She's in a subway train, somewhere. She's the only one there, and it's moving much faster than it should be. It's night, and she's sure there's something she should be worrying about, but she can't quite recall what.

Panicking is not fun, but it's obviously because the train is moving too quickly, right? So it's totally justified.

Where is everybody? Probably not important.

She quickly looks around for more information.

There's noth—oh, look, she's holding a wooden stake.

... And is this rather surprising, as she would typically be inclined to feel were she found on a subway train with a wooden stake? Or is this only mildly curious, as it might be if this were a dream and she weren't quite feeling like her awake self?

Neither—the stake feels at home in her hand, as if she's used it many times. It's familiar, almost, a close friend.

She has very little time to ponder the philosophical ramifications of this as a platinum-blond man in a sleeveless leather top wearing eyeliner swings a metal bar at her.

She tries to dodge out of the way of the metal bar – doubting that she'll really succeed – then considers shouting, 'What the fuck, dude?' but feels like it would somehow be wrong.

Especially since she's holding a wooden stake.

If she gets knocked over by the attack, she'll try to quickly get up again, but after that she'll try to swipe at him with the weapon.

Nope, she dodges! She has quite some skill with dodging, it would appear, who'da thunk. The 'dude,' however, swings again, apparently not even caring about the wooden stake.

(...he looks so stakeable. She could just... drive it through his heart. It's right there, she even knows how to do it, she should just stake-and-pull, otherwise the stake will be destroyed...)

You know what, she could drive the stake through his heart.

He's even attacking her, randomly, on a weird subway train, with a metal bar. And the stake feels right.

So you know what she does?

She attacks him and tries to drive the stake through his heart.

Ha, as if. He dodges it deftly, taking a step back and dropping to the floor, twisting in the air so he falls on his hands and wrapping his legs around hers as he does so to make her fall.

Caught off-guard, she does indeed fall, but she twists around to try to get to a position so she can stab him anyway. Doesn't have to be through his heart to hurt him.

It will be hard for her to do that because he gets to his feet before she can do it and parries her with the metal bar. Without missing a beat, he hits her hand with it, trying to knock the stake away.

Well, the stake seems important, so she grips onto it hard and tries to move her hand away, or at least so as to lessen the impact.

Well, that means the impact isn't as strong as it could've been, but it also means she has much less room to brace for the kick aimed at her midsection.

Which is pretty dangerous, so she tries to curl up before he hits her. If she's not too badly injured by the attack, she'll try to kick him and then spring back up onto her feet. Being on the ground is not a very defensible position.

She's actually fairly undamaged! That hurt a lot, but not as much as she'd normally expect it to. He jumps out of the way of her kick, but that does give her time to spring back up onto her feet, especially with all this agility and dexterity she suddenly has.

This agility and dexterity is nice, but her goal here is to get rid of this dude, so it is not something she's going to focus much on right now.

She tries to get an idea of her surrounding, to see how she might use them to her advantage, and she'd like to study her opponent to see if there's anything she can work out about him that might be helpful, but unfortunately this is probably a bit too close-quarters for that.

She'll also try to slice him with the stake again, unless he attacks her first. It seems pretty pointy, so it should do some damage.

The man closes in and—lets himself be sliced, his shirt being ripped a bit and some blood (not enough blood) welling from the wound. Then, he tries to wrench the stake from her hand, hoping his masochistic move threw her off-balance enough for him to catch an opening and succeed.

It threw her a bit, but she already expected him to be somewhat careless about some... non-standard things. She didn't loosen her grip on the stake, so he might be caught off-balance there, and she swings at him with her other hand.

The punch connects, and she's also much stronger than she'd thought. He's sent flying.

Well, that's rather surprising.

Fortunate, though.

She runs after him and tries to get on top of him while he's on the floor, so that she can stab him more easily.

He rolls out of the way and back to his feet, trying to use his momentum to hit the back of Eva's knees with the metal bar.

But she has agility, so she can just try to get out of the way and jump-kick him, right?

She can try, and she'll fail, but more because he's pretty good than because she's pretty bad. Except as he dodges the kick he angles the metal bar under her feet so she'll land on it and lose her balance again.

She puts a hand out to catch herself as she starts to fall to the ground, then tries to kick out his legs when she lands.

She succeeds, and he loses his metal bar, but he throws himself onto her, hugging her legs with his arms.

It's a good thing she still has the stake then, isn't it?

She kicks him as hard as she can (which, admittedly, probably isn't very hard on account of her legs being hugged) and twists to get in reach with the stake, then swipes at him.

Perhaps she should try to remaneuver so she can actually get him in the heart.

She can try but he's not shaken off by either the failed kick or the successful swipe which leaves a cut on his face. With inhuman strength, he start to stands up, still holding her legs, and tries to swing her against a wall.

A wall of the subway train moving at high speeds? Eva would rather not, thanks, so she grabs onto a metal pole near one of the seats. She's not sure how secure they are, but presumably it will at least slow her.

It does slow her, but where did she think the man's metal bar came from in the first place? She tears it off, which is exactly the opposite of the man's goal, so he lets go of her legs to try to step on the hand that's holding the stake. "Just let go of it, damnit," he says, with a heavy British accent.

Okay, well, that is a good point, but now she has a weapon with reach. She winces at the pain in her hand, but stabs at him with the metal rod.

From this direction, it might end up hitting an unfortunate area.

She doesn't hit the unfortunate area! She hits his lower abdomen. And the pole goes through it. But that's alright, because he has managed to kick off her stake and he's on all fours on top of her, impaled and all.

Impaled is actually rather good for a status she's inflicted. This guy is fucking annoying.

However, she seems to be in... a bit of an undesirable situation. She tries to buck him off, but it's kinda hard to get leverage from this position.

Any chance she can get a headbutt in? Because she will try to break his nose if she can, and maybe that'll get him off her.

She hits! His head is rather harder than heads should be! "And now you die," he says, and starts strangling her. She's stronger, much stronger, than she's used to being, but he's even stronger than that, and she starts running out of oxygen pretty quickly.

She attempts to rip off his ear, butcher his nose, and claw and his eyes, trying them in that order and moving to the next one if the previous fails. After that, she'll claw at his hands, and then try bending the fingers back, starting from the pinkie. If they snap, that is not her problem.

If they all fail, she'll act as though she's running out of oxygen quicker than she actually is, feign unconsciousness, and then hope he loosens his grip so she can push him off her.

… She's not particularly hopeful.

She's losing strength quickly, and doesn't manage to do much damage as the world starts disappearing around her eyes—

—and then his face changes with an audible crack, and he lets go of her neck just enough that she gets some air back. He reaches inside her shirt to rip out a crucifix she's wearing, watches it sear through his flesh, throws it away, and sinks his teeth into her neck before she can get enough strength to do much of anything.

It hurts. More than anything she's ever felt, this was almost designed to cause pain, and her awareness starts fading much more quickly than when she was being strangled.

She tries to flail and scream, and probably succeeds, but it's rather difficult to tell when there's a weird pulsing in your ears and everything's going black.

There's not much else she can do.

Pain pain numbness cold darkness—

—bedroom. Bed, drenched in sweat. Feeling like she hasn't caught a wink, completely exhausted, physically and emotionally. The dream is still vivid in her mind, not fading into the forgetfulness of reality.

She screams a bit upon waking, but quickly stifles it when she realizes that she is not in fact dying.

Hands at her neck, she checks herself over to make sure it was all imagined. It seems ridiculous, but it's easy to do and she is not feeling very... safe.

She notices the time and makes a noise of frustration, but does indeed get up, feeling overall: pretty shit.

Pretty shit is a reasonable way to feel!

The time is: three minutes before her alarm would sound, so at least she's not late.

That is true! But she feels ugly. At least it's a Friday? It means she has the weekend to recuperate, when she's not busy.

She gets dressed and sorts out her hair, then goes downstairs for breakfast, then brushes her teeth, and then she is ready for school. She looks in the mirror a bit to try to remove her resting bitch face (ugh, she needs her sleep, but she can deal for today) and then decides she's okay for the day.

Presuming nothing unexpected happens, she'll respond to any texts she might have received overnight (she's not expecting any, but after the mess that was yesterday, it's definitely a possibility), and then she'll walk to school.

Janet has sent Eva a text about how terrible Verity is, and Verity has texted her wondering if Janet's mad at her for some reason.

Of course.

She tries to focus on the fact that she wants to improve things, despite how terrible she feels, and sends off a text commiserating with Janet but also pointing out some good things. To Verity, she explains that Janet seems a bit tired right now and she probably doesn't mean it if she's being rude.

Stop-gap measure, but it should hold for a bit.

She starts walking to school.

And there's the school!

And Sadde, arriving a mere thirty seconds ahead of her, apparently oblivious to her.

How nice. And he seems to be a boy today, what fun.

Eva goes over to her typical group – Janet's already there, Erik is fortunately not – and catches up on things. She also looks around, seeing if there are any signs of impending doom. Couples fighting? Nope. Anybody crying? Also nope. Jocks being jocks? Yes, but not in the awkward 'in your face' way. Brad?

… It's probably bad that she's starting to think of him as a sign of 'impending doom', but he's caused so many problems for her the past week. Maybe she should flirt with him a bit today and suggest that she's not into guys who are being dicks.

Uh, actually, nah. She's a bit tired and it might not play out how she wants. Plus it's just effort. It can wait until another day.

Brad is with his own clique, as usual, and not causing any particular trouble. He does follow Sadde with his head and a look of disgust, but then laughs at some joke a friend told and resumes his conversation.

Well of course he does, because he— Yeah, no, she'll just stop herself there, no need to get that frustrated over him. He's an ongoing problem with a fix in the works.

Does anyone look like they could really use Eva's guidance? She's gonna guess no, just because it doesn't happen that people really need it that often, and she's not really in the mood for randomly inserting herself into other conversations, but maybe someone does!

Her friends are pretty used to her looking around like this, but even so, she does try to contribute to the conversation. It wouldn't do to be rude, of course.

No, not really. People are milling about, socializing, being teenagers or, occasionally, teachers.

Indeed they are! Here's another student arriving at the school, who then proceeds to go find Sadde.

Well, since there's nowhere else she obviously needs to be, Eva will just keep talking to her friends until the bell.

There's drama! As usual. Erik does show up, naturally, because of course he does. Janet is chilly polite to a confused Verity, Amber is cool and aloof and barely pays attention, Brittany can't wait to graduate and meet college boys since her heart was broken by the fact that the new junior is gay (not that she would've made a move or even indicated her interest anyway).

And eventually: the bell.

Yeah, it's very terrible that the new junior is gay. Eva sighs about this fact along with Brittany.

Not that she would have made a move either.

When the bell occurs, she goes to homeroom, and then after that she has Bio! Yay Bio.

Bio happens! It's biological.

It in fact is! Jean is her lab partner, and they work well together!

And after this, Eva has French. Yay French.

Nobody seems to like French. It's kinda disappointing.

It's also hard to pronounce and you have to pout.

French is not hard to pronounce and wait, what, pouting? Eva's great at pouting. The 'u' sound is kinda a pout, but she can totally do that.

Anyway. French and whatever. At least it's not Latin.

And after this she has English! Does anything totally unexpected happen in English?

English is unexpectedly boring!

...wait, expectedly. The narrator meant 'expectedly.'

That is true. English is expectedly boring.

Eva, however, can cope with this! She can write comprehensible paragraphs of well-formed thought backed up by proper sources.

And it's all utter bullshit, but she can fake it really well! Yay.

And then: lunch!

Indeed lunch.

She sits at her table with a bunch of her friends. There are a few overlapping conversations, but she gets the main points from each and tries to pay attention when necessary.

Then she also looks around the cafeteria to assess the continued mood. Again, any signs of impending doom?

Wow, she's being horribly negative today, isn't she.

Not yet! The cafeteria is fairly empty, as people arrive there from class. Sadde is sitting alone, apparently anxiously waiting for someone. Brad hasn't arrived yet, and Willow is, for some reason, not sitting with Sadde.

Huh. Trouble in paradise?

… Okay, that was mean. She didn't mean… to mean it… that way.

Theo walks into the cafeteria.

Sadde looks frustrated with something!

Theo seems to be confused by Sadde's reactions.

The conversation seems to proceed normally, whatever problems they'd been having apparently (at least temporarily) resolved.

Theo is looking just thrilled about some things now.

"Eva?" Brittany asks, waving a hand in front of her face.

"Huh?" she asks. "Sorry, I didn't catch that."

She follows Eva's line of sight and sighs. "I don't think there's any hope for him."

Huh?

… Oh, right, for her getting with Theo. "Yeah, unfortunately."

She's not particularly talkative right now, and she's feeling kinda bad about it.

"...hey, are you okay?" Brittany asks in a rare moment of awareness.

Eva smiles and says, "Yeah, I'm just a bit tired is all."

This is why she keeps people around and puts the effort in, she reminds herself. They can be so… nice.

"Are you sure?" Brittany asks, clearly out of her depth. It's usually Eva who's—on top of things like that.

"Yeah, honestly, I'll be fine."

"Okay," she says uncertainly, then remembers what she was saying and recovers her stride: "Did you do the Geography homework?"

She blinks a few times. "What, the one for Monday? Nah, I'm gonna do it tomorrow. It's the rivers thing, right?"

"Right, but there's the Bronze tonight and a party tomorrow and I won't have tiiime for that," she whines.

"You won't have time to–" she starts, frowns, then continues, "I mean, yeah, the teacher's terrible, how dare they."

It's kinda half-hearted.

Brittany accepts this and praters on.

And Willow returns to Sadde and Theo's table.

Eva continues to try to pay attention to the conversation, inputting what she thinks when it's clearly appropriate, but she's not really as active a participant as usual.

"Hey Eva, are you coming to the party tomorrow?" Brittany asks.

"Uh…" she says, looking a bit blank, then snaps her fingers and says, "Yeah, I am."

"Wicked, we gotta pick matching outfits, then!"

"Sure," Eva responds, smiling again. "I'll text you about it tonight?"

When she's hopefully less tired? And hopefully doesn't want to just claw everyone for talking?

(She tries not to grimace. That would be unbecoming.)

"Great! I know just the thing," she says, and launches into a tirade about clothing, requiring little more than nods and appreciative noises, although Verity and Janet both interject to give suggestions, Janet not managing to hide her annoyance whenever Verity opens her mouth.

Ugh. She had almost managed to forget about their disagreement.

Fortunately, Erik's staying away right now. Right?

Because she glared daggers at him earlier, when he tried to bug her.

Didn't she.

Yes. Yes she did.

The clothing tirade is fun, though. Eva manages to pay attention to it pretty well.

At one point, Sadde will stand up and kiss Theo very publicly and passionately, and Brittany will notice. "Ugh, can you believe those two?"

Verity also seems a bit disgusted.

Eva looks over at the scene and then turns back to Brittany, smiling kinda sadly. "Yeah, it is a bit too much PDA, but I think it's kinda cute really."

She's not 100% sure why she's sad, but she is. It just seems... so... temperamental? Inflexible? ... Like it's going to snap in the wind? 

She's been wrong about this sort of thing before, but... she's not sure she's wrong this time.

And then they break off.

"Cute? They were practically eating each other. Ew."

Eva rolls her eyes. "They're not that bad," she says, smirking a bit.

"Uh, yeah?" She eyes Eva. "Eva, are you into boys kissing?"

"What's not to like?" she asks blithely.

She's also a bit of a tease.

"Well, it's—" She pauses and looks at the boys again and tilts her head a bit.

"It's...?" prompts Eva, smiling innocently.

She shakes her head. "Weird," she declares.

"Whatever you say," she says, smirking again.

She returns to her favored topics and they talk some more until lunch ends.

That they do!

And now, Eva has Math.

Math: is math-y.

And then there's gym.

Indeed there is. Last lesson on a Friday.

Ugh.

Anyway, she can seem upbeat and get changed into her gym stuff and then go out and organize people into teams or whatever, she's okay enough to do that – what sport are they doing today?

Basketball! Just like all week.

Oh well. She'll just gather people together so each team is approximately equal ability – not stepping on the teachers' toes, of course, just helping them to be more efficient and hopefully reducing how unfair some of the matches might be; we don't want anyone complaining about how unbalanced the teams are, do we?

Well, it's not the teachers who choose the teams, it's the students that stand in for captains for the duration of gym.

Well, in that case she'll try to pull strings with people to make sure nobody's being excluded or being too mean about how unfairly stacked their teams are. She's got plenty of friends, she's sure some will agree to do as she says because they want to be nice.

It's too bad she can only do this in the senior group – the juniors look like they might be having trouble with… unfairness.

Yep, that they are.

Unfortunately she doesn't really have an excuse to go over there and fix that without seeming like she's just being obnoxious.

She sighs internally, but continues playing a match. Or whatever it's called. She doesn't know.

And eventually, like all things, gym must come to an end.

Oh dear.

Eva gets changed and then hangs about to chat to her friends for a bit, but will leave pretty soon if nothing interesting happens.

She's gonna go to the library to do a bit of research, but afterwards she's gonna go home to nap.

And in the library is: the librarian!

"Good morning, miss!"

Right…? "Good. Uh. Afternoon?"

"Oh, yes, yes of course, can I help, can I help?"

He's... quite bubbly today, isn't he?

He. He rather is? Yes?

"Um. No, I think I'm alright, really?" she says, smiling back, a bit confused.

"Oh, are you quite sure? This is the library after all. And I'm the librarian." He beams.

"You. You are the librarian, yes," she says a bit flatly. "Uh, I think I'll be okay."

She turns away to go over to some bookshelves, acting very calm and composed. She looks very much as though she's just a typical teenager planning on doing some studying, with all the typical teenage worries and the typical teenage airheadedness with a side of intelligent thought.

She looks very perfectly typical. She makes sure of it.

"Okay."

The librarian proceeds to do absolutely nothing at all for the entire duration of Eva's stay in the library.

Absolutely nothing? How absolute is this nothing? Is he sitting somewhere blankly, looking at nothing, or just standing in the same position looking at the same book, or what?

Is he breathing? Presumably he's breathing.

Meanwhile, she continues to look very perfectly typical. She also does some work, as she was originally planning. Also, she tries to seem extremely not preoccupied with the librarian.

Ugh, this is difficult to do when she's tired.

He's breathing, yes, and he's standing there, with a fixed smile, looking at absolutely nothing whatsoever. He isn't even fidgeting.

Of course he is.

She finishes her research rather quickly, maybe skipping some parts and generally rushing others, while also continuing to be totally nonchalant, and then goes to leave the library, saying, "Thanks!" to the creepy… person?

"You're welcome! I hope to see you again soon!"

"You too!" she says.

And then Eva walks home. She's thinking about the day, and how she was a bit switched off for most of it – she's pretty sure people noticed, but fortunately they didn't call too much attention to it; Brittany was probably the most obvious, and she appreciates it, but fortunately she wasn't too pushy about any of it.

She's a bit too focused on what she's thinking about, and when she rounds a corner, she fails to consider that there might be another person on the other side, bumping into someone and knocking their groceries out of their hands.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" she says, apologizing immediately and bending down to pick them up.

"Oh, don't worry about it, dearie," she says, with a thick south London accent, bending down to pick stuff up herself. "I should have been paying more attention to where I was going."

"I wasn't really focusing on where I was walking," she says, still sounding very apologetic. She helps to gather things up.

That's an interesting accent for someone in California…

They finish picking her stuff up and she looks at Eva. "My, you certainly do look tired. School overworking you, love?"

"Ah, not too badly, I just didn't get much sleep," says Eva in response, smiling.

"Hmm, yes, you wouldn't. Not today."

Eva continues smiling but looks a bit confused at that. "I'm sorry? I don't get what you mean."

"Oh, it's the nightmares, isn't it?"

She continues to look confused. "I… still don't get what you mean, I'm afraid?"

"Never you mind, dearie, just the ramblings of an old lady." She wouldn't believe her, anyway. Not this early. She pats Eva's hand and says, "Thank you for your help. It'll be over soon, you'll see."

And on she continues.

Eva frowns a little, but also continues on her way.

She decides that, ultimately, she'd probably rather get some extra sleep tonight over going to the Bronze, so she texts a few people to say that she doesn't think she'll make it tonight.

Hopefully they won't be too disappointed.

And then, after an early dinner and a quick shower, she brushes her teeth, gets changed, and gets into bed.

She'll be asleep soon enough.

That she will!

It is night, and the stars are shining bright. There is absolutely no air polution to occlude them, a sight most people never get to see.

Oh, that's lovely.

This is way better than last night's dream already.

She thinks she'll just stay in the precise position she currently is, and will not look around to see if there are any horrific monsters, at all. She would rather not tempt the dream to do a repeat of last night, and this one seems like it might be trying to making up for the night before.

Yeah no. Her body seems to be moving without her conscious command and forcing her to see where she is. It's a desert, and there's a campfire over there, with a few tents, and a few people wearing very little around the fire.

Are you serious?

Can she just… bite herself and try to wake up? Or is her body going to continue to move despite how she would like to react were she awake?

Her body allows her reactions that don't involve refusing to do what the dream wants her to do, apparently. She can bite herself, to no effect other than this causing her pain.

Ugh, are you serious?

What the hell kind of a dream is this.

The kind that's starting to nudge her towards the campfire, that's what.

Well fine. She'll be nudged to go towards the campfire, but she will not be happy.

Stupid dream.

The dream slowly starts getting more dreamlike qualities like her moving places without much conscious desire to move her legs one after the other, or hazy visuals that don't quite make sense. By the time she has reached the campfire, she can no longer reliably count how many men—and they are all men—are gathered around the campfire. They're chanting, and there's a drawing around the fire.

Well that's weird, but fine.

What does the drawing look like? Is it easy to get an idea of the overall shape and size of it, or will she have to make do with the little information that she gets from what is presumably coming next?

It's a circle. There are symbols on it. It's not much clearer than that.

The chanting reaches a crescendo, but she isn't there anymore to listen to it. She's inside one of the tents, looking at—

—herself—

—except no, the girl lying there on the ground writhing in pain doesn't look like her at all. Her body is painted, and she looks to be hurting terribly, and unable to do anything about it.

But in some very real sense, that girl is her.

She's–

– why the fuck is she being tortured, what the hell.

… Does she feel any pain? Please tell her she feels no pain right now, please.

She doesn't—

—lies, she does. Except she also doesn't because she's not—herself—that girl—

Double vision is an understatement.

The girl stops writhing and looks at her. She senses movement behind herself, but she can't look, all she can see is the girl, looking directly into her eyes.

Exc-fucking-scuse me?

She is not up to feeling double, especially with all the fucking pain.

And… what. Is she… looking at herself…

What is behind her!?

Who knows. The girl says something, and Eva knows it's not in any language she knows.

But she also understands with perfect clarity that the word the girl just uttered was 'run.'

And she's running.

She is.

She is running so fucking hard, she does not want to be anywhere near this– this whatever.

At least the dream is actually aligning with what she now wants.

Yep, exactly, she's—

—wait, she's not running away, she's running toward something. She... she really wants to catch it, whatever it is.

D– does she have any idea about its general shape? Or size? Or personhood?

Nnn—yes. She has a very vague mental image of something big and yellow with the wrong number of appendages that runs much too fast for its size.

Aaand she wants to chase after this why?

Not important. She just really needs to chase after it, so she does as such.

Because it's a demon, duh, why else?

She's running through the alleys of—whoever even knows, some city—and it is, of course, night. Damp, cold, misty, the perfect weather for a chase on foot. At least she's fast.

It's… a demon? Right. Of course it is.

… How fast is she? She's pretty sure she's not supposed to be this fast.

Does it matter? She's just really fast.

And there, she can see the demon every now and then, catch glimpses of it. It has four arms, and a toxic yellow mist seems to surround it, and apparently it has a trunk?

Well then, she obviously just needs to try harder so she can catch it, whatever it is.

She does! And she's gaining on it! Oh, look, there's a likely-looking ledge she can use to follow it from the rooftops.

A likely looking ledge? Really?

Well alright then! She will indeed use the likely-looking ledge to follow the demon from the rooftops.

The dream is pleased with her decisionmaking process, apparently, since there's no resistance from those quarters.

Time blurs, and she's facing the demon in an alley, and it swipes at her feet with one of the lower arms while trying to use one of the upper ones to make a grab for her face.

A… grab for her face? What, so it can try to squish her head?

She ducks around it and jumps over the lower one, spinning around to hit at it with her fist.

She can do that, right? It's a dream, so it's not like physics has to make sense or anything.

And for all that, her spin feels surprisingly realistic, especially the part where the huge demon thing uses one of its hands to hold the one she used to try to punch it and swings her aside, throwing her at a wall.

Oof.

Well, that wasn't very friendly. Admittedly, she was stalking it and she did attack it first, but still. It practically had it coming – it's a huge many-limbed demon.

… Wait, what?

She tries to get up – hoping she's not too badly harmed – and get a better look at it. Hopefully it's not too busy trying to kill her?

It's not busy trying to kill her, but it's busy trying to do—something. It's big, with leathery yellow skin, a short trunk and two small tusks, a pair of pure blue eyes, wearing only a pair of trousers, and the something it's trying to do is spray her face with something from its trunk.

Well, she will be dodging that, because she has no idea what the hell kind of effects it can have. Maybe it's some sort of contact-poison.

Are there any nice objects around that she can grab and throw? Maybe a helpful metal pole?

She's in a dark alley. There's a dumpster, some trash, a lot of damp, a fire escape from a building, but nothing that looks like it'd easily turn into a weapon.

...well, the fire escape looks pretty breakable to her, in some undefinable way.

Also the demon is approaching again, using its powerful legs to try to close the distance between them and give her what might become her last hug.

The fire escape… looks breakable?

Well, in that case, she quickly goes that direction and attempts to break the fire escape. The monster will hopefully not be quick enough to reach her before this occurs, because otherwise she's probably… well, she's probably screwed.

She grabs it and oops she has a metal bar now.

(Feel familiar?)

She– it does! It feels very familiar.

She gives it a little twirl and spins back to face the monster. Should she go for mêlée or should she go for throwing?

She thinks throwing.

How well does it go right through the monster? She's expecting very.

Yes!

...and it doesn't stop the monster! It heals before her eyes and reaches for her neck.

Well, she seems to be pretty speedy right now, so she can just run back from it and look for another weapon? Surely it'll stop if she manages to keep poking more holes in it?

The first hole is closing fairly quickly before her eyes. That may not be the best way to stop the unstoppable monster.

Oh.

Well.

That's unfortunate.

She's not really sure how else she's supposed to defeat the unstoppable monster, since she doesn't have any clue if it has any obvious weaknesses, so. She. … She decides to look for some more poles anyway. She would run away, but she doesn't really want to let this thing rampage around.

No poles have mysteriously appeared. This isn't that kind of dream. It's the kind of dream where the giant demon is gaining enough momentum to jump Eva and once again attempt to grab her.

… And is it the kind of dream where she manages to escape from the danger, just before it reaches her?

You know, the one where she magically gains mystical powers and, for example, sprouts wings and can fly away?

Nope! It's the one where the monster has managed to grab her and is trying to squeeze the life out of her.

Ack!

Is it the one where she can break free with some sort of heroic strength? Or is it the one where she slowly succumbs with absolute terror to the fact that she will die because she is being actively crushed?

She does have heroic strength! Just not enough to stop the demon. Her vision slowly blackens...

...and she's back in that tent, looking at the girl who is/isn't her.

And she's gasping for breath, even if she doesn't feel like she physically needs it, because what the hell.

Then she remembers what was here the last time, causing her to try to look around – goddammit, she is not going to fall prey to another demon in her stupid dream.

She turns around—

She is/isn't the girl—

She isn't/is the girl—

She is the girl, tied down by forces not of this world, watching and hearing the chanting outside, seeing the eldritch shadows cast by the dancing flames and men, twisting into nightmarish shapes that twirl around each other in unholy union.

She screams.

Or she at least tries to, because what the fuck.

Even the strength of her screams is sapped from her, and all she seems to be able to do is whimper and moan weakly as she watches the ceremony reach a crescendo.

Well that is what she will do. Because maybe, just maybe, this will get something through to them about how ungodly and abominatorial that is. This is, quite possibly, worse than her previous dream. At least there all she had to worry about was the fact that she was dying, not that the world would get ravaged by monsters.

Or whatever the hell that ritual is doing.

The shadows continue to move in unnatural patterns until they merge into a single, monstrous/amorphous thing, and that thing walks toward the tent, a huge claw making its way to the flap—

– and this is her cue to run, right? Except she can't, because she's busy being horribly weak and not quite succeeding in her screaming.

She tries even harder anyway. Maybe if she screams shrilly enough, it'll stop and be repelled.

Nope! The—thing—whatever-it-is, gets inside the tent. She can't see it, but she has a sense that it doesn't want to be there any more than she does. The chanting continues outside as the undefinable thing approaches her, slowly, inexorably.

This is not okay, oh my god, is there any, any possible way that she could escape? She's not picky! She is, however, starting to hyperventilate, as much as she can while weakened like this.

The screaming is a bit more like a pathetic whimpering right now.

The creature is on her now, and then it's in her, joining with her body and soul. It is quite a painful process, but as it happens she starts regaining her strength and—

It's morning.

And it turns out she can scream much more effectively when she's awake, but she cuts it off pretty quickly by burying her head into her pillow.

This is not okay. That is possibly the worst understatement she has ever made, but this is not okay.

The world seems awfully insensitive to her plight, what with continuing to spin and sunlight shining through the gaps of her blinds.

It indeed does, but that's okay, because she will get to it in a second.

Right now, she is busy. And it is also a Saturday. She does not need to get up until she absolutely wants to.

She indeed does not, so she could perhaps try to catch some more sleep.

She… is not sure that's the best idea, because the sun is up and she has things to do and she aaaalso kinda hates everything right now…

But then again, that's a reason to go back to sleep. Her eyes are kinda painful.

Okay, she's decided to go back to sleep.

As soon as she starts drifting off she sees the non-creature again behind her eyelids, the searing pain of merging with it pulsating through her body and jolting her awake.

This time, she does not scream, she just breathes in and out heavily, trying to keep herself calm.

Stupid, annoying dream.

She thinks she is still tired enough that she'll try going to sleep again, because it's unlikely she'll have yet another nightmare, and she is really tired, so she lies there for a bit, tossing and turning and trying to get to sleep, and will finally start to drift off again.

Boo!

For fuck's sake.

Right. That's it. She gets up because she is not going to get back to sleep, obviously, and she will just have to go about her day in a bad mood.

Stupid thing.

She has various texts to reply to! Including an almost play-by-play recounting of the night at the Bronze, courtesy of Brittany, who by the end of the string of texts seems to be convinced that Sadde is bizarre but may be coming around to the "cute boys kissing is hot" point of view.

Uuuuugh.

Uuuuuugh.

Okay, well, she'll just send a quick text back that she… knew she was right? That she… is glad that Brittany has come around? That she… is… um.

She doesn't know. Eh. She'll just basically say 'cool' but with more words so it doesn't seem like a snub.

Breakfast time! Woo. While she feels like she's going to fall asleep into her bowl of cereal. Even more woo.

Brittany sends a text in a nonchalant tone with the hidden message of "I sure hope those cute boys will be at the party and make out."

Verity is thinking about confronting Janet about what her deal is.

Erik is wondering if Eva will go to the party.

Okay, well, she texts Erik back that yes, she is going to the party. Brittany gets a message that basically says, 'I'm sure the party will be great fun', and… to Verity, she doesn't really know what to say, but basically, keep it civil please?

For the rest of the morning, she watches a bit of TV, listens to some music, and texts a few people back and forth a bit more.

In the afternoon… she should probably start getting ready for the party.

Yep, she should.

And in spite of basically lacking two nights' sleep, she isn't feeling as... bad... as she could have, all things considered. Or, rather, scratch that, she is feeling bad, but that translates much less readily into physical ineptitude.

Well, she indeed does get ready for the party. By the time she's done, she thinks she looks rather fabulous, actually, and her makeup skills allow her to hide the evidence of her lack of sleep quite neatly.

And now it's time for the party. She texts some people to let them know she's on her way over and then leaves the house, intending to walk there.

The people text her back that OMG the party is gonna be amaaaayzing!

Of course it is, ahahaha.

Why god why.

Stupid demons and nightmares and whatever the hell else.

Pretty much.

And the party: is partylike. Well, house-partylike. There are teenagers, there is music, there are silly games.

Eva mingles, talks to people, and takes part in the games.

She also dances a bit, because she likes dancing, but she's not as into it as she usually is. She tries to look normal, and she actually succeeds in looking quite fabulous – she couldn't possibly fail, have you seen her dress? – and anyway, she's having a pretty good time overall.

And soon enough the three outcasts—or, well, two outcasts and Theo—arrive.

And at one point Brad leads Sadde outside for some reason.

Hm, that's rather curious. She is… a little bit worried about that, but kinda busy right now, so she hopes they can deal with it.

For a given value of 'deal with it' that includes a few of his friends dropping a bucketful of liquid on Sadde's head, they can!

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Can they deal with that or does she need to go outside and smack Brad and Sadde both for their petty squabbles?

Sadde seems not to really mind, actually?

Well, that's… good? She supposes?

But seriously, who the fuck drops 'bucketfuls of liquid' over people's heads at parties. Do they not understand the amount of effort that goes into looking good?

Ugh.

Yeah she looks pretty alright, actually. And Brad looks somewhat frustrated.

Well, she'll leave it unless it kicks off, then.

Doesn't seem to! Sadde returns to the house to clean up, apparently, and leaves the bathroom way cleaner than she has any right to be.

Shrug. The girl's seriously good at make-up, too, so it's not like it's totally unexpected that she's stupid good at various other cleanup things.

"So, Sadde's a girl today," Brittany comments to Eva.

"Yeah, she is," responds Eva.

"And not kissing the new boy."

"No, she is not," says Eva, agreeing. "That is indeed the case."

...Brittany guesses that's that, then, and changes the topic to clothes before she can get any more awkward.

Eva's not really sure what she was meant to say.

Clothes, though, she can talk about them for hours. (Possibly literally.)

Topics will change, though, surely, during the party. Like, Erik's kinda cute, maybe a bit creepy, but surely it won't hurt if we make out tonight? Or Verity and Janet finally having a Talk and fighting and crying on each other's shoulders in a secluded corner.

Oh, well, that's nice for Verity and Janet, and hopefully that'll stop the passive bitchiness that has slightly permeated the group! Woo!

Eva doesn't think it's a great idea to encourage Erik, but sure, if she's sure, go for it.

She's not sure but she may be slightly tipsy and he's kinda cute and has a nice smile...

What the hell, she'll go for it.

Well okay then. Eva will just continue chatting to a few other people and try to seem more like she's enjoying herself.

And the party will go on without much more of a hitch.

Eva will then go home, and since the party lasted for a while and it's now rather late and also she got no sleep for the past two whole nights, she's gonna go to sleep.

Hopefully tonight will be better.

Yeah, no, it won't. This nightmare's about vampires, and she dies about twice in it (possibly a third time, it's left a bit ambiguous). But she only dies once the following night!

And then it's Monday morning.

And then it's Monday morning and she feels a bit like hell.

She will try not to snap at anybody for breathing, but she makes no promises, especially if they're being annoying about it.

Her first class today is Government. It's boring as hell. She could maybe try to nap? Her desk looks so inviting, and the teacher's droning voice so soothing...

She really doesn't want to.

She really doesn't want to.

She doesn't want to get the teacher annoyed at her, and she doesn't want to miss something important, and she doesn't want to be reduced to sleeping at school.

But it looks so inviting, uuuuugh.

Ultimately, no, she does not nap on her desk. She puts her arm on her desk and rests her head on her hand and tries to pay attention.

So tired. Such a boring class. The teacher isn't even paying attention to her, she's a good student, isn't she, surely he won't mind, there's still a few minutes before the bell...

But she might mess up her hair. Or smudge her makeup. She doesn't know the perils of sleeping in class, on account of never having done it before, and she doesn't plan on starting yet, and a few minutes is not enough for her to get any decent, valid, proper amount of sleep that won't just make her hate life further.

So no, despite her tiredness, she will not sleep right now.

Then she will successfully make it to French class!

She willlll! And fortunately, she likes French class, and speaking and writing in French is fun, so she can totally do this without wanting to slam her head into a wall and then get some sleep somehow.

Well, she'll probably botch pronunciation and writing at least a little bit, given that she's feeling like she has not actually slept for four days in a row. How long can humans spend without sleep before they start hallucinating, again?

But she hasn't actually spent that long without sleep, she just feels it, and she'll be fine soon enough, because it's not like this is going to continue for long, or if it does, she'll go to a doctor and get some sort of sleeping pill or something, she doesn't know.

She's a bit frustrated by her inability to do French properly, though. She's usually good at this.

Shame, isn't it?

And after French: English!

Yeah, okay, no, she's a bit done right now. She usually likes English, at least a little bit, but right now she just can't be bothered.

How focused is the teacher on her? Can she get away with sleeping? Because she is totally going to try to sleep in this lesson.

She can get away with sleeping! The teacher likes her, it won't be that bad if she sleeps, will it, she's barely paying attention to Eva at all!

Well, hopefully the teacher won't mind too much, because Eva is definitely going to do it.

She rests her head on her arms on her desk and shuts her eyes, because she just cannot deal right now.

Yes, deep, peaceful, sl—

—giant demon thing with a sword taller than she is impaling her with it.

She does not scream. She is too tired and frustrated and fed up to scream.

Except she isn't, because she just got impaled by a fucking sword, so she totally screams.

The teacher (and several students) startle. "Ms. Travers? Are you alright?"

Looking a bit frazzled, she just sits there, embarrassed and shaken, and shakes her head a bit.

She refuses to cry, though. She might be sleep deprived, she might feel like she's just been stabbed, and she might have just screamed and embarrassed herself in English, but she refuses to cry in front of people.

"Do you need to go to the nurse's office?" she asks, not unkindly.

"I…" she starts, then sniffs and says, "Uh, yeah. Please."

The teacher writes a little note and hands it to Eva.

She takes it, trying to smile, and then walks to the nurse's office, wiping at her eyes in the corridor before her tears smudge her mascara.

She cannot cope with this little sleep, okay? She thought she could, but she keeps dreaming about demons stabbing her and various gruesome ways in which she dies, and she feels like she is running on no sleep at all and it is not okay.

The nurse is in alone in her office. She looks up and looks concerned. "How can I help you, dear?"

"Do you know anything about nightmares?" she asks, sighing. "I mean, I haven't got any sleep in the past like four days because I keep having these stupid nightmares." She sniffs and says, "I fell asleep in class."

Okay, so, maybe she's not being the most coherent she could possibly be, but– circumstances.

"How did you get no sleep if you had nightmares? Or do you mean they woke you up and you couldn't get back to sleep?"

"I mean I feel like I got no sleep, even though I did."

She still looks like she might be about to cry.

"...I'm not really prepared to help you with that. I could give you some sleeping pills, but I'd need your parents' permission."

"I don't know, I just. I need a bit of a break from my lesson right now, because all I was gonna do was freak out in that room, or burst into tears, or something, and I just couldn't deal with that."

Yes, she is indeed crying by this point. She wipes at her eyes, though, and gets a tissue out of her bag.

"Oh, dear, you can stay here if you like. Do you want some tea? Maybe some hot chocolate?"

"I… Thanks," she sniffs, taking a seat, "but I think I'll be okay? Maybe some water?"

"Sure, dear." And she gets some water on a plastic cup and offers it to Eva.

Eva takes it, dabs at her eyes a few more times, and then drinks it and sits there, trying to calm down.

The nurse will resume doing whatever-it-is she'd been doing before Eva came in once it's clear her help won't be needed.

Then, about five minutes before the end of the lesson, Eva gets up, thanks the nurse, and walks back to class to get the work from the teacher so she can catch up.

The teacher gives it to her and asks, "Are you feeling better?"

"A bit, thanks," she says, smiling kinda tiredly, and then she leaves for the cafeteria.

At least she can have like 45 minutes of interaction with people at her own pace, now. She doesn't need to do anything but sit there, explain that she's tired, and talk to her friends as she wants to anyway.

Her friends are waiting for her at their usual table! They all have food already.

Well, in that case she'll go fetch some food!

Hum hum hum. Sitting in a line, moving around to get some food, talking to people if they're nearby.

You know, it's so nice now she's had her little breakdown. She can just… breeze, even though she's super terribly sleep-deprived.

Until, that is, Sadde, who was just in front of her on the line, suddenly trips and falls, dropping her tray in a very weird arc.

Brad's snicker is the only thing that breaks the sudden silence, his foot positioned very suspiciously relative to Sadde's flight. "Should watch where you're going, Woods."

Eva blinks a bit, her bubble broken by the loud noise.

Theo crouches down over Sadde, then glares at Brad and says, "What the fuck?"

He sneers a bit. "I was relaxing here and she tripped on my foot. Wasn't looking where she was going."

Sadde remains there, on the floor.

Eva blinks at the scene a bit more, then notices the blood.

She looks down for a second, then puts her tray on the counter beside her and leans down to help Sadde up, trying to be comforting, but giving Brad a look that says back off.

Then together, Theo and Eva can help Sadde up.

"I'm fine," she says, sounding it.

"It's just a scratch," says Brad, between the sneer and apparent doubt.

After Sadde's back on her feet, Eva backs off and gives Brad another look.

You know, this really is not okay.

Theo suggests that someone clear up the mess – it's not Sadde's fault – and then suggests that she go check herself over and make sure she's okay.

A cleaning person has seen the mess. "What happened here?" they ask sharply.

"She tripped and fell," Brad says.

The person looks at Sadde, sees the blood, and some of their annoyance drains. "Well, watch where you're going next time," they snap, and start cleaning it up.

"Will do," she says quietly.

And so Sadde and Theo leave the cafeteria.

Eva tries to catch Sadde's eye and smile at her, then says thanks to the cleaning person, grabs her tray from the counter where she left it, completely ignores Brad, and goes to sit down.

Sadde's friend Willow runs past the mess, going after them.

Sitting down with her food, Eva quite calmly picks up her knife and fork and starts eating, looking at Brad, then her friends, then around the room, and then at Brad, studying him.

How should she start, she wonders.

The cafeteria returns to its normal level of hubbub, and Brad seems to not notice her glaring daggers at him.

Glaring daggers? Why, whatever do you mean? Eva is just carefully studying him and his surroundings.

And plotting, just a little.

Brad doesn't notice that, either.

Good.

And so lunch will continue.

Until it's interrupted by a scream coming from somewhere.

Ugh.

Right now, she doesn't care too much. She'd rather just eat and plot how to kill– uh, destroy– uh, harm? Yeah, harm – Brad.

"What was that?" asks Verity.

"We should go see," says her best friend Janet, and both of them stand up at the same time as 80% of the cafeteria.

"You know you're not gonna be able to see anything, right? Like half the school is gonna be trying to find stuff out."

"Yes, and we're gonna be on the half that succeeds, we're us," Verity says, somewhat baffled. "Come on, let's go."

She rolls her eyes but does indeed get up and go.

And there is indeed a gaggle of students there, around the library! That's probably the most action this library's ever seen. And Principal Flutie is just going through this gaggle. "What's going on? What's here?" comes his voice from the middle of it, and then, a bit softer from inside the library, "Oh, my goodness." Pause. "You. Girls. Have you called nine-one-one?"

Sadde's voice is too low to be made out from this distance.

Eva stands there, waiting to see if her friends actually bother to barge through the crowd or if they're going to be polite and considerate or if she's going to have to take some sort of action or something.

She's not really in the mood to do things.

Of course her friends are going to barge through the crowd, and they'll drag her with.

Well then, she will indeed be dragged with.

Woo.

She wonders if the scream has anything to do with the creepy librarian who was acting super weird.

She bets it does.

"That is not for you to determine, young lady! Now shoo, you two, this area is off-limits," Principal Flutie says from the library, and waves Sadde and Willow out of the it, going with them. He grabs his mobile phone and dials something. "Everyone, please stay clear of the area, there's nothing to see here, nothing to see. Yes, hello? Yes, there's a body here—no, he's probably dead—well I suppose he might - Sunnydale High, the library—okay thank you." The pockets his phone and continues. "Nothing to see!"

Eva raises her eyebrow, looking a little bit disgusted. Not just at the fact that there's a dead body, but also at the way the principal is handling it. This is almost like a scene from a comedy film or something.

Dead bodies are not from comedy films.

He can be added to the list. She wonders how long he'll last.

"Anyway!" she says to her friends, quite cheerfully. "Nothing to see here, as the principal said – why don't we go back to lunch?"

"Nothing to see? There's a body! Who is it?" Verity cranes her neck, trying and failing to see more.

But then Principal Flutie says, "And now you should all return to your lunch, because you need to eat to be quite full of energy for the afternoon classes which will be happening normally. On you go."

Sadde shoots Theo a meaningful look, then returns with the other students to the cafeteria.

"And if there is a body, it's prrrobably not the best idea to start gossipping about it," she says, still smiling.

Back to the cafeteria they go.

"How not? I wonder who it is..."

"It's obviously the librarian, who else would be in a library?"

"The queer kid goes there a lot."

"Yeah but she was alive and well there with Principal Flutie."

"She indeed was alive, yes, and so it's possible that the body – about which I do not think we should gossip – was of the librarian."

She seems to be talking a little weirdly. That's curious.

"Hey Eva, what's up with you today?" Brittany asks. "You've been weird all day."

"I haven't been getting much sleep," she says, trying not to grimace.

Also, she has been plotting. Not all day, of course, but since the start of lunch, sure.

"Oh. Why not?"

"I'm not sure. Weird nightmares."

"Oh. Um. Have you tried exercising?" she asks, looking a bit lost.

"I usually jog in the evenings, yeah? But it doesn't seem to be helping."

She actually does usually jog in the evenings, but the past couple of days she's been a bit too tired to want to do that.

"Don't worry, though – if it keeps up, I'll just go see a doctor or something."

"Okay."

There is an awkward silence as her friends don't really know what to say, between a dead body and Eva being sad.

...it lasts about 3.97 seconds, and then they start gossiping about the body, about who could kill the librarian, about surely it was a heart attack, about no if it was that girl wouldn't be that upset would she, it was love revenge!

Euhh. Eva doesn't really have anything to contribute to this, sorry girls.

That's okay, they can carry a conversation without her, they understand.

She'll probably contribute if they change subjects, but otherwise she supposes she'll be quiet for a lot of the rest of lunch.

She might squint at Brad a few more times, though. Discreetly.

Lunch lasts long enough that eventually Eva's friends get tired of talking about the corpse and change subjects.

And she does indeed contribute.

And then lunch ends.

Eva has geography. So off to geography she goes.

No one else dies during class.

That's wonderful.

Does anybody turn into a puddle or something? Or does that count as dying during class? Maybe someone loses all their memories, or a couple of limbs instead?

Nothing bad other than utter and complete boredom happens, actually.

Woo!

And next she has gym.

This week: volleyball.

The coach is acting kinda weird.

… Weird in what way? Is it a way that might affect her learning or the safety of the people around her? Because if not, she doesn't want to know.

Weird as in, kinda happy and bubbly and not really paying attention to what he's doing. He seems to have decided it was volleyball the moment someone asked him, and hasn't set it up in advance. Various students are doing that for him, since he hasn't.

Ah, oh, phew, that's just affecting learning, not safety. That's fine then.

She'll just… stand here passively. Woo.

And eventually the practice will begin, led almost entirely by other students as the coach seems to be in la la land.

Woo! Volleyball! She can totally stand here seeming to actually put effort into this while meanwhile asleep on her feet! Woo!

(Sudden flashback about monster just as the ball makes its way to her face.)

Well, fortunately that causes her to jerk back, really quite quickly, so she doesn't in fact get hit in the face.

It pisses her off a bit, though.

The person who threw it apologizes.

That's okay.

She'll just psychologically torment you for maybe a week, since you apologized. It's fine. Honestly.

She internally glares.

And the game proceeds.

It does!

She pays a bit more attention this time, because she'd rather not be hit in the face again.

So she won't be hit in the face! Isn't that nice.

It is nice. Yes.

So, when does the lesson end? Pretty soon? Please?

Yep, pretty soon, aaaand now it's over.

Okay, good, so she can go get changed and leave and sleep, and hopefully finally get some proper sleep please god why.

Nothing weird will happen on the way to her place.

And then: her bed! So warm and inviting.

Yes.

Bed.

Please.

Sleep.

...sleep.

Sweet, dreamless, restorative sleep.

Oh thank fuck finally.

Yup! No dreams whatsoever. Sweet oblivion.

Okay.

So.

This can just continue forever now. That'd be great, thanks.

Aaaah.

Not forever. Just until dinner time, when her mother calls her for, well, dinner.

Well, that's… only to be expected.

She goes downstairs to have dinner, then returns back to her room, because she really wants to get back to sleep.

She will be undisturbed for the rest of the night.

Then she will wake up in the morning at a respectable hour feeling totally refreshed. Except for the whole sleep deprivation for the past five days or whatever thing. Which means she's not totally refreshed. She might even feel a little bit more dead. But she thinks she feels better.

Well, she did sleep for, like, fourteen hours there.

Yes, so now she feels weird because she had a lot of sleep in a row and previously had none. And her eyes hurt, like they're bruised or something, because this was just one night of sleep, presumably, unless she's just for some reason failing to respond to sleep how she normally does.

But she can cope.

So she gets up and has a shower and gets dressed and sorts her stuff out and eats breakfast and brushes her teeth and makes sure she's ready to go to school for a fun Tuesday.