Chapter One

Buffy looks around the cave. The stench of the mildew on the walls fills her lungs, and she almost chokes on it. Moisture drips off the ceiling and rolls down the walls, and the water pools around her sneakers.

She turns around to look behind her and sees three men holding staffs, dressed in robes. She recognizes the men, and the sense of power that is radiating off of them. They don't notice her, as they seem intently focused on one area of the cave. They are staring at something that she can't see at the moment. Their backs are to her, and they are blocking whatever it is they are looking at. Although she can't see it, she can definitely hear the noise that whatever-it-is is making. It is loud, it is scared, and it is angry.

Buffy moves to the side, quietly, even though she knows that the men can't see or hear her. She wants to get a better look at whatever it is they find so interesting. It seems though that every time she starts to get a glimpse of it, the men reposition themselves to cover it up.

Although quiet when she first arrived, the cave is now filled with cries of anguish, mixed with the sound of...chains. There is a distinct sound of the rattling of heavy chains, and with each clank there is a cry of protest and despair to follow it.

Finally, Buffy manages to move so that the men are no longer in her way, and she recognizes who she sees. It is a girl, chained to the ground. Not just any girl though. She's seen this girl before, on several different occasions. She realizes that it is the Primal.

The First Slayer.

Thick chains bind her arms and legs to the ground, and she tries with an animalistic ferocity to break them. She pulls, pulls, pulls, but to no avail. Buffy tries to help, reaches out to provide some form of aide, but her hands pass right through the specter. She has a hard time watching the girl as she struggles to escape, because she knows what is going to come next.

Suddenly there is another layer of noise added on top of the already deafening sounds of the attempted escape. The men have begun chanting. Buffy doesn't recognize the language, but she knows enough of what's happening to be able to piece together the scene. She turns around and screams out for them to stop, please, for the love of God stop, but they don't listen to her. She backhands one, kicks the other in the chest, but it does nothing. She has no affect on the scene playing out before her.

Just as quickly as it had begun, the chanting suddenly stops. The men simultaneously tap the ends of their sticks against the cave's murky ground three times before falling completely silent. The Primal screams, and fights, and screams, but it doesn't matter now. It's too late. Buffy glances around nervously as the cave shakes, as pieces of stone fall from the ceiling. She tries to take cover from a large piece of granite, but it passes right through her as if she wasn't even there.

Buffy notices that the ground has begun to open. A large crack about five feet wide has appeared in the ground between the three men and the girl. The crack widens as the cave groans under the pressure, and soon a dark mist begins to emerge from the slit in the ground.

The girl is now silent.

The mist rises, rises, and begins to expand. Soon it covers the entire ceiling of the cavern. Even if her eyes were closed, Buffy would still know it was there. She would still be able to feel it, to sense it, to taste it. The demonic presence of this force overwhelms her. The sheer darkness of it is almost too much to handle. She wants to run away, to leave this place far behind, but she knows she has to stay, has to watch.

When the last of the mist leaves the crack it freezes suddenly. It remains perfectly still on the ceiling of the cave. The Primal is looking up at it with wonder, and with fear. Buffy isn't the only one who can feel it. The girl begins to scream again, while the men simply watch.

As soon as she opens her mouth to scream, the dark mist reanimates itself. It quickly shoots down from the ceiling and enters into the girl's mouth, nostrils, and ears. It goes into her body with no regard to the pain it is causing her. She is shrieking louder than Buffy has ever heard anyone shriek before. It almost seems demonic, almost non-human.

That's when Buffy realizes that she is screaming as well. The Primal isn't the only one suffering. As the mist enters the chained girl's body, Buffy herself can feel what the girl must be feeling. An intense, sharp pain shoots throughout Buffy's body, and the pain blinds her. It feels like every cell in her body is being torn apart from the inside out, being ripped to shreds. She no longer feels any form, only pain. It shakes her right down to her core. She wonders how the First Slayer managed to survive this torment when she became the very first Chosen One, and she briefly wonders if she will survive it as well. An extreme cold wraps around her, and she struggles to maintain herself, but she knows that she is losing. She knows that the dark mist will destroy her. It's only a matter of time.

She begins to surrender herself to the pain. She realizes that she has no choice, and that there is nothing left for her to do, that there is nothing else she CAN do. Slowly, painfully, Buffy gives in to the darkness.

Buffy shot straight up in bed and let out a gasp, trying to regain her composure. Her body was covered in a cold sweat, and she pulled the blankets up around her top in an attempt to warm herself up. She glanced around her room, expecting to see...she didn't know what. It was half-past-three in the morning, and the final battle with The First Evil had been over a month ago. She was still a little jumpy, and the dream didn't help much. She made a mental note to mention it to Giles. After all, prophetic dreams often plagued the Slayer. Better safe than sorry, she thought to herself.

Swinging her legs over the edge of her bed, she slid her feet into her fuzzy slippers and reached over to her chair to grab her housecoat. After wrapping the belt around her waist, she headed out of her dark bedroom and downstairs towards the kitchen.

The first thing Buffy did when she entered the room was find the light switch and turn it on. She squinted as the overhead lamp bathed the room with its blinding glow, but she didn't mind as her eyes quickly adjusted. The past seven months or so had been hell on her, and everyone, and after such a long period of feeling like she had to continuously watch her back, she couldn't seem to shake off the last little bit of her paranoia. At least the light provided her with some sort of comfort. Less shadows meant less places for a demon of some sort to jump out from and attack her.

Buffy walked over to the cupboard, opened it up, and pulled out a glass. She made her way over to the faucet and turned it on. She didn't do anything at first to give the water time to get cold. She stood over the sink, glass in hand, lost in her own thoughts. They'd won the battle, sure, but there were casualties. Some people hadn't made it. Some she would never see again.

Spike.

Her thoughts trailed back, for the hundredth or so time, to their last moment together. She'd told him that she loved him, and she meant it. Whether or not he believed her, she didn't know, but she wished that there were some way that she could convince him. If only she'd been given a little more time...

That doesn't matter now, she thought to herself. It's done. He's gone. Forever.

A sudden noise from behind her made her jump, and Buffy snapped back into reality as the glass tumbled out of her hand and went crashing into the sink below. She glanced briefly at the broken shards of glass before turning to the back door. Kennedy stood in the doorway, dirtied, bruised, and bloody. Her clothes were torn in several places, and she was gasping for breath.

"Kennedy," Buffy said. "What's wrong? What were you doing out?"

Kennedy only stood there, staring off into space. Buffy knew the look all too well, having perfected the thousand-mile-stare herself. Something was bothering Kennedy. She wasn't the type of girl to let a broken nail upset her; this was serious.

"Here, sit down," she said as she pulled up one of the stools surrounding the island in the middle of the kitchen. Kennedy stumbled over and very slowly lowered herself down onto it, still not saying a word.

"What happened out there?" No response came. "Kennedy, what were you doing out?" Still nothing.

Quickly, Buffy went upstairs to the bathroom to grab the first-aid kit. On her way back downstairs she knocked on Willow's bedroom door, not wanting to wake her up, but feeling as if she didn't have much of a choice. Buffy slowly opened the door and poked her head in. There was Willow, sitting up in bed with a small bedside lamp on, trying to read.

Willow looked up at her best friend. "Hey Buff, what's up? You're up late."

"Yeah, couldn't sleep," Buffy responded. "There's umm...I think there's something wrong. It's Kennedy." Buffy watched as Willow's eyes widened. She could sense Willow's concern for her girlfriend, and she was quick to try to ease her worries. "Oh it's nothing that bad, I don't think anyway."

"Is she...?"

"Alive. Trying to look deep into the cosmos though. Could probably use some bandaging up." She held up the first-aid kit, and Willow nodded. She slipped out of bed and her and Buffy both descended the stairs, back into the well-lit kitchen.

Kennedy was in exactly the same position she'd been left in. Buffy placed the kit on the counter and opened it up as Willow sat down in front of Kennedy. Taking out some rubbing alcohol, gauze, and bandages, Buffy quickly set to work at patching Kennedy up.

"What happened, baby," Willow asked her lover. For the first time since arriving home, Kennedy's gaze shifted, and she made eye contact with Willow.

"I couldn't stop it."

Buffy frowned. "Stop what? Kennedy, what did this to you?"

"It was...it was just a vampire." Kennedy took great pain in swallowing, but she continued. "We were out, and we were patrolling, and we couldn't stop it. I couldn't...I just, I couldn't."

"Whoa," said Willow. "Let's just back up the train of destruction. Who's we?"

There was a pause, and Buffy took this opportunity to clean up some of the wounds and wrap them. She frowned again, not understanding why the wounds had not started healing all on their own. One of the gifts bestowed upon the Slayer was a remarkably fast healing capability.

"Me and Vi," Kennedy answered.

Vi was one of the dozens of girls who had come to the Summers' residence under a year ago with the news that they were Potentials. Vi, Kennedy, and a dozen other girls could possibly one day be the Slayer in the event of the current one's death. With Willow's spell successful however, they were now all Chosen.

"Ok, so, let me get this straight," Buffy attempted to clarify. "You and Vi decided at, oh say, two this morning that you were going to take your new powers out for a spin?" She waited for an answer, but got none. "So how'd that work out for ya?"

"It didn't," was Kennedy's only answer.

Willow, confused, asked, "Didn't what?"

Kennedy swallowed again and took another deep breath. "It didn't work. I tried to fight it, tried to keep it back, but it wouldn't kick in. The power. It wasn't there, and the vampire was so strong." She looked up into Willow's eyes again, and from there, into Buffy's. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"It might help if you actually said it," said Buffy. She realized that she might be coming off as a bit cranky, but three in the morning, and no sleep since she'd finished the biggest battle of her life...she was tired.

"We tried to fight it off. Tried to stop the vampire, but neither of us had any strength." She paused to stop the tears before continuing. "We couldn't fight it back. I just barely escaped."

Willow stared in Kennedy's eyes, trying to maintain eye contact. Buffy asked the question she was dreading, but knew had to be asked. "And what about Vi?"

Kennedy looked back up at Buffy. "It killed her."