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Realistic or Modern Phantom Voices | ellarose & Syntra

Clara stared blankly into her lap, only vaguely aware of the world whooshing by outside the car window. A small part of her acknowledged that leaving a place she considered home should have felt just a trifle more momentous. To be fair, though, the events over the course of the past ten minutes hadn't exactly sunken in yet. Maybe it'd hit her tomorrow morning, or in a couple weeks from now... if she even had that long. You know, seeing as she couldn't even drink her morning coffee before having yet another deadly weapon aimed at her face? Those cops and their horrible guns might be in the rearview window for now, but her heart still beat like a time bomb. For the time being, she focused on building her defenses. Rather than shiver with the impending sense of doom she was currently grappling with, she tried numbing herself to all of it. Sentimentalism, anger, fear. Especially fear. Don't look behind you. Don't, don't, don't. Voices hissed. Shadows continued to lurk in her peripheral, looming like a gloomy raincloud over her head. She wondered if she was the only one who could sense their presence. After all, Spooks was simply staring back at her with one oblivious eye, her pink little tongue hanging out of her mouth in a smiling pant as her tail wagged behind her. (Adorable, really. But not even a sight as cute as that could coax a smile from her now.) The simple joys of being a dog, huh. From her perspective, this had to be an exciting development. Like, woohoo, they were going on an adventure! And Thea? Thea, for all extents in purposes, seemed to be taking the same carefree approach as Spooks. Good for them, really, that they were coping with this mess exceedingly better than she was! There's no turning back now. No hiding now.

Well? Answer her. Clara's throat closed up and she struggled to draw air into her lungs. She couldn't breathe, let alone speak. What just happened?What have I done, what am I doing here, why-- It can be hard to tell the difference... was this a panic attack or the malicious antics of her personal eldritch horror creature? And no, that wasn't her attempt to be poetic or overdramatic about her 'inner demons'. Clara knew it was there. She just set it loose, hadn't she? Although she'd never used it like that before. Never to attack people. Or, no. Rather, she'd done it to defend herself. That distinction was very important! (Well, there was last night as well. But last night doesn't really count, considering the fact that everything about last night was absurd. It really made her terrifying display fade into the background in the grand scheme of things.) No matter what it was attributed to, she needed to push past it. Calm down. Just calm down. Breathe.

"Anywhere." Clara sighed at last. I'm calm. I'm fine. An impassive response was all she could muster. As much as she loved her lists and plans, she hadn't exactly accounted for this impromptu road trip. (Because calling it a road trip, at least for the time being, was easier than acknowledging it for what it actually was.) She was too tired to care that she was casting her future to the wind. Too tired to snap or get angry. For now. (Later, she resolved, she would ask Thea to hold up to her end of the bargain. She owed her some kind of explanation for all of this-- whether sock puppets were involved or not.) Still. Why was she even asking her? Surely... surely Thea must've had some inkling of an idea in regards to where she was headed, right? She was already on the run as it was, thus had more time to ponder it. "Just go wherever you planned on going after leaving my place."

"I always thought Hogwarts was an unappealing name for a school." She huffed, momentarily distracted. Thea's compliment was sweet and all, but Clara was lost. Yes, the shadows had lived with her since she was a little girl. And curiously shaping the shadows on her bedroom walls was easily explained away by saying she had an overactive imagination. It reminded her of painting, really, and had never particularly bothered her. By the time she was old enough for her to bother her, it felt natural enough that it... just didn't? Sometimes she'd experiment with them in dreams, too. Although she kept it a secret from other people in her life, she acknowledged its existence rather than try to bury it away. Maybe that as well as the harmless practice gave her some semblance of control? But, again, she'd never wielded it like that before. Or at least not that she can remember. Clara thought she and Thea might have that in common as well, like the case with the voices in their heads, but judging by her reaction now-- "That skeevy cop touched my branding before he put his gun to my head. Something about that just... set me off, I guess." Reluctantly, she bit her lip. "I don't know what I'm doing any more than you do."

"It really tired me out, though." Clara yawned softly and crinkled her nose when Spooks flicked her tongue at it. That she'd only gotten about two hours of sleep last night was also a factor. Thank goodness she'd been wearing her headphones around her neck. If she could block out the voices, catch up on sleep and calm down a little... then maybe she'd be better suited to contribute to plans for their stressfully uncertain future. "I'm going to sleep for a bit. Wake me up if something happens, okay?"
 
“Anywhere,” Thea snorted. “Funny, ‘cause that was exactly my plan. I mean, I’ve learned early in life that there is no fucking point to actually outlining stuff, you know? It’s like… I dunno, like building a house of cards in the middle of a snowstorm. Everything can go whoosh in nanoseconds. Why bother, even? It’s been my theory for a while that the moment you start believing in the concept of ‘future’ and ‘long-term planning,’ the universe goes out of its way specifically to fuck you over. You think you’ve got some actual control over what’s gonna happen, you sniveling little worm?” Thea mimicked, her voice a few octaves higher than normal. “Well, well, well, then it would be a damn shame if your house burned down! Listen, Clara, if there really is someone in charge of all of this, then he’s a petty, insecure fuck.” Blah blah blah, words, words, words. Technically, her new companion had asked for ExplanationsTM, though she didn’t have to deliver now, did she? Not that Thea was ashamed of her actions or anything, of course, but some time to, uh, craft the proper narrative would come in handy. Again, she didn’t plan to lie! Only losers ever did that, and Thea wasn’t a loser. No, no, no. It was just that… hmm, how to explain it? The last few months in that asylum had been a bit of a blur, with the awesome rollercoaster ride of trying new medicaments almost every other day, and the timeline was allll kinds of fucked in her head. Had Event A preceded Event B, or vice versa? Seemingly a small thing, though when you stepped into the territory of ‘was that a dream or not,’ Thea could see this impacting her credibility. So, yeah! She just needed an opportunity to gather her thoughts, and maybe edit out certain uncomfy details. (Nothing that would shift Clara’s perspective too drastically, mind you. Her “””victim””” had only been a victim in the legal sense of that word, you see-- the brunette was convinced that she’d only reached her forties because most people were too chickenshit to break the law, and it was hard to imagine the universe in which Clara would sympathize with her and not, you know, Thea. Thea, who happened to be both cute and awesome! Nope, it was just a privacy concern, thank you very much.)

“It does strike me as poor fucking PR,” Thea prattled on happily, grateful for every potential distraction. “But maybe they were trying to weed out the incompetent ones? I imagine that if warts scare you, you probably shouldn’t get the license to cast death curses. Like, emotionally, that makes sense to me. Such people are weak, and entrusting so much raw power into their hands would totally fuck with the natural order of things. I mean, an ant wielding a war hammer would be strange, wouldn’t it? A cause for concern, if nothing else. So, spell-slinging cowards would be similar to that, but on a much grander level!” she concluded triumphantly.

“But yeah, rest. We can, um, talk later. Sweet dreams, Clara.”

***

The one advantage of traveling in a police car, if Thea had to name something? Why, that everyone moved the fuck out of their way! Nobody exactly wanted to get in trouble with the heroic men of law, so famous for their mental stability and reasonable conduct. So, once again, thank you, officers! Thank you, for paving the way to their grand escape. Like, yeah, they’d have to get rid of the vehicle asap, but it was nice while it lasted, you see? What wasn’t nice, though, was how much fucking gasoline that monster of a car burned. Just??? In one moment, everything was nice and dandy, and in the other, they were suddenly running out of fuel! Some black hole related fuckery must have been doing on there, Thea was sure. (The Bermuda triangle, but for cars? Everything was possible in a world where demons could camp inside of your head, the brunette supposed.)

Anyway, it didn’t take the fucking Einstein to figure out the solution to their problem. That money could be exchanged for goods and services was a concept that most primates would have grasped, so she sure as fuck had as well. Still, the issue with that? Thea, ah, kinda happened to be broke. Terminally fucking broke, to be precise. The gas station that loomed on the horizon appeared abandoned enough, though, and, hmmm… After sending a cop to the ER, would robbery land them into that much additional trouble? In the context of all the actions they’d taken during the last twenty-four hours, worrying about petty shit like that seemed hilarious, almost-- much like getting stabbed in the stomach and proceeding to angst over your cancer diagnosis. “We’re almost out of juice here,” she announced after checking Clara out in the mirror. Which, yay, her companion seemed to be awake already! No need to interrupt her sleep, then. “Aaaand I sorta don’t have any cash on my person. Also, by ‘sorta,’ I mean ‘not at all’. Terribly bigoted of them, if you ask me, but they don’t actually let you have money in the kind of hospital I was in and I found myself in an, ah, hurry when I was leaving. So, do you have some money, or are we embracing the life of crime? I mean, we’ll have to get a new car soon anyway, so I don’t really think we can afford to not do that. I’m all ears re: other suggestions, though,” she beamed at Clara, totally casual.
 
"Hmm." Clara blinked her bleary eyes, whisked out of her reverie at the sound of Thea's voice. Oh. Well, it was only a matter of time, wasn't it? This was sure to happen eventually. Although she'd been too tired to give her valid stance on the importance of outlines earlier, it seemed that now was a perfectly apt time to make her argument. She reached into the getaway bag sitting at her ankles and began rifling through it. "You can knock plans all you want, Thea Holloway, but sometimes they serve you well in a pinch." That might've sounded pretty smooth, you know, except that the back-up wallet she revealed was shaped like an adorable, marshmallowy kitten. Sort of threw her coolness factor out of kilter a bit. Yeah, uh, back when she still couldn't speak, Raoul had a habit of buying her things that overflowed with cuteness to juxtapose her icy demeanor as a joke. (Or he might've known that deep down, beneath the glares, raised brows and rolled eyes, that she secretly liked that cute shit. Like a lot. Not that anyone was every going to hear that confession directly from her!) She blushed and busied herself with counting to see how much she left for herself. "Hundred and... eight? No, nine. Okay." Decent. It was a start! Yeah, it wouldn't last them forever... and, honestly, her stomach ached when she considered what means they would need to resort to when they inevitably ran short. Even so, it was still better than kickstarting their journey with absolutely nothing. Better that they fly under the radar for now, especially while the news was still fresh.

"We should make this quick. You fill the tank and I'll handle the shopping." Clara brought her sketchbook into her lap then and began penciling out a list. After all, just because this place was essentially a ghost town didn't mean they could afford to be careless. All it took was one person calling the cops to land them in hot water again. For now, it was probably safer for her to handle the essential face-to-face interactions. (You know, at least until they found Thea a proper disguise. Sure, the news networks have probably added Clara to their narrative by now... but they were sure to have a lot of trouble finding a halfway decent picture to identify her with. Her jacket also had a conveniently large hood for her duck into, which-- again-- was better than nothing.) "Gas is going to bleed us dry. We should probably get rid of the car sooner rather than later..." Um. Characters usually pushed cars into lakes to get rid of them on television, right? Admittedly, this scenario wasn't one she had planned for-- let alone researched properly. Most likely because she'd never envisioned herself being in this position to begin with. And while traveling in a car was definitely convenient... they'd need to find an alternative means of getting around eventually. Public transit would be a lot cheaper, too. Still, a risk came with that in potentially getting noticed by someone. Hm. It was definitely one of many, many, many variables to consider once they were finished here. Good grief. The sheer amount of variables to consider in this situation were, quite frankly, making her feel sick to her stomach. That would be the second time today... except at this point, she doesn't have any food left in her to throw up.

Take it one step at a time, Clara. Stay calm. Clearing her mind, she slowly breathed in and out. Counted down from ten, just like she practiced. Stay calm, stay calm.

Clara opened her eyes. A moment passed before they lit up with another idea.

"Might as well see what there is to find in here, too." Clara clicked open the glovebox in front of her and examined its contents. There were the expected manuals and records, of course, but-- ah hah. An emergency flashlight, two fresh packets of tissues, a first aid kit and a crushed granola bar? Other than that, it seemed a collection of crumpled up straw wrappers and other miscellaneous trash had accumulated towards the bottom as well. Gross! Hm. While it would've been convenient to find a nice, heavy wallet in there... she supposed they ought to be grateful for any simple necessities they could find. Clara tilted her head and experimentally switched the flashlight on and off. It worked. Well, great! At least one thing was working out in their favor. "We should probably do a thorough search before we get rid of the car. There's no telling what could be hiding under the seats." Except the cold reality was likely that they would discover more trash... and her expression articulated this mindset pretty clearly. She sighed and shrugged. "...Or in the trunk, for that matter."

"Anyway. Considering neither of us have had anything to eat since yesterday, I'm going to get some food. Anything in particular you want? We're on a strict budget here, so... keep that in mind." Clara said, peering out at the convenience store. It would be fine. She'd be in and out-- no problem. "And while we eat, you can tell me what the hell is going on. Sound good?"
 
Geez. Did Clara have, like, zero desire for adventure? For taking what was rightfully theirs from their evil, evil overlords and this cruel society that had failed them so? (In her book, you see, what they were doing was entirely fair-- noble, even, because their journey was based on defying tyranny. No, really. Had the cops not been murderous bastards, then Thea could have used arguments more peaceful than, say, scissors to their fucking face! The same went for the nurse, who honestly should have taken anger management lessons before choosing to work with a bunch of chronically unstable people. Like??? That made about as much sense as becoming a pilot despite being deathly afraid of heights, or maybe pursuing your career as a surgeon for those sweet, sweet dollars while knowing the first sight of blood fucking made you faint. Pathetic, not gonna lie. The error in judgment had been so grievous, actually, that Thea sorta saw herself as an avenging angel of justice in that scenario. Just, who knew how many people the bitch had mistreated in the past, hmmm? Maybe the brunette wasn't even an actual person, but a mere manifestation of their collective frustration-- kind of like a poltergeist, but one that possessed a body of her own, a wicked sense of humor and the shiniest hair in her neighborhood. It was the 21st century, folks! These days, one's image meant everything, and Thea couldn't imagine supernatural phenomena being exempt from that rule. Nope, surely not. Any demon who tried to be ~old-school scary~ would be rightfully laughed out of pretty much every room!)

"Fine, fine," she capitulated, pursing her lips. "Just a question, though. Does the money respawn?" ...what? Not even being sarcastic here-- considering all the tricks Clara had pulled out of her ass so far, Thea couldn't discount the possibility of her secretly being, say, some kind of leprechaun. Now, her personal idea of what a leprechaun looked like didn't really correspond with Clara's visage, but who was to say to say she wasn't wrong regarding that? Thea happened to excel at being wrong, mind you, and so this """plot twist""" wouldn't really shock her at all. Perhaps leprechauns truly had been hot all along! The caricatures could have been... well, caricatures, spread by the local anti-leprechaun mafia. Bankers in particular probably really hated those guys, huh? "Since, if not, this is a temporary solution at best. Maybe you could, like, steal at least a package of bubblegum while you're there? Solely to get comfy with it, you know! We don't really have a lot of time for Oliver Twist-tier training montages. As far as I know, we suffer from a staggering lack of shady mentor figures, too," and, no, the demon didn't count, "so we should really try to get this right the first time around. ...aw, shit. You think we should have stolen those guys' uniforms, too? I mean, if ran in there dressed like those bastards and claimed that only free sausages could save our country, I'm sure we'd get them. Like, 100% sure. They'd probably kiss our fucking shoes, too." As always, hindsight was 10/10-- secretly, Thea hoped she'd get to upgrade to foresight one day, though she also wasn't holding her breath. More than likely, it just wasn't going to happen. Foresight, you know, was for the kool aid drinkers who believed in 'planning', 'probability,' 'financial security,' and all the other lies that had been shoved down their throats in order for them to have any society at all. Thea, on the other hand? Why, Thea only rode the waves of chaos!

"Yeah, yeah, sounds okay," she nodded, somewhat dismissively. (It didn't please her, you see? The idea of idea of having to talk about alllll the memories that she would have loved to put in a box, subsequently wrap that box in duct tape and then throw the whole thing into the fucking ocean. Again, Thea didn't intend to break her promise, but that didn't mean she also had to censor her feelings on the matter, now did it? No, surely not.) "You can get me a sandwich, I guess. Any sandwich will do, but not tuna. I'm allergic to it. If there's a trace of tuna, I'm gonna morph into a Godzilla. It's, um, a very rare condition, caused by my anger at the prospect of having to eat tuna."

...okay, okay, okay. Clara was going to disappear for a while, which meant Thea had a great opportunity to rehearse her story. So, where to start? What was considered essential, and what could she leave out? Which details to focus on? Ah, shit, shit, shit! What the fuck was the flow of the time, even? The brunette could swear Clara had only left a second ago and now she was returning, with her hands full of food! Someone must have owned a fucking time machine out there, and it seemed that the person loathed her. Just!!! Why not grant her more time?

"Fine, so regarding the whole murder fiasco," Thea glanced at Clara before unwrapping her sandwich, her fingers unusually clumsy. (Was it just her, or was the wrapping more slippery than usual? Man oh man, the whole world was trying to sabotage her today! It only went to show that she was way, way too awesome for her own good-- shattering egos left and right with your very existence could be dangerous.) "It's true. I did kill someone. I mean, I didn't stay long enough to check whether she was dead dead, so maybe she's chilling in the ER now, buuut yeah, the intent was there," Thea shrugged, oh so casual. "She was a nurse. A nurse from the fucking hell. Like, not only she wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, but she'd also douse you in gasoline for good measure. I guess I just looked at my life, at her life, and judged mine to be more important. 'Cause, you know, I'm sure I would have died in there," she confessed, so honest it surprised even her. "That place was designed to break you, Clara. Completely and utterly. I had to get out, no matter what. And, like, wasn't it kinda her fault for being there? Had she not gotten in my way, I wouldn't have had to remove her."
 
Clara listened intently, chewing silently on her own sandwich. She'd gotten them the same item on the menu, not wanting to linger long lest someone recognize her or the car waiting outside. It also had something to do with the pack of gum she discreetly slipped into her sleeve. Contrary to what Thea might believe, she used to employ a five finger discount all the time. Her brother's the one who got her started... and, of course, her brother's also the one who eventually made her promise to stop. He had to clean up his act and so did she, to satisfy the people who monitored them like hawks. The people who would decide whether or not they got to stay together. When she had access to a kitchen where food was findable, where it wasn't rotten, it wasn't necessary to steal anymore. And reverting back to that, well... it stirred up all sorts of complicated feelings. Maybe she'd done it to solidify it to herself, that the life she had come to know was really over. Or maybe it was something about the way Thea had spoken back in the car-- something that made her want to prove herself. And one measly pack of gum wasn't that bad. Especially not compared to flipping a freaking police officer with... magic? How else is she meant to define it? (Inside the convenience store, all she received was a judgmental glare from an old lady. It made her a little nervous, of course-- but the woman was only judging her for wearing shorts on the cusp of the winter season. Like... 'Oh, kids these days with their revealing clothing in the cold and whatnot!' Aside from the oversized jacket shielding her, she hadn't exactly had the opportunity to change out of her pajamas.) Oh, right. And her voices guided her towards a brochure stand, where she found an outdated advert for a theme park. The main attraction, slapped right on the front? Well, it was none other than Rapunzel's tower, guarded by none other than a purple animatronic dragon. 'The tower looms high.' Hm, hm. Of course she grabbed it. The voice was basically spelling it out for her!

It seemed Thea was telling her story in the simplest terms possible. If not for the touches of honesty she gauged, she wouldn't have thought it particularly fair. In the end, though, she deemed it acceptable. Especially if it was as bad as she claimed it was. Would have died... had to get out... Clara empathized so much that her chest physically hurt. She knew that in the same situation, she'd have summarized her experience in as few words as possible. No. No, back when she'd been in a similar situation she hadn't said a word. (And did she really need to wonder whether the institution was really as corrupt as she said? Considering she'd had a gun pointed at her head earlier, she wasn't in the right headspace to view any figures of authority in such a sympathetic light. And, uh, she'd technically seen the inside of that institution yesterday. Dark with bars over the windows. It didn't evoke any happy thoughts, that was for certain.) Moreover, the night before confirmed they had a past together. They shared at least the voices in their heads, the connection to that creepy demon. And that a group of people could successfully kidnap and murder say, twenty-some kids without having it show up anywhere in her research? Along with the fact that the cop felt around for her marking? If they were comprised of enough people in positions of power, then such a feat may not be an impossibility. Just the thought made her dizzy.

"Okay." Clara said quietly. She wouldn't ask for more. What was the point of knowing, word for word, what they had done to torture her? 'A place designed to break you' was enough to understand it wasn't something that would be fun to look back on, let alone talk about. It wasn't going to give her more insight on their situation, was it? It did boil her blood to know they would probably go on getting away with countless atrocities behind the safety of their closed doors and barred windows. Undoubtably, the existence of the voices in her head were at least part of the reason why she was there to begin with. How many people had she been honest with, only to be laughed at or called crazy? How awful must that have been? She looked Thea in the eyes. "I believe you." Then she squinted and made an attempt to lighten the mood. "For future reference, though, you ought to keep comments like that last one to yourself. About it being her fault. Even if it's true."

In a strange and somewhat morbid way, Clara recognized that she and Thea were doomed no matter what they did from this point on. If Lizzie was proof of anything, it was that playing the good, cooperative girl wouldn't bode well for her in the end. If their captors were figures of authority, they could easily point to their power, make some sweet promises to erase her problems, and then go on to shoot her in the back when she wasn't looking. Because their 'mission', as far as she understood, was to kill them. Plain and simple. And then what? There was also the matter of that demon who lived in their heads, who they clearly worshipped. What was going to happen, then? Some batshit supernatural nonsense? She'd be inclined to believe it, considering everything that's happened up to this point.

"It might surprise you, but I had no shortage of shady mentor figures growing up." Clara shrugged and shook the pack of bubblegum she'd stolen from her sleeve and handed it over to Thea. Okay, listen. A pack of gum wasn't that badass, especially when compared to Thea taking out that zombie with the axe yesterday. But she still found it in her to smirk. "Hm. By Lizzie's logic, I guess this means you're my knight for life."

She faced forward, then, finishing a half of her sandwich before wrapping the rest up to save for later. Then she curled up and hugged her arms around her legs in attempt to warm up. She had some spare clothes in her bag... but, despite her show of confidence, she was rather hesitant to change in the car right now. Besides, she had more important things on her mind for the time being. Like what they were going to do next, for instance.

"Um. So, anyway." Yeah, speaking of Lizzie. Clara bit her lip, uncertain of how Thea was going to take this. Her brow furrowed. "I know you said you didn't have a plan before. But, Thea... what exactly were you doing in the cemetery yesterday?" It seemed like she hadn't been chased there, like Clara was. No, it seemed as if she had driven there of her own volition. And it sounded like she was searching for someone, judging by the way she'd been shouting. (But, of course, there'd been no one there to answer her. No one but Clara herself, that is.) That meant she probably wasn't above following the voice's directions, right? Well, assuming Lizzie led her there in the first place. That series of events led them to meet. So maybe if they helped the other kids and solved this mystery, they could find a way to hold their captors accountable? Or-- or maybe it'd help her sleep at night, if they could eliminate the targets on their backs somehow. Or, you know, at the very least... maybe she would get more insight into whatever the heck was happening to her. You couldn't make a decent plan without knowing exactly what you were working with, right? So much had been taken from them. Clearly, they wouldn't get anywhere if they willingly stayed in the dark like this! "I don't know about you, but my voices have been talking about a tower lately. And in the store just now, I saw this." She laid the brochure out for Thea to see. "The tower is another one of the tarot cards, too. I... I think we should go and check it out."
 
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. It was funny, wasn’t it? The way seconds stretched, far, far into the eternity, when you were waiting for an answer to something ImportantTM. Einstein had explored the phenomenon long ago, Thea knew, but that knowledge kinda did nothing for her-- like, even if you understood how gravity worked, that still didn’t fucking negate its effects. (…well, okay, unless you happened to be a cartoon character, that was. Even so, it was not knowing that the mechanism was an actual thing that always saved you, you see? Education, Thea had thought for the longest time, was basically the human equivalent of a computer virus, and this confirmed that theory. Clearly, the worst war criminals had been teachers all along. Just, who knew what kind of potential they could have unlocked when they had still been children, with minds unburdened by the weight of… umm, chemistry? Chemistry, with all its metals and half-metals, seemed way too heavy for a child’s head to hold.) A n y w a y, she totally wasn’t trying to distract herself! Why do you ask, even? Thea Holloway was absolutely, unflinchingly and unwaveringly alright with the shit that was transpiring here. So what if it turned out Clara had secretly been a fan of creepy nurses all her life, and she had unknowingly killed her greatest rolemodel? It was fine, man. Dreaming of a partner in crime gf maybe have been a nice indulgence, but it was just that-- a painkiller she had swallowed embarrassingly often, all things considered. C’mon, she told herself, get a hold of yourself. What’s the worst thing that can happen? You’ll be alone again, which, pfft, big fucking deal.

(Loneliness, you see, was an old friend. Too weird for the popular kids to approach and too normal for the true weirdos to accept her, Thea had always existed in the invisible space between those two groups-- well, that, and the voices in her head had not fucking helped. Personally, the brunette blamed the Hollywood. ‘Hurrr durrr, hearing voices simply has to result in being pushed to murder, mainly ‘cause we’re creatively bankrupt and can’t tell a compelling story to save our collective ass! Now feed us more money, hmmm, oh yeah.’ That being said, though? Thea didn’t mind. It had been scientifically proven that all of the coolest people in history were loners, hadn’t it? Badass samurai who had wanted to avenge their master’s murder, for example, or lone guerilla fighters, um, lone wolves, who were always way more interesting than regular-ass wolves. They just commanded more respect, you know? Packs were for losers too weak to survive on their own, and Thea was distinctly not that. Nope, nope, nope! Her returning to her usual status of a strong, independent woman wouldn’t be a fucking downgrade-- if anything, getting rid of the goody two shoes who clutched her pearls over stealing of all things might be the smartest thing to do here. Like, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. The thug life obviously didn’t tempt Clara in the same way it tempted her, and with a few memory edits? Why, she could easily pretend they’d parted on good terms, with Clara begging her to stay! …and not with, you know, her new friend spitting in her face. The laws of probability claimed that that was exactly what would happen, she was sure of it, because--)

--because… wait, what? Uncomprehending, Thea blinked. It almost, almost sounded as if Clara didn’t mind, but that couldn’t be it, could it? Despite her own rather liberated views on how murders were okay, actually, she suffered from no delusions regarding just how common they were-- like, they were enlightened for a reason, and that reason was that unwashed masses didn’t tend to share them. “You are… okay with it,” she repeated, dumbfounded. “Well, thank you. I am okay with the fact that you are okay with it. In fact, I welcome it.” (Oh shit, shit, shit. How was she supposed to not dream of their future now? There was only one logical conclusion to their story now, doubtlessly, and all renditions of it involved pretty dresses, a church willing to marry two criminals, and a large chocolate cake. …did Clara like chocolate? Anyone who didn’t was a demon, Thea was convinced of that truth, but again, she wouldn’t judge! The level of your… demonic-ness, she supposed… didn’t necessarily speak of the quality of your character.)

“I went there,” Thea pursed her lips, “because the voices wouldn’t shut up. So I said to myself: What’s the worst thing that can happen? And, with the benefit of hindsight at my disposal, I can only say that my imagination wasn’t nearly equipped enough to paint the full fucking picture for me.” Presumably, Clara also hadn’t enjoyed their merry night with faceless abominations, but you know what? She sure as hell didn’t act like it, with her outlandish suggestion to follow the hottest clue and everything! “You’re crazy,” she announced, resolutely. “I like that. Okay, why not. I mean, we’re kinda doomed no matter what we do, and I guess that dying in some freaky survival horror scenario sounds way more fun than being shot by a cop out for blood. If nothing else, it’ll be less mainstream.” The remnants of her common sense were fucking screaming at her at this point—shit like ‘Nooo, Thea, please, don’t do it’, ‘What happened to going to Mexico?’ and ‘May as well have stayed in that hellhole if all you are going to do with your life is to throw it away.’ All of those voices had a valid point, for once, but unfortunately for them, Thea had grown way, way too desensitized to literally everything that was going on inside of her head. What was it about broken clocks, again?

“I sure am curious what we will find there,” she rubbed her chin thoughtfully before turning left. “You think they’ll manage to trump the last welcome we received? A pretty big task, if you ask me.” It turned out, however, that that was exactly what they aimed to do, because once Thea stopped the car? Fog descended from the sky, white and thick like milk, with only the tower shining in the background like a lighthouse, and…

“Ladies and... ladies!” a guy dressed like a circus owner materialized on their backseat, totally out of nowhere. “It is my privilege, and my greatest joy, to be able to welcome you to the Tower of Miracles. Nothing pleases me more than seeing children’s eyes sparkle with joy, really. Sadly,” he caressed his moustache, in a not at all villainous way, “we ran out of them last week. Of miracles, that is. Only horror remains, I’m afraid,” large, shadowy tendrils emerged from his arms at that, and seized the steering wheel from Thea, “so I’m thinking it might be better for you to crash. Right?”
 
"It's not that I have a death wish." Clara insisted firmly. She was not crazy! Or, um... It must have come across as unconvincing, though, if you viewed her proposal and the night they'd had before side by side. And yeah, okay, that expression Thea gave her was warranted. And maybe a part of her was staring incredulously at herself through that lens as well. If her life was going off the rails, though, she felt she ought to take control in the only way she knew how. Learning about what was happening to them would help them make informed decisions about how they were going to move forward! And if she'd learnt anything last night, it was how little she actually knew about her past and about the strange world they had been forced into as children. She opened up her sketchbook on her lap and peered down at the different sketches and notes she'd taken earlier. "I've been doing research. Naturally it's hard to find anything remotely useful when it comes to... whatever it is we're dealing with. Fact remains that we saw into the past last night. And-- and Lizzie talked about planes?" She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, staring thoughtfully at her notes. It was odd, having someone to share her unfiltered thoughts and theories with. It had taken some getting used to when she'd started to speak again, the concept of holding an articulate conversation in general. Dealing with someone like Thea, who was uniquely equipped to understand her took that feeling up to the next level. "Who knows what else we'll find if we investigate this? Maybe we'll find some kind of resolution. A-- a way to silence that demon for good."

On cue, the good-for-nothing fiend himself began cackling in her head. 'My sweet, sweet dove. Are you conspiring against me?'

'What if I am?' Clara tensed when the back of her neck ached. She cupped her hand over it and pressed, hoping to quell it.

'I have gifted you only a small fraction of my power and now, perhaps, you've grown mad with it. But it is only that. A fraction.' He said matter-of-factly, 'I do wonder what will happen to you if you continue to go down this path. It'll be an interesting experiment for sure.'

A chill raced down Clara's spine and, without realizing it, she began to bury her nails into her flesh. She recalled how viciously she attacked the faceless teacher, with so much pent up hate and force that the classroom walls had cracked. He pounced on the opportunity to hound her further. 'Remember this. I possess all of your thoughts. I possess more power than your feeble mortal mind could ever comprehend.' Then she remembered how she snapped out of it. Thea in the future, mirroring little Thea in the past, embracing her from behind to bring her back down to this plane of existence. Thea, who was still sitting beside her and chattering away. A spot of warmth on an otherwise dreary landscape, the sun to her moon perhaps, and-- ah. Maybe that sounded a touch more romantic than she wanted to acknowledge right this moment.

'Maybe so.' Clara conceded. 'But you've already shown you're capable of making mistakes. If we're going to die anyway, we might as well try and do something.'

The fact that she and Thea had escaped, after all, was unquestionable proof of that. Taking the demon's silence as an inability to find a suitable comeback, Clara counted it as a point won in her favor. It may not mean much in the grand scheme of things, but the satisfaction was undeniably sweet.

That feeling was unfortunately short-lived, however, when a jump-scare personified popped out in the form of a creepy ringleader. Yikes! Clara figured the weirdness wouldn't hit them until, say, they passed through the front gates? This was just the parking lot, for goodness sake! Seeing as the car was beginning to speed forward and swerve at the nightmare's command, there was no time to compare her expectations to their reality. They had to act, or they were going to crash! She fruitlessly attempted to manipulate the shadows attached to the creatures arms, but they wouldn't budge. They were holding on too tightly. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Briefly, she considered the scissors Thea had used to defend herself... but would a normal old pair of scissors even cut it? Um, no pun intended. There was no time to test every little theory that popped into her head! Hm. If anything could cut through the darkness, it was...

Clara reached for the flashlight she'd taken out of the glove box. She butchered a few tries in her panicked state before she managed to switch it on, beaming the light at the steering wheel. The ringleader hissed as his shadowy arm twitched and flinched in response. Okay. That gave her results, yes, but it wouldn't be enough to save them. And, uh, now the shadow was splitting off, a portion of them wrapping around her arm in attempt to wrestle the flashlight out of her grasp. She yelped involuntarily and held on for dear life. "Thea!" Busy grappling with the ringleader, swaying as the car lurched left and right, she glared intentionally at the overhead light above their heads. "We need m-more light!"
 
Okay, okay, okay. Were there, like, absolutely no certainties anymore? One would have thought that not expecting weird, nightmarish beings to appear in the backseat of your car was a reasonable mindset to have, but nooo, ‘reasonable’ apparently just wasn’t in vogue anymore. What they got instead, you see, was surrealism so extreme that Salvador Dali would have turned green with envy. (Yes, she was bitter, thanks for asking. Silly as it was, Thea had kinda come to see the car as their sanctuary-- a piece of coziness in an otherwise hostile world, ready to brandish its claws at any time. Suddenly, the ‘get off my lawn’ cliché spoke deeply to her soul, and the ring leader fuck was infringing on it in a pretty drastic way! Drastic enough, actually, to make her see red.) “Hey,” Thea shouted before reaching for the steering wheel, determined to seize control again. Just, how hard could it be? The guy’s arms were literal shadows, and those weren’t exactly known for their steely grip. (They weren’t exactly well-known for hijacking vehicles, but that was just a trivial, pointless detail. Surely, everything would Go Just As PlannedTM, right?) “First of all, fuck you for this parody of decent customer service. You’re supposed to, like, offer us free coupons as reimbursement, not pull this shit. And also, also, maybe you haven’t noticed, but this car is mine. A lot of effort went into stealing it, so back the fuck off!” Swiftly, she grabbed the wheel, and… aaargh! What the fuck. Just, what the actual fuck, mate? When Thea hadn’t been looking, someone must have turned the stupid thing into fucking lava! In total disbelief, she stared at her hands as ugly blisters started popping up all over them, one by one.

“Just a small sample of the horror that is awaiting you there,” the ring leader sang out, in this creepy cheerful tone. (Something about it reminded her of telemarketers, maybe? The dead-eyed emptiness radiating off him, definitely, but also the way he was offering them the worst fucking deal in the known and unknown universe and acting as if it was somehow the god’s gift to the world. The parallels couldn’t be denied, which could only lead to one conclusion-- telemarketers had been in cahoots with the Devil all along. Ah-ha! Thea had always known there was something suspicious about them and their uncanny, uncanny ability to disrupt the movie in the most narratively inconvenient moment imaginable.) “Truly, I’m doing you a favor by choosing to kill you right now. At least you still remember who you used to be! That you’re wrong about it, of course, matters very little. People like to fill their heads with all kinds of nonsense, you see? Whatever makes them happy, I say! Existing in this world, blind like worms, must be unbearably exhausting.” Blah, blah, blah, another fucking villainous speech. What was new? Certainly not the world’s tendency of fucking them over in increasingly creative ways! (Thea would have preferred not to receive so much attention at once, buuut yeah, that probably came with the territory of being the main character. The main character of what, you ask? Why, of the shitshow that her life had somehow morphed into! If some fucker up in the clouds really was watching, just like so many religions claimed, then he must have been dying of laugher.)

Anyway, with the steering wheel being literally untouchable, Thea just stepped on the brakes instead. (…what? You would have had to be totally braindead to just watch as some clown tried become your ferryman in an unwanted quest to find out what lay beyond the river Styx! Nope, nope, nope, not gonna support aggressive marketing of that kind. Never.) Clara got an idea as well, as she tended to, and it even worked, ladies and gentlemen! As expected from her new friend, alright. A wave of relief washed over her, but perhaps she allowed it to happen a moment too soon-- mostly because the ring leader didn’t have the decency to just roll over and wait for his inevitable demise. (People these days, man! Just, how unimaginably rude. Was peer pressure not a thing anymore? If so, then they should bring it back asap, ‘cause it served a very important social function.)

With a flutter of panic in her stomach, Thea reached for the lights in order to remove the covers. Which, in theory? In theory, that had been a great plan. Simple and effective, just like the best of them! The catch, of course, was that the bitch didn’t have a limited number of shadow arms, and the second he caught a whiff of what she was doing… well, let’s just say she had her own set of issues to deal with. “Oh no, no, no! Bad girls. You’ve been very, very bad girls,” he smirked before twisting her wrist, and Thea had to yelp. (Okay, okay, okay! That assumption about shadows not being too steely? Into the trash it went, since it hurt like motherfucker.) “Do you think that stopping the car will save you, hmmm?” …thank god for the brakes, by the way, since it did stop. The vehicle groaned in protest, doubtlessly traumatized by the brutality of her handling, but obey it did, and came to a screeching halt a few meters before the tower. Whew!

“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” he increased the pressure on her neck, so much that she saw stars. “In fact, you’re only going to die in a less fun way. Prepare to go first, my dear!” the ring leader announced, all light and airy. “Now, what do you think, Clara? Should I choke her, stab her, or do something different, maybe? I can feed her darkness, too. Ooooh, yes, yes, that would be hilarious! Or, alternatively…” he titled his head aside, “…would you like to strike a deal? I can also not kill her, if you offer something tempting enough. Just an idea.”
 
Clara felt terror clamp down hard on her throat, as if she were living vicariously through Thea as the deadly shadows wrapped around her neck. Every second she spent trying to reach for her ability to speak was another second that her friend struggled to breathe. Eventually seconds could span into minutes and they sure as hell didn't have minutes. The thing was looking to her for a decisive course of action, pushing a matter of life or death solely into her hands. No pressure, or anything! Her hands trembled, her heart slammed in her chest like a sledgehammer, and she was beginning to see double. No. She couldn't lose Thea. Get ahold of yourself. She strictly instructed her nerves to settle for long enough to at least focus on the creature's words as it spoke to her. Calm down. He was trying to negotiate with her. At least he hadn't snapped Thea's neck instantaneously, right? They hadn't lost yet! A chance for them still existed and it wasn't hopeless if she could think of an alternative solution. Considering the costume that this man-- creature-- or whatever he defined himself as wore, it informed her that he at least fronted as an entertainer. An artist, in other words. Like her and like many so people she had met over the years.

"You want my opinion? I think your ideas are very unoriginal. Nothing we haven't seen before." Clara glared. Technically, it was true. Lizzie's teacher threatened to choke them and her cooks threatened to stab them. She kept her fingers crossed that her criticism wouldn't backfire. Worst case scenario, her claims would make him angry enough to kill them both immediately. And yeah, groveling may have been the safer course of action with their lives on the chopping block. Except the nightmare didn't take the form of a king or queen who might demand servility-- they were dealing with a ringleader. There had to be a reason for that, right? As nonsensical as these ghost worlds tended to be, they all tended to come together by the end to form a larger picture. She wagered they were dealing with a child with a flair for putting on a show, who took pride in being 'different'. Perhaps a challenge like this would pique their interest? "If your tower of terrors is this uninspired, maybe it would be better if you killed us now. We didn't come all this way for a snore-fest."

"Unoriginal!" The ringleader echoed, aghast. In his shock, the shadows around Thea's throat loosened. He then brought them back to stroke his mustache slowly in thought. Then it scrunched up with a vile smirk. Shadowy limbs branched off to tilt Clara's chin back, as if to get a better look at her face. She swallowed hard. "The truth can be hard to hear, but honest feedback is indeed a valuable thing in this business."

Valuable. Valuable enough that they wouldn't have to die, maybe? Except that the shadows grip on her chin tightened, making her breathe erratically. Unbeknownst to her, her own shadows began to swirl around her, like vipers preparing to strike in retaliation. The ringleader watched this development with growing curiosity. 'The tower looms high. The tower casts a menacing shadow.'

"A-- a real showman wouldn't kill his audience before they get the chance to see his show." Clara bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. Or maybe to stop herself from talking in general. Because maybe they would fare better if she stopped talking altogether. The creature just laughed at her.

"You make an excellent point. However, it appears that neither you nor your friend here are in possession of tickets! Tough luck. No tickets, no entry." The ringleader shook his head sadly. Then shadows snared around Clara's waist. They tried to pull her from her seat, but her seatbelt cut into her skin. Another snaked around to snap her free of it. She twisted and pulled to try and free herself, but it was all in vain. "Now, now. I won't kill you, my dear. I believe I've found a kindred spirit in you!" The gold buttons on his velvety red coat unfastened themselves, then, revealing a vast pool of darkness where his chest should have been. "We need another performer and you'll do very nicely! Just consider it working for your ticket." The shadows pushed Clara inside and she vanished from sight. The ringleader snapped his coat shut again, closing the door instantly behind her.

Spooks started to bark at this development. Strangely, she didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary was happening up until her owner disappeared.

"As for you... well, I don't have another position available. You're free to go, I suppose. Enjoy the rest of the park. It's quite horrific!" The ringleader addressed Thea. "But before you get any ideas, let me warn you now that attempting to enter my tower without a ticket is a deadly endeavor. The dragon is hungry today! And if you're caught by one of my guards, it's off to the dungeon with you!" The shadows released her and then patted her on the head in a rather patronizing fashion. "We haven't used it in years! It's dark and flooded and oh, I'm quite positive you will drown down there. And no one likes drowning, do they Thea?"
 
Had Thea been a little more capable of analyzing her situation, she would have wondered why, exactly, all of those spooky fucks seemed to have an issue with her neck. Like??? Was there a huge ‘choke me’ sign on her forehead, only visible to those who understood the arcane arts? Had the fucking CEO of hell, or wherever it was that they’d crawled out of, given all of his subordinates the same all-purpose manual, where choking was the go-to technique? All fascinating thoughts, surely, except that the lack of oxygen was making it really hard to actually form them. (Darkness was eating away from her field of vision, an inch after inch. Slowly, the reality was beginning to resemble a surrealist picture-- colors blending into one another, sharp and wild, and flickering… what? Lights? Fireflies, maybe, like the ones she’d seen before the zombie asshole had shown up and singlehandedly dragged them into this mess! …in his defense, though? Thea knew that not to be true. Not really, anyway. The evidence was too fucking overwhelming for her to continue to live in denial, which, yep, was saying something. From the very moment she had crawled out of her mother’s womb, you see, her life had been punctuated by one catastrophe after another. Somehow, each had been worse than the one before it, too, and so… so being choked to death in a stolen police car sorta checked out, she guessed. A fitting ending for a chick whose entire existence was so much of a dumpster fire that not even raccoons wanted to get anywhere near to it!)

Unwilling to give up nonetheless, Thea raised her hands. They were weak, weak and covered in blisters, but still, still she tried to grab the shadows-- to get the fucker to release her, in other words, because she had not signed up for this. Not. at. all! The effort was downright heroic, she would like everyone to know that, but it also happened to be heroic in the sense that battle at Thermopylae had been considered heroic. Which, for all the uneducated fucks out there? It wasn’t an awesome, The Lord of the Rings-tier sweeping victory that had won them that label! (No, she managed to think, with all her might. I’m way too young for this dying bullshit, and besides, Clara is-- ‘Way too young?’ the demon in her head snorted, as if he hadn’t heard a funnier story in ages. ‘You are long past your expiration date, crow. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting, hmmm? But, as you silly people say, patience indeed does bring roses. You are going to die now, my sweet, and darling dove will follow! Tragic, tragic, if I do say so myself. Don’t worry, though-- your lives will be used to fuel something much, much greater than you are. Or used to be, should I say?’)

Even demons could speak too soon, as it turned out, because Clara used her Clara exclusive skills to… get herself a gig in that ringleader’s freakshow? Whoa, whoa, whoa! “Hey,” Thea piped up, her hand automatically flying to her bruised neck. “What do you mean, no other positions available?” Like hell was she going to abandon her totally-future-gf in such a dire situation! That just wasn’t the route to a lady’s heart, man. “I’ll have you know that I am exceedingly talented at…” At what, exactly? The brunette could devour five hot dogs in less than five seconds, but somehow, she doubted that that would earn the ringleader’s approval. So, what was the most circus-y shit she could do? “…uh, jumping through hoops! Metaphorical ones, mostly, but you can bet your ass I will pick it up for the literal ones quickly as well. It’s like… like building a new structure when you already have some sort of foundation, man. My productivity will shoot through the fucking roof, and…”

“Hmmm,” the ringleader smiled, “I’m thinking not. A tempting offer, certainly, but you lack the insight of an artist, child. A sad and also an incurable condition, I have to say. So, shoo, shoo! Off you go. And remember, Thea-- don’t you dare to approach the tower without tickets. There will be no mooching on my watch!”

Somewhere in the darkest corner of her mind, of course, the demon was fucking dying of laughter. ‘Good job, crow. Splendid, actually! Not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that you’d manage to lose dove, of all things. What is it like, being so incompetent that no algorithm can predict it?’

‘…algorithm?’

‘I keep telling you that I am not stuck in the Stone Age, crow! Algorithms don’t actually discriminate between humans and demons.’ An observant reader might notice that Thea hadn’t actually argued against his insults, and that might have been caused by the fact she actually kinda agreed-- like, yeah, she’d fucked up, and quite severely at that. Because of her, Clara was now stuck in some nightmarish circus, and… Nope, nope, nope, not gonna play the blame game. That wouldn’t help anyone, you see? For once in her life, Thea would put on her big girl pants instead, and go solve the mess she had helped create. Sooo… the ringleader had said something about tickets, hadn’t he? Awfully convenient, then, ‘cause she could see a ticket booth in the distance. Surely, surely she could at least find a ticket on the ground, or something! (And if not… well, Thea would simply follow the ages old adage that hadn’t fucking failed her yet. ‘When in doubt, bash someone’s skull in!)

Meanwhile, when Clara opened her eyes again, she found herself in a darkened tent. (It was hard to tell what kind of cloth it had been cut out of-- the colors seemed to be shifting, shifting, shifting, depending on how long she was looking at them. Voices were whispering in the background, too, and… ah. Was something growling in the darkness? Something way larger than it had any right to be, judging by its shadow? Uh oh.)

“No need to worry,” the ringleader reassured her, “that’s just our Devourer. We feed her acrobats who fail to reach our standards. It’s important not to settle for subpar performance, don’t you think? Anyway,” he spread his lips in a wide, disgusting smile, “not gonna lie, your friend did share something interesting. Despite her overall banality, I was able to derive some inspiration from those words! That’s how you recognize a true artist-- no matter the original source, he can always produce a golden show.” As he spoke, a large, metallic hoop emerged from the ground, and when it did? It caught fire, with the flames dancing and sizzling wildly. (They almost appeared to have a will of their own, considering no wind was blowing there! Actually, could she see faces in there? Wow, creepy.) “Fire is life, Clara, and in order to join my circus, you need to prove you are more alive than it is. We don’t employ corpses here. So, jump!”
 
"I don't think I..." Clara struggled to speak past the lump in her throat, her wide-eyed stare reflecting the flames swirling in front of her. Jump. Jump!? She could feel the heat brushing over her skin and her stress levels rose alongside the temperature in the tent. Sweat beaded at her temple. This was not what she had bargained for! Not by any means. Music began to play and all of her concerns about this development were disregarded as the fiery hoop came swooshing towards her, impatient, uncaring and unwilling to let her finish her sentence. There were a number of unfortunate fates that awaited her if she didn't perform. Burned alive? Fed to some unspeakable, hungry beast? There was clearly only one viable solution here. Jump first, talk later! She leapt through the hoop, panicking when the hot flames nearly grazed the bottom of her feet. When she was given a second to catch her breath, she tried again. "I'm not a performer! S-stage crew is--" More her speed, she would have finished if another hoop hadn't materialized out of the ground right away to replace the first. (Faster than her preferred speed, as it turned out.) Again it came flying towards her and again she jumped. Because she had no other choice other than to jump. "I-I'm stilling willing to work. I'm a lot better at set painting. O-or costume design?" Her ankles throbbed by the time they hit the mat for the fifth time. "Anything but this." Since her skill set wasn't being considered, she changed the subject to another matter of dire importance as she cleared more hoops and grew increasingly more exasperated. You know, Thea? He referenced her, sure, but he never told her what had become of her. Considering this grand idea came from her, that had to have meant that he at least stopped choking her to let her talk, right? Please let her be all right, please..."Speaking of my friend--" She was panting heavily by the time she jumped through the eighth hoop, "Where... where is she?"

'Thinking about crow, hm? Oh you silly, hopeless dove. Obviously she took the car and left you for dead the moment the coast was clear!' The demon cackled. 'Master escapist, remember? And I hate to say it, but she was right. You are crazy. Not only did you let that criminal into your home-- but you accepted her. You even ran away with her... and for what? Because standing beside her makes you feel just a little less alone? Pathetic.' Clara winced and tried to block his voice out in favor of focusing on the hoops. Except that forcing herself to concentrate backfired when her footing slipped and she cried out as she burned one of her calves on one of the creepy, ghoulish faces. Yikes. Shoot. She needed to tune him out! She needed... 'Then you actively sought this place out, knowing the dangers, and have the audacity to wear the surprised Pikachu face when you find yourself in a dangerous situation?' ...Really? Memes? He's referencing memes now? 'Tsk. I always thought you were smarter than this. Are you okay, dove? Because this seems like a rather... hm... convoluted way to kill yourself.'

On Clara's tenth jump, something peculiar happened. Well, even more peculiar. Instead of receiving an answer to her question, there was a sharp click. The colors in the tent shifted from fiery shades of red to green. In midair, suddenly she found herself standing someplace high, higher than she could have possibly jumped on her own. And when she looked down? She found herself balancing on stilts. With a yelp of surprise, she took a wobbling step backwards and she heard the sharp click yet again. This time the world was doused in pinks and dark purples and in the span of another blink, she found herself standing even further away from the ground than before... walking across a tightrope, to be specific. Breathing shallowly, she immediately splayed her arms out at her sides to keep herself balanced. Right or left, there was nothing to support her. And somehow she was stuck in the very middle with no platform to lunge to for safety. There were no nets down below waiting to catch her and the realization was so dizzying that the world doubled before her eyes. It was like a nightmare, where she knew her next move would be the death of her. Pins and needles prickled all over her skin.

The princess they created yesterday was afraid of heights, wasn't she? Clara wouldn't have ever thought to pencil it on her list of phobias... perhaps until this very instant. Oh, goodness.

'Not that I'm complaining. It makes my job easier!' The demon remarked airily. 'I'll never understand you humans. But I am capable of scrounging up some pity for you, my dove. Don't fret. Crow's betrayal won't go unpunished! She'll have to take the blame for your untimely demise. The authorities will really crack down on her then and she'll be as good as mine! She will be mine. Just like you're about to be...'

Thea wouldn't betray me. A confident little voice in the back of Clara's head spoke up, piercing through the haze and fear. Perhaps some long lost remnant her younger self? Because in the present, she couldn't deny the possibility that her new friend could have decided to run if an opportunity presented itself. There was a semblance of truth in the fact that they... really didn't know each other all that well yet. Perhaps yesterday they'd just been a match of convenience, both backed into a corner and forced to rely on each other to survive. Without all of the walls and locked doors, maybe she would decide it was more trouble than it was worth and find her own way out. (She had it coming, didn't she? Because investigating this place was her idea, not Thea's.) Maybe she... maybe she did let herself get attached too quickly. Maybe she was going to get burned for it... you know, if she didn't fall to her death first. Even so, without any proof, nothing concrete could be said yet. The little voice steeled. She wouldn't, she wouldn't.

It doesn't matter, anyway. Clara acknowledged numbly as she lost her footing on the tightrope. (No. No, no, no. She couldn't die now!) Ah. She was falling regardless, air whistling past her ears as gravity dragged her like an anchor down towards death. She would never know for sure, would she? It's over.

'Don't be so dramatic. Fly!' A voice giggled in her mind, as if her situation was as grave as, say, falling off the monkey bars on the playground. 'Fly, Clara! You know how!'

Fly? Clara remembered last night once more, the story she and Thea created together... and with a loud 'fwip', she found herself soaring around the tent with her magical, makeshift wings. When her toes touched the floor, her legs collapsed instantly as she hyperventilated and struggled to bring her breathing back to normal.

Clap. Clap. Clara vaguely registered the ringleader clapping from his corner. "There it is! It took a little coaxing-- but I knew I saw something in you! I have an eye for these things, you see." The shadows stretched out and patted her on the head. "We'll need to add a little pizazz... and work on your pesky stage fright before the first performance."

---

Thea, in the meantime, found herself in an abandoned park. It held the atmosphere of a place that might've been lively and joyful once, back in time when it was filled with people and movement. Now it stood deathly still, forgotten and weathered as the years passed it by. Colorful signs boasting restaurants and games and attractions were smeared with a coating of dirt and grime. The wind seemed to whistle and howl as it passed through. Except, the especially creepy part was that it wasn't necessarily abandoned. Out of the corner of her eye, she might catch a quick glimpse of a giant mascot moving in a window... or perhaps strolling just around the corner. Near the ticket booth, a cartoonish depiction of one was displayed on a banner in more detail. The mascots were the kinds of things that must have been designed for a child's amusement but... yeah, no. In this specific case, it backfired spectacularly in the sense that they most likely inhabited the nightmares of children and adults alike. (Maybe they were part of the reason why this place shut down? Because they were downright creepy! Were they supposed to be dragons or birds? And why were their smiles so big?) Their suits were all in varying states of disrepair-- some with the eyes falling out of the socket, some with the fur splattered with... uh, probably better not to overthink it. They were all minding their own business... for now.

They all seemed to be occupied with their various jobs. One swept the empty street and one was busy plastering a big poster to a wall nearby. On it was a silhouette of a girl with wings, promising an exciting new attraction.

One of the mascots, of course, had to pop up like a jack-in-the-box in the ticket booth that Thea approached. You know, the one she might have thought was empty previously? He proceeded to smash his giant mascot head against the glass inside with a 'thump, thump, thump', staring down at her with those lifeless mascot eyes.

"If you steal from us you'll make us cry!" The voice that came out of the thing was bizarrely cartoonish and sounded like it was coming from broken speaker. "And if we cry you'll have to die!" Um. And was that a chainsaw revving in the distance?
 
You know what? This was fine. No, really. Thea had never fucking wanted to lead a remotely normal life, anyway-- horror movie shit was where it was at, quite clearly. When she finally got around to writing her autobiography, you see, at least she wouldn’t need to cover boring nonsense like her pre-school traumas to rack up the wordcount! Nope, right into the realm of supernatural fuckery they went. ‘Are you sure you want to be doing this, crow?’ the demon whispered, oh so sweetly. (Saccharine sweet, if you asked her. The kind of artificial sweetness that rot your teeth, really, and probably filled your blood with all kinds of poisonous bullshit.) ‘I mean, it is true that dove has always had these… hmm, artistic inclinations. She’ll flourish in such an environment, I’m sure. Haven’t you noticed how eager she was to join that circus? Yes, yes, many kindred souls are waiting for her there, ready to share the fruits of their wisdom! You, on the other hand… you have never inspired anyone, Thea. A little leech, aren’t you? Just being in your presence is so, so draining. As someone who has been in your head for years now, I know what I am talking about!’

‘…seriously?’ Thea raised her eyebrow. You’re getting worse and worse by the second at this Faustian nonsense, chief. At this point, I just gotta do the opposite of what you tell me and I’ll be golden.’ The demon retreated into sullen silence, which, haha, alright! That was a confirmation, if she had ever need one. (Okay, okay, okay. So, to recapitulate: Clara was being held captive by some ringleader fuck, and probably made to perform. Perform what, and for whom? Her head was immediately flooded with a bunch of Worst Case ScenariosTM, which Thea did not like one bit-- like, there were countless things one could think of to do with a defenseless chick, and like ninety percent of them should earn you an express ticket directly to hell. Yep, ninety percent! Directly to hell! See how fucking serious all of this was? She’d bust out statistics, man, and statistics were science, and nobody with two brain cells to rub together would argue with that. Blah blah blah, some platitude about picking your battles. Anyway, point number two: Clara did not want to be there. (Yeah, yeah, they’d known each other for approximately five seconds, but she just didn’t seem like the type who would enjoy being kidnapped by a not-so-vaguely threatening supernatural entity, you see? Call it a hunch. A woman’s intuition, if you would. And, and, and, in her room, Thea hadn’t actually seen a copy of Twilight on her bookshelf, which, in your face, bitches! The advanced algorithms running constantly in the background of her brain told her that the chances of her romanticizing mediocre mythological beings with stalker-ish tendencies were pretty low.) Rather seamlessly, that led to point number three: namely, that there was nobody she could rely on but her. The odds didn’t really speak in her favor, to put it lightly-- judging by her track record of keeping promises, not telling lies and being a responsible adult in general, Clara could already start digging her own grave. The issue with that, though? Thea lived for defying expectations. Well, that, and rarely did she have the prospect of losing her not-gf as a motivation!)

Tickets, tickets, tickets. Can’t be that hard to get them, right? Like, she’d stabbed a cop into his eye with a scissors not so long ago, so in comparison, this kinda had to be a cakewalk. …except that, yeah, not in this nightmarish reality, apparently. Heh. “Why the fuck would I steal from you?” Thea pursed her lips, both bewildered and thankful that the… thing… chose to speak with her instead of, uh, sucking her soul out of her body immediately, or whatever it was that these little fuckers did. “I’m a model fucking citizen, and those don’t steal. Nah. I’m from… from the Bureau of Customer Protection,” she nodded, the lie rolling off her tongue automatically. In other words: quickly enough so that there was no time to actually think about it! “I’m not supposed to talk about this, pal, but,” she winked conspiratorially, “because of your pretty, pretty eyes, I guess I can tell you the truth. The truth is, my friend, that the authorities want to shut your park down! Blah blah blah, something about it being unsafe. I think someone was supposed to have died there? Eh, no matter. Anyway, as an amusement park connoisseur, I don’t fucking want to let that happen. I’ll write you favorable reviews, alright, buuut you gotta help me see the performance. Can’t write a review of something I haven’t seen, huh? So, be a darling and lend me a hand.”

The ringleader, meanwhile, appeared to be utterly fascinated with the newest addition to his circus. “This performance will be grand, I just know it! Something has been missing all this time, I was aware of that, but to think I’d find the missing ingredient in a random police car… my, my, fate really works in interesting ways. But,” he frowned all of a sudden, “I do believe your piece isn’t perfect as of yet, Clara. No, no, no!” he spread his arms dramatically, as if he, too, aimed to take off. “If we want to speak to the audience’s heart, we cannot afford to be mediocre. And, what do we need in order to reach them? Can you answer that question, my dear?”

(Somewhere behind the curtain, something growled in a low, dangerous tone-- the devourer, maybe? Either way, it did seem to be a message of sorts: ‘Think about your answer carefully, Clara, if you don’t want to end up as my dinner today!’)

“Not that you have to, mind you,” the ringleader revealed a row of pearly white teeth in a sick, sick smile. “It’s a story. A plot. Something intense, so that they feel as if they cannot take their eyes off you. Perhaps something with a dash of exclusivity, too? Customers love, love, love seeing something that cannot be repeated! It gives their meaningless lives a little bit of… oomph, so to say. Anyway, I have been thinking about this for a while, and came to the conclusion that perhaps you should die on set. Do you know the myth of Icarus, Clara?” he rubbed his chin, his eyes shining brightly. “Re-enacting it, I think, would be most fascinating.”
 
Clara glared, wholly unimpressed as the ringleader announced his marvelous new idea. Her serious brown eyes said something akin to excuse me? Die on set? No thank you! But instead of giving that knee-jerk reaction in form of an outburst, she compressed all of her fears into a tiny box and held her tongue. Why? Well, because advocating against an idea her captor was so enthralled with would obviously earn her a one-way-ticket into the devourer's mouth, of course! (Otherwise why else would they be holding their 'meeting' so close to the ominous curtain? The deadly implications lurked in the background, even if he didn't threaten her explicitly.) Of course she wasn't okay with this! Even then, she found herself nodding yes while internally she screamed no, no, no. Agreeing to this performance may only delay the inevitable-- but what other choice did she have? Making a scene that would get her killed straightaway would invariably get her killed... straightaway, if the growling devourer gave her any indication. Feigned compliance, on the other hand, would buy her a little extra time to scope out the tent. There had to be an exit somewhere! She just, ah, needed to find it first.

"...Yes, I'm familiar with it." Clara supplied. Hm. In a way, the reference itself was rather interesting as well. (If she didn't dwell on the aspect that it would end with her in a watery tomb, that was.) What was up with these haunted places referencing the Greek myths, anyway? Was it just a coincidence, or was there some sort of connection she ought to be picking up on here? Not to mention that Cerberus was the one of the only creatures in the school that wasn't immediately out for their blood. In fact, the hints the three headed dog had given them had played a crucial role in their escape. Following this thread of myths might satiate her curiosity, may even give her a clue about the child who led them here... but in this case, exploring it would probably be the death of her. "Icarus flies too close to the sun and... then he drowns." And yeah, that was an incredibly sanitized way to summarize the myth as a whole... but that was more or less what it end with in terms of her 'performance'.

And then he drowns. Clara held her breath. Not only did she hate water... she couldn't swim!

"With all due respect..." The creature snarled again and Clara stiffened. A reminder to tread carefully because she was talking to her new boss, of course. "Sir. I thought I was working for my ticket? I won't be able to use it if I'm a... a corpse."

"Ah. Yes, I see your point." The ringleader nodded slowly. "Well. I suppose it would be a shame if your friend missed your first and final performance. My wheezie woozles are having some trouble with her at the ticket booth right now. I'll just call in and say they can give her yours." He clapped his hands. "Two birds with one stone!"

Wheezie what nows? And, wait-- did Clara just hear him right? Her heart fluttered before she could stop it. Thea hadn't left her after all? "She... she's still here?"

Yeah, speaking of trouble. Outside at the ticket booth, there was zero change in the mascot's frozen, smiling face as it listened to Thea's story. (Silent and staring unblinkingly... yeah, it was pretty bad. Then again, it probably would have been significantly worse if it did change.) Either way, there was no indication as to whether or not it was buying what she was selling. It simply continued to bonk its head against the glass with a dull thunk, thunk, thunk. Were these eccentric park mascots even capable of being reasoned with?

"Didn't you learn about lies in school..." The thing finally began after a long, uncomfortable silence, "Thea Holloway?"

"Full of lies? You'll have to die!" Another mascot wielding a chainsaw lumbered into view behind her. Geez. They had a special talent for rhyming words with 'die', didn't they? Using the word as gratuitously as they did, they appeared quite unconcerned with hiding the fact that their park was a complete and utter deathtrap. At that same moment, the phone in the ticket booth began to chime and the mascot inside struggled to pick it up properly with its fuzzy claws.

Of course, there wasn't any time for Thea to see what that was all about when the approaching mascot picked up a speed that was unsettlingly fast for something dressed in such a presumably heavy suit. It raised the chainsaw high over its bulbous head and swung, aiming right for her! "Die, die, die!"
 
Uh oh. Could it be? The consequences of her own, somewhat (read: very) questionable actions? No, no, surely not! When it came to Thea, you see, such silly concepts didn't really apply-- those were reserved for people who suffered from a chronic lack of stylishness, and pretty much anyone would agree that the criterion did not fit her. Like, she was Thea, okay? Thea 'Scissor Assassin' Holloway, which was a nickname so off-the-charts cool that it might as well have been the name of some local death metal band. Everyone who owned a functioning pair of ears would confirm that! Logically, some of the coolness factor must have been transferred to her, too, and marked her as 'too important to die'-- these things simply worked like that, so cease asking for """sources""". Did you want a source when someone claimed that raindrops fell downward instead of upward? No? Then stop with this terrible, uncalled for discrimination against unfounded hypotheses! ...anyway. She had learned about lies in that school, hadn't she? The lesson had been pretty fucking enlightening, too. "I did," the brunette blurted out, so fast that her brain couldn't hope to put up any sort of filter. (RIP, honestly. There were few things worse than unfiltered communication by Thea, and most of them probably could be found in The Bible. Like, you know, in The Old Testament part? The scary sections of it, which, let's face it, were pretty much all of them.)

"I learned that they better be good, otherwise you're in fucking trouble. Why are you asking, though? Obviously, I'd never lie to a..." Man? Woman? Thing? It looked like a thing, and a fairly cheap one, too, but ugly fuckers usually struggled with coming to terms with the reality of... well, being ugly fuckers. It wasn't that deep, really, but when Thea found herself in the position of having to be DiplomaticTM around one of the afflicted individuals? It was a problem, alright. A severe one, too. "...creature," she finally settled on, "as charming as yourself. Like, I'm sure you're on several endangered species lists? That's, um, a big thing. I haven't seen anyone like you outside of this... uh, charming amusement park, and that's why closing it would be another crime against humanity. Just, think of biodiversity, man! Mother Nature would cry if all of her children were the same, I'm sure. That means I gotta protect your ugly asses from certain destruction, in the name of ecology." Haha, score! Such a moving, moving speech-- truly, if this was Skyrim, her speechcraft would be 100. "So, will you help me help you?"

Some sixth sense, however, told her that the response was no-- call it a woman's intuition, if you would. (That, or maybe it was one of the five regular ones, actually because the chainsaw kinda spoke for itself! ...okay, okay, they also may have literally said that, with their words. So what, though? That didn't fucking diminish the importance of Thea's premonition.) "Whoa, whoa, whoa! You sure you don't wanna talk it over over a cup of tea?" She certainly didn't, mostly because any bastard who dared to brandish a weapon against her went directly on her shitlist, buuut stalling for time might be nice, considering he/she/it had a chainsaw and Thea... didn't. Yeah, not ideal! Not ideal at all. (Ugh. This was the perfect time for some mythological sword to appear, wasn't it? 'Blah blah blah, Thea, you are the chosen one. Wield the Nuclear Annihilator 3000 wisely, and sow fear into the hearts of your enemies.' Hellooo, fate, are you listening? This is your fucking hint! ...it turned out, however, that the cosmic forces weren't too receptive to suggestions. Maybe they were jealous of her groundbreaking plot ideas? Well, regardless of the cause, the result was the same-- namely, her standing in front of the chainsaw-wielding psycho, totally defenseless. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit!)

The human brain, as all the scientists worldwide agreed, was a funny, funny thing. It focused on the funniest details from time to time, you know? As Thea was waiting for her inevitable demise, her brain decided to bless her with... horror movie trivia. Yup, not even kidding. (Chainsaws were popular murder weapons in fiction, weren't they? Probably because of all those delicious, delicious sounds, and also the mess they would presumably make. The thing was, fiction didn't always have to reflect reality-- it didn't in the case of chainsaws, which were actually pretty subpar as far as weapons went. Like, they hadn't been created to deal with flesh, y'know? Muscles were a bitch to cut, apparently, and only a total loser would choose such an unsuitable instrument for the job. Sooo.... this meant that this wasn't a death sentence! As long as she found a good shield, or... oh. Oh.)

Without hesitation, Thea grabbed one of her would-be-executor's colleagues, and held the thing in front of her. (Her hands? Those hurt like motherfucker, but with the adrenaline coursing through her veins, it was almost bearable.) "Ah ha! Game over, bitches. That's right, this is a hostage situation now. Kill me, and your little friend here buys it, too. Wanna risk it, huh? No? Then give me the stupid ticket and fuck off!"
 
The blue creature paused mid-swing. In the few beats that passed them by, it would have been nigh impossible to know exactly what it was thinking behind that unchanging mask. One might have thought these things incapable of, um, thinking. But wow! Could it be that Thea's threat actually struck a real, feeling heart hiding beneath the layers of fuzz and foam and fabric that made up that creepy suit? The mascot with the chainsaw and the purple one held in front of her appear to be having a never-ending staring contest, with their unblinking eyes and wide plastic smiles. Was this moment shared between them empty or was it meaningful? Who even knows? Maybe they are friends... perhaps they're even lovers when they're off the clock! Except any hopes one might have built from such assumptions are blown away like a house of cards in a tornado when the blue creature finally released a low, staticky laugh.

...It wasn't a good laugh.

"Friend? Friend!?" The laugh morphed into full-blown cackles and the chainsaw revved loudly. "Wheezie woozles do not have friends."

Slash, slash, slash! The purple creature in front of Thea is brutally knocked down, the suit slowly hacked and cut to fluffy bits. Eventually the bird-like mask rolled off and... revealed a person inside. To an outside observer, this so-called 'person' was in truth a hazy, featureless silhouette that gradually changed colors-- a watery rainbow that resembled the effect oil had when mixing with rain puddles on the street. To Thea, though? The 'person' inside manipulatively took the form of someone she would actually give a shit about. And to pour salt into any open wounds, this person-- whoever it was-- gave her a final expression of betrayal before their eyes rolled back in their head.

"Good golly! This is all your fault, Thea." The thing declared in its bizarrely happy voice, choosing to lecture her like one of those characters who explained the moral of a story at the end of a toddler's television program. (It had the audacity to point the blame at her while still holding onto the chainsaw, too!) "Oh no. A quick death would be far too merciful now. We ought to throw her in the dungeons so she can reflect on her actions!"

The chaos that unfolded caused a good many of the mascots to start rubbernecking-- their fascination with the scene creating a stream of traffic in front of the ticket booth. They were bursting at the seams with excitement, whispering among themselves about the dungeons.

The mascot in the ticket booth, meanwhile, waved its claws frantically in attempt to get their attention. It seemed it just finished answering the phone. "Wait, woozles! Wait! Boss man says--"

Their chatter rose to a roar, however, and the creature's warnings were stampeded into white noise. That is until a billowing puff of smoke emerged and the ringleader himself whooshed into view with flamboyant spin. Every single one of the 'wheezie woozles' quieted at once, like their intimidating teacher had just returned from an errand to discover an unruly classroom.

"Well, well, well. What a curtain raiser this has turned into!" The ringleader mused as he stroked his mustache, gazing at the accumulated audience of mascots. Then he stared at Thea with fixated interest, as if she just defied all of his expectations. "Jealous, are you? Ah... to think you would go as far as to try and steal the spotlight from your friend's first and final performance!" He shook his head scoldingly. "What a dramatic turn this has taken! But never mind that. I've come with splendid news. You've been promoted to VIP, Thea Holloway! After all, Clara is simply dying for you to see the show. And what kind of man would I be to deny my star her audience?" He smiled. The blue mascot with the chainsaw backed away at the mention of VIP status, at long last respecting Thea's personal space. "Then afterwards? You're in luck! Because perhaps I will find a role for you in my next act after all. I don't want to spoil anything, but I have a hunch I will soon be in need of a replacement."
 
Ah ha! Once again, Thea Holloway stood victorious over the bloody corpses of the enemies that fate had naively sent in her way. Those weak-ass, mechanical-looking things? C’mon, man, they just didn’t have the brain capacity to keep up with her glorious, glorious plans! Psychological terror was a weapon which she had mastered when she’d been ten years old at most, so they could go and shove that chainsaw where the sun didn’t… oh, okay. Okay, okay, okay! Thea might have, ah, miscalculated, a little bit. A little bit, kinda, severely-- what was the difference between the two, even? Only basic bitches cared about such details, really. Basic bitches and tax collectors, and did you want to join the most universally hated demographic in the world? No? Well, then shut the fuck up! (Had it been stupid of her to rely on them having, like, a hint of fucking conscience? Possibly, though as always, Thea blamed the society rather than herself. Doing so made a lot of sense, too! Just, who had it been that had hammered in her head that things were never truly black and white? That villains had girlfriends and shit, and cuddled with puppies in their spare time? That was right, the fucking society. For the most part, Thea had managed to put her rose-tinted glasses away, but it wasn’t that simple, y’know? Not when the fuckers ran their insidious propaganda campaign 24/7!)

“Wait, wait, wait,” the brunette stepped back, something akin to panic ringing in her voice. “Is that not a sad fucking way to live, mate? Friendless, and totally alone? You’re being exploited, yet you can’t even see it! Like, do you get paid vacation? Pension-related benefits? Gift baskets when it’s your birthday? With that bastard in charge, I’d wager not. He is purposely keeping you from forging meaningful relationships because, if you had actual friends, you’d, uh…” Do what? Beat him with the power of love and friendship? A nice thought, in theory, but this wasn’t fucking Naruto. Nope! This was reality, man, and reality’s signature move was to beat you over the head with proofs of just how fucking pointless that hippie bullshit was. (When had love solved anything, anyway? When she’d been too stupid to know better, Thea certainly had loved her mother, and considering how that had turned out… yeah, it was safe to say that the whole love shtick could be added on the seemingly endless ‘shit that the society lied me about’ list. Like, how was one supposed to not suffer from trust issues? Pattern recognition was a thing, ladies and gentlemen! As long as you had more than one fucking brain cell to rub together, that was.) “…unionize,” she finally settled on. “’Cause sharing is caring, you know, even when it comes to sharing your burdens, and…” Shit. Shit, shit, shit! Who would have expected that the madman would actually act on his mad threats? Everyone, in hindsight, but the eternal optimist within her had somehow managed to convince her that the fucker must have been bluffing. Well, lesson learned! Truly, optimism was the opium of the people.

…speaking of opium, though, had the bastards gotten her high? Since Thea was fairly sure that her sister’s part time job was to sell cinema tickets, not to, you know, live in a creepy puppet’s creepy skin. (Thinking of it now, however, ‘live’ may have been a somewhat outdated term. By definition, it wasn’t really suitable for corpses, now was it? No, ‘die’ would be the accurate word here. …yes, die, like that nurse, or the children from that freaky-ass memory, or the cop whose eye had gotten the swiss cheese makeover, or… uh, a disproportionate number of people, really. Almost started to seem like a curse, really. Was anything she had touched doomed? And what, if anything, did that mean for Clara? Aw, hell, better not to think about that.) “Hey, Bess, what the fuck?” Thea dropped the puppet, as if the faintest contact with the thing burned her. And, hey, on some level, it did! (The two of them weren’t really close, mind you-- it was hard to stay close to anyone, yourself included, when you spent most of your waking hours trying to remember what your fucking name even was. Blah blah blah, yeah, insert some cheap platitude about drugs being bad. Still, as a concept, Thea quite liked her sis, you see? Aside from some mild, puberty-fueled angst, she’d never done anything to earn her ire, and if she had to pick one (1) family member to rescue from a burning house, Bess would have been her first, second, and third fucking choice! …no. No, this couldn’t be happening. Bess was supposed to be home, supposed to be safe, and--)

--and that was exactly where she was, as it turned out. Duh. Sooo, why had she fallen for their bullshit again? It should have been obvious by now that, once you entered the Supernatural Fuckery ZoneTM, you might as well gouge your own eyes out-- that was how “””reliable””” they were! Angry at both herself and the ringleader fuck, Thea wiped her tears. “Yeah, that’s exactly my motivation here. Clap clap, your Sherlock-ass fuck.” That being said… why not? He believed his nonsense already, and that made it a better cover than anything she would have been able to come up with. In other words, it was improvisation time, ladies and gentlemen! Since that had never backfired on her before.

“Clara has never had a fucking shred of my talent,” the brunette doubled down, ignoring all those fun, fun implications that his statement entailed, “and you’re a fucking fool for not seeing that. Your performance? Pfft! Don’t make me laugh. The reviewers will tear it to pieces, and your name will be dragged through mud. Nobody but the local drunkards will ever buy your tickets again, and even they will only show up to fling rotten tomatoes at your stupid face! So, yeah, if you know what’s good for yourself, you will hire me. I want more than a VIP ticket, though,” she pursed her lips, wearing the expression of a gladiator ready to fight for her life. “I want to see the backstage. If I am to star in your next performance, I need to get familiar with the fucking set. And, hey, who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to make this show not suck as well, if you beg nicely enough.” A more convenient access to Clara would be nice, you know? For their Epic Escape 2: Electric Boogaloo!
 
"My, my. And here I thought the two of you were friends!" The ringleader shook his head with mock disheartenment. "Clara certainly seemed to think so, the way she asked after you during practices. The genuine worry I saw in her eyes? Ah, it truly was touching! Enough that it persuaded me to grant you your exclusive VIP status. So you best watch that fiery tongue of yours, my dear. You don't want to know what horrid fate awaits a diva who cannot keep herself in check!" He smirked, confidently pressing a fist to his breast. "She seemed rather unassuming at first glance, yes. But after I pushed her hard enough? Oh-- she was full of surprises indeed! Perhaps she will surprise you, too." He went on to roll his wrist and nod his head, as if distracted by one too many things at once. "Yes, Thea. Certainly. I will satisfy your request... after the show. Backstage is rather chaotic at the moment and I simply cannot risk you disrupting my performers focus before they go on stage! Especially Clara. You may not be terribly interested in her, but I do believe she is moonstruck by you..."

He paused, then, his eyes sparkling with the beginnings of an idea. An undoubtedly dangerous idea, judging by the way his smirk widened and warped his face like a villain in a cartoon.

"As a matter of fact, there is a non-speaking role in this show. And you certainly are... a fiery one. Yes, yes, this could indeed work!" The ringleader clapped his hands, childishly delighted by his own stroke of genius. "Ah, this is sure to push the performance over the top. I can see it now. The audience will collectively hold their breath... and our sweet, solemn Clara will emote like she never has before! It will be positively thrilling."

The mascots leaned in closer with anticipation, as if to read their masters thoughts and get a glimpse of his idea before the performance. He flapped his hand irately to shoo them all away. "Leave us now! You must wait patiently, woozles. You remember what happened last time, don't you? When my script was leaked?" Whatever happened 'last time', it must have been horrific, because the creatures quickly straightened themselves up and dispersed to attend to their various appointed jobs. "...Walk with me, Thea."

"Now, how do you feel about playing the role of the sun? It's a perfect fit for you, isn't it? Initially I wasn't going to find an actress for a job that's better suited for a prop, but... now I've seen the light. I believe that you will do even better!" The way he spoke, the ringleader's 'questions' might as well have been demands. "No need to worry about memorizing any lines. You will not be required to speak or even move. It doesn't sound very exciting, I know, and I promise that your next role will be more involved. But rest assured-- your presence will enhance the experience tenfold. For Clara, for the audience... ah, it will be splendid!"
 
Blah blah blah, more villainous gloating. Actually, come to think of it, that had to be a good sign, right? An official seal of approval, really-- Thea knew her tropes, you see, and the ringleader was basically acting like a walking fucking cliche right now. 'Hahaha, hero, your beloved is in my clutches!' 'Ah, to think how much she suffers without you!' 'Would it not be so much fun, to see her beg to be rescued while you're unable to do it?' All your garden variety sociopathic bullshit, of course, but it also established the genre of their story pretty well. And, what was it? Why, romance, of course! As always, Thea Holloway hadn't been wrong. This set-up would have made zero fucking sense had they been just friends-- the emotional stakes wouldn't have been nearly as high, and the beautiful, beautiful set-up would have fallen through.

'Come on, crow,' the demon cooed into her ear, 'do you really want to just hand yourself over? Dove sacrificed herself solely to save your skin, you must be aware of that. Don't you think it is a little short-sighted to believe her kidnapper? For all you know, she may already be dead. If nothing else, her sacrifice should count, I think. Why not escape and live your best life?' ...why, indeed? Because, newsflash, you dumb piece of shit-- for a while, Thea's definition of 'best life' didn't fucking include a scenario where Clara wasn't present. It just didn't. And, yes, her 'while' could be defined as 'the last two days, roughly' but so fucking what? That didn't make it any less valid. Impulsive bitches deserved rights, too, and she wasn't about to pretend she didn't feel the way she felt because forming attachments quickly was considered unhealthy, or something! You know what was truly unhealthy? Spending eight hours a day imprisoned in some fucking cubicle just because you didn't want to starve, and the society supported that. Could you really blame her for not believing that it had her best interests at heart, huh?

'For all I know?' Thea purses her lips. 'Yeah, I don't fucking know whether she's alive or not, but you do, bitch. You live in her head rent-free, so why do you act all mysterious?'

'Well, I... I shouldn't really...' What, not fucking lie? Yeaaah, how very convincing, Mr. Demon-from-Hell!

'Okay, so she is alive. That's all the confirmation I needed from you! Thank you, dumbass. Considering all the centuries you have spent on this earth, you could have invested at least five fucking seconds into getting right of your chronic idiocy.'

"Ah, you know," Thea waved her hand, thinking carefully about what a heartless bitch would say in that situation, "friends come and go, though opportunities don't. Well, they go more than they come, if ya catch my drift. Clara is nice and everything, but I literally met her, what, three days ago? Yeah, not gonna throw my dreams away for her. Who do you think I am, a fucking soap opera protagonist? Nah, mate. I want a nice house, and as far as I know, those don't pay for themselves!" They should have done exactly that, mind you, bad sadly, they didn't live in a work-free utopia where food automatically appeared on her table every morning. Tragic, indeed! One of the most unfair things ever, if you asked her. "I guess I am going to bring flowers on her grave, though. I mean, ultimately, it is through her that I get to access this awesome, awesome opportunity! And sure, I'll be her sun. Like, no problem here. Apparently, I've always kinda been one," if the tattoo on her back was to be believed, "so there will be a level of... hmm, authenticity to my performance."

And, in that moment? She might as well have said that the government had just approved second Christmas, really, because the ringleader's beady, beady eyes lit up with joy. "Authenticity, yes! The most important aspect of a performance. I can't believe I overlooked your talent the first time around, Thea. You are not very experienced, yes, but I think I'll make a fine actress out of you yet. Just you wait! ...actually, no. There is no point to waiting, is there? My heart is telling me to practice, practice, practice, and a true artist always follows his heart!"

A true artist, Thea thought, would have starved in a ditch to conform to the ~tortured soul~ archetype, though she didn't exactly dare to voice that thought-- not when she suddenly found herself in, ah. Where was she, even? Everything was drowning in darkness, and there was this sense of weightlessness, and... oooh, okay! As her eyes adjusted, she could see that some sort of harness had her hanging from a ceiling, kinda like the real sun. The only issue with that? The harness was thin, thinner than her patience with that sort of bullshit, actually, and similarly to it, it was going to fucking snap! Well, that, and beneath her, there was also a large, gaping pit. A pit that... seemed to be crawling with something? Something that no pit should ever be crawling with, outside of the realm of your fucking nightmares. Gulp!

"Alright, Clara," the ringleader clapped, excited like a child that had just been promised some ice-cream. "Let's see if you can save your friend in time. And, if you don't? At least I won't have to feed the worms today. Did you know that they're an endangered species? They only feast on Theas Holloways! Truly, finding them a meal every day has been a hassle-- it's not what you'd call a common name, you see. Still, what is a man to do? They look at me with their tiny, shiny eyes, and I can't deny them anything! As a fellow pet owner, I am sure you understand."
 
Clara toed edge of the platform like a baby bird reluctant to leave her nest for the first time. Her eyes were wide and the shadowy feathers that made up her wings arched tensely behind her. Thea. Her feelings regarding this development seesawed between relief and soul-crushing worry. It was true that she wanted her there beside her. But not like this. Not dangling above the jaws of certain death! Questions hurtled through her mind at a breakneck pace, too fast for her to pose or answer any single one of them for herself. Stress and physical exertion created a cacophony that took a toll on her to such an extent that when prompted to jump, she couldn't quite manage a riposte. She did precisely what she was asked, alarmed and yet almost mechanical in her exhaustion, diving down from the platform. Her wings swished wide open as she glided across the set towards Thea. Craaack! The harness snapped. Clara held at her arms and-- oof. The collision that came from attempting to catch her was new, however, and threw her off course. Together they barreled into a steep nosedive towards the floor! Except. Except even if their landing was messy, perhaps they could still regroup and escape? It wasn't meant to be, however, for--

Snaaaap! The colors shifted and once again Clara found herself standing on the edge of the platform. Right back where she started, in other words. Great. It reminded her of the level of a video game being reset. She couldn't even blink, couldn't even cope with the dizzying whiplash before she noticed the harness fraying again, splitting until the point that it hung by a single, stubborn thread. No time. She leapt forward to catch Thea before it could snap. "Again!" The ringleader cheered whenever the switch was triggered. "Again!" From there the sequence repeated countlessly. It was act, act, act. Act until she ached, until she died probably. Which, in retrospect, was exactly what this guy wanted. It frustrated her that she was playing right into his hands, but what else could she do? Thea would die if she didn't do anything. She worked herself doggedly until her legs shook and finally gave out from under her. Mercifully (or not) the ringleader chose that instant to stop.

"This is more Sisyphus than Icarus, if you ask me." Clara said darkly upon regaining her breath.

"As the old adage goes-- practice makes perfect!" The ringleader nodded, agreeing with himself and disregarding her pointed remark. "It would be a shame to break you before the performance, however. I believe it's time to get this show on the road!"

With the snap of his gloved fingers, that's precisely what happened. It was nothing short of impressive, if she was being honest. A colorful geodesic dome built itself around them. An expansive audience sprung up and filled every seat... an array of cartoonish people and strange mascots and figures that resembled shadows-- either because the distance softened their features or because that was what they were. The mascot things were assuredly the most unsettling part. Apparently this place also bypassed the usual hustle of hair and make-up, as she was magicked into a stage costume— all the way down to an elegant branch of sequined flowers arranged in Clara's hair. "Oh." She brushed her fingers against it. If this was how these things worked in ghost-land, it rendered her real-world skills completely useless. A souring thought but she didn't dwell. Bigger fish to fry and all. Where's Thea?

The ringleader's pompous introduction warbled in her ears. She was shoved towards an opening where she was meant to make her entrance. Half of her expected the setup she'd grown accustomed to, but the current stage was all romantic extravagance and danger. Perhaps designed as the first boss level of her video game analogy. Or, more likely, it was setting the scene for her death. Clara swallowed. The ringleader proceeded to tell the story of the myth while she assessed her surroundings. Those horrible flaming rings hung from the ceiling by harnesses. Connecting them led her on a clear path up to Thea in dazzling gold, who was hanging even higher. Above a tank of water. Shoot. Thea was afraid of water, too! That was something they had in common, for all the obvious reasons. She had to get her down from there...

"Ah!" Clara realized she was standing on a trapdoor instead of a platform when she missed her cue and it fell out from under her. The audience broke into laughter and she ignored them. Mainly because she was too busy flying and swerving to avoid the rings that swung to and fro in her path like blazing pendulums of death. The audience began oooh-ing and aaaah-ing instead. Because of her? The rings? Well, she wasn't paying attention to that. All she could see was Thea. Up, up, up she went, closer and closer to her. The flaming rings were faster and harder to avoid the higher she got. She flinched each time the flames nicked her wings and occasionally disturbed her flight. Almost there! Now she was close enough to Thea to see that unlike before, her harness was thick and secure. "Thea!" Oh. Oh, no. She wasn't going anywhere. Unless... unless...? "I'll try and figure out a way to--" Could she use one of those rings to burn it and--?

The ringleader spoke smugly about Icarus flying too close to the sun and on cue, a hot spotlight beamed directly on Clara. The shadowy feathers on her back spasmed as if to hide from the intense light before melting away entirely. Like ice cream on a summer's day or wax under the sun. All too fitting was all she could think, brushing the back of Thea’s hand before she plummeted down into the tank of water waiting below. Jerk. Used her own logic against her! Was this his petty way of getting back at her for shining the flashlight at him in the car?

Hitting the surface from that height hurt. With her strength whittled down to nothing, Clara couldn't even struggle as she sank underwater. The impact of her landing took her so deep that it was impossible for her to reach for the surface, anyway. Through half-lidded eyes she watched the whimsical trail of bubbles above as she sank lower and lower. She vaguely heard the vibrations of the ringleader's voice booming through the microphone, the roar of the audience's overenthusiastic applause. Applauding her demise. Wow. How nice of them.

'This is what happens, dove, when you fly too close to the sun! I told you crow was dangerous. She was conspiring against you this whole time to steal the spotlight!'

'Oh, shut up.' Clara might have been ten feet underwater, but she was still coherent enough to call bullshit. 'Does the sun really need to steal spotlight from anyone?' Thea had it effortlessly and, judging by her confident talk, undoubtedly knew it. She didn't need to steal it. Shining brightly when she charged into certain danger so impulsively or wielded that axe-- ah. Her lungs were filling with water. Her vision was darkening. Wasn't her life supposed to be flashing before her eyes? And instead here she was, squandering her last moments on winning an argument with the voice inside her head. Wonderful. Closing her eyes, she made a final plea to whoever might be listening to at least let Thea escape safely.
 
Aw, shit, shit, shit! Okay, so a message to FateTM: the fact that Thea enjoyed roller coasters did not fucking mean that she was also interested in involuntary free fall simulations. Shocking, perhaps, but the ‘in’ in ‘involuntary’ didn’t really suggest that she was into those things! Like, that went against everything suffixes had ever stood for, man. Shame on you for such willful misinterpretation of... of pretty much everything, really. Somewhere, thousands of linguists cried out in sheer fucking rage! (Yeah, yeah, maybe she was distracting herself again, but could you blame her? When your entire life had turned into a fucking circus, with a literal mad ring leader in charge, your mind was the only safe shelter. Bravely, you could barricade yourself inside, and… uh, did there have to be a step two, actually? ‘Cause Thea hadn’t yet decided what that would be. Knowing herself, though, it would probably involve weed, vidya, and a lifetime supply of cherry ice-cream! That, along with blessed, blessed silence, would be a goddamn fucking paradise. See how little Thea demanded? Fucking see? There were no Porsches on her wishlist, nor were there pointless mansions with twenty three bathrooms, and yet, yet the gods wouldn’t deliver! …bitches, really. Who the fuck did you have to bribe in order to secure, like, five seconds of peace? Since at this point, she’d love to throw her meagre life’s savings at the entity!)

A few days ago, Thea would have thought this shitshow to be a bad dream-- not an unreasonable assumption, really, considering how high the bullshit factor was. Like, they lived in the 21st fucking century, right? The god was dead, magic had died along with the Harry Potter craze, and the only altar that most people prayed to these days had been devoted to the bleak, unsustainable flavor of capitalism that held them by the fucking throat. In their Realistic RealityTM, things like that were obviously forbidden! …except that, yeah, she had accepted in her heart already that whatever rules had once been in place had been broken, and now chaos reigned. Logic? Coherence? Natural laws? Pffft! Not in the Demented Demon Land, where every day was but another opportunity to die in a new, completely original way. What was next, huh? A greed-themed dungeon where they’d have to eat till their stomachs fucking burst? As long as they added enough garlic into the meals, Thea guessed, she wouldn’t be too opposed! In this world, there were few things more despicable than being cowardly re: your garlic, and she refused to engage with such culinary blasphemy. Refused, okay?!)

So, in other words, her guardian angel was giving her the middle finger. No surprises there! You know what also wasn’t a surprise, though? Clara coming through for her, again and again and again. More times than she was able to count, Thea ended up in her arms, and gradually, it… kinda stopped being scary? Yeah, yeah, the pit was still there, along with the flesh-eating monstrosities, but somehow, it wasn’t as bad anymore. Not as hopeless, at least. Instead of the zombie apocalypse level of bad, it had morphed into… well, into nothing new, actually, since it wasn’t like anything had actually changed here, but going with the zombie apocalypse metaphor, then maybe you could say that Thea had secured some rations? Warm, fuzzy, emotional support rations that would last her throughout the whole fucking ordeal, probably. (Clara was just there for her, and that felt nice, man. More than nice, though to be honest, her vocabulary kinda refused to load in its entirety. It was hard to think of colorful synonyms and fancy similes when you were heading towards your death at 200 miles per hour for the nth time that day, y’know? Not even Shakespeare himself would have been able to compose poetry under circumstances that fucking dire, and Thea, for all her awesomeness, was no Shakespeare. She was exponentially hotter, for starters, and that mattered because-- wait, wait, wait. The scenery had changed, hadn’t it? This is it, the brunette thought, day D, hour H. If they didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives dancing to the ringleader’s terrible fucking tune, then they had to escape soon, she sensed that. For Clara especially, you see, that period could be somewhat short! Maybe, when she catches me next time, we will be able to… But, spoiler alert, ladies and gentlemen: Icarus’ story didn’t fucking end with him grasping the sun, and it seemed like her friend would be deprived of that ending, too.)

No! she thought, reaching for Clara, but, surprise, surprise! The harness wasn’t long enough, and Thea could only watch as the other woman plummeted down, down, down, towards her watery fucking grave. (The bastard must have planned for this, right? In order to enhance his performance with “””genuine emotions”””, or something. Thea could hear his pathetic-ass thought process already: ‘Ooooh, the two care for one another? Hahaha, how funny! Okay, let’s sacrifice one of them for slightly better reviews. That will be True ArtTM, because everyone knows that cheap shock value is where it’s at.’

‘But yes, yes,’ the demon smirked, ‘that’s what you get for not following friendly advice, crow. You’ve mutilated yourself, and now your friend is going to die. What does that feel like?’

‘...mutilated myself? What?'

'Ah, don't pretend that you have no idea, crow. Haven't you asked yourself why dove has access to these abilities, and you don't? Why I share my power with her? It's because she hasn't closed her mind to my influence, dear. You, though? The channel is blocked-- full of the filth you keep shoving down your throat, in order to keep me at bay. It's not working, though, is it? I'm still here, and you are, too, but soon enough, dove won't be! How sad. You're a failure, Thea Holloway. Turns out everyone was right about you, eh?' The flow of time around her slowed down to a crawl-- 'failure, failure, failure,' that was all she could hear, and, bizarrely enough, the word felt like a knife against her skin. It shouldn't have, alright? Not when they'd called her worse things since she'd been old enough to understand what they meant, and probably even before that! (This was about Clara, though. About Clara, who had never once looked at her as if she wasn't enough, and who had thrown her entire life away for her without a second of hesitation. Clara, who was kinda like a coconut-- hard shell, but all sweet inside.)

'So, what I'm getting from this is that I can have your power? Otherwise, there's no point to this villainous fucking speech.'

'If you ask nicely enough, I suppose. And if you finally let me inside.'

Ugh. What was a girl to do, really? Between two bad choices, she'd rather go with the one that would allow Clara to, you know, not fucking drown, and so that was exactly what she did. (Thea could feel it, with some weird-ass sense that she was pretty sure humans weren't supposed to have. Soft like silk, something was brushing up against her, so, so insistently-- 'Let it happen, crow,' the demon recommended. 'This has always been your fate. No need to fight it. Haven't you always succumbed to things, hmm? Just follow the pattern, and everything will turn out alright.) And, needless to say? She did.

There was a burst of energy, powerful enough that lights went out-- all the lamps fucking shattered at the same time, and the audience gasped in the darkness. Ah, how exciting! Could this be a part of the performance? Maybe, because the glowing hand that caught the falling heroine a few seconds before the water swallowed her sure was a sight to behold. The way the sparks grew into flames, though? Into flames that began consuming the tent? Yeah, that, uh, seemed rather unplanned.
 
'Pity on... decided to spare... thank me later.'

Clara was somewhat aware of the demon's voice prattling on in her mind even as it began to slip beyond her grasp. Far beyond her grasp, just like the luminous, dappled patches indicative of the surface above her head which, unbeknownst to her, was now getting closer rather than further away. She was loosely aware of the fact that she was rising and yet a touch too far gone to react properly. Upon opening her eyes a crack, she noticed a glowing palm rested over her stomach, knuckles protruding from her side, fingers curled protectively around her back. (Was this death? If so, the common motif of the reaper with his scythe and billowing black robes couldn't possibly have done it justice. She was rather beautiful and warm and-- and for just a second, she thought perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to allow this being of light whisk her away from her dreadful existence.) Spare. She recalled the word the demon used at the same time she was hoisted from her watery tomb. Gracious. It was as if a giant goddess of pure light had suddenly decided to play dolls with her! Instead of being spirited away to the plane where dead creatures went, she was gingerly laid down on the ground. The air was warm. Hardly conscious, she brushed against wisps of a memory. Namely one of being a little girl again, particularly on a day she was laid out on a tuffet of grass to warm in the summer sun after having fallen into an icy lake. Warm. So warm. It'd be lovely to fall asleep here, like a kitten curled up in a beam of sunlight.

Then a violent cough rocked Clara to her core, all at once reminding her of life and the aches and pains of existing. Water spilled in a seemingly endless deluge from her mouth, pooling onto the ground beside her. She shuddered and heaved as she hacked and coughed some more to expel it all from her system. Quite spent, she wasn't sure just how long she laid there by the time she was done, grappling with working her breath back into its usual patterns. A few seconds. She assured herself, appearing impressively untroubled as she gauged the danger of her surroundings. I'll rest just a few seconds longer and then... It appeared that creature of light had delicately placed her a safe distance away from the flames and all the creatures running amok. Very considerate of it. Because it'd have been a shame to have been saved from drowning only to be trampled beneath the feet of one of those unseemly mascots shortly thereafter. Ah... so that heat she was enjoying wasn't bestowed upon her by the sun, but rather the flames of pure chaos.

And who often rested at the heart of pure chaos?

Thea! Clara shot up a touch too quickly and swayed. Oh, damn. Her head felt unbearably heavy, as if it was full of water that sloshed around every time she moved it side to side. Fighting past it, she squinted hard and gazed up in search of her. The inevitable conclusion that the smoke was much too thick to see through dug a pit in her stomach. Where is she?

"Thea!" Clara yelled, surprising herself. Whether it was the sheer volume her voice had risen to or the raw emotion tinging it was hard to say. Her eyes began to tear up and this, she decided, was due to the clouds of smoke in her face. "Thea, where are you!?"

Hm. Logically, Thea should still be suspended over the tank of water, right? Unless the harness could be manipulated with a lever of some sort. Or unless she had somehow freed herself in the meantime. With this in mind, Clara noticed a rickety ladder leading up to one of the platforms above. Well. Her wings were gone. (Summoning them anew seemed to be an impossibility for now-- whether this was due to overexertion or because the spotlight had erased them permanently? It was hard to say for sure.) The tent was coming down-- but she had to chance it, right? For all she knew, Thea was still hanging up there! She began to make her way there, but was distracted when the ground shook beneath her feet. Normally she'd attribute it to an earthquake, but in this case...

"Thea Holloway! You've ruined my performance!" The ringleader bellowed, his voice doing what hers could not in that it cut through the pandemonium. The creature himself was beginning to rise. He grew steadily larger on his stringy, shadowy limbs. Monstrously, he snatched a few of those unsettling creatures and swallowed them whole... which caused him to grow even bigger yet. Yikes. That was nightmare fuel if she ever saw it. In a way, it reminded Clara of Alice in Wonderland, when the girl ate treats with the words 'eat me' frosted upon them. The effect caused Alice to grow so large once that she filled out the white rabbits home and had to resort to hunching her shoulders and sticking an arm out the window to avoid getting crushed to death. Looming above everything... casting a shadow... didn't the voice say something about this earlier? "For that..." The ringleader's eyes were creepily bug-like, enlarged and constantly changing colors, mimicking those illusion-casting spotlights that had burst on account of whatever Thea had done, apparently. Illusions, looming towers... huh. Was the ringleader himself the tower?

An obscure conclusion to come to, but...

"For that you shall pay!" The ringleader declared. Clara was strangely torn between fearing him and rolling her eyes at his villainous cliches. Then he lunged through the smoke, presumably towards Thea and-- hold on a second. He could see her! And judging by the angle he was targeting, the ladder ought to give her a decent vantage point. Steadying herself with this intention in mind, Clara took advantage of her position from the shadows to sneak towards it. If she could scale it without drawing his attention, then maybe she could do something to help. (...Or maybe she would simply find a creative new way to die.) Either way, she was living on borrowed time as it was. Better that she try something than nothing at all.
 
Ahahaha!!! As the old wisdom said: 'burn, motherfuckers, burn, burn, burn!' Why did everyone seem to argue in favor of restraint, again? You know, 'with great power comes great responsibility' level of nonsense. Yep, nonsense! It sounded right-ish when you didn't bother to examine the RealityTM, though when you did? The idiocy of the statement was fucking overwhelming, actually. Like, how come that politicians always got away with literally everything, huh? Weren't they supposed to be The Most Responsible Fucks to Ever... Respond? (Look, don't judge! It wasn't Thea's fault that words didn't work the way they were meant to, for one, and also, also, that wasn't the point here. Nah, mate. The point was that while stealing one hundred dollars would land you in prison, stealing one million would only hypnotize the local army of bootlickers into worshiping you, which... which was unfair, sure! But strangely enticing as well, Thea had to admit. Had she finally beaten the system? Had the answer to all her problems been fucking shit up all along? As in, more diligently than ever before? Man oh man, to think that her ticket to paradise only had to be bought with charred corpses! As someone who had almost fallen for the propaganda that focused on like, self-reflection and atonement, Thea sure was glad that she'd seen the light before the hippie nonsense had ruined her entire goddamn life.)

'Hmm, yes, crow, you are the best,' the demon laughed, watching as the flames licked at the tent. And, you know what? The bastard wasn't even wrong-- one out of one Theas approved, at least, which translated into a 100% approval rating. In an economy this fucking unstable, who else could boast that, huh?

'Not that I don't love dove, but she'd always been a little too carefulfor my tastes. Little Miss Goody Two Shoes, if you will. Tragic, with the powers she had at her disposal, but I guess you can't talk a dog into becoming a wolf, now can you? Release him into the wilderness, and he will die of hunger. ...do you want to die of hunger, Thea?'

'Thea, Thea, Thea,' the ghosts in the background repeated, in an echo that felt both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. (...was someone calling her, actually? Someone she knew? Thea could swear that, among the sea of the soulless bitches, she also heard the voice of... of... ah, fuck if she knew! The person was important, that much the brunette was able to guess, but honestly, how significant could she be? Not too significant, realistically, 'cause come the fuck on, it wasn't like Thea actually had important people in her life. Pretty much all of them had made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with her, y'know? It turned out that the whole crazy shtick she had going on was fairly, hmm, inconvenient, and convenience was the one true god of the 21st century! ...besides, it was kinda nice, wasn't it? A woman whose name she had forgotten had called her the sun once, in a dream, perhaps, and yup, Thea had to admit that hanging in the sky and raining destruction on her foes was the best job she had ever had! Certainly beat that one time she'd worked as a cashier in the local Walmart, anyway.)

'Because you will,' the demon continued, his voice smooth like honey. 'If you don't feed yourself, that is. Now you understand what it is that your body is craving, though, don't you? Some part of you has always had, to an extent, at least, and that's why you are what you are! A bloodthirsty monster, feeding on others' misfortune.' Wow, what a grim, grim assessment! Zero points for tact, man. At the same time, though...honestly, that shit felt accurate as fuck. Wasn't it fun to observe, after all? The way the idiots below screamed, their faces melting like ice-cream in the sun! 'Yes, that's it,' her companion encouraged her. 'It took a while, but I knew you'd be able to appreciate the good things in life-- fear, terror, murder. Anyway... will you let me speak for you for a while? There's no need for you to worry your pretty little head, after all!' Well, Thea couldn't really argue with that logic. Like, she was pretty, wasn't she? That, and worrying her pretty little head, as he'd put it, had never been her greatest hobby. Okay, why not! Like, what was the worst thing that could happen here, right? For her, not being in control was basically her regular-ass Tuesday, and she hadn't had a regular Tuesday since... since Important EventsTM, probably. Now, if only her memory did its damn job instead of showing her all those depressing blank spots!

"Punish me?" he spoke through her lips, his voice mixing with hers. "Do you even know who you are talking to, you pathetic little worm?"

Amazingly enough, the ringleader paused in his tracks. (Hmm. Was it just her, or did he suddenly look like a kid that had been caught stealing cookies?) "A-ah. Is it... could it be? But Master, you told me that my performance is to be perfect, and that wretched girl is--"

"--mine now, yes. Why is that so difficult for you to grasp? Has your brain turned into mush? Regardless of that, I would appreciate it if you did not damage my shell, thank you very much. If you need to kill someone that much, go for the other girl. I believe she's hiding somewhere around here? Ah yes, yes, there she is! Bring me her head, my friend. Wouldn't that be the most fitting end to your performance? The proper climax, as you artistic types say."
 
When ignoring all the innately terrifying facets, their exchange was interesting to say the least. So interesting that Clara got carried away eavesdropping and only realized she was caught the instant their sights were set directly on her. Like a thief surreptitiously scaling the side of a building, rudely unveiled as the searchlights popped to life around her. Oh snickerdoodles! From over her shoulder, she understood the ringleader was winding up his giant arm to retarget her. Not even a millisecond later, a thousand sharpened shadows shot towards her like a bullet. Unhesitating, she released the ladder and dropped down the few feet she’d already climbed. Landing in a little heap, she skinned both of her knees on the floor... but was otherwise unharmed. Thwump! The ringleader retracted his arm, revealing a hole burst through the tent exactly where she had been hanging. The edges were... scorching? She gulped. Damn. That was close. Way too close. Shakily, she rose back onto her feet, looking between the ringleader and Thea... Thea, who was currently acting as their friendly neighborhood demon's host.

“Thea! Wake up!” Clara made an earnest effort to reach for her again, knowing deep down in her heart that it wasn’t going to work. (Her voice has never made much an impact on anyone, much less the world around her. The six years she’d gone without it was a testament to that.) “You were fine the way you were.” She added softly, as if to herself, repeating the words Thea used last time. At her feet, remnants of the ladder were scattered in bits and shambles. An apt metaphor for the remainders of her faith in the outcome of this mess, really. After all, Clara had a theory now— based on their experiences up to this point— that she needed to touch Thea to snap her out of this. The problem with that? Thea was still hanging several feet above her in the air and Clara’s only means of getting there was just smashed to smithereens.

Hm. Some of those pieces were quite sharp. Clara grabbed selected the longest and sharpest piece she could find, ignoring the condescending laughter of her adversaries. They must've found it pitiful that a petite young lady such as herself humored the idea that she might stand a chance against the likes of them with a measly wooden stake. Maybe they were right. But maybe she wouldn't need it to fight. Maybe she would need it for something else...

Torn flaps of the tent clapped in the wind and rain from outside spritzed through it. Clara backed up towards it. Tiny as she was, the hole was just large enough for her to fit through. As much as she hated the idea of leaving, she couldn't deny the immediate danger her life was in. The odds were stacked against her! Thea would just have to wait a little while longer. The demon wanted her dead and apparently wouldn’t hurt his host, so… "Hey, bitch!" Clara glared, addressing Thea directly (but of course only referring to the demon inside of her with a Thea Approved™ choice of dialogue) her tone cut as sharp as a knife, fueled with boldness that once again surprised her. Regardless, this uncharacteristic outburst was attributed to another theory, okay? She hoped that the humor of it might stir her friend, if only a little. And, perhaps, take the demon by surprise. He was always in her head, so defying his expectations may... hmm... take him for a loop? Well. A girl could dream, right? "If you want me, come and get me yourself."

As the ringleader reassembled his shadows and adjusted his aim, Clara made a deliciously graceful escape. She sprung like a rabbit through the hole he just created.

Outside it'd started pouring down rain. Not that it mattered, seeing as Clara was soaked down to the bone as it was. She hurtled forward, ignoring the way her legs ached as they pumped beneath her. Thump, thump, thump went her feet and heart in unison. Her fingers clutched the wooden stake so tightly that she was surely giving herself splinters. Whenever she slipped, she pushed herself back up and kept running-- not daring to look back for even a second. Lightning illuminated the sky in picturesque streaks behind the tower, which stood tall at the back of the abandoned amusement park. That was her destination. She would take cover and then figure out what to do next. Surely the demon would want to come after her… and by extension, Thea. And then she would try again to get through to her. Because she wasn’t leaving her.

Clara practically threw herself at the heavy tower door. The haunting sound it made when it swung open was exactly the sound one might expect from a door when watching some medieval gothic flick. The same was true for the mournful echoing noise it made when it closed behind her. Flaming chandeliers whooshed to life above her head, revealing a particularly basic storage area. Relieved not to have come upon dancing skeletons with knives or anything remotely as dangerous and strange, she pressed her back against the stone wall as her breath escaped in shallow rasps. Safe. For now. There was a spiral staircase going up, up, up to who knows where... but she was too tired to scale it. If they took chase, they'd catch up to her in no time! Once she was finished gathering a semblance of her breath and wits together, she crawled into a particularly cramped, shadowy space amidst some wooden barrels in the corner. Hide and wait, she decided. If they took any longer than a few moments, she would try to come up with a plan.
 
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'Bitch?' the demon pursed his non-existent lips, wearing the expression of a homeroom teacher who happened to be very disappointed that his pet had been caught cheating on a test. 'See, and I always thought that, among the two of you, she was the goody two shoes one. Just goes to show that the single bad apple taints the whole batch, doesn't it? This is your fault, Thea.'

'My... my fault?' she repeated, uncomprehending. Just, words, man! Words were the worst-- half of them sounded exactly the same, probably because the fucks who had invented their shit language had run out of the brain capacity for storing syllables sooner than they'd run out of breath. Like??? Out of the diverse repertoire of sounds that humans were demonstrably capable of producing, that was what they had gone with? Really? Zero out of ten, and they should be lucky that her scale didn't contain negative fucking numbers! Had everything not been so damn ambiguous, Thea wouldn't have had to think so hard about what the demon's statement meant, and... uh. Where was she, again? For some reason, it felt as if her brain was shrouded in mist, which, spoiler alert, didn't exactly contribute to making her thought processes more efficient. 'What is? I haven't done anything wrong, I swear. My dog ate my homework.'

'Charming, crow. But sure, sure, let me explain-- what is about to happen to dove is your fault, of course. Had you not tainted her with your influence, it wouldn't have had to come down to that, you see? A dove is supposed to be a dove, and a crow is supposed to be a crow. You turned her into a hybrid of both, which I have no need for. I'm afraid I will have to get rid of her now. Don't worry, though! I can get you a new friend, if you so desire.'

Get rid of her? A new friend? Except that no, no, that wasn't what Thea fucking wanted! Clara had allll of the characteristics required for being a Good FriendTM, including the potential to be promoted to the gf status. Where else would she find someone as compatible, huh? Let her tell you, girls like that didn't fucking grow on trees! They grew... they grew... uh, in some forbidden garden that she hadn't gained access to, most likely. As such, she couldn't cultivate a replacement easily, and what was even more important, the brunette wasn't even interested in doing that. Like, why the fuck should she? Clara was Clara, and nobody else could fill the Clara-shaped hole in her heart! ...probably. Yeah, yeah, they'd known each other for the grand total of two to three days, so moving along wouldn't be that hard, though you know what? Thea was done with compromises. Fucking done! Strictly speaking, she had never really gotten into them, mostly because she wasn't weak-willed like that, but phrasing it that way made her sound way more dramatic, thank you very much. 'No,' she whispered. 'No, you can't fucking have her! I wanna keep that one. Friends aren't like... like socks, or some shit. Like things. Replacing her wouldn't work, dammit!'

'What is it that I hear, crow? Dissent? Except that, you see, I'm not a fan of democracy,' he mocked, in that saccharine sweet voice that she'd learned to hate. 'You'll do exactly what I tell you, like the good little vessel you are. Do you not believe me, huh? Too bad, because we're about to go search for your pathetic little friend. Hmm, hmm. If I were a dove, where would I fly off to?'

No, no, no, no. No!!! Don't fucking move, Thea instructed her limbs, and imagined herself taking root there. Mind over matter and shit, right? The fucking fucker wouldn't be able to hurt Clara if she just stayed where she was, and... aw, shit. Shit! How come her goddamn legs weren't listening?! The connection between them and her brain must have been all kinds of fried, 'cause they did the opposite of what she instructed them to do. Like, what kind of anarchy-ass bullshit was that? Where did you have to go in order to claim a refund for the shit body fate had stuck you in, huh? 'C'mon, crow, have some dignity. Won't you stop struggling? This is what you were born to do-- you fit me like a glove, too. We can be a great team, you and I!'

'...or you can... you can fuck off...' she thought, with all her might.

'Hmmm... I think not. Let us test the limits of your friendship, shall we?'

And Thea? Thea didn't even have the opportunity to ponder over what that meant, because the demon forced her to enter some dusty-ass tower. Great, just great! With a setting like this, what could possibly go wrong? ...a lot of things, as it turned out. "You think I'm going to look for you, Clara?" the bastard asked, a smile blooming on her (his?) lips. "I don't have to." Shadows swarmed her then, wild and vicious, and... oooh, cool! Suddenly, she was holding a dagger in her hand, darker than night itself. "Come out, come out, little dove! For every second of hesitation, crow here is going to lose a finger. It's not like she needs them anymore, is it? To get what I want, I don't have to sacrifice her in one piece!"
 
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Clara held her breath, momentarily paralyzed with terror upon seeing the sharp blade manifest. And he could summon these weapons with just a thought, out of thin air? She shuddered at his threat, which only made her shudder some more knowing the twisted satisfaction that would probably have given him. The silly wooden stake clutched in her hand wouldn't stand a chance. She wouldn't stand a chance. But Thea, though... While she understood the demon was nefarious enough to follow through with such violent promises, especially when considering what became of Lizzie, he could have just as easily been bluffing in this specific instance. If not, then what did that ‘I would appreciate it if you didn’t damage my shell’ from before imply? This was a trap, plain and simple. If she just showed herself at his command, she’d be toast. Dead by Thea’s hand and the demon would have everything he wanted. And yet if she took her sweet time trying to figure out what to do, he could just as easily make good on his threat and Thea’s fingers would be on the chopping block. And of course she didn’t want that to— agh. (It was cruel, really. Her responses to danger primarily existed in the realm of freeze and flight. Admittedly with the flight aspect being a trifle more literal than one might expect, seeing as it involved wings and everything. Fight, however? Unless she was taken over by an otherworldly influence, most likely his, her response generally wasn't to fight. He was punishing her for her base instincts here and-- and that's precisely it, isn't it? A trap specifically tailored to get to the dove he knows so well.) No. She thought, striving to compose herself. Think before you panic. They've escaped the demon before, haven't they? That means it was possible to do it again! Besides, her main issue before was that she couldn’t touch Thea.

The demon barged inside the tower overconfidently, believing her a rabbit in a trap— but in a way, hadn’t the demon actually fallen into Clara's trap? The fact that he didn’t send the ringleader after her instead was a testament to that! No. He went for her himself.

Although the outburst stemmed from a burst of adrenaline, Clara had a good reason for daring him to follow her back there. He would solve the issue of bringing Thea down onto solid ground, out of that burning tent, and closer to her. Now? Now they're on level ground. So long as Thea was standing within her reach, not all hope was lost. It was still possible to save her. Thea had broken her out of a similar trance from hugging her from behind. Holding hands was the key to saving Lizzie. The power they had to reach out for each other, even the other children to some degree, manifested from contact.

Touching as it was (no pun intended) the power of friendship or whatever it was realistically wasn't going to fare against a knife all that much better than her measly piece of wood. Impulsively bursting out of hiding and blindly swinging the stake clearly wasn’t going to work. That might have been Thea's way, Thea would probably make it look stylish in the process as she rolled with the punches-- but Clara? She imagined her weapon would get snatched up by the shadows and snapped in half faster than she could blink. And then they would subsequently snap her in half. Hm. Her mind worked a mile a minute, crunching to puzzle this out. Ah, okay. Her little weapon could still serve a useful purpose, though. Not to fight, but... Get ready. She braced herself, narrowing her serious eyes in the dark. Once it’s done, you can’t hesitate. She set her sights on a far point across the room and tossed the stake strategically. Wood clattered against the stone floor, diverting the demon’s attention away from where she was hidden. Away for just long enough for her to quietly rise out of hiding and safely tackle Thea from behind.

Okay! Okay, okay. Clara breathed out, a touch astonished at her own actions, and clung on tightly to Thea as not to get shaken off, squishing her cheek against her back. As much as she wanted to hit the demon with a snarky comment, she fixed all of her focus in on her friend. Who knew how long they'd have before the demon retaliated? Her wit wouldn't be quite so sharp if she used it all up on a clever insult that inevitably got them both killed.

“I know you’re in there, Thea!” Clara could feel shadows crawling around her, unsettling as insect legs. Her voice shook along with her rising heart rate. “Come on. You're Thea Holloway! Master escapist and driver and hair-braider and who knows how many other things...? I'm sure there... there are other things. Thing that you could tell me about when we get out of here." She let out an overwhelmed puff of air that sounded vaguely like a laugh. "And cook too, right? Don't think I've forgotten. You still-- you still owe me a meal. You can't leave yet. You're not allowed to." She sounded like a bossy little girl at that point. Maybe she felt a bit like a kid, though. Small and vulnerable and powerless to stop what would come next if she couldn't fix this. Clara squeezed her eyes shut. "Are you really gonna let this creep take control?”
 
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