(All flashbacks are in italics)

The Looking Glass

Chapter 5

The ladder screeched painfully across the linoleum floor as Buffy dragged it toward the dripping ceiling hole she'd kicked open and fallen gracelessly through. Her backside throbbed as she reached up through the hole, clutching the shoulders of the corpse. It slid easily on the slick rooftop and tumbled down through the hole, smacking it's skull on the top bar of the ladder. The Slayer shuddered at the sound of cracking bone and ringing metal rungs. Gently and with as much care as she could muster, Buffy lugged the body into her arms and carried it across the room, dripping grayish rain drops on the floor.

She had dirty, matted red hair that surrounded a pale, heart shaped face. A sprinkling of freckles covered the bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks. Her face and neck were scabbed in places, cuts and bruises surrounding her eyes and nose, the corner of her mouth.

"You were alive after the end," Buffy murmured, fingering the ratted cotton undershirt glued to her ribcage. She wiped her hand, still stained with demon blood, on the thigh of her jeans, and reached up to brush a few strands of hair behind her ear. "You were a survivor."

Buffy's eyes glazed, rapidly filling with tears she'd thought had dried up weeks ago. The soft pale face seemed to gaze up at her, accusing, blaming. Her body was strong once. She looked just like Willow.

The moisture in her lips evaporated, leaving them chapped and split. The morning sun pleaded through a thick crimson cloud-cover, unleashing torrential rain upon the battlefield. Blood ran in rivulets from a delta at the crest of her shoulder. Pain radiated like the licking flames of a spreading fire storm across her back. Her legs threatened to give way, wobbling uneasily at the kneecap. Instead, the Slayer stood staring.

Thick, heavy drops of rain splattered their bodies, many of them twisted in various forms of agony. Some of their mouths had fallen open, stunned screams ringing silently from their throats. The sky rang with another roar of thunder, another halo of cloud-to-cloud lightning. Still, the Slayer's eyes scanned the blood and dirt, the mud that seeped between them.

Faith stared up from a pile of contorted girls, her dark eyes staring blankly into the darkened sky. Streaks of still wet blood poured from her nostrils, stained her chin. A pool of sticky crimson gurgled around the back of her skull. A stake, sharp and ready, rested centimeters from her outstretched fingers.

The mouth slackened and an abrupt cough expelled from the corpse. The lungs expanded, gagging suddenly and forcefully for air. Buffy fell backward, tumbling over against the check-out counter. The eyelids peeled back, the pupils fully dilated and staring straight ahead. She had blue irises, barely visible, a shining ring around a large black hole. Her tongue lolled from the corner of her mouth and the scent of rot and bacteria filled the store, circulating in the breathable air between the Slayer and her ward. Her voice wheezed as she stammered toward deliberate sound, a word of warning or comfort, a name, a home. The tongue, limp and discolored, flapped with effort. Buffy stretched out her hands, reaching for the first living soul she'd seen in weeks. Her fingers lashed tightly around the frozen fingers, the thin wrist with its echoing pulse.

"Tell her," the girl whispered hoarsely, her body stiffening as her voice died on the humid gas station air. The echo fell short, mid-beat. The tongue retreated back inside the mouth. The lips slammed shut, tucking the voice away. The eyes remained open, staring ahead. "I'll tell her," Buffy murmured, brushing her hand against the eyelids, "I'll find her, and I'll tell her."

With the utmost care, Buffy lifted the girl from the floor, sliding demon blood-stained forearms beneath her shoulders and knees. She seemed lighter now, as though the soul had weighed her down. She was limp again but not heavy, and her body remained stiff and brittle as the Slayer laid her gently down in the room behind the refrigerators. Inside the small dark room, Buffy unfolded a small canvas sheet used to cover the shelves while the employees painted the ceiling. This she draped over the girl, tucking the edges around her shoulders, her hips. Behind her, the door behind the palettes shook.

Scratching, like serrated knives attacking a chalkboard, echoed into the small cement room. The heavy wooden palettes wobbled against one another, making an eerie rattling noise.

"Not now," Buffy whispered, backing up against one wall, "I have to find her. I have to tell her."

"Should've stayed in hiding, girl," growled a wispy voice over her shoulder, hidden in the gray darkness of the mini mart. "Demons, they talk as they walk."

"Let me have her first. I haven't had hot flesh in weeks."

"You! Go around the back, let the boys in."

Buffy's eyes darted from one end of the small refrigerator room to the other, glancing at the four walls that contained her, the doorway into the market, the palettes covering the doors. The advancing team smelled of rats drenched in sewer scum, wet and dripping. These weren't the same creatures she'd seen on the battlefield. They weren't the vampires imbued with the power and violence of the First Evil. They were only a run of the mill half-breed demon, a creature that hadn't eaten real meat in weeks. Half-starved, half-mutated, sick with the poisoned blood of the deceased.

So why were her knees still shaking?

"You don't know what you're up against," Buffy whispered, restraining the quiver in her voice.

"Enlighten me," snarled their leader, stepping into a sliver of moonlight from the open hole in the ceiling.

"I'm the slayer," she mused, attempting whimsy.

"The slayer?" the vampire snorted before throwing his head back in hearty laughter. "The vampire slayer, eh?"

"You won't be laughing when I'm…"

"Stop." He smirked, cutting her off. He was closer now, his finger raised to silence her. His hands were gnarled, crisscrossed with empty blue veins. The skin was thin and filmy, gray like the soot-stained rain. Beneath the bare covering, his bright white bones shone.

"Proud slayer, the last of her kind. Just promise to beg. Maybe I'll kill you faster."

They surrounded her like a hunting party, edging her away from the back room, away from the body she'd sought to protect. The ladder beneath the dripping skylight wobbled against her ankle. Without thinking, Buffy scrambled up onto the roof, out into the leaky night. Lightning bolts bounced across the sky, some stretching out like fingers to spark against the skeletal remains of skyscrapers. Thunder echoed like human screams, the cries for help she couldn't answer. Vampire voices yowled on the street below. They'd surrounded the building, at least four hungry mouths at every wall. Inside her chest, her heart rattled. The agonized screams of slayers bounced around in her memories, tugging at her throat, pulling at her hair. These were the vampires who'd killed them, who'd slaughtered them mercilessly and left them to rot. These were the vampires who'd asked for the end of the world, and gotten it. They haunted her dreams and starred in her nightmares. And now they were keeping her away from…

"No." she grunted, stepping onto the corner of the roof, leaning out over the side to watch the crowd gather. "I'm the slayer. I don't run."

The driveway vibrated beneath her feet as she leapt down amongst them, throwing a firm punch as her leg wheeled around to toss away another. The boot caught, trapped in the twisted hands of a foe. The bones cracked as he twisted, lifting her into the air and throwing her several feet across the lot. Buffy stumbled to her feet as they surrounded her again. Some threw their heads back and cackled. Others slashed with handfuls of razor sharp fingernails, as long as the fingers themselves. The warm, heady scent of blood curled into the night air, like tendrils of smoke from a fresh fire. Buffy shoved her stake through the crowd, stabbing at an opponent. The weapon wouldn't penetrate and fell pathetically from her fingers to the ground. Weaponless, Buffy threw another punch, another swift kick. A hand crunched around her wrist and hurled her, again, like a doll. The wall of the gas station cracked, tossing her facedown on the ground.

"Have to…" Buffy mumbled as she stood again amongst the crowd of snarling, laughing demons. Her arms stretched out away from her, erratic jabs. Some connected against bony ribs, fleshless stomachs. Others reached out into the ether and fell back, useless. Her brain buzzed as her skull bent and twisted, the bone giving way in places. Blood spilled from the wound like a broken water mane. The sickly wet asphalt welled up around her face, filling up her sight. The world seemed to slow down, every hit and kick and strain like a dance step across a stage. Footsteps beat across the ground, quiet at first and then vaguely louder. There were yelps, growls.

The blade fell heavily against the broken sidewalk, its steel ringing swallowed in the deafening silence accompanying the apocalypse. The stairs up to the house were still intact, the mailbox left sitting on its stained post. She'd picked up the mail Tuesday, and there hadn't been any since. The blue door lie buried beneath a layer of cement and brick. The walls gaped open, broken down in places, left standing in others. The tree over the front window wilted, drooping branches and dead leaves across the busted fireplace. The grass Dawn laid in, doing her homework, had browned and died.

She brushed damp strands of hair from her face, tucking them behind her ears. Fingers crusted in blood pressed against the whining door frame. Slivers of glass cracked beneath her boots. Brick and cement dust coated the blue carpeting where it wasn't smothered in housing material. Buffy tripped uneasily into the house, stumbling over the twisted carcass of the couch, the cracked remains of a table. Her knees gave out against a waist-high pile of brick and roof tiles.

Fingers stretched out of a hole in the rubble, reaching out toward her like a cry for help. Her brain screamed as she dug into the pile, throwing bricks haphazardly across the room. 

Powdered with a layer of dust and grime, Buffy at last recovered his broken remains. He'd wrapped his arms around a picture frame. One eye stared up at her, vacant. The scar of another was muted pink, unhidden by an eye patch. Dawn's senior picture smiled over the curl of his forearm.

The soft crackling of a pot-belly fire cast an orange glow over the Slayer. Warm red sheets cradled her head, bringing out the pale beauty of her pink skin. Above the folded edge of a comforter, her bare shoulders peeked. One had been purpled with the beginnings of a bruise, but the other had escaped the harm of battle. She murmured in slumber and turned on her side, her forehead creasing in response to pain. Wet blond hair piled limply around her face fell back against the pillow, revealing an ugly gash. Fingers of blood stained her face.

Tears mixed with fresh dirt stained her face. Her knees and thighs were browned and damp. Beneath her fingernails, yet more dirt, pulled away with her hands, remained. She stood over him for what seemed like days, staring at the small mound that seemed an inadequate memorial. She'd buried them together, Xander and his Dawnie, embraced by a grave she'd never wanted to dig. The shroud of guilt weighed down upon her shoulders as she walked back to the house.

The rubble had been pushed aside, scattered into piles as she looked for them. Instead, on the overturned refrigerator, Buffy found a note duct-taped to the door. It was written in Giles' handwriting, urgent and thus almost illegible. Buffy leaned against the intact counter that surrounded the kitchen sink and unfolded the page torn from the back of Dawn's diary.

Buffy,

We couldn't wait. Something's started, but the books have no clues about what it is or how we can stop it. We have to leave. In order to keep everyone safe, I've split them up into small teams. I've made arrangements to meet up again at a secret location. I've sent Dawn with Willow. Xander and I will remain here for as long as we can. Buffy, this isn't the end. Just know that I'm proud of you and all that you've accomplished. I'm proud to have fought at your side all these years.

Rupert Giles

The note fluttered from her fingers, dipping down between the shattered remains of the house in Cleveland. Buffy stumbled over the wreckage, her voice erupting in screams. She called for him over and over again. No answer. Her voice broke, gave out, and still she strained in silence. "Giles!"