FROM HEROES ━━ buffy

iii. Halloween is a day off

         As of today, Lilith is officially a student at UC Sunnydale. She likes this feeling of being somewhere new, and yet she chases novelties that she easily grows tired of.

         The admission process was a tricky deal that she'd rather not go into detail of. For one, she doesn't have the funds to afford an American education, or done any of the previous education needed for college. Regardless of it, she's here and heading to her new dorm. She already has an idea of the posters she's gonna hang on her wall (i.e. The Doors, that Friends show, and that one Star Wars movie). All qualities of a typical teenage girl.

         Lilith is all leather jackets, smudged lipstick and nonchalant attitude. Her rings-clad fingers run through her hair as she braces herself before her dorm's door. She fiddles with the keyhole and goes inside, her luggage trails right behind her.

         Her eyes travel around the room. It's smaller than her previous bedroom but definitely an upgrade with the sunlight. As she lodges her suitcase beside the empty bed, she flops onto the mattress. It's sturdy and will be hard getting used to. From the nightstand, she reaches for a textbook—that is definitely not hers. She tries to keep herself busy with it.

Art Theory. A Very Short Introduction.

It's her roommate's.

She's halfway through the second chapter when she arrives. Her name's Tara Maclay, the dean let her know. An art major from what she can tell. Lilith has placed herself into anthropology. 

Tara stands in the middle room, fiddling with her hands. Lilith can tell she's a little shy, she thinks people like Tara make for the best kind of friends. They are easy to talk to, usually good listeners.

Her hair's blonde, her eyes have a sort of drowsy look to them. She sports a lilac tank top and a green patterned long skirt. Overall, Lilith can tell Tara has a kind aura to her.

"You must be Tara," she smiles, eerie and unnerving. "I'm Lilith. Your new roommate."

Tara has been dreading the arrival of her roommate, but she seems fine so far. "Uh, h- hi, Lilith. Nice to meet you."

"Cute."

Lilith sits up as she nears herself to the edge of the bed, her knees are splayed apart and her hands rest in between. She gazes at Tara, studying her. She seeks to perfect her act of a normal teenage girl. Her scrutinizing stare makes Tara feel self-conscious as she wraps her arms around herself.

Neither one is sure who'll be the first to make conversation. To relieve herself of the awkward tension, Lilith reaches into her leather jacket for her cigarette pack.

"Do you mind if I smoke?"

Tara stutters. "Y- yes, a little."

Lilith nods and puts the cigarette back in her stash. Instead of smoking, she fiddles with her lighter, turning it around in her hand.

Lilith seeks to make friends with her roommate, she's in her path of redemption after all. "Heard there's a party later tonight. Wanna come?"

☀︎

         Tara doesn't come with her to the party—either she doesn't like Lilith or she's put off by her. Lilith still looks forward to befriending her, by Tara being human Lilith thinks that might make some of her humanity brush off on her. For now she'll go to the party by herself.

         She's picked her costume and done her makeup. Zombie, that's what she's going as. Maybe it's for how dead she feels all of the time.

The frat house the party's at has the classic architecture of one. There's loud music coming from it. It lets Lilith know that this is the right spot.

When she enters the house, she thinks that they got the ambiance of a haunted house right. There's blood-curdling screams ringing through the walls, and she can smell genuine fear. This is sure the to top the last party she went to.

She doesn't notice that as soon as she entered, the door disappeared. And as she ambles through the house, the walls shudder. She passes by a mirror that won't reflect her properly. It's like the house doesn't know what to make of her. At one point, a door slams itself shut away from her.

"Cute trick," she mutters to the house. "Do it again and I'll set you on fire."

Eventually, Lilith finds Buffy's group. They're huddled around a closet door.  "It's alive. It's alive," the voice comes from the door, someone seems to be locked inside.

They don't immediately notice Lilith, too focused on listening to the maddened pleas. From what they gather, the house has somehow come to life.

Then, they feel Lilith's presence behind them, and suddenly turn around to face her. Buffy and her friends stare at her with bewilderment.

Xander is the first to speak as he aggressively points at Lilith. "You!"

This is their first confrontation since Lilith tried to gut him—she tries for a weak smile. "...Me."

Willow tries to make sense of her presence. "What- what are you doing here?"

As Lilith tries for a response, Oz beats her to speak as he eyes her costume. Lilith has gone all out, it's clear. "Zombie...cool."

Lilith, as expected, seems more interested in the Slayer. Buffy is in a red riding hood costume, she's done her hair in cutesy braids. It's a good thing she's admiring Buffy for in that moment, a thing is bracing itself to attack Buffy from behind.

"Buffy!" Lilith screams and pushes Buffy out of the way. A skeleton—somehow alive—swings an axe.

Buffy stares at Lilith, filled with the disbelief of being saved by her. She doesn't even believe the words that come out of her mouth. "Thank you."

Lilith pulls her lips into a straight line and nods.

Buffy sees the gash on her arm, Lilith's injured herself for her. It's bloody. Buffy almost feels bad. Lilith says, "It'll heal."

The cut isn't deep, mostly dramatic.

It's so lighthearted the way she says it that it dissipates any doubts in Buffy's head. She is thankful for what Lilith did.

Then, it's like she forgets about the gesture and goes back to her friends. Soon, it's like she's pretending Lilith isn't there.

It's not like Lilith expected to be welcomed with open arms. One save and she's suddenly a part of the group. It just doesn't work that way. Still, there's a pang in her chest. She keeps trailing after them, though it's obvious they don't want her around. With each horror they find in the house, Lilith finds it less and less in herself to help them.

Eventually they leave her behind, Lilith tells herself that she wanted to stay behind.

☀︎

An hour goes by, the fear inside the house intensifies. Cloying, clinging, hungry. It seeps through the walls like steam. Lilith is tempted to feed on it. It's too much. Too easy. Too loud.

And so, she isolates herself, finds a bathroom at the end of the hall. Pushes the door shut and clicks the lock. The mirror fogs not from heat but from other people's dead, bleeding into the glass.

Lilith leans against the sink, trying to breathe. "Don't feed. Don't feed. Don't–"

But the door clicks open.

She didn't open it.

And the house doesn't let her stay alone.

A college student–tall, nervous, already shaking–stumbles in. He's dressed as a Greek god, white toga and laurel wreath atop his head. He mumbles something about shadows. His hands are cut from trying to pry open a window. And he sees Lilith, standing so still. Catlike. Dangerous. He startles.

"S-sorry. I thought–"

But the door slams shut behind him. Locks.

Lilith doesn't move. She doesn't want to feed. Not like this. But he's leaking fear like a cracked pipe. She can feel it pulsing in her veins, lighting her up like static. And worse, the house wants her to.

So she does the one thing she can.

She turns away from him. Sits on the toilet lid. Shuts her eyes. And starts humming. Something low and steady, like a lullaby sung off-key. Her fingers dig crescent moons into her thighs as she clenches every inch of her control.

"You're not real," she mutters to the house. "You don't get to puppeteer me."

The guy is panicking now. He thinks she might be part of this. That she might hurt him.

She doesn't blame him.

"I'm not gonna touch you," she says finally. Her voice is raw. "Sit down. Back against the door. Pretend I'm not here."

And he does.

And for ten long minutes, they sit in silence. Her pupils blown wide, his breathing shaky.

Then, the door unlocks. Lilith waits for him to leave first, and as he does, she says, "Don't tell anyone what you saw."

"I didn't see anything," he whispers.

Good.

The temptation is over.

But then, she considers the possibility that she might get locked inside this room forever. Luckily, she hasn't let go of the knob for the door to disappear on her, so she tries to open it again but this time it's to no avail.

Then, when she finally pushes the door open, she's gained too much momentum that she tumbles over only to realize that there's no flooring. She falls from what appears to be three stories high — as if somehow the bathroom door led all the way down to the basement. Her impact resonates with a hard thud.

Lilith grunts loudly, she's fallen face first over dirt. She wipes some of it off from her forehead as she flips onto her back. She hasn't crushed any bones — one of the perks of being immortal.

Her eyes search for the guy she shoved out of the room but it's like the house didn't send them to the same place even thought they went out the same door. But Lilith isn't alone, she hears recognizable war grunts.

The Slayer was sent down here as well.

Lilith isn't distracted for too long when she feels the ground shake beneath her. She glances to her side, and makes out the pointed end of a spear. Deep in the ground, it starts to quiver — as if the spear wants to crawl out of the earth it is buried in.

The spear seems to be levitating out of the ground, and then the silhouette of a helmet reveals itself. Someone or something is beneath the ground, buried in the dirt. Lilith sits up and scoots away from it.

She stares in amazement as the thing crawls out of the ground. She knows she must fight it any second now. It's a knight, well, purely the knight's armor since there is no living thing inside it.

Then, she hears Buffy running towards them — as if she wants to returns the favor from earlier, Buffy hurls a kick at it and sends the armor pieces flying off. Lilith is in awe of her strength, doesn't immediately realize that Buffy's saved her.

A tiny opening they can crawl through reveals itself. As they're being chased by undead, vicious things, they scramble to the hole in the wall. One of the entities gets too close that Lilith has to roughly elbow it away when it tries to grasp her arm. Nonetheless, they manage to escape the basement, and after crawling through the opening, they have somehow traveled to the attic.

They are back with Buffy's friends.

☀︎

The house turned out to be haunted by a demon that used to work for Lilith's father.

Buffy, as always, saved the day.