Okie, this one is intended as P/C, although largely inspired by several events occurring in my life. Consider this a post-insurrection story...but for those that haven't seen it, it doesn't reveal anything specific. In fact, it's really vague.

Death Throes

By: Alyssa Powell ([email protected])

She tossed and turned, tangling the covers in her unconscious effort to find
respite from the demons that tortured her. It was of no consequence; the demons still slashed at her soul, tearing it wide, bearing all her deepest secrets and private fears to their greedy, staring, evil eyes. The fears they could make reality.

The nightmares she had suffered from all her life struck periodically, inconveniently. Especially now, recently, every day for the past week. Every night since�

She awoke, finally, the demons backing off after having their fill of her crumbling sanity. Her scream echoed through the room, but she didn�t hear it. All she heard was the evil and terrible cackle of her attackers. All she saw was the fading remnants of the newest incarnation of a very old nightmare.

A high cliff�..it was always on a high cliff. She was with him, smiling at
him, watching him smile back. Then�.*she* comes into view, her dark hair flowing behind her, her mouth curved in a not-so-attractive smile of pure venom. He turns, caught by her siren�s song, mesmerized by an illusion, and slowly gravitates away and toward her. It�s an illusion she sees through, an incarnation of every nightmare her best friend ever shared with her. In his beauty, she sees every evil creature they have ever faced, every battle they have fought and lost. Every close call.

She sees everything that could take him away from her in the pale face of that small woman.

Then she loses her footing and falls, grasping at the cliff as she slides, achieving a handhold only through the grace of a protruding bush. A very small, protruding bush.

She calls, screams for help, but he never hears. He never looks to see where she has gone. He is lost to her, and she is lost to the world as her heart triples in weight and the bush gives. As she falls, she screams his name one last time�

He is there, holding her, rocking her, trying to comfort her, but she never notices. Night after night of the nightmare, night after night of the demons, the torture, the loss and the pain render her beyond salvation. Beyond help. Without hope. He is there, holding her with the same arms he held another with, and it is too much.

She has suffered her death throes, and all that is left is a hollow husk. The mind, the intelligence, and the soul had been torn to pieces.

And he doesn�t understand why his best friend won�t come home.

�

THE END