HAPPILY EVER AFTER
by Nic (stardestiny@bigfoot.com)
December 1999




The place of shadows did not exist, yet it did.  It was one of the
universe's greatest contradictions, a great secret which held a
great tragedy.  Body upon body upon body was stored within it, each
soul locked beyond time.  Once, they had been mourned, yet as the
eons passed, those who cared for them forgot, moved on, and the
tragedy remained.

Yet it was the nature of the universe to promise happily ever after
to everyone, although it very rarely worked out.  So the forms of
those were collected in a place beyond the literal universe,
somewhere which existed so far ahead and before and with the
present time, so that someday, through the forgotten dreams of
those who once cared for them, they could be reawoken.

It was in this place that Blair Sandburg found himself.

Naturally, he had no idea where he was or even why he was.  The
last thing he recalled was closing his eyes to rest, a way of
passing the monotonous train journey to his new life and hoping
that sleep would halt the unending tumbling of his thoughts.  He
certainly hadn't expected to wake up in a place that wasn't like
anything he'd ever seen.

For one thing, the walls.  They weren't there.  But they were at
the same time, it was most definitely a closed in space filled with
light and shadow, magic tunnels of a sort.  "This is too weird,"
Blair muttered to himself, the sound of his own words filling the
deafening silence.  He half expected an echo to be returned to him
but there was nothing, even his own footsteps as he warily walked
forwards were engulfed by the sheer emptiness of everything.

Nothing moved but his own shadow, so he was practically on top of
the small woman before he even noticed she was there.  He gasped
but it seemed she didn't hear him; she sat quietly with her hands
clasped in front of her, staring into the shadows and the stars
beyond.  Red hair framed her face upon which a look of quiet
tragedy resided, and taking another step closer, Blair was sure he
could see tears in her eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

She looked up, then, not without fear.  Her blue eyes were wide as
she softly asked, "Are you the Guide?"

Confused, Blair replied with, "What?"  He was *a* guide, but not
*the* guide, as far as he knew, he'd only ever been a guide for one
person.  

"It doesn't matter," the woman said softly, looking down again, and
the grief in her voice was starkly evident.  "You'll be here
forever then, just like the rest of us."  There was a pause, before
she added, "Be careful."

"Where is this place?" Blair asked, growing more and more confused. 
"How long have you been here?"

She didn't answer.  And that was when Blair was attacked from
behind.

There was no warning, his attacker had crept up on him with inhuman
stealth, and the fingers that yanked on his hair and wrapped around
his neck were like icicles.  A voice hissed, "At last...." in what
seemed rapture, and Blair was being dragged away from the woman who
didn't even bother to look around and suddenly something very sharp
was grazing at the skin of his neck.  

Wild panic coursed through Blair, this was the stuff of nightmares
and he'd never quite believed it was true, but *everything* about
this place was impossible so why should vampires not exist?  He
kicked out but the creature had a firm grip on his waist, holding
him close, and it whispered in his ear, "This will all be over very
soon."  Another yank on his hair which made Blair almost wish that
he'd cut it, and then the pressure of the teeth was intensifying
and Blair closed his eyes, not wanting to see.

"Lestat!"  The call was shrill and annoyed.  "You promised me you
would share...."  It was a petulant, sing-song voice and it caused
the vampire, Lestat, to pause.  "It's been ever so long since we
had someone new here.  Is he good?"

A third voice joined the party.  "I have told you two before,
*don't* kill the new company.  You'll end up, eating the Guide one
day, and then, we'll be stuck here forever."  Blair managed to open
his eyes to see a middle-aged man standing next to a blonde haired
girl.  

"The legend of the Guide's just a myth," scoffed the girl, and her
tongue delicately danced across her lips.  "Since we're all stuck
here anyway why shouldn't Lestat and I have some fun?"

"Exactly, my dear," and with that Lestat returned to Blair's neck
with vigour, pushing his teeth down and breaking the skin.  Blair
flinched, he couldn't believe this was happening, it all had to be
some crazy dream or something and then Lestat roughly pushed him
away.

"Useless," he moaned, "absolutely useless!"

"Congratulations," said the middle-aged man for no apparant reason. 
"Welcome.  I'm James T. Kirk and I have to go."  With that, he
raced away, leaving Blair stuck between two upset looking vampires. 

"Uh, guys, listen, I'm just gonna walk away and everything's cool,
okay?"  He warily crawled backwards, expecting Lestat to pounce on
him again, but it was the girl who looked angrier.  Her eyes
narrowed.  "It's been centuries since we had a live one," she
complained.  Her eyes darted to Lestat.  "Would it really
matter...?"

"If he was a vampire, no," replied the taller vampire.  "But as it
is...."  He let the sentence trail off and held out his hands in
defeat.  "Why is it so damned boring around here?"

Blair watched the interplay, his heart rate gradually returning to
normal.  "Where is here?" he managed to ask, believing that they
wouldn't kill him after all."

"Why, it's eternity," laughed Lestat.  The other vampire strode
over to him and yanked him to his feet, demonstrating surprising
strength for a girl of such slender form.  She leaned forward and
sniffed his hair, the motion making Blair want to shudder; she was
treating him as prey.  Her tongue darted out and gently traced the
puncture wounds on his neck, it was almost as if she was searching. 
Yet, as Lestat had before her, she pulled away in disgust.  And her
face was that of a demon's.

"They always smell so...bland," she said.  

Blair managed to get his breathing under control, yet was still
surprised when the girl backflipped away from him with
extraordinary grace.  She ended with a flourished half spin and
looked to Blair for approval.  He gave hesitant applause and she
smiled arrogantly.  "I've still got it."  Suddenly, her features
morphed from the monster back to the face of an angel.    

"Uh...yeah," Blair managed to agree, wishing that he had never,
ever left Cascade and gotten on the train that led him to this
weird dimension.  "And thanks for not sucking my blood and whatever
you were going to do...."

Both vampires laughed.  "Don't you know?" asked the girl.  

"Know what?" 

"You're dead!"  With those words the pair burst into renewed
laughter, the girl almost doubled over, Lestat showing more
restraint but still enjoying the look of horror that crossed
Blair's face.  

"Buffy, you are too much fun," said Lestat, and then with a sweep
of his cloak they were suddenly both gone, leaving Blair alone in
the middle of a cavern which had *shifted* and looked nothing like
the place he'd arrived in.  

Shocked, Blair lifted one hand in front of his face.  It looked
solid, real, he didn't feel dead.  He was still breathing and he
was positive he could hear his heart beating and he was positive he
was alive!  Wasn't he?  The place he was in didn't feel like
Heaven, maybe it was Hell....

A memory flashed into his mind.  The sound of screaming.  That was
all, yet attached to the fragment was a feeling of horror and
dread.  Blair closed his eyes and he could hear the streamlined hum
of the train as it sped along, the hum suddenly mixed with the
screeching of brakes and the screaming and the fire and the blood.

His eyes snapped open.  "No way I'm dead," he said, trying to
convince himself.  "My life was only just getting started - I was
gonna be Jim's partner, I can't be dead!"  Again, he looked at his
hand, and this time there appeared to be a translucence about it. 
"No way I'm dead!"

"I'm sorry, but you are," interrupted a dry, acerbic voice. 
"Welcome to the Afterlife."

Blair managed to look up to see a middle-aged woman with long dark
hair who looked decidedly normal compared to everyone else he'd met
in this strange place.  

"The Afterlife?" he repeated.

Sighing, the woman grabbed his hand and pulled him over to a seat
which had recently materialised.  "There's a lot you have to
learn," she said, "but introductions first.  I'm Susan Ivanova."

"Blair Sandburg," he replied automatically and shook her proffered
hand.  

"The first thing I have to tell you is to stay calm.  I don't need
another psycho running around here."

"You run this place?"

Ivanova quickly shook her head.  "No one runs this place.  No one's
even sure what it is - it's not heaven or hell, and it's certainly
not what I was taught purgatory was.  Delenn says it's a place in
between."

"Delenn?"  Blair could only manage short questions.

"She's a friend of mine, she spends all of her time talking to Qui-
Gon.  You'll meet him later, too," Ivanova said confidently.  "The
three of us are about the only sane people here, or at least
they're the only ones who talk to me.  Some just wander and we
never know what's going on with them."  

A dark haired young woman in a tight pink dress ran past,
screaming.

"Almost everyone's crazy around here," Ivanova grumbled.  "You get
used to it after a while."  Blair glanced up, and saw that the
scenery had changed yet again, it was still shadowy but now the
caverns were toned in blue.  He stared, fragments of conversation
drifting back to him and he clung to these, avoiding the memory of
the train. 

"Those were real vampires?"  He shook his head.  "They couldn't
have been if they're dead - I thought vampires were already dead,
or maybe they're undead...."

Ivanova shrugged at this one.  

"And why does everyone keep asking me if I'm the Guide?"

"Are you?" Ivanova asked directly.

Blair shrugged.  "I've been called a guide but I hardly think
that's what you're talking about." 

Sighing, Ivanova agreed.  "You'd know what you were supposed to do
if you were the Guide."  She stood up, motioning for him to follow
her.  "Somehow we got dumped in this place with nothing more than
the promise of the great Guide someday.  Every so often someone new
shows up but nothing really changes.  So you'll have to get used to
this place."  

"This is too weird," Blair said for what seemed the thousandth
time.  

They walked past the first red-haired woman Blair had met.  "That's
Catherine," Ivanova revealed.  "She's got a broken heart.  She
never says much to anyone, I think she just relives her life in her
mind."  Ivanova's voice dropped to a lower octave.  "She died
younger than most and she remembers it."

"So let me get this straight - everyone here's dead."

"Pretty much," Ivanova confirmed.  "I'm not sure about Cordelia,
though.  Her situation's a little unusual, I don't think she was
supposed to be here yet."  There was a sigh.  "Poor girl."



{insert more story here}

 

"What's through there?"  He pointed at the great doors.  

"We're not supposed to go through there...but I did.  She's in
there.  She looks exactly the same as she did the last time I saw
her."  There was a strange look in Danziger's eyes.  "I can't touch
her."

---

To Be Continued soon,  I promise!