Tara was running...but she knew that there was no escape.

Once again she was surrounded by stoic white, unsettlingly clean and blindingly bright. The glaring light reflected off the pristine walls, leaving her terribly disoriented, until she wasn't even sure she was running in the right direction anymore.

All she knew was that she had to keep running, had to stay ahead of her pursuers.

Every corner she turned brought her face to face with a leering, snarling guard, menacing and angry and determined to chase her down and drag her back to the dark, bleak little cell she remembered from before. A sense of intense despair overwhelmed her, as she realized that she was not going to get away.

Her heart pounded with terror as she turned another corner...and found herself at a dead end, surrounded on three sides by the bleak walls of the lonely cell she had most wanted to avoid. A malicious laugh echoed in the darkness, and she whirled around in panic to see a looming, faceless figure in a uniform slowly advancing on her.

"Did you really think you could get away?"

She shook her head in denial, a paralyzing terror gripping her until all she could do was back away, holding her hands up pleadingly, shaking her head. She wanted to scream, to beg for mercy, but couldn't seem to make a sound leave her dry, aching throat. In her panic she gasped for breath that would not come, the desperate need for oxygen only serving to increase her terror. Her back hit the wall, and she was sliding down it into a huddled crouch, just desperate to escape the ever-advancing figure.

An instant later agonizing pain seized her body, a white hot, electric burning that consumed her in a blinding flash of light and anguish. A silent scream tore from Tara's lips, and all around her went dark.

Bright flashes filled her mind, briefly flaring and then disappearing back into darkness - razor sharp wires slicing into fragile skin...streams of blood running down torn, white flesh and dripping to stain the pristine tile floor...a flash of white-blond hair above a huddled male form, trembling in a corner, clutching at gaping wounds with weak, shaking hands.

She could feel the agony, the terror and despair, knew that she had felt what he was feeling, seen what he had been through. The area around her was dark, only the single corner where he tried to hide illuminated as if by a spotlight as she was slowly pulled nearer to him, drawn by some irresistible force.

"Who...who are you?" she whispered, not sure he could even hear her, was even aware she was there.

Suddenly his head shot up, wide blue eyes locking onto hers in panic, and her heart lurched within her.

An instant later, the setting shifted, and Tara was standing at the end of a dimly lit alley. Near the other end, she could hear the sound of pained whimpering, and crouched near the ground, a familiar shock of platinum hair. Eager to help the man, now that they were somehow free of the maze of white walls that had confined them, Tara hurried down the alley.

She stopped short a few feet away, her eyes widening in horror.

The whimpering was not coming from the blond man, but from a young woman, slumped in the alley with her back to the wall, bleeding from a wound on her neck. At first glance the blond appeared to be kissing her...but then, he spun around to face Tara, feral golden eyes gleaming in the light from a nearby streetlamp, blood glistening on deadly fangs. It was only a glimpse, but in that instant, Tara saw the bloodlust in his eyes, the thrill of the kill...how thoroughly he enjoyed the pain and death he was inflicting.

He was a vampire.

Tara stumbled backward in horrified confusion, before regaining her balance and spinning around, racing down the alleyway, not sure if she was being pursued or not. She ran and ran, the town racing by around her until her lungs ached and her legs felt weak, and she knew she could not go much farther. She stumbled to a stop, relieved to hear only silence behind her.

Then she saw what lay ahead of her, and drew in a long, deep breath, her eyes widening as she looked up, up, higher still, to the top of a looming metal structure. It was an impossibly tall tower, all odd angles and sharp turns and misplaced platforms.

At the top of the tower was the blond vampire, and he was in the midst of a terrible conflict. A young girl was bound at one end of the highest platform, her features too distant for Tara to make out, and from the other end countless monsters charged her. The vampire stood in their way, fighting them off as they came, tossing them from the tower, shattering bones and breaking the creatures before they could touch the helpless child.

Mystified by the contrast between this and the previous scene, Tara only knew that the vampire was a more complex creature than she had supposed at first.

Suddenly, a larger monster than all the others charged him, and Tara let out a cry of dismay as the vampire and his attacker went tumbling off the edge of the tower, falling at a devastating speed, hurtling toward the unforgiving concrete below.

Just before they would have hit the ground, a bright flash of light took Tara back to the first scene, the bleak cell where she had first been. The vampire was huddled in the corner, his shoulders shaking with silent, desolate sobs. All at once he looked up at her again, his eyes meeting hers in the darkness, and she felt more than heard the desperate plea in that earnest, anguished gaze.

*Help me...please...*

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

For the second morning in a row, Tara awakened in a cold sweat, panting and shivering, her eyes wide with remembered terror even as they adjusted to the familiar warm light of her own bedroom. This time, Macrea was lying with his head and front paws across her lap, whining softly.

Tara stroked the soft fur on the back of his neck, but her eyes were distant, staring into space at dark, disturbing images etched indelibly in her mind. She could still feel the fear, the anguish and hopelessness of that dream. Her heart pounded and her body felt weak and shivery in the aftermath of all that she had seen and felt. The image of the blond man...or vampire, rather...that she had seen filled her mind, and she wondered if there was some reason for these strange dreams, if it was possible that he really existed.

She had known for some time that the creatures most people thought of as nothing more than pure fantasy were actually much more. She had some experience with such things even before Sunnydale, and for some reason, Sunnydale seemed to be a center of such activity. The idea that the man was really a vampire in her dream in no way meant that he did not exist in reality as well.

She had experienced a couple of frightening encounters with vampires since moving into the house owned by her uncle, loaned to her for the duration of her stay in college, a few blocks from UC Sunnydale. Both times, the monstrous creatures had taken her off guard, and Tara had been forced to revert to tactics she had intended to abandon forever, simply in order to survive...but she *had* survived.

The next day, she made a trip to one of the more reputable magic shops in Sunnydale, the Magic Box, and picked up a couple of books on vampires. Of course, most people would probably have considered them works of mythology -- but Tara knew better. Vampires were real, and Sunnydale seemed to have more than its fair share; she had to be prepared, should she run into another such threat.

She thought again of the brutality of the scene in the alley, confused by the seeming conflict in the very nature of the specific vampire that had been haunting her dreams. It had been horrifying to watch him drain that woman of life...and yet, was it normal for a vampire to defend a young human girl, as he had done in the next scene she had been shown?

What did it all mean?

Did it even mean anything at all?

She hoped against hope that it did not.

It was Saturday, and still early, so she didn't have to get up; but she knew there was no way she was going to be able to fall back to sleep. She rose from her bed and went about her usual routine, though her mind was miles away the entire time. By the time she was dressed and had taken Macrea on his usual walk, it was still earlier than most people would be moving about at all on a Saturday morning.

With a restless sigh, Tara sat down on the sofa and began flipping impatiently through the channels on the television, unable to find anything interesting enough to take her attention from her troublesome dreams. Inane talk shows and melodramatic movie-of-the-week style stories left her mind free enough to keep worrying over the horrors she had seen and felt, wondering if they could possibly be real...and if they were, why she was seeing them.

Was someone - some higher power, or even the man in the dreams himself - trying to tell her something?

And if so...what could she do about it, anyway?

"It's not like I *could* do anything," she said under her breath, her eyes on the television screen though she had no idea what was on it at the moment.

*But you could...you know you could, if you really wanted to...*

No, she told herself firmly. She was not going to allow her mind to travel that route.

She needed a distraction.

Tara forced that troubling thought from her mind, rising from the couch and unwittingly dumping Macrea unceremoniously onto the floor. The dog had been sprawled across her lap while she watched television, and she hadn't even realized it. She gave him a startled, apologetic glance as she headed toward the phone, murmuring as she did.

"Sorry, Mac...didn't see you there..."

With a sigh, the dog laid his head on his paws, watching her dolefully as she picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number.

"Hey, it's Tara."

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Nothing much, I was just wondering what *you* were up to today."

The girl on the other line sighed as she answered, "A whole lot of boring nothing waiting around for people to get home who won't even realize I'm here when they do."

"Oh," Tara mildly replied, "sounds exciting."

Silence greeted her light sarcasm, and she laughed, relenting.

"Sorry, honey, just kidding. Actually I was wondering if you wanted to come over."

"Yes!" There wasn't a moment's hesitation in the answer.

Tara couldn't help but smile as she went on, "Okay. I'll pick you up." She glanced at her watch. It was 10:30am. "How does 11:00 sound?"

"Late."

Tara softened at the impatient reply, well aware that the girl was often terribly lonely. She had experienced a lot of loss in the past year, and unfortunately, no one but Tara seemed to have noticed.

"I'll get there as soon as I can. Try not to die of boredom in the meantime, Dawnie."

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

A small, trembling figure huddled in darkness, pressed into the corner of the tiny, bleak cell. Pale, painfully thin arms wrapped around bony, bruised knees as he tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible - but there was nowhere to hide.

The room was utterly empty, except for him. No furniture of any kind, no blankets to shield him against the cold tile floor and walls that surrounded him. Nothing to focus on or distract him from the raging hunger that consumed his body with an aching, gnawing pain to which he had become accustomed - not that he could have seen it anyway, had a distraction been provided.

And the fact that he had become used to the pain didn't make it hurt any less.

He was drifting in and out of consciousness, his head slumping back against the wall behind him, barely able to distinguish sleep from wakefulness anymore, except when *they* came.

Except for the pain.

The blackness of night was his constant torment. Broken and starving, blind and unable even to speak, all he could do was wait in his cell for them to return, and hurt him again - because they always did.

They always came back.

The sound of the door slamming into the wall made him jump, though he had heard it a thousand times before. It was one thing he had never gotten used to...and it was the one sound he dreaded more than any.

It meant *they* were there.

One set of slow, even footsteps echoed across the cold, tile floor...only one of them this time.

That did not make his situation any better.

"Hey, Seventeen," a mocking male voice greeted him, echoing in the darkness. The man said nothing else until he was crouched inches away from the trembling, terrified prisoner, adding in a soft, falsely sympathetic voice, "How you holding up?"

The unexpected nearness made the vampire flinch, his head jerking painfully back against the wall behind him. His hands flew up, only an inch or two, in an instinctively defensive gesture, though he knew it was forbidden to him and immediately put them down again, shaking fingers scrabbling at the wall on either side of him, clutching at it in an attempt to control his instincts and keep himself from pulling away.

Because if he pulled away...if he fought...it was always worse.

"Easy," the man advised in a warning tone, as a cruel fist tangled in his hair, jerking his head back. "You know better, Seventeen."

He froze, forcing himself to become limp and pliable in the man's grasp, despite his every instinct that told him to do otherwise. His body shook with panicked tremors, his every nerve on edge, waiting for the pain to begin, even as he struggled to do whatever it took to please his brutal captor.

"That's better."

He could hear the smirk in the calm, quiet voice as a harsh, possessive hand gripped his throat, pressing in, sending a fresh wave of agony through his entire body. He jerked within the man's grasp, but did not fight, as he was dragged up to his knees, the motion sending a searing jolt of agony through his damaged legs. A harsh leather strap attached to the wall behind him was drawn across his throat and fastened before being cinched tight.

The man leaned in close, and the vampire could feel the cruel smile on his lips as he hissed into his ear, "Wouldn't want you to move, would we? Might spoil the fun..."

*Please...please, no...please, don't...*

But no one was listening to his silent cries for mercy...and no one was coming to help him.