Disoriented and frightened, the girl hurried down the dark, narrow street, making her way toward...home. She *thought* she was headed home. Somehow, all of a sudden, she couldn't remember where she had been headed, couldn't even remember leaving home.

Couldn't remember where she was at all.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she looked frantically around her, turning in a slow circle even as she kept moving forward, looking for something, anything familiar, to give her some clue as to her location, and how she might have come to be there. As she turned, however, the dark, grimy buildings and even the street around her faded gradually out to pitch black.

Before panic had time to set in, a building came into sharp focus directly ahead of her. Enormous, dark, and oppressive, the very sight of the structure sent a shudder of dread down her spine. Something within her whispered to her to go forward, to go inside, but everything else within her balked at the thought, unaccountably terrified of what she might find inside.

A brilliant flash of white light surrounded her, and then faded just as quickly out, leaving her once again disoriented as she found herself in what she could only assume was the interior of the same building. She was standing in a long, narrow hallway, light reflecting glaringly off stoic white walls. Her eyes widened with dismay as she noted that either side of the hallway was lined with small prison-like enclosures, with strange, blurred figures visible through the glass doors, moving within each of the cells.

Another disorienting flash left her standing in the center of one tiny, box-like cell, similar to the ones she had seen before, but in far worse repair. Light shone into it from behind her, revealing walls that were bleak and unpainted, the plaster crumbling and worn. The cell was empty of any kind of furniture. No windows...no toilet...no bed.

*How could anyone possibly survive in here?*

Despair filled her with that thought, and she jumped, startled, spinning around to see that the door to the cell had slammed abruptly shut behind her, shutting out the dim light and leaving her in total, utter darkness. A consuming, sweeping panic overwhelmed her as she rushed toward the door, feeling blindly for the handle, only to find that it was indeed locked.

She was trapped.

Various powerful, disturbing sensations filled her...a deep, aching cold that sent painful tremors through her; a bone-deep feeling of long starvation; terror without any shred of hope, as well as a constant, throbbing pain that seemed to consume her entire body, agony like she had never felt before, and hoped to never feel again. Exhaustion and hopelessness filled her, and she found that she could no longer stand, her weakened knees giving out beneath her so that she collapsed onto them.

A sudden, agonizing pain shot through her side, and she gasped in shocked horror. Her trembling hand flew to the spot, and her eyes went wide as she withdrew her hand and found it stained with dark, sticky blood. A new sensation of horrified confusion came over her as she realized that it was not her hand at all, but that of a stranger. She raised her other hand level with it, staring down in disbelief at them.

They were larger than her own - a man's hands. The hands which were not her own began to shake harder, and her breathing quickened with terror until she was afraid she might hyperventilate. Shaking her head in denial, she scrambled backward on her knees until her back was jarred against the wall at the far end of the cell.

The door opened abruptly with a loud slam that echoed in the empty chamber, and she flinched back against the wall, hearing a moan of anguished terror that seemed to reverberate both from all around her, and from her own aching throat. However, though she somehow knew she was the one making the sound, the voice was not her own. It was lower, the agonized, terrified sound of a man in desperate, pleading despair.

Pure, blinding panic consumed her, and she tried to scream, but found that no sound would issue from her constricted throat. In the confusion and madness of her surroundings, there was only one thing of which she was sure..

They were coming...and they were coming for *her*.

**************************************

With a startled gasp of terror, Tara sat up in her bed, eyes wide with panic, her body chilled by a cold sweat, shaking with the combination of cold and fear. Gradually the nightmare world of her troubled sleep faded away, and she became aware with an overwhelming sense of relief that she was in her own bedroom, safe in the warmth of her own bed.

And her hand was wet.

Tara looked down at the bed beside her, where her dog, a massive mixed breed of deerhound, and...something...lay sprawled across it, looking up at her through sad, soulful eyes as he licked her hand, offering her the only comfort he knew how. Macrea* had apparently sensed her discomfort, even in her sleep, for the large grey dog had shifted closer to her, his shaggy frame nestled comfortably against her, his head pushing up into her hand when he saw that she was awake.

With a weary sigh, Tara absently rubbed his head, stroking the soft, curly hair behind his ears as she turned to look at her digital alarm clock on the nightstand.

It was 5:30am.

She had to be up in half an hour anyway...not that she could have gone back to sleep, anyway.

"What a dream," she muttered to herself as she climbed reluctantly out of bed, walking to the door of her bedroom and out into the hallway, accompanied by the familiar padding feet of Macrea, following close at her heels. "What was *that* about?"

She went downstairs to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, giving Macrea his morning meal and then watering the plants on the counters while waiting for the kettle to boil. Troubled and disturbed by the vivid pictures that still ran over and over through her head, she filled the oil burner on the counter with some water and lavender oil, and lit the candle underneath. She needed something to soothe her nerves if she was going to face this day with any kind of peace.

The sweet fragrance of the lavender oil was soothing, but still she sat at the table for a long while, her mind returning again and again to the confused, horrifying images that had filled her mind in sleep, trying to somehow make sense of it all. It had been so vivid, so terrifying, one of those terribly real dreams that when one awoke, they had to wonder if it had been merely a dream, or some memory of reality.

When she finally drew herself out of her reverie long enough to check the clock again, she realized that she was going to be late to class if she did not get ready quickly. Tara rose from the chair with a troubled mind and a heavy heart as she went about her morning routine. Briefly checking to make sure it wasn't raining, she let Macrea out in the garden, then took a quick shower and hurriedly dressed. She let the dog back in and barely remembered to lock the front door behind her as she rushed to her car.

She slid into a seat in her first class of the morning, Child Psychology, a mere minute after the professor had stepped up to his podium. She was relieved that the class was just beginning, and she hadn't missed anything - and then proceeded to miss the rest of the entire class period, her mind still occupied with the strange dream that would not leave her mind.

Such intense, horrific suffering...what would have put such thoughts in her mind? Tara liked to think that all dreams could be read, could be used as an indicator of the dreamer's subconscious thoughts and worries. What could be the reason for this vivid and troubling dream?

After psych, Tara managed to go through the rest of her day in a mostly normal manner. She ran into a couple of friends and had lunch with them, but left them shortly afterward for her next class, an art appreciation course. She was the kind of girl who had many casual friends, was well-liked by most people that she knew, but wasn't really close to anyone.

There were too many...secrets. Things she was unwilling to share with those around her. If they knew...well, they probably wouldn't mind the secrecy, the lack of closeness, if they knew what it was she was hiding.

There was *one* person with whom Tara felt she had formed a close bond since moving to Sunnydale, but only one, and she sometimes wished that she could open up to someone about her thoughts, her fears, the constant nagging questions that filled her mind. The one thing Tara missed about life at home was the sense of closeness and familiarity - of being intimately known, even if perhaps not as accepted or loved as she might have liked. It was sometimes lonely, not letting anyone in to her cloistered past...but it was safer than the alternative.

After class, Tara made her way home, where she was greeted by Macrea. The big dog barked and wagged his tail in greeting as she walked through the door, setting down her books and paperwork and gratefully preparing for a quiet, peaceful evening at home. She read a little, watched television, and played with Macrea.

By the time she was ready for bed that night, she had nearly forgotten about the troubling dream she had had that morning. She lay down in bed beside her dog, pulling some of the covers from under him over her and snuggling down into their warmth, all worries far from her mind as she settled down to sleep.

*********************************

The door opened abruptly with a loud slam that echoed in the empty chamber, and the single inhabitant of the tiny dark cell flinched violently back against the worn, plaster wall behind him. The rough surface scraped against the countless wounds that marred his back, sending a fresh fire of agony through his already severely taxed nerve endings.

He tried to scream...but sound eluded him.

"Hey, there," a familiar voice - too loud, too maliciously cheerful - echoed in the room, and he cringed backward, huddling in on himself, trembling in unmasked terror. "Ready to play?"

Heavy footsteps approached, and he shuddered, but dared not make another useless attempt at escape, as they slowly but surely closed in on him. No matter how he had tried to escape, to fight, and finally to appease his savage captors...nothing worked.  Nothing helped.

This was his fate.

He no longer existed to the world outside those dark walls - and no one would be coming, not for *him*.

No one but them.

*Note:  "Macrea" is pronounced as "MacRay", and is an Irish name meaning "son of grace".