A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long, school's been crazy. Please read and review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, it's that simple.
Fred gasped, "We're too late."
"Hello Fred," the impostor replied. It was sickening, seeing this impersonator talking like me, walking like me. It even had my mannerisms down.
"It's not him," Angel said.
"It's the First," Spike completed Angel's thought.
"It's nice to see you too," I, or rather the First, answered. It walked over to Fred's side.
The First continued, "I can see it in you. He may have pulled the Dark Mist out but you are forever stained, like he is," it gestured towards itself, still looking like me, "And because of that stain no one wants to claim him."
"What is that suppose to mean," Fred spat.
"He has nowhere to go. He's destined to haunt this Earth alone. Even after the Apocalypse he will still roam the ruins, or at least the space this planet occupied for all of eternity. His own personal Hell"
A silent tear ran down Fred's face, "You're lying."
"You cry because you know this is the truth," it walked closer to her, and it obviously made her very uncomfortable.
"Don't worry, love, it can only hurt you with words." Spike explained.
"Oh yes, but those words can help others make important decisions."
It wasn't until then I noticed Marci. A stake was in her right hand, high about her head, aiming towards Fred's heart. Angel saw it too, and he tried to get over there but he was too late. Marci weapon came down with force, and a metal object plunged into her skin—her skin, meaning Marci's. Fred had been hiding a scalpel behind her back, I suspect she took it from the medical tray on her nightstand. Fred purposely stabbed Marci in her right arm, pinning it to the wall.
"Sorry Marci," she said quietly.
"How did you know?" she asked in shock.
"That 'everything is good now' comment was a dead give-away. You said something like that when your parents got divorce and the next day you had a nervous breakdown at the Al's Grocery Store. Plus, the First made me nervous"
"You missed every vital artery or vein," Marci gritted through her teeth as she pulled the blade from her limb, letting he fall on the floor.
"I meant to."
"You should have just killed me, do you think I like being a freak? I just wanted to be normal," she commented dryly, hardly like the perky façade she had been putting up this entire time.
"Sometimes things don't go as we planned, but it doesn't mean you can't have what you want. You can still go to Oxford and get that Masters in Biology you all wanted, but now you have an even more important purpose."
"Whatever," Marci snorted and put the stake to her temple, "I'll just do it myself."
And with that she took her other hand and shoved the wooden weapon into her head. She did with such force that her blood splattered on Angel and Fred. Looking at the mess, seeing the entrails of Marci's brain on the floor as well as the body was too much for Fred. She turned to the other side of her bed and vomited. It was a gruesome sight, a stake to the skull is even messier than a bullet.
"My Giles, that's another slayer that's fallen through your fingers. What is that 2 out of 8?" the First said.
Giles stared at the corpse, his jaw opened. I don't think that she had shown any warning sign of suicide until then.
It went on, "Well I guess it's better than 1 out of 1."
I knew who that was a reference to, and so did everyone else in the room…except for dead Marci and distraught Fred.
"You've done enough damage. Get out," Spike growled.
"Remember, I made you go crazy…kill. I can do it again," it's, using mine, eyes narrowed, "Then again what's the point? The Mist shall take everything away, anything you cared about—that'll make you go mad."
It strolled out as Wynn came in, who didn't find it strange that a dead man was walking... then again she never knew me, how would she know what I looked like?
"Giles, if Marci is whining again about me repeating punk songs-" the Welsh slayer began but stopped at the sight of her now deceased companion.
"Wynn, please go to a nurse or doctor. Tell them there's been an accident- I mean, a suicide," Giles ordered but not in a firm voice.
Wynn exited slowly, like she had been paralyzed. She tried to stifle a sob but it came anyway. Soon people came, covered the body, and asked what happened. Giles explained, leaving out the part of about the First. It was amazing how fast the police came and then the morgue. Angel, Gunn and Spike follow its employees, while Giles stayed behind with the slayers.
I trailed behind them. It had been the second death in less than 24 hours. I'm sure it hit Fred the hardest. She had babysitted Marci and they must have known each very well if Fred knew she wanted to go to Oxford and a Biology degree. She probably met Marci when the would-be slayer was still a young child, still innocent. I'm not sure what would hurt Fred more, Marci's death or her complete lost of hope that led to it.
Soon they were in the reception area of the London Morgue.
"May I help you?" a man at the desk asked sleepily, this was the graveyard shift after all.
"We need to see a body."
"Are you the police?"
"No, friends of the deceased-"
"You can see the body after we're done with it,"
Gunn groaned and walked into the back, where the examinations took places as well as the bodies were stored.
"You can't go there-" the man was cut off, he passed out. Angel had used a pressure point, and it appeared that the man had just fallen asleep.
"Do you have to be so fancy? I would have just knocked him upside the head," Spike commented as the two vampires went into the back.
There was woman with a large leather-bound book, reciting Latin, who sounded much like the woman on the phone, standing over a body… my body.
Next time: The group has to call upon every powerful witch they know, or at least have connections to, in order to have a chance to dispel the particles of the patches of the Mist. Also, Belle and Wolfram & Hart come back into the story.