The Life Of A Sunnydale Resadent
Title: The Life Of A Sunnydale Resident
Author: Dru
Fandom: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
Pairing: None
Rating: PG
Parts: 1/1
Status: Complete
Spoilers: Up to season 5 and only spoilers if you haven't seen Buffy. And if that why are you reading this at all????
Series/Sequel: No
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or Sunnydale or anyone.
Authors notes & Warnings: This just popped into my head out of nowhere and I just had to write it. Warnings For being kinda dark and depressing and a downer! And No Beta so all spelling, grammar errors, and typos are mine!
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I am 20 years old and I'm still alive. Being that I live in a town with a death rate higher then most large cities that's a pretty big deal.
I live in Sunnydale California. It's a small town. To the outside view it's bright and sunny and happy. It rarely anything but bright and warm and it's insanely cheep to buy a house. There are nice schools and parks, and even a nice teen club for the kiddies to dance and drink coffee. To the outside viewer Sunnydale is a Paradise.
But of course to the out side view you can't know most of the facts. To the outside view you can't see anything. That's why so few of the new people make it.
I'm a life timer. I was born here, I've grown up here, and I'll most likely die here. Probably not that far from now in fact.
No I'm not suicidal. No I don't have a terminal illness. I just know that facts.
Sunnydale isn't a normal town.
It's not something we talk about. It's not something your parents sit you down one day and give you a speech about like the sex talk.
It's something you gotta learn on your own.
Survival Of The Fittest at it's best.
If you managed to figure out the rules and stay alive you win. If you don't....well there's a reason why one of the rules is to always have at least one good black outfit ready for funerals at all times.
The Rules you ask? They're not written down any where. No one passes them down from one person to the next. No one even speaks of it out loud. But if you've stayed alive here you know them none the less.
Never go out alone after dark.
If someone shows up at your door and won't come in unless you say "Please come in." or something like that DON'T LET THEM IN. It doesn't matter if they're your father, mother, brother, sister, best friend, lover, or a complete stranger. If it's at night and they don't just walk in, close the door, grab a cross and pray they don't just set the house on fire.
When someone dies and the the police say it was "Gangs on PCP/A Pack of Wild Animals/A horrible accident with a BBQ fork." don't question it. Just nod, except it, grieve and move on with your life.
Go to church. There's one on almost every block. Pick one and go frequently. Catholic is particularly popular since we get easy access to Holy Water.
Alway wear a cross. Even if you're not a Christian wear one. Goes along with the church rule.
Always carry Holy Water. Even if your not Catholic get some anyway and keep in on you. If someone grabs you, use it. If it's a normal person, a face full of water will startle them long enough for you to at least get a head start on running. If they're not normal person...... well either way Holy Water can save your life.
Don't actually think about any thing weird that happens and forget it after it happens.
That's not possible you say? You're wrong. It's hard but if you're going to stay alive it's vital. Ever hear of the term Double Think? It's where you think, feel, believe, and practice two completely opposite ideas.
Those of us who stay alive are experts at it.
At the same time Sunnydale is a just lovely, nice, friendly, happy, perfect place to live. And it's a terrifying, deadly, evil, monster ridden hell hole.
On the outside we know nothing. Our heads are further in the sand then an ostrich and we can and will forget anything weird that happens before it's done happening.
But for most of us on the inside. Deep in out minds where we never let another person, where we never even go our selves we know the truth. We know that there's something wrong with Sunnydale. We don't know exactly what it is, but we know it's dark, we know it's evil, and we know if you don't follow the rules and stay safe we'll be the next one our friends are burying.
Really it's hard to do. It's not easy and that one of the reason Sunnydale has such a high rate of insanity. Though that's been on the rise lately...but that's also on the list of things "Never Spoken Of."
A lot of people can't handle thinking two things and once and so allow them selves to be so buried in the fantasy of the Perfect Sunnydale that they make them selves forget about the bad even existing. They're the ones who end up killed by "Gangs on PCP" or whatever other story the police tell us.
But most of us stay alive. That's the reason why Sunnydale isn't a ghost town by now. We stay alive, we marry, have children, and the circle spins on. Some times some new blood moves into town believing in the story book perfect dream life. Sometimes they actually learn and stay alive allowing Sunnydale to go on.
Grim you say? Not a life at all? What else is there? It's the way it's always been and it's the way it'll always be. There's no point in hoping for better. Because in this town when you do....bad things happen. Parents go nuts and try to burn teenagers at the stake. But no wait forget I said that. That never happened.
Suffice it to say we don't hope. We just keep existing and going on with our lives. We forget about the bad strange things, and when we can't do that, for reasons such as when our High School blew up, we make up things to explain it away then bury it in the back of our minds and move on.
When we bump into someone from High School we won't mention when the monsters attacked the dance, we won't mention that strange Buffy girl or how many times she saved various people's lives or even the fact that we actually stopped forgetting everything long enough to give her an award for saving us. We won't mention the kids who died, we won't mention the mayor turning into a giant snake and eating Principal Snyder and the school blowing up. When people question why our diplomas are burnt we'll make up a good reason then change the conversation. We won't mention that two weeks ago we went to a friends funeral, then last week we saw him out side The Bronze picking up a girl and taking her to the back ally then a few days later that girl was in the obituary.
We won't mention anything.
Because really...if we did we'd all be insane by now.
The End