taxonomites | 10 | Location/Visual: Holo Taxon

She left her house, gloved hands clutching a glass dragon figurine--the token of a promised gift--to seek the man she needed to face.

She thought staying away might prolong her anxiety, but it only deepened. Only a few blocks from her house, she found someone else: a boy only a year or two younger than her, with a cute face and a warrior's eyes. "Connor," she breathed.

"Hey," he said in that deadpan, indifferent way he always spoke. He surveyed her with cool, squinted eyes. He didn't look a day older than she remembered him. "I'd say you look hot, but with the whole, you know, sting of betrayal thing..."

"Yeah," she answered quickly and took a step forward, understanding nothing. She was dreaming. Had to be. Unless... Unless she was back home. "What's happening?"

"Oh! Look who's back now that the lights are on!" said a voice, sharp and familiar, but it came from dead air. When she looked back at Connor, his glower looked as deadly as his father. All at once he spun on his heels, and ran.

She followed. "Hey, kid, wait up! Connor!" He slowed to a walk, but he did not look at her. On their walk through the dark, cloudy streets of Taxon, Gwen saw many things. The first was a group children on the side of the road, huddled together and whispering in hush, raspy voices. When she passed, each of their heads turned to watch her with dark, accusing eyes. She felt their hungry eyes upon her back even when they were far behind her. She saw a pale man with a twisted face and bleached blonde hair seated in a chair of wires and metal, and each time he flicked a switch, the machine shook violently and his skin bubbled and burned. She saw Fred--the twiggy little girl she kicked in the face, mumbling to herself and writing on the brick walls with broken bits of chalk and marker, except her hair was stained with blue. She saw a little boy in a big, blue toy car that did not move, and as they passed, she looked in the rusted window and saw that he was dead in the driver's seat, his blank, kind eyes surveying her with the innocent interest only a young boy could have. "Are you a freak?" his dead mouth moved to ask.

"Yes," she answered, the word catching in her throat.

"Good answer. I don't think he'd like being killed twice," said Connor, in a tone mixed with indifference and warning. "Maybe you should give him a gift. What about that?" He pointed to her hand, and dumbly, she looked down at the glass dragon. Its surface gleamed in the moonlight, swirling with milky white color.

"No," she whispered, not hearing her own voice. All around her, the mist seemed to fade in her struggle to regain some forgotten memory. She brought the figurine to her chest. "This is for someone else."

The tablet broadcasted from this nameless part of the city as suddenly an agonizing screech filled the air and Gwen was horrified to see the sky filled with dragons, all white and fire, and all with five toes. "They know you're here, now," said Connor, sadly. "I can't help you anymore. You can't get rid of them, like last time. They're made of rubber. Good luck, though."

Gwen turned to question him, but he was gone. The city seemed to melt around her. Metal liquified and spread into thick, silvery pools around her feet. Trees burned and their arms fell, defeated, to yellow grass. Thunder filled any silence left by the sky that was not filled by the hungry, bursting cries of dragons.

She ran.

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Jenna didn't recognize the boy, but she did know Gwen. It was good to see a familiar face when the unfamiliar was chasing her so harshly through the streets. She may not have been as fast a runner, but she was still going to try.

"Gwen!"

It was better than that blonde man with the crazy teeth who kept following her, or the Alaric who wasn't really Alaric.

The sound of her name was nearly lost in the din of the city, trapped amongst screams and echoes and rumbles. But Jenna was close enough for Gwen to catch it and glimpse her face--another dreamlike product of this world, at first, until recognition set in. Which was a good thing, because Gwen had her gloves off for this ride. There were all sorts of slimy creatures here that needed putting down.

But who the hell knew what was real and what wasn't? Gwen had no other choice to do what she had been doing: Go with it.

"Whoa. Hey there. Almost fried you." She gave the woman a wary look, peering behind her and wondering with dread and some annoyance what the woman brought with her. Whatever it was, it better not be made of rubber. "You having as much fun here as I am?"

Honestly, if Gwen had electrocuted her, Jenna wouldn't have blamed her for it. She caught up after a few moments, bending over to catch her breath.

"Glad you didn't," she admitted once she could breathe. Straightening up, she held her hands up in surrender. "I'm not a creepy vision, I swear, and probably not. But thank God I found a familiar face."

Though she might not show it, Gwen was glad to see a familiar face. Granted, most of the faces she saw were familiar, like the remnants of a dream. But most of those faces gave her little comfort. They weren't...Taxon.

Oh, God. Running from home and being comforted by people of Taxon. Was Taxon the home where the heart was? Gwen could have slapped herself.

"Me too. Those jackasses--" she began, pointedly yelling out the word to the skies in hopes they were listening-- "really know how to screw with us. I've seen some serious horror movie type stuff." She took a quick look around, eyes roaming the shadows. "You?"

Jenna couldn't blame Gwen for her word choice. It was pretty depressing to think about, too, that she'd rather be in Taxon than somewhere else. "About the same," she answered with a nod. "Maybe we should just... stick together if we can. Two might be easier to deal with than one."

Or two might make it that much more difficult. Who knew?

"It wouldn't hurt," said Gwen, thinking that as far as odds go, two could fend off a pack better than Gwen could alone. Unless the girl slowed her down. In that case? She would have to fend for herself. Gwen wasn't about to let the big scary things in the shadows get her. She'd made it this far.

"Don't really have a plan, here. It's more of a desperately-looking-for-an-exit-sign approach."

The nightmare belonged to Gwen, but there were familiar faces in among the black clouds and the flashes of lightning. Even the Angel Beast was there. Lurking in the background, just as he always did.

"That's my boy."

Two of her boys, in fact.

"My brother. My Spike."

She saw Angel too, lurking in the shadows. Sometimes he helped her. She often glanced back to see the vampire fending off the big bads behind her. Sometimes he was the one hunting her, crying for vengeance for betraying his son and the rest of his gang, calling her 'freak', saying he never should have trusted her. She even heard him say she was a bad kisser. That was how she knew all of this was some twisted Taxon dream.

"Yeah," she said, taking Drusilla for nothing more than one of the figments from back home. "He was having fun in the electric chair last time I saw him. Looking more undead than usual." That was another part of this place Gwen noticed. All the vampires were extra vampire-y, with the sharp fangs and ugly faces and unnatural speed. It was like living in some nightmare, where you ran like molasses and everything was ten time scarier.

There were times that Drusilla felt like a figment that had been dreamed up by someone else. She drifted through the false city like a wraith but she couldn't find anything to anchor her to one place now that the Angel Beast was gone. He'd call soon and she'd follow him without a second thought.

"Poor boy. He's waiting for a knight to get him out. He forgets, sometimes, that he never made one."

"Right," answered Gwen, rather dismissively. There was enough crazy happening in the city for Drusilla to just be another part of it. If the vampire was stuck here too, she was probably having a grand old time with her old pals. "Maybe you could help him," she suggested, even though she figured Spike was long gone.

If he was even there to begin with.

"Or, hey, if you come across our boy Angel and he seems like he's in a bad mood? Mind telling him to chill, for me?"

"I will."

But not tonight. Although the ghost had been beautiful, just like the real Spike, he wasn't solid and tangible enough for Drusilla. He couldn't chain her up and torture her until she screamed. She couldn't tease him and tear at him until they were both bright and bloody.

"Is he after you?" That was curious. "I heard an echo drawing me in, but I can't see him. I can't feel him."

She glanced off in the distance, into the darkness. "Sometimes," she answered, gloomily. "Guess he's as happy to be here as we are."

"He won't catch you," she commented. Not to be comforting, but because it was true. "No ghost can be as fast as my darling deadly boy."

Was an echo the same thing as a ghost? She wasn't certain, but the shadows stalking them weren't real and, for people other than Drusilla, dreams were considerably weaker than reality.

She...hadn't actually thought of that. So far, the boy seemed pretty damn fast. She never stopped to contemplate the whole...real versus not real thing, mostly because she never had the time in between breaths...but maybe Drusilla had a point.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, with a nod, and this time--not just to placate the vampire.

"You need basil," she suggested, "Holy plants always chase the ghosts away. Or was it vervain? They can't abide sweet smells. It reminds them of all the life they'll never get to live."

She was no longer talking to Gwen in particular but to the moon and the city in general.

10 | Location/Visual: Holo Taxon | Another One Bites The Dust

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