The Brink Of Your Mind

Crimson Regret
A/N: new chapter, this one just came in a flash of inspiration, thought i'd throw in another plot twist for y'all. enjoy! and R&R guys, i live for fb..



She could barely lift her head, pain searing its way through her entire being, wrenching itself harshly around her mind, threatening to cause the darkness to once again surround her. But she pushed through it, pushing that pain further into the back of her mind, to the place it always went, when she had to move, had to carry on, had to fight.

Slowy, she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, gasping through the various breaks in her bones, the numerous muscular rips, the slices of flesh missing from her body. She waited until the haze of darkness had passed before slowly lifting her head and looking around her, recognising the shattered world from which she was stolen so long ago.

The buildings were still crumbing in their unused state, demons and vampires roaming around freely under the blanket of the night sky. What was she doing back here? Why was she home again? She remembered Faith had caught her, dragged her into the underworld of which she now ruled with a kind of fear that not even the purest of demons could stand against.

Her daughter! She gasped, slowly lowering herself to a sitting position and lifting her hand to her head, pushing blood matted hair out of her face and wincing as she brushed her palm over a slice in her forehead. Faith had captured her daughter too. She was still chained up in the throne room when she’d arrived. Scarred, terrified of what was going to happen to her, Buffy’s daughter almost screamed at the demons that surrounded her. And then, the crowds parted to reveal Faith, the mother she hadn’t seen for over two years.

Buffy had watched as common sense had over-taken Joyce, watched in fear as she ran to her brunette mother and threw herself in her arms, gasping at the tears that had started to fall. And for a single second, Buffy had seen something in Faith’s eyes. Happiness? At being reunited with her daughter after so long of just watching her grow? But then, the dark slayer had turned her eyes towards Buffy and the expression was gone. She slowly clamped her hand over the back of Joyce’s neck, sending her quickly into a trace, one were she started to whisper to her. And even with her slayer hearing, Buffy couldn’t hear what those words were.

When Joyce had awakened, she had turned her eyes towards Buffy, and didn’t even recognise her. Those dark swirling globes were empty and void of everything that made Joyce, Joyce. Everything Buffy had worked so hard to keep from showing in those eyes reared now, in full force. Buffy had always known there was a deep, strangling darkness within her daughter and at that moment had let tears flow. Tears that she hadn’t cried when she’d been captured, that she hadn’t shed while she watched Joyce being chased for what seemed like forever.

And now, she watched as the darkness crawled up from inside of her daughter, taking hold of her soul and ripping her very humanity out of her. Joyce cocked her head to the side, studying Buffy for long moments, before a cruel smile twisted the corners of her mouth.

“Kill her.” Faith’s voice rag out over the throne room and Buffy could taste the hunger on the air.

“No, wait. Killing her’s too good. I have a much better idea.”

Buffy shook her head, trying desperately not to see the memories as they cluttered up her mind. Ones of her daughter torturing her, ripping her skin, breaking bones, and all with a gleeful smile on her face. She was enjoying the pain she was causing her mother, and laughed at every single cry of pain Buffy released. And when she’d done?

“Now, take her back.” And they had. Right back to where she knew her daughter belonged; on earth. Alive and breathing.

Buffy cried out in pain again as she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled into the darkness.

~ ~ ~

“Help me dammit!” Buffy had the pre-cog by the neck, pushed up against a wall and a look of fury on her face. She wasn’t completely healed yet, but she was damn sure strong enough to search out every single oracle, seer and pre-cog left on the face of the planet for help. She had to get Joyce back, had to pull her out of the darkness before it was much to late to save her.

“I.. I” the pre-cog gasped for breathe and Buffy released her neck.

“I need her back. I need.. I need your help..” Buffy gasped, turning away from the woman she had just been holding by the throat, as the tears rose in the back of her throat and threatened to choke her.

“You are so full of love. *She* was so full of love.” The woman’s voice pulled Buffy’s attention back to her, to the small woman sat on the floor at her feet. “Joyce, she’s six years old. She’s running, running towards you. She wants to be just like her other mother. Running as fast as she can. She’s ten, trying out for the track team at school, waving to you in the stands as she gets herself ready for the race. She’s 16, playing with a puppy, asking you if you can go and see her momma today, go and see the loving grave you erected after she’d died. You tell her yes and you both start to pick some flowers from the garden. She’s 19, at a good college, getting good grades in all her classes except history. She complains she’s just as bad as you at the subject. She’s 23, and makes love to a beautiful woman called Karen, asks her to marry her. She rings you and tells you, and you cry. She still runs; across the college campus. She sees you, and tries to catch up to you. But she can’t. Because she’s only six years old, and you’re to fast for her to catch you.”

During the pre-cogs words, Buffy had fallen to her knees, the tears she was so desperately holding on to falling in streaming rivers down her face. There was a pain in her chest that had nothing to do with her physical injuries. It was as if someone had rammed a knife into her heart, piercing her soul, and with every single second was twisting it cruelly within her.

“I can’t help you slayer. No one can help you. Because the moment the darkness took her, she was lost to it forever.”

“NO!”

“The only way you’ll ever have your little girl back, is if you join her in the darkness. If you leave us all to die, and join her in the only place she ever really belonged.”

“She never belonged there!”

“Did you think that you and a being of darkness could have a child and that the child would never be effected by that darkness? In the end Buffy, no matter how strong the light in their life, if they’re born with the darkness inside of them, with the blackness of evil tainting, then the light will never win. In the end Buffy, the darkness always wins.”

“Then I guess there’s only one thing left for me to do.” Buffy pulled herself to a kneeling position, sniffing and wiping away her tears with the palms of her hands. Slowly, she drew a knife from behind her back, looking at the gleaming knife with rapt concentration.

“Killing yourself will never lead you to her slayer. She was born to darkness and will always end up there. But you.. you were born to the light. And so, that is were you will always end up.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Only an act of great evil will draw you from that light, yes, I..”

“Know?” Buffy smiled, an evil, insane glint to her eyes. “So, how evil do you think I’d have to go? Say, killing a gift from the powers that be? Would that do it?”

She didn’t wait for answer, with almost feral growl erupting out of her mouth, she raised the knife and launched herself at the pre-cog..

~ ~ ~

Buffy shot up in her bed, gasping harshly at the images from the dream, trying desperately to catch her breath as they began to fade into the back of her mind.

But no matter how long she sat there, they wouldn’t fade completely. Like a chalkboard once it’s wiped clean; there will always be a smudge of what once was there. Flashes of her dream appearing in her head as she tried, in vain, to rid them from her brain. She could still remember the pain of her broken body, of the feeling of her soul being twisted within her chest, of the utter hopelessness she felt at the pre-cogs words.

And the blood. She could still feel the blood. Looking down at her hands she could see the trails of sickly red as they crisscrossed patterns over her skin. She could feel the liquid burning against her flesh as she sat there, eyes wide and starring.

No! That hasn’t happened! I won’t let it happen!

The louder her inner voice yelled inside of her head, the less her skin burned under the liquid she could see there, could feel there. That voice screaming at her to shake the image of blood away, because it simply wasn’t there. Telling her to breathe, to concentrate on the here and now.

And slowly, slowly the images of blood began to fade, taking with them the desperate need to claw at her hands to try and rid herself of the crimson river that had, not five minutes ago, been covering her hands like gloves.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, lifting her eyes to the mirrors opposite of her and took in her appearance. Her hair was matted, her skin almost deathly pale. She looked like death warmed up.

“LUC!”

“You rang?” the man himself appeared, leaning against her windows as he smoking another cigarette, calm and poised like he always seemed to be.

“What the fuck was that?”

“What?”

“That fucking dream! The future I’m trying to stop? Hello! Ringing any bells?”

“You had a dream of the future?” the blonde nodded, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I can’t hep that Buffy. You’ve been opened up to a version of the future, and until that future had ceased to be one of the many variables, you’ll keep having those dream of it.”

“But I don’t want them! Make them stop!”

“I can’t.” the sorrow in his voice was almost tangible in the air surrounding them. “Everyone who messes with the future has a price to pay; this is yours. It’s like a warning system. The moment you stop having them, is the moment you’ll be safe from what that future will bring. I’m sorry you have to go through this, but I have no choice. And if any of you want a happier future than that one, you don’t either.”

Without another word he faded from this reality, passing back into his own, leaving Buffy alone on her bed, the images once more coming up in the back of her throat. Bringing with it a river of tears, that gently crested her cheeks and dropped, forgotten, to her bed spread.


to Be Continued..