From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 48: Chapter 48

Max's hands were dry, severely dry - something she hoped she wouldn't have to get used to. It was such a strange quirk to have and she couldn't trace it back to any one moment, but it'd become a constant annoyance and she never quite got past it. She hated the feeling of rubbing her fingers together and the scratchy noise they made. She hated the white lines that appeared and the itchy tightness of her skin, as if stretching her fingers would tear it open. It was a tic, a nervous tic that she only realized she had when there were too many important things to worry about - or just the one enormous thing.
In the building's basement attached to the abandoned store, she was waiting to receive her official assignment. There was a place lower than this and she could hear it; she could hear fighting. A woman shouting over a chorus of synchronized grunts and, somewhere else down there, the erratic rhythm of flesh and bone hitting something heavy. Beneath Max's feet, right at this moment, were dozens of vampire slayers learning to be vampire slayers. Max had only met one ever, and that was only a day and a half ago. One of those girls down there may end up being her slayer, a real human life to guide and help.
The skin on her hands felt tight and itchy. What type of nonsensical place was California? How could it be overcast and so dry?
She shifted slightly in her seat at the beige suede couch, which was soft and comfy and broken in after years upon years. It clashed horribly with the pale greenish-blue color of the walls, but she doubted the people who typically sat in this room had time for things like choosing flattering color palettes. Unsurprisingly, the entire room smelled like old coffee grounds and stale store-bought cookies and biscuits, a combination that she hoped to never have to identify again.
Max sucked in a breath, hands still pressed together on her lap as she turned to the door on the opposite side of the room. The woman from before was standing there, her large, cynical eyes scrolling rapidly through something on her phone, and paying Max no mind. There was an air about her that read like a 'NO TRESPASSING' sign on a barbed wire fence. Her presence alone told Max to keep quiet. Still, Max thought about the girls downstairs and being so far from home in such little time and couldn't help but feel the words bubbling up in her throat. "Excuse me."
There was a pause, a standstill that sucked all the air out of the room. The woman's droll stare had stopped scrolling, and she slowly raised her head. Her half-lidded, deadpan stare locked onto Max like a vice.
"Sorry, um..." Max pursed her lips and exhaled out of her nose. The woman shouldn't have been so intimidating - her frame was twig-like and, in heels, she was barely taller than Max - but the way she carried herself made her aura feel massive and razored. Max rubbed her hands together and the feeling made her cringe like she'd just heard nails on a chalkboard. That alone was enough to power through the tension as far as she was concerned. "I was just wondering...do you have hand cream? Or some sort of lotion or something?"
Without missing a beat, the woman smiled a big toothy smile, eyes wide even though Max could still feel that same terrifying glare in them. "Oh my gosh, of course!"
Her tone was nasally and higher than before, which was such a sudden change that if Max had been standing, she might've taken a step back in precaution. It felt painfully false, though, mocking even. There was a hesitance when Max spoke again, knowing the truth but hoping for something far better. "...Could I use a bit?"
The woman still smiled, but it was closed-mouthed and made her eyes narrow as she shrugged her shoulders and gave a muted laugh. "No."
The smile fell, and the girl gave one last glare before returning to her phone. For a single moment, Max felt the tension in her face loosen as she gaped in shock. The audacity, the sheer...rudeness shouldn't have bothered her so much and it wouldn't have if not for the grin and the laugh that accompanied the comment. Rudeness for the sake of rudeness, that's what it was.
It was a godsend when the door opened a few seconds later, or else Max might've flown into a tangent on common courtesy. Either way, she was already in the middle of shooting up from the couch, only now she was facing a different woman - one she recognized. The sudden appearance of the familiar redhead in front of them pulled Max from the present, just as it did every time since she was thirteen.
"Miss Rosenberg?" Max asked aloud, unable to stop the smile from spreading across her face so wide that it almost hurt her cheeks. Willow smiled, just barely, fatigue lining her features. Max bound over and hugged her tightly as if the woman was family. "Goodness, it's been ages! How are you?"
"Same old, same old. Fighting horrible, unstoppable baddies, scotchgarding the whole lower level against blood and demon innards..." Willow replied, the upbeat tone she typically had flattened. The older woman pulled away and looked at Max, her green eyes wistful as she smiled very much in the same way that Max's grandfather would when he would catch her reading through demonology books. She took a breath and the wistful look dissolved into something weighted and apologetic. "We're gonna have to save the catch up session for another time, though, okay? Follow me."
Willow nodded to the other girl in the room before turning and walking down the dark hallway. Max was almost stricken by the worry in Willow's voice and, for the first time since Faith walked into their classroom 36 hours ago, a sense of dread filled her.
The dark-haired woman pushed past her and walked down the hallway, leaving Max gaping again. She groaned and jogged after them, like she was falling down the rabbit hole - only now, there was no way back.
☽ † ☾
The halls didn't echo - that was the first thing Maddie could tell after she and Scott started following this stranger. This ghost. Caleb. At first, for the few minutes he'd started guiding them through the school, she still wasn't sure about that part. She wasn't sure that this wasn't all a trick, that ghosts could even live in a place that was no longer a place or that a place could be as much a ghost as the people. In other ways, well... Sunnydale was a dangerous town and it very well still could be.
"Now, be careful. Kids like you are just what this place is lookin' for."
Kids like you. The comment made her uncomfortable to begin with.
He would know. There was no trusting anything or anyone here, but Maddie considered - for a second - if he was telling the truth. She couldn't risk turning this whole place against them if there was even the slightest chance that they could get out. She thought of the vampires outside of Beacon Hills and the parents of the people she'd dragged along on this ride through hell. She thought of Allison and wasn't sure if it was in the context of saving her or saving people from her. Even then, there were Stiles, Lydia, and even Sadie (though that sentiment changed frequently). She wanted - needed - to believe that there was a way out.
"Kids like us?" Scott echoed Maddie's thoughts, examining Caleb as they walked. Scott and Maddie were behind him, allowing him to lead them through the near-black and winding halls. "Like Slayers and-"
"Werewolves? Well, yes." Caleb tilted his head and Maddie was thankful that he couldn't see her tense up at his words. "You two and even those girls you brought with you. Supernatural creatures and the like - but, also, no. I meant you two specifically."
There was the clatter of wood somewhere ahead, and it was the first sound that echoed in a while. Maddie's head immediately turned to the direction of the sound, as did Scott's.
"Heroic types. All about..." Caleb sighed, unphased by the noise. "Friendship and family and rescuing kittens and whatnot. People lookin' to save people. That's when the other things come out."
"The other things?" Maddie asked, voice far away as she kept her gaze in the noise's direction from earlier. She was already feeling as though the surrounding darkness slithered through her pores and bones, right to the heart of her. This place could see her, all of her, and nothing about that was all right. "What other things?"
"The worst bits. The memories." Caleb stopped in the dead center of an intersecting hallway, causing Maddie and Scott to stop. He glanced back at them, and the darkness in his eyes made Maddie uncomfortable enough to need to shrug off the feeling. "You see, this is the hellmouth. Well, not 'the'. A. One of few. A centre of mystical energy. Darkness was not only drawn here, it was bred here. Powerful, powerful stuff. You can't eliminate energy as massive and deadly as the Old Ones themselves, am I right?"
That sat with Maddie for a long moment, the words as unfamiliar on her tongue as they were in her brain. "The Old Ones?"
"The Old Ones. The first demons! God Kings of the primordium!" Caleb sounded exasperated, turning to Maddie with an astonished glance. "What exactly do those Watchers teach you nowadays?"
Maddie only glimpsed the man, the reflection in his eyes not reflecting her or Scott, but something else - something that was moving. She couldn't help but wonder if whatever it was could've been moving closer to her when something moved behind his shoulder. It was only a slight shift in the darkness, but it caught her attention immediately, like her eyes were being drawn to it helplessly. Like an animal fighting its way out of the tar pits, it started with a hand forming out of the darkness. The calloused hand sharpened into something real and Maddie noted that it was clenched around something - shining, jaggedly carved piece of wood which sharpened to a point. The hand gripped it tightly and, as if everything but this thing in the darkness was moving in slow motion, it shifted into a person.
She wasn't ready to see anyone familiar in this place, anyone who couldn't have known about Sunnydale. This was why she blanched at the face of a woman she knew, but only recently - her guidance counselor from Beacon Hills. The makeup darker, her hair pulled back, and features marginally younger, but it was her.
"Miss Morrell?" Maddie asked, giving a name to the slightly shadowed figure and making it something real, even if the only other reaction was Scott giving Maddie a worried glance.
All the while, Caleb was stock still and not looking at them anymore. The moment that she said something, Maddie noticed something on the girl's neck. A line that stretched from one side to the other and widened only slightly in the center like a dark, cheshire cat grin. The moment she wondered what it was, thick, dark liquid leaked from what Maddie now knew was a cut. The hand not clasping the stake gripped the girl's neck in a poor attempt to slow the bleeding.
Maddie jerked forward to rush to her, but Caleb's arm blocked her path. She wasn't sure if he was even corporeal, but she was considering testing that theory if he didn't move. Either way, the gesture stopped her momentarily, even as the girl's hand loosened and instead presented the stake to Maddie. Maddie wanted to know if it was real, if it was something she could touch, that she could take. It felt important, like something bigger than her. Something that maybe Buffy would understand.
"Don't touch her," Caleb warned, his voice hushed. "There's a million different tricks and traps here. Who knows what making contact with any of us could do."
She couldn't help the words from coming out in a bark as she glared at the man. "All this time here and you don't know?"
Her eyes shifted to the space behind him, where her school therapist had been bleeding out. The area was empty and forced Maddie to look into the deep black of the hallway where she could swear things were moving. She couldn't help but hesitate as Scott placed a hand on her arm and she looked up to see he had taken a full step forward. It was a calming gesture, but only so much. He would've tried to go help the girl, because it was a Scott type of thing to do, but he hadn't even moved a fraction in that direction. The expression he wore matched her own distress and concern, which was unsettling because the concern was aimed at Maddie.
He turned back to Caleb, who was looking at Maddie as if she was gum he'd only just discovered on the bottom of his shiny, black loafers. "What exactly is our school psychiatrist doing here?"
"Sorry?" Caleb asked, turning to Scott as his brow creased.
Maddie shot a look to Scott, fairly certain he saw nothing but grateful that he took her on her word alone. A fresh wave of confidence pushed her to turn back to Caleb with narrowed eyes. "I just saw someone I know bleeding out, which is impossible. There's no way. Is that one of the tricks?"
"Now, I sincerely doubt it was someone you know personally," Caleb said, his tone turning condescending, and Maddie knew that was no mistake.
"Why not?" Maddie asked.
"Because if they were bleedin' here, odds are they died here - and, if that was the case, you wouldn't know them personally." A thin-lipped smile spread across his face.
Maddie clenched and unclenched her fist. "But I know her. I know that face."
Caleb shrugged, once again folding his hands behind his back. "You'd be surprised at just how little that means."
After a beat of silence, Scott asked, "Was it a memory?"
"If it was, who's remembering it?" Maddie allowed herself to cast aside her growing annoyance at the stranger in front of them and turned to Scott.
Caleb pointed to Maddie as if she'd raised her hand. "Ah! There's the million dollar question."
A loud bang followed Caleb's words, but not the type that Maddie expected in a town full of dead people. It sounded like someone had ripped a door off its hinges - or nearly did. Maddie whirled around to the direction of the sound, but this time she was the only one. Scott and Caleb hadn't moved at all. The noise waned into light, quick footfalls - a sprint that grew louder and louder in her ears and bounced off the walls.
Scott turned to look at her. "Maddie, what is it? Are you okay?"
Something was drawing her to the sound, calling to her and urging her to follow it. She took a few steps away from Scott and into the dark hallway, only it wasn't dark where she was standing. The lights were on and illuminating the tile and bare walls, reflecting in the shining aluminium lockers. The footsteps grew louder and louder, and Maddie felt desperate to see who they belonged to, as if it was the only thought she could form.
"Maddie?" The voice was far off, fading.
They were just around the corner, close enough to identify that the steps were being taken in dress shoes or heeled boots, an almost galloping sound. Someone was running fast - sprinting - in heels like it was nothing. The color drained from her face.
"Maddie!"
She spun around, annoyed at the constant interruption. "What?!"
Maddie didn't hear Scott's response - she only heard the running just behind her, like if she turned around, she'd be nose to nose with the culprit. Then the world went fuzzy and bright white, tilting and spinning. Not only that, she felt as if her body buzzed with it, like she fell asleep and a million pins were pricking her skin to wake her up. Her thoughts wouldn't clear, becoming harder and harder to focus on when something else took them over.
That's when she saw her, as the world slowly settled back into the dim light from just before. As if Maddie was the ghost, she saw the...whatever it was running as if the spirit had stepped out of her body and continued down the hall, bright blue coat flapping behind them and blonde hair whipping all around.
A familiar fear and panic gripped at Maddie's chest, the most terrible kind. The kind where everything was already taken from her. Her shoulders felt too heavy and her legs were wavering under her. She collapsed down to a knee, clutching her chest as if it physically hurt. Out of her peripheral vision, someone was rushing over to her, but they were too blurry to see.
She had to run. It couldn't be too late. It wasn't supposed to be like this. All of this should've ended tonight. Maddie could see the out-of-focus girl still running ahead, and she had to follow her. She had to know what was happening.
In an instant, she found herself back on her feet, willing her uneasy legs to push her forward and sprinting after the ghost -
No, not a ghost. A memory.
"Maddie!" Even the name sounded foreign, like it belonged to someone else.
She ran as fast as her feet would allow her, the shadows shifting and pulsing at the edges of her vision. Hands were reaching for her, or they felt like they were. It felt like hundreds of creatures were ready to grab her and pull her down where no one would find her, to stay in hell with them. She kept running, pushing herself to catch up to the ghost of the girl ahead. Her breaths were quick and rasping and she could hear heart hammering in her eardrums. She didn't even realize at first that she wasn't following her anymore, that she knew where to go.
A sign just ahead and above a set of double doors read 'library' and Maddie didn't stop until she was pushing the doors open. She stumbled slightly to a stop as she looked around at the collapsed shelves and the scattered papers. Her gaze went even further down to the floor, and she stared at a body crumpled on the tile. Familiarity flooded her head as she recognized the person as the woman from before, the girl that looked just like Miss Morrell - only this time, her eyes were closed and her body was still. Instead of keeping her distance and allowing herself to think with caution and logic, something else overtook her.
She was thankful that her eyes weren't open, more than thankful. The relief ran through her brain just below her racing thoughts, the ones that felt like they'd forced their way into her head. She wasn't alone anymore. There was finally - finally - someone who knew what she knew and felt what she felt. There was someone else who understood in a way her friends never could. She wasn't alone anymore.
She wasn't alone.
And now she was.
It was like crumbling. She knew before she reached the girl's body. It was like the weight of the ceiling and the sky above crashed onto her chest.
Maddie ran to the girl on the ground and felt cold when no one held her back, even if she couldn't remember why. It felt so similar, so horribly familiar - but, instead of an alleyway in the rain, it was a school library and she was still too late. Always too late when it counted. She couldn't bring herself to admit that it wasn't her that was too late though, at least this time, because the truth was harder to handle. She knew whose memory this was without asking, without seeing her or hearing her voice. When she reached the girl on the ground, the one with the slit throat, she unconsciously went to grab her hand. She knew the girl died but something in her needed the physical confirmation. She needed to know the extent that she failed. She needed to apologize.
A high-pitched wail like the static whine of a speaker went through her ears and pulsed in her head, loud enough that she was sure her eardrums would burst. Her eyes shut tightly, her head water-logged and fuzzy as words that carried more emotion than she could take crawled in. Her hands flew up to her ears, trying to block out the noise, but it didn't even muffle the noise a little - like the words were already there in her head and now she was trapping them.
"...getting kicked out of school? For losing all of my friends?" The small voice was one she knew, but so much happened all at once that she couldn't even get to the name.
"...say how he's gonna kill me? Do you think it'll hurt?"
"...told him I loved him...and I kissed him...and I killed him..."
"You stuck a needle in me. You poisoned me!" Something about that one went further, crawling into her gut and settling there. One hand flew to her neck as if a bug had bitten her there. The sting of it seemed to quiet her head, singling out one voice and allowing Maddie to grasp at the name attached to it.
"Signs?" the voice Maddie heard just above her, the same voice but clear and singular, went low and seething. Something over her head hit a wall and clattered to the ground, causing Maddie to duck lower. "Read me the signs!"
Again, something hit the wall. Then another sound, the flutter of papers falling.
"Tell me my fortune!" It broke, pained and raw. "You're so useful sitting here with all your books! You're really a lot of help!"
A second vaguely familiar voice rose from the other side of Maddie, mature and British in the most proper sense but most of all quiet. "I don't suppose I am."
She looked up toward the man who spoke, but he turned away from her, standing in a dark threshold with his head lowered. The third entered out of the darkness, new and unrecognizable. Younger in tone but older in its clarity and patronization. "I know this is hard."
Maddie turned to him, but her eyes couldn't focus on him. Even out of focus, she could tell he was pale and slim, dressed mostly in black. The female voice behind her sounded again, accusing and full of rage. "What do you know about this? You're never gonna die!"
The words seized Maddie, who had only just realized that she'd uncovered her ears. He looked clearer the longer she focused, fuzzy lines sharpening around the edges. She squinted, trying to see his face as he said, "Do you think I want anything to happen to you? Do you think I could stand it? We just gotta figure out a way-"
"I already did. I quit, remember? Pay attention!" The girl's voice lowered to a barely composed growl.
A shot of anger jolted through Maddie, and a new clarity came over her.
Buffy. Of course it was Buffy.
A younger Buffy, but the woman she knew all the same. I quit. Fury rose Maddie to her feet. Of course she would quit. The thought exploded to consciousness as Maddie whipped around to see her - to see the woman that constantly proved her right.
Eight years of fighting, of leaving behind her family, of losing her friends, all of it over and over, boiled to the surface. She wanted to scream in her face. Why should you get the option? You don't get to quit! What happened to 'we don't run away'?!
She would scream even if Buffy couldn't hear it. She would say everything she ever wanted to.
Maddie stared Buffy dead in the eye, and it wasn't quite Buffy.
She saw a girl about her height with dirty blonde hair and glittering, running makeup. She saw a girl with a manicured hand gripped tightly around the charm on her necklace, knowing exactly what she was holding. She saw tears streaming down a youthful face, one that had yet to see the worst of everything and did not understand what the future would bring. This was Buffy, but not the same Buffy. Not the leader or the general. Just a girl.
Something horrible wrapped around Maddie, the same feeling as before in the hallway. Helplessness. Terrifying loneliness.
One girl, the only one. Before the army. Before the shared power. One girl in all the world. The Chosen One.
It's an outdated legend. Not a code. The memory turned to bile in Maddie's throat.
The older man's voice sounded, desperation flooding it. "Buffy, if the Master rises..."
Buffy's face crumpled as he spoke. Her grip on the necklace tightened, and she yanked the chain from her neck. "I don't care!"
Her voice broke, transforming into a choking sob. Silence blanketed the room, and the moment was falling away, breaking apart, leaving Maddie.
"...I don't care," Buffy said, soft as a whisper, defeated.
All the muscles in Maddie's body tensed at once as Buffy looked up from the ground and right at her. No, not Maddie - the man behind her. Buffy couldn't see Maddie at all. Maddie was the ghost more than they were at the moment. These weren't really ghosts at all, but memories. This felt real; this moment must've happened and whatever went down left behind a particular energy strong enough to replay for Maddie however many years later. It manifested an emotion, one that Maddie was still living, into an image and that image was staring right through her.
"Giles, I'm sixteen years old."
Falling away, that was the only way to describe it. The floor under Maddie disintegrated and this place - this empty pit that shaped her entire life - could see her. It knew her.
Buffy opened her mouth to speak and nothing came out at first other than air that refused to form words. The tears started again and Maddie saw this before, a million times - just not from Buffy. She knew this breaking, this crumbling. She knew it from seeing it in Marie, from feeling it in her chest, and she couldn't look away. When Buffy's words came, soft and choking, they hit Maddie harder than the woman's hand did just weeks ago.
"I don't wanna die."
The wind was knocked out of Maddie, like there was no air left in the room. She stared at Buffy, wanting to say something but not having the strength to speak. Buffy looked down at her hand that still held the necklace just as she threw it down and it hit the floor with a small, sharp clack. Buffy didn't look up again and walked away, but Maddie's eyes were still on the necklace on the ground - the silver chain and the cross reflecting the little light left in the room.
The first thing Maddie did was reach for the charm on her own neck. She took the cross into her hand and squeezed it tightly, reminding herself that it was still there. It was always there, and some days it weighed too heavy on her chest. It was the constant reminder of the life she would always live. She'd always wear it or one like it and something about that made her bitter. How could something so insignificant be her first line of defense?
Maddie let go of her cross, bent down again, and reached for the one on the floor but hesitated. Caleb had warned her not to touch anything. He'd said that everything could be a trick or a trap, but...this was too important. Someone or something meant it for her. She swore it was real, even before she touched it. She closed the distance, just like she had with the yearbook.
The shock of it ran from her fingertips and up her spine because it was real. Solid, reminding Maddie she was still real too. There was no other explanation for smooth, cool metal in her hand
"Might I ask what you're doin'?" Caleb's voice was a unique kind of irritation, patriarchal and masking something terrible, the kind that made her spine stiffen.
"Nothing, I, um-" She took a sharp breath, slipping the cross into the sleeve of her jacket as she stood and whirled around. In the library's doorway stood a stone-faced Caleb and, further into the library, a distraught Scott. Her eyes flicked back to Caleb, a breath caught in her throat as she swallowed. "I thought I saw something. But it was nothing."
Caleb eyed her for a moment, far too long for Maddie's liking. He was analyzing her, seeing through a flimsy mask. His expression didn't change when he spoke, his tone low and thoughtful. "In that case, we better get goin'. I'd hate to see you kids lose your way down here."
The man turned on his heel, hands still clasped behind his back as he strode out of the library.
Scott didn't move at first, watching Caleb leave and allowing the door to stop swinging before walking over to Maddie. "Are you okay? You just-"
"I know," she said without hesitation. You just ran. "Sorry."
"What happened back there?" It still slightly confused her when he sounded more concerned than she expected.
"I, um.. I saw Miss Morrell again..." She felt the cross pressing against her palm and clenched her jaw as the red smile cut flashed in her brain again. "I saw the body. I mean, I know that it couldn't have been her but..."
Alone. Not alone. Alone again. Alone until you die.
Scott analyzed her expression and furrowed his eyebrows. "Wait, do you think Caleb's lying?"
"I know he is. I just...I know." Even as she said it, she was grasping at straws. She swallowed and presented the hand that held the cross. "I touched this and I'm pretty sure I'm still here. Something led me to it, I think - but it's real."
Scott seemed cautious as he reached out a hand and tapped the charm twice. He paused, and after a moment, released a breath. "A cross?"
"No. I mean, it is, but..." Even she was thinking she was a bit too excited over something so small and sighed. "It's more than that. It's Buffy's."
Scott's eyes darted up to Maddie's, widening slightly as he gaped. "How? She's not..."
She didn't have time to explain that Buffy died before, as every slayer was told at one time or another. It wasn't a common occurrence, and both times had special circumstances and unforeseen consequences from the way Xander and Willow described them. Maddie didn't really have all the details, and she didn't expect ever hearing the full story -
"I don't want to die."
- but she could learn more here wherever they were. "Neither is Miss Morrell. Look, something here wants us dead, but I think something else is trying to help us."
"And I'm guessing it's not Caleb?" Scott's tone showed that none of this surprised him. Instead, he sounded somber, even a little resolute. Maddie still answered with a sigh and a shake of her head. "Okay. What do we do?"
Maddie hated that question. She pocketed the cross necklace and began walking to the library exit. "...Whatever's trying to get to us will keep trying. So we distract him. Let him lead us to whatever he's planning."
"Are you sure?" Scott asked. "That sort of sounds like it could end badly."
Maddie paused and shrugged just before reaching the doors and turning back. "Like he said, you're a werewolf and I'm a slayer. If plan a doesn't work, there's always Plan B."
They made eye contact, and a quiet understanding passed from Scott to Maddie. Like soldiers on the field, they shared a mission and realized, without question, the part they played. Plan B was almost always the same for people like them. It was the last resort when all good intent evaporated around them.
Scott squared his shoulders. "We fight?"
She turned away and peered through the small rectangle window to the darkness outside. "We fight."
☽ † ☾
She could hear them.
Lydia couldn't find the words to say it out loud yet. Just like with Peter, she could hear them - crawling, whispering, gnawing, and beckoning - but here, there were so many and they were so loud and her head was about to explode with all of it.
When they were in the car, it started as a whimper, words as soft and fleeting as a gasp. Words that began from outside of her and all around her before she realized they were already in her head and her heart and her veins. Fingers wriggling through her bones to strangle her thoughts and move her mouth like a puppet while she sat there, helpless to stop.
Now, the nameless thing wanting to pull her strings didn't touch her, but it still raged somewhere in the dark, kept at bay by something small but warm she didn't quite understand. That was the only actual proof that there was something good there, in this house. There was a calm there that was unexplainable and drew Lydia towards the living room, where the table had moved and a black body bag was half upright in an L shape on the carpet.
The three of them - Lydia, Stiles, and Sadie - stood a few feet from the bag and whoever sat inside it. Lydia was the first to take a seat on the closest cushioned chair, because it was impolite to stay standing, and she chastised herself silently for the thought. Sadie took a seat at the wooden chair by the desk, back rigid and eyes narrowed on the bag. Stiles stayed standing after staring at the couch and took a cautious step back.
The silence in the room was odd and forced, all the while Lydia heard other whispers and gasps almost in the distance, like there was some crowded community event just outside the house. Inside, though, Lydia's heart hammered nearly loud enough to hear.
The upright part of the bag made a plastic crumpling sound and twisted to one side, the zippered front facing Lydia as she scooted back. Behind that material, she imagined a person, and they were staring at her.
A woman - she knew it was a woman, even if she didn't quite understand how she could know that. It came to her like a gnat buzzing in the shell of her ear. The logical part of her brain was on red alert, trying and failing to rationalize all of this madness but still advising her that any sudden movement could mean death.
However, the little voice that led her down strange paths, the part of her brain that could feel everything that was happening or might've happened around her, convinced her that this woman was, if nothing else, kind. Kind and - Lydia closed her eyes for a moment - missing something. Missing like a puzzle piece, but also missing like a broken heart.
There was a gaping hole in the center of this woman, even if Lydia couldn't quite picture what she looked like.
She spoke and it sounded like Lydia's ears were ringing.
"Buffy."
There was a pause. Lydia gaped slightly, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to process the one, single word. A name she only heard in the past twenty-four hours and the only name connected to this town. She didn't want to think about the connection between the name and the woman in the body bag. She didn't want to know, even when she repeated it. "...Buffy?"
The house - the entire house - rumbled under her feet as the last syllable left her mouth. The woman didn't speak immediately, and Lydia took a breath.
"I can't see." Her voice faded at parts, swallowed up by something Lydia couldn't begin to fathom. "Why can't I see?"
Lydia saw Stiles' change in expression from terror to confusion, like he could only hear Lydia's side of the conversation - which felt true. She was sure she was the only one to hear the woman speak.
"My head..." the voice groaned. The woman, who sounded mature and kind but hollowed out, was stock still even as her voice was on the verge of cracking the second time she spoke. "Dawn..."
Lydia frowned, feeling like an idiot as she said, "I don't understand. Is something happening at dawn?"
She didn't know if she wanted to figure out what the woman meant, fearing the answer. She wished whatever power she had was more mechanical, a phone to make calls when she needed and not a CB radio in an abandoned mountain pass as she sent out an SOS. They needed information about the vampires, if not their ashes, and that was it.
Something told her this woman wouldn't have any idea about that, though. Her death didn't feel like it had anything to do with the town being destroyed. There would be no logical reason for the body bag if that were the case. Logic. Ha. Good one, Lydia.
"She has to keep Dawn safe. She..." The woman's voice faded a bit in the middle, like her voice couldn't handle so many words. "I'm sorry. I'm not feeling very well."
"...Is Dawn a person?" Lydia asked.
"She's mine." There was a tremor of something inside the bag. "Buffy promised, she... Dawn needs her. Dawn is important."
It sounded like the beginnings of a sob, and something about it made Lydia's chest constrict. "Important to who?"
"I can't..." There was a pause, and the universe felt like it was waiting to start back up again. "I should lie down for a bit."
Lydia stared at the black bag, imagining the woman inside it - the woman looking right at her. A sweet-faced lady with large eyes. It took her a second to realize she was thinking of a face she knew, remembering only vaguely a time outside of this place. She glanced at Stiles, who still looked lost, keeping her voice low. "Do you know who Dawn is?"
He shook his head. "Why?"
Lydia didn't bother prompting the same question to Sadie, who was strangely invested at the moment. She turned back to the woman in the massive bag. She didn't get the chance to ask another question as the house shook again and photos and paintings crashed to the floor.
"What the hell did you do?!" Sadie shouted.
Lydia didn't answer as the woman spoke again, just as quietly but somehow over the noise. "My girls... My sweet, brave girls... How did I get so lucky?"
The shaking stopped slowly as Lydia took in a sharp breath. It made sense. The cadence and tone were motherly and, despite the difference in voice, the face Lydia imagined was her mom's. Her mom, who she would never see again if she didn't find a way out. Her mom, all alone in that enormous house, a ghost drifting in and out of empty rooms. Her toes curled in her shoes as she craned her eyes to Stiles, who was gripping the desk tightly for support. "It's Buffy's... I think it's her mom."
There was a silence, like the words took all the air out of the room and out of Lydia's lungs. Stiles' eyes grew wide, but his mouth was a line as he stared at the body bag and his expression became unreadable.
"Dawn won't be home from school for a while... " the woman said, calling Lydia's attention back to her. "I'll just rest my eyes."
"I saw a woman on the couch," Stiles's voice was almost overly loud, like he was talking over the noise in his head. There was a tension in his tone that Lydia didn't quite understand, and his eyes never left the bag. "She, um... It was only a second, but her eyes were open and I don't think she was breathing."
Lydia didn't know how to respond, wanting nothing more to do with this situation. She didn't want to go from the beginning and still here she was, listening to a dead woman stuck in a moment that had nothing to do with Lydia.
"Buffy should be back soon," she breathed. The part of the bag that was upright slowly descended back to the floor. "She'll be here soon."
"What- What is she doing? Stop her!" Sadie hissed, blue eyes wide. "Did she say anything about the ashes yet?"
"Wait!" Lydia's voice was quiet but urgent as her panic rose. Even if this woman protected them in some way before, they had no way out and no way to Maddie and Scott, wherever they were. "Please! We- we need help! Our friends are lost and we need to find them!"
Our friends. She didn't have the time or the patience to think twice about that.
Still, the woman continued down, ignoring her pleas. Lydia heard a sharp intake of breath and caught sight of a tense Stiles kneeling in front of the woman in the bag. He looked like he was about to break down or maybe even vomit, but instead he exhaled and kept his eyes on the body bag.
"I'm sorry," was the very first thing he said, and it made him sound so broken that there was a jerk of hesitation from the woman. "But she's okay. Buffy's okay."
The woman inside the body bag halted and, even slower than before, sat back up.
SLAM.
Lydia jumped at the noise and looked up. Something hit the front door so hard that the hinges bent and began coming loose. Both Sadie and Stiles flinched, and Stiles closed his eyes for a moment before taking a breath. "We have a friend here who knows Buffy. And, I mean, she...might know about Dawn. She's a slayer, just like your daughter...but she needs your help."
SLAM. The front door was cracking and splinter. Sadie stood up and began backing away from the door and back toward the kitchen.
"Please, we need to help Buffy and our friend save a lot of people." He paused, jaw clenching. "We don't want them to lose anyone else."
The woman in the body bag was silent and stayed still for a long moment even as the heavy, massive thing destroying the front door kept pounding away.
The pull tab at the top of the zipper lowered down the bag slowly, click after click, and Lydia seized up, rooted to her spot.
Once it was almost a foot down and she thought, for a fleeting moment, she would see the woman's face - whole or decomposing, she had no idea. Maybe there would only be an old skeleton there now. Any of those made her shudder after hearing the woman's voice. That kind, lost voice.
Stiles stood and leapt back as something poured out of the bag to the floor. At first, given how dark it was, Lydia thought it was blood trickling out but it was dry when it scattered on the hardwood. The bag folded in on itself, drooping from the weight of whatever was falling from it. Lydia swallowed and inched her hand forward, unable to stop it from quivering.
SLAM.
SLAM.
SLAM.
Ignore it, she thought. It's just trying to scare us.
"Lydia, don't," Stiles blurted out, reaching for her arm, but she already grabbed the tab of the zipper and pulled it down further. She flinched when something fell onto her hand and she thought to shake it away, but took a shaky breath and drew her hand back to her to get a closer look. She took a bit into her other hand, rubbing her index finger and thumb with the grainy substance.
She frowned and looked up at Stiles. "It's...just dirt."
"What?" Stiles hesitated but then speeded over, getting a better look.
He wiped some dirt from the floor to his hand and examined it - as well as either of them could, given the circumstances. He turned back to the bag and zipped it down halfway and pushed the top half down to the floor.
"Why dirt?" Lydia asked, feeling like she'd gone further back than making any progress forward.
Stiles dug through the bag with the most disgusted grimace Lydia had ever seen. He was scooping handful after handful of dirt onto the floor,
SLAM. CRACK.
"Stiles, we don't have time for this!" Lydia shouted as she got to her feet, eyes set on the door that now had a large, jagged crack down the middle. They had to get the hell out of dodge as soon as possible, all three of- She looked around the room, horror-struck. "Where's Sadie?"
"Come on, come on, come on..." he was muttering to himself.
"Stiles, where's Sadie?!" Lydia shouted.
It was then he pulled something from the bag - a piece of paper. He was furiously wiping the dirt off of it and smoothing it out as he squinted at the writing. "Oh, you have gotta be kidding."
"What?!" Lydia asked louder than she expected as she turned the corner back to the kitchen. Empty, falling apart - literally falling apart, crumbling away like wet tissue paper into an inky black backdrop. She stood just at the back of the living room, peering into what could only be a hallucination. She stumbled back before running back over to Stiles.
"Hee-bron's Almanac...binding spell?!" Stiles shouted, panicky and possibly angry. "A freaking spell?!"
The blood drained from Lydia's face at the words, trapped between a crumbling house and creature behind the front door. Her voice was half a shriek. "You can't seriously tell me that magic-"
"Lydia, you just interviewed a corpse in a house that's in no way actually here, from a town that hasn't existed for nine freaking years!" Stiles' tone sounded just as panicked as hers, only with an extra layer of annoyance on top. He stood, holding out the piece of paper - which she didn't take. "Is magic really that much of a stretch?!"
She gestured to the paper. "Well, can you do magic?!"
"Well, no, but...Wait, what about Sadie?"
"If you were listening, you'd know that Sadie's gone!"
"Gone? What do you mean gone?!"
Lydia pointed toward the back of the house. "She literally disappeared, and the kitchen is disintegrating!"
Stiles gave her a confused stare before his eyes followed her hand and grew wide. He took a step back and a shot of fear coursed through Lydia. "It's not just the kitchen. Lydia, run."
She couldn't keep herself from looking back for just a moment. It was something from a Salvador Dali painting - pieces of the room, melting off and falling away faster and faster and the vertigo of it crashed in on her. She felt a hand grasp her wrist and tug her away from the scene. Her mind needed an extra moment to process the command to move and by the time it did, she was facing the front door - and, in that moment, it exploded and splintered into a million pieces.
They both skidded to a stop, sliding on the hardwood floor with Lydia nearly colliding with Stiles and Stiles almost crashing into the staircase banister. His arms raised as a shield from the flying pieces of wood. Lydia didn't have time to look over Stiles' shoulder at whatever destroyed the door because by the time she was about to, he grasped her arm again and swung her around so she faced the staircase that led to a barely visible landing. He was pushing her up the stairs as her brain caught up.
"Why is it that every time I'm stuck somewhere with you, you trap us on the second floor?"
"Lydia, this is not the time for this conversation!" He was still pushing, and she finally obliged, although begrudgingly. Her flats were flopping half off of her feet as she began up the steps and nearly making her slip, but she kept going. Then, she did the one thing she was sure she shouldn't have - her neck twisted, and she glanced back at the place where the door had been.
There was a figure there - a silhouette, deep black and shaped like a man - but not quite. The moment she could see him, he was bald, his nails narrowed to claws, and his ears pointed, like Nosferatu - only he stood up straight. He took a step closer and red eyes flashed in Lydia's brain.
A voice was coming from it, but it didn't match what she saw. It was a woman, different from before, younger. "Mommy..."
She stumbled again, gripping the smooth wooden railing and hauling herself further up the steps.
BANG.
She was almost to the landing when she heard it and she nearly leapt backwards, one hand covering her mouth to stop the scream. A gunshot. Glass breaking, somewhere ahead of her.
She didn't hear what Stiles said to her when she stopped, but she looked back one more time at the shadow ascending the stairs. It wasn't the same shape, instead it was a woman with loose, wild curls and she was crawling up the steps.
"...this mortal wound is all...itchy..."
It was a mocking tone, rasping.
Lydia took a breath, steeling herself, and ran up to the landing of the stairs and around the corner, in the gunshot's direction. She heard Stiles fumbling behind her and hoped with all she had that she wouldn't lose anyone or anything else today - most of all, her life.
☽ † ☾
It was like a command center in a secret agent movie. At least, to Max it was.
At least ten or fifteen computers and three large, high definition screens up front where a larger computer was. The room was dark, lit only in a ghostly blue coming from the larger screens, which had oddly familiar text on them. Demons and illustrations of them, probably scanned from the books they came from (which must've been equally tedious and dangerous from what she understood of the process). Then there was the middle screen, with Max's picture and sparse text to the right of it.
Full Legal Name: MacKenzie Xiaodan Travers
Former Alias(es): Xiaodan Chen Travers
Age: 23
Location: Beacon Hills, CA
Sector: Watcher's Council - Active
There was an extensive list of accolades following that bit that made her grin, but she wasn't a fan of the photo they used, which was from her last year of boarding school. Her uniform fit her all wrong and her cheeks were like a chipmunk's - and that wasn't even commenting on the over-tweezed eyebrows and brief over-reliance on bronzer in all the worst ways. It was all wrong and made her grimace and look away, even if it was already imprinted in her head.
"Excuse me, sorry," she spoke up, now noting the two silhouetted figures at the computers. She pointed to the photo on the screen. "Is there any way to update that photo? Perhaps to something more recent?"
Both of the figures turned around and Willow was smiling slightly to herself. The larger figure, a man, nodded to Max and grinned. "Ah, my fellow Watcher-in-arms."
She recognized the voice before her vision adjusted to the dim light and caught sight of the man's eye patch. She didn't know Xander Harris extremely well, just enough through video chats Mister Giles had with him and the urgent emails she would sneak looks at after they were opened. She pressed her excitement as far down as she could and tried at a smile and nod, but she was too aware of how much her cheeks hurt from her grin that she couldn't manage doing or containing much else.
Then her eyes settled on the other person, the smaller one. Petite and blonde. The woman she knew from her studies, that she'd seen a million times in photos. The one that changed everything. Max's eyes were saucers as she marched over to the woman, stopping a foot short of her and bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Oh, my goodness. Oh- You're her! You're really, actually her! This is-... It's just-... I...I've been waiting my entire life for this. This is..."
She squeaked, words running out in her head.
"You're Buffy Summers!"
Buffy's mouth was hanging open for a moment before clamping shut and forming a tight smile that in no way reached her tired, green eyes. She nodded a few times. "...That's me, alright."
"I just-" Max began again but cut herself off while her excitement and nervousness warred with each other. She took a deep breath. "I can't believe this is happening. I mean, I can because obviously I'm here but-"
"Okay." There was the sound of a clap just behind Max and when she turned, she found the young woman from before with a smile that looked like someone stapled it to her face because the rest of her features avidly rebelled against it. It was tight and hardly reached her cheeks, let alone her eyes. Her hands clapped together as if it was the only way to stop her from decking someone. "For those of us playing the home game, this is a meeting for adults, not an autograph signing. Can we get to the mission part of the mission briefing?"
Max gaped at the woman as her brain tried to decide if she should be more annoyed at the interruption or insulted at the insinuations. She hardly knew this person (didn't even know her name, actually) and she was ready to go on a tirade. "Wait one sec-"
There was a hand in front of her face in seconds. "Shut it down, Kate Middleton."
So many words crowded in her throat, begging to get out, that they all got lodged there. Her mouth still hung open as she turned back to the other three in the room for support. For something - a pointed look at the girl or an apology or some sort - but the relief on Buffy's face made Max sheepish. Had she overstepped her bounds? Talked too much? That was a frequent one, and in any other case, it wouldn't stop her.
This, though...this was Buffy Summers. The slayer who changed the world, even before awakening every slayer on earth. This was the girl who died twice, who renounced the Watcher's Council until they worked for her. Her grandad spoke of her in equal measures of distaste and awe, which was quite possibly the highest praise he paid any slayer. She was more of a legend than a living, breathing person.
Max was just a child the first time she heard the name back when her grandfather had his head in his hand and mumbled the name spitefully but also inquisitively, like it was the world's number one unsolvable problem. Forget the world's heavy reliance on fossil fuels, Buffy Summers was changing the whole supernatural plane.
Max was silently wondering how many of her grandfather's old habits she'd picked up as a child. She wondered if Buffy would notice - if she had already noticed. Max pursed her lips and inhaled deeply through her nose, hoping the airflow would loosen the words in her throat.
"Right, of course. Sorry," Max kept her response short and that in itself took so much of her willpower. Her hand shot out in front of her and she tried at a withheld smile. "MacKenzie Travers."
Buffy nodded stiffly, but also seemed to try at a smile as she shook Max's hand. She seemed so small; a wisp of a woman, really. Shorter and thinner with bags showing under her eyes, despite the makeup. A Buffy that was both more and less than the legend. Real in every sense, even the not so great ones.
"We're happy to have you on board," Buffy said and shook Max's hand briefly, not looking thrilled at all.
"Happy to be on board. Here's hoping I don't get seasick," Max added with a toothy grin to break the ice. "Get it? Cause the..." There was a thick silence that enveloped the room and Max closed her mouth, clearing her throat. "Right! So, this mission..."
It seemed simple enough: one slayer, one watcher, which felt outside the realm of possibility these days. They went over the girl, Madeline Hayes, in fairly extensive detail. Her file popped up on the screen and the girl - dead-eyed and scowling - looked as if her hobbies included drowning kittens. After they explained her team affiliation, Team Alpha (which seemed funny given the girl's original mission), it came as no surprise. She didn't know much about the initial factions created for the massive and uncontrollable amount of vampire slayers, but Team Alpha was the first of them. Team Alpha was the reason they existed. Any watcher knew that.
Team Alpha was the team of rogue slayers, of killers, and everyone knew it; they were the rehabilitation team - the way to avoid repeating history. A way to contain in lieu of police interference - because what did they know about slayers or the supernatural? What did they know about little girls who already went through horrors even before having demons stuffed in them - and the trauma that came with it?
Max didn't enjoy knowing the why part. She didn't like seeing the files and watcher diaries of the girls too far gone - and there were so, so many of them.
It worked, presumably. They chose Madeline for a mission on her own, just a couple hours away. A test, probably, to see if she could handle it. A bodyguard mission, at that.
Then one problem snowballed into multiple, bigger problems. A cult of vampires at the edge of the town, werewolf hunters, and a scaled shifter known as a kanima.
The woman behind her was now standing next to Buffy and wearing a different kind of frown than before. Max was sure it was worry.
"She wasn't ready for this," the young woman said, black eyes scanning over the information again and again.
"Not sure if that really matters now," Xander said, his tone edged with something - guilt, maybe.
"That's why we're sending both of you."
The voice came from Buffy, but Max swore she heard it wrong.
"What?" both she and the other woman said at once with two very different inflections. Max's was high and shrieky, while the other girl's was lower, deadpan even. They looked at each other and the girl's confusion didn't quite match Max's horror.
"She needs a watcher," Buffy continued, "but she also needs someone she trusts. Too much is happening."
"Are you sure?" Max piped up first, taken aback at the idea that she would need help doing what she trained her entire life to do. "It's a large undertaking but...it's still vampires and demons and general evil. Nothing I can't assist her with."
"And this isn't what I meant by 'taking a year off from school'. I've done plenty of missions. I'm mission'd out." The girl sounded exasperated, annoyed, like someone asked her to help them move on her only day off.
"There's more actually..." Willow said, her voice weary. Probably expecting this reaction. She began typing. "We've been keeping it under wraps for now so the other girls don't freak out."
"What? What's happened?" Max's brows furrowed, and she looked from Willow to Xander to Buffy, all of them looking equally guilty. "What aren't you telling us?"
Buffy handed Max a photo, and it was so severely different from Madeline's that Max did a double take. It didn't even look like a similar photo, not like something you'd find in a passport or on an ID. It was a school photo or a family photo, something almost personal. The part that really struck her though was how familiar the girl's face was. Shocking similar...to Max. Same jawline, same eyebrows, even their hair...it was frightening.
"A new slayer was called."
The voice sounded distant but, somewhere inside her, lightning struck, spidering up her nervous system to her brain. She hadn't even looked at the name, but part of her knew she didn't have to. It was already there, a distant memory. The name of a child she'd only seen a handful of times, a tiny girl with the biggest, brightest smile she ever saw. A piece of her family she nearly forgot, that she was sure had forgotten her.
"Her name is-"
"Allison," Max said, her voice louder than she expected and snapping her out of her stupor. She blinked a few times and looked around the room at four sets of shocked eyes. Max exhaled a shaky breath, her stare drawn back to the photo in her hand. "Her name is Allison Argent."
☽ † ☾
Maddie couldn't shake the horror of earlier, the feeling of whiplash. It wasn't from the accident (but if they somehow survived this, that was the least of her problems), but from the ghosts - or memories or whatever. She could still feel a little fuzziness in her limbs and her head. There were separate memories there now, but barely, on the cusp of being something concrete, of being more than shadows. There were old emotions clinging like parasites to her own, sucking them dry to come back to life. Everything around her was just that much more real as she walked side by side with Scott, only feet behind Caleb.
Caleb also seemed more real to her, like he was coming into focus, but not enough just yet. From the moment he appeared, there was a darkness to him, an outline of something jagged and erratic. As he sharpened in Maddie's eyes, the lines weren't what became clearer but the contrast. The shadows on his face and the black of the clergy shirt were deeper, like they were cut out of him. Like there was an absence of anything at all.
The piece of all of this that felt the least real was Scott. She would forget he was standing beside her after a stretch of time like he was fading away, blending into the old lockers.
She even forgot about Lydia, Stiles, and Sadie for a moment - like their names were shifting, taking the connections in Maddie's head and splicing them with memories and names just out of reach. There was something cold and dark attached to at least one of those names which she didn't quite understand yet, because there was more to it than that. An intensity and something else - another feeling she almost recognized; a closeness and pain that found hers and put an odd name to it. A name that felt familiar, like she heard it in passing so long ago. A name that felt so massive that saying it could destroy everything inside of her.
No, not inside of her. It would destroy everything inside of Buffy - or whatever of her looped here. The horrible thing that'd twisted the missing name into something ugly would win and the support beams holding her up would crumble and that would be it. That would be the last thing.
Maddie shuddered as pieces of Buffy's past collided with her own fears. She got close to that pain but hoped she never had to live it.
She glanced over, startled when she saw someone there, and realized once again that it was Scott. He was answering something that Caleb said, but Maddie didn't catch it.
"...they built a mission right here. Now, the savages living off the land were none too pleased with this, but they didn't put up much of a fight-"
Maddie didn't allow the comment to needle her for very long. "Indigenous people. Not savages."
"And it was genocide," Scott added, his tone a low growl.
"Ah, well. We'll agree to disagree." He dismissed her with a wave and Maddie felt the urge to bring her fist across his jaw, unsure if she even could. "As I was saying, an earthquake buried said mission and all inhabitants. A couple hundred years later, they built this."
"The school?" Maddie asked. "So it's the original?"
Caleb sighed, his shoulders slumping as he threw a look to Maddie. "Personal preference. Reboots are overrated."
Maddie glowered at the man as Scott spoke again, eyes dark. "Where are we headed?"
"Where your friends are headed if they're smart." Caleb stopped and turned to them, stepping aside to reveal a door. The lettering on the nameplate was scratched off completely, leaving only specks of black against the silver.
Her friends - who could be miles and miles from here or dead on the side of a road or the bottom of a massive, haunted crater. She couldn't shake the guilt and looked over towards Scott whose eyes were on the door but miles away from wherever they were standing.
Caleb, with a half smile, turned the doorknob and pulled the door towards them and it was as if a beast had stretched open its mouth, the darkness on the other side yawning open in a long exhale. There were steps leading down into the blackness like it was flooding halfway up the staircase or simply cut off mid-step like a cliff and they would finally fall into what this place really was. Either way, whether it was falling and crashing or drowning, looking down those stairs made Maddie doubt she would come back up. This was the end of the line.
She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket and gripped the cross there tightly. Not for some sort of solace from a higher power (because she wasn't sure she believed in any) but for whatever it meant here. For a piece of someone she never got to see, because that's what she had to believe was real.
Caleb continued to hold the door open. "Not everything here's the original. Some things are too important to tamper with."
"What happened down there?" Again, Maddie's voice got swallowed up by the walls when they didn't echo.
"Genesis. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep..." he breathed, staring from the deep blackness to Maddie, and her skin crawled. "Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."
Her ears began ringing so loudly that she was sure her eardrums would burst. Every limb froze and her mouth gaped with her eyes wide open. Everything around her vanished, flooded with white light, like a flare struck to life inches from her face.
The ringing was so clear that it became more than that - it was something she knew, that she heard. The sound of a weapon slicing through the air. While the light didn't fade, something flashed in front of it, unsteady, unfocused, and flickering in and out. She knew it the moment it appeared because she could feel it.
The Scythe. Buffy's scythe.
It pulsed with energy and drew every slayer to it. The first time Maddie caught a glimpse of it, she was sure it belonged to her.
A gleaming red and silver ax head on one end of a metal staff and a sharpened wooden stake at the other, calling out to all of them in one singular moment.
It felt like more than a memory. It was in her bones, at her core - power, light, inescapable truth. She could see an army - just teenagers, really - at the edge of a cliff. She saw the hoard below them.
She could hear Scott, somewhere far away, shouting, but she couldn't make out the words.
The scythe sailed through the air, and there was a flash of blonde hair. She could hear nothing but fighting above and below her - screams and dead flesh bursting into ash. The sounds of death.
The ashes. It was something real and concrete enough to weigh her back down to reality, tethered to a stone. "The ashes...they're-"
Maddie wasn't through speaking when her vision fell back into the darkness of the room and she found nothing where it was before. Scott disappeared.
"Maddie!" she heard somewhere behind her as she caught her breath.
Maddie spun around to see Scott at the other end of the hall, pinned against the lockers as the surrounding shadows took shape and formed a barrier around him as they closed in tighter.
"RUN!" It sounded like a word at first but became a rumbling, unearthly sound Maddie remembered from her first night in Beacon Hills. Scott bellowed a howl and Maddie, with panic running through her veins, turned to charge toward the creatures engulfing him.
A hand gripped her arm like a vice and forced her back around. There was Caleb, frowning slightly even while his eyes blazed with delight. "Didn't you hear what I just said?"
Maddie tried to tug her arm away with the modicum of strength she could muster, and it only barely budged. She thrashed with all she had and he laughed.
"Genesis! The beginning of a new world! A new life!" he shouted. When his voice lowered, he yanked her toward the open threshold with too much strength for a normal person and let go. She fell - tumbling farther than expected into the darkness and only barely caught the rest as she realized where he threw her and wondered if the mouth of hell really had teeth. "My new life."