We enjoin that We may
inhabit The Vessel --
The Hand... Daughter of Sineya... First of The Ones...
(Fade in on Buffy sleeping on the sofa, covered with a green blanket. We see that she still has the cut on her forehead that she got in "The Yoko Factor.")
ANYA: (whispers offscreen)
Buffy! Wake up!)
(Buffy opens her eyes. She's lying on her bed in the dorm room, on her side, facing Willow's bed. The cut on her forehead is gone. She frowns.)
(sh*t of Anya lying in Willow's bed, under the covers.)
ANYA: (whispers) Buffy, you have to wake up right away!
BUFFY: I'm not really in charge of these things. (Closes eyes)
ANYA: (anxious) Please wake up. Oh please.
BUFFY: (opens eyes) I need my beauty sleep. So stop it, okay? (Rolls over onto her back)
(The creature is hanging from the ceiling above her. It snarls at her.)
(Cut to Buffy in her bed in Joyce's house, sitting up startled. The covers are rumpled around her. She lies back.)
(Cut to Buffy standing in the doorway of the bedroom, looking at the bed.)
BUFFY: Faith and I just made that bed.
(sh*t of the bed, still rumpled but now without Buffy in it.)
TARA: (offscreen) For who?
(Buffy frowns, looks to her left.)
BUFFY: I thought you were here to tell me.
(sh*t of Tara with her hair up, facing Buffy.)
BUFFY: (looking back at bed) The guys aren't here, are they? We were gonna hang out (looks at Tara) and, watch movies t-
TARA: You lost them.
BUFFY: No. (Looks confused) No. I think they need me to find them.
(sh*t of the digital alarm clock next to the bed, showing 7:30 AM.)
BUFFY: (upset) It's so late.
TARA: Oh ... that clock's completely wrong. Here.
(sh*t of Tara's hands holding out the Tarot card "Manus" (the hands). It has a picture of two hands crossed, one open, the other balled into a fist.)
BUFFY: I'm never gonna use those.
(Buffy's face in profile. Tara's face out of focus in background.)
TARA: You think you know ... what's to come ... what you are. You haven't even g*n.
(sh*t of the bed, now neatly made.)
(Buffy frowns.)
BUFFY: I think I need to go find the others.
(She leaves.)
TARA (softly) Be back before dawn.
(Fade to a school hallway. Can't tell if it's Sunnydale High or the college. It seems to have elements of both. Buffy walks through the halls wearing a flowered dress. She speaks to a random guy walking past.)
BUFFY: Have you seen my friends? (He shakes his head and walks on) They wouldn't just disappear.
(She looks around, walks down the halls. We see a row of lockers. Suddenly
Buffy notices a hole in the wall. The plaster is torn back, revealing a layer of bricks with a face-sized hole. She walks over to it.)
BUFFY: Mom?
(Joyce's face appears in the hole.)
JOYCE: Oh, hi, honey.
BUFFY: Why are you living in the walls?
JOYCE: Oh, sweetie, no, I'm fine here. Don't worry about me.
(Buffy frowns, tries to see inside the hole.)
BUFFY: It looks dirty.
JOYCE: Well, it seems that way to you. (Smiling) I made some lemonade, and
I'm learning how to play mah-jongg. You go find your friends.
BUFFY: I, I think they might be in danger.
(Joyce starts to laugh. Buffy looks confused.)
JOYCE: I-I'm sorry, dear. (Giggling) Um, a mouse is playing with my knees.
BUFFY: I, I really don't think you should live in there.
(Suddenly she looks over and sees Xander climbing up some stairs. Looks like the stairs leading to the library in UC Sunnydale.)
JOYCE: Well ... you could ... probably break through the wall. (Buffy walks toward stairs. Joyce watches her go)
(sh*t of Buffy's feet, wearing sandals, walking slowly down a hall.)
(sh*t of two men sitting at a conference table, facing each other, in a room with high ceilings and plain gray walls. On the left wall is a big map of the world. On the right, a row of cabinets. There are two empty chairs.
In the foreground we still see Buffy's feet.)
(Man on the left speaks. It's Riley.)
RILEY: Hey there, k*ller.
BUFFY: (offscreen) Riley? You're back.
RILEY: I never left.
(Buffy's feet walk closer, as does the camera angle.)
BUFFY: (offscreen) But how did the debriefing go?
RILEY: I told you not to worry about that. It went great. They made me surgeon general.
(sh*t of Buffy looking surprised.)
BUFFY: Why didn't you come and tell me? We could have celebrated.
(sh*t of Riley sitting in the chair, wearing a suit.)
RILEY: Oh. (Looks at the other man ) We're drawing up a plan for world domination. (Looks back at Buffy, pleased.) The key element? Coffeemakers that think.
(Buffy frowns.)
BUFFY: World domination? I-is that a good?
RILEY: Baby, we're the government.
(He swings around in his chair to strike a James Bond-like pose. The camera sh**t him from below, through the glass tabletop. On the table we see a g*n.)
RILEY: It's what we do.
OTHER GUY: She's uncomfortable with certain concepts. (He's wearing a suit too, with no jacket.) It's understandable. Aggression is a natural human tendency. (Looks at Buffy) Though you and me come by it another way.
(sh*t of Buffy with the dark-haired creature behind her.)
BUFFY: We're not demons.
OTHER GUY: Is that a fact?
(sh*t of Buffy. The creature is gone.)
RILEY:
Buffy, we've got important work here.
(Same camera angle on Riley,
the gun prominent in the foreground.)
A lot of filing, giving things names.
BUFFY: (looks at other guy)
What was yours?
OTHER GUY:
Before Adam? (Shakes his head.
Suddenly the lighting turns blue)
Not A Man among us can remember.
(Buffy looks around at the blue lighting. In the background we see shadows moving; we hear noises like emergency doors slamming shut.)
COMPUTER VOICE:
The Demons have escaped.
Please run for your lives.
ADAM:
This could be Trouble. (He and Riley stand)
RILEY:
We better make A Fort.
ADAM: (nodding)
I'll get some pillows. (Leaves)
(Buffy looks very nervous. Shadowy figures behind her seem to be moving closer. She looks down and sees her w*apon bag lying at her feet. Looks up.)
BUFFY: (gasping anxiously) Wait! I have weapons!
She sits on the floor and opens the bag. It's full of mud.
Buffy frowns, putting her hands in the mud and moving them around.
Lifts her hands, covered in mud. Brings them up and smears the mud on her face. Reaches in for more, rubs it all over her face as the colors invert again like a photo-negative.)
(Suddenly the color returns to normal and Buffy looks up
with her "I'm gonna kick your ass" expression.)
RILEY: (offscreen)
Thought you were looking for
your friends. Okay, killer...
(shot of Riley wearing regular civilian clothes)
RILEY: ...if that's the way you want it.
I guess you're on your own. (Walks off.)
(Buffy's still on the floor in the gray room surrounded by blue light.
Suddenly a beam of sunshine lights her. She gets up and walks off.)
(Fade to Buffy's feet walking along a hallway, which turns to rippled sand like on a beach. She walks past a palm tree and is in the desert from before: rocks, scraggly bushes, sand. Again we hear the woman humming.
Buffy walks down a hill. The camera zooms out and we can see more of the same landscape with mountains in the distance. A breeze ruffles her hair and dress.)
BUFFY:
I'm never gonna find them here.
(She looks up and sees Tara far off, walking toward her.
Tara has her hair up, wears a long pink skirt
and matching top that exposes a lot of her stomach.)
TARA VOICEOVER:
Of course not. That's the reason you came.
(Tara fades out and reappears closer,
then this repeats. She stops walking.)
(shot of Buffy and Tara standing about thirty feet apart, facing each other with miles of desert stretching out behind them.)
BUFFY VOICEOVER:
You're not in my dream.
TARA VOICEOVER:
I was borrowed.
(shot of Tara standing with big rocks behind her.
She wears a gold necklace.)
TARA:
Someone has to speak for her.
(shot of Buffy standing with rocks, bushes and mountains behind.)
BUFFY:
Let her speak for herself.
(We see the dark-haired creature walking up behind her.)
That's what's done in polite circles.
(The creature moves around to in front
of Buffy and we finally get a good look at her.
It's a dark-skinned woman with dreadlocks and long sharp fingernails.
Her face is painted with white or grayish paint,
lines of black paint across her eyes, and she wears rags.
She crouches low and walks around Buffy
like a wild animal. She looks like a cavewoman.)
BUFFY:
Why do you follow me?
(The woman shakes her head.)
TARA: (offscreen)
I don't.
BUFFY:
Where are my friends?
(Shot of the woman backing away from Buffy,
still crouching down low.)
TARA: (offscreen)
You're asking the
wrong questions.
BUFFY: (firmly)
Make her speak.
(The woman shakes her head again.)
TARA: (offscreen) I have no speech. No name.
I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. (The woman straightens up and looks
Buffy in the eye.)
TARA:
I am Destruction.
Absolute ... alone.
(Buffy frowns.)
BUFFY:
The Slayer.
(The other woman looks at her.)
Tara: (offscreen) The first.
(sh*t of Buffy's hand, holding a bunch of Tarot-shaped cards. In the one on top we see a scene of Giles, Buffy, Willow, and Xander in Joyce's living room watching TV.)
(sh*t of Buffy looking at the card in her hand, with the mountains behind her.)
BUFFY:
I am not alone.
(sh*t of Tara in the background, the First Slayer in the middle ground, and
Buffy's back in the foreground.)
TARA: The Slayer does not walk in this world.
BUFFY: I walk.
(Side sh*t of the three of them.)
BUFFY: I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back.
(sh*t of the First Slayer lifting her chin in anger.)
BUFFY: (offscreen) There's trees in the desert since you moved out.
(The First Slayer shakes her head)
And I don't sleep on
a bed of bones.
(sh*t of Buffy's face.)
BUFFY: (firmly) Now give me back my friends.
(The First Slayer speaks in a very low, hoarse voice.)
FIRST SLAYER: No ... friends! Just the k*ll.
(sh*t of Buffy watching her.)
FIRST SLAYER: We ... are ... alone!
(The bald guy leans in between Buffy and the First Slayer, holding up two slices of cheese. He grins and shakes the cheese at Buffy, then retreats offscreen.)
BUFFY:
That's it. I'm waking up.
(The First Slayer att*cks her, pushes her to the ground and tries to bash her head on it. African drum music begins.)
(Buffy rolls the First Slayer off her and kicks at her. They both get up.
The First Slayer punches her.)
(Long sh*t of Buffy falling backward from the punch, slow-motion. No music.)
(Music resumes and the action returns to real-time. The First Slayer tries to punch down but Buffy rolls to her feet and kicks her in the back. She kicks again but the First Slayer ducks. Buffy punches.)
(Long sh*t of the First Slayer falling backward from the punch, slow-motion. No music. The first Slayer starts to get up.)
(One last drum-b*at as the action returns to real-time. The First Slayer gets up. Faceoff.)
(sh*t of Buffy shaking her head.)
BUFFY:
It's over. (Woman humming begins again. First Slayer shakes her head)
We don't do this any more.
(Drums begin again. The First Slayer grabs her again and they roll down a sandy hill, clutching each other and rolling over and over as the drums continue.)
BUFFY VOICEOVER:
Enough!
(Cut to Buffy waking up on Joyce's floor. She lifts her head and looks around. Pan across Giles, Willow and Xander sleeping in their spots. Buffy groans and starts to get up.)
(Growl.)
(The First Slayer lands atop Buffy and starts stabbing repeatedly at the floor with her stake. sh*t of Buffy lying underneath the First Slayer, rolling her eyes.)
BUFFY:
Are you quite finished?
(First Slayer pulls her stake out of the floor.)
BUFFY:
It's over, okay?
I'm going to ignore you, and
you're going to go away.
(The First Slayer pulls back and Buffy sits up, then stands.)
BUFFY:
You're really gonna have
to get over the whole ...
primal power thing.
(walks toward the sofa)
(shot of the First Slayer
staring at her.)
BUFFY: (over her shoulder)
You're not The Source of Me.
(She picks up her blanket and sits back down on the sofa next to Willow.
Another sh*t of the First Slayer staring at her.)
BUFFY:
Also, in terms of hair-care,
you really wanna say,
what kind of impression
am I making in
The Workplace? '
Cause-
