Sister stuff (1)

Dawn screamed, and it was her scream that woke her. At first, she was relieved to realize that she was in her bed, in her room. Had it all been a nightmare? With a trembling hand, she turned on her bedside lamp, and what she saw amazed her. It was indeed her room, but not her room as it should have been. Her childhood bedroom, with walls decorated with Disney movie posters and colorful drawings, and the floor still cluttered with boxes from a recent move. Overcome by a diffuse anxiety, she got up, and immediately had a strange sensation. Something was wrong. Nothing was at the right height. Her body was not coordinated as it should have been. Its proportions were…messy. Distraught, she ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

Seeing her face, she screamed again, because the girl who looked back at her was no more than ten years old.

«Dawnie? What's wrong, sweetheart? It's the middle of the night. Did you have a nightmare? »

Dawn felt her heart pounding in her chest. The voice that had just spoken these words was full of tenderness and affection. It was a voice that she had missed terribly, a voice that had gone silent.

Dawn spun on her heel, and found herself facing her mother. Joyce Summers, alive and well, smiling sweetly at her and holding out her arms. Then all her questions about her strange situation disappeared from her mind. Overwhelmed by emotion, Dawn threw herself into her mother's arms, unable to hold back her sobs. They were tears of joy, but her mother couldn't know that and surrounded her with a warm, protective embrace. Dawn gave in to it. For the first time in months, she felt happy and loved.

Alas, this moment was too short for the little girl's liking. It was Buffy's voice – an annoyed, hostile voice – that put an end to it.

«What's the matter with her making such a racket at night? There are people who would like to sleep. »

Dawn turned to her sister and found herself facing a rejuvenated Buffy: she was sixteen again, the age she had been when she arrived in Sunnydale. She also had cute pajamas, dark circles under her eyes, and a scowl. But Dawn didn't take that into account. She ran towards her sister to hug her, and was bitterly disappointed when Buffy pushed her away, not brutally but firmly, giving her a dark look.

«What's wrong with you, bug?

– Buffy, Joyce intervened. Don't be too hard on your sister. She was in tears. I think she had a nightmare.

– Poor thing, Buffy groaned. I can't be too hard on her. So what if she's hard on me, right, Dawn? »

The little girl looked at her big sister with a confused and pained look, full of incomprehension. Of course, she knew that her relationship with Buffy hadn't always been good and that they had often bickered when they were younger – or, at least, the false memories implanted by the monks were constructed like that – but there had been moments of affection between them too. Deep down, despite all the arguments, they loved each other and Dawn had always known that. So what made Buffy so cold towards her?

This whole situation was too weird, too new! She had to collect her thoughts, her memories, to try to understand what had happened to her and where she was. So she acquiesced without saying a word when her mother suggested they go down to the kitchen to make her some hot chocolate.

«Then, added Joyce, you'll have to try to get some sleep. Tomorrow is both of your first day of school. You don't want to be tired on your first day at your new school, do you? »