Disclaimer: I don't own any of the BTVS characters in this story. I am merely borrowing them, but I promise to replace them in prime condition.
Part One
A cold wind swept through her open window as Buffy lay asleep. She woke up and looked around uneasily. 'I didn't leave that open,' she thought, and rose off of the bed to close it. She noticed a piece of paper on her desk fluttering in the breeze. Buffy slowly walked over to it. A small wooden box decorated with flowers held the paper down. On the paper the words "much love" were scripted. She carefully picked up the box and lifted the lid. She stared blankly into the box for a moment, but when she recognized the contents, her stomach turned and she gulped to suppress the scream that entered her throat. Inside the box was a bloody human heart. The walls of the box were bloodstained and the whole thing reeked of blood. Buffy dropped the box as though it was a highly infectious virus. With a quick swipe of the hand Buffy tucked the box and the paper into her desk drawer to show Giles in the morning. She slid the window shut and went back to bed, and soon fell into an uneasy sleep. Outside the window Angelus' face was lit by the glow of Buffy's bedside lamp, and there was an evil smile playing on his lips.
It was morning in the library. The whole place was silent, then Giles, Willow, and Xander all broke out in a chorus of 'ewwwww's. Buffy stood holding the box open so they could all see inside. Xander gagged and made motions to throw up.
"Thank you for sharing," he said sarcastically.
"It looks like what we dissected in biology last week," said Willow, who was still squeamish.
"Giles, what am I going to do?" demanded Buffy. "He's going to keep coming into my room and put human body parts on my desk!"
"Well, just be glad that's all he's doing. For now at least." said Giles shakily. "Besides, I'm afraid something else has come up that we must deal with."
"What?" sighed Buffy.
"I found this prophecy in this book here. I don't remember seeing this book before..." Giles trailed off and looked concerned. "Anyway, it says on the night of the full moon, a vicious monster will rise from the mouth of hell. It... gets rather gruesome, the monster swallows people whole and they die a slow, painful death of being digested over a period of days."
"It's not a worm thing is it? Last time there was a worm thing I ended up dancing around in a bra and a wig," said Xander. Then he caught himself and looked down, ashamed. Willow gave him a confused glance as if saying, 'how could a guy as weird as this be my best friend?'
"The full moon is on Sunday. Let's all meet here at, say, 5:00 to prepare." Giles told them. Buffy and the Slayerettes nodded in agreement.
"I've gotta go," said Willow as she picked up her bag and swung it over her shoulder. "I'm still teaching Ms. Calendars' computer class." When she noticed the sad look on Giles' face, Willow's smile faded and she tiptoed out of the room, Xander following.
Giles eased into a chair. He became depressed as he thought about Jenny. Buffy sat down opposite him and put on her depressed face too.
"It's okay," said Buffy, trying to comfort him. "I know what it's like to lose someone you love."
"We're just two peas in a pod in that respect," said Giles with a quick smile that faded back into a pained look.
"You've got to move on," said Buffy. Then realizing she spoke for herself, too, "What's done is done. I'm so sorry, I could have stopped him... but you have to get over it."
"I suppose you're right," said Giles, standing up with a sigh. "You go on to class, I'll...I'll keep researching this prophecy."
Buffy took a last concerned look at her watcher then left the library.
"If you click on 'run' you should see the password box. From there it's pretty self-explanatory. Just keep going." Willow stood in front of the computer class. She wasn't nervous anymore, for she had been doing this for a while now.
She sat down at the desk and started her French homework. "Mon cour," she muttered, twiddling her pencil. Suddenly the pencil flew out of her fingers and landed in a crack between the desk and a file cabinet. "Shoot," she muttered.
Willow got onto the floor and tried to reach into the crack, but couldn't reach the pencil. Straining hard her hand brushed something and she tried to grip it, but couldn't. With a sigh she got up and pushed the desk over a few inches. She bent down and picked up her pencil. She saw another object too. It was a yellow disk. She picked it up. It was not marked in any way, but Willow slipped it into her bag to look at later.
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