Dead or Alive (topic 36)
Having never died my death, I can only assume that thinking about it is worse than the act itself.
1608 - Jamestown, VA
She is twenty-two years old when she contracts syphilis - contracts it, but doesn't die from it. Though she has yet to reach the median age of a typical human in her village, the life expectancy for whores is much, much lower. Death practically resides on the doorsteps of such women.
It is six months after the contraction that she is diagnosed, when fever, pain, and a rash she'd ignored for weeks all drive her to the village physician. Doctor Smith is not quite sympathetic when he gives her the news - mostly she doesn't blame him. He'd paid for her services only days before.
"Syphilis," he informs her in a sharp tone. Her face is a mask of indifference while she receives her death sentence.
"The disease of kings," she answers lightly. "I suppose I could be in worse company."
"No," Doctor Smith tells her - she looks at him curiously. "Gout is the disease of kings - syphilis is known as 'the great imitator.'"
She doesn't intend to roll her eyes, but nonetheless she finds herself looking at the newly whitewashed ceiling of her parlor. "If you insist."
He does not press the subject.
1609 - Jamestown, VA
The symptoms multiply quickly, and before she knows it she is confined to bed, awaiting a visit from death. Doctor Smith is gone from the village, choosing to keep his shame private. A new doctor, whose name she never bothers to learn, takes vigil beside her and treats her sores with cooling herbs.
Days and nights pass slowly, though the end always feels as though it is coming at a rapid pace. Every instant brings her closer to the last instant of her life, and she is terrified - she puts on a brave face, but she knows that it's a lie.
When a priest enters her room, death feels so close that she can smell it - the doctor must sense it too, because he abandons his post at the request of the holy man. He never moves while she is still awake.
"I am your salvation," he tells her, removing his hood to reveal the twisted features that lie beneath. Even in her compromised position she holds her ground, and when he bites into her diseased flesh and drains her poisoned blood from her body, she thinks that yes - this truly is the end.
She is wrong, however. This is only the beginning.
1997 - Sunnydale, CA
Darla likes Sunnydale - though the Master (her savior) can be trying, she enjoys being his pet nearly as much as the supernatural waves that emanate from the small town's core. Her time spent over the hellmouth is not nearly as exciting as the years that she'd spent wreaking havoc across the globe with Angelus - her protégé, her lover, her darling boy - but she has eternity to regain that, or find it anew.
It's the soul to which Angelus has been bound for nearly a century that disgusts her, but Darla finds technology marvelous and has no doubt that she'll discover a way to wrench it right out again.
At the moment, however, Darla is content.
When she receives news that the Slayer has moved to Sunnydale, Darla can hardly contain her delight - she has yet to kill a Slayer, and opportunity tastes sweet on her lips. Unfortunately what she fails to consider is the presence of Angelus - no, Angel now - and his unprecedented love for the girl in question.
She visits him one night in the mansion that he calls home, and he is so unwelcoming that she hardly recognizes him at all. "What is wrong with you?" she demands, and he barely acknowledges the passion in her voice. "One hundred and fifty years, Angelus - and another century spent pining for my memory, I'm sure - and suddenly it's forgotten because you're dreaming of some cheerleader instead?"
"It's not forgotten," he admits, looking at her warily. "Life would be a lot easier if it could be."
"You're not alive," she bites out cruelly. "You're pathetic."
"The sun will be rising soon," Angel reminds her indifferently. "You should leave."
Darla stalks out but doubles her efforts to kill the Slayer. She is close enough to taste the victory when she feels a sharp pain in her chest, emanating from her back; she turns and sees Angel, teeth gritted in determination and eyes revealing nothing.
"Angel?" she gasps - she doesn't have time to say more before she bites her tongue to prevent from screaming and explodes into ash. Four hundred years are condensed into a pile of dust on the floor.
2000 - Los Angeles, CA
She feels cold for the first time in - she’s not one hundred percent certain, actually, of how long it’s been. Initially she is only aware of a box, of bars, and of her chattering teeth; she doesn’t recognize the woman peeking in through the small window and she immediately draws back into the corner. The words sound like they’re being spoken through liquid and they don’t form any coherent sounds at all. It’s all she can do not to scream -
Which she does, eventually, and she doesn’t stop until she has no voice anymore.
When she stops shrieking, she is removed from her confines by a young looking lawyer with a kind voice but hard eyes. He brings her to a small apartment - where, exactly, it is located she doesn’t know - and six nights out of seven she finds him sleeping on her couch. She learns early into this arrangement that really, she’s nothing but Wolfram and Hart’s pawn; at first she doesn’t mind, as tormenting Angel is its own reward.
It grows tedious when two things happen - first, he is alerted to her presence, which takes a great deal of the fun away from her new life - life, not unlife - and, second, the weight of her own soul begins to bear heavily onto her psyche. Neither of these two things compare to the feeling of a centuries-old disease eating away at her flesh, however, and Darla starts to crack up - not her words.
She runs back to Angel, the man vampire she’s been torturing with word and deed for weeks now and begs him to give her a second chance at eternity; she turns her nose up at his return offer, the one where he offers to help her cope with the pain of a soul and the reality that her life is ending - again. By the time she crosses the line and joins his side, it’s too late and for the second time in weeks she is feeling the bitter cold, this time brought on by death (at Drusilla’s lips this time).
Darla tries to fight until the very last instant, but she’s powerless beneath Drusilla’s strong grip. Darla dies slowly.
2000 (later) - Los Angeles, CA
Fire races up her skin and she almost dies at the hands of Angelus - no, Angel - somebody who wears his face - for the second time. Lindsey nurses her back to fighting strength, but it’s Angel she fucks (and when he flings her onto the balcony, clean through the plate glass window, she feels more dead inside than ever before.)
2001 - Los Angeles, CA
After traveling the globe - alone, this time - Darla returns to Angel to demand answers. He is shocked as anyone when he witnesses, firsthand, her pregnancy; Darla can’t decide what disgusts her most, the fetus, the soul, or the fact that her dead body is leeching off of both.
She is ready to tear her hair out by the time she reaches the epiphany that changes her. It’s taken months and months, but suddenly she is overcome with love for the child, foreign as the idea is to her. Angel tells her that it’s the soul and Darla unwillingly concurs.
But whatever it is, it’s enough - because when the child is born, she makes the terrifying realization that her body is not fit to bear children, not even the miracle that has been growing inside of her for nearly a year. Darla groans, begs Angel to watch over their child, and in the midst of rain and labor pains she draws the stake into her unbeating heart.
And finally her death means something. There is no pain or fear, there’s just nothing - blackness, all encompassing - if this is death, it’s not so bad.
Perhaps that is why it feels so final.
1608 - Jamestown, VA
She is twenty-two years old when she contracts syphilis - contracts it, but doesn't die from it. Though she has yet to reach the median age of a typical human in her village, the life expectancy for whores is much, much lower. Death practically resides on the doorsteps of such women.
It is six months after the contraction that she is diagnosed, when fever, pain, and a rash she'd ignored for weeks all drive her to the village physician. Doctor Smith is not quite sympathetic when he gives her the news - mostly she doesn't blame him. He'd paid for her services only days before.
"Syphilis," he informs her in a sharp tone. Her face is a mask of indifference while she receives her death sentence.
"The disease of kings," she answers lightly. "I suppose I could be in worse company."
"No," Doctor Smith tells her - she looks at him curiously. "Gout is the disease of kings - syphilis is known as 'the great imitator.'"
She doesn't intend to roll her eyes, but nonetheless she finds herself looking at the newly whitewashed ceiling of her parlor. "If you insist."
He does not press the subject.
1609 - Jamestown, VA
The symptoms multiply quickly, and before she knows it she is confined to bed, awaiting a visit from death. Doctor Smith is gone from the village, choosing to keep his shame private. A new doctor, whose name she never bothers to learn, takes vigil beside her and treats her sores with cooling herbs.
Days and nights pass slowly, though the end always feels as though it is coming at a rapid pace. Every instant brings her closer to the last instant of her life, and she is terrified - she puts on a brave face, but she knows that it's a lie.
When a priest enters her room, death feels so close that she can smell it - the doctor must sense it too, because he abandons his post at the request of the holy man. He never moves while she is still awake.
"I am your salvation," he tells her, removing his hood to reveal the twisted features that lie beneath. Even in her compromised position she holds her ground, and when he bites into her diseased flesh and drains her poisoned blood from her body, she thinks that yes - this truly is the end.
She is wrong, however. This is only the beginning.
1997 - Sunnydale, CA
Darla likes Sunnydale - though the Master (her savior) can be trying, she enjoys being his pet nearly as much as the supernatural waves that emanate from the small town's core. Her time spent over the hellmouth is not nearly as exciting as the years that she'd spent wreaking havoc across the globe with Angelus - her protégé, her lover, her darling boy - but she has eternity to regain that, or find it anew.
It's the soul to which Angelus has been bound for nearly a century that disgusts her, but Darla finds technology marvelous and has no doubt that she'll discover a way to wrench it right out again.
At the moment, however, Darla is content.
When she receives news that the Slayer has moved to Sunnydale, Darla can hardly contain her delight - she has yet to kill a Slayer, and opportunity tastes sweet on her lips. Unfortunately what she fails to consider is the presence of Angelus - no, Angel now - and his unprecedented love for the girl in question.
She visits him one night in the mansion that he calls home, and he is so unwelcoming that she hardly recognizes him at all. "What is wrong with you?" she demands, and he barely acknowledges the passion in her voice. "One hundred and fifty years, Angelus - and another century spent pining for my memory, I'm sure - and suddenly it's forgotten because you're dreaming of some cheerleader instead?"
"It's not forgotten," he admits, looking at her warily. "Life would be a lot easier if it could be."
"You're not alive," she bites out cruelly. "You're pathetic."
"The sun will be rising soon," Angel reminds her indifferently. "You should leave."
Darla stalks out but doubles her efforts to kill the Slayer. She is close enough to taste the victory when she feels a sharp pain in her chest, emanating from her back; she turns and sees Angel, teeth gritted in determination and eyes revealing nothing.
"Angel?" she gasps - she doesn't have time to say more before she bites her tongue to prevent from screaming and explodes into ash. Four hundred years are condensed into a pile of dust on the floor.
2000 - Los Angeles, CA
She feels cold for the first time in - she’s not one hundred percent certain, actually, of how long it’s been. Initially she is only aware of a box, of bars, and of her chattering teeth; she doesn’t recognize the woman peeking in through the small window and she immediately draws back into the corner. The words sound like they’re being spoken through liquid and they don’t form any coherent sounds at all. It’s all she can do not to scream -
Which she does, eventually, and she doesn’t stop until she has no voice anymore.
When she stops shrieking, she is removed from her confines by a young looking lawyer with a kind voice but hard eyes. He brings her to a small apartment - where, exactly, it is located she doesn’t know - and six nights out of seven she finds him sleeping on her couch. She learns early into this arrangement that really, she’s nothing but Wolfram and Hart’s pawn; at first she doesn’t mind, as tormenting Angel is its own reward.
It grows tedious when two things happen - first, he is alerted to her presence, which takes a great deal of the fun away from her new life - life, not unlife - and, second, the weight of her own soul begins to bear heavily onto her psyche. Neither of these two things compare to the feeling of a centuries-old disease eating away at her flesh, however, and Darla starts to crack up - not her words.
She runs back to Angel, the man vampire she’s been torturing with word and deed for weeks now and begs him to give her a second chance at eternity; she turns her nose up at his return offer, the one where he offers to help her cope with the pain of a soul and the reality that her life is ending - again. By the time she crosses the line and joins his side, it’s too late and for the second time in weeks she is feeling the bitter cold, this time brought on by death (at Drusilla’s lips this time).
Darla tries to fight until the very last instant, but she’s powerless beneath Drusilla’s strong grip. Darla dies slowly.
2000 (later) - Los Angeles, CA
Fire races up her skin and she almost dies at the hands of Angelus - no, Angel - somebody who wears his face - for the second time. Lindsey nurses her back to fighting strength, but it’s Angel she fucks (and when he flings her onto the balcony, clean through the plate glass window, she feels more dead inside than ever before.)
2001 - Los Angeles, CA
After traveling the globe - alone, this time - Darla returns to Angel to demand answers. He is shocked as anyone when he witnesses, firsthand, her pregnancy; Darla can’t decide what disgusts her most, the fetus, the soul, or the fact that her dead body is leeching off of both.
She is ready to tear her hair out by the time she reaches the epiphany that changes her. It’s taken months and months, but suddenly she is overcome with love for the child, foreign as the idea is to her. Angel tells her that it’s the soul and Darla unwillingly concurs.
But whatever it is, it’s enough - because when the child is born, she makes the terrifying realization that her body is not fit to bear children, not even the miracle that has been growing inside of her for nearly a year. Darla groans, begs Angel to watch over their child, and in the midst of rain and labor pains she draws the stake into her unbeating heart.
And finally her death means something. There is no pain or fear, there’s just nothing - blackness, all encompassing - if this is death, it’s not so bad.
Perhaps that is why it feels so final.