a new world hangs outside the window
beautiful and strange
it must be I've fallen awake
I must be

If she was going to do this, she was going to be fucked up.

So Buffy didn't hesitate to light the bowl after she packed it, her thin frame toppled over the colorful, glass pipe as smoke barreled through its end and into her mouth. She made a short quip of a gurggling sound as her lungs reached capacity, and she fell back against the worn, plush seat of her crappy couch. Only then did she slowly begin to exhale, dribbles of creamy plumes escaping slowly from her nostrils.

Buffy wasn't the type to date. Let alone go on a blind date. She didn't do Tinder or Bumble or Plenty of Fish. She didn't even have a Facebook account. But for whatever reason, Leslie had signed her up for this, even though she lives 3,000 miles away now. Buffy could appreciate what her younger sister was trying to do. It had been a rough couple of years with mom's death and then Leslie skipping town on a volleyball scholarship for school. Buffy just didn't really have anything to do anymore. She was so used to taking care of everyone. It felt a little like part of her died, too, when her family left her. This was merely Leslie's attempt to get her rough-around-the-edges older sister out of her shitty apartment, and to spend some quality time with real humans. Not just the supernatural ones she liked to stake after midnight.

Just as the weed began to take hold, her phone lit up and vibrated across the coffee table. It was Leslie, of course.

Leslie: Get your ass off the couch and put on some lipstick. You're going to be late, read the text message.

Begrudgingly Buffy obliged, snorting and smiling somewhat at Leslie's insight into her own personality. Before pulling on a worn denim coat over her wrinkled grey V-neck T-shirt, Buffy squinted at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were blood shot. She ran a comb through her hair and used the palms of her hands to try to rid the black leggings she was wearing of the sticky white-haired cat fur that seemingly coated everything she owned in another layer. Against her sister's judgment, decided not to wear the lipstick.

It was a short subway ride into downtown to the bar her sister said this guy Ben would meet her at. Ben was the older brother of Leslie's friend, Annie, a girl Buffy knew when the girls were growing up. She wasn't hopeful this was going to go well. Buffy stepped off the subway and moved quickly but quietly through the throngs of people into the crisp night air. She buried her chin and cheeks into the collar of her jacket, hazy plumes of carbon dioxide leaving her nostrils with every passing exhale. The dark hunter checked her phone frequently, obsessively noting the time and just how many blocks away she was from the bar.

When she finally arrived, Buffy froze outside the heavy front doors. She peered through the tinted glass, her glare bouncing over silhouette over silhouette. She couldn't make out anything, not like she really knew what she was looking for. Leslie hadn't even shared a photo of this guy. Buffy bit hard on her bottom lip and mumbled "fuck, fuck, fuck..." under her breathe in quick succession.

Finally, the distraction she so craved caught her attention. At first it came in the form of barely audible whimpers. Then it was a deep, bellowing voice. Buffy instinctively followed the voices into a nearby alley, the sounds of the adjacent burlesque club thumping through the concrete walls of the building. She tucked her slender frame behind a few rouge and battered trash cans, eyes peeled on the heavy set dude with the axe. She watches as he hits the cowering man with the butt of the weapon, and balls her hands into fists.

"Take it easy big fella." Buffy says, announcing her arrival as she stands and begins walk slowly toward the pair in the dank and wet alley. She immediately identifies both men as weres. One hand is grasped firmly around a long silver knife tucked behind her back and at her waist.

GIA BUFFY JONES