snake (tummy) ache

Disclaimer: I own naught that you shall see in the following six chapters.

Crossing: BtVS/The Sixth Sense/hints of something else...

▬▬§▬▬

Cole rubbed at his eyes tiredly and set down his book. The Crucible was interesting, but the parallels he couldn't help but draw weren't exactly comforting. The fifteen-year-old shivered at the thought of all those unhappy souls, tortured to death for things they didn't do. On the other hand, he supposed that some - maybe one - of them might have been like him. Another oh-so-comforting thought.

He stretched in his chair and looked at the clock. 10:30, great. Tomorrow was going to be a long day. Cole stood and headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth. He fumbled for the switch in the dark and heard something fall. Shit, hope it wasn't that new soap-dispenser.

He found the switch at last and bent to grab whatever it was that had fallen. "Hairbrush," he muttered to himself as he stood. The hanging mirror reflected his face back at him: sandy-brown hair curling around his ears, big blue eyes that were just a shade too weary for his age and behind him a delicate-looking woman with red hair.

She watched him quietly for a few seconds while he tried to figure out how long she had been standing there. Her hair was still red, her eyes still green - she couldn't have been with him for more than a few minutes. Abruptly the color began to leach from her eyes and hair until she was glowing, ethereal, almost angelic. Her expression became one of total peace broken only when her hair and form had returned completely to her 'base' form.

As he watched, inky blackness began to spread down from her roots, leaching the flush of life from her cheeks. Her eyes became black pools as jagged purple veins stood out against her corpse-white skin. Quickly as the transformation had begun, it reversed, leaving her fresh and almost normal-looking again.

Cole shivered, he knew what was next and, as with each time it happened, he could not look away. Her frail form began to convulse, long gashes appeared on her arms and neck, bleeding sluggishly. A ripple began in her stomach and traveled upwards, twisting her throat and forcing her mouth open into a silent, choked scream.

A black head slithered from her terrified, open mouth. The snake working its way out of her body was enormous, fully six feet long. It wrapped about her shoulders in a loose embrace as the tip of its smooth-scaled tail emerged.

The woman's green eyes regarded him sadly, one bloody hand caressing the head of the snake gently. "Osiris waits, scion, and I must serve as messenger. Return to the lands where time runs as sands, open the book whose binding is treasured, read the words of loosing unmeasured. Release the Creature with punishment unending, undo the torment of fleshly rending. Finish the binding of warrior and way, aid in the battle of night and day."

Her body dissolved into a pile of sand, then even that melted away. Cole turned back to the mirror and brushed his teeth, too used to the message and its creepy messenger to feel any sense of urgency. She would be back.

▬▬§▬▬

A/N: Yes, more FFA. I'm addicted.