Charlotte was absolutely positive that she had had a nightmare.

When she woke up the next morning, safe and sound in her bed, still in her clothes from the day before, she convinced herself that nothing from the previous night had happened. She had not killed someone; she had not met a red-haired girl on the beach; in fact, Charlotte tried to convince herself that she had not left the house at all. Besides, if she had killed someone, surely she would've felt guilt or something, right? But she didn't feel anything.

She took a shower anyway, and threw the outfit in the trash.

In her bedroom, Charlotte heard her alarm go off.

'Oh, right,' she thought grimly, 'School.'

Charlotte had been dreading Monday all weekend. She knew that by now word had spread about what she did at the cafe, and she could only imagine what everyone was saying about her. It made her shudder a little,

"I could skip..." Charlotte muttered as she got dressed. She toyed with the idea for a while, it wasn't like her mother would notice, what with her being off on another business trip, but she ultimately decided against it. Delaying the inevitable would only make things worse, and she refused to come off as more of a coward. If she saw Lewis, she would apologize, and if the others had something to say, she would put up with it.

Once she was dressed, Charlotte went downstairs, only to hear a clattering at her back door. She quickly rushed over, only to see concrete evidence that she hadn't been dreaming: The same ginger girl from the night before was struggling to keep the door open while carrying in Charlotte's easel, the one that she had left on the beach. For a second, Charlotte couldn't move, feeling all of her hopes shatter into a million little pieces, and unfortunately, those few seconds was all it took for the girl to notice her.

"Oh, hi, Charlotte," the girl called cheerily, finally getting through the door and setting the easel down. What was her name again? W... something. "Glad to see you up, finally. I hope you don't mind, I went back and grabbed your painting, it really is very good, and I figured you wouldn't want it to be taken by the water..."

Her fast and nervous speech was not lost on Charlotte, who was still trying to piece everything together. She wanted answers, and this ginger girl, who was apparently not a figment of Charlotte's imagination, must've had them.

"I'm sorry," Charlotte quickly interrupted, taking the girl by the arm and dragging her outside by the pool. She didn't fight back or try to break away, in fact, when Charlotte let go of her, the girl just followed her anyway. Once they were far enough from her house, she demanded, "Now, who are you? How did you find my house?"

"My name's Willow, Charlotte. We met last night?"

"Yeah, last night. That's right, I remember. You told me to... stake that man last night." Charlotte shuddered. "And I did. Oh god, I killed someone. He disentergrated. How did that happen?" The reality of what she had done washed over her, and she felt her legs give out from under her. The strange thing was, deep down she didn't feel guilty. But she knew she should be. Charlotte sat down in a lawn chair, trying to make sense of the world.

Willow knelt down and put a hand on her shoulder. "I don't know how else to put this, but Charlotte, he was a vampire."

"That's not possible, they can't be real."

Mermaids weren't supposed to be real either, though, she reminded herself, why not vampires? Charlotte herself had swum down where scuba divers couldn't, influenced the weather, made water move, freeze, and boil. Why had she never considered the fact that maybe there was more in the world? Magic was real. Mermaids were real. Why not vampires?

"I'm sorry, but you staked a vampire. You saved that girl last night."

Charlotte shook her head, not liking where this was headed.

"Charlotte, you're a vampire Slayer."

There was that word again. Slayer. It was a primitive, violent word, adjectives that no longer applied to Charlotte. "That... that isn't possible," She stood, looking at Willow in disbelief, "Look, you seem very nice, but I'm not going around killing things."

Charlotte wandered back to the kitchen, picking up her bookbag. When she walked out her back door, locking it behind her, Willow was still there, waiting, a regretful look on her face.

"Charlotte," she began, "I'm sorry, I'm not that good at this, I should've have told you another way. But you're meant to fight them-"

Charlotte didn't even stop, instead walking right past her, intent on getting away. But Willow, undetered, followed. "I can't fight them," she muttered, "I'm nothing special."

"Yes you are. Look, few days ago, did you suddenly become very strong? For no reason whatsoever?"

That got Charlotte's attention. She stopped walking, sharply turning and facing Willow.

"How did you know about that?" she hissed, "Is this a joke? Did Rikki put you up to this?"

"It's not a joke, I swear. I've been dealing with this kind of stuff for a long time. I know what's going on, just let me explain." Willow's brown eyes pleaded with her to listen. Charlotte checked her watch. School started in forty minutes, and if she wanted to get there on time, she needed to leave, now. She didn't know if this American girl was telling the truth or not, but she seemed to have some answers.

"Can you tell me on the way to school?"

Willow nodded, relieved that she would listen. "Okay, so about eight years ago, I met this girl, Buffy..."