Chapter 1: Pain & Illusions

Title: Damaged Souls
Character(s): Dana (a vampire slayer)
Warnings: Violence
Pairings: None
Fandom: Angel the Series
Word count: 2,332
Rating: R
Disclaimer: (These characters belong to Joss Whedon, The WB, UPN, and FOX). Although I am emoting these characters I did not CREATE them. No copyright infringement is intended nor implied.

 

 

Chapter 1: Pain & Illusions

"Hmm... which one is it going to be today... let’s see here... We already tried yellow, and that was fun, wouldn't you say?" I could barely hear him, his words simply meaningless letters signifying nothing. Was he walking towards me? I couldn’t tell anymore. I couldn't tell from the cold or the warmth; my body simply numb, my knees touching my chin and the wall behind me supporting my frail, and naked form.

Slowly... losing all the pieces that were left, leaving behind the morbid aftertaste of death, and decay- and my mind lost, lost in the darkness that crept through the cracks of... wherever I was, and oozing from the walls was the foul stench of defecating and putrefied human flesh weighing heavy in the air. I couldn't remember what real food tasted like, or clean water... I couldn't remember what clean air smelled like, I couldn't remember what it was like to feel the soft touch of my mother- did I even have a mother? There was nothing left anymore for me but the acceptance of my fate. This was my life now, this was my home, all I knew. I couldn't imagine a different place... a different time, and yet in my dreams, sometimes... I saw things, things I didn't understand.

"How about we try the brow one this time, and maybe..." He finally came into view, no longer simply a voice in my mind. His hands holding a syringe filled with liquid. My eyes flickered in the dark, but it was only for a second, a trace of fear clung to them like a warm blanket simply because it was expected. And then there was the nothing that followed, the nothing that I had come to embrace- the nothing that shielded me from the world around me... the nothing that kept me alive.

"Maybe we mix the red along with it? You'd like that, won't you?" My eyes glossed a bit, and he became but a blur. I could feel his hands on me, but I wasn't exactly sure if they were. I never was these days. Suddenly there was a small prick on my skin. It radiated through out my body and then it was gone. "That's a good girl. Didn't even flinch this time. Must be getting used to it by now. Maybe we need to try something different next time."

His words were like echoes, it was as if the walls were talking to me and then I felt my body convulse and then a cold rush making my limbs so rigid I felt as if though they would snap. "I guess that was not the right combination... Oh well, maybe next time won't be so bad," He said with a chuckle. I heard the clinking of bottles. And then I felt as if though my body was floating through stale, heavy air. I tried to turn my head to the side and I realized I was laid on a table, a light shining bight on me and then another prick...

"Now... let's count back wards, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4..."

.........

Running... my feet bleeding from the cuts of the pavement. I didn't remember how long I had been running or how I had escaped. But I remembered the cold air hitting my body, so cold and then the lights, everywhere there was light... making the dark paths bright and illuminated. My mouth felt dry and I was weak, beads of sweat sprouting from my skin and spreading like a plague. But it was cold... so cold, and then... and then there was nothing more.

I only tasted dirt. Heard voices...

When I woke up again I was in a room, it was like a box and a strange smell, something... something I didn't know the name of flooded my senses. It reminded me of a hospital, like when...

I looked around me and nothing made sense, the cold was gone, and the warmth; there was no more darkness, only light... and the only noise that radiated through the room was the beeping sound a strange looking thing next to me made. I stared at it, watching the twinkling lights blink back at me, and then I realized that the noise and my heart kept the same pace. I closed my eyes once more and when I opened them again the room was dark, only the blinking light and the beep, beep, beep made friends with me.

Time... I didn't know how long it had been since I had first woken up in this place. People came and went, cleaned the sheets, talked amongst themselves and asked questions that I couldn't understand. Nothing made sense... there was only... the numbness. And then the days would go by, and things around me would change. And I would simply close my eyes and let the days go by, without fear, until the nightmares came. They were few and far between at first... monsters, men, voices, places and things that really made me scream and try to run away from them in the night.

Then I couldn't close my eyes anymore, because if I did, the nightmares would take over and then everything would be like it had been all those years ago.

"Shh... doesn't hurt if you hold still..." I couldn't go back to that. I couldn't let him take me back to that.

And then one day I did close my eyes and I saw fire, and I saw death, and I felt pain, but I also felt strength. But when I woke up I was no longer in the same place I had been before. I was in a room, my hands, my arms, all bound to the bed. I thrashed about, trying to break myself free but I was weak-- and then in the darkness they would come, and all I could remember was the cold and the dark.

"Brown makes you weak... yellow makes you sleepy... so, so, sleepy," All of them the same, hurting my skin, holding me and pushing me to edge of fear and madness.

And then nothing again...

.........

Don't be scared... don't be scared... don't be scared... "I don't care! I don't care. Giles, I'm sixteen years old. I don't wanna die." The chosen one... so young, life was just beginning, and also passing by, in the beat of a drum.

Death is your gift...

My heart racing, beating so fast it almost felt as if though it would leap up and jump into the abyss.

"From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Can stand up, will stand up. Slayers... every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?"

My eyes pierced through the darkness and I was able to rip my bounds with ease. I didn't feel weak any more, there was only the strength, and the high that came along with it. Then the images began to rush through my head, so vivid, so my own. Images of different times and different places. My voice was not my voice and yet it was the only one I had ever known. The world was not what I remembered and yet it was. I was simply woman... I was simply the Slayer. This was the only thing I knew for certain. I was no longer lost, I had a purpose.

"Heart and head... stab the heart, cut of the head, only way to be sure. Keep cutting until you see dust. Head and heart- don't be scared." I whispered softly in the dark.

I made my way to the door, and began to pound at it with my fist. The hinges shook... and creaked. I could hear voices on the other side... angry, scared and everything else, and it made me smile. They were afraid of me, and not the other way around.

"Lascilo fuori! Non potete mantenerli qui più... Ora sono forte, sono lo Slayer, quello Scelto. Lascilo fuori! Devo trovarlo, devo trovare tutti, devo uccidere tutti i vampires... i demons e sconfiggono le forze di nerezza. Lascilo fuori! Non potete mantenerli. Li ucciderò tutti per mantenerlo qui. Lascilo fuori!"

Suddenly the door flung open and I heard the clocking of a gun... and then there was only darkness once again.

.........

"It's all right, Dana. It's me, Dr. Rabinaw. Remember? Just take it easy. I want you to listen to me. You're very sick... and we just... want to make you better. OK?" Lies, all of them... lying through their teeth, lying like the vampires... pretending to be human.

I grabbed the gate, and he jumped back. He was afraid of me... all of them were. I pulled the gate off its hinges and tossed it down the hallway like a crumpled piece of paper. They all back away, slowly... needle in his hand, sticks to hold me down on the others, and they were all so afraid. One of them tried to hit me and I charged him, punched and kicked him, knocking him down. Another one grabbed me from behind, but I kicked the wall, using it to push myself off of it. The force of it sent us both back into the opposite wall, and it knocked him off of me. Another tried to come at me, but I grabbed him with ease and shoved his head through the glass window of a storage closet door, glass falling like glitter to the floor. I looked around, frenzied, alert, trying to find away out, my eyes searching for an escape, and instead they noticed a saw, just at the reach of my fingertips.

I took it and looked at it closely, remembering... the past... fear coming down on me like a blanket of pain. Then someone hits me on the head, but it doesn't quite hurt, just a buzz.

The rage takes over and the fear fades away like everything else. I turn around and without hesitation or fear or regret, I instantly slash the man's throat with the blade of the saw. He drops to the ground and I stare at him for a while, blood spilling onto the floor. His chest rising and falling... not quite dead yet... but he will be... I bent down, saw in my hand and I begin to cut, cut until I cannot recognize his face. Cutting until I see dust... but there is none.

.........

I woke up with a start, screaming at the top of my lungs. My face felt bruised and swollen. My lip still tender to the touch, and my arm already healed. I looked around the room. The place was dark and dank, reminding me of... I got up, and dusted myself off. Letting the slayer strength radiate through me. I wasn't the weak one anymore. I was strong, stronger than anything. I breathed deep, the room smelling so familiar like molasses. I closed my eyes and it felt like forever... memories of the past flooding my mind like a damn breaking from its place, and the dream- it lingered and evolved, was it all real? Did it all happen, I- I didn't know anymore.

For a second I tried to believe that it had all been just a nightmare, that I had simply woken up and everything made sense again, but it wasn't that way. I had been so lost, and now the dreams were catching up with me. There was nothing here for me anymore... I looked at my hands and there was blood... dried up, blood... no mine. Not my own.

.........

Doesn't hurt if you hold still. It doesn't. Hurt. Any. More. Heart and head... cut the head, stab the heart... until you see dust... Doesn't hurt if you hold still.

Just as bad as all the rest, all the vampires and the demons. He was just like all of them. Tried to help, tried to hold it back but he lied...

"Don't hurt me... I didn't do anything to you I swear!" Liar! "I didn't hurt you! It wasn't me." It's always him... haunting my dreams, my waking hours...

"Hold still... Don't be scared... if you're quiet I'll let you go." The saw in my hand... man, vampire, demon... all the same.

"What have I ever done to you?" There were tears in his eyes... and I wanted to reach out. But I simply couldn't.

"Everything..." And in a flash, there were no more tears, there were no more words, there was only blood. But it was not him, it was never him. In the end the illusion always disappeared.

"Well would you look at this... Hey Joe! We got a crazy in our hands... do we eat her now, or do we play with her first." Yellow eyes, faces of death. But they were the victim here. They were the ash that would be swept away by the wind.

"Keine Vampires... meine Opfer. Stück durch Stück... Verlieren aller Ihrer Stücke. Herz und Kopf... erstechen Sie das Herz, Schnitt des Kopfes, nur Weise, sicher sein. Schneiden Sie, bis Sie Staub sehen. Staub."

"Say what now?" And that was the last... no more vampires, only dust.

.........

...I walked out side, and I could hear the waves crashing somewhere in the distance. I couldn't stay here anymore. I didn't belong. The dreams were too strong now, I couldn't hide from them anymore. They called to me called me to Rome, pulling me deeper and deeper. Everything mixed together, the past the present, all of it in a ball pulling me in different directions except for the dream that was Rome. So still, so clear. Evil was there, and it called to me, the Slayer. It knew me, and it wanted me there. I had tried to escape it, and it always found me. And now... now I answered its call.