Hunter & Hunted IV

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Xander's eyes snapped open to a landscape that defied all logic, a twisted kaleidoscope of familiar and foreign, comforting and terrifying. One moment he was in the dingy, familiar surroundings of Sunnydale High's library, the musty scent of old books and the soft glow of lamplight enveloping him like a warm blanket. The next, he found himself lying on a patch of earth that seemed borrowed from an African plain, the tall grass tickling his skin and the distant howls of unseen beasts echoing in his ears.

The sky above was split in two—a dark, unnaturally purplish fog dominated one half, swirling and pulsating like a living thing, under a massive, alien moon that pulsated with an eerie glow, casting an otherworldly sheen over the landscape. The other half was a more typical night sky, star-studded but with a darkness that felt thick and oppressive.

"What the hell is happening?" Xander whispered, his heart pounding as he sat up, his voice sounding small and distant to his own ears, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. The grass around him was tall and wild, waving gently in a non-existent breeze, encroaching upon the small patches of suburban pavement that he could see morphing before his eyes, shifting and twisting like a living thing.

Lamp posts twisted and elongated into wild trees, their metal frames groaning and creaking as they stretched towards the sky, then snapped back to their original forms, the transformation oscillating with each blink of his eyes, each breath he took. As he stood, the ground beneath his feet felt unstable, as if the earth itself couldn't decide whether it was a well-trodden path or a wild, untamed plain, the concrete cracking and heaving under his weight.

Xander stumbled forward, each step uncertain in the shifting terrain, his balance thrown off by the constant changes. The familiar streets of Sunnydale seemed to fight back against the encroaching wilderness, creating a surreal battlefield that disoriented him further, buildings melting and reforming like wax under a flame.

"This is seriously whacked," Xander muttered, his voice trembling slightly as he took in the bizarre surroundings. "I've gotta be dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or both." He pinched himself hard on the arm, wincing at the pain. "Okay, not dreaming. Unless it's one of those dreams where you can feel pain. Which would really suck."

He felt exposed and vulnerable, stripped of a large chunk of the strength he had grown used to, yet strangely, the sickness that had knocked him on his ass seemed to have vanished, replaced by a sense of disconnect, as if he were floating above his own body. Instead, a different type of weakness gripped him, one that made his limbs feel heavy and his head light, as if he were moving through water, each step an effort.

"Did someone drug me?" He couldn't be sure, his words slurring slightly as he spoke, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy in his mouth. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the bizarre, dual-natured environment, his eyes wide and unblinking. The sense of being watched was palpable, a prickling on the back of his neck that made him shiver despite the absence of cold, as if unseen eyes were boring into his soul.

The streets were utterly deserted, yet the feeling of eyes on him persisted, intensifying with each step he took, each ragged breath that tore from his lungs. He walked for what felt like hours but could have been minutes or possibly just seconds. Shadows seemed to flicker at the edge of his vision, darting away whenever he tried to focus on them, taunting him with their elusiveness.

"Hello?" Xander called out, his voice echoing strangely in the empty streets. "Anyone there? Buffy? Willow? Giles?" No response came, only the distant howling of what sounded like hyenas, the sound sending a shiver down his spine. "Of course not. That would be too easy."

He continued to wander, each step feeling more surreal than the last. The pavement beneath his feet began to crack and splinter, giving way to patches of grass and dirt that seemed to grow larger with each passing moment. Buildings warped and twisted, their facades melting like candlewax, windows shattering and reforming in patterns that made no sense.

"This is not how I wanted to spend my Friday night," Xander grumbled, trying to inject some humor into the situation, if only to calm his own nerves. "I was thinking more along the lines of pizza and a movie, not a trip into the Twilight Zone."

The air around him seemed to thicken, pressing in on him like a physical weight. Breathing became a chore, each inhale a struggle against the oppressive atmosphere. Xander's heart raced, pounding against his ribcage like a drum, the sound echoing in his ears.

"Okay, I've had enough of this," he declared, stopping in his tracks and looking around, his voice rising in frustration and a hint of fear. "Whoever or whatever is doing this, cut it out! I want to wake up now!"

But no answer came, only the continued warping and shifting of the world around him, the landscape a nightmarish blend of the familiar and the alien. Xander ran a hand through his hair, his fingers trembling slightly as he tried to make sense of it all.

"What kind of..." he let himself trail off, staring dumbfounded. "Yeesh, talk about trippy."

Xander's confusion deepened, a sense of unreality wrapping around him like a thick fog, clouding his thoughts and dulling his senses. This can't be real. It can't be. But... His thoughts tumbled over each other, each more frantic than the last, his mind struggling to make sense of the impossible landscape that surrounded him, of the growing sense of wrongness that pervaded every inch of this twisted dreamscape.

A sharp noise cut through the silence—a rustling to his left, like the sound of dry leaves being crushed underfoot. He turned, heart racing, to see a shadow dart between what looked like a hybrid of a streetlamp and a baobab tree, its form indistinct and ever-shifting, before darting down an alley that seemed to appear out of nowhere. His breath caught in his throat as he realized whatever was watching him wasn't just a product of his imagination, but something tangible, something real, something hungry.

"What the hell are you?!" Xander yelled at the creature, voice cracking as his brave facade fell away. "What do you want from me?!"

As Xander rushed down the twisting alley, it unfurled like a never-ending serpent beneath the sickly moonlight that washed everything in a pale, eerie glow, the shadows seeming to dance and writhe with a life of their own. The ambient noise morphed into a scuttle that seemed to mock him with its proximity yet elusiveness, a symphony of skittering claws and rasping breaths that echoed from every direction and none at all.

The air around him thickened, growing oppressively hot as though the very atmosphere tightened like a noose around his neck, the sweat that beaded on his skin evaporating almost instantly in the unnatural heat. Each step he took was muffled by the hard, spiky tall grass sprouting up through the cracks in the concrete, the blades seeming to reach out and grasp at his ankles like gnarled fingers.

The alleyway itself was a labyrinth, walls leaning in close like the jaws of some great beast, ready to snap shut at any moment. They twisted and turned in ways that barely made sense at times, the path in front of him splitting and rejoining like the threads of some mad weaver's loom, each fork in the road leading to a new nightmare.

"Hey, come back!" Xander's voice was ragged and rough, exhausted from running, the words tearing at his throat like shards of glass. He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, a drum of war driving him forward, the rhythm seeming to sync with the pulsing of the alien moon above.

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Actually...

"Do I hear drums?" He shook his head as the laughter ahead echoed back to him, clear and manic, bouncing off the pulsating walls like a twisted game of telephone, each iteration more distorted than the last.

What should have been meters felt like miles; corners he had passed seemed to reappear, disorienting him further, as if he were running in circles in some impossible Escher painting come to life. The heat was unrelenting, the air so thick he could almost see it swirling around him, a visible haze that clung to his skin and filled his lungs with every desperate breath, each inhale feeling like he was drowning on dry land.

The laughter ahead of him grew louder, more unhinged, as if the source of the sound was as much a prisoner of this place as he was, trapped in some endless cycle of madness. "Who are you?!" Xander yelled into the void, his voice breaking against the oppressive air like a wave against a cliff, the question seeming to hang in the space between the walls, unanswered except for his own echoing voice and the sound of laughter that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Xander felt a scream building in his throat, a primal roar of frustration and terror that threatened to tear itself free from his very soul. "Who the fuck are you?!" he shouted, anger and fear bleeding into his tone like ink in water, his words seeming to warp and twist in the thick air. The alley responded with a brief silence that was soon filled by that same raspy, mocking laughter, louder now, closer, as if the unseen tormentor was right behind him, breathing down his neck with fetid breath. It felt close now, so close he might have reached out and touched it, yet it remained just a shadow, always a turn ahead, always out of sight, a ghost in this nightmare labyrinth.

"What do you want from me?!" Xander screamed, his voice raw and desperate, tears streaming down his face as he stumbled forward, the ground beneath his feet seeming to shift.

As the creature's laughter echoed down the alleyway, transforming from a distant, disconcerting giggle to a maniacal cackle that filled the air with dread, Xander's pulse quickened, his heart pounding against his ribcage. The heavy thud behind him spun him around, the world tilting on its axis as he moved, and he was instantly hit with a wave of nausea as the stench of rotting meat assaulted his senses, the putrid odor seeming to cling to the back of his throat like a physical thing. The figure laughed again, the sound crackling like dry firewood in a bonfire

"This isn't fucking funny!" Xander yelled, his voice cracking as the figure dove back into the shadows, the darkness swallowing it whole like a hungry beast. The laughter ceased momentarily, the silence that followed almost more unnerving than the sound itself, only to return in full force with a sharper, more sinister edge.

"Oh, it's not?" The voice rasped and snorted, a manic glee in every syllable that made Xander feel like the thing was holding back laughter, like it was listening to some cosmic joke that he wasn't in on. "It feels like it to me. But then again, I've always had a twisted sense of humor."

From the deeper darkness of the alley, the figure shuffled forward, the shadows seeming to cling to it like a second skin. It moved awkwardly, an awkward shuffle that screamed a lack of experience with bipedal movement, as if it were more accustomed to running on all fours. As it came into the dim light, Xander's eyes adjusted and his breath hitched.

The being before him was lean but wiry, its body covered in patchy dark fur that seemed to writhe under the dim light, as if it were alive and crawling with unseen insects. Patches of pale, almost sickly skin peeked out from under the fur, giving it an even more unsettling appearance, like a patchwork quilt of flesh and hair.

The face was a horrific mimicry of humanity, elongated and warped, with a short, dark muzzle that twitched as it sniffed the air, as if it were trying to catch Xander's scent. Its mouth was filled with sharp, yellow teeth that seemed too large for its mouth, gleaming wetly as it grinned at him, a predator's smile that promised nothing but pain. Above this mouth, the eyes shone with a disturbing yellow-green glow, vertical pupils contracting into slits as they focused intently on Xander, seeming to bore into his very soul. Shaggy, dark brown hair fell in a tangled mess around its face, partially obscuring pointed, twitching ears that seemed to catch every sound.

The remnants of what might once have been a colorful shirt and jeans clung to its frame in tatters, barely covering the sinewy muscle beneath, as if it had burst out of its clothes like a twisted version of the Hulk. Its bare feet, tipped with sharp, blackened claws, scraped the ground as it moved, leaving behind scratches in the concrete that seemed to smoke and sizzle.

Behind it, a long, thick tail swayed, bushy and heavy, almost scraping the ground.

"Holy shit, you're like... like a werewolf and the Crypt Keeper had a baby," Xander stammered, his eyes wide as he took in the creature's appearance. "And then that baby got hit with a serious case of the uglies."

The creature let out another cackle, the sound grating on Xander's nerves like nails on a chalkboard. "Aw, don't be like that, Xan Man," it said, its voice a disturbing parody of Xander's own. "Is that any way to greet your better half?"

Xander shook his head, stumbling back a step as the creature advanced, its movements becoming more fluid and predatory with each step. "Better half? What the hell are you talking about, you reject from a horror movie bargain bin?"

The creature's grin widened, exposing more of those razor-sharp teeth. "I'm talking about the fact that I'm the real you, you idiot," it said, its voice dripping with contempt. "I'm the Xander that should be running the show, not some weak, pathetic monster from Hell."

Xander's heart was pounding in his chest, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps as he tried to make sense of the situation. The world around him seemed to pulse and warp, the edges of his vision blurring as if he were looking through a funhouse mirror. The creature's words echoed in his head, bouncing around like a demented game of ping-pong.

"No, no, that's not... that's not possible," he muttered, more to himself than to the creature. "I'm me. I'm Xander. You're just some... some freaky dream thing."

The creature let out a growl that sounded almost like a laugh. "Oh, you poor, deluded fool," it said, shaking its head in mock pity. "You really have no idea, do you? This isn't a dream, Xanman. This is your reality now."

It took another step forward, its claws scraping against the concrete with a sound that set Xander's teeth on edge. "And in this reality, I'm the one in charge."

Xander felt a surge of panic, his fight or flight instinct kicking into high gear. He looked around wildly, searching for an escape route, but the alley seemed to stretch on forever, the walls closing in on him like a vice.

"Stay back," he warned, his voice shaking despite his best efforts to sound tough. "I don't know what you are, but you're not me. You're not Xander."

The creature threw back its head and laughed, the sound echoing off the walls of the alley like a demented symphony. "I just told you," the creature retorted, voice a disturbing blend of a growl and a laugh. "I'm Xander, and I'm taking my body back!"