Kathy's Revenge

WARNING!! This chapter contains self harm! If you are offended by this then please do not read this chapter!

Chapter 38
Willows POV

I fall into the darkness, it feels like I have been falling for hours but I know it can only have been a few seconds. I hit the floor but not hard, it is like I float those few extra feet down and land softly on my knees.

I look around seeing only darkness, I stand up and call out for her. Almost immediately she is standing right in front of me.

The space around me shifts and fills with colour. I am standing in the mayors office, I can see myself as I was then, four whole years ago, it feels like a lifetime.

I watch myself speak. “Now you have no one. You were a Slayer and now you're nothing. You're just a big selfish, worthless waste!”

With that the Faith of the past punches the me of the past in the jaw, I fall to the ground.

Faith then looks down at the me of the past and says. “You hurt me, I hurt you. I'm just a little more efficient.”

I watch myself climb back to my feet

“Aw, here I just thought you didn't have a come-back.” I reply.

“You're begging for some deep pain.” She says eyeing me.

“I'm not afraid of you.”

Faith then pulls out the fancy knife that I know Buffy later goes and stabs Faith with.

“Let's see what we can do about that.” Faith replies with a menacing look she then advances and holds the knife to my neck.

I turn around, as in the me now, and see the mayor standing in the doorway.

”Girls, I hope I don't have to separate you two. Faith, you can play with your new toy later. Something's come up.” He says in an almost fatherly way.

Faith keeps holding the knife to my neck, staring into my eyes.

“Faith! You know I don't like repeating myself.” The mayor says to Faith.

Faith then looks at the me back then and says. “I got someone. I got him.”

“Hey Red.” I hear behind me, it’s Faith the Faith from now the Faith from her own head.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Yeah Red I’m five by five… I thought I heard some girl screaming before I think we should go check it out.” She says as she turns and walks away, I follow closely behind.

We walk for a while in the darkness before I see some light up ahead; I follow Faith and almost walk into her when she stops abruptly.

I look up ahead and see a little girl with long brown flowing hair, her clothes are scruffy, her blue jeans are very faded but I can tell it isn’t a style it is just that they are old, she is wearing a checked mans shirt that is obviously drowning her. On her feet are a pair of huge black boots that look like Doc Martins with steel toecaps. To finish the outfit she is wearing a faded blue puffer jacket with no sleeves. She is standing under a red brick tunnel, which I assume has trains running over it.

“That’s me, I remember this one… I ran away… Friday night, I had a run in with Gable before school then I got into some trouble at school for fighting… this tenth grader had been calling me stuff and I just went mad, started kicking and punching him… I was covered in blood and that… so I was being shouted at by the principle all afternoon then I got home and mom shouted at me too but then Gable got a hold of me and it wasn’t just yelling with him…” She stops talking as her younger self starts to scream again.

“I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” She screams whilst punching the wall.

“FAITH IS A LOSER, FAITH IS A WHORE, FAITH IS A BITCH, FAITH IS A BASTARD!” She switches from punching the wall to kicking it with her big black boots. The girl seems to go forever screaming things I cant make out. After what I think is about fifteen minutes she stops, leans against the wall and then slides down it. She pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them; she places her head on her folded arms and begins rocking back and forth sobbing uncontrollably.

I watch the girl and wonder why the memory hasn’t stopped yet, nothing more has happened except the girl rocking and crying.

Faith, the Faith from now that is, looks at me then looks down at the floor as if ashamed of something. I look up and see exactly what it is she is reacting to.

Little girl Faith is reaching for something on the floor, I don’t know what it is until the light catches it. It is a large piece of broken glass. The girl studies it for a time before she rolls up the sleeve on her shirt and then places it on her skin. She doesn’t do anything for a while just watches it.

She has stopped crying and seems to be concentrating on the glass in her right hand. I move closer to the girl to see what is going on. I stand next to where she is sitting and watch her for a while.

She runs the glass over her bare arm but nothing seems to have happened. She furrows her eyebrows and seems to put more pressure on it this time. She draws a little blood, not much just a graze really.

She puts the glass down and regards the small mark on her arm, it is about an inch long going up her left arm. She picks up the glass again and feels all the edges, I can only imagine that she is doing this to find the sharpest bit. She settles on an edge with a bit that sticks out in a sort of sharp looking triangle.

She looks around surveying the scene around her, I guess this is to check that she is still alone. She holds the glass tightly, her knuckles go white, she turns her left arm over so that the underneath is pointing towards the sky.

The tears are all gone and she doesn’t even look like she has been crying, she takes a deep audible breath and then puts more pressure on the glass, she starts at the inside of her elbow and stops about an inch from her wrist, somehow she misses her artery but blood begins the trickle down her arm.

Blood seeps out of her arm and small drops fall to the floor. She throws the glass away from her and it shatters into smaller pieces. She looks down at her arm and to my immense surprise a smile spreads across her face, not pain smile, not a menacing smile but a genuinely happy smile, a smile that a normal kid would have after they had been given praise by a parent.

The girl in front of me vanishes along with the wall and anything else I could see before. Everything is black again. Faith is still standing a few feet away from me. She is looking down at the black floor, her shoulders hunched.

I walk over to her and hug her, I don’t know what else to do… what the hell do you do?

“I never wanted you to find out about all this…” She says her head resting on my shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter darling, it’s in the past. None of this is your fault you know, everything you did… none of it was your fault… you are not a bad person Faith.” I say, I don’t know if any of that made sense but it was all I could think of.

Our hug is interrupted by the same young girl's voice crying out “NO!”

I take Faiths hand and we run towards the noise. We arrive in what looks like a bedroom although the only “bed” is a very old, worn, thin mattress on the floor in the corner. The room looks dingy and dirty. The girl is curled into a ball sitting up in the same position as she was when she was rocking before, but this time her head is covered by her arms as if she is protecting it.

I hear a noise and a man appears, he smells of alcohol and sweat. His thinning black, greasy hair is spread thin on his sunburnt head in a very bad comb over.

“YOU LITTLE BASTARD!” He screams as he slaps her arms.

“BITCH!” This time he kicks her legs and back.

“WHORE!” He shouts as he grabs her hair in his fist and then pulls her up by it. She squirms around screaming in pain. He hits out at her as she twists and turns from his grasp. Finally she is free, he has however taken a large chunk of her hair out and is dangling it around for her to see.

I can see the pain in her eyes. She gets up off the floor and bolts out the door.

“LOSER!” He screams taking off after her.

I suddenly feel very strange. It feels like I’m rushing through the air at high speed. I stop abruptly as I crash back into myself. Apparently no more memories today. I look up from my place on the floor not sure how I got there and see the large man from Faith’s last memory standing larger than life in the basement.