Lots of quotes from 'Halloween' here, so as always, standard disclaimers apply; All publicly recognized characters, quotes, places, and plotlines, belong to their respective owners ie: not me. Enjoy and review! (:
Willow clawed her way back into consciousness, dragging herself back towards a white glow. She could hear screams and the sound of pounding feet; above her, a light shone down brightly on her face. Pushing herself to her feet, she looked down to brush off her knees and froze. She was lying at her feet. Her… body! Her body covered in a cheap ghost sheet, lying there unmoving on the ground.
Willow could feel her breathing speed up and grow ragged as she began to hyperventilate while her stomach churned violently. Forcing herself to be calm, she looked down at the body she was currently in. It looked like hers too. No ghost costume though; instead she was dressed in her hooker outfit. So what was happening?! A shout caught her attention and she looked up to see Xander standing a few yards down the sidewalk, spinning back and forth, his gun following multiple bodies that zigzagged across the lawns.
"Xander!" she shouted, running towards him.
Xander spun on his heel, raising a very realistic looking gun at her. His eyes went wide as she flew at him, taking a step back in fear just as they crashed together. Only they didn't. Because she went right through him.
"Oh my God," Willow gasped, spinning back around. "Oh my God! Xander!"
Looking up from her own hands, Willow jumped to see her best friend holding the barrel of his gun steady on her chest.
"What are you?" he asked, a commanding tone belying the way fear shone through his gaze. "Identify yourself!"
"What? Xander what's wrong with you!" Willow cried. "What's wrong with me?!" She swished one of her hands through the other. "What the heck happened to me?" Looking back up at Xander, she narrowed her widened. "Quit pointing that thing at me!" she yelped.
"Miss, I'm going to have to calm down," Xander said demandingly. "There seems to be a situation here."
"A situation?" Willow screeched. "A situation? I'm a ghost! I'm a flippin' ghost, like my stinkin' Halloween costume."
"Costume? Miss, I think you're confused."
Willow's panic suddenly went dead in her chest, and she looked more closely at Xander's gun. It looked very big, very dangerous, and very real. "Xander, do you know who I am?"
Suddenly, a snarl sounded behind Willow, and she spun around to find herself being charged by a purple demon with pointy horns on its head. Forgetting that she was go-through-able, she stumbled backwards, flinching as the demon lunged, but just as it was about to reach for her throat, a gunshot exploded loudly and violently in the night. The demon raised clawed hands to its ears, shaking its head before it ran. Xander resettled his gun in the hollow of his shoulder and sighted along the barrel after the fleeing demon, but something had clicked in the back of Willow's brain, and she leapt in front of him, blocking the shot.
"No!" she cried. "No guns! That's still a little kid in there!"
"Little kid?" Xander asked. "Lady that was no kid!"
"Xander listen to me!" Willow demanded, grabbing at his arm without luck. "It was a little kid." It's Halloween. Everybody's turned into their costumes! I was a ghost, and now I'm, well, a real ghost. You were dressed as a soldier."
"I am a soldier!" Xander declared. "Private Alexander Harris, Fifty-first…"
"You're a soldier now," Willow said in an exasperated tone. "Because you were dressed as one for tonight!"
"Well I don't know about all that," he replied, sounding less than convinced, "but there is a serious situation here that we need to deal with."
"This isn't something we can deal with," Willow said, looking around at the chaos being wrought by dozens of tiny monsters running about. "We need to find…" Willow's breath caught in terror. "Buffy!"
Across town, a blonde haired vampire stalked the streets. He walked boldly, running his tongue over sharp teeth that showed through a cruel grin. Normally, he followed the unspoken rules of Halloween, staying underground and giving the humans their one night of free-range folly. Tonight, the screams had been more than he could resist. Emerging from his factory fortress, he had immediately gone game-face and taken to the dark, a fire of child-like glee building inside his chest.
"Well," he smiled, as a small green Frankenstein lumbered past him in pursuit of three screaming children, "This is just… neat!"
She had never felt so much pain in her life. A violent, burning ache was coursing through her whole body, searing along bone and muscle until it concentrated in her stomach, her throat, her chest. She felt full to bursting like her skin should split, and she stilled in an attempt to understand. Her heart felt like it was beating a hundred miles a minute beneath her ribs. No. That wasn't right. A hundred times a minute?
Slowly, Buffy uncurled from the tight ball she had jack-knifed into, the ache slowly fading away as something else trickled through her muscles. Power. She could feel it, coursing through her like water, like… like blood. What was happening to her? Rolling to her feet in a smooth, easy movement, Buffy opened hazel eyes to the chaos that surrounded her. Something small and green and slimy darted past her, and her Slayer blood sand, urging her forward into an attack position, but something else at the back of her mind chuckled at the anarchy. Something dark.
'Wait,' it whispered. 'Watch.'
"Buffy!"
She jerked, spinning on her heel at the sound of her name. Two people ran towards her, a male and a female. They looked familiar, felt like people she should know. Her… friends. Willow, and… and Xander. They came to a stop a few yards away, the red-haired girl looking at her warily, the boy in fatigues taking his cue from that. She looked at them silently, her attention suddenly caught by something fast and loud that thumped away in each of their chests. She could hear their hearts beating. The sound fascinated her, and caused the shadow to begin pushing, pushing itself to the fore of her thoughts
"Buffy? Are you ok?"
Her eyes found the Willows. "Yeah," she said. "I feel… great." That thumping, thumping beat was pounding in her ears, and she was listening so closely, was so entranced by it, that she missed the words Xander spoke from her left. Her eyes slipped slowly down Willow's neck to that spot near the shoulder, where the skin was thin. She could see something beating there, fluttering in time with the drumbeat of her heart. She could almost feel it in her own body, pounding in her fingertips. It seemed to drive the shadow mad, causing it to batter itself against a some sort of wall keeping it contained, but Buffy could have danced to it.
Suddenly she realized she had been holding her breath, and she inhaled hard. What was that? She took another tentative sniff, a sweet, salty, metallic scent filling up her head. That was… wow. That was great. She wanted that. The shadow at the back of her mind gave out a vicious snarl, and smashed itself violently forward, breaking down a door that held it back.
Buffy leapt with it.
She registered a scream from the girl in front of her, and caught a whiff of something hot and bitter as her body lunged towards her. Fear. The shadow was in control now, slavering to spill red, hot, salt from the girl's veins, and it aimed for the throat. She felt a prickling sensation in her mouth, like needles under the skin, and just as she reached out for the thing that she wanted most, she fell.
No body stood to take the brunt of her attack. Only the rush of cool air met her charge. She had gone through the girl, continuing along her projected path until her palms hit black top, gravel cutting into the tender skin before she somersaulted, coming neatly back up and around to face her prey. That sweet, coppery scent was stronger now, burning into her brain, and she held up a hand to her face curiously. Reaching out a tentative tongue, she lapped at her lacerated palms, the blood fairly bursting on her tongue, hot and raw and delicious. Looking back up into two horrified faces, Buffy's eyes flashed gold.