Dawnie, I'm so sorry, I'm so bad Dawnie, so evil ... you've got to tell them I'm so sorry, please make them see I'm so sorry for what I did and that I can never make up for it, please I'm a monster, I'm evil, I can never be forgiven, I'm sorry...]
Dawn let out a scream.
[so sorry Dawnie, I'm sorry, so sorry, sorry... sorry...]
She kept screaming - and then she always woke up, hearing Buffy scrambling down the hall. And right before Buffy burst in, she always heard the same voice in her head. A quiet voice, firm, but pleading.
[You have to help her, Dawn. You have to help her put the pieces together. You are the only one who can.]
* * *
"You need to find a way to relax your mind in the evenings," said Buffy. "You've been putting a serious cramp in my beauty sleep."
Dawn nodded, and stared into her cereal bowl.
"Think it means anything?"
"I don't know. It seems awfully real. I wonder if that's what's going on inside Willow's head - oh God, I hope not."
Buffy turned from the kitchen sink. "I hope not, too. I think it's just a nightmare, something from all the stress. It should stop soon. I'll ask Giles the next time I see him, though."
A brief silence fell over the room.
"Any word from Giles?" asked Dawn.
Buffy turned again. "Yeah. He called this morning. He said - he said the latest attempt by the coven failed. No change. She still isn't responding to anything."
Dawn looked down. "They have to find a way to get bring her back, don't they?"
"Yeah, Dawn, I'm sure they'll find something eventually."
"I don't want to hear 'eventually'. I want to hear them taking more action. Do you know what these nightmares are like? What if they're real? What if she's really burning herself over and over in her mind?"
"Well, Dawn..."
"Why don't they enter her mind and get her? Willow did it for you, Buffy. Someone should do it for her."
Buffy came over to the table and embraced her sister. "Dawn, I wish they would as much as you do, but its not that simple. They don't have any idea what they'd find in there. Giles said they've probed a few times, and they keep hitting a wall. An inky black wall they can't get through without diving in. Right now it's too dangerous."
"It's too dangerous for Willow. It's way past too dangerous for Willow. Buffy - you were there. She sacrificed herself for us."
Buffy nodded.
* * *
Two months earlier, Dawn was feeling a little proud of herself by the time she arrived at the demonic temple. After all, Dawn thought, she had held her own against real monsters. That someone who was almost family had summoned them to try to kill her, as well as her sister, was something she shoved out of her mind. [No more "if it's Tuesday, helpless Dawn must be rescued"], she thought.
Then they reached the temple, and saw Willow. More accurately, they heard her screaming first. Then they could hear her sobbing, unable to make out anything besides "I'm sorry," repeated over and over.
When they finally climbed over the crest of the hill and saw Willow, Dawn felt her heart sink. There was Xander, desperately trying to cradle what looked like a shivering rag doll.
The rag doll looked up and saw Buffy and Dawn. The shivering stopped, as did the crying. She looked directly at Buffy, and then stared at Dawn. She kept staring. Dawn began to feel uncomfortable. Willow's eyes began to fill with black ink.
Suddenly, Willow jerked backwards, and she blinked repeatedly. Her eyes went back to being green - mostly. She collapsed to the ground, and seemed to struggle with an unseen force.
Willow managed to get out a few words, barely above a whisper. "No, she's coming back, I can't let her come back, Goddess... One final spell... Buffy... Xander... Dawnie... goodbye."
And with that, Willow shut her eyes. She hadn't opened them in two months.
* * *
It took Dawn a long time to drift off to sleep the following night. But, drift off she eventually did. She was quite relieved when she did not find herself floating aimlessly down dark caves, but was watching Giles instead.
Giles seemed quite agitated as he was led down a brick hallway. The two darkly robed women leading him down the hallway seemed no less concerned. [I wonder if those two are members of the coven who sent Giles back to Sunnydale], Dawn thought.
Dawn's thoughts were quickly confirmed. Giles and his two escorts passed through what looked like an iron door, and entered a large, well-lit brick chamber. Willow was lying on a large stone table in the center of the chamber. [Poor Willow - she looks no better than when we last saw her], Dawn thought.
Giles quickly went over to Willow, and gently pried her eyelids open. He was taken aback to find swirling black ink.
"How long has she been like this?" Giles asked. Dawn noted a tone of excessive politeness in his voice.
"Only about an hour. We felt the disturbance first, and saw it pretty quickly. We called you as soon as we could."
"I sense it as well - it's the same thing we felt two months ago. Not as strong yet, but - bloody hell, the dark energy, the rage, the sorrow, and now the guilt, are building even faster than before. Where's the Leader?"
"We summoned her the same time we summoned you. She told me to tell you that she shares your grave concern, and suggests that we retry the cleansing ritual..."
"The cleansing ritual." Giles made a slight hissing noise. "A perfectly safe and pure affair. We have already tried it fourteen times. It will not work. You know it, and the Leader knows it as well."
"Mr. Giles, I appreciate your concern, but."
Giles cut her off. "And, you know what will work. The time for cleansing is over. Now is the time for action. Help me - I'm going in."
"Ahem. Mr. Giles, the Leader reiterates that projecting yourself into her mind is strictly forbidden, as the risk to you may..."
The politeness was gone.
"Risk? Damn it, I will tell you about risk, child. If I don't go in, Willow will die. We may all die in the process. Forget that, the whole planet may die. Now help me do what I have to do."
The escorts hesitated. "But the Leader..."
"Can damn well cleanse us when we're done. Now help."
The escorts stopped hesitating, and approached Giles. The former watcher sat down on a small chair at the head of the bed. Dawn watched as Giles gently embraced Willow's face. "I'm coming, love. I'm sorry it took so long," he whispered.
The escorts began chanting. The chamber shifted, and wavered - and Giles was no longer there. Giles was nowhere.
Instead, Dawn was suddenly hurled into a flashing whirlwind of images, roars, piercing screams and clashing voices. All making no sense, but all seemingly terrifying. And then, as suddenly as the whirlwind began, it stopped. All was completely dark and quiet.
Then Dawn heard a small voice that chilled her. It was the same voice she had heard just a few months ago, after she saw Rack's body hanging from the ceiling.
"Oh, good. Daddy's all through the nasty wall she made. Now I can have some fun," said the voice.
"Willow, is that you?" asked the disembodied voice of Giles. "We need to talk, Willow."
"Uh oh, Daddy's mad. I've been a bad girl. Very bad."
"Willow," said Giles, "I'm not angry with you. But we need to talk about this."
"Oh good. Don't be mad, Daddy. Play with me! I'm bored. I played with them, but they weren't any fun. No fun at all."
"Who are you talking about, Willow?"
"Warren and Rack. I played with them, but they broke. It's no fun when they break."
The voice of Giles gasped. "Now, Willow, I know you may be feeling..."
The other voice cut him off. "Been months of no fun, now. Just here, in the dark and cold and boring. But now you're here. Play now."
"Willow, this is no time for games," Giles snapped. "This is a very serious matter. I want to help you, but you have to let me..."
"Bored now," said the voice. "Want to play. It's been so boring and no fun since she broke."
The voice of Giles paused. "She? Who else broke, Willow?"
"I did."
The blackness ripped apart and shattered, and Dawn felt herself falling.
A few seconds later, Dawn found herself watching Giles, who was now inside a dark cavern. Off to the side, one entrance to a passage flickered weakly with a dull reddish glow. Giles resolutely walked towards the entrance.
[Oh, no], thought Dawn. [He's going to walk through the passage, and enter a chamber with a ball of fire.] Dawn's thoughts were cut off by a loud sound coming from the sides of the cavern. Giles did not enter the passage. Instead he assumed a ready position, just in time for scores of rotting skeletons to burst from the cavern walls.
Dawn yelped mentally, and hoped that Giles would be able to mentally conjure a weapon to fight them. Giles, however, was not perturbed.
"Disbelieve."
The skeletons immediately vanished. [Cool], thought Dawn.
Then Dawn heard a low, guttural growl. "Bother. But then, I hardly expected to get rid of you the easy way. Come on in, Daddy."
Giles said nothing, but soldiered through the passage entrance. Dawn braced herself to see the fireball yet again. Instead, she was pleasantly surprised to find herself in a classroom. And there - yes! - was a perfectly normal-looking Willow. Not quite normal, perhaps - she looked much younger, as Dawn remembered her from her first year in Sunnydale. She had long straight hair, and was wearing, from Dawn's perspective, a really conservative "schoolgirl" outfit. Dawn softly giggled to herself.
"Sit down, class. Come to attention!"
Giles sat down at a desk. Willow smiled and blushed.
"Why, Mr. Giles, welcome to our class! It's so great to have you as our guest today. And I'm going to report on a special book, Mr. Giles. C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This book has many themes, not just the obvious ones."
Dawn smiled to herself. This was turning out not to be such a bad dream after all. It was, after all, a really good book. She almost did not notice a growling noise that slowly grew louder, and louder.
"Actually, Mr. Giles, there's so much about this book, that I'm only going to report one part of it. My favorite character."
Even Giles smiled, and seemed to relax a little.
"Who do you think my favorite character is, Mr. Giles?"
"I don't know," said Giles. "Lucy or Susan, maybe?"
Willow giggled. Then she laughed. Then the laughing turned into a deep growling - and Dawn began to sense something was wrong.
"Why, no, Daddy, my favorite character is the Witch, the rightful empress of Narnia. I, like, so identify with her, you know? And we'll have so much to say about her, won't we? Hmm?"
Willow blinked, and her eyes turned black.
"But first, though, this costume is getting so uncomfortable. Why, for God's sake, I'm just going to take it off."
Willow grabbed the front of her outfit, and then grabbed deeper into her body than her outfit could possibly go - and Dawn mentally screamed and looked away. She heard an awful ripping sound. When she was able to bring herself to look, she was relieved to see that she was not looking at a skinned Willow, but just barely. Instead, she was looking at a demonic thing with gray skin, gray fur, six-inch long claws, and fangs that stayed visible even when the thing's mouth was closed. The thing had jet black eyes, which she (it?) used to stare at Giles for a few seconds.
Then she let out a horrible laugh. Her gaze shifted, and now seemed to be looking at Dawn. [That's impossible. It's only a dream], thought Dawn.
"But before we continue, Mister Giles, there's something we need to take care of. We have an absent student. The Sunnydale School Board, I remind you, frowns upon truancy. In a sense, she's already here in spirit, but that won't meet the school's requirements. Let's bring her in, shall we?"
Giles slowly stirred. "Willow, what are you talking about."
"Silence. I need concentration." Arcs of energy began to form at the end of the thing's claws. "And we need our fellow classmate - DAWN SUMMERS!"
There was a flash and a sharp jerk. Suddenly, Dawn found herself sitting in the classroom, only a few feet away from the thing formerly known as Willow Rosenberg. The thing grinned at her.
She turned to Giles, who looked completely shaken. "Dawn," he slowly got out, "what are you doing here?"
"I don't know," Dawn said. "I thought I was asleep. I don't think I'm dreaming anymore."
The thing let out an awful laugh. "Why no, Dawnie, you aren't in Dreamland. You sure as hell aren't in Kansas, either. Class is now in session. And there will be very strict penalties for not making satisfactory progress."
An urge shot through Dawn, but she suppressed it. With all her might, she sent a command to her body.
[I am not going to cry. And I am not going to scream.]
* * *
Buffy exploded out her bed, instinctively knowing something was wrong. She could hear Xander scrambling out of the living room couch, too. The two of them rushed into Dawn's room just seconds apart, to see Dawn apparently sleeping peacefully.
Buffy breathed a sigh of relief, but then stopped. "Xan, I think we need to check up on her. Just a little." Xander nodded.
Buffy quiely sat on Dawn's bed, and gently caressed her hair. "Hey Dawn, sorry to bother you," she whispered, "but I felt something strange, y' know? How are you doing?"
Dawn gave no reply.
"Dawnie?"
Nothing.
"Dawn? Wake up! Please!"
Still nothing. Buffy and Xander rolled her over, and Dawn's eyelids opened, revealing black pools of swirling ink.
"No! Oh, God - Xander, call England, call England now! Go!" Xander needed little prompting.
Buffy pressed Dawn to her chest, sobbing. After what seemed to be days, Xander reappeared. One look at his face told Buffy the news was not good.
"Something's gone wrong, Buffy. Giles dove into her mind and tried to reach her, but something went wrong. He's trapped, and it looks like, somehow, Dawn is trapped, too. And... Willow... the dark magic is building again."
* * *
To be continued in Chapter 3.