Disclaimers – Buffy and any other characters from the show belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.
Summary
– Death, lots of it. Not for those who weep easily.
Spoilage
- “Primeval”
Warning/Rating - This fic series is rated R for descriptions of extreme violence.
Feedback – is always welcome. You can reach me at Dusk@Early.com
The key turned in the lock, opening the door
to our room. Our room. The thought made me kneel down on the floor, crying
fresh tears over the death of my roommate. Earlier in the day, we had decided
to take out Adam by bringing the fight to him. We had been so wrong. The girl –
no, the woman – I had told I loved in the elevator, though not revealing how
deeply, was now gone.
“I know I should have told you
I was so afraid you’d leave”
I had been in love with her for years,
practically since the day we met. The first time I had seen her beautiful smile
had clinched it. After that, all I could think about was how delicious those
lips must have tasted. I would chastise myself for thinking that way,
especially when I saw her kissing someone else. Jealousy had reared its ugly
head in me quite often during her relationships, but I had my own, though they
were all poor substitutions for her.
“And now there’s nothing left to say
Well nothing you’d believe”
While in the security room, I had wanted to
reach out and hold her hand. I felt the need to comfort and be comforted in return,
but I had denied myself. Giles and Xander had been in the room, as well as a
small group of Initiative soldiers. Even at a time like that, I was worried
about embarrassing her. I could have leaned over and whispered the three small
words I meant to say in her ear before we went to the hidden lab, but that
would have skewed our focus in the coming battle. In the end, it probably
wouldn’t have made a difference… except maybe to me.
“I never meant to hurt you with
The things I couldn’t say”
Starting across the compound, the majority of
the demons had turned their attention towards our group. The four of us gave
everything we had, covering each other’s backs whenever possible. Giles had
given up all semblance of civility, and the behavior that contributed to the
nickname ‘Ripper’ came to the forefront. He had carved a rather impressive
swath through the horde of monsters, but he had been cut-off from the rest of
us, then overwhelmed by three vampires and a Chaos demon. I can still remember
his screams as they tore into his flesh, cutting his cry short as one of the
vampires ripped out his throat.
Xander had gone utterly commando after that.
He began firing the blaster repeatedly, draining the power cell completely,
then continued to use it as a makeshift club until he spotted something atop
one of the Humvees. Jumping into the vehicle, he climbed into the rollcage, and
proceeded to deliver hot, blazing lead from the gattling gun mounted there. He
managed to clear a path ahead for us, killing demons and incapacitating
vampires as we headed towards the door. I remember looking back as he, too, was
overwhelmed, though he pulled the pin on a grenade he had picked up somewhere
before he died. The resulting explosion destroyed the Humvee, as well as taking
out two dozen of the bastards that had cost us our friends.
We made it inside the room, and had a short
cry over our loss. There was no way to perform the spell now, and we debated
the virtue of continuing our assault. I should have told her how scared I was
of losing her; of never showing her what she meant to my life.
“I promise you tomorrow while
Denying you today.”
We both decided that there was no way we were
going to let their deaths be in vain, and started walking towards the entrance to
the secret lab. I should have kissed her then, but I was still too afraid of
what she might say. I told myself that when this was over, I would sit her down
and tell her everything.
“These lies have torn my world apart
These lies have torn my world apart
These lies have torn my world apart.
A darkness grows inside me
In fading shades of grey.”
When we reached the first lab, Riley was
already dead. Forrest was removing his skullcap, and the reanimated corpses of
the two doctors advanced on us. We quickly beat them back, removing the tube
feeds from them and forcing them down Forrest’s throat. Who knew the concoction
would be fatal to his demonic grafts? I took pleasure in watching him – no,
watching the thing that had replaced Forrest – slowly deteriorate into a puddle
of flesh. We said a small prayer for Riley, hoping that his soul had moved
beyond the pain and indignities his body was suffering.
Then we went after Adam.
“All the colors of the world
Are slowly sucked away.”
He smiled when he saw us. His right arm
changed into a gun similar to the one Xander had used earlier, and I stared in
excessive disbelief as he leveled the weapon at us. I felt myself being shoved
out of the way as he opened fire, and felt a warm, sticky liquid strike my arms
and face in the next moment. Thinking I had been hit, I turned to see what kind
of damage had been done. My shirt was covered in blood, and a large puddle was
slowly expanding on the floor. I was in no pain, and as my eyes followed the
pool, I swallowed hard, trying to deny what I saw.
She was dead. She had pushed me out of the way to save my life. Her chest had…
the sight of her defiled body made me want to retch. The woman who meant more
to me than my own soul was gone, taken without ever knowing how I felt; taken
from a world that never truly understood the nuances of her persona; taken from
me by this patchwork monstrosity.
“I’m sinking ever deeper
To a place that’s cold and black.”
Adam still had that fucking smile on his face,
only he had it directed solely towards me, now. Then he had the nerve to speak.
“Interesting. She sacrificed herself for you.
A shame that neither of you understood that you could not defeat me. Still,
your contributions to my project will be greatly appreciated.”
I lost it. I screamed in pure rage and hatred
and leapt towards him with a speed I didn’t know was possible. The thought of
him turning her into some freak like Forrest and himself was too much. Somehow,
I sank both of my hands into his chest, just below where his xyphoid process
would have been. He looked down at me, and for the first time, I think he was
beginning to experience apprehension. The look of complete shock, when I ripped
his chest open like wrapping paper, simply fueled my revenge.
“This is not possible.”
I continued to show him how incorrect he had
been, as I dug my hands into the exposed joints of his right shoulder, removing
his arm and discarding it on the floor. I repeated the process with the left
arm, then proceeded to stick my hand in the knotted ball of intertwined human
and demon muscle that comprised his neck.
“Wanna see how possible it is, you
sonovabitch? You killed the woman I loved. This is just payback!” I took his
head clear off, pulling out yards of electrical wiring from his spinal column,
cutting him off from his power supply. Then it was over.
“I can’t believe I’ve lost you
And you’re never coming back.”
That was the first time I fell to my knees,
placing myself next to her body. I began to cry, cradling her lifeless body to
mine, not even noticing the amount of blood that was running down my shirt,
over my lap, down my legs, and onto the floor. She was gone. I screamed in
agony, though no one was around to hear me. I stood from the floor, carrying
her body in my arms, and made my way towards the door. Adam’s body still
contained the nuclear power cell; I could have cared less if it decided to
detonate, or fell into some terrorist's hands.
She was dead, and nothing would bring her
back. I gently laid her on one of the tables in the lab room, and found a small
stash of gasoline back in 314. Returning to the autopsy table, I poured it
generously over her body, then trailed it to the room’s concealed entrance. I
said my final good-byes as I lit the fuel, then watched as the flames consumed
her corpse. I knew she would have wanted it this way, rather than to be left to
be further defiled by the demons in the compound.
Somehow, I managed to walk out of the
Initiative’s complex without encountering a single being, human or otherwise.
More than likely, all the soldiers had been killed, and the beasts were out to
wreak some havoc on Sunnydale’s populace. I didn’t care. Eventually, I made it
back to our room, not even bothering to close the door behind me as I broke
down.
“These lies have torn my world apart
These lies have torn my world apart
These lies have torn my world apart
Torn my world apart
Soon the night will take me
And save me from my pain.”
Rising from my knees, I walked over to the
weapons chest and pulled out one of the daggers inside. The blade had been
sharpened recently, and I moved to my bed to let it perform one last task. The
demons are going to overrun Sunnydale within a matter of days. Nothing I do
will be able to prevent that, though I might slow them down a little. Now that
they’ve learned to work together, the armies they can raise up will be too
powerful to handle by myself.
My friends are gone. My beloved is gone. All
that awaits me is a lifetime of bitterness and suffering, trying to replace
what I once had. I don’t want that.
I laid down on the bed, holding the knife in
both hands above my chest. I whispered a quiet prayer that whomever is up there
will forgive me for having failed her, both in life and in love. With that, I
plunged the blade into my heart, burying six inches of steel up to the hilt.
“Cloak me in cold darkness
And help me lose your name…”
Strange how things don’t feel like you expect
them to. I could hear the blood in my arteries slowing. I could feel the blood
seeping from beneath my shirt. I could almost smell her as our blood
intermingled, and I wondered, for the last time, why I never told her how I
felt.
My sight started to fade, and the room suddenly dropped thirty degrees. In a
way, this was fitting. Sunnydale was about to go straight to Hell, or, more
precisely, Hell was coming straight out of Sunnydale. Either way, let the next
Slayer handle it. Let her find friends, then watch helplessly as they die. I
didn’t want to exist in a world without my beloved. I’d join her on the other
side, instead.
“These lies have torn my world apart
These lies have torn my world apart
These lies have torn my world apart
Torn my world apart
Torn my world apart
Torn my world apart.”
<*>
When Tara spotted the girls’ door wide open,
she decided to stop in and see if Willow was around. The sight that greeted her
as she peered in the doorway caused her to hyperventilate, as she struggled to
find enough breath to scream. Taking a tentative step into the doorway, she
finally found her voice, and the banshee wail begins to draw a crowd of
students. They stared in utter silence, not knowing what to say to the blonde
girl kneeling next to a bed, whispering something no one can hear to the
redhead with a knife sticking out of her chest.