Title: The Darkness Within

Summary: Buffy wakes up after The Gift to find the world a darker place then it once was. WARNING: This is very dark and it is rated R for a reason. B/A

Rating: R

Authors Note: I'm warning you all now, this is a dark piece of work. There will be barley any fluff in this. Angst galore baby! You have been for warned.

Feedback: I crave it!

Prologue

Pain seared through my body almost the moment I jumped from the tower above. White hot shards cut through me causing me to writhe in mid air, soaking my sweater with blood. A heavenly light surrounded me, but this wasn't heaven. How could so much hurt ever enter into a place filled of only joy? No, this wasn't heaven. Heaven doesn't cause your eyes to roll back in your head so far that you think you'll never see again. Yet, this wasn't hell either.

My breath rushed out of me like I knew it would. Death always draws it away. It grabs a hold of anything that you take for granted in your life and steals it to further your descent into darkness. I tried to gasp, tried to take back what was taken from me, but the pain wouldn't allow it. Slicing through my body, ripping me from the inside out, it continued to try and draw a scream of terror from my body. But it would never succeed. No matter how much ache and suffering death threw at me, I refused to scream. My baby sister stood above me watching my death and I refused to make this any harder for her then it already was. I wanted the last sound that she heard from me to me filled with love. Love for her, for my friends, for everything good in this world. I didn't want her to remember me by the cries of abject terror that were threatening to erupt from my throat at any moment.

Gritting my teeth in despair I tried to think of all the things that I loved the most. My friend's faces appeared before me causing a ghost of a smile to form around my lips. But no matter how bright they're smiles were the pain wiped them away. The images were false to me. Smiling faces that I longed to see were down below me staring up in horror as they watched my life being ripped away. There was one though that wasn't here. One that I knew was happy at this moment in time.

Angel.

I called upon his face for the last time. Deep brown soulful eyes penetrated mine, pushing through the curtains of gossamer pain. No matter where I go, or what I do, he'll always be with me. My white night. The one who could rescue me even from the darkest of hours. Even now, when I need him most, his image appears to me comforting me through the mere seconds that I have left in this reality.

Kissing my lips softly, all went dark.

Bliss followed me for days†maybe even years after. Heaven had no time. After I got through the portals blinding agony, everything went quiet. Peace filled through my every being, overwhelming my heart with love. I sat safely in a snuggled cocoon of white drifting from one place to another, soft pillows of love following me where ever I went.

I would give anything to go back there now. To feel what I once felt. But hate and reality came crashing down upon me jolting me out of my dreamless slumber into this harsh cruel world.

Heaven was no longer in my vocabulary, in my existence. It was an entity that I would have once and never again. I should have known it would end up this way. With all the evil in this world, all that tarnishes the good, what right do I have to stay in heaven where I was happy while others are down on earth dying in dank allies by the hand of someone they love?

Smiles and laughter are now gone. What once was is no more. And so, begins my story.