FF: Stuck In Overdrive (5/9)

["Jamie" <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

TITLE: Stuck In Overdrive (5/9)
AUTHOR: Jamie (jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I don't
own anything. The idea of the 'feeders' is from Terry Brooks' Word & Void series, adapted.
SUMMARY: A few months on from the events of 'Stuck In The Feedback Loop', Willow grieves Buffy's death. Xander has turned to other methods to cope, and Giles is at a loss as to what to do. The arrival of Billy, a boy who's comatose state allows for nightmares to become reality complicates matters further.
SPOILERS: Unless you haven't seen season one...
DISTRIBUTION: E-mail me.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Hey everyone. Well here's part five, only four more for you to sit through. Thanks to thoth and Alex for FB on part four. And a big thank you to Mad-Hamlet, for giving me a bit of help with my weirdness the other day.







CHAPTER 5
Porphyria Cutanea Tarda








I'm twisting.

I feel as if I'm drifting yet I have no momentum. I'm static yet I feel like I'm flying. I'm blind yet I can see. The changing colours and the kaleidoscope patterns don't come into focus when I try to make them and it leads to blackness, the way all things go eventually. 

Maybe this was the way things were meant to happen, but it doesn't feel like that. My life was stolen and ripped from me by a phantom of my past. In the end, I knew I'd somehow manage to be my own undoing. 

I felt so abandoned, yet my friends surrounded me during my last few weeks.Now, the way it has come to be and the way it was always meant to be, I amtruly beyond hope. I am truly beyond help from anyone who was there yet whose help I didn't recognise.

I am alone.

-----------------------------------------------------------



Xander ran like he had never run before in his life. He'd heard the scream from not too far away and had just bolted, leaving Billy behind. He didn't notice though, his mind was bent on reaching the source of the noise. He knew, somehow, that something terrible had happened.

He raced through the hallways, slipping on the linoleum floors and falling as rounded corners. His palms burnt from slapping against the surface but he ignored it. All he could think of was reaching the doors ahead.

The doors that led to the auditorium.

He didn't know what made him go there, he just followed his instincts. He cleared the hall in a matter of seconds and burst through the doors. Secondsafter he had entered, Giles rocketed through the fire exit at the other end of the room. Xander raced down the centre aisle, following Giles when he reached the end to the stage steps. Together they bounded up them and onto the stage.

Xander slowed to a halt, and everything just seemed to stop except for him and Giles.

Willow lay prone over the wooden floor, her beautiful face still wet with tears. You know how some people say that when they see their loved ones at funerals, they look at peace?

She didn't. Her face still looked sad and pained. As Giles turned her over hastily yet carefully, her head stayed in the same odd position it had beenin. Xander was vaguely aware of Giles saying something to him, but he didn't hear. He stood there, looking at the face of his best friend and feelinga great chasm open up inside him. He'd felt it before when Buffy had died;now it returned, and it was back with a vengeance. His legs suddenly felt like they were made out of plasticine, and he collapsed onto his knees, silently mouthing the word 'no' over and over yet emitting no sound. Again, hewas vaguely aware of Giles pumping her chest and pressing his mouth to herlips, inflating her lungs with air. It had no effect. Xander knew it wouldn't. The angle of Willow's neck and the blue of her lips told him that. However, the Watcher kept trying.

"Giles." He croaked, managing to break through the barrier of silence that had choked his voice before. Giles ignored him and carried on administeringCPR, pushing harder on her ribcage and taking deeper breaths each time. His glasses had fallen off when he had first started but he hadn't noticed. Asheen of sweat covered his face as he worked.

"Giles." He said again, slightly louder. He began to focus back on reality,seeing Giles work even harder, now just thumping Willow's chest with the flat of his hand. He was screaming at her, demanding she wake up this instant.

"GILES!" He shouted, the sound of his voice reverberating throughout the room. The older man stopped and broke down on the spot, weeping freely. "She's gone." Xander said quietly again, his voice breaking on every syllable. Giles had Willow in his arms, rocking back and forth.

"I'm sorry Willow, I'm sorry I failed you. I never meant this to happen, I'm sorry." He repeated again and again, between tears and through them. Xander knelt beside him and reached out to Willow's face, wiping her still-wet face with his hands. He let his arm drop when he was done, and cried.

They stayed like that for a long time, over the body of their fallen friend.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Eventually reality begins to shift into focus. I still have that spacey feeling of displacement, yet I can see somewhat clearer. Features that I can identify begin to appear; a street sign here, a house there, the Espresso Pump. I fall farther down and it becomes clearer. I vaguely become aware thatI'm picking up speed, then suddenly realise the road beneath me is approaching rapidly.

I slam with bone-breaking force into the concrete and cry out in pain. Blood seeps from the corner of my mouth and I turn over with effort, groaning with a tiredness I'd never felt before. I'm tired of emotions, I'm tired of misery, but most of all, I'm tired of pain.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Willow coughed as she picked herself up and looked around, still dazed fromher fall and sore from the impact. She fell to the side unsteadily and grabbed onto a nearby railing to keep herself on her feet. The daze cleared after a few seconds and she stood up without support, looking around and surveying her surroundings. She was painfully aware she wasn't in Heaven. The place she was in looked a lot like Sunnydale, a lot like it. The little parade of shops where the Espresso Pump was to be accurate.

She quickly became aware of a scuttling movement to her right. She whipped around and peered into the shadows of a nearby alleyway, seeking out the movement. At first there was nothing, then out of the darkness appeared a pair of brilliantly golden eyes. Then another, and another, and another. In all, about seven pairs showed themselves as the first creatures began to slink out of the dark. 

They crept towards her on all fours, maybe two and a half feet high, crouched as if ready to attack. Their heads were almost triangular, but the rest of their bodies make them look like oversized cats. Long, slender tongues flicked out from between their thin lips and retracted just as quick, as if tasting something in the air. Their entire bodies seemed not quite solid, as Willow watched them they shifted between an opaque and slightly transparent consistency, seemingly more shadow than flesh. All seven creatures stalked out of the alleyway, aligning themselves along the road as if trying to flank her, growling and purring at the same time.

Willow walked backwards slowly, trying to create more distance between herself and the bizarre things, then heard more growls on either side of her.

Suddenly she felt fear work its way into her system, a cold and paralysing feeling that swept the whole of her nervous system and threatened to root her in place. She found herself transfixed by the gaze of their glittering golden eyes, entranced by their stare and their movements. She snapped out of it quickly and began to speed up her walk backwards, eventually turning around and breaking into a run as the largest of the creatures began to edgeforwards.

As she started running the entire pack broke into a full lope as well, howling after her. Willow looked over her shoulder and estimated maybe fifty ofthe creatures were following her now, the other appearing out of thin air when she turned her back. As she ran through the street more joined the pack in their chase from every dark, shadowed place, disengaging themselves from there as if part of the shadow themselves.

She rounded a corner and slowed as she looked ahead for connecting streets.There were none. She spun around as the foremost of the creatures rounded the corner after her. As if realising that she was trapped they fanned out,covering the entire road and blocking any escape route. They stopped running and crawled forward again, growling. The large alpha that she saw earlier barged to the front, knocking other creatures aside in his way. He stalked forwards, snarling at the other pack so they kept their distance. 

Willow backed up to the wall and targeted him as her first priority if she had to fight. Maybe if she took him the down the pack morale would break. At least she hoped it would, there was no way she could handle this many odds. Hell, she wouldn't be able to take the original seven, let alone all of them. She wasn't afraid of dying, she was already dead. However she alreadyknew she could be hurt here, and she was willing to bet that the teeth inside those jaws would cause a lot of pain.

The creature crouched even lower, flicking its tongue out at an even fasterrate now. It's eyes seemed to glow a lot more brilliantly than before, becoming almost reflective. Its muscles were coiled for its inevitable pounce,and she prepared herself for its attack.

Except it never came.

Just as the creature was about to jump, the sound of booted feet hitting the pavement came from Willow's left. She looked over quickly and saw a blur of someone running towards the creature, a flaming torch in one hand. The person swung it at the alpha and it shrank back. It seemed to be hurt by thelight, not just afraid of it. It yelped and darted back to the rest of thepack, yet it stayed a few metres in front of the rest of them, keeping itsassertiveness over the others obvious.

Her rescuer looked over her shoulder at Willow, yet still kept the torch atarms length, crouching slightly.

Willow would have gasped, had she been able to speak at that point.

"We have to go, this won't hold them for long!" The person said, falling back to where the redhead was standing. When she didn't respond, the rescuer grabbed her arm and risked turning around fully.

"Willow! We have to go!"

Willow found herself staring face to face with Buffy.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Billy stumbled through the corridors alone. Xander had taken off and left him in the dust, following that terrible scream, and now he was lost. He burned with anger and frustration. He'd been treated as a kid and a tag along all this time. 

All he wanted to do was go home.

All he wanted was his mother.

As soon as the thought came into his head he knew it was a mistake.

"Billy." a voice came from down the hall, ethereal and ghostly on the wind.An approaching shadow cast itself against the wall facing the connecting corridor, the corner blocking Billy's view of what was behind there.

He jumped as a hand was placed on his shoulder and spun round, falling downbackwards in the process. He stared up at a tall, black-haired woman with large chocolate eyes. She wore a skirt and a crumpled shirt, with a bag slung over one shoulder and a turned-off flashlight in her hand. He thought she looked like a teacher.

Yeah, if teachers were like Rambo.

"If you want to live Billy, come with me." She said, then took his hand andpulled him along with her. Why were people always doing that?

"Who are you?" he asked, trepidation in his voice.

"My name's Jenny, I'll take you somewhere safe."







End Part 5.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Jamie
jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"So go ahead and label me an asshole cuz I can accept responsibility for what I've done, but not for who I am." - NOFX, 'Don't Call Me White'
http://www.buffywillow.com

Glory: Funny. 'Cause I look around at this world you're so eager to be a part of ... and all I see is six billion lunatics looking for the fastest ride out. Who's not crazy? Look around. Everyone's drinking, smoking, shootingup ... shooting each other, or just plain screwing their brains out 'causethey don't want 'em anymore. *I'm* crazy? Honey, I'm the original one-eyedchicklet in the kingdom of the blind. 'Cause at least I admit the world makes me nuts. 

Xander: Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with deadboy on this one. 
Angel: Could you not call me that?