Lo, How the Mighty Have Fallen [bocadelinferno]
I was so sure that I'd been dead for only a few weeks at the most. Then, when my clothes were completely dry, I went into town to find a newspaper. It gave me the shock of my new life.
I'd been gone for years. Faith would be a woman grown, now... Damn it! Damn that creature, it should have warned me about time differences. She could be anywhere by now, across the country or around the world.
I went to the library - honestly, was staring really necessary, it wasn't as if they'd never seen a homeless person before - and ran a search on the most likely place that came to mind as a place to start looking for Faith: Sunnydale, California, home of the exceedingly lucky, if improbably named, Slayer Buffy Summers. However, I discovered that it would have to be the last place to look, as it seemed to have collapsed into a crater. So much for that hellmouth, it seemed.
After that I stayed in the house for the better part of a week. I located the secret compartments in my bedroom and was pleased to discover that no one else had found them. Too bad I had never found storing extra sets of clothing to be very important. I did, however, now have in my possession a knife, a cross, a stake, holy water, most of my books, a tin of biscuits of questionable edibility, and three bottles of whiskey. The biscuits I discarded after finding them unpalatable, but the tin I kept. I also found a small amount of cash, but not really enough to buy more than a few meals.
And, as I had no real sources of identification, I discovered I was going to be at a severe disadvantage in my quest for Faith. Quest for Faith. How...decidedly metaphysical sounding it was. To find her...and perhaps find some way to exorcise my nightmares.
That's what I used the whiskey for: drinking myself into a stupor provided a few hours of dreamless sleep every night, but never for a whole night. The dream was always the same. Kakistos. Pain. Blood. My own screams and my own death, over and over again. And sometimes...when I couldn't wake up soon enough...I'd see her face. The fear and the anger...the pain. Those were the times I woke up sobbing instead of screaming, and it hurt so much worse then.
As much as I hated to admit it, my best chance of locating her was contacting the Council, and the least practical, yet least messy, way of doing that would be going to England. Exactly how I would accomplish it with no money, no ID, and with everyone believing me dead, I wasn't sure, but I would get there somehow. Probably through methods of questionable legality, but when one was alternatly eating out of dumpsters or stealling from boxing in the supermarket, legality was entirely irrelevant.
I'd been gone for years. Faith would be a woman grown, now... Damn it! Damn that creature, it should have warned me about time differences. She could be anywhere by now, across the country or around the world.
I went to the library - honestly, was staring really necessary, it wasn't as if they'd never seen a homeless person before - and ran a search on the most likely place that came to mind as a place to start looking for Faith: Sunnydale, California, home of the exceedingly lucky, if improbably named, Slayer Buffy Summers. However, I discovered that it would have to be the last place to look, as it seemed to have collapsed into a crater. So much for that hellmouth, it seemed.
After that I stayed in the house for the better part of a week. I located the secret compartments in my bedroom and was pleased to discover that no one else had found them. Too bad I had never found storing extra sets of clothing to be very important. I did, however, now have in my possession a knife, a cross, a stake, holy water, most of my books, a tin of biscuits of questionable edibility, and three bottles of whiskey. The biscuits I discarded after finding them unpalatable, but the tin I kept. I also found a small amount of cash, but not really enough to buy more than a few meals.
And, as I had no real sources of identification, I discovered I was going to be at a severe disadvantage in my quest for Faith. Quest for Faith. How...decidedly metaphysical sounding it was. To find her...and perhaps find some way to exorcise my nightmares.
That's what I used the whiskey for: drinking myself into a stupor provided a few hours of dreamless sleep every night, but never for a whole night. The dream was always the same. Kakistos. Pain. Blood. My own screams and my own death, over and over again. And sometimes...when I couldn't wake up soon enough...I'd see her face. The fear and the anger...the pain. Those were the times I woke up sobbing instead of screaming, and it hurt so much worse then.
As much as I hated to admit it, my best chance of locating her was contacting the Council, and the least practical, yet least messy, way of doing that would be going to England. Exactly how I would accomplish it with no money, no ID, and with everyone believing me dead, I wasn't sure, but I would get there somehow. Probably through methods of questionable legality, but when one was alternatly eating out of dumpsters or stealling from boxing in the supermarket, legality was entirely irrelevant.