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Red	By : Prophecy Category: -Buffy the Vampire Slayer > General Views: 5499 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
In the distance is a line defining where I've been—the state I'm in

And ever since it began to slip from my two hands I've been

Taunting fires, touching wires, been believing liars.

Everything they said, painted in red.

I am fading in and out—

What are you gonna do?

Save me now, from this danger?

You don't know how.

I'll find my way out when I'm in the red.

Listening to strangers inside my head,

The darkening angels beneath the bed.

I still see what you said.

What are you gonna do?

No way for you to save me.

- Sara Bareilles, “Red”

Chapter Seven: Double Feed

It hurt more than it ought to hurt

I went to work to cultivate a callus

And now I'm hard, too hard to know

I don't cry when I'm sad anymore, no no

Tears calcify in my tummy

Fears go inside a bottle

How can I ask anyone to love me

When all I do is beg to be left alone?

- Fiona Apple, "Left Alone"

I stare at the wall.

It’s dark, old fashioned stones like you’d see in a dungeon on TV. But this isn’t TV, this is real life, and her pale, dead flesh haunts my brain. It’s been two weeks, maybe. Three? I’m not sure how long ago I gave up counting the days. Consciousness comes and goes, pushing and pulling me back and forth. Sometimes it feels nice, like a gentle wave lulling me to sleep, and I know my body is telling me to let go, that it’s okay. Let go, little firecracker. Soar through the sky or maybe crash down into flames. I used to be afraid of hell, but not anymore. Compared to here, hell would be a welcome relief.

The rest of the time, the sea is angry and violent, ripping at my soul and pulling me into the undertow, twisting and wrenching, slamming and bending me until I break. I come screaming back to life with every muscle in my body on fire, and each time I disappear in a haze of needles it gets harder and harder to come back.

Vaguely, I can feel the worn straps pinning me in place, but this time the shocks don’t come. The people don’t come. Nothing comes except a steady drip, drip, drip from the IV bag in my arm. I guess it’s keeping me alive in between the rushing heat of the drugs, and I want to pull it out and say goodbye, but I think my drippy friend can read my mind. Every time I manage to raise my arm, the gentle whoosh comes again and pulls at the back of my neck like a magnet until my eyes close.

The clock on the wall tick-tick-ticks away the seconds, blurry and moving backwards sometimes. Back and forth, back and forth. Drip-drip-drip. Tick-tock, tick tock, the mouse ran up the clock.. That’s me, a little mouse, scuttling around, jumping at every noise. No. More like a rat in a cage. Poke me, prick me, cut me, study me. Slice up my brain and figure out where I went wrong. Joke’s on them when they find out that it was all a mistake, me being Chosen. That my calling was a wrong number and there’s nothing to learn here. Just another fucked up piece of trailer trash who stumbled into someone else’s destiny. Faith, Faith the mistake, a mistake since birth. Unwanted, unloved, uncontrolled, undeserving.

My mom came home drunk one night. Whupped my ass back and forth across the kitchen a few times before the booze sleep hit her and she laid down in front of the fridge. I wiped the blood from my mouth and grabbed her ankles, my scrawny little bird-wings straining and my knobby knees wobbling as I used every ounce of my 9-year-old strength to drag her across the floor.

It was easy enough, really, until the doorway to the living room. The cheap metal plate that held the edge of the carpet down popped beneath her weight and snagged the skirt she was wearing. I tugged her over the threshold and the skirt flipped up over her legs. She wasn’t wearing any underwear and I set her legs down gently, turning my head away in shame. Face burning with humiliation, I un-snagged the skirt and stepped over her lifeless body, grabbing her wrists instead and struggling to turn her in the doorway before resuming the long trek to the couch. I made it, finally, and laid her to rest in front of the couch, knowing there was no way to get her onto it. Instead, I put a blanket over her and draped the excess off the edge of the couch and put a pillow at one end. When she woke up, she’d just think she fell off the couch in her sleep.

I sat down a foot away from her head, curling up into myself and resting my chin on my knees, watching her. Hating her. Missing her. Being scared of her, being scared for her. I wanted someone to come and take me away and at the same time I was terrified that they would.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The glowing red digital numbers pushed us unceremoniously and silently into the next hour, and still I waited. I passed the time by imagining all the bloody, awful revenge I would exact on the kids at school, on my mother’s boyfriends, on all the people who had ever hurt us. While my mind swam in pools of blood, relishing every imagined drop, my mother began to wake.

Her mascara was clumped up on her eyelashes and her makeup was smeared around her face and lips. The eyeliner was smudged, accentuating the permanent bags that lived under her eyes. She opened her eyes and it took a minute for hers to find mine. I just sat there, quietly looking back, my chin on one knee and my left hand busy peeling a scab off my other knee.

She coughed a few times before her throat was clear enough to speak, and when she did her voice was hoarse but gentle.

“My little firecracker..”

I hated that gentle voice. I never knew what to expect from it. It might be getting ready to beat me, or to drop me off at the house of some uncle I’d never heard of before that probably wasn’t really my uncle. Or it might want to play Mama. That was the only time I didn’t mind that voice; when it wanted to be my Mama, the nice one, the one that hugged me and colored with me and took care of me.

She slowly sat up, swaying a little, and sat back against the front of the couch, looking at me. She shook her head a little. “Won’t be able to call you that for much longer, will I?”

I lifted my head off my knees, feeling a rush of panic in my heart. That was one of the only good things I had. I was her little firecracker, and it was good, and I didn’t want it to ever go away. “Why not?”

She reached out and cupped my chin, tilting my head up to look at her. “You’re gettin’ to be such a big girl. You’ll be all grown up soon, and you won’t be my little firecracker anymore.” She pulled me into her lap and hugged me. Instinctively, I tensed at first, but quickly whatever anger and resolve I had melted away and, grateful to have this Mama here with me (at least for awhile), I laid my head on her chest and curled up against her.

I felt small in her arms; I felt safe and confined and tiny. Not a firecracker, but a mouse. A meek little mouse, crawling up her Mama. Up the clock, up the walls. Scrambling desperately, trying to cover the distance that always grows between us.

I opened my tiny mouse mouth and I stretched up until my lips reached her ear. I put my hand up against her cheek to keep the secrets from escaping and I whispered, “I’m never gonna be too big to be your little firecracker. Pinkie promise.”

I hooked my skinny little pinkie finger around hers and we kissed our thumbs. I settled against her chest again, and I relaxed.

She rocked me slowly back and forth, the swaying lining up with her heartbeat thudding against my cheek. I closed my eyes, tapping my finger against her chest with the same cadence.

Back and forth, back and forth.

My mother had a beautiful singing voice, something she never shared with anyone but me. Her voice was soft when she started singing, smoothing my hair back from my forehead and rocking me gently.

I drifted off to sleep, feeling safe for the first time in my life.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me..”

Back and forth, back and forth.

The dungeon walls grow clear again. Footsteps leaving and heavier ones growing closer.

Thud-thud, thud-thud.

Please.. don’t go away, don’t leave me. Stay here and protect me..

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

I’m not done yet. I’m not ready to go. “Time’s up, Faith.”

Tick.
Tick.
Tock.

We all leave.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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