Chapter 7 - Welcome To Hell
AUGUST 25th, 2001 – 2220 Hours
PRESENT – 0 MINUTES AFTER BUFFY'S RESURRECTION
Sunnydale, California – Outside of Sunnydale Regional Hospital
Dawn ran, panting as she carried Xander's unconscious weight in her arms. She grimaced as she chanced a look down at the still bleeding stump where his hand once was. The entrance to safety now only meters away. She shivered, she could still sense them, the minions of The Immortal edging towards their group, working in packs hunting them down.
The air thickening spell Willow had cast with the last of her energy had bought them the window to escape. But one quick look at Willow's face as they fled, and there was no doubt her magic was spent for the night.
A chill ran down her spine as the screeching noise of nails scraping across a chalkboard filled her ears. The call of a minion behind them summoning its brethren. She had no idea how they'd known to ambush them in the graveyard. How the Immortal could have possibly foreseen their move and countered at such a perfectly inopportune moment.
Just a few more steps.
Her arms were burning, tired from hefting Xander's weight half way across town. Relieved that in mere seconds they would be safe. A place where she could wash the blood off her body. She'd never been so glad for Sunnydale syndrome than in this moment. Horrified at the thought of having to provide a reasonable explanation as to why a one-hundred pound girl, in her underwear, covered in blood, was running with a two-hundred plus pound man in her arms at speeds Willow and Anya could just barely match.
She took the final step across the threshold, her head spinning, arms and legs growing weak. She faltered, both her and Xander crashing to the polished white floor, skidding, leaving a trail of red smear behind.
Seconds later doctors and nurses were swarming. Most paying attention to her rather than the actually wounded patient still lying on the floor. Each one trying to find the source of all the blood which coated her. She shoving a palm forcefully into a nameless white coat hovering above her. Her eyes widening as the man barely registered the push. Grabbing her wrist and moving it aside, resuming his hunt for the mystery wound alluding him. The only wound on her body to find ironically gripped in his hand.
A fit of Dawn style screaming later, one sure to peel the paint from the walls, and they'd finally backed off, diverting their attention to obviously injured, handless, Xander.
She managed to stand on shaky feet, feeling heavy and slow. Surprised the spell had taken so much out of her, that it hadn't taken effect until now.
"Are you okay?" Willow panted.
Dawn shook off the daze from the fall "Yeah i'm … I'm fine."
Twenty minutes later she was refreshingly clean, hair still dripping, clad in a set of 'borrowed' hospital scrubs, baggy and oversized for her lithe frame. She pushed another door open with far too much exertion. Biting down the worry that their spell had somehow damaged her inner slayer. Unnerved at the vulnerability she felt in her weakened state. She could still sense a tinge of the hellmouth's evil buzz, the minions milling about outside, she was still a slayer. Buffy had lost her powers once and they'd come back.
They'd come back.
"Giles, thank god you're here!" Dawn picked up the pace of her trot when the group came into view. Ramming into him and wrapping her appointed father figure in a hug.
Willow barely slowed her breathless explanation at Dawn's appearance. Lies upon lies flowing flawlessly from her mouth. Dawn's wide eyes landed on the redhead, shocked at how seamless the story was. Patrolling as a group, minions, Xander hurt, hospital. Truth's interwoven into the lies, the best way to convincingly twist - or in this case shatter - the truth.
"Yes, I'm very glad your all okay." Giles manages a thin smile "Mostly." His eyes traveled down to Dawn finally releasing the hug. "Are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah, just tired. Why?"
"Well, you seemed, weaker. You're not injured? I was told you were covered in quite a lot of blood?"
"Xanders. I … I had to wash it off."
"But your unharmed? I need to know Dawn. If your injured and I'm unaware there could be disastrous results."
"I'm fine Giles" she managed a grim smile. "How's Xander?"
"Still in surgery and will be for some time. I'm afraid this won't be an injury he'll ever fully recover from." Giles sighed.
"No! Really?! I hadn't figured that out Rupert!" Anya spat as she paced nervously at the edge of the group.
"It'll be okay Anya" Willow soothed, reaching out with a hand only to be shrugged off.
"I don't want your pity." Anya narrowed her eyes at Willow "I want Xander, all of Xander, with all of his Xander parts in the right Xander places." She choked the last few words as a tears finally managed to slip from her eyes. The calm outer shell followed giving way to wracking sobs.
"He'll live Anya" Willow soothed. Wrapping the sobbing woman in her arms. A small folded paper falling from a pocket on her shirt.
Tara managed a grim smile reaching over instinctively to pick it up. "You d...dropped … … … this" Her final words fell flat, frowning as she caught a few drops of blood on the paper falling from an otherwise clean pocket. Her eyes looking it over curiously, then narrowed. Her hands beginning to tremble, her eyes taking in more and more details as each fold was undone.
"Willow." The normally soothing voice of the blonde witch turned cold. "What is this?"
She absently passed the paper to Giles now sputtering 'Dear Lords' left and right as he read each line.
"Willow." Giles closed his eyes, the paper in his hand crinkling as his hand turned to a fist, the corner of his mouth twitched, his jaw visibly clenching. "What have you done?" He asked, eyes still closed, his voice even and smooth etched with a forced sense of calm.
"What did I do? I didn't just sit on my ass like you, that's what I did. I tried to do what was necessary!" Willow spoke with a raised voice.
"Tried?" Anyone who knew Giles could hear the relief in his voice. Seconds past before the eye of the storm past and a Ripperish glare crossed his face. "You Arrogant, Rank Armature! Do you have any idea what you've attempted? The forces you've invoked?"
"It would have worked." Willow spat.
"Your bloody lucky to be alive!" Giles shouted.
"It wasn't luck. I knew what I was doing. I was perfect!" Willow threw her hands up in frustration. "I just needed more time!"
Giles glared. A vein pulsing on his forehead as he prayed for the patience not to murder the witch for her own stupidity.
"H...how could you?" Tara spoke up her voice weak and soft. "Y...you p...promised."
"Tara, baby." Willow reached out a hand.
"Don't!" Tara shouted, any illusion of weakness gone "Don't touch me!"
"Giles?" Dawn tried not to flinch as his eyes turned to her.
"I'm sorry Dawn. I just …" He let out a sigh as Dawn hugged him again. He closed his eyes, hugging the slight girl who'd become his daughter through fate. All he had left of his slayer.
His eyes shot open. His hand gripping her arms and prying them from his body as Dawn gave him a hurt look. "Your sure? Your okay?" He asked.
"Yeah. I mean, I'm a little out of it, but I'll bounce back. You know us slayers." Dawn managed a half hearted smile.
Giles returned it with a shove. Watching as Dawn flailed her arms before falling clumsily on her butt. His jaw clenched. "Dear lord." The dots connected in his mind. His eyes blazing as he slowly, angrily turned towards Willow. Her reaction mirrored the same realization.
"Tell me, that you dug up the body first." The voice of Ripper demanded.
Sunnydale, California – St. Mary's Cemetery
Buffy woke from a painful cough, still sprawled out on the ground, her mouth full of dirt. Slimy dirt she realized, mud, wet with the metallic tang of blood. Her stomach clenched, dry heaving and spitting, riding her mouth of the horrid, gritty goo. She collapsed back onto her side not fighting the dry heaves coming slower and slower.
Blurry vision filtered through her eyes, just enough light to study the small dirty hands in front of her. Crimson red streaks running over the muck of the dirt covering them slowly oozing towards the ground. She heaved once more, wincing at the pain of her stomach forcibly attempting to exit through her mouth.
Her blurry eyes studied the ground, picking up portions of the intricate patterns surrounding her. She rolled to her knees, the coppery scent still heavy as slender knees slid into the wet soaking ground.
Mud
She pulled a leg forward attempting to stand, but the mud was slippery. She fell backwards, her back landing on something firm and furry. Turning around she realized to her horror she'd just fallen onto the dead body of an animal, spit open in ritual horror.
She quickly rolled off, her gut clenching once more finally expelling a putrid slime. It smelled awful, it tasted worse. She tried to spit out the taste but it refused to leave. No spit available to help cleanse it from her mouth. She glanced around, finding a small pond.
Water
She didn't bother to sip daintily from the edge, instead just crawling in, letting herself slip beneath the surface. Her lungs burned and she took a breath, panic returning as she fought to escape the water's grasp, coughing and hacking when she hit the air.
She struggled back to the edge of the pond, laying in yet more mud as her lungs naturally worked the water out in a new discovery of pain in discomfort. Finally recovered she leaned her head back to the surface of its murky depth taking care to swallow and not breath the water.
Everything was new, unknown and confusing.
The cool water soothing the irritation from dirt she'd inhaled or ate. Drinking more and more until her stomach muscles seized once more, gurgling and coughing as the water was expelled. Minutes later she again lowered her head to the water, sipping small, careful amounts this time.
She wadded back into the pond, cleaning the filth off as best she could. Removing the torn dress she looked down at her bare chest, admiring the pointed mounds. Her muscles tight and firm, peeking out from under her skin everywhere she could see. She frowned, noting her protruding bones, realizing her body looked half starved and emaciated.
She finished rinsing herself, washing the dress and wringing out the excess water. Covering herself in the damp cloth as she shakily trudged from the pond to solid ground. She winced. Stopping to pick a thorn from her foot, wishing she hadn't left her shoes behind. She shuddered at the thought of where they were quickly deciding there was no way she was going back for them.
The initial panic of being in the coffin had subsided. Replaced now with pain and the confusion surrounding her. The discomfort of pressure on her skin drowned out by the symphony of different pains emerging one by one to make themselves known.
She walked, wincing each time something new and sharp bit into the unprotected flesh of her feet. She quickly reached the lights in the distance, confused by the world unfolding around her. More and more lights appearing as she continued deeper into town, trying to make out one fuzzy shape from another blob.
She faltered as a memory flickered through her mind, her knees and palms crashing into concrete to break her fall.
I jumped.
I died.
This is hell.
Something on the edge of her mind screamed that this was wrong. That she didn't belong here, in this world, this place where everything was just as hard and painful as the concrete ripping through the flesh of her knees.
Was the peaceful warmth just a ploy? Something to soften her will? Ease her guard before she was left in hell for eternity?.
Her body tensed, rising to her feet as muscles coiled instinctively, her eyes catching movement in the blurry distance. Her heart pounded in her chest, fists clenching tightly as her ears picked up the shuffle of feet, a great many feet. Senses screaming that everything was wrong as a crowd of blobs edged into view.
Too many.
She ran, slinking into the shadows before she could be seen, letting her body decided the route. Her balance was off, her legs sluggish, half stumbling half running as she fought to keep herself upright, anything to avoid smashing into the ground once more. Anything to avoid the pain.
She ducked into an alley, hidden by darkness from the dull orange glow of lights, her lungs panting heavily to keep the burning at bay. Everything here hurt, everything was too much, too hot, too cold, too soft, too hard. Everything was misery in this world she found herself in.
Hell.
Her moment of safety was over, gritting her teeth as a new scuffle of feet filled her ears, closer, fewer. Two more blobs edging into view as they approached from within the alley. Both blobs emitting the same wrongness as the others. But she'd been seen already, there was no hiding. A shiver ran down her spine as the blobs approached.
Her body was tense, ready for a fight, but her mind was frozen in terrorizing fear. An illogical thought keeping her in place, hoping, praying that they would pass her by if she didn't move, didn't present a threat, didn't challenge the wrongness she felt.
But this was hell, there was no safety, no being ignored, her body still frozen in fear as a fist slammed into her face as she watched on helplessly. The blow breaking more than just her nose, something dark slipping free from it's bonds within, something feral and violent.
'Crack'
The blob was close now, close enough that her blurry vision could discern the human features. Her hands on either side of his head, now facing an impossible angle as the body crumpled to the ground. The limp form falling in a way that showed his lifeless gaze.
Oh God.
She blocked her ears, wincing in pain from the piercing screech that followed as the other took offense at his fallen comrade. The sound matching the wrongness still sending shivers down her spine.
She ran. Pushing, willing uncoordinated limbs to cooperate in a clumsy gate too slow to evade her persuader, to escape the flash of jagged metal slicing and tearing through the flesh and meat of her back. The tip of the axe connecting with her left shoulder, gouging to the bone of her scapula as it followed its grisly arc through meat and flesh towards the small of her back. The left half of her tattered dress sagged, the thin shoulder strap another casualty of the blow. The yelp from the searing pain that followed came out as a hoarse wheeze, her throat still raw and useless.
The darkness took over once more, her motions blurring together. The weapon still glistening with a sheen of her blood now found buried deeply into the chest of the man. He crumpled to his knees. Blood spurting from his mouth as the waves of wrongness faded in unison with the light in his eyes.
No.
Her eyes widened, stomach clenching, heaving in disgust at what her body, her hands had done. A trickle of vile tasting slime finally slipping from her queasy stomach as another screech filled the air. The noise of shuffling feet – many feet – growing in the distance. The dread and shivers running down her spine intensifying as something wrong approached, too many somethings.
She ran.
Sunnydale, California
Giles was not a happy man. To say that he was fuming mad was insufficient. Enraged only seemed only to approach describing the anger boiling under his skin. He glanced at the teenager sitting beside him praying for calm. It didn't work.
The lunacy.
His teeth ground tightly together. Afraid what words would spill if he opened his mouth. Outside of training he'd never raised a hand against Dawn and even then never in anger. Now however, sitting in his car as they moved through the dimly lit streets of Sunnydale, he wanted to wail on the now former slayer's rear. Use a paddle until dark red and maroon had been left far, far behind.
Foolish, foolish, imbeciles.
He twisted his hands on the vinyl of the steering wheel. Ignoring the sword sticking through the quarter panel of his sporty red coop as he drove on. His eyes peeled, scanning the night for a flash of blonde hair.
They'd already checked Buffy grave. He wasn't sure if he was more disturbed by the remains of Willow's spell, or the Buffy-shaped hole scoured through the ground.
His eyes flicked to his right, scowling as he caught a glance of Dawn sitting thankfully silent as she too scanned the night for any trace of her sister. The brunette, powerless, now that whatever made the slayer had migrated back to its rightful home.
Xander was hopefully out of surgery now, maimed forever from this night due to his charges unbelievably stupid actions. Willow had been, thankfully, too exhausted to do anything but pass out in the waiting room once her adrenaline faded leaving the others to search for her mistake. He was glad she'd stayed behind. Afraid he'd have murdered the witch when they were too late to excavate Buffy from her grave, to save her from that horror, to have a chance at rendering aid to whatever had emerged.
"I …" Dawn spoke.
"Keep looking!" He growled. He could yell and curse at Dawn later.
Never discipline a child when angry he reminded himself.
It's what the books said. He'd read a great many trying to prepare himself for his new role as a father to a teenager. Nowhere had he seen a chapter on how to properly scold your child after something so … He grit his teeth tighter.
Later.
"You have some minion on your windshield still. It's very annoying to look at." Anya broke the silence.
"I'm bloody well aware of that!" He spat. He could only thank the powers that he'd chosen a red car. Between the cover of night and the cherry red paint, the blood on his car was hidden nicely. Though the sword still lodged firmly through a thin metal panel was admittedly, less discrete.
Their run in with a pack of the Immortal's minions tonight reinforced the need to find Buffy as fast as possible. She didn't have a car capable of plowing through a herd if encountered. As it was, he dared not turn off the ignition for any reason, afraid it would never again start. The sickly grating noises and warning lights blinking on his dash signaling the impending end of it's short life. His foot pushed the accelerator down further, speed limits left far behind in blackness the Sunnydale police knew to avoid.
"Anything?" He asked, hopeful, but already knowing the answer.
"N...no" Tara murmured just loud enough to hear over the rush of air around the convertible.
"There!" Dawn pointed.
Giles turned sharply, tires skidding after the flash of blonde. It was the second time they'd caught a glimpse of her tonight. The first time, passing close enough to see the blood stained back of the formerly white dress she'd been buried in.
He feared what they might find once they finally caught up with her. No doubt in his mind that Buffy had heard their shouts and pleas before she slipped through yards and alleys disappearing from their sights. That she'd ignored them, fled even, spoke ill of what they may finally encounter. The horrid thought of having to … put down … whatever semblance of Buffy had returned too unspeakable to consider.
"Buffy!" Dawn cried. "Buffy!"
He breathed a sigh of relief when he turned another corner to see his battered slayer.
She's Alive.
His heart stopped as he saw her struggling gate of a run. The slayer too tired to keep her pace as he eased on the brakes, frowning as the gaping wound on her back came into better view.
"Dear Lord!"
She was filthy. Her tattered dress caked with mud, blood still streaming down her back dripping onto her legs as she finally slowed to a walk. He could see her tense as she stepped on something sharp, favoring one foot as she left a trail of red footprints behind. The soles of her feet bloodied and raw.
The tires barked as he skidded to a stop just yards behind her. All four of them jumping out of the car the second it came to a halt.
"Buffy?" Dawn repeated softly.
There was a round of gasps as she turned. Her hand shielding her eyes from the headlights, easily illuminating the bare flesh where a part of her dress had slipped down, a casualty of whatever fight she'd already seen. He averted his eyes, trying desperately to keep them on her grimy sweat covered face in lieu of the exposed breast facing him.
Dawn took a step forward only for Buffy to flinch away. Crouching like an animal before lunging forwards, burying her foot through the grill of his car as if it was a demon that had chased her. Metal clashed and ground together as moving parts were pushed together from the force, the already overheated radiator spewing boiling coolant over her leg in the cars equivalent of arterial spray signaling it's imminent death.
He winced as she hopped away, steam hissing as boiling coolant dribbled to the ground. Her leg already forming blisters, red from the burns as she panted and wheezed in obvious pain.
"Dawn, stay back" He ordered as calmly as possible. Inching towards the girl who was acting more like a rabid animal caught in a trap than the young woman he'd grown to love.
"But-"
"I said stay back!" He hissed, inching forwards. Watching as Buffy stopped her little dance of pain, deadly eyes locking with his own, broken only by the furious blinking as she tried to see through the blinding headlights. He took another step forwards. Calmly, slowly, creeping towards her praying that if he could just get get her home they might be able to somehow undo the damage done.
He cursed himself as his eyes darted down to her left breast, his hand reaching out and slowly, ever so slowly, lifted some of the dangling fabric to cover her modesty. Her eyes watching his every move, distrusting, furiously blinking, darting between Dawn, Tara, Anya and himself. He could see her chest heaving, the panic written on her face as the inner battle to trust him raged.
His cars engine suddenly and very loudly chose that delicate moment to screech to its final end, seizing in death at the worst possible instant. His mind knew what was coming at the startling noise. He felt her body tense, felt her move, saw the fist that came crashing into the side of his face making the world go black.
Buffy hopped back several paces as the man collapsed. Startled at her own reaction as the three others eyed her warily. Each inching towards her in some attempt to appear less than threatening. They didn't feel wrong, not like the others, just the lite buzz of wrongness that seemed to be everywhere in this town filling her mind. She took another step back, holding the distance between them. Glad the machine, the car, was crippeed from her fit of rage at its endless pursuits.
"Buffy" one of them asked.
She wheezed at them, trying to demand they stay back. This was hell, there was no compassion in hell. Only pain. Pain and suffering.
"What's wrong with her?" A tall blonde asked.
"S...she ... she's in s...shock."
"Buffy, It's me, It's Dawn."
The dark haired girl took a confident step forwards. Too confident.
Buffy ran. Finally able to escape, to outrun them now that the car had been slain.
A/N: Poor Giles … always getting knocked unconscious.