CHAPTER FOUR: CRIMSON
She opened her eyes only to shut them again immediately. She must still be dreaming, she thought. She tried again, opening them slowly, only to find that she hadn't been hallucinating. Bright colours almost blinded her and she brought her arm up to cover her eyes.
For nearly half an hour she slowly regained the use of her eyesight. After fifteen years of pitch black, the sudden switch to astoundingly bright colours was a little much for her.
When her eyes had finally adjusted she looked out of the cave. The first thing she noticed was the sky. Where usually she would have been horrified to see the crimson colour of it, it was far better than the eternal blackness that had assaulted her eyes for the last decade and a half. Any colour was welcome, even the blood red sky.
Beneath the sky was what looked like a barren wasteland. There were dead stumps everywhere, the ground a dirty red dusty colour. The black stumps stood out obviously, looking like ants crawling across the ground.
She swallowed hard, trying not to panic again. It hadn't helped her at all in the cave when Whistler had been telling her everything that had needed to be explained. She concentrated on her breathing as Giles had taught her, and for an instant, she was transported back to the training room, the gentle British man at her sides.
"There is nothing but you. You are the centre. And within you, there is the core of your being…of what you are. Find it. Breath into it. Focus inward. Let the world fall away. Fall away. Fall away."
Surprisingly, it helped. A sense of inner calm swept through her and her breathing became regulated. She opened her eyes once more and put her hands onto the ground to push herself up. She stopped and suddenly realised that even though the object in her hand felt so incredibly right, it shouldn't really have been there.
Mr Pointy in her right hand. The Claddagh ring Angel had given her for her seventeenth birthday on her left hand. A leather bound journal resting underneath her hand. The soft pillow she had woken on was the neatly folded leather jacket and leather pants that had been her favourites. Around her neck was the silver cross that Angel had thrown at her on their first meeting. Her crossbow lay at her feet.
Her dream, it seemed, hadn't been entirely a dream after all. As the Slayer, she had been used to receiving prophetic reams, visions that showed her what would happen unless she prevented it. Usually all of her dreams had come to pass in some way or another. Last nights dream hadn't been any different.
Perhaps the Powers That Be had decided to bestow upon her the gifts that her friends had deigned it necessary for her to be buried with.
She looked down at herself, surprised to see her clothing. It wasn't the outfit that she was sure she had been in for the last fifteen years. From feel alone, she could tell that only yesterday she had been wearing the clothes she had plunged off the tower in. Today however, she was in a simple white dress, obviously the clothes that the Gang had buried her in.
Somehow, she was extremely grateful to Dawn burying her leathers with her. She stood up shakily and quickly stripped herself of the white cotton, replacing it with the black leather and cotton t-shirt. The contrast was stark, but she immediately felt as though she was back in her own skin when the dress was off.
When she had been alive, she had enjoyed getting dressed up, playing the part of the normal girl, but it hadn't been who she really was. It hadn't been her at all. The leathers, the dark colours, they had been who she really was. A hunter. A warrior. The Chosen One.
She slipped the stake into the inside pocket of her jacket and slung the crossbow over her shoulder. She was thankful that Xander had buried her with her favourite crossbow, and not just a random one. Her favourite bow had been specially fitted with a shoulder strap to make the slaying easier. She could drop the crossbow and still keep it with her. Plus, Giles had always told her off for throwing weapons around, considering they were likely to get damaged rather easily.
The shoes she had been buried in were hardly appropriate for whatever tests the Powers That Be wanted to put her through. She sighed as she wrapped the white sandals in the dress.
She bent down to pick up the last item, reverently touching the leather bound journal. Tears pricked her eyes as she inhaled the scent of it. It was a mixture of tea and musty books, plus the leathery smell that she had always loved. She opened it slowly and looked at the words inside.
Rupert Giles. Watcher. Son of Edmund Giles and Patricia Giles (nee Rolands).
Watcher to Elizabeth 'Buffy' Anne Summers.
1996 – 2001.
She could see that the 2001 had only been recently added, the ink colour distinctly different, the hand-writing a little different as well.
Seeing the years suddenly cut off made everything seem so much more real. She was really no longer on earth. She was in some demon dimension, Quortoth, Whistler had called it. She was stuck here for who knew how long until she could find something called a Circle of Three, whatever that was.
She closed her eyes and forced the thoughts of home out of her mind. She had trials to endure and she could hardly do so while she was sitting in the darkened cave feeling sorry for herself.
She closed the journal and placed it into the folded up dress with the sandals. She ripped off two pieces of the material from the dress and used one to tie the bundle up and the other to create a makeshift strap. She slung it diagonally over her shoulder, shifting the crossbow so that the weapon was on top and easy to reach.
Hesitating only momentarily, she stepped out of the 'comfort' of the cave and out onto the dirt covered land.
