VII. Silent Screams

I feel like my entire body has been brought to flames and back again. The skin stretched almost unbearably tight over my body. Constricting my breathing, making the thud of my heart against my chest almost painful.

It's been a while. They left me here, stood and chained to the wall, my body sagging backwards against the cruel burning bricks. I can smell the stench of my own burning flesh, and I find myself idly wondering when they had it replaced. The last thing I remember is the pain of it being ripped whole from my body. And then nothing.

Suddenly, the door smashed open, the streaming light of hell streaming through the frame and smacking me full in the face, making me blink several times because I haven't seen light for what seems like a thousand years.

There's someone stood in the door frame. A girl. Short and perfectly formed, from what I can tell by her silhouette, and a sudden burst of hope erupts underneath me. Maybe she's here to set me free, maybe she's here to help me.

She saunters into the room, my cell, the lantern she'd brought with her being placed on the floor by her feet, lighting her face and body up to me.

A large gash in her forehead oozes blood at a tremendous rate, short spurts pistoning out of the slash with ever pulse her heart makes. The liquid runs down her face, covering the right side in crimson, making the feral look on her features seem so much more deadly.

Her clothes have random slashes and slides over them, each raveling another cut, and each of them bleeding. She looks bruised, tormented, almost broken. Her hair hanging in thick matted dreadlocks, held together by her own blood. The over all effect of this girl, being one of primal, predatory power.

Kicking the door shut again behind her, she looks at me, her cold and almost dead eyes riveting into mine, almost burning me within at the look of pure hatred she's gracing me with. And I know she's not here to help me.

"You." She growls out to me, her voice low and husky. Literally growling, a snarl and sneer fixing her features into disdain at my mere existence. As if my very breathing offends her in some way. But I don't know this girl, I've never seen her before in my life.

The raven haired beauty that slowly, calculatedly, pulls a knife from behind her. The double blade of the weapon beautiful, exquisitely graved and crafted as the glow of her lantern flashes over the cool metal. Her eyes lower to the knife for a moment, in almost a loving caress, before coming back to my face.

"You killed her." She whispers to me, something in her voice telling me that whatever I did to her, whatever action I took, destroyed a part of her. A part she was about to carve out of my skin.

the scream that arose drowned out the pain of the other sufferers in this hell. It wrapped around every being's ears, causing painful shivers to rush down their spines, making them feel even slightly grateful that whoever was torturing that poor bastard, wasn't torturing them.

For hours the screams carried on, weaving themselves almost painful over the hills and buildings, streets and roads of the dimension. Causing the people who worked there to stop, and smile a small smile of satisfaction at the pain that was being inflicted.

If only they knew.

she moved away from me, breaking away from my agony for just a moment as I breathed in deeply and harshly, ignoring the feeling of my lungs, being ready to explode from constriction.

The tears were flowing freely down my face, marring the pale skin in invisible scars and cooling my heated flesh. If only they would fall to my chest.

She'd been here forever, silently watching me and almost lapping up my screams, they became so tangible. Almost as if you could cut through them with a knife. The smell of my own blood fermenting the air, making me gag at the coppery taste that lingered around us.

She hadn't said a word to me for hours. Since she first came in here with me. The word 'Tara' leaving her lips mere moments before she took that beautiful blade and dug it deeply into the flesh of my thigh, twisting it and swiftly yanking it upwards. Creating a cavernous gapping hole to appear in my leg. I recall watching dully as my blood gushed over my skin, flooding the floor beneath my feet.

The time in which she'd been here spent making almost all of my body one great big network of bruising, burns and open wounds. She took a lighter to that first rip in my thigh. Kneeling before me as she slowly worked the flame over ever square inch of the bared inner muscle, a cold smile washing over her face as I begged for her to stop.

She walked over to the corner of the room, where she'd set up some sort of fire in a small metal bin. Numerous fire pokers being shoved into it, the handles protruding at various angles and they were heated by the small flames. She looked into he fire, her arms folded across her chest as she remembered something I no doubt had never been a part of.

"I want to take your life, in penance for hers." She said softly to me, the only part of her body that moved was her mouth. Her eyes still locked onto the unseeable point in her past. "You stole her from me, from us." She turned to look at me then, her bitter hatred welling up in her eyes as she wrapped her fingers around the handle of one of the pokers.

"I.. I didn't.. mean to.." I gasped out. It being so long since I used my voice for something other than screaming in pain. My throat burned at the effort and trying to talk, attempting to beg for her to stop.

"do you think I care about whether you meant to kill her or not?" slowly stalking me through the flickering shadows of the room, and I suddenly wished I hadn't tried to get her to stop. I had a feeling that she would just cause me more pain if I tried to.

Placing the burning tip of the poker on my chest, she smirked at the yelp I let out at the short, sharp point of heat. It stung, and the smell of my own flesh singing was disgusting. But it was nothing compared to what she'd already done to me.

I looked up at her just in time to see her smirking ferally at me again, before she reached her arm back and shoved the poker brutally straight through my chest. My mouth opened in a silent scream as I found myself unable to breathe, unable to talk, unable to make a single noise.

Was I dead? I couldn't hear my heart beating. But I guess this is the place where you don't die. Because my eyes are still open, still watching her as she moved to get another poker, staring at the tip with a critical eyes, before she spun around and threw it at me.

The point landing right in my hip, the force breaking and cracking the bone beneath as it fought to hold purchase in my flesh. I felt it slipping, ready to fall, before she was grabbing the handle of it and shoving it right through my hip bone, effectively pinning me to the wall behind me.

Explosions of fantastical color burst from behind my mind at the pain, tendrils of agony running through my very veins, pulsating into every single cell of my body as I fought to breathe, prayed to pass out, and silently begged with my eyes for her to stop.

Leaning back against the wall next to the door, I let my eyes roam over his body, feeling almost a child-like glee erupting from my chest at the sight of him. The most promising part of it all being the dozen or so burning hot pokers I'd effectively managed to shove right through his body, pinning him to the wall.

The chains were obsolete now, as two pokers were brutally shoved through his wrists, elbows, knees and feet. Rivers of blood joining with the tides and oceans of crimson liquid that seemed to be on never ending supply from his body, as it freely flowed down his flesh, coating him with a sickly pinkish glow.

He was still awake, unable to talk or to breathe, but still there, his head resting backwards against the wall as he watched me, as I watched him. I smiled mirthlessly as every twitch his body made caused a flash of agony to wash over his facial features.

"Faith, it's time to go now." Skips voice resounded softly inside my head, and I realized that the demon who had the exquisite pleasure of torturing this son-of-a-bitch for eternity was coming back.

I walked back over to the bin of burning ambers and molten lava in the corner. Silently thanking skip for providing me with such raw materials, before grabbing it and lifting it off the floor. I could feel his eyes on me as he watched the sizzling steam arise from my hands. Grabbing the rim of the bin with one hand, I took hold of the bottom rim with the other, and walked over to stand directly in front of him.

"I hope you rot here, you son of a fucking bitch." I said, smirking evilly at him, as I threw the contents of the bin onto him.

I stood there, reveling in the sight of his flesh almost melting from his skin, his left eye banging inside of his head and taking half of his face with it. of the muscles on his stomach bubbling outwards and popping softly like small pimples. Spilling lava blackened blood over his body.

Sliding my knife back into the sheath on my belt, I took one last look at him, before quietly slipping out the door, to find skip waiting for me, ready to map me back to my hell-home.

I found myself idly wondering what the demon would say when he saw the destruction I left behind.

VIII.Va-grant (vgrnt)

She held the blade loosely in between her finger and thumb, shifting it slowly from side to side as she looked at it's glinting surface in the pale moonlight. She could make out the shallow lines hastened into the flat surface, and abjectly wondered why, if so marred by its making, should it feel so soft to touch, so smooth.

The diamond shape that coursed down the center of the razor blade left shallow indentations of pressure over her finger tips, and she ran them over the aperture, digging her flesh harsher, almost smiling at the soft, rippling sensation that raced into her wrist and gently blossomed out over the muscles that lay beneath the skin.

Rolling up her sleeve, she prolonged the moment before her entire forearm was revealed. Glistening white skin shimmers with streaks of moonshine. The delicate rays of ether-glow, rebounding off the downy blonde hairs, creating flutters of flocculent shadows, weaving breakable patterns over the appendage.

She grasped the small silver blade more firmly within her hold, taking a moment to once again relish the compression within her digits, before apathetically laying the tiny corner on the underside of her limb. Her breathing almost coming to a complete halt as she stared at the bitter sweetly beautiful image before her eyes.

The palest expanse of cool, smooth skin, seemingly flowing, changing, breathing over her forearm, a stunted indentation in the river of her flesh, where the miniscule but deadly blade was applying the smallest amount of pressure underneath it's point.

The muscles within the extremity holding the razor seemed to move of its own accord. The shoulder cramping slightly, holding the elbow steady as that, in turn, shifted the wrist. The complex series of movements creating a slow, sweeping action with the cutlass.

She watched in abject fascination as a small crevasse seemed to blossom her skin apart, the sight of her raw flesh beneath causing her to gasp gently. To see what makes us is a powerful drug, one that is not easily quenched and quickly covered up. As so the slice in her arm swiftly fills with blood, the swallow cut spilling but one drop onto untouched skin.

Lost within the beauty of her actions, and powerful notion of utter control, she felt a void, at the misplacement of her reason. Although breathtaking to sight and almost heart stopping to watch, the pain she craved was forfeit to the vision before her.

Moving on to another area of, as of yet, untouched skin, she quickly sliced, a soft hiss escaping her as she refused to focus not on the image, but on the pain. A deep lying, resounding physical anguish at the sensation of her skin being split open like ripe fruit before her.

An almost tidalic wave of sharp, shooting pain vibrated within the appendage, causing the hairs on her skin to stand on end. The shadows that lay a gentle breeze of grass shapen pattern across her flesh now becoming nothing more than pin pricks of darkness, washing over her, as the blood quickly raced towards gravity.

The slight feeling of agony that had started to fade, pressing her on, making her move the blade once more over her skin and add laceration after laceration upon her outer, tormented shell. A delicate yet bitterly alluring constellation of slices weaved an intricate impression across her arm.

Streaks and small rivers of crimson liquid converging into one oceanic waterfall, cascading from limb to sand, as the patterns in her mind became a reality on the canvas of her own body. Swirling images of dark, blood stained designs galloped through her mind, without knowledge being transferred to her arm and instantly dismissed as another took its place.

Time stood still with that blade, tracing its way over her skin, drawing lacerations that were unconsciously planned, ripping hairs from their roots, and the reddest blood she had ever witnessed from her veins. Pain forgotten as the part of her mind that was usually so quite and submissive took over, controlling her limbs, commanding her muscles, weaving that tiny implement of death.

The pain was all but forgotten, the beauty dismissed and the liquid that now coated her skin in a slick sheen unnoticed, as she turned her arm this way and that, attempting to reach any area of her forearm that was missed, and not yet 'drawn' upon.

Her breathing came out ragged, as she slowed to a stop, having found herself out of the canvas she had now become accustomed to using, her heart beating out a temperal rhythm within her chest. The world slowly came back into focus. The moon draping the beach with it's gentle light, the waves as they quietly caressed the sandy shores.

And the points of pressure in her fingertips, where the pads of her digits pressed tightly into the diamond shaping of the center of the blade. The resounding and constant throbbing of her arm, it yelling out its protest against being abused as such.

She clenched her fingers into a fist, attempting to either alleviate the ache, or to intensify it. Not knowing which. Her digits slipped over each other, causing her to look at the offending limb. She startled slightly, to see it covered in her own lifeblood, the crimson aqueous material covering her entire forearm in rivers that bled into each other.

Her eyes turned towards the sand beneath her, her eyes roaming freely over the splattering of deep darkness over the sands, knowing in the morning that all traces of her ever being here would be washed out to sea. Yet the cravings on her arm being testament to her endeavor.

She rose slowly, using her unmarred hand to once again drape the razor blade around her neck with its chain, and pushing that hand into her pants pocket. Her eyes lazily traveled the gently breaking waves of the ocean in front of her, causing her hair to shift in the wind.

Looking down once more, at her crude blood splatters on the dusty sand, she started the gentle walk back towards the town.

Unwittingly forever leaving her beautifully soulful markings upon the sand, where she rested for just a while.

IX. Torture Me

The sea wind blew in from her right, causing her hair to fly around her head, slapping her in the face. but she didn’t care. She didn’t bother to move the strands that clung defiantly to her cheeks and lips, she just watched the road at her feet, as she made the long walk back into town.

It’d become a habit for her, ever since Faith had died, for her to wander down to the beach front and listen to the sound of the surf hitting the sand after she’d finished patrolling. She hardly ever got any sleep, but she didn’t care. All she ever did when she closed her eyes was dream of Faith anyway.

Sometimes she’d see visions of the picnics they used to have on Sundays on the college campus, of a night that seemed like years ago when they went to the fair. Hanging out in the local pizza place, bantering back and forth over the good sides of ham and pineapple versus pepperoni pies, drinking coke until they thought it would come out of their noses with laughter.

But most of the time, she’d dream of her in the eye of that storm. Writhing in pain, reaching up to her with tears running down her face. of the last look she gave to her. Tendrils of blue electricity wrapping themselves around her body, scratching the flesh they touched. Her mouth, opened in a silent scream. And her voice, carried softly on the wind, so soft and quiet it was as if she’d whispered those final words directly into her mind.

And every single night she’d save her. Do something different. Run faster, be stronger, get there sooner. But it didn’t matter, because the one time it counted, she couldn’t do a thing but watch her best friend fade before her eyes.

And then bury what was left behind.

“Hello slayer.” The sound of spike’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, bringing her back to a reality that no longer held any comfort for her. She’d reached dock town without realizing how far she’d walked.

“Not tonight spike,” she sighed heavily, wishing she was anywhere but here. Because although she knew rationally that it wasn’t his fault, she knew that if he could have held doc off for longer Faith would still be here. The measure of her anger towards him was irrational at best. “I’m really tired.”

“You’re always tired slayer.” He lit up a cigarette, pocketing his lighter and leaning against a street light as he looked at her. “Ever since short, dark and psychotic took a header off that tower you’ve..”

his words were cut off as his body was slammed so hard against the nearest wall, he knew he wouldn’t be able to breathe if he had any breathe left. Buffy’s deceptively small hand was around his throat, baring down on his neck with a strength that could and probably would crush his wind pipe.

Slowly, she slide him up the wall, his leather jacked scraping against the bricks with the pressure. He looked down into her face and saw nothing but a cold fury that raged so completely inside of her eyes, that seemed to burn her from within and consume her very soul. For once in his life he had the decency to be terrified.

“She died saving your life. She died saving us all. She *died* a HERO! So if I ever, *ever* hear you disrespecting her again? I will personally tear your head right from your neck.” She lowered him to the curb again, and it was only when his feet touched solid ground again did he realize that a stake was pressing into his skin, right where his heart was. “I should have staked you the moment I hit the ground.”

She shoved him back against the wall, releasing him and turning away, shaking her head as she continued her walk back into town.

“I think that’s a bit harsh!”

“you think that’s harsh?! If it weren’t for you, she’d still be alive you fucking *ass*hole!”

the look of contempt dropped from his face, his hands falling to his sides and his entire body seemed to droop and wither before her very eyes.

“I know.” When he looked back up at her, his eyes seemed so defeated, watery and hollow.

“There’s nothing you can say to me, that I haven’t already said to myself buffy.”

The blonde slayer stood there, her arm still slightly stinging as it healed into oblivion, and watched the vampire walk slowly off into the darkness. A part of her telling her she should comfort him, should try to make him feel slightly better.

The rest of her was too busy trying to comfort herself to help him.

X. Release

“Skip, will you just stop *hovering* over me?” for a demon so big, the guy could really flutter about the place if he wanted too. A short while after he’d brought Faith back to her make shift apartment, he’d been called away and shimmered out of there, leaving the brunette on her own for a few days.

The time away from him, as he’d been pretty much spending days with her before she left to find that killer, he’d spent attempting to stop her from going, warning her of the consequences should she have been found. Apparently, the demons who worked down here, weren’t like the demons from her home dimension.

The ones back on earth were all tainted by humanity at one point or another. The only ‘pure’ demon that had ever existed after the time of the old ones, being the mayor. But here, here every single demon that worked for the place was pure. Bigger, stronger, faster. and so much more crueler than the ones she’d come to know and hate.

If  they’d caught her, she wouldn’t have been getting out of here alive at all. Everyone but the prisoners here were willing to just look the other way while she tried to get out. Not that they were exactly happy about that, which is why all their charges had been running all over the dimension since she got here.

They didn’t want her to escape anymore than their charges. But the rules are the rules, and by their own laws she must be allowed a fair change of getting out and getting home. But that doesn’t mean they can’t set their charges on her.

Skip had shimmered back in here about an hour ago, muttering under his breathe and pointing at her occasionally, as he paced across her floor. she didn’t exactly know what was going on, but she got the impression that it was her fault.

Call her a glutton for punishment.

“I would, except now? The rules have changed. Or at least, some of the rules have changed.”

“What the hell you talking about?”

“Oh nothing. Just that the demon that was to torture warren’s really pissed off with you, because hey, his new charge has no skin left so now he has to heal, which means the demon in charge of warren, who’s called malic by the way, has nothing to do for a couple of years.”

“So what’s all this gotta do with me?”

“Well the fact that malic and a couple of his buddies have decided to join in the fight against you escaping might have something to do with you.”

“They don’t stick to their rules much, do they?” Faith jumped out of her chair and headed over to her weapons chest, flinging it open and pulling out weapons at random. Quickly looking at them and then laying them to the side of her chest.

“Well… the rules you see, they’re.. well they’re more like… guidelines, you see.”

Great! Fan-fucking-tastic! Could my life get any fucking worse right now?

“Well er.. as malic and his crew are heading over to the main office to find out exactly where you’re hidden away down here? I’d say yeah. Yeah, it really could.”

“will you *please* stop listening to me think!” skip held up his hands in the age old gesture of surrender as she turned back around and started to calculate in her head how many weapons she could carry, and how many weapons she could throw away after she’d finished using them.

Swords? Unless some fucker snaps the blade, I’ll only need one. Crossbow? Too long to load, leave it. longbow? An evil grin settled across her face as she picked up the quiver full of arrows. She might not have been all one with the magic like willow and tara, but she’d learnt a few things. Useful things. Like how to make a quiver of bows last forever.

Stripping off her vest and pants, she strode to her closet and pulled out a pair of dark brown and heavily beaten up leather pants. They might not look like much, but they’d saved her life on more than one occasion. Besides, they made her ass look great, as well as being really comfortable to slay in.

“You seriously gotta wear leather? In *hell*?” she threw skip a look before yanking on a new pair of boxers, before sliding the cool material over her legs and snapping the button shut. She dragged on a sports bra, putting a new white vest over the top, before slowly, lovingly sliding the matching dark brown leather jacket off it’s hanger.

Lifting it to her nose she took a huge nose full of that old beaten up leather smell, releasing it’s smell and feeling comforted by it.

She’d made a few adjustments to it since she’d started to pack a lot of weapons back home on earth. Just on the right shoulder blade there was a slice in the material, that was hemmed  around the edges to stop the leather from fraying or cracking. Inside, diagonally across the back was the sheath for the sword she always loved using.

Walking back across the room to her weapons chest, pulling on the jacket as she went, she bent down and slowly pulled out a sword that was tightly wrapped in an old length of silk. She took her time slowly unwinding the material from her sword, watching as inch by inch of the silver blade was revealed.

Intricate designs were woven into the metal, swishes and slices, wreaths of laurel leaves and designs which only her best friend could ever have come up with. The handle was padded leather, a length of gold thread wrapped around it to hold it in place.

She stood there, turning the blade this way and that, watching in pat fascination as the light in the room glinted off the metal. Buffy had gotten this for her for her 19th birthday. They’d hired out a corner of the espresso pump and all sat around listening to music and drinking, watching as Faith took each present in turn and unwrapped them all. This was the last one to emerge from the pile.

It had come in a darkly stained wooden box, with the words ‘Heroes are born, not made’ engraved over the top. And inside the box lay this beautiful piece of weaponry, shinned and buffed to perfection, laying in a bed of satin.

Yanking herself back out of her thoughts, she took firm grip on the handle and flipped it upwards, grabbing the tip of the blade and dropping it into the sheath hidden in her jacket.

Slinging her quiver over her head and tightening the straps around her chest, then quickly snapping her bow over her head and chest too, she looked up at skip and gave him a soft smile. No, he didn’t want her to leave, but not because he wanted her to stay here. Because he was terrified that she’d not make it out alive. He’d told her that if she died trying to get out of here, she’d never get out at all. That it didn’t matter where her afterlife was supposed to be, if she died down here, it would be the last place she’d ever be.

“Don’t worry skip.” She strapped a knife to the outside of each of her ankles, before picking up a sort of utility belt and clipping it around her waste. On it it held the knife that the mayor had given her, a bottle of holy water and enough stakes to pin a tail on every demon standing between her and the exit. “I won’t be coming back.”

She leaned over, silently thanking him for all he’d done for her and gave him a short, one armed hug, before walking over towards her front door and looking out of it. it was night here, the streets and alleyways darkened and hidden in enough shadow to get her to the edge of the city.

She looked over her shoulder at him one last time, before slipping silently out of the door and shutting it behind her.

“That’s what I’m afraid of kid.” The big red demon said, taking a look around Faith’s apartment, even as it began to fade and shimmer back to its original, decaying self. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

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