She walked into the diner, put on her apron, pinned ANNE on and looked up at the midnight drones. At least she called them that, they would sit in here, sipping their coffee and sharing tales of misfortune. Most people that came to the café, were truckers, truckers' wives and kids that couldn't afford a better meal, so they grinned it and bared the intolerable cruelty that was the very café, Buffy, well Anne resided in during the nightshift hours. She wiped down the third table when a small teenager who should've been in bed, if it were a practical safe town said that a girl was found three blocks down in an alleyway. Her stomach churned, her eyes blinked and she began to steady her shaking legs. She never really witnessed many vampires feasting, they'd always be dust when she got there.
The hours sifted away, the memories of Angel, of that ring, of Oz and Willow, of the whole first year at Sunnydale wouldn't stop haunting her. And her mother, she knew her mother was a little more safer than she had been before. The café was ready to close, It was soon to be a diner. It was a weird place she worked at, from 9pm to 2 am, it was a café, and from 3 am to 8 pm, it was a diner. She refilled the last cup of coffee and took a snide remark about her looking like a sexier version of Little Red Riding Hood meets a ghetto restaurant. She smiled and placed a shards missing glass in the sink. She grabbed each shard she had broken off and threw it into the trash. 10 more minutes. Please, please.
Buffy walked home each night, with the wind at her back, and the high aged buildings in her view. It reminded her of where nightmares of being mugged in an alley would seem like. And she smiled. This place was the ideal poster version. Something jumped at her. A tall man with a light gray mustache. He threw his pocketknife into her direction, she slapped it out of his hand, and threw her ankle under his heel, as he fell, she took the knife and stuck it in his arm. It wouldn't hurt him. He was numb. He was ringed out on drugs, most likely the knife felt like a small pinch.
The streets were moaning, and her heart was flailing in an endless sea of void. If that made any sense, it didn't even to her. But she acknowledged she still had thought in her brain. And it hit her, the brick in the back of her head, she placed her pointer finger, retracted it with a sting and looked at the blood on her finger. She started to turn right and her two feet crossed and she fell over onto the cold cobble-stoned alley. Was she dreaming?