37. 1/1. PG-13. No pairing.
Apr. 21st, 2007 06:22 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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Title: 37
Fandom: Buffy.
Prompt: 39 - Inertia.
Warnings: None really.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Countdown to destruction from a different point of view.
Wordcount: 880 (yes, that's right, I wrote something under 1,000)
Thirty-seven.
The first one was slow; she thought it was to break her nerves, to make her wait in horrible anticipation as it was slowly taken. Colors changed, she changed, and she wondered how. She knew the why; it was the how that eluded her. She had time to think, though. Just a little time left before...well...she didn't really know. In this state, who knew what she would do.
Thirty-six.
The how had to have been him. That was all she could think of. It hadn't been the girl, though this was certainly all about the girl. No. It had been him. It must have been. He'd been the one to force the changes. He was the one responsible.
Thirty-five.
Going faster now; if she had a watch, she could calculate how many a minute. It wouldn't do her any good, though. She didn't have a watch, and watching the watch would've made her that much more aware of how many there were left.
Thirty-four.
An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. She knew all about that; it had been one of the lessons she remembered well before coming here.
Thirty-three.
Newton's law. Physics. That was easy to understand. It was a little harder and trickier to apply it, but when she did, it still worked. Even in the realm of pain and anguish, the law still applied.
Thirty-two.
All she had to do was switch out the variables. Replace outside force with him, and replace object at rest with her. Then it all fit into place quite nicely. Except it wasn't nicely; it was a horrible truth.
Thirty-one.
The object at rest had been pushed by anger by the outside force. Pushed by grief. Sorrow. Pain. Everything and anything that dealt with a sudden loss, and it had been pushed at the object.
Thirty.
Well, the object certainly wasn't at rest anymore. Neither was anything around. Papers flew, books slammed into the wall when they'd been sent flying from the table.
Twenty-nine.
Normally, she would've said something about the mess. She still wanted to; this wasn't going to be fun picking up. Of course, her body would be a lot harder to pick up and clean up, so she stayed silent.
Twenty-eight.
Maybe she'd been forgotten. Maybe. It would be nice if she was, because then she could get out through the door just around the corner, go tell the others, do something other than stand and
Twenty-seven.
stare at the destruction. She could swear that she heard the wind of power rushing through the room, covering everything, surrounding her.
Twenty-six.
She tried to move, but when her arm hit the barrier, she stopped. Any more pushing, and her attention would go straight to her, and that wasn't something she wanted. She needed to
Twenty-five.
be invisible. She tried the other side of the barrier, but
Twenty-four.
no luck. She wasn't going anywhere
Twenty-three.
anytime soon, and was she getting panicked, or were they getting taken faster? No, wait, those ones were tiny. Hefty and powerful, but tiny. Okay. She could breathe again.
Twenty-two.
Well, not really. They weren't going as fast as those last three, but they were still flying by fast, and when she said flying, she meant flying. Off the table into the wall and the glass windows, and she cringed, waiting for one to break.
Twenty-one.
If they broke, though, then maybe someone outside would panic and scream and then the news would get out to the others, and there'd be help. She could do with some help right now. Lots of it.
Twenty.
Come on window, break. It wouldn't take much; just a few more hard pounds, and it would break out into the street. Just break already.
Nineteen.
Break, dammit, break. Break. Break. Break.
Eighteen.
PLEASE break. Break. C'mon, break, let someone hear the shattering of the glass, see the glass
Seventeen.
exploding out into the street. Break. Hell, even a hard enough hit might cause it to crack, and THAT would be noticed. So break already.
Sixteen.
Please break.
Fifteen.
Break.
Fourteen.
BREAK.
Thirteen.
It occurred to her then that no one was watching.
Twelve.
No one was coming to help.
Eleven.
No one was coming at all.
Ten.
She was going to rip them a
Nine.
new one when she
Eight.
got out of this.
Seven.
If she got out of this.
Six.
She turned her eyes from the windows to her.
Five.
There weren't many left.
Four.
Her life had seconds left, because
Three.
any second now she was
Two.
going to be done and then
One.
she was done.
The last one was tossed aside, and the change was evident. Very strongly evident. Inertia. Her mind latched onto the word, refusing to call it what it really was. It wasn't inertia. It wasn't really an object at rest acted on by an outside force.
It was a grieving woman who had lost her lover in the blink of an eye and was going after the man who had done it.
In another blink of an eye, Willow was gone, and Anya breathed.
< --- >
I actually really like the short style I did with this one. I tried something different, and I actually really liked it. Let me know what you thought of it.
~Nebula
no subject
Date: 2007-04-22 02:10 am (UTC)I know. I'm a bit obsessive.
Anyway, that said, I really liked this. I like fics that are a bit obscure; fics where you don't really know whats going on until the very end. You did an awesome job capturing Willow's anger and Anya's fear/nervousness.
And I love what you did with the book numbers! :D
no subject
Date: 2007-04-22 02:28 am (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 2007-04-22 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-22 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-23 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-23 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-28 10:42 pm (UTC)