Fragment: Vendetta

[annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Vendetta, Fragment.
Comments/Flames/Etc. to: annelise@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

--

Numb. She felt... numb. She was aware that she should be feeling 
other emotions, like pain, or grief, yet somehow she just couldn't 
feel anything at all. Just numbness. She felt... broken.
Reality had shattered, as had her mind. Everyone was keeping their 
distance; Dawn was looking after the supine Tara, Anya was taking 
good care (no doubt) of Xander. Giles had simply... disappeared, 
driven off into the night without a word to anyone.
Even the vampires were keeping their distance. They knew better 
than to try come near her now. Especially now.
Buffy stared at the headstone as if it would somehow start to make 
some sense. She reached out, tentatively, and ran her hands along the 
smooth marble, feeling the freshly carved letters that formed the 
name, 'Willow Rosenberg'.
The headstone remained obstinately solid. Unlike the ground beneath 
her feet which began to shift subtly. She only started screaming when 
the hand burst through from the dew-moistened soil.

*

>From nothing, she became intolerable pain given form. She was 
glass, shattered and reformed, shards of agony. Liquid fire ran 
through her veins. Her blood was like lava, consuming her, tormenting 
her.
She was in darkness, blind, insane... and oh, how she hungered.
She struck out, needing release from this prison of her body, from 
this totality of pain. And then there was air, and screams, and 
burning fire in her mind. She found a conduit for the agony, a 
release, and she howled her torments into the night air.
And that was when Buffy Summers forced a stake through her chest 
and into her heart.

*

Willow sunk to her knees and wrenched the stake from her chest. She 
looked up at Buffy, who stood, mouth open, frozen in shock. Willow 
tried to speak, yet she couldn't manage anything more than a choked 
gurgle. Blood pumped out from her wound and coated her breasts in 
crimson. But already the wound was closing, disappearing.
Buffy let out a choking, incomprehensible sob. "Willow?"
Willow's eyes became ebon pools that reflected nothing and 
everything as she said, "All sentient souls must fall unto the dark; 
Only their deeds survive. Good and evil are but the shadows we cast 
throughout all eternity."
Buffy blinked. She didn't know what to say, what to do; How to 
react, how to feel.
"There are auditors, if you will," Willow continued. "A balance is 
kept. Yet my balance was taken from me, but still I have power."
As Buffy gaped, a crow landed on Willow's blood-slicked shoulder 
and stared at her, stared *into* her. It let out a piercing Ka!
"I don't understand," Buffy said.

*

End Fragment.