A/N: This is for all of you who have been wondering about Willow and the
others. And no, I didn't forget them in the scheme of things. This is only
the first of several interludes, by the way. I hope to be updating more
frequently, though I make no promises. Thanks for sticking with me, and
enjoy the chapter!
Willow woke with her back pressed against cold stone. The manacles at her hands clanked as she shifted positions, and she shivered in the cold. She had no clothing to provide protection against the elements, such that they were.
Across from her, Xander was sitting upright, staring at the window on the wall above her. Pale light entered through there, the kind you see during a stormy day. If she could've seen the sun, Willow was relatively certain it would be a pale ball in the sky, shrouded by clouds, and nothing like the warm, friendly sun she loved.
She rolled over, and reached for Dawn. The younger girl was still asleep, but scrunched up uncomfortably in the corner. Willow was stuck deciding which was more important; her own warmth, or Dawn's sleep.
"Dawn," she whispered. "Dawnie. Wake up, sweetie, before we both freeze to death." Dawn stirred, and then her eyes snapped open. They were shockingly blue in the sickly light.
Dawn took quick stock of her surroundings, and edged toward Willow carefully, making sure her back was to Xander, Spike, and Giles. She stayed surprisingly self-aware, despite their continued exposure to each other. They hadn't seen so much as a shred of clothing since they'd gotten here.
Willow had gotten used to it quite quickly. Self-consciousness just didn't seem important in the scheme of things. There was nothing she could do to change it, so why bother worrying?
Dawn, on the other hand, was pretty self-conscious. She was a teenager, and she'd had a major crush on two of the three men in the cell. It made for some uncomfortable situations, but she would have to get used to it. And she would, eventually.
She finally reached Willow, and the two embraced. Dawn was shivering, and Willow wrapped her arms around the girl, trying to keep her as warm as she could.
Anya was in the opposite corner, out like a light. She was sprawled comfortably across a good portion of the floor.
Willow stared up at the patch of sunlight filtered through to the opposite wall. It wouldn't be long now...
Ah, yes. The oak door swung open, and two of the guards entered, unlocked his chains, and dragged Spike away. Presumably to join Angel. Spike still refused to talk about where they took him during the day. Willow, for once, trusted his judgment, and decided that she was better off not knowing.
Breakfast would come soon, now, and then they would begin their day of cruel and unusual torture. Silent tears streaked down Willow's face as she thought of how she'd brought them all to this.
***
The sky had been taken with a red hue, she remembered. Littler flames licked at the horizon, and the fires roared along with the demons which had come pouring from the earth. The air was filled with flurries of black snowflakes. Ash. In some places, the stench was terrible, and she knew that people were burning there. She prayed to the goddess and ran on her way.
There had been no time to gather the girls. She'd screamed as loud as she could, trying to catch their attention, or at least draw the demons from them. But they were Slayers, chosen or not. They fought, and they died, and Willow ran.
She couldn't have saved them, and she repeated that to herself, over and over again. Now she careened wildly toward Buffy's house, desperate to get there in time. A spell had been forming in her mind as she ran, and now she realized that it had been there all along. Ash choked and burned her lungs. Her legs felt like lead, but she ran, as fast as she could.
The door was open when she got there. Terror threatened to make her vomit. A fireball streaked across the sky and plunged into the backyard. She flinched. She thought they'd stopped...
Breathless, she dashed into the gutted house. Something snarling and dark was in the kitchen, munching on a human arm. Viciously, Willow stilled her own breath. It couldn't see her, and she wouldn't let it hear her. That wasn't her fate. Panic was beginning to overtake her, and she quieted it relentlessly. There was no time for fear. She wouldn't die this way. It wasn't her time, and she would. Not. Die. Here. She clenched her fists into balls, and dashed up the stairs.
The bathroom door was locked, and there were fresh claw marks on the wood. That was where they would be, if they were anywhere. She stood in front of the door and rapped on it, hard.
She had to literally bite back a shriek when an axe head appeared in the wood about a foot from her head. It had come from the inside. "Xander!" she cried, terrified. "It's Willow! Let me in!"
Something downstairs heard her. A wet snorting could be heard, and something with scales gliding across hardwood floors. It was coming.
"Please, Xander, please! For the love of Artemis, let me in!!" Something shifted behind the door. She suddenly questioned her assumption that it was Xander in there, or even any of the Scoobies at all. Some of the demons had arm enough to wield an axe. What if she was going out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Something cracked on the lower steps. Willow felt her terror rising. Wouldn't they please, please just let her in? Save me! She felt like screaming.
Without warning, the door swung open, and a pair of hands grabbed her and yanked her inside. The door was shut behind her quickly, and something heavy was shoved in front of it. She hugged Xander gratefully.
But something was bothering her. How had they gotten so much space in here? It was really only a very small bathroom, and yet somehow...
A small, cool blue portal swirled lazily between the toilet and the sink. Dawn was lying in the bath tub, and there was a piece of clear white quartz glowing benevolently beside her. Dawn had her eyes closed, and lay very still, but a sheen of sweat had broken out on her face.
"What's going on?" Willow asked.
Xander crooked an eyebrow. "Well, I think the world's ending. Not sure, though; never lived through a successful apocalypse before."
Willow was too tired to respond to the crack, and her pale face spoke for her. "What's Dawn doing? I mean, what has she done?"
Xander hugged Willow again. "Dawnie remembered something Tara taught her, about herself and how she could use the Key for her own purposes one day, if she needed to. She cut her arms, and bled on the crystal. Said some words, and that portal opened. It seems to be connected to all the Scoobies; Giles just left through it to check the Magic Box and try to find Anya, and Spike is doing a sweep for the rest of the girls."
"They're dead," Willow said. Xander cringed. A stinking, rotting stench came from the hallway. Something slammed into a wall on the other side of the door. Dawn twitched.
"We'd better get Spike back, then," Xander said. He started to go into the portal, but Andrew, who'd been silent up until now, stood to stop him.
"It's okay, Xander, I'll do it."
Xander cocked his head at the odd show of bravery, but said nothing. He stepped aside to let Andrew pass.
Willow sat down on the toilet. Her heart was threatening to hammer its way right out of her chest, and her lungs were heaving with effort. She coughed dryly, and then wiped the blood off her mouth with a tissue. Xander looked at her with pain, but didn't comment.
Willow got up and knelt beside the bathtub. She could now see the grotesque streaks of blood on Dawn's arms. The girl was very pale, and her breathing was frighteningly shallow. Willow brought a hand up to her forehead, and found it unusually cool. She turned Dawn's arms over, checking the thin cuts. The blood had started to clot, but not enough. Rusty brown dried blood had caked on the edges of the bathtub, and there was still some fresh running down the drain. Willow closed her eyes.
The portal was growing noticeably weaker. Willow wondered morbidly whether Dawn would have to die to close it completely. And whether she was dying now.
"Xander, we have to stop this. She's...god, she's weakening. I don't know what will happen if the portal dies. Or if she dies." And we're not safe here, she added mentally. The stench was growing, and there was the sound of snuffling in the hallway.
Willow didn't realize she was beginning to hyperventilate until Xander hugged her in reassurance. Tears streaked her white face. Xander held her hands in his, and they collapsed together on the floor. Dawn's breathing was getting louder, more congested-sounding, and the thing in the hall had not stopped its relentless search.
"Oh goddess, Xander, what are we going to do? It's all come crashing down!" Willow wailed into his shoulder. Xander stroked her back, trying to help her breathe normally again.
He didn't let her know that he was feeling the same way. The sense of impending doom was like a wet blanket on their hopes. They knew it was over, even though their survival instinct kept them fighting. This world was doomed. They'd waiting too long, they'd made too many mistakes, and now they'd come to the end. The apocalypse that got away. The armageddon that finally did end the world.
Willow could not seem to stop her crying. Xander rubbed her shoulders. "It'll be okay, Wills. You'll see. We're gonna beat this thing. We're gonna survive, no matter what. We're the Scoobies. Not even the apocalypse can stop us."
He didn't know where the words came from. They embodied a hope that he didn't seem to have, but even as he said them, his hope was rekindled. He kept talking, trying to bolster his own courage, as well. "You're the most powerful Wicca on the planet. We've got Dawn, who's older than any of us. We've got a two-hundred year old vampire, a Watcher, an ex-demon, a Slayer, and me. We can beat this. We're going to live. How many demons have we killed? We won't be cut down. Not like this. You'll see."
The portal flashed weakly, and Anya, Giles, Andrew, and Spike fell through. Willow sat up, alarmed. "Kennedy! Where's Kennedy?"
Giles sat up and wiped his glasses, looking everywhere but Willow's face. Even Anya was silent, finally choosing silence as the better part of valor. Spike seemed to be the only one who could meet Willow's gaze. "I'm sorry, Red. She's gone."
The blow fell silently and swiftly. Willow covered her mouth with her hand. She sobbed a few times, dry, heaving things that sounded more like an effort to feel than an actual expression. Her face was already wet with tears, but no more came. She felt hollow. Like all her insides had been scooped out to make way for the machine she was becoming. She squared her shoulders, and wiped her face. It was her time to be strong. It was her turn to draw on the other personality that still lived inside her, the strong will of Evil Willow, whose residue still resided in her.
"We have to get out of here. It's not safe. We'll go to L.A., try to catch up with Buffy. That's where all of this started. If we've got any luck at all, we'll be able to find her, figure a way to stop this thing. We've got to try, at the very least."
Everyone looked tired to her eyes. Empty, hopeless. Paler, thinner, less real. These were people who had given up. Xander was rocking Anya back and forth, showering her head with kisses. Who'd have thought that the ex-demon would be the most afraid to die? Giles was staring at the ceiling, his glasses filling up with tears. No doubt thinking about Buffy, his almost- daughter. Spike sat on the toilet, his face set and grim, with the expression of a man about to be sent to the electric chair. Andrew was staring at the wall, his hands clenched in tight fists. He didn't want anyone to see that he was about to cry, but his face looked like it could crumple at any moment. No hope in any of them. Willow wasn't even sure that any of them wanted to live. But she had to try. She owed that to them.
"We have to try!" she exclaimed, repeating herself. "Come on!" she said, starting to get angry. "GET UP! This is not who you are! This is not who WE are! We're the Scoobies. The Slayerettes. The ones who fight the demons and save the world! GET UP!! Get up and FIGHT, dammit!!"
Her face was flushed with blood and her eyes sparked with a mystical force. Black light flickered in and out of them, fighting to be seen. She was completely unaware of how gorgeous she looked, how strong. Xander lifted his head, and Anya paused in her sobs. Giles and Spike looked at her, their faces expressionless. But in them, she saw something dawning. She saw something that looked an awful lot like the will to fight in their eyes.
Andrew, the newest and the most fragile of the Scoobies, was the one who gave her her hope. He looked into her eyes, and she knew that he trusted her. It didn't matter what she'd done or who she'd killed, he trusted her. He believed that she would take care of him, and she swore an oath to herself that she wouldn't let him down. She wouldn't falter on her path a second time.
Invigorated, she opened her mouth to speak again, to rally the troops, but was cut off by the sound of cracking wood. A horrible odor wafted through the door, stronger than ever. Something hit the door. The wood in the frame began to crack, and the towel rack in front of the door rattled.
She didn't have to guide them this time. Through some weird sixth sense that had developed between them years ago, everyone knew that it was time to get the hell out of there. Moreover, a shared glance confirmed their destination. L.A. The city of angels.
Xander carried Anya and went through the portal first, followed by Giles. Spike stopped at the mouth of it, and turned to Willow. "You got the Bit?" he asked. There was a true tenderness in his eyes, and he looked at Dawn with the worry of a concerned father. Willow gave him a faint smile, and nodded. He went through, following the others.
Willow walked to Dawn, the steady pounding on the wood driving her faster. "Medicore," she whispered over Dawn. The skin on her arms began to crawl over her wounds, cutting off the loss of blood and healing her. Dawn twitched again, her lips curling and her brow frowning in an expression of pain. Willow whispered I'm sorry, and then continued with her work. "Libero." Dawn began to lift up out of the bathtub, her hair waving crazily beneath her levitating body. The girl snorted in her sleep.
Willow led her toward the portal, and she floated in quite easily. With her passage through, the portal flickered weakly. It would be a matter of seconds before it closed entirely. Willow took one last look around a house that she instinctively knew that she would never see again.
Just then, the door shattered. Wooden splinters and chunks flew everywhere. Willow threw up her arms to protect her face, but she still felt the burn of the cuts on her cheeks and forehead. The thing had finally broken through.
Cautiously, she lowered her arms and started backing toward the portal. Her eyes were blurred, but as they gradually came into focus, she began to see it.
It was black, made of some nebulous darkness that trembled in and out of being, shifting from shape to shape. Willow had no doubt that it would be solid enough when it attacked her, though. Her breath caught in her throat as she slowly schooled her eyes to trace upward, to where the head was supposed to be. She met its eyes.
Screaming, she fell backwards into the portal.
***
Back in the present, Willow was jostled out of her reverie by the appearance of what their captors called 'food'. The mushy substance turned her stomach. Dawn offered her a weak smile. "It can't be much worse than my peanut-butter banana waffles. And you at least pretended to like those."
"I did like those. And yes, this can be much worse than those. Look, I think those are... Eeh, I don't want to think about it. I'm not hungry now. Maybe I'll eat later."
Dawn shrugged. Willow was lying like a dog, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. The food looked disgusting to her, too, but she couldn't afford to be choosy. Her stomach was rumbling and demanding food. Three nights in a row, now, she'd woken up and felt the odd stretch in her bones and skin. A growth spurt couldn't have chosen the wrong time to come, but nevertheless, she had to feed her growing self.
She sighed and dug in, with an optimism she only partially felt. Things had to look up today. After all, they couldn't get much worse...
Willow woke with her back pressed against cold stone. The manacles at her hands clanked as she shifted positions, and she shivered in the cold. She had no clothing to provide protection against the elements, such that they were.
Across from her, Xander was sitting upright, staring at the window on the wall above her. Pale light entered through there, the kind you see during a stormy day. If she could've seen the sun, Willow was relatively certain it would be a pale ball in the sky, shrouded by clouds, and nothing like the warm, friendly sun she loved.
She rolled over, and reached for Dawn. The younger girl was still asleep, but scrunched up uncomfortably in the corner. Willow was stuck deciding which was more important; her own warmth, or Dawn's sleep.
"Dawn," she whispered. "Dawnie. Wake up, sweetie, before we both freeze to death." Dawn stirred, and then her eyes snapped open. They were shockingly blue in the sickly light.
Dawn took quick stock of her surroundings, and edged toward Willow carefully, making sure her back was to Xander, Spike, and Giles. She stayed surprisingly self-aware, despite their continued exposure to each other. They hadn't seen so much as a shred of clothing since they'd gotten here.
Willow had gotten used to it quite quickly. Self-consciousness just didn't seem important in the scheme of things. There was nothing she could do to change it, so why bother worrying?
Dawn, on the other hand, was pretty self-conscious. She was a teenager, and she'd had a major crush on two of the three men in the cell. It made for some uncomfortable situations, but she would have to get used to it. And she would, eventually.
She finally reached Willow, and the two embraced. Dawn was shivering, and Willow wrapped her arms around the girl, trying to keep her as warm as she could.
Anya was in the opposite corner, out like a light. She was sprawled comfortably across a good portion of the floor.
Willow stared up at the patch of sunlight filtered through to the opposite wall. It wouldn't be long now...
Ah, yes. The oak door swung open, and two of the guards entered, unlocked his chains, and dragged Spike away. Presumably to join Angel. Spike still refused to talk about where they took him during the day. Willow, for once, trusted his judgment, and decided that she was better off not knowing.
Breakfast would come soon, now, and then they would begin their day of cruel and unusual torture. Silent tears streaked down Willow's face as she thought of how she'd brought them all to this.
***
The sky had been taken with a red hue, she remembered. Littler flames licked at the horizon, and the fires roared along with the demons which had come pouring from the earth. The air was filled with flurries of black snowflakes. Ash. In some places, the stench was terrible, and she knew that people were burning there. She prayed to the goddess and ran on her way.
There had been no time to gather the girls. She'd screamed as loud as she could, trying to catch their attention, or at least draw the demons from them. But they were Slayers, chosen or not. They fought, and they died, and Willow ran.
She couldn't have saved them, and she repeated that to herself, over and over again. Now she careened wildly toward Buffy's house, desperate to get there in time. A spell had been forming in her mind as she ran, and now she realized that it had been there all along. Ash choked and burned her lungs. Her legs felt like lead, but she ran, as fast as she could.
The door was open when she got there. Terror threatened to make her vomit. A fireball streaked across the sky and plunged into the backyard. She flinched. She thought they'd stopped...
Breathless, she dashed into the gutted house. Something snarling and dark was in the kitchen, munching on a human arm. Viciously, Willow stilled her own breath. It couldn't see her, and she wouldn't let it hear her. That wasn't her fate. Panic was beginning to overtake her, and she quieted it relentlessly. There was no time for fear. She wouldn't die this way. It wasn't her time, and she would. Not. Die. Here. She clenched her fists into balls, and dashed up the stairs.
The bathroom door was locked, and there were fresh claw marks on the wood. That was where they would be, if they were anywhere. She stood in front of the door and rapped on it, hard.
She had to literally bite back a shriek when an axe head appeared in the wood about a foot from her head. It had come from the inside. "Xander!" she cried, terrified. "It's Willow! Let me in!"
Something downstairs heard her. A wet snorting could be heard, and something with scales gliding across hardwood floors. It was coming.
"Please, Xander, please! For the love of Artemis, let me in!!" Something shifted behind the door. She suddenly questioned her assumption that it was Xander in there, or even any of the Scoobies at all. Some of the demons had arm enough to wield an axe. What if she was going out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Something cracked on the lower steps. Willow felt her terror rising. Wouldn't they please, please just let her in? Save me! She felt like screaming.
Without warning, the door swung open, and a pair of hands grabbed her and yanked her inside. The door was shut behind her quickly, and something heavy was shoved in front of it. She hugged Xander gratefully.
But something was bothering her. How had they gotten so much space in here? It was really only a very small bathroom, and yet somehow...
A small, cool blue portal swirled lazily between the toilet and the sink. Dawn was lying in the bath tub, and there was a piece of clear white quartz glowing benevolently beside her. Dawn had her eyes closed, and lay very still, but a sheen of sweat had broken out on her face.
"What's going on?" Willow asked.
Xander crooked an eyebrow. "Well, I think the world's ending. Not sure, though; never lived through a successful apocalypse before."
Willow was too tired to respond to the crack, and her pale face spoke for her. "What's Dawn doing? I mean, what has she done?"
Xander hugged Willow again. "Dawnie remembered something Tara taught her, about herself and how she could use the Key for her own purposes one day, if she needed to. She cut her arms, and bled on the crystal. Said some words, and that portal opened. It seems to be connected to all the Scoobies; Giles just left through it to check the Magic Box and try to find Anya, and Spike is doing a sweep for the rest of the girls."
"They're dead," Willow said. Xander cringed. A stinking, rotting stench came from the hallway. Something slammed into a wall on the other side of the door. Dawn twitched.
"We'd better get Spike back, then," Xander said. He started to go into the portal, but Andrew, who'd been silent up until now, stood to stop him.
"It's okay, Xander, I'll do it."
Xander cocked his head at the odd show of bravery, but said nothing. He stepped aside to let Andrew pass.
Willow sat down on the toilet. Her heart was threatening to hammer its way right out of her chest, and her lungs were heaving with effort. She coughed dryly, and then wiped the blood off her mouth with a tissue. Xander looked at her with pain, but didn't comment.
Willow got up and knelt beside the bathtub. She could now see the grotesque streaks of blood on Dawn's arms. The girl was very pale, and her breathing was frighteningly shallow. Willow brought a hand up to her forehead, and found it unusually cool. She turned Dawn's arms over, checking the thin cuts. The blood had started to clot, but not enough. Rusty brown dried blood had caked on the edges of the bathtub, and there was still some fresh running down the drain. Willow closed her eyes.
The portal was growing noticeably weaker. Willow wondered morbidly whether Dawn would have to die to close it completely. And whether she was dying now.
"Xander, we have to stop this. She's...god, she's weakening. I don't know what will happen if the portal dies. Or if she dies." And we're not safe here, she added mentally. The stench was growing, and there was the sound of snuffling in the hallway.
Willow didn't realize she was beginning to hyperventilate until Xander hugged her in reassurance. Tears streaked her white face. Xander held her hands in his, and they collapsed together on the floor. Dawn's breathing was getting louder, more congested-sounding, and the thing in the hall had not stopped its relentless search.
"Oh goddess, Xander, what are we going to do? It's all come crashing down!" Willow wailed into his shoulder. Xander stroked her back, trying to help her breathe normally again.
He didn't let her know that he was feeling the same way. The sense of impending doom was like a wet blanket on their hopes. They knew it was over, even though their survival instinct kept them fighting. This world was doomed. They'd waiting too long, they'd made too many mistakes, and now they'd come to the end. The apocalypse that got away. The armageddon that finally did end the world.
Willow could not seem to stop her crying. Xander rubbed her shoulders. "It'll be okay, Wills. You'll see. We're gonna beat this thing. We're gonna survive, no matter what. We're the Scoobies. Not even the apocalypse can stop us."
He didn't know where the words came from. They embodied a hope that he didn't seem to have, but even as he said them, his hope was rekindled. He kept talking, trying to bolster his own courage, as well. "You're the most powerful Wicca on the planet. We've got Dawn, who's older than any of us. We've got a two-hundred year old vampire, a Watcher, an ex-demon, a Slayer, and me. We can beat this. We're going to live. How many demons have we killed? We won't be cut down. Not like this. You'll see."
The portal flashed weakly, and Anya, Giles, Andrew, and Spike fell through. Willow sat up, alarmed. "Kennedy! Where's Kennedy?"
Giles sat up and wiped his glasses, looking everywhere but Willow's face. Even Anya was silent, finally choosing silence as the better part of valor. Spike seemed to be the only one who could meet Willow's gaze. "I'm sorry, Red. She's gone."
The blow fell silently and swiftly. Willow covered her mouth with her hand. She sobbed a few times, dry, heaving things that sounded more like an effort to feel than an actual expression. Her face was already wet with tears, but no more came. She felt hollow. Like all her insides had been scooped out to make way for the machine she was becoming. She squared her shoulders, and wiped her face. It was her time to be strong. It was her turn to draw on the other personality that still lived inside her, the strong will of Evil Willow, whose residue still resided in her.
"We have to get out of here. It's not safe. We'll go to L.A., try to catch up with Buffy. That's where all of this started. If we've got any luck at all, we'll be able to find her, figure a way to stop this thing. We've got to try, at the very least."
Everyone looked tired to her eyes. Empty, hopeless. Paler, thinner, less real. These were people who had given up. Xander was rocking Anya back and forth, showering her head with kisses. Who'd have thought that the ex-demon would be the most afraid to die? Giles was staring at the ceiling, his glasses filling up with tears. No doubt thinking about Buffy, his almost- daughter. Spike sat on the toilet, his face set and grim, with the expression of a man about to be sent to the electric chair. Andrew was staring at the wall, his hands clenched in tight fists. He didn't want anyone to see that he was about to cry, but his face looked like it could crumple at any moment. No hope in any of them. Willow wasn't even sure that any of them wanted to live. But she had to try. She owed that to them.
"We have to try!" she exclaimed, repeating herself. "Come on!" she said, starting to get angry. "GET UP! This is not who you are! This is not who WE are! We're the Scoobies. The Slayerettes. The ones who fight the demons and save the world! GET UP!! Get up and FIGHT, dammit!!"
Her face was flushed with blood and her eyes sparked with a mystical force. Black light flickered in and out of them, fighting to be seen. She was completely unaware of how gorgeous she looked, how strong. Xander lifted his head, and Anya paused in her sobs. Giles and Spike looked at her, their faces expressionless. But in them, she saw something dawning. She saw something that looked an awful lot like the will to fight in their eyes.
Andrew, the newest and the most fragile of the Scoobies, was the one who gave her her hope. He looked into her eyes, and she knew that he trusted her. It didn't matter what she'd done or who she'd killed, he trusted her. He believed that she would take care of him, and she swore an oath to herself that she wouldn't let him down. She wouldn't falter on her path a second time.
Invigorated, she opened her mouth to speak again, to rally the troops, but was cut off by the sound of cracking wood. A horrible odor wafted through the door, stronger than ever. Something hit the door. The wood in the frame began to crack, and the towel rack in front of the door rattled.
She didn't have to guide them this time. Through some weird sixth sense that had developed between them years ago, everyone knew that it was time to get the hell out of there. Moreover, a shared glance confirmed their destination. L.A. The city of angels.
Xander carried Anya and went through the portal first, followed by Giles. Spike stopped at the mouth of it, and turned to Willow. "You got the Bit?" he asked. There was a true tenderness in his eyes, and he looked at Dawn with the worry of a concerned father. Willow gave him a faint smile, and nodded. He went through, following the others.
Willow walked to Dawn, the steady pounding on the wood driving her faster. "Medicore," she whispered over Dawn. The skin on her arms began to crawl over her wounds, cutting off the loss of blood and healing her. Dawn twitched again, her lips curling and her brow frowning in an expression of pain. Willow whispered I'm sorry, and then continued with her work. "Libero." Dawn began to lift up out of the bathtub, her hair waving crazily beneath her levitating body. The girl snorted in her sleep.
Willow led her toward the portal, and she floated in quite easily. With her passage through, the portal flickered weakly. It would be a matter of seconds before it closed entirely. Willow took one last look around a house that she instinctively knew that she would never see again.
Just then, the door shattered. Wooden splinters and chunks flew everywhere. Willow threw up her arms to protect her face, but she still felt the burn of the cuts on her cheeks and forehead. The thing had finally broken through.
Cautiously, she lowered her arms and started backing toward the portal. Her eyes were blurred, but as they gradually came into focus, she began to see it.
It was black, made of some nebulous darkness that trembled in and out of being, shifting from shape to shape. Willow had no doubt that it would be solid enough when it attacked her, though. Her breath caught in her throat as she slowly schooled her eyes to trace upward, to where the head was supposed to be. She met its eyes.
Screaming, she fell backwards into the portal.
***
Back in the present, Willow was jostled out of her reverie by the appearance of what their captors called 'food'. The mushy substance turned her stomach. Dawn offered her a weak smile. "It can't be much worse than my peanut-butter banana waffles. And you at least pretended to like those."
"I did like those. And yes, this can be much worse than those. Look, I think those are... Eeh, I don't want to think about it. I'm not hungry now. Maybe I'll eat later."
Dawn shrugged. Willow was lying like a dog, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. The food looked disgusting to her, too, but she couldn't afford to be choosy. Her stomach was rumbling and demanding food. Three nights in a row, now, she'd woken up and felt the odd stretch in her bones and skin. A growth spurt couldn't have chosen the wrong time to come, but nevertheless, she had to feed her growing self.
She sighed and dug in, with an optimism she only partially felt. Things had to look up today. After all, they couldn't get much worse...