TITLE: "Normal again" (8/8) part IV (Because of length, cut in six? parts.)

AUTHOR: Richard Bachman

EMAIL: bachman_rchard@hotmail.com

SITE: nope

FEEDBACK: Give it to me luv, you know you want more of this.

DISTRIBUTION: Do whatever you like poodle. As long as Richard is mentioned I'm fine.

SUMMARY: based on the episode Normal Again. Instead of Buffy, Spike was poisoned by the demon and his consciousness was transported into an alternative reality where he found himself incarcerated in an asylum.

THANK YOU: For your patience, your support and your comments on the story.

ACT 8: Sleeper



SCENE 10

The night had progressed halfway down to the next morning when Buffy finally reached the doorstep of her house, her mind exhausted from an emotional day, her body cold from a chilly wind that swept through the streets, making a flock of clattering leaves rise from the ground. She unlocked the door with an unintended loud noise, and although she tried to push it open most carefully, the squeaking of the rusty hinges and the groaning of old wood, made her worry that perhaps she might wake up Dawn. But the small hallway remained peacefully quiet and no sound came from upstairs. Her little teenage sister must already be fast asleep.

Buffy hung up her coat and strolled into the kitchen, took a smelly carton of skimmed milk out of the fridge, took a sniff, then decided that it wasn't worth the risk and discarded the miniature cheese fabric in the already overflowing garbage bin, and picked a bottle of Coke instead. Although it had already been opened and the fizz was all gone, it still tasted chemically challenging enough to be free of any microbial invasion that seemed to be tyrannizing her groceries. She also picked up a stale slice of pepperoni pizza, leftovers from Dawn's nutritious dinner, considered shortly of heating it up in the microwave, took a bite, then decided that it would do and, after spinning two layers of kitchen paper from the roll, headed for the living room.

She sat down at her mom's antique writing-desk, consuming the horrid piece of fast food, flushing it down with sips of fizzless Coke. She took William's file out of her bag, staining the cover with greasy finger marks. It was odd, but she wasn't that tired anymore. Back at the clinic, just after she had put William away in the seclusion room, she hadn't realized how worn out she was, emotions stirring up tons of adrenaline to keep her going. The first thing she did was to go back to her office and start doing research, reading books that dealt with the psyche of rape victims. In order to be able to help him, she must first understand (or attempt to understand) what kind of hell William was going through. However, as the evening progressed and she kept making up excuses for not having to abandon her work (or was it not having to abandon him?), the weariness started to get to her, tugging on her eyelids and filling her mind with garbled pudding while it should be filled with knowledge. Still, she stood her stand till three o'clock, after which she decided to take one last look at William to make sure that he was still all right.

Through the small, pigeonhole-sized window, she saw him, fast asleep, his body curled up into a tight knot, his chest rising and falling in a peaceful rhythm. No bad dreams. No imaginary voices. It was only then that she had really made up her mind that it was time to call it a day and get her own portion of good ol' shut-eyes before she collapsed in front of Will's padded cell and started snoring rather un-ladylike.

However, after finishing the pizza, the fizzy drink and, after another short trip to the kitchen, half a bucket of ice -cream, she felt invigorated and anxious enough to start worrying again (it must have been all that sugar, she thought; mental note to myself: do not consume large quantities of Hagendaz's Chocolate cheesecake goodness just before getting a night's rest, or you won't get any.). Not the type of worrying that she considered as helpful to her and Will, because it drove her into professionalism and whipped her brains into action to find solutions. It was more the useless kind of worrying, the sort that distracted her from being the collected, rational Dr Summers, and turned her into a volatile emotional dupe. It boiled up with a nosy string of trouble-bubbles, while she was staring into the shady pool of light that her tiffany desk-lamp provided.

Did she do the right thing to tell William what he wanted to hear? That he thought he wanted to hear? Did she love him? Did he love her, or was it just his illness that made him believe that he did? In that case I shouldn't be worried, the rational Dr Summers part of her considered. I mean, lying to a patient isn't much of a crime as compared to falling in love with one. If he didn't mean it, then my words back there in the emergency room didn't have any meaning either, right? I can't be falling in love with someone, who isn't in love with me.

Although it was late, she still had enough common sense left to know that the last part of her reasoning was absolutely nonsense. Of course she could. And she had perhaps.

Buffy Ann Summers! Please, pull your self together! This isn't the time to take a membership on Will's craziness! She shook her head, a physical motion that kicked in an impulse inside her head to do the same mentally, so that her girlish thoughts of insecurity was spilled from her mind. Really, having too many problems to deal with right now to start worrying about the sincerity of Will's feelings for her. She must focus herself on the problems, focus on -

"Liam." She muttered, scraping the spoon over the bottom of the empty bucket for the last bits of sticky chocolate. God, how was she going to deal with Liam now she knew the horrible truth? She was still having when she went to see William, but after she had seen his reaction to her questions, she could hardly fool herself any longer. His fear, his recent torment by insanity, perhaps even, while she was considering, his entire mental illness, had something to do with Liam.

Should she report the crime as it was, get the older brother arrested?

"That would the right thing to do." She said to herself. "But it wouldn't be the smartest." If Liam got arrested, he would be trailed and charged for physical abuse and rape, subsequently jailed for four to five years and lose his custody over his younger sibling. Liam would end up without any hopeful prospects for the future and William would lose his only brother.

And that was what, exactly? A great loss? Did you already forget what he had done to Will? He raped him! He took away his pride, took possession of what was not his to have and drove him to madness out of horrible shame. And now, Dr Summers, you're feeling sorry for that monster? What are you, the all-forgiving Mary? Didn't you see in which state the incident had left him, how it had destroyed him?

"I'm not going to keep this quiet because I'm pitying Liam." She said, softly, slightly aware that she was having a rather peculiar conversation with herself. Boy, perhaps it was really time to go the bed. "I'm doing this for Will." He didn't want to bring Liam into trouble. It might have been the ill-thinking pattern of a rape victim that had been talking to her earlier this evening, but she did know that he cared about his brother. That he needed Liam to keep him grounded in this reality as much as he needed her right now to set things right for him. "I can't just - tear his only family away from him. That wouldn't be right." She thought of the photographs Liam had showed her only this morning, the wide grins on both boys' sun tanned faces ("Summer-camp." Liam had explained to her, smiling at her not without the sad glee of sweet melancholy. "God, were we a handful! Will and I had to do most of the potato peeling for the entire camp because we managed to get ourselves into trouble almost every day. Ever had bits of cooked fur- ball drifting in your breakfast? Will's idea."), and the inevitable Holliday shots ("Christmas '83. See that tree over there? Mom used to make loads of cookies to get the whole thing decorated. Took her boys three days to make a full afternoon of baking efforts completely fruitless. They definitely didn't make it to Christmas."). She couldn't decide if the pictures were lying, or that she just wasn't ready to accept the truth that such an ugly and heinous deed was not the product of a cold, stone - hearted monster, but the wrongdoing of a man, whose normal appearance was so just and lovable that nobody could have suspected anything. It was even harder for her to understand what had driven him to it. Had Liam been violent, compulsive or easily enraged, it would have at least provided her a sketch of character that fitted the felony. However, he seemed to be none of that, and the profile of William's family didn't point out any signs of physical abuse suffered by the hands of their parents as a possible motif for his actions. It had to be something else. Although the files didn't bear as much information on Liam Byron as it did on William, there was still enough about the older brother documented in there to give her the impression that Liam was considered a decent man by his family and friends. A sensible man with a rational mind, as he was described by her colleague who had taken the interview. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him, but perhaps only the great remorse and the overprotective behaviour he expressed when dealing with his younger sibling's illness.

Buffy chewed on the cool surface of the spoon in her mouth that quickly warmed on her tongue. There was that nagging feeling again that told her that something wasn't right, that the answers to her questions were more complicated than that she wanted them to be. When she was still a student, she once had taken classes on criminal psychology, and from what she had learned about the subject was that these type of offenders could be divided into two groups, One group was driven to the act by desperation, an outburst of uncontrolled emotions, blinding them for their actions. Most them did feel remorseful after the felony had taken place.

The second group was also driven by strong emotions, although not the type that any normal person could ever understand. It was a burning rage that was more abstract and wasn't specifically pointed to anyone, but more to everyone, that fitted the criminal's criteria of potential victim. The criminal's actions were compelled by his strong belief that the world had deeply wronged him (the rude cashier, the you-are-not-good-enough-for-my- daughter mother-in-law, the bitch boss), and that he should take his rights in his own hands to make it better. The people he hurt were not seen as human beings. They were not subjects but objects. To be degraded. To be dismantled. To be owned. There was absolutely, no remorse after the act.

The first group consisted of wife-beaters, frustrated boyfriends, and shameful fathers who couldn't quite keep their hands off their own children.

The second group consisted of dangerous serial killers.

Liam could be fitted into the first category, considering the remorse he showed towards his brother (It made her sick to her stomach to think that during all that time she had felt sorry for Liam blaming himself for his brother's illness) and his passive character. Liam had been devastated after the horrible incident in the visiting room. She had seen his complexion, pale as a ghost, his features turned crude, and noticed the slight movements of his trembling hands towards Will, who was lying on the floor unconscious at that time. He wanted to help him.

Liam went back to his hotel after she had put much effort into explaining to him that there was nothing he could do to help out, that it would be better for him not to see Will if his fit had something to do with his presence. There had been pain in that man's face. Even with the red swollen cut running down one side of his cheek reminding him that his younger brother could have in fact, killed him if it wasn't for the staff's intervention, he couldn't escape his conscience.

She wanted to give the man a second chance. For Will. But perhaps also, as she reconsidered her feelings towards the older brother, a little bit for Liam himself too.

But why was there still this tiny little voice inside her head, that warned her for what she was about to do, told her that it might not be such a good plan to keep this dark secret hushed? Why did it say that she should reassess everything most cautiously?

Buffy couldn't figure out what was bothering her. She thought that her reasoning was rational, considered enough to be transformed into action. She would call Liam the first thing in the morning, inform him about Will's situation to reassure him, but not mention a word about the rape. Then, she would make an appointment, telling him that she had something serious with him to discuss concerning Will. When he showed up in her office in private, she could approach him tactfully. Ask him the burdened questions. Talk him into getting help and offering help to him herself. She would promise to keep it a secret between them, and in the perfect scenario of her mind, Liam would accept her offer, go in therapy, and leave Will alone.

As with many ideas concocted in the early hours of the morning, it seemed like a good workable strategy. A win - win situation in which she could save both brothers without having to sacrifice anything in return. Simply brilliant.

Still, there was that whiny little voice again, accompanied by that nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right.





SCENE 11

Sorrento is a small village on the west coast of Italy, north to the ruins of Pompeii, south to the dark, rat-infested alleys of Naples, just balancing on the seams of Lady Vesuvius luscious green skirts. Decades ago, it wasn't much more than a collection of tattered little hovels, on the verge of collapse any minute. The docks in the small harbour were rotting away from underneath and smelled like dead fish. You got a pebble beach there, consisting of sharp volcanic rocks in all colours and shapes, able to scrape open your bare feet till the cuts started bleeding ferociously, although you would have barely minded the mild stinging in your soles. At twilight, you could see the boats wobble and nod their ways back to the port, sun scarred men bringing in their meagre catches to fill their hungry brats' mouths with. The sky would be endlessly high, becoming darker by the minute, while at the other side of the sea, the retreating sun sank into a rippling puddle of her own colourful blood. The stars and the moon would come out, while the last bit of sunlight bounced off the waves, kissing it goodbye with a farewell orange glow. Somewhere above, seagulls would shriek.

I used to love sunsets, observing them in the sanctuary of shadows, the cheery end of a useless day. There was this feeling of finiteness, as if the daft Bugger up there had finally figured it out that there was no sodden point in letting the sun come up everyday, if everything had to end up in darkness anyway. Eternal darkness, now that would be a real treat for the likes of her and me. No more hiding from the sun, no more limits to our strength. Mayhem, death and bloodshed 24 hours a day, just like cable telly.

With a slight rumbling noise coming from my empty stomach, I looked at her, cradled in my arms, her soft long hair tickling my shoulders. She stirred, and her lips parted in a small sigh. Her eyes opened, fluttering gently.

"Spike?" She said.

"Yes, luv."

"I'm hungry."

We got out of our shelter and ventured into the tiny village. There was only one bar in the entire town, but it kept its doors open till the very last costumer was gone. Some funny South European hospitality thing, wished that the pubs back home would adopt the same policy, but anyway, local wine went down the locals' gullets as if it was tap-water in there, and the boozers were easy pickings. We went to a table in a quiet corner, sat down and watched silently. When the patron came and advised us to choose one of his excellent wines, we picked him instead. He smelled of soggy armpits and sweaty Parmesan cheese, but according to her, he tasted like sweet grapes. There were more victims that night. A drunken fisherman with a crumbled photo of his family but no money in his pockets. A rose cheeked harlot with eyes still too innocent to be any older than fourteen, but with a body too broken and used to be that of a child.

At the end of the evening, we strolled back to the beach, my arm wrapped around her shoulders while she herself clutched on to a blood-red scarf from the dead girl that we had left behind in the narrow maze of cobbled streets. Suddenly, she yanked herself away from me, and draped the cloth around her slender neck, letting it sliver down her low cut dress like blood.

"Guess who I am." She said, a thin smile on her lips.

"Well, geez, I don't know. Little Red Riding Hood?" Half mocking her, offering just a bit of benevolent teasing.

"Ha! You wish!" her smile broadened, but there was no real glee in it. "You're not the Big Bad Wolf, you know."

I walked up to her. Her features were lovingly familiar in the sparse pools of streetlights. Somewhere behind the crumbly walls of decomposing houses, came the distant roaring of the sea.

"Then tell me, luv." I whispered close to her, close enough to smell the copper in her breath. "Tell me, who are you supposed to be?"

"It's not a hard riddle to crack, really. I'm a vampire with a dead whore's scarf around my neck."

She just said that. Without emotion. Without compassion. She was like me now. Dead inside.

We reached our lair, an abandoned house near the beach that had once belonged to a happy elderly couple whose bodies we had discarded in the cellar beneath the tidy kitchen. As long as they didn't start to smell, we were not planning to move out.

Just as we were about to set foot on the small wooden veranda, she twirled around. The scarf was now secured to her hair in a flame-red bow. She kicked her shoes off her feet and staggered back, her red lips pouting into a luring grin.

"Come on Spike. Let's take a walk on the beach. The moon is beautiful tonight."

I watched her slip one strap of her dress over her shoulder, baring pale skin underneath. Her blue eyes appeared black amidst the dark midnight blue of early morning, while her soft curling hair seemed to be made out of silver moonbeams.

"Buffy." I managed to say, my voice trembling. Although the very sight of her, the unreserved beauty of her darkness, had overwhelmed me, there was this strange feeling of sadness that I couldn't quite place. I had her love. She had become one of my kind and would spend the rest of eternity with me. I should be happy, but I wasn't.

"I would love to take a dive in the sea right now. Let the fish tickle my legs." She purred, her voice seductively low. "Don't you want to see me naked?"

"Love to, pet. But there isn't enough time to go skin dipping in the sea. The sun will be up in an hour."

"Ah, come on. Don't be such a whiny but! A whole hour should be more than long enough." Her hand slipped underneath the second strap and as she pulled it down, the entire dress fell from her body like a lose skin and sank into a heap of untidy folds before her feet. Her hand gently cupped her mango-sized breasts, tendrils of silver curled loosely around her pale sweet little face while moonlight stroked her soft curving body.

Understandably, I had some trouble controlling myself.

"Buffy, listen." I explained, trying not to think with the growing bulge that was currently straining my trousers. "If you want to take a dive in the sea, we can go tomorrow night. Skip the elaborate three-course dinner to spare the evening and only go for a quick bite in town. But for now, we really don't have the time to - "

"Come and get me." She whispered, her voice carried away by a salty sea- breeze, and she turned around, ran across the pebbles till she reached the dark sands of the shore and dived into the hulls.

"Bloody hell." I muttered, after which I quickly shrugged my shirt over my shoulders and subsequently hopped on one foot to get rid of my docs. "Buffy!" I yelled, slightly panicking. But she was already too far away to be able to hear me. Beads of moonlight caught on her skin and her slippery body just seemed to dissolve in the waves.

"Is this what you want? How you though it would be?"

"This isn't what it might have been." I said, a sharp tinge of resentment in my voice. "This had already happened. Once before. With Dru." I turned and met William Byron's accusing stare. "I know what you're trying to do, but this isn't working. Buffy is not anything like Dru."

"No, she isn't." He said. "She's much stronger than her. That's why you shouldn't -"

"Shouldn't what?" I snapped. Within a blink of an eye, my dusty "soul-mate" was gone. So was the night's sky, the sea, the beach, whole of sodden Italy. For a moment I feared that she was gone too, but then I caught sight of her, huddled in a corner of the bathroom in her own house back in Sunnydale, the mascara lines under her eyes broken and smudged as hot tears rolled down her cheeks.

"You lied to me." She said, her voice breaking. "You said it wouldn't hurt, that I wouldn't feel anything, but I did."

I stepped closer to her, warily, my head light on the thick scent of blood that choked the stagnant air. My fangs were bared, my human features twisted into that of a demon. Somewhere on my right, my eyes caught a glimpse of a pale hand, clutching lifelessly onto the brim of white porcelain. Inside the tub, a body drifted in murky brown water, hair swaying like patches of red seaweed.

Red's eyes were not closed, as I had rather wished them to be, but stared up to the ceiling. Not haunting or judging or revengeful or anything. Just - dead.

"Why does it hurt so much?" She asked, gazing up with tears burning behind those stale blue eyes. "I'm a demon now. Just like you. I shouldn't feel anything when - when -"

I crouched down beside her, wiped tears from her cheeks and placed my forehead on hers. "Shshsh" I kept saying. "Shshsh, it's all right, luv. The pain won't stay. Shshshsh."

" How many are there left?" I asked gently, careful not to startle her.

She blinked away some tears. "I - I think I've killed everyone. Everyone except for - for Dawn. I don't want to kill her. Please don't make me."

I stroked a damp lock away from her eyes, my features shifting back into human again. The corners of my mouth curled into a sad smile.

"I'm sorry, luv. But you have to. It's the only way to make the hurting stop. Let her live, and she will only remind you of the pain. It will drive you mad. You have to finish it."

"Spike, please! I - "

"Kill her, Buffy. Kill her, or I'll turn her."

She chewed on her lower lip, watching me with a fiery hatred burning in her eyes. Gone was the sadness, the fear, and the nagging voice of conscience. All that remained was her rage and bitterness.

"You are a monster, Spike!" She spat. "You tricked me! You've never really loved me, or you wouldn't have done this to me! You knew how it would feel like and still you made me do this! I hate you! I fucking hate you!"

"You need me, luv. You can hate me all you want but the truth is, that you can't go on without me. There no-one left for you but me. You're mine now, Buffy."

"Stop this!" I yelled, screaming inside the tiny bathroom, not to myself or to Buffy, but to that wanker William who had spinelessly kept himself out of this soddin motion picture from hell. "This isn't real!" I raged. "This has never happened!"

"But you wanted this. Deep in your heart you wished she would be yours, joining you in the dark." His voice came out of nowhere, and his enlightened cowardly arse was equally nowhere to be seen. The room was dim now. Nobody was left in here except for me.

"Yes!" I admitted. "I love her. I want her. But not like this! Never like this! I would never hurt her or Nibblet or -"

"You would do as you were taught, Spike. Tell me in all honesty; if her friends and family were all that stood between her and you, wouldn't you like to remove them? Isolate her, make her miserable and lonely, just so you will be able to get to her?"

"I - It wasn't anything like that! I am not - I'm not Angelus!" I spat the words out before I had time to regret them, and still my daft tongue kept rolling. "My peachy Grand Sire, he told me that it was something every fledgling had to do. Remove the traces of my past, cleanse the messy board of my childish attempts to life and more of that buggery nonsense. With all that unresolved rage burning inside of me, it seemed like a good plan at the time." I sucked in a torn breath. Shut my eyes to hide the tears. I'll be bloody damned to let the wussy librarian see me cry again. "He told me, that I wouldn't feel anything. That it wouldn't hurt because the demon was so much stronger than the pain. I went to my uncle's house after I had starved myself for two nights, just to make sure. Bloody massacred them, ended up much in the same spot Buffy was. In the bathroom, huddled away underneath my aunt Dorothy's wash-table with my aunt Dorothy herself floating in the tub. I was so confused, so ashamed because I did feel something. I had felt something break inside. It wasn't supposed to be like that." I fell silent. Bloody tears running out of stubborn eyes. William appeared right out of thin air, just in time to witness my second round of pitiable snivelling. Balls.

"I'm sorry." He said.

I frowned at him, slightly baffled by his response, having expected an tedious lecture about my dubious feelings for Buffy, but receiving his pity instead.

"Don't be." I said, and I meant it. "If there's someone here who should be apologizing it should be me. It was your family that I've murdered, not mine."

Our surroundings changed, it shifted and wobbled like sheets hung out to dry in the wind. The sound of rolling waves came back to us, together with the salty scent of the beach and the feeling of cool pebbles underneath my bare feet.

"You really shouldn't have shown me all this." I muttered. Keeping me eyes from him and down at the pebbles. "It had only made me more afraid to go back, knowing what I could do. I wouldn't be able to look at her without that thought passing my mind."

"Spike, I showed you this because I want you to see that it wouldn't have worked. That it was wrong to love her the way you did. You wanted to drag her into your world, into the darkness, make her into something what she is not because your love-sick brains wished to spot that side in her. To recognize a resemblance to yourself in order to hush that sickening feeling in your stomach, that something as explicitly declared evil as you, could love some-one as pure and good as she is."

"It was so easy to see it." I said softly, bowing my head. "That glitch in her eyes just before she brings out the stake, her moments of contempt and anger. She seems to be able to kill so easily, but she's nothing like me, is she? And she never will be."

"You have to come home, Spike." There was that easy tune of contentment in his words. As if the brawl was all over and done with. All the kittens won and stuffed in his pockets.

"I want to stay here."

He looked really surprised. "You know that nothing here is real. You'll be fooling yourself."

"Then allow me to be once again, a complete clueless dupe. Look, I told you that you shouldn't have shown me all this."

William lifted his spectacles. His nervous twitch kicking in.

"Spike, you don't know what's coming your way if you stay here. I can bloody well tell you that it's not going to be a cosy picnic. It's going to be hell for you."

"Perhaps, but tell me, is there chance in the end? For me to be with her?"

"She isn't the real Buffy."

"Is there a chance?!" I insisted, trying my very best to forget what he had just said to me.

William rolled his eyes and sighed out of sheer desperation. "Yes." He admitted, reluctantly. "Yes there is."

I decided to play it safe before I put my final say in this. I might be a nutter but I still knew how to cover my arse.

"So, I won't stay in the funny-farm forever?"

"What is this? Are you trying to use me as crystal ball to predict your future in this crazy head-trip of yours? I'm sorry for asking you this, considering the circumstances and all, but are you bloody insane?"

"Just answer the question." I said, crossing my arms over my bare chest.

William rolled his eyes again (I wondered if I got that annoying habit from him, that strange spasm in his overused eyeball muscles that got to develop a will on its own). "Oh bloody hell! No you won't. There, happy?"

"Almost." I said, showing the pillock a content smile. "Only one more thing I'd like to ask."

"Spike! Look you're missing the point here! You were supposed to see the wrongs in your previous doings, sink through your knees and have a good howl, ask for forgiveness and pop on my mystical cloud back to good ol' Sunnydale. The real one that is. So if you were so kind and start with the begging for forgiveness part, we're running out of time -"

"Tell me one more thing."

"No! Listen Spike, I won't answer any more of your moronic questions! You're supposed to do the right thing here, and -"

"Will I be able to make her happy?"

He stopped his tedious monologue, and fell into silence for a moment.

"Is that what you most care about, her happiness?"

"Yes." I answered, truthfully. "There is nothing more important in the world to me but to know that she has finally found it, some peace of mind, a moment of bliss. Even if it means that I should stay away from her for the rest of her life."

"So if I told you that you would make her completely miserable if you stayed here as mister William Byron -"

"I would go with you, this instance. Not a second thought wasted."

He averted his eyes from mine for a moment, looking out over the dark folds of the sea. It was still obscured in anticipating darkness, but not much longer as the horizon at the east started to glow. A tired little smile crept up his face.

"But I can't lie to you, can I? And you knew that. You knew that William, the bloody honest soul, had to tell you the truth."

"I only care about her. I didn't try to trick you or anything."

"Very well then." He said, tilting his head to one side and sighing deeply. "She would have been loved, and cared for. She would have found happiness, being with you."

A sigh of relief escaped my throat, and I nodded. "That's all I wanted to know."

"You're making a huge mistake here, Spike. This reality was not supposed to be. They won't allow you to stay here."

"Really?" I snorted. "Thought this was one of those my-choice-only gig. Why so that you've wasted a whole night of making soddin shadow-puppets on persuading me to go back then?"

"I was being polite! Look, there isn't really an option here. I know that God had given just about everyone on this lump of clay free will to chose his own fate, but it's rather contradicting you see. Since there is this little thing called "destiny", which inconveniently also happened to be created by God almighty himself. A bit dubious but hey. God, right? So, in practice, you only have the freedom in choosing whatever is already destined for you to choose. That's how it works. There isn't another way. If you decide to go against the stream, they'll make it so hard on you that in the end, you'll begging on your bare knees to get out of here!"

"Are you threatening me?"

"I'm just begging you to listen for once! What I told you, was what could happen if the divine entities decided to look the other way and let you get away with this which, as I had stated previously, is as likely as you not begin such a strong-headed idiot for a change! It's serious business to mess with God's plans."

"And how's He going to stop me then? Bloody kill me?"

He didn't say a word, just turned his head and stared into the direction of the sea where the first sliver of sun appeared, making a simmering furnace out of a distant cloud.

Panic shot through me that was almost as bright and hot as bloody daylight. "Bleedin hell! Buffy!"

I turned on my heels, sharp edges of stone cutting into my soles. I ran, my legs moving faster with every step. I reached the shoreline and dived into the freezing water, my mind a swirling chaos and already forgetting that this was just a dream inside a dream. Even lesser real than the asylum reality. But it felt awfully real to me.

She had swum out far from the coast, and was on her back, drifting peacefully on the waves. Her head held back and resting on the surface, nodding on its motion. Her hair waving in the dark water like tails of silvery fish.

I swam with raw speed, my arms crawling, legs kicking. I tried to keep my mind clear, but all I could think of was how she had stood there last night, with the scarlet scarf woven around neck and had told me that she was nothing but a ruthless monster, bearing her victim's blood.

"Buffy!" I yelled, hoping, praying that she would hear me. "Get out of there! The sun's coming up!"

She should have heard me. I was already close enough to her to see that she had shut her eyes as if sleeping, but she didn't react, didn't move to swim away. Only folded her hands over her chest. The waves were carrying her, almost lifting her from the surface, and she appeared to be as light and frail as a feather.

"Buffy! Please!"

In reality, the real reality as I now finally had figured out, it had been Dru, who I had tried save from spreading her ashes over the midst of the Mediterranean sea. She went out swimming on one starry night in 1947, and lost track of time, while I had lost track of her after a little messy accident in the village. I only found her back at dawn, when the sun had already started its tracks over the water in which she was bathing. Naked as the day she was born, her slim body drifting on the waves while she was counting the stars that weren't even there anymore by that time. In the real reality, it had ended well for Dru and me. I got her out on time with the wrath of the sun burning on my heels.

However, this time, everything was different.

The beams of sunlight appeared and cut through the shaded sky like butcher- knives. It bounced off the rolling waves, the bright orange disk at the horizon spreading its arms to swallow her in its deadly embrace.

The light reached her faster than I ever could, and I had to watch her burn.



TBC