From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 56: Chapter 56

Fall 2010
Once upon a time, a war ended and Buffy Summers changed the world. The night before battle, she asked a room full of teenage girls, and subsequently a couple thousand other girls all over the world, a question that would define every single one of their lives.
"Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?"
But this is not the story of Buffy Summers or any girl who sat in that room.
This is the story of six girls brought together some time later under one title: Team Alpha.
"Guys, hurry up!"
"If you tell me to hurry up again-"
"You'll what? Throw your staff thing at me?"
More commonly known as The A Squad.
Madeline Hayes eyed the twin daggers in Anne Marie's hands as she swung her arms. "You should probably have a holster for those."
A tiny laugh left Marie's throat. "Worried I'll take an eye out?"
"Hey, I heard that!" said a man's voice somewhere ahead.
"That's why I said it!" Marie shouted back with a cheeky grin. Maddie laughed quietly, half because Marie always made her laugh and have out of nervousness whenever she wondered if Xander and Marie would ever get along. Maddie watched Xander up ahead and wondered if the comment hurt. Marie nudged Maddie's arm, her grin transforming ever so slightly into a knowing smile. "S'okay, Mads. The only place the pointy ends of these are going is in the monsters."
"Just vampires, right?" another girl asked, lagging behind. "Not any other monsters?"
Maddie turned, seeing Nora, her long hair in a top knot as she walked in step with Charlotte, another one of the older girls. Charlie wore an amused smile and Maddie realized this was the first time she ever saw the girl without makeup, but she reasoned that it made sense.
No one answered because there was no good answer. Every patrol was a gamble.
It was somewhere around 4 AM or 4:30. The sun was still down and Maddie realized she'd rather see morning from the other side, when it's still considered the night before because she didn't fall asleep in the first place.
Emery, who got up this early normally, was talking to Xander, looking from a distance like she was giving him notes or advice. She was wearing workout wear, brightly colored like she was going for a night run. Most of her clothes were for working out or else she was always in lounge wear. She ran errands, trained, cleaned and went to college in sweats - in fact, the only time Maddie ever saw her in anything else was before they went out on the weekends when she was typically in all earthy browns and faded denim. She made it all work every time, never once appearing out of place no matter where she was.
Terra walked beside Em, her profile a shadow. She didn't laugh or participate in the conversation, but instead would shrug here and there or smile just faintly. Terra was up every morning but she was no early riser; if anything, it was a general rule the past week to contact her only when she wasn't studying for finals - which meant never. That rule, of course, didn't apply to Emery.
It didn't matter what time of day Em interrupted Terra because Terra always welcomed her like she was the first star in the night sky.
An hour later, patrol was light - so light there weren't enough vamps for all of them. Em and Terra tag teamed most of them right off the bat like they were trying out for a luchador wrestling match. This wasn't surprising at all; they got most of their more frivolous ideas on utilizing unnecessary backflips from pro wrestling.
Nora shadowed Charlie and actually cheered when the stake popped out from Charlie's sleeve like something out of Assassin's Creed. Charlie lived for that type of thing, the sneak attacks and stealth. Apparently, just last week, she staked a vampire at a rave without leaving the dancefloor. Maddie wondered if Charlie ever considered being a spy over being a dancer. She'd never ask though.
When Charlie and Nora high fived, something weak and childish prodded at Maddie. She wondered if she'd ever be friends with any of her team outside of Marie. Their personalities were so different from hers but Maddie wanted to laugh the same way they did and be in on all of the jokes. She wanted to be part of something but she was too afraid she'd sound desperate or, worse, she'd lose the only friend she had.
"Whatcha thinkin' bout?" a light, airy voice came from beside her. Maddie turned to a smiling Marie.
Maddie exhaled and missed the cloud her breath would make on a cold morning. It was never cold enough here. "Stuff."
"Okay, I'll bite. What kinda stuff?" Marie sat on the grave marker next to Maddie's like they were in a park on swings. Like this was normal. "Good stuff like being able to sleep in after this? Or the typical sad slayer stuff?"
Maddie gripped the stone below her on either side, embarrassed. "Am I that predictable?"
"On a scale of one to 'Xander making vampire puns'..." Marie paused, scrunching her nose and making a 'hm' noise. "...you're at about a five."
Somewhere in the distance, Maddie faintly heard Xander shout over the sound of a vampire exploding into dust. "Where's your sparkly-ab'd god now?!"
Maddie groaned and looked up to the sky, deep blue, rimmed in pink and bright white. There was a tug at the sleeve of her hooded sweatshirt and she turned to Marie, who was wearing an easy smile. "I'm kidding! What's up?"
"I don't know, it's just..." Maddie's eyes met Marie's and the urge to tell the truth left her like air leaking from a balloon. She shrugged it away completely and darted her stare over to Terra, who was smiling at Emery so wide, it was a wonder Em couldn't see it yet. As far as Maddie could tell, they knew each other for ages. The original members of the team. So content with just each other. "How do Em and Terra do that crazy spinning kick?"
"One of Terra's brothers is a wrestler. They keep in touch."
"I thought those moves were fake," Maddie said with a 'hmph', trying not to sound petty and failing.
"Only if you don't really want to kick someone." Marie popped something into her mouth, probably candy - M&Ms or something else chocolate. The girl had a sweet tooth like no other. "I think there's more skill to doing something like that and not breaking the other guy's jaw."
Maddie's hand was out, expectant and Marie shook small bag of brightly colored chocolates into her hand. Maddie, without wondering what she was eating at all, popped one into her mouth. "Okay, but...how do they turn that many times? That's insane."
"Are you kidding me? That's the easy stuff."
"We weren't all gymnasts, you know. My backflips-"
"Look like a cat freaking out when it's picked up?" Marie rolled up the empty bag and tucked the trash in her pocket. She hopped up and stretched her limbs to the sky and shaking her arms like she was trying to get something out of them. "No worries. That's why you got me. Get up."
Maddie frowned, a jolt of embarrassment coursing through her as she eyed the rest of her team at the other end of the graveyard. "What?"
"We're doing this right now. C'mon!" Marie strolled over to a wider space and began stretching her legs behind her.
"B-but patrol's over. What if they leave without us?" Maddie was still sitting on the tombstone, stubbornly. Childishly. She thought of the faded scar on her arm and lying face up in the rain all alone.
Marie shrugged and sent Maddie an expectant stare. "Big whoop. HQ is a straight shot from here and besides, the sun's coming up! We'll be fine - and free totally to grab lattes after. See? Win-win."
Maddie watched Em and Terra laughing about something and her bitterness just made her angry with herself. "You're not gonna make me watch WWE with Em and Terra, right?"
Marie made a face. "Gods, no. Do I look I enjoy cruel and unusual torment?"
Maddie grinned, the easiness of their conversation helping her up and forward like a warm breeze. Marie's tone made it easy, like some part of Maddie she didn't know she had was free. Like one other person was enough. "Kind of."
"Good, cause I totally do - but only to really boring people."
Maddie rolled her eyes as she approached the open grassy area, already looking forward to the extra caffeine. "Is that why you made me see The Last Airbender?"
Marie snorted a laugh and tied her hair into a top knot. "C'mon, you little weirdo. Let me show you how it's done."
The sun was rising and Maddie knew the day was going to be warm and clear and bright.
☽ † ☾
It was like being nowhere at all - and not caring.
Darkness and warmth, nothing going in every direction forever. Nowhere to be. No body aching in pain or seized with fear and rage. Nothing at all. She was nothing at all in a place made of nothing but, if anything, she knew herself.
She knew her name and had her memories - they just didn't matter anymore. They were a book on a shelf she chose to open and read, or she could never touch again and that was okay.
Everything was okay.
There was this idea that she did something good
and with purpose and...
There was an itch she didn't understand.
Something she should remember, but not as easily accessed as the rest.
The nothingness didn't last very long at that thought - or it lasted an eternity. There wasn't really a sense of time. Still, it ended - or faded away, easing to gray or something like gray. A color she wanted to call gray because there was no words for what it actually looked like. A nameless monochrome. She looked down as she simultaneously realized she had the ability.
Maddie was in color, though - well, technically. She was dressed in her normal street clothes, layers upon layers of black. She was in color in the same way like Dorothy stepping into Oz was in color. A contrast from the ordinary.
She was clean, though. There was a lack of any inkling she was a battered, beaten mess and when her hand flew to her neck, the skin was smooth and unmarred. Time still didn't seem to mean much but it was something Maddie began caring about again.
How much time passed?
Five minutes?
A hundred years?
Something flashed above her head and she wondered about the physics of that thought instead of the pop of light. It didn't hurt her eyes and she wondered if she even had physical eyes or if her body was an illusion. Maybe she was still just consciousness with a vanity problem.
The itch in the back of her thoughts returned, because she felt uncomfortable referring to her brain - or any representation of it just in case she no longer had a physical one. The need to remember something nagged at her.
Then she heard a voice and it was like nothing she expected in any facet.
"God! What is the deal with you slayers?"
She expecting something deep and booming and surrounding her, the general idea of an omniscient presence. Instead, the voice was high pitched, possibly irate, and coming from specifically behind her.
Maddie turned around, vaguely aware of something close to physical sensation allowing her sort-of-brain to give the command.
There was a woman in front of her and the itch increased, like Maddie almost remembered a face like hers. Not well, but like she saw the stranger in passing on the street or in a book. Bouncy, shoulder length dark curls and a flawless olive complexion on a pretty but mildly annoyed face.
"Isn't it bad enough your mortality rate's already through the roof? Do you need a death wish too?" she asked, arms folded and Maddie noted her clothes, not that she wasn't dressed well. Trendy like Buffy, but more business casual.
Maddie was trying to grasp at the woman's words, forcing herself to decipher their meaning when she lost any sense of meaning only moments ago. This stranger was yelling at her - well, not yelling. Being rude and judgy, which seemed to make a few things click.
The woman shrugged, walking forward. "I mean, not to say that's your fault but at some point it stops being a martyr complex and might require actual therapy."
Whoever this was, she was striding over to Maddie, who was in a strange place and back in at least a very realistic version of her body as she felt a jolt of panic. She steeled herself and took a defensive stance, although it was a bit twitchy and unsure like walking after your legs fall asleep.
The woman held up her hands in some sort of surrender. "Whoa, hey! Stand down, hack 'n slash. I happen to be one of the good guys - it's basically in my job description."
"What?" Maddie said, feeling the words in her throat as they spilled out. Loud. Incredulous. Real. She touched her throat with the tips of her fingers and cleared it, realizing she probably looked crazy.
"Are you unfamiliar with the term? My job. My occupation. The old 9 to 5 - or, y'know, the infinity symbol to the other infinity symbol." The quippy stranger raised a perfect eyebrow with the sharpest natural arch Maddie ever saw. A woman perpetually judging everything and everyone, including Maddie. The woman started pacing. "I know, I know - why work when you have a literal eternity of relaxation?"
"Eternity?" Maddie echoed.
"It's not like I get paid or anything. Not that I asked. Not that they would if I asked. I mean, what would I use it on, right? More closet space for my unending void?" the woman continued, ignoring Maddie and speaking like this was an ongoing conversation and Maddie just happened to walk in during the middle of it. The stranger tilted her head, her expression considering as she stared off into the unending void. "Although, the Chanel Spring Collection would really fit my whole afterlife vibe."
In a blink, a literal blink, the woman was in all white, from her heels and slacks to her lace top and blazer. Maddie stumbled back like she was being attacked.
"Huh. Me in tweed. Oh, how the mighty have dressed-for-less." She chuckled to herself as she examined her blazer and glanced back up at Maddie. Something managed to click on and her mouth became an 'o' and she pointed at Maddie as if to say 'oh, you're still here'. "You're freaked out. Right. That makes sense. In my defense, I don't usually do face to faces with the living - well, not often."
The living. Maddie swallowed. "...Am I-"
"Very nearly." It was a somber answer, maybe even expectant. "Nice plan by the way - and extra points for the dramatic last day, too. Almost put mine to shame."
The same light from before pulsed once above them.
There was a sinking feeling in Maddie's gut but something else, something she believed she wasn't allowed. A spark she couldn't identify.
"It might actually if you bite it now and you're definitely not doing cartwheels, but..." The woman pointed up, simultaneously showing off a french manicure and calling all of Maddie's attention. Something thudded against non existent walls, slow and measured. A muffled beat struggling to keep in step. "Hear that? That pitter-pat is you chugging along, little engine."
"I don't get it. I should be..." Dead. I should be dead. Maddie kept listening and stopped herself from putting a hand to her own chest, wondering if she would feel a pulse. She refocused on the woman,with far too much knowledge and no name given. "What are you?"
She meant 'who', but then again maybe she didn't.
The stranger smiled and it was nearly its own beam of light. It was wide and kind and full of a level of natural confidence Maddie never knew in anyone.
"I'm a friend. Actually, a friend of a friend. Sort of." She said the last bit like it was an inside joke and her smiled dimmed slightly. "I'm a guide. You're guide because, boy howdy, do you need one."
Maddie frowned, taking her words as a little bit on an insult. "My guide to what?"
"It's complicated." The woman scrunched up her nose like the reply tasted bad. "And I can't really answer it. Just know I'm in the business of saving souls. You might even say I help the helpless - and this is your intervention."
The stranger nodded in a particular direction as if to say 'follow me' and Maddie would've stayed still if the prospect of not knowing where she was didn't freak her out. The woman was walking already and Maddie jogged to catch up, which was a strange feeling as nothing around her moved. Walking was like being on a treadmill.
"Why me?" was of course the first question she knew to ask since it was the most obvious. "Why do you even care? It's not like-"
"Not like you're the only Chosen One? Obviously, we know this."
A bit of confusion and dread churned in Maddie's stomach. "We?"
"Me."
"What?"
"Hm?" the woman chirped, not even a little convincingly. She rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Whatever. This isn't a prophecy deal. This, like most things in our wacky world, is one hundred percent chance. End of the world's always a big looming question mark. You'd be surprised how much the all-knowing don't know. As a dearly departed with a personal tie to Saint Buffy, I've had my eye on all of you pretty much since I got here. The Slayer thing is one of my many interests and, surprise, it's landed us right in the end times."
"What do you mean interest?" Maddie asked, affronted and too panicked to ask the real question. What do you mean end times?!
"Yeah, that was a creepy way to put it." The stranger grimaced and stared off for a moment, eyes lighting up again when she glanced at Maddie. "One of my endeavors? No, too sleazy."
Maddie frowned, her confusion sinking into something more familiar. Perhaps paranoia as her initial question came back to her. "Who are you?"
A question she asked far more these days than she ever anticipated.
This managed to veer the conversation back to something a bit more on task. The woman shrugged her shoulders, not like she was saying she didn't know, but more like she was explaining there was no answer to that. "As much as I love introducing me, now's not the time. It looks like you've got bigger demons to fight."
The sky pulsed again, shifting so slowly Maddie could barely register it. It wasn't a solid gray anymore; the sky had depth to it, lighter and darker spots like watercolor. Clouds.
Maddie swallowed, staring at overcast. "Where are we?"
"The fifth dimension. A galaxy far, far away. The big ol' Netflix queue in the sky. It's one of those spiritually ambiguous, unnameable things, you know?"
"Netflix?" Maddie wondered aloud. She shot the woman a look. "You know what Netflix is?"
"Duh." The woman gave an exasperated glare Maddie saw so many times on the face of Lydia Martin. Somehow, this was endearing. "What kind of question is that? I'm dead, not a senior citizen."
Maddie didn't bother to reply to that, knowing almost inherently that anything she said would make this woman sound old and everything pointed to her taking anything along those lines badly. It was true though; she wasn't exactly young - not a teenager or a young adult - but she wasn't exactly middle aged either. However old she was, she aged well; not like she wasn't aging at all but instead in the same way people talked about male celebrities - like age on her could only ever be something dignified. That might still be the confidence.
Even as thunder clapped and lit up the stranger's face, turning it momentarily ghostly.
The downpour didn't touch her, though. Her hair stayed in perfect curls and her outfit remained dry. Maddie on the other hand tuned into her senses after she was already drenched. Her clothes were soaking wet and her hair hung around her face, dripping.
Her clothes were the same when she looked down, but the itch in the back of her thoughts became stronger. It was a clawed hand scratching at a door out of reach.
"When did it start raining?" Maddie asked, distantly aware that she was asking someone aside from herself.
"You tell me."
Maddie's head whipped around to see the woman, the surreal aspect of their whole conversation increasing and making her feel like she was existing in a Salvador Dali painting.
The stranger was already facing her, expectant again.
Maddie didn't recognize the sound of the rain until right then as if her ears were a radio dial tuning into it.
"How did you..." she started, but the rest of the sentence caught in her throat. Without warning, like she dreamed it, she was outside surrounded by massive factory like buildings. The ground was blacktop, pocked with potholes. The rain got louder and the air denser, drowning out her senses. She had the urge to run. There was something she needed here. Something she had to find.
Not something.
Someone.
☽ † ☾
A pale brunette gasps at the bleeding girl on the ground, then to her cousin's pallid face. "Max? What happened?"
The woman with a dying girl's head in her lap wants so badly to stop her anxious tears. "I- I don't know. She was just-"
"Poisoned!" a snarky, if not twitchy, blonde shouts as she runs to them.
"What? Sadie?" The brunette doesn't know what to make of the blonde's presence - or her own for that matter.
The blonde catches her breath, and she says the one thing in her that isn't a lie, showing them the empty syringe. "I'm like 99% sure poisoned herself."
"Where did you get this?" a graying man joins in, pale eyes narrowing on the blonde as he takes the syringe from her.
"It was on the ground in the middle of all the vampires! I found it when undead Courtney Love tried to smash in my head!" The blonde is defensive and impresses herself with another vague truth.
The woman on the ground sees the syringe and wishes she didn't. "Oh no. No, no, no."
The graying man swallows, heaving the guilt of this onto his shoulders, along with so much else. "It's the cruciamentum."
The woman glances down at her ward, her stomach bottoming out.
The brunette faces her father, piling this with all the other things she doesn't know. "Dad? Wait, what's-"
The woman also glances at the man, her uncle, and time starts up again. The bleeding girl, the dying girl, and how 'combat olive' suddenly sounds much more like 'come back alive'. The secret feels like betrayal and she's spiraling. "What in the world were you thinking?!"
"Dad, what are they talking about?"
The blonde raises her hand. "I'd also like to know the answer to that. Crew-she-what?"
The woman is ready with the explanation, as she always is. "On a slayer's 18th birthday, she would- Actually no, we don't have time for this."
In the distance, a woman sweeps her halberd through three vampires. "A little help here!"
"Allison, let Max deal with this." The graying man is at the ready with his gun.
The brunette thinks of every fist she turned on a friend, then of her aunt, and finally her mother. "Is she dying?"
"She injected enough muscle relaxants into her system to take down an elephant." The graying man fires into the kneecap of a vampire and it buckles.
The blonde puts the puzzle pieces together. "Pretty sure she was already getting drugged months before that."
No one answers the brunette's question, which left the worst answer. "What is she talking about?"
"You didn't tell her?" The anxious woman on the ground is full of so much and it all comes out in angry tears.
"Tell me what? Dad! What aren't you telling me?!" The brunette panics, and the dying girl is so far from them now.
☽ † ☾
Panic crawled up Maddie's spine so slowly, she felt every inch it climbed as she spun in place. "No."
"I'm sorry," the woman said, sounding not particularly sorry. "But I think you know the deal here."
Maddie looked around, scanning the whole area as well as she could. There were alleys on either side, the same alleys she took so many times to so many raves. There was a collapsed cardboard box in front of a dumpster and obscenities scrawled in green and white spray paint across the bricks.
Beyond one threshold was a flat darkness, the sense that there was nothing past the arched mouth - maybe because she never went that way and her brain or consciousness or whatever had no way to map it. The other alley was wide with no arch, just two old warehouses and enough space for a truck or two.
The sound came to her like she was already in the midst of listening, like she was already in the eye of the storm. Growls and roars and grunts, the horrible clatter of something heavy crashing through metal and against stone.
Her hand flew to her stomach and she remembered the pain there in a way she never recalled it. As a visceral thing, so clear and white hot and narrowed, not just a general pain like it's typically remembered.
She gripped the wound, knowing before she felt the blood begin to coat her hand that her cut was open again. It would never close the right way now.
When she raised up her head, the fuzzy haze and flickering double vision she knew too well from the past year came to her softly, apologetically. She was heaving her breaths and nausea hit her far less gently. She took a step forward, forgetting herself.
Or maybe, just this once, remembering.
She was leaning too heavy forward and stumbled, only barely catching herself.
Somewhere behind her was Xander's voice and the sound of it made her want to cry. Something inside her was shouting for her to move forward, to keep going. Time was not a luxury she was afforded anymore.
She took another step, then another, and without realizing it, her fumbling turned into running. She ran, through an alleyway on a momentum that reminded her of racing down a steep hill. Not graceful, not powerful, but, if nothing else, faster than she'd ever been.
Maddie already knew it was vampires but there was no knowing if Marie was there.
Even if she was, what would Maddie do? Did she want Marie dead? Did she want to be the one to do it? She didn't know the answer to that yet. She sped towards the sound like it was a dead end, a cliff to send her falling and crashing to earth, with her brakes cut. Nothing to hold onto and nothing to hold her back.
Everything around her became a tunnel and she could no longer identify or remember how long she searched, frantic and furious and terrified.
The terror was new. The terror only came to her when she heard Xander call her name - and again, when she heard it from Buffy.
If they caught up to her, it was over. She might never see Marie again. She might never be allowed some sort of justice for the state of her life, the fragments of the little she was allowed to keep. The only person in the world she absolutely trusted. Her friend. The person who managed to hurt her in more ways than anyone else -
She would never be allowed to hurt her back, and beyond this moment, this sliver of time she had left, she wasn't sure she'd have the guts to try again.
The rain was static in her ears and drowned out the voices catching up to her. She kept running, the fight ahead getting louder and louder.
Lightning lit up the whole alley and made her stumble a little, losing ground. Mistake one.
As the sounds got clearer, her hand left her open wound and she pumped her arms furiously, trying desperately - manically - to gain more speed. There were too many buildings. Too many factories closed. Too many warehouses.
Too much sound.
Thunder cracked so close. Like part of the sky above was breaking and tumbling down to crush her. The sky shattering. The earth crumbling.
Xander, Buffy, and Faith, and - gods - whoever the hell else. A cluster of voices getting louder. Maddie wanted to scream at them. She wanted them gone. She wanted everyone gone.
She turned the corner in the endless maze. The fight ahead of her became a clean sound. A mass of moving bodies struggled against each other ahead.
Movement like water, technically sound. Agile. Someone in the center, hair and skin pale and bright even in the rain.
How many vampires? She could hardly count, she couldn't concentrate. She was running. Sprinting.
Marie was graceful, even when spiraling. Twin daggers glittered even from a distance.
Maddie pushed herself harder. Soaked to the bone. Bleeding. Sluggish and dizzy. Terror was a living thing, swallowing her rage and her hurt. Terror muted the voices behind her.
A vampire turned to dust. Then two, and another.
And...
Marie was spinning when a shadow grabbed her head from behind and the sound that tore from Maddie's throat was unearthly. She was sure it was Marie's name.
Marie wasn't spinning anymore.
She was facing Maddie. A hand on her jaw and a hand in her hair. Maddie was still screaming for her, like the sound could stop time.
For a second, maybe it did.
The familiar horror in her eyes. Blue irises, red rimmed and swollen.
Marie doesn't cry. She never cries.
She was so close, only feet away.
Maddie couldn't remember being angry. She extended a hand, like it was the only thing that made sense.
Like it gained her inches at least.
Like it gained her seconds.
Maddie reached out for her friend.
Marie's head did something funny. Tilting the wrong way, an insect motion. Turning too far.
The crunching sound of Marie's neck was so sudden and strange that Maddie didn't collapse for a whole second after.
Like she tripped. Like the power went out in her body.
Marie fell, a puppet with all the strings cut. Graceless.
Maddie watched. She dropped to her knees, tearing cloth and reopening skin.
Marie was splayed, front down, like she meant to fly. Icarus meeting earth once again. Her head laid at an impossible angle.
It was so quiet.
Marie's eyes were wide and swollen and clear. Her mouth was open. An empty house with all the power out and every curtain torn down. An abandoned thing.
Maddie thought she would speak. Time would move forward. Nothing was that sudden.
Shadows ran past Maddie and Marie didn't move. She didn't blink. She didn't shudder. Her eyes were open. She was still.
Maddie was screaming for her, over and over, until the sound hurt so much she couldn't make it anymore. Her mouth was still open, still screaming with no sound. Straining as the ache from her throat choked the wail.
Her knees stung when she tried to get up, tried to move forward. Hands clamped around her arms and kept her there.
Maddie stared at Marie, still waiting for time to start again. For Marie to blink.
She was fine. She was there, fighting and breathing and she looked right at Maddie, right at her.
She was there and she was fine.
A blurry someone bent down and passed a hand over Marie's face, closing her eyes. Her best friend's eyes. Her betrayer's eyes. Eyes that were gone.
Gone.
The muted screaming turned to silent, aching sobs as the ground fell away from her and her chest concaved. She was fine. She was here.
"I'm sorry, kid," came a voice behind her, soft and choked. The lump swelled in her throat, too big to swallow and the only sound was the noisy, horrible breath she took in. Time moved forward and nothing changed.
Marie lifted from the blacktop, gravel in her hair, but Maddie couldn't see how through the watery blur of her vision. Maybe the wind decided to carry her away.
Maddie went limp, hanging in someone else's grasp by her forearms and squeezing her eyes shut. She didn't want to open them again. It would be easy to stay there. To let time move on without her. It would be so easy to stop, to find herself back in the dark. To be quiet and alone and done with all of this.
To be done. Finally.
"I'll find you."
A voice like static, fading in with the rain. Small and broken. A desperate sound over helplessness. A sound that shook Maddie from the inside, enough pay attention.
Enough to open her wet, swollen eyes.
Faded Nike high tops with frayed holes near the toe of the red fabric. Those stupid red shoes in a world cast in grays. He kicked another boy in the balls with those shoes for shoving Maddie to the ground. She remembered because it was the first time she wished she was stronger.
He?
Maddie squinted up to see a face, out of focus.
She still couldn't remember his features quite right. Too much time passed.
"We'll fight the monsters together."
The hands holding her back weren't there. There was no sensation of letting go. There were no footsteps. Her hands were on the ground already, flat on the asphalt. Her raw and sore throat stung when she swallowed, but the lightheadedness passed as she stood.
A boy almost as tall as her stood in front of her, longish black hair in his eyes and his chin quivering. She couldn't focus on his face no matter how long she stared. Behind him a shadow grew, Marie's body limp and doll-like in its arms.
Maddie never saw the monster that reached out and broke Marie's neck. She never saw it die and when the horror and sadness didn't clear, a layer of anger coated her as easy as fine silks draping across her shoulders.
Tears changed nothing, but rage felt like power.
It was the one time, the only time, she didn't bring her ax with her. She didn't even think to grab it. What kind of fool swears revenge and leaves without her weapon? She was as stupid and soft hearted as Marie said.
A minute ago or more, Marie was alive. She was alive.
She was...
Something glinted on the ground, silver and red, and she knew what it was. The shadow, the massive unearthly thing held Marie's body close. Somewhere around where eyes would be were even deeper pits staring down at the crumpled thing in its arms. It began to turn, the boy walking with it. Death taking everything from her again and again.
Maddie moved so quickly, her brain could barely catch up when she grabbed the the gleaming steel on the ground, a dagger with a missing twin.
The sound Maddie made, a scream, was not of this world. Something animal and monster leaving her as she raised the knife to strike a killing blow.
She stopped and her breath caught.
And Death, or whatever it was meant to be, turned back.
It was still carrying Marie when it turned, but dropped her like a broken toy. Like she was never alive or a person at all. The body folded oddly with a sound lacking grandeur, a sound that had no right to be connected to a human being. The shadow had a face now, and it stared into Maddie with holes for eyes.
Black oozed over its skin like tar, long hair hanging in its face. There was skin, but very little, all of it gnarled with pale scars. It was like a tear in reality. A deep cut in the world with all the darkness alive and shaped almost human-like, if a human wasn't familiar with how to move. Its steps were like time skipped in bursts, jagged then quick.
Yes, human shaped. Voids where her hair and clothes and eyes would be.
Something unfamiliar with being alive.
The red from the dagger Maddie clutched matched the red on the shadow's hand, deep and thick and coated. It raised the hand and, even if it didn't look that way, there was the inkling it stared at its own palm.
Did Marie have any cuts? The whole night Maddie didn't even notice one. She didn't allow her eyes to drift to the body again; they remained transfixed on the bloody hand, dripping like the darkness of the shadow. The darkness that bled down its face like running makeup.
The thought froze Maddie, still in the middle of striking. It raised the blood soaked hand and pressed it to its own face, dragging thin fingers over where its eyes should be.
Two black holes, each their own singularity, stared back at her.
Not makeup.
Warpaint.
The blade slipped from Maddie's hand splashing into a puddle of rainwater and blood.
The noise Maddie made moments ago, that strangled cry, rang in her ears as the shadow opened its mouth and tar-like blackness poured from inside. The sound got louder and louder, unnatural and reverberating inside her head like it drilled its way into her center.
It moved so quickly that she felt the instant, breathless pressure in her gut of a foot connecting.
☽ † ☾
Chaos thrums in the Watcher's ears, intensifying in intervals as any break in battle brings another concerned face.
"How much time do we have? Is she breathing?" the older slayer asks when the fight brings her closer.
"Give her some space!" the Watcher shouts back, surprising herself.
When her cousin runs over, the young hunter speaks in rushed murmurs. "I don't understand. If she was already poisoned, why would she inject the rest?"
The Watcher can't help but show her cousin kindness as her chin trembles. "I don't know."
"Can you do a spell? Wake her up?"
The Watcher thinks of her training. She thinks of the rules of magic as the dying girl's whole body tenses. "I don't know how bad it is. And...if she's too far gone, there's nothing we can do."
She avoids the truth. If death takes her, the Watcher will do what is right and let it. She doesn't hold down the sob as she's left alone again with the dying slayer and the shadow of her failure.
☽ † ☾
Maddie sailed, lifted off her feet for a few disorienting seconds. It took longer to land than she expected, like missing a step when you take the stairs. She sailed, not unlike she did earlier when she very clearly remembered Sadie's hand connecting with her.
She remembered Sadie like a half heard whisper. A vague knowing if not a full grasp.
She landed hard, but the ground beneath her wasn't wet, gravelly blacktop. Softer only by a fraction, but earth managed to absorb most of the impact. She gripped the ground as she propped herself up on her elbows. It wasn't quite as dark anymore, a light shone above her head, blinding.
Everything around her smelled like damp soil and the idea of it being so dark when there's so much light above her only baffled her for another beat.
Then a shuffling above her head started, a scratchy scraping noise.
And something like snow falling touched her face and shoulders, a dusting of something not actually cold.
A shadow glided over her head and the darkness reminded her of a low flying plane until she shot a glance up.
She could've mistaken the shovel for a large arrowhead, but her panic was already piqued from the shadow creature in the alley. She had a horrible thought the moment she smelled fresh earth.
Vampire, but with more context than that. New vampire, with bloody knuckles and nails from digging its way out of something solid. New vampire, covered in dirt.
The realization was so sudden, she was jolting to her feet before it sank in. She shrieked a hoarse "no!" as more dirt poured down from the shovel head in great clumps.
She tried to cover her face but there was dirt in her eyes and mouth. She didn't have time to get it all out when the same scraping sounded above and the shadow of the tool fell over her again.
She wanted to scream "I'm alive" but the words caught in her throat. What if she was wrong? She flattened herself to the man-made wall of the hole as more soil rained from above and spit out however much was still in her teeth and on her tongue. The motions were becoming quicker and her heart hammered in her chest as she started coughing.
She dug one hand and then the other into the wall of packed earth and started to lift herself, creating foot holds as she climbed...
...and climbed, and climbed. The more she strained her muscles to lift her own aching body from the fresh hole in the ground, the deeper it went.
She clung to the wall, shaking and holding a breath to prevent more dirt from entering her nose or mouth. The top ledge of the hole wasn't getting closer and the fall was so far, she could break something or worse. It looked so close though, maybe another two feet up.
More and more dirt fell around her, faster and faster, impatient to bury her.
She clumsily jumped straight up, gripping the ledge and slipping by the tips of her fingers. She curled them in the grass, sinking her nails into the topsoil as hard as she could. She lifted herself by her tired arms as they shook and she rolled herself into the grass, panting.
The sky was a dirty mix of amber, violet, and a deep, troubling grayish brown like a haze. Not quite clouds like before.
Maddie sat up, testing how bad the aches in her body might be but the pain didn't surface like the tearing or current she was used to. It didn't surface at all despite recalling the ache in her muscles just moments ago.
She rolled onto her heels and to her feet, gaze still scanning the sky. The sun would set soon but she wondered if it would be a bright, blinding thing or a dim orange bulb behind the grayish screen.
She whirled around, finding no trace of the sun in the sky but her eyes landed on the hole she climbed from. The open grave, a tombstone right at the head, new and smooth and blank. Waiting.
Maddie shook her head like she was answering a question. "That's not the way out."
Somewhere beyond it, in the trees, a darkness grew with the waning light. Then, somewhere inside it, something shifted. A cult of vampire came to mind for only a second.
Underneath it, something like thunder sounded but not quite. She knew thunder too well, so much that she never wanted to hear it again. This was different; this was a rolling drum beat, deep and rattling the ground under her feet. Something with bass, shaking her from the inside.
A steady beat getting louder, followed in tandem by harsh exhales. Something more animal than human, breathing ragged. The sharp breath Maddie took in made an itch in her throat as she began coughing, feeling the smoke fill her lungs. Her arm shielded her nose and mouth as the rumble got closer, about to burst from the woods and find her.
Something was coming for her and when she glanced back at the headstone, it made so much sense.
Her options dwindled as seconds passed, the shadows in the trees becoming more pronounced. She took a step back, wondering what she might see but unwilling to answer that question. The itch in the back of her mind was nearly physical, nagging at her the longer she watched.
Somewhere, she might still be laying on the ground as voices call to her to come back. Something in her gut pulled her backwards, behind her to another densely wooded area. Something told her the world was burning and she had few options.
The percussion, the heavy rolling beat, was as loud as the thunder, calling to her. Beckoning. Hooves hitting solid earth, barreling towards her.
Whatever it was might've emerged from the woods but Maddie already turned on her heel and stumbled into a run, fear like ice where she was and what was approaching.
She ran from the grave, from the horror looking to meet her. She ran faster and faster, the trees ahead shifting and parting for her. The sound of galloping grew louder and the further she ran, the more smoke she choked on. From the sound of her footfalls to her hammering of her heart, none of it registered compared to the booming noise gaining on her or the wave of dry heat meeting her ahead.
It was all burning and the only thing she knew to do was run.
She kept going when the trees ended suddenly, revealing a shoddy, old neighborhood. Too suburban to be San Francisco, too broken and dirty to be Beacon Hills. The house in the center was turning from off-white to brown to black as flames licked the sides and burst through the front windows.
The sound behind her only ebbed a little, but long enough for Maddie to slow and cough as she gasped desperately for clean air. The front yard was mostly yellow now. Parts of the gate were rusted through and she could only barely see what was left of the trampoline in the backyard. Metal beams were missing and the surface remained only half standing.
Something old flickered to life in her chest as it sank sharply down into panic.
It wasn't like anything she ever felt, the horror and agony and emptiness of it. It wasn't losing a person; it was losing a piece of her framework, a piece that kept her upright. It was losing part of her foundation. Maddie spent so long never called any place home, she didn't realize until now that maybe she always expected to come back. Maybe as a warrior, as the one holding the Slayer scythe in triumph over the forces of evil - or maybe to give up and rest.
Staring at the first eight years of her life going up in flames helped her understand in a way that made sense. No one goes back, at least not to what they remember.
She glanced up at the window on the top floor, the screen still missing.
Hands were pressed there in a way she expected from the last time she watched it as it faded from view. Jack didn't go to the window that night, but someone was there now.
Jack.
The name came with a flood of pain and half remembered images.
The boy in the alley. Red sneakers.
"We'll fight the monsters together."
Hands slammed against the glass but she couldn't see the face.
Maddie rushed to the front door and tried the handle. It felt like ice before she registered the pain as scalding. She let out a whimper as her hand shot back and she cradled it with the other.
The galloping slowed to a trot before stopping completely. Shadows moved behind her and the terror made it easier to smash her body weight into the door once, then twice as it broke from its hinges.
Flames danced around her as she fell through the threshold and forced herself upright when her body begged for rest. She squinted in the smoke and light and wondered if this was hell.
The living room tv was on still and unharmed, playing cartoons as it always did. Velma was unmasking a monster and the rest of the characters gasped at the reveal. She nearly broke that tv learning to do a cartwheel. Maddie turned away and tried to shout, "Jack!"
The sound couldn't amount to the crackling and hissing of the walls and furniture. Too much noise. Too much everything.
She jogged down the hall and remembered racing her brother for no good reason but to tell him she won but would end up shoved into a wall most of the time. Something caught her eye and she slowed, her brain frantic as it was yanked back in time. She peered into the kitchen, all dingey yellows with a table near the back door, and something caught in her throat. She couldn't see more than their outlines through the fire, but a large man and a small woman spun in the center, so at ease it might've been in slow motion. They were close, holding each other tightly as the room burned around them. So far from her and consumed, there was no getting to them. Guilt gnawed at her stomach, wondering why seeing them didn't make her ache anymore. They were already gone from her, an echo of a memory. She backed away, not wanting to see anymore.
"Jack!" she yelled again as she found the stairs. The house was so familiar and so unfamiliar at the same time. She remembered it, only not the way it was. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. She ran up the carpeted stairs, holding tightly onto the wood grain railing as she once did - like her mother told her to do to avoid tripping, and felt the steps buckle one by one under her. Something behind her crashed so loudly, it might've been an explosion, and she thought for a moment the whole down stairs crumbled into the unfinished basement. Whatever was left of a child's memory crumbling to ash. She didn't look back as she searched for the right room.
The flames were worse here, thicker and closer and Maddie wasn't sure how she was still breathing.
Three doors surrounded her and only one of them wasn't engulfed in the blaze. She begged, pleaded, with every deity she knew. She begged for his life the same way she once begged the universe to make her remember him, even if all she remembered was telling him to let her go.
She didn't bother with the doorknob but instead kicked the whole door in as she rushed through the threshold. Fire didn't touch this room yet, but black smoke made it hard to see. A bunk bed at the far wall, the bottom bunk stripped bare. The window she was sure she saw from the outside, the window two hands were slamming against moments ago, was broken and red touched the jagged edges of the smallish hole.
Her brain scanned for something that would amount to a clue, but nothing came. This was a stranger's room now, in a stranger's house and she was stuck in the dead center of someone else's inferno. She didn't want to look outside because she knew they were waiting for her, whatever they were. The horrors waiting for her to fail, to give in.
The last time she looked through that window, monsters were coming for her. Things with shining daggers, black cloaks, and no eyes. They came for her and Jack took her to hide, holding her so tight it was hard to breathe. They hid-
Her eyes went to the only closed door in the room, the one without smoke or fire on the other side.
She crossed the room and hesitantly tried at the knob. The cool metal was so shocking, Maddie jumped a little before opening the closet. Old hand-me-down clothes that smelled like sweat and cheap body spray were stuffed there, too many plastic hangers crowded together. Below, where they would huddle, was a line of worn out shoes - most of them caked in dried mud and full of holes. She crouched down examining the area and the clean, cool darkness. There was no one there but something was off, aside from the curious lack of smoke or fire. She reached in, feeling for the wall on the other side but getting nothing at all.
Maddie stood and started roughly, manically pulling hangers of clothes out of the closet and tossing them into the room. She tore through the massive amount of jeans and hooded sweatshirts until there was a hole big enough to see through. The missing back wall gave her an odd sense of vertigo, like she was looking down from a tall ledge. Like there was no way that much space could possibly be in front of her.
"Jack!" she shouted again, her throat scratchy like she shouted so much more than just a name. Like her voice was as tired as her bones.
She stepped over the shoes and between the clothes into the darkness of what should've been her childhood closet. She walked into it like walking into a freezer on the hottest day of the year. Relief rolled off of her in waves but the prickling feeling of loss clung to her, a hunger she would never satisfy and an ache that had no balm.
She kept going, the smell of smoke and the sound of flames cracking easing away with every step. The further she went, the more she felt anxiety needle her. A memory clawed its way up to consciousness. A maze at a local church, just for the little kids. Begging her now faceless mother to keep her from going in, despite the fact it was only a bunch of cardboard connected into a McDonalds playplace type tube. Her mother urged her to try it and half way through the blackened maze, with children both ahead and behind her, she stopped and screamed bloody murder. She remembered the fear of being stuck alone with strangers pushing her forward and no end in sight. She was frozen there on all fours with children behind her angry as the adults scrambled to disassemble the makeshift maze. It was the first time she remembered being terrified and how small it felt next to everyone else's annoyance.
It was also the first time she realized how afraid she was of the dark, of all the things she couldn't see.
It went on and on, smelling of rot and rust and death, silent aside from the clumsy shuffle and creak of her footsteps. She allowed a hand to glide across the wall to maybe get an idea of where she was, but she got too distracted with the fact that she was using the hand she burned on the front door - which no longer hurt at all. It wasn't even as if she was in shock - at least not any type of shock she'd ever experienced. It was like it never hurt in the first place; nerve endings in tact, but no pain either.
Maddie shook it once like she was shaking it back to life, like it short circuited. She walked faster as if getting out of this never ending tunnel was the only logical way for her to stop freaking out and for a brief, foolish second, she thought of Lydia's face in the side mirror - wide-eyed and pale in the inky night, rising from it like rising from a grave, and whispering to Maddie without speaking. A wild, empty stare, desperate to take you and keep you forever.
Even if she wasn't dead, something was coming for her. Something was desperate to find her, even when her most reliable senses assured her she was alone. It was the last sense, the slayer sense, that wouldn't shut up - and that was enough reason to be afraid.
☽ † ☾
Somewhere on a field, a goal is scored just before the clock runs out.
The lights go out. The field is full of people and made of darkness.
There's a scream.
Someone is dead.
Someone is missing.
☽ † ☾
Maddie's walking paused as the scraping feel of the wall became smooth and cool to the touch. She tapped on it and the sound came back hollow and metallic. Her hands started to scramble for a space between the distinct materials and when she found it, she didn't bother to find out if it was a door or not but instead opted for kicking the aluminum wall and hoping it was on a hinge.
There was a certain satisfaction to watching a door fly to the other side of a room, especially when any recent show of strength she remembered didn't belong to her. She noted only as it flew that it was a locker door and jumped at the sudden crash when it hit a different row of lockers across the way.
Maddie stuck her head out and found a large tiled room and a built in wooden bench in front of her. The room was flooded in desaturated blue and the damp, thick air smelled like sweat, metal, and so much cheap body spray it made her sinuses hurt.
She slid sideways out of the crawl space and, upon turning back, another shudder skittered over her skin. The darkness on the other side was gone, replaced with the inside of a locker. A large shirt with white letters stitched into it hung on a hook, a lacrosse stick resting diagonally in front of it. She scanned the area from top to bottom, starting with the textbooks tucked on a shelf and down to a pooled something on the floor of it, beneath muddy cleats.
Maddie gingerly moved the shoes, examining a dark puddle almost the same shade of red as what had to be a jersey hanging above it. She held her breath and reached a shaky hand forward, ready to feel the thickness and warmth of blood.
She tapped it once, shocked to find it dry and something closer to fuzzy. Shocked that nothing stuck to her finger.
Maddie reached out again to check whatever it was and realized that it could be moved. She swallowed and picked it up as it fell apart in her hand, thin and light. Unraveling.
She held it up to the pale light from a high up window, more lost than before when she studied the red yarn pooling over her palm. She tossed it aside when something flashed still in the locker just as she went to close it, defeated.
Maddie's eyes darted back to the floor, silver and gold shining into something too familiar. A small, curved blade with a gold hilt laid there haphazardly, so out of place with everything else in the space, she had to double take. Something horrible passed through her from her head to the tips of her toes, something like cold. Something like ice. Not a dagger like Marie's; something so much older, but sharpened and polished like new - as if ready to be used again. She thought of the broken window in her old room again, recalling the fight she watched from her perch there. Eyeless faces in the distance.
She refused to grab for it or even look at it any longer. With a sudden jolt of urgency, she slammed the door shut, startled both by the clanging of metal against metal and the sharp, jagged word painted across the row of lockers.
Maddie swallowed and it was dry. The moonlight from the window bathed the childlike scrawl in a ghostly glow, cutting them carelessly out of something long dead inside her. Maybe that's why they looked like they were written in blood.
She was so concerned with what the word meant before - all the horrible things it meant before, it took more time for her to register what they could mean now.
She thought of the dagger in the locker hiding under a pile of red string and dirty shoes like like it was junk for someone to deal with later.
The earth shook.
Suddenly, voraciously shook.
Maddie stumbled backwards and the bench caught her behind the shins. She immediately regretted using her arms to try and keep balance instead of protecting her head when it collided with the tiled floor along with her upper spine.
Even if the pain was something she made up in her mind, she was such a great acquaintance to pain, it was harder to imagine her life and her body without it. Even if it didn't last, it felt real enough.
A siren blared somewhere far away, high and wailing, and at first, she thought it was another howl over the school speaker system. She remembered running into a school, right into danger with no thought of what comes after. Looking for a fight - or, if she allowed herself the thought, something worse than that.
She remembered running right into the a trap for someone else with no plan and thinking every single person she ran into that night was an idiot for doing the exact same thing. She remembered being afraid with them, hiding in a science room. She remembered how baffled she was when, with no knowledge of the supernatural, the most popular girl in school didn't hesitate to have the most logical plan in the whole room.
The siren faded back in slowly and she was less and less sure it was even that. It was so high, it hurt her ears. Something other than man-made. Something other than human.
But something.
"Lydia?" She was startled by her own voice again, or by the name, which rose from the ether like it was the only answer.
Panic opened wide in her chest as she scrambled to her feet and toward the closest door. She ripped the door nearly off its hinge as she yanked it open and left the locker room.
☽ † ☾
The young hunter stands in proximity to the Watcher, shooting an arrow into the mass of undead. "Why would she want to die like this?"
"This." The Watcher holds the paper tight, grimacing at the red stain from her hand.
"What is it?"
"A sanctuary spell. The Hale family used it to protect the town from vampires. It was given to me by your father. He got it from Madeline."
"...The Hales." There is so much in the young hunter's voice. Rage and pain. Wonder and unease. There is a pause in conversation and only the sounds of violent death around them.
The Watcher swallows and stares at the wound on the dying girl's neck. "The spell requires a blood sacrifice. I think she knew that... Allison?"
Allison Argent drops the bow and grabs for her daggers again, moving in front of the Watcher and the fallen slayer as vampires approach. "...Start the spell."
"What? But...Madeline..."
"Maddie sacrificed her life to save us. If she's-" The word won't settle in Allison's head or her chest. It hasn't for some time, and with so many. "...if she's gone and we don't do this, what was it all for?"
"You're starting to sound more like a watcher than a slayer, if you don't mind my saying..." The Watcher sniffles and catches for the first time Allison trying to comfort her with a smile, despite the agony in it. She nods, remembering herself. "Right. I'll do what I can."
"Good luck." Allison explodes forward and tackles both vampires.
Max breathes. She smooths the dying girl's hair and allows herself the chance to silently thank her. She says an old prayer and wishes Madeline Hayes peace.
MacKenzie Traver's eyes shoot over to the spell. She is ready.
"Utu grant us light
May the ashes of our enemies
Cast out their kin..."
☽ † ☾
It was especially disorienting when when tripped over something on the ground and the bright lights of a hallway that was not Beacon Hills High School blinded her.
She squinted at the low ceiling with their dome-like incandescent lights. Her eyes went down to the floor, at the polished wood and the item behind her that nearly broke her neck. She could practically feel the blood leaving her face and the ringing left over from the inhuman keening.
A long, shining wooden staff with a blade at the end, snapped in two at the center. There was no sign of blood, because of course the was the only other reason it was here. The owner would rather be dead than without it, even if there was no way she could know that.
There it was again, her heart pounding in her ears. Too loud. Too fast.
She tried to take a deep breath in but the heavy smell of gasoline made her head ache.
Another scream faded in at a distance, impossibly far away to be that clear.
Maddie wrenched her gaze away from the halberd - was it a halberd?- and down the long hallway. She needed to be away from the broken weapon - if for no other reason than what it implied.
Her pace became a jog as she turned the corner and felt something leave her body. Maybe the air. Maybe her whole spirit.
The main area of headquarters was always the mess hall, with cafeteria-like rows of tables that were never full. They still weren't, or at least they weren't full of people.
In piles and stacks, in pieces and splinters, metal and wood made mountain ranges between tables. It was a shock to her system to see headquarters at all but to see it in such quiet disarray reminded her of a graveyard. Crossbow strings cut, blades broken, and handles scattered like firewood. When she approached them, as there was no other way out of this room but the other side of it, she grimaced at the chemical stench coming from it all. It made her dizzy as she covered her nose and mouth with the crook of her elbow, trying desperately to hold her breath.
She was almost to the door when she nearly tripped over another broken weapon, stumbling over it instead but catching the deep red of the blade. Not like blood, not something staining it. Like it was always that way.
Even like this, it still managed to call to her.
It still managed to feel like it belonged to her, even when it didn't.
Her gaze was pulled back like a magnet gravitating to the ground helplessly.
The handle was still in one piece but the stake at one end was nothing but splinters. The other end, the ax head that always gleamed silver and red was cracked, as if the blade struck something sharper and sturdier. A lightning bolt striking down to the center of it. Broken. Left behind.
Buffy would never leave the scythe behind. Never.
As the thought entered her head, the room beyond it got brighter and brighter. Dry heat hit her all at once, before she could look up to see the hills of broken weapons engulfed in flames. She didn't have time to grab the scythe before she started running out of the room, guiding solely on memory. Hoping that was enough. It was clear now. No one would come for her. They were gone.
She passed roomed and busted through doors, sloppily climbing staircase after staircase, the fire no longer ahead of her but behind her. Coming for her. She climbed the stairs like they were slick, stumbling and using her hands. The heat was gaining, searing her back, nearing her hair.
Maddie slammed through another door and didn't stop to watch the fragments hit the ground. The main floor was as empty as everything else, the kitchens bare and food still on counters, like it all happened suddenly. Like whatever happened took them all by surprise. She didn't have time to check if the food was still warm - if it was just moments ago that this all happened.
She only turned back once as the blaze ate through the doors. She barely saw the mounted animal skulls above the threshold, but caught that the second two seemed larger - or at least took up more space. Curious, but blurs all the same.
If she waited another second to leave, to rip through the false entrance and into the alley, the fire would've easily swallowed her. She was so afraid of what would happen if it did, she didn't give herself a moment to think of the concrete answer to that question. She was off, down another alley and into the street.
She turned back to the building and felt her thoughts fizzle out to nothing.
The building was covered in dirt, windows broken all the way to the top and massive holes bearing familiar rooms like opening a dollhouse to see inside. Craters.
Above, the haze worsened. Thick, pale brown created a wall between the earth and the sky. Smoke or dust clotting the air all at once.
Maddie whirled around, panic tightening her insides as she saw the other buildings matching headquarters. Cars were overturned and the ones that weren't were missing pieces of their windshields, crunched like accordions into buildings and other vehicles.
One accident contained a child's bike between two trucks, a training wheel poking out from the mangled grill. It all stood there, frozen in time as dirt coated what was left.
There was no sound. Nothing but the wind moving between the scarred landscape. A silence that felt unending and so unnatural, Maddie felt the urge to scream into it. She could hear her own breathing, in the middle of the day, in the center of San Francisco, because it was the only sound outside of the wind.
Something in the sky caught her attention. A flare of pure light.
A fire falling from the atmosphere, a trail of smoke forming a tail.
She focused as much as she could, gaping as a plane tailspun to the earth.
Then another.
And another.
Planes falling like a shower of meteors.
The ground began to shake wildly, over and over again as Maddie crumbled to the ground, covering her ears as the bellowing explosions tore through her.
She wasn't sure if she was shaking but something inside her broke and she began to scream, knowing that there was no one to hear it and the only thing left in her chest was fear.
When the shaking stopped, she was still screaming. She screamed for as long as her body could bear it, until it was a sob. Until the echo of her voice stopped coming back to her from the fathomless emptiness of a world wiped clean and she was alone again with the quiet.
Alone and on her knees crying again like it was the only thing she could remember to do, like it was the only response to loneliness.
The quiet didn't last this time. It was not unending.
There was something far away, a click clacking noise and Maddie thought it was falling rubble at first, until she recognized it.
The galloping.
The sound of hooves hitting the pavement, steady and reverberating and getting louder.
Her nose was running and her face was streaked with dirt and tears. Wiping her face with her hands only moved the dirt around instead of away.
The terror was being alone made her into a stone, never wanting to move forward, but the horror that something in this cold emptiness was still gaining on her - that it survived all this and still hunted her - shook her back to life for a second. The kind of life that made her remember that whatever this was wanted her to stop, to never come back.
Maybe they hunted her because she survived, too. Because she kept surviving, even when the world is a hollow husk.
The sound got louder, echoing through the alleys and making her wonder which direction it was coming from. She thought about the burn on her hand and the strain in her muscles and all of the wound that weren't there. Not even a trace.
Maybe they hunted her because she wasn't alone. The world was not this. Not yet.
And she was still alive.
Maddie uncurled herself, her hands leaving her ears and her body stretching towards the sky. She eased back onto the balls of her feet and stood.
She turned, squinting into the wall of smoke and seeing three figures, each on horseback. Shadows with the outlines of weapons at their side. They were coming for her and she was going to let them.
As they gained speed, the horses looked less like horses, each differing in color and size. Their riders dusted in ash, bones protruding under thin skin and moving like they were readjusting into something else. Limbs bending the wrong way, fingers too long, faces still in shadow. Like the things coming for her were becoming something other as they got closer - and something behind them, something she couldn't see but knew was there. Something made of madness and pain and the void of what comes after.
Maddie stood there, waiting.
The thundering beat against the blacktop thrummed through her body and a blade was positions at the level of her neck as they were feet away.
Then inches as she closed her eyes.
There was nothing.
Nothing.
No blade. No pain. Nothing at all.
She opened her eyes again.
What she was met with was beyond any sort of comprehension in her. Something made of fire but not on fire. Contained but skinless. Human shaped without bone or any idea how a human being moves. Faceless but screaming. A lack of physics so maddening, she didn't want to look at it. A darkness moved within where a chest would be, untethered and tireless. Something like a hand formed from it, somewhere around the neck, and opened like it was about to reach for her, fingers long and more unraveling than uncurling. Something waited there, in its palm. Something small, iron, and L shaped. It started to walk toward her and the motion was almost like a toddler standing for the first time and buckling, but it didn't fall. It kept walking towards her just like that, with every step appearing more painful than the last.
Maddie stayed still, keeping to her plan.
It began to walk through her and the sound that went off inside her head made was deafening and pulsing, like her skull would crack from the pressure. Something her brain scrambled to understand, but had no word. She was right the first time just before she saw this horror; it was a void. It was a cold, bottomless nothing. Not the silence of death. Something so much worse and it made her think for only a second of what a tear in the universe felt like if it bled.
When it passed through her entirely, the first thing she did was clutch at her chest, wishing more than ever to find her way out of this.
She turned back and the creature was gone.
The riders were slowing maybe a half block away, spinning their horses around and seeing her in the distance again. There was a fury in the movements as they began to charge again.
Maddie turned in the direction they came from and ran, not knowing where she was going but understanding somehow that the only way out was in the hell ahead of her.
She ran directly into the smoke and ash, every step reminding her that she wasn't dead yet. That there was still time, because there had to be.
She couldn't see ahead of her, but she sprinted forward, narrowly dodging destroyed cars and metal fragments still on fire. The dust and smoke were so thick, it was more like a storm cloud and she braced herself for the lightning inside of it as she ran up a street so familiar, she could walk it blind. She hoped she would again, maybe with her team. Maybe with her Watcher. Maybe even with Buffy.
The steady beat of her footsteps reminded her of earlier in the night, running from Lydia's house. Lydia. I want to see her happy.
She focused her thoughts outside of this place and beyond the things trying to catch her. She wondered briefly, vaguely, if Scott and Stiles won their game and if she would get the chance to catch the next one. She wondered if she'd get the chance to have that talk with Stiles.
Maddie was picking up speed and barely noticed the blur of a gate she passed. She began to weave around rocked standing straight up out of the ground, rectangular with some as tall as her waist. Grave markers.
She wondered if a day would come when Allison would meet her here on a patrol, like it was normal. Or maybe they would fix her. Maybe Allison still had a chance at normal.
The space ahead of her was slightly clearer but what she made her stumble to a full stop.
In front of her, at the end of a cliff overseeing the Golden Gate bridge, was an open grave, a tombstone right at the head, new and smooth and blank. Waiting.
There was another grave next to it but the sight of it sent a shudder through her. It was not new and the stone was not blank. The ground was dug up, but not like a shovel scooping out earth. It was torn to shreds, like something tunneled in. Or...
She glanced over at the grave marker and a fresh horror gripped her from the inside. The childlike scrawl in red hid the name. The same four letters, the same long dead pain opening wide.
Maddie took a stumbling step back, her voice a quivering whisper. "That's not the way out."
Something in the clouds moved.
She froze, panic shutting her down completely, and slowly raised her head to the sky.
Nothing. A wall of clouds so thick, nothing could get through. Outlines of their edges and shadows tell their depth.
Maddie realized the riders weren't coming at that moment. That no one was coming for her. She got a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, though. A feeling like she wasn't alone. She walked to the edge of the cliff, past the gravestones, and saw the dulled, quiet bridge stand there half hidden in the the haze.
Again, something moved.
Not on the bridge.
Above it.
Maddie's eyes went up again, into the sky line as a cloud moved. Then, its shadow moved.
The motion shook the ground and a wave from somewhere deeper in the wall of smoke, so massive it couldn't be real, crashed into the bridge.
The shadow moved again and something in the water hit the bridge from the side. It began to crack at the center and crumble in half. Steel bending and breaking like it was nothing at all. Like it was a toy.
The shadow shifted again and Maddie craned her neck to the sky, so high she might've been looking straight up. A shadow of something that made her an ant. The top of it was round and extended down all the way to the water, more like a doorway than a living thing.
But then it would move and the ground would shake again and she knew.
She knew in her head and in her chest and in something so old and so beyond her, there was no name for it.
She knew it was the end of everything.
Two beams of light, bright and ethereal flickered on, each the size of a sun as they shone down on the rest of the city and it took her a moment to realize they were coming from the top. From what might be a head.
The massive shadow, a planet's shadow, was still mostly hidden but the lights roamed over the land, tearing through the smoke and searching.
The head - what had to be a head because no planet could be that close and mountains don't move - was turning, getting closer. Eyes like spotlights.
Something within the shadow wriggled, moving like it had a mind of its own.
Maddie, her brain like white noise as it struggled to understand, clasped a hand over her mouth to stay silent and didn't move an inch, even the sound of her breathing in a world that was empty and void of any other noise would be too loud. The thought of those eyes cast down at her took tore away the will she just gained back.
She was alone.
It would see her.
Nothing would be left. Nothing.
The earth rattled like it couldn't support the weight of the shadow and Maddie's foot shot out behind her to keep her on her feet.
The silence that followed swallowed her whole.
The two beams of light went out.
The sound that enveloped her was more like the earth cracking open and stone against stone. Like a tidal wave.
A shadow fell over everything, Kronos coming to swallow the last of his children.
A spotlight opened up above her head and she didn't look, she just moved. She stumbled backwards as fast as her feet could carry her. Never looking up. Never.
The backs of her knees hit a tombstone but she was going so quickly, she was already falling backwards. She shut her eyes tightly as she fell, unwilling to look into the shadow's eyes, wondering what she saw and if she was too late.
She fell and fell, deeper and away.
When she landed, it was on her back as the jagged ground dug into her skin, wet and sharp.
She grunted, her eyes still closed.
Water was hitting her in the face, pelting her, and her thought to see why but the fear wouldn't let her go. Was it over her? Was it watching her?
An animal cry sounded from somewhere and the suddenness of if made her eyes snap open.
The sky was still a wall of clouds, but they were dark and gray as the rain continued to pour down. There were no eyes. There was no shadow. Still, the depth of the clouds and the individual shadows they cast made her look away, out of fear. Out of a sense of knowing that might never leave her.
The inhuman sound echoed again and she knew it. She remembered it. She turned to the side and found the crumpled heap of Marie's body, face down and eyes shut. Hair tangled and splayed like gold webbing.
Maddie looked away and slowly got to her feet as her gaze was met with the creature from before. The horror with her face.
The sensation of being soaked to the bone hit her all at once, along with the cold.
It didn't matter anymore. This needed to be over.
She couldn't shake the feeling that something was coming and she barely got away with her life.
Maddie approached the creature carefully, shoulders slumped. "We can't do this."
It didn't move or speak, still poised for attack.
"You know something's coming!" she shouted, voice hoarse, probably from crying and screaming. "They need to know!"
They. Buffy, Willow, and Xander. The slayers. The wolves.
Something about this was familiar. Something she heard already. "The clock is striking midnight and the true beast will bring it's army."
"We can't do this!" Maddie's voice cracked but she powered ahead, shaking her head. "Not yet!"
She took a step closer and the creature raised a bloody hand. Maddie held hers up in surrender. No time to live. No time to die.
"The Apocalypse will come for all of you!"
Caleb's shout rang in her head, repeating over again. She thought of the smile on his split face when he told her the end was coming.
She didn't take her eyes off of the demon in front of her. That's what it was after all, the part she hated and the part she couldn't live without. It stayed watching her for an extra beat before its head darted in the direction of the body on the ground. It lingered there and Maddie understood.
"You didn't do that," she yelled over the pounding of the rain, trying to tell herself something she never believed. "She's gone and that's not your fault."
Hair hung in its face, dripping to the ground and for a second, Maddie wondered if it was weeping. Mourning in a way she never did.
"You couldn't save her." Maddie's lip quivered at the words and her throat closed as she took another step, no longer afraid as the creature lowered its hand. "But you didn't kill her."
I didn't kill her.
Maddie swallowed. "You're not a killer."
The demon, looked up at her, eyes still black and endless. Full of something.
"I'm not a killer," Maddie said, the words brittle and unsteady. "There's more good I can do. People I can save."
"People I can save." The sound was distorted, not quite natural. Its mouth barely moved. Its head turned back to the ground, where Marie was.
"We have a chance to help them." Maddie raised a hesitant hand, mirroring the demon's bloody one, and extended it to the creature. "The vampires were right. Something's coming."
"War is coming," it said, the voice more solid now.
Maddie forced herself to stay still and keep her hand out, despite the shot of fear. "War?"
The demon's gaze stayed on the body for a silent beat as the rain became white noise. Maddie thought of the sky and the stare of a beast she couldn't grasp. She thought about the city in ruins and the empty shell of HQ and she knew in that moment that this thing, this piece of her, had already seen all of it.
"I am a soldier." It's voice was something feral, tar once again dripping from its mouth. Its head snapped back up to to meet Maddie's gaze and something in the blackened pits was a rage and resolve she wasn't expecting. "Let war come."
Its hand, oozing black, gripped Maddie's.
☽ † ☾
"May the power of our blood
Shield our people"
The earth shook and lights like webbing spun up from the ground. There was power in Max's voice as she said the words, clear and loud. This type of magic didn't feel like burning on the inside, it felt bigger but not quite painful. It felt like light, like the sun after a long winter - new and bright and warming her somewhere inside her chest.
She gripped Maddie's limp hand as tightly as she could, wishing this could've gone any other way. She wanted to thank her for trying.
On the other side of the barrier, Chris Argent, Terra, Allison, and Sadie fought through an overwhelming hoard of vampires. The sheer mass of them moved like a colony of ants over a grain of sugar, a dark, shapeless nothing until you look closer and see the individual moving heads.
"The earth recognizes this
Sacrifice binds our words"
A bellow of a roar made Max jump out of her skin and clutch the hand with the spell to her chest. She slowly rose her gaze to the field but a round, bloodied man stood in her way. He scratched manically at the lit up barrier, lighting up the tips of his fingers like individual cigarettes as smoke billowed from them. He looked like a rabid dog, willing to break itself to rip out Max's throat. His face was a demon's and his yellow eyes never left Max.
Max didn't let go of Maddie's hand and she imagined it gave her strength. She wondered what a slayer would do in this situation - and, by the transitive property, what her mother would do. What kind of slayer was she? Was she ever this afraid?
Max tried to steel herself but there was no steel in her. Instead she fixed this thing, this vampire so close to breaking through that its hand missed her by inches, with the kind of defiant, inscrutable stare her grandfather was known for. The kind meant to hide his weakest moments.
By wise council, you shall make your war.
"With life, this land is bound!" she shouted, even as her voice trembled. "In death, our children live!"
The barrier burned bright white.
For about a second.
When the light left, it felt like a machine powering down, dimming beyond what it was before. Fading.
The light in her chest was gone.
She looked up at the man, the creature looking to kill her. His yellow eyes were full of mirth and he laughed, dried blood still staining his mouth.
Terror and cold filled Max, so much that she was surprised she felt it. A twitch. A pulse around her hand, but not the one holding the spell.
Max's breath caught and her eyes grew large as she stared down at the slayer on the ground.
The pulsing turned into a tight grip, vice-like.
With a great, shuddering gasp, Maddie's eyes shot open.