All Souls Night.

Disclaimers In Chapter One. Warning: Intense and disturbing scenery ahead. Anyone know CPR?

A thousand mirrors shattered, their razor shards broke against too-solid flesh. The world of empty streets and dark buildings fell to dust about her.

All Xena could do, all she *wanted* to do, was fall into the deepest abyss fall in and disappear for all eternity. Life had hurt her too much to endure anymore.

As she fell, Xena saw not her life, but Gabrielle. Gabrielle laughing... crying...glowing with joy...scowling with ill-disguised anger

Gabrielle with horns...and fangs...Gabrielle smiling with a mouth full of...

Blood...

Xena fell through the shards of broken dreams into the darkness beyond dreams

She fell

stopping when her shoulder hit solid rock, the rest of her following to land in a heap.

Xena lay there, panting, numb, but too aware to simply lay still. Her senses were too alive, too sharp all of a sudden, to stand the flood of sensations. The solid rock beneath bit into her skin with its thousands of tiny teeth of grit and pebbles. The soft wind was a disjointed siren's song, which stung and tore at her ears. Even her own shallow breaths pressed like a vise against her ribs and burned her throat. Somewhere she found the strength to push her head up and look upon her surroundings.

She lay before the great yawning cave once again, its interior as endless and impenetrable as before.

Strength flowed to worn muscles, muscles which uncoiled and straightened of their own accord, pushing her body to stand. Xena neither knew nor felt any of this, all thought centered solely upon the darkness before her.

The darkness, and the crack of a whip which could be heard very clearly coming from within.

This thought was broken only by the cracking sound...of a whip...that could be heard very clearly coming from deep within the same darkness.

The crack of a whip, and the whimper of pain which always followed.

Xena felt her feet step backwards, head pivoting left to right to left. The feet took a step away with each snap of the whip. Her head shook again with each whimper.

Xena didn't realize how close the ledge's end was until a foot met emptiness rather than rock. For a mad moment she considered taking that final step, fleeing that vicious whip and pitiful cries forever and ever. She considered, and refused the choice. Why escaped her just then, but the choice was made.

As though from a distance, Xena heard herself ask "So what now?"

"Now you choose."

The answer was spoken directly against her ear, though no breath scratched her ear with it. Xena spun to face it, her hands balling and coming up. Xena found herself crouching in a low stance, at once relaxed and ready to spring forward, her arms singing with the urge to lash out.

Staring into the empty sockets of the skull, which looked down from beneath the rim of its pristine hood, Xena bared her own teeth and demanded "Choose *what*?"

"Choose your course."

"My 'course'?"

"Choose what you shall be."

"I don't have to choose *that*!" Xena practically spat in contempt. "I know what I am what I've *always* been!"

"You have *no choice*!" the skull bellowed, then spoke with surprising gentleness. "You know only a moment's experience. You have forgotten the rest of what you know." The figure, who had hovered tall and distant, now descended to stand eye-to-socket with Xena. "You must choose whether you remember all that you are and have been."

*flames licking at her*

*burning her*

*her screams lost*

Xena shook her head, not in denial but in confusion and fear. Frost seeped once more into her core, chilling her beyond mere pain and numbness.

Even so, even this did not keep her from meeting those empty sockets, nor rob her venom for her words. "WHY?"

Again, that gentle voice. "You know why." No accusation, nor venom for venom. Only understanding and acceptance. An answer that allowed no argument, no denial.

Xena spun away from the robed figure, suddenly too-familiar to be faced, and stared ahead into the equally familiar darkness, suddenly a mere step before her, offering her no retreat or evasion.

"I'm afraid," Xena whispered.

A hand of bones and phantom flesh settled on her shoulder. "As you should be," the voice assured.

Xena acknowledged the truth of this with a tight nod and fists balling once more at her sides.

The hand didn't leave her shoulder as she took a single step forward, the darkness swallowing her them whole.

******

One moment she stood in darkness. The next, cold hands grabbed her wrists, stretching her arms wide and holding tight. Panic froze her voice as it did her limbs.

Fire lashed her naked back. Again. And again.

She couldn't even scream from the pain.

The lash tore at her shoulder. It traveled down her spine, burning through her.

"Scream, pretty whore. My new, pretty little toy."

The voice behind her was gentle, prodding, and demanding all in one. It was innocent, almost childlike.

Another lash burned her across the spine, bringing tears to her eyes. The red fire dripping down her back even burned through her panic, a strangled sob escaping.

"Not good enough," declared the sing-song voice.

Another lash.

Another sob, only a little stronger.

"Stilllllll not good enough...my pretty."

More lashes, one atop the last, each cutting deeper into her, each now accompanied by a sob of its own. A pained breath coming with each strike, louder and louder with each repetition, the hot pain finally breaking through the dam of her panic and fear. The scream finally torn from her, a howl both guttural and full, resounded in both her ears and head, drowning out for a single blessed moment all the pain and horror. It left her drained, her body sagging and eyes drifting shut.

"Good," purred the voice, one she now recognized. "But I want another."

Her head shook of its own accord, her voice likewise issuing a faint "No please "

"You're my *fun* thing, pretty whore. *My* property!" She felt the heat of the body as it pressed its sensual curves against her. "You. Are. *Mine.*"

Xena's eyes snapped open at this, and the sliver of pride she built and guarded so jealously wound its way past the barriers erected by fear and panic, lighting fire in her blood. Without thinking, without even any realizing doing it, she straightened and threw off the thick arms which grasped her. All things became a blur then, her arms moving of their own volition. They did not simply swing out wildly, but rather struck out with a series of exact punches, each connecting solidly with the body behind her.

Xena saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing save the *smack* of flesh hitting flesh and *crack* of bone fracturing beneath the assault and the body reeling beneath each of those blow until it collapsed completely at her feet. A savage joy built in her, erupting in a cry of triumph as savage as any jungle cat concluding its hunt.

The hand reappeared onto her shoulder, and all the savagery drained from her like so much water rushing through a funnel. Xena couldn't help but continue to pant hard, her mind's eye still filled with the memory of both then and now. "Who was she?" she managed between breaths.

"Someone who hurt you," the skull (now less of a skull, Xena saw, a network of red veins and the first strands of muscles having appeared over its polished surface) replied. "Hurt you so badly, so brutally, that she is forever burned into your soul." Xena listened as the body of the vanquished, slim and deadly even in broken repose, dissolved into the darkness.

"Is she gone now?"

"Yes."

"For good?"

"Never." Strangely, there was no regret in the skull's voice, but rather, weary resignation. "She is as much a part of you as your own heart and teeth. She protects you from things you cannot face."

"Like this?" Xena swept an arm out into the darkness in which they stood.

"Once, perhaps." Now the phantom sounded thoughtful, as though needing to think before answering. "But her purpose here is done. Now, you may proceed unimpeded."

This caught Xena short. "What? You mean that wasn't this choice I "

"This," the phantom cut in, "was but the first step in a long journey now before you. Nothing more."

"Easy for you to say," Xena muttered.

Perhaps the phantom heard this, which was why it pushed her shoulder hard enough for Xena to suddenly loose her balance and go tumbling forward. She instinctively braced herself for an impact

which never came.

******

Xena fell to her hands and knees, panting, but not very hard.

"C'mon, cat!" Millie yelled to her sister. "We're racin'!"

"Wait up, mouse!" the taller girl, her waist-length black hair waving all about in the summer's wind. Millie called her adoptive sibling "cat" because most everyone else in the caravan called her "mutt". Everyone knew she came from no womb of theirs. She'd been found wandering lost in a forest glade, naked and alone. The child had been kept first out of charity, later because she wasn't afraid of the hard work all hands put in. She stayed with the old fortuneteller, who was generally disliked by all, and the bitch's granddaughter. Kept more like a pet than a child by all accounts, and hence she was "mutt" to everyone.

She'd actually chosen her own name, rejecting the one given her by the old woman. "Xena", she demanded everyone call her, those who would occasionally call her "Ruth". The girl was a sharp one, having learned to read almost before she'd learned to walk, more often reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Howard, or Sofie Pappas than the Bible her ėgrandmother' forever quoted from. It was from the last that she took the name of the warrior woman, though only Millie acknowledged it. Even the caravan's *patron*, with his bossy swagger and vicious switch, called her "mutt"...or more often "mongrel".

Their days were broken into sleeping times, eating times, working times, and playing times. Xena had never known a day without work of some sort, the jobs getting harder, the loads heavier with each year. She accepted it all, never knowing anything else.

Playing times were rare, and precious to both. They had no toys, nor did they need any. A field or prairie, even a small stretch of beach, was all they had need of. The epic quest of a turtle to reach the water, the rise and fall of a queen bee, the busy business of chipmunks, the sly plans of spiders and hidden wood nymphs; these were all the things they needed.

That day, they ran among the ancient conifers and redwoods, who looked down upon them with tolerance and fair piece of amusement. The caravan had stopped for the day, an engine needing repair and the *patron* gripped by one of his moods. They had a few moments to themselves, and were determined to enjoy it all to the fullest.

The trees reverberated with their laughter. "I'm a panther, and yer my prey!" Xena declared, deliberately letting her sister run ahead.

"Can't catch me!" Millie fairly screeched, and the chase began in earnest. She ducked and weaved through bushes and behind trees, Xena giving chase and threatening to overtake her. But Millie was every bit as agile and quick as her nickname, eluding her taller sibling time and again.

Xena's senses always sharpened during these games, and right then she picked out something different. The scent of oil and rich smoke. The noise of low snickers and cruel laughter. A growl of something hungry and cruel. She stopped her pursuit and let her senses tell her where these new, *dangerous* things were, her heart leaping into her throat realizing they lay directly in Millie's path.

"Millie," Xena hissed, as desperate to keep quiet as to alert her sister. "Millie! Stop!"

Laughter, louder than a thousand thunderbolts, issued out from the bushes ahead. It proved enough to halt even Millie's wild flight. No sooner had the younger girl stopped than an explosion of growling and barking shook the bushes she was about to leap into.

No words were exchanged, both girls knowing their hazard immediately. They turned and ran the way they'd come, not looking back when a minute later two huge pit bulls broke through the bushes and took off after them, froth dripping from their jowls.

Their lungs burned, their legs pumped harder and faster than ever before. And for all that the dogs closed the distance far faster than they could keep that distance. Xena, taller and longer, managed to keep her lead. Millie, for all her quickness, could not do the same.

The dogs leapt as one, one clamping its jaws tight on her shoulder, the other catching her arm. They dragged the girl down and proceeded to rend and tear at her delicate form. Millie's cries were matched by Xena's own, the latter more like those of an animal mad with bloodlust.

Millie's screams were replaced by those of the dogs, who found themselves sudden torn, literally, from their prey and set on by the one they'd chosen to ignore. One was tossed against a nearby tree with such force it died instantly, its skull caved in and neck shattered. The second, the more cowardly of the pair, whimpered and tried to turn and flee. It was caught by its hind legs and pulled back. Quickly realizing escape wasn't possible, the dog spun and dug its teeth into the forearm grasping it only to feel the other hand close about its throat and neck and *twist*.

Its neck broke with the sound of celery being broken in half, sharp and sudden as a rifle shot in the now silent forest.

Xena stood there for a time, looking down on the ruin of her sister...and her heart.

******

"And what happened then?" the once-skull, brilliant blue eyes now filling its sockets, layers of raw muscle and tendon covering its ivory surface.

*rough hands on her arms and shoulders*

*fabric tearing*

*skin tearing*

*the taste of glass and blood in her mouth*

"They found me the dogs' owners they found me." Her voice was softer than a breath. "They "

*pot smoke burning her lungs*

*urine in her mouth*

"They took me with them."

Again, that comforting hand rested on her shoulder. Even absent flesh and skin, it was soft and gentle in its touch.

All Xena heard was the laughter.

They were silent for a time, there in the darkness of half-memory. Xena continued to stare at her feet, and so didn't see the wrap of first flesh, then skin work its way over the phantom's entire form.

"I can't remember how I got away from them " Xena said, sounding reluctant in admitting to such a lapse.

"You remember Lenny?" the phantom asked.

"Which one?" Her head came up, but didn't turn around.

The phantom smiled. "It doesn't matter."

"No?"

"No. That you know there was more than the one, *that* is enough for now." The phantom glided forward, turned and faced her directly. Indeed, it almost was a face now, one with expressive eyes and lips, its full features still hidden from clear view by the hood.

"If so small a detail as that is remembered," the phantom elaborated, "then the rest can be recalled in time."

"Lenny the *second* Lenny sold me away," Xena said, as though this were a great realization.

"Yes," the phantom acknowledged with the slightest nod.

"But the other one he didn't put me on the streets "

"No, you were his prize and payment for a "

"A business transaction." Xena's voice again became quiet, the contempt in it all the stronger.

*'You're my *dog*, bitch!' the fat man ranted as he backhanded her to the floor. 'I say piss, you fuckin' piss!'*

Xena shook from the memory of that moment, flinching from both the voice the imagined blow, no dope fogging her mind to protect her from either. If the phantom took note of this, it gave her no sign, its attention instead given to the middle distance beyond them both.

It took a moment for Xena to gain control over her breathing once more, images and scenes tumbling forth as though churned and spat forth by some insane factory hidden within her mind.

Until then, she clearest memory stretched back only to the first night with Gabrielle. Now...now she saw and tasted images of antique balls, wars fought in heavy armor with broadsword and crossbow, candlelit banquets and painted faces, the crisp air of mountain peaks, beautiful and wild women adorned in animal skins and crude leather leaping from tree to tree herself and Gabrielle at the center of each scene and moment always together.

Xena could literally not stand the flood, and fell to her knees, shaking like a leaf beneath a bitter wind. Her arms wrapped tightly about her bosom, applying every bit as painful a grip to herself as she would an attacker.

"What's...happening..." she managed through clattering teeth.

"You are remembering."

"What " Fiery pain, a thousand times more intense than anything come before, consumed her right arm and side. "What am am I remembering ?" Even through the haze of agony, even as all consciousness fled, Xena heard the calm answer.

"Yourself."