Chapter Five
Flames – leaping, consuming. Enfolding her body and feeding off her flesh. White heat dragging her down into the pits of fire. Willow lay lost within the fever, blind to the world around her and drowning inside her mind. Sickness had latched onto her and Willow was powerless to fight against it.
The world of grey began to fade and Willow was pulled in all directions, stretched far beyond her limits and screaming for release. Eyes open, always open, Willow watched herself move through the realms of madness, felt their cries, tasted their tears. Twisted and torn around the lies that surrounded her Willow felt the grip upon her mind tighten as her feet touched ground.
She was running. Fear prickled at the nape of her neck and an ice chill shivered down her spine. Willow remembered this. Remembered running through these streets and hearing those footsteps behind her. It had been a dream, once upon a time, but now it was real and Willow felt the cold chill of it reach out to her.
Death.
Arms gripping her. Still breath against her flesh. Teeth piercing her flesh. She remembered this and wanted to believe it was only a dream but the delusion of her thoughts told Willow it was no dream. Slowly, so slowly, did her life begin to slip. Her heart pounded in her chest, slower and slower. One beat, two. Death was in grasp once more but her fingertips only brushed it before new life pulled her back. New life she feared.
Vampire.
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Five days. Five days since Willow last opened her eyes. Five days since she became lost. Buffy was in turmoil and shaken to her core. Always, now, did her body tremble and always did tears stain her cheeks. She could do nothing but sit by Willow's side and plead with her to come back, to ignore the foul whispers that had so chained her within her dreams. But Willow couldn't hear her and Buffy slipped further and further into her grief.
How many days had Willow lay stricken with this curse? Nine days? Ten? Buffy had lost count. How long had it been since she left Willow's side for even a moment? Day and night melded into one and Buffy lost all sense of the world around her. All that mattered was Willow.
Xander had taken to sleeping on Willow's couch and sat at Buffy's side when she wept for her friend. He held Willow's hand and brushed her brow with a cool cloth. His heart bled to see Willow in such a state and often ached to such a degree that the very sight of his best friend tore at him from the inside out.
Willow needed her friends and they were powerless to help her.
"Where did these come from?" Buffy starred, in horror, at the puncture marks upon Willow's throat. They were fresh, still seeping blood, and Buffy knew them for what they were. "Where?" She demanded turning her eyes to Spike.
"Don't look at me," Spike responded. "I haven't touched her."
Brushing the open wounds with a damp cloth Buffy felt her eyes well while her heart burned with confusion. How? Willow had not moved in more than a week and a half and her wounds still bled fresh. "I don't understand," Buffy sobbed. "How can she have a vampire's bite?"
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"She's frightened. I can smell her tears. So sweet, so innocent. The black is consuming her. The stars sing of her madness. Can you hear them, Miss Edith?"
Willow was not the only one frightened. Wesley sat trembling and Cordelia wept silently – both wishing Dru would silence her ravings, neither strong enough to ask it. Angel starred out the windshield, his grip upon the steering wheel turning his fingers white. Willow was dying. But it was not her body being slowly tortured but her mind. Like Dru, Willow was being driven insane and unable to stop it.
Dru gasped and her eyes opened wide. "Oh, such terrible things she is suffering. So much pain. It is taking her deeper, gripping her tighter. It whispers to me of her pain. Do you want to know what it says, Daddy?"
"Tell me, Dru," Angel demanded.
"Daddy must say please," Dru pouted.
"Damnit Drusilla," Angel snapped. "Stop acting like a child.
"It wants to keep her," Dru whispered. "Her strength calls to him and he wishes to possess her. Wishes to bring her down into his darkness and consume her for eternity." With a sadistic, childlike grin Due added, "Soon, Daddy, your redheaded witch will slip and into to depths of evil she will fall."