DISCLAIMER: Not mine, don't sue. I am making no profit. Buffy and co. belong to Joss, Warner Bros. etc... However if Joss feels like lending me Angel then I guarantee that he will never get him back again!

FEEDBACK: PLEASE!! I wrote this in about 5 mins at 3 in the morning, let me know if I'm crazy for posting it.

NOTE: This is sort of depressing - I was thinking about life without Angel

She was dead. The thought popped into her head seemingly out of nowhere, lacking the power to perturb her but there, nonetheless. Keeping half of her attention on the three vampires she was fighting, Buffy examined the idea absently. Was she dead? It all depended, she supposed, upon exactly how you defined death.

On the one hand, she was breathing, thinking and, quite literally, kicking - clearly not dead. On the other hand, she didn't feel anything any more; neither did she fear anything. She had no hopes or dreams or desires for the future and she never thought about the past. The only thing that truly existed for her anymore was the hunt, the kill.

She barely remembered what it was that she was fighting for but she knew that she couldn't stop. The fate of the world rested upon her slender shoulders but she was so accustomed to the weight of the burden she had to carry that she was barely aware of it any more.

The vampires she had been fighting were dust. She glanced around the dirty ally in which she stood and then headed off in search of other prey. Her final thought on the matter - before she sensed the presence of another vampire and instantly forgot what it was she had been thinking about - was that Buffy Summers had died a long time ago. All that remained was The Slayer.