Buffy’d never felt blackness as dark as this. It was nothing like being dead. She remembered that well enough, the way that everything in existence had become caramel and soft clouds. That had all been honey covered light and there was and infinite amount of absolutely nothing. Not a care in the world. This wasn’t that.
This was worry, it was guilt, and it was noisy. All she heard was her own breathing, each molecule being sucked down into her lungs. She couldn’t control any of it. She couldn’t escape the rhythmic breathing that meant she was alive. She wasn’t dead this time. Nope, dead people didn’t breathe. She’d seen it all but never that. She didn’t know how long she’d been wherever she was. She couldn’t really think of how she got their either. People didn’t just sleep for no reason, did they? She’d tried to stop thinking all together when she discovered she wouldn’t be able to even dream. She’d tried to double sleep, slip out of the cold hard reality of being trapped in a body she felt as though she wasn’t connected to, but that release never came. Only more breathing. She needed to wake up.
And then, after all this time, it happened. As if merely wishing it were so had made it possible. Suddenly it all flooded back to her. First the light, orangey-peach, shining through eyelids she felt flutter. Eyelids she felt flutter. She was feeling things. God was she feeling things. Suddenly it was all pain. She didn’t dare move yet, every square inch of her was aching in one way or another. Don’t move, focus on the sounds. There were other sounds now, people sounds. Voices she couldn’t distinguish, she tried to place faces to the two voices. There were two other people here. Two women. What does it smell like? Lavender. Vanilla.
Buffy willed herself to push the pain to the back of her mind. It seemed like it took a long time, but eventually all but one ache seemed to numb away. But holy heck was it one hell of an ache. All five of her senses were getting to their distracty goodness when suddenly she remembered it all. What had happened. She had lost to Faith, she had lost even though she was right. They probably had her chained and bound, no chance of registering despite the beatdown. The wrong thing had happened and it was utterly out of her control. Buffy thought she might be sick. She bolted up with a gasp (mostly in reaction to the unbearable pain shooting up her spine), and her eyes flew open to let the world back in. She was awake and her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach, she wished it could all be a dream.
This Is A Test 