NP: Carousel by Melanie Martinez

Will I catch up to love? I could never tell, I know,
chasing after you is like a fairytale, but I,
feel like I'm glued on tight to this carousel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first few nights were hell. Every time I closed my eyes and it was completely dark, the creatures kept coming to drag me back into their pit. They would claw on me, rip my skin and make me scream.

Vincent looked worried out of his mind whenever I woke up screaming. So I stayed awake. I watched Vincent sleep. I had been doing so for the past three sleeps. It was always night in Halo so it was either wakes or sleeps.

Curling toward him, I closed my eyes feeling the movement of his chest against my hand. His flannel shirt was the only thing preventing me from poisoning him. Not that I was imagining him without it.

A blast from the lower levels made me jump out of bed.

Vincent scooted up and sniffed. "Is that... smoke?"

We didn't have time to slip into our boots. Sad. The only thing Vincent rescued from our room was my Helcium pendant. And me.

Smoke wafted onto our faces the moment Vincent opened the door. Vladimir and the others were already filing down the stairs.

Vincent pulled my sleeve. "We stick together, okay?"

I nodded.

The fire had already spread at the foot of the stairs. Vlad and his familiars jumped over it one by one.

"It's Ethereal pyre, Vince!" Vladimir shouted at us. "Careful!"

Injuries from Ethereal pyre don't heal as quickly as normal burns. Sharifa once lied to me about Cairo acquiring burns from Ethereal pyre. But we all knew he got that from entering a Door.

With one swift motion, Vincent scooped me from the floor. He hurtled down just before a slab of concrete had collapsed over the stairwell. Until he set me down, I made sure not to touch him.

We all draughted down the corridors.

"There!" Amyr pointed at an open window.

It must be at least a forty-foot drop. Nothing too dangerous, but my knees would sure get angry at me once we were down. Mei was first. Archie came next, then Vlad. He rolled on the pavement, clutching his knee.

"Bad landing," Amyr shrugged. "He did say he's got arthritis."

Before he could jump down, we heard a girl scream. I saw someone dart from the other end of the corridor.

"Cairo!" Vincent yelled.

Cairo paused for a second. His shirt had burned up, revealing burn scars from his right shoulder to his waist. Maybe even down to his right thigh. It was the one from his fight with Vincent in Centralia. I was sure.

He ran away before we could even say hello.

I heard another scream. I darted across the hallway towards the girl, skipping over the sputtering cracks in the floor.

"Aramis! Damn it! Get Cairo!" he told Amyr before running after me.

I found the stairs and climbed down two steps at a time. My feet knew exactly where to go. I might be going bonkers but I had never thought more logically until I lost all the excess baggage.

For example: the chicken came before the egg. Don't ask how. I just knew.

I flung open every door on my way. First two rooms were empty. In the third, I found Sharifa. The wall had collapsed over her legs. She had burns starting from her right shoulder down her thighs; similar to Cairo's but worse.

"M-master Cairo..." she cried. "He did this."

I jumped back, accidentally stepping on the flames. That didn't stop me from running in. I tried pulling her out but she was buried in too deep with concrete.

"Get back!" Vincent appeared at the doorway.

He bolted into the room, flipped the collapsed wall off Sharifa and carried her without even breaking a sweat. Before I knew it, we had already reached the window.

"Go," Vincent said.

I jumped over the ledge without a fuss and landed on all fours. I was right. My knees were hellish.

"Amyr!" Vincent called down. "Catch!"

He lobbed the screaming Sharifa out of the window like a bag of flour. Amyr took two and a half steps back and caught the girl. Vincent came down next. Then we hurried away from the castle.

A lot of people were in the courtyard. It was a perfect concerto of wails, frenetic blasts and collapsing concrete. Most of them had burns that weren't healing. It was like acid, eating into flesh.

Amyr laid Sharifa on the ground. The girl was delirious, moaning for the pain to stop.

Vincent knelt beside Sahrifa, eyeing her burns with suspicion. "Vlad! You have to see this."

"I'll be there in a second!" Vladimir shouted. He kept limping around from one cabal to another to heal as many injured as he can.

"He's got new powers but he ain't Superman," Amyr said.

Vincent stared at his hands. They were badly scorched from lifting a burning wall. But unlike the others, his burns were healing pretty quickly and it was obviously bothering him.

"Some of these're old," Vincent murmured before he started to shake Sharifa. "Hey! Wake up! Where the hell did you get these? Tell me!"

Sharifa's head lolled backward, her eyes momentarily opening before rolling under her lids. It seemed like Vincent made some discovery here, but my sympathy for Sharifa won. From the first time we met, I couldn't help but feel that she and I were the same. Instinctively, I shoved Vincent away from her.

"She's hurt," was all I could say in defense.

He started to retort, hesitated and shook his head. "Look at her and tell me those burns don't look like she went halfway into a Door."

Amyr's face went blank for a second. "You ain't sayin'—"

"I'm saying exactly that!" Vincent snapped. "Either she was the Master Scythe-wielding intruder we fought in Centralia, or she just really wanted Cairo-style burns all over her."

"But that's impossible, boss," Amyr said, tousling his hair. "She ain't capable of what you're accusing! Maybe it's just coincidence." Even he didn't sound convinced with what he just said.

"We'll see once Vlad takes a good look on her." Vincent suddenly asked. He began looking around. "Where's Alex? Has anyone seen Alex and Max?"

A familiar rushed out of the foyer, dragging an unconscious Hector. His face was still blue and purple and swollen, but I would know the guy even if a thousand-ton anvil fell on him. Every muscle in my body tensed both in fear and anger. Something twisted in my chest. Every breath was splinters grazing my airways. Then I saw red.

"Masters... Alexis and Maximilian are s-still in the infirmary," coughed the familiar.

Clutching my chest, I started for Hector. By some miracle, my scythe appeared in my hand. I sprung out the blade and swung at him. The familiar pulled Hector out of the way just in time.

I couldn't stop my whole body from shaking. All I wanted was to see him in pieces. Before the familiar could steady the both of them, I jumped in the air and began to hack and slash witless. The familiar dropped Hector and began to run, but the tip of my scythe had already dug into his back and made a thin line right down his spine. As he hit the ground with a dull thud, I spun and went for Hector.

He was just lying there, sleeping, looking for all the world like a harmless, innocent boy.

Without hesitation, I hacked his shoulder. His eyes flew open once the blade dug into his flesh. He could be screaming, but I was suddenly deaf. Feeling a resistance from his collarbone, I pulled diagonally. I felt it snap. Blood splattered on my face. I didn't flinch.

As I swung my weapon toward his neck, Vincent caught my scythe's handle.

"He'll do his time on the poking table," he said, his voice steady. "Just... not now."

"I... don't want to be afraid anymore too." The words came out a croak.

"As long as I'm here, you don't have to be," he took my shoulders, looking at me with scared eyes. "You hear me?"

I averted my gaze from, inadvertently catching my reflection on cracked surface of my scythe. My eyes were wide with apathetic horror. A nod was all I could manage.

"That's my girl," he smiled again that unhappy smile. Then, he knuckled me on the forehead before running back into the fire.

Next thing I knew, Amyr was leading me away from all the blood. As we walked away, Hector's moans filled the silence. I didn't pity him. I didn't feel anything. People looked at me with something around fear and revulsion. And I didn't care about that too. All that mattered was the warm spot on my forehead and the secret promise I had never even heard Vincent say.

"Noob. Breathe," Amyr said as he sat me down the side of Roselle's fountain.

I stared right through him and fixed my eyes on the castle entrance. Every passing second that Vincent hadn't come out was torture. I didn't blink. Not even once. My eyes watered and my throat tightened.

"You're shaking." Amyr frantically draped an arm over me and rubbed my back. "Don't worry. He'll be out."

"W-when?" My voice broke.

"Soon..."

The pain in my chest was getting worse. Like this empty hole inside me was slowly gnawing at what was left. Then I saw someone jump from a window. There were three of them, actually: Vincent, Alex and Max.

"Out of the way!" Vincent yelled as he and Alex dragged Max near the fountain.

"Remove his clothes," Vladimir ordered skidding to his knees to assess his brother's injuries.

Max was out cold, still breathing but barely. He was burned from the torso down and his left leg looked crushed. The Ethereal pyre had burned off most of the skin, going deeper into the subcutaneous tissue.

Vladimir placed his palms over Max's chest. They began to glow green, white then blue. The glow spread all over Max's body except for the broken leg. In a matter of seconds, his breathing improved. Some of the burns were already healing.

Pausing to catch his breath, Vladimir wiped the sweat on his brow. Mei immediately fetched water from the fountain pool and poured it on Max's burns. The guy squirmed and whimpered feverishly without any sign of coming to.

"Where the hell's Cairo?" Vincent hissed when he rounded up Amyr in a corner.

Amyr's eyes glazed over. "Oh, that... I think I might've sort of lost him."

"What?! The guy's practically barbecued, Amyr! And barbecue can't run fast!"

"Yeah. But this is Cairo-barbecue we're talkin' about, Boss," he chuckled. "A-and there's fire. Like everywhere..."

Vincent glared at him.

"Okay. Shutting up."

As Vladimir rubbed his hands together to start another bout of healing, Vincent grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Enough, Vlad." Vincent shook his head. "You're beat."

The boy's forehead wrinkled. "I'm alright—"

"You're not!"

Vincent was right. Vladimir looked pale. His arms were trembling and sweat dotted his forehead.

Vladimir's jaw tensed. He shoved Vincent out of the way. "What am I supposed to do? Let him die!?"

"And getting yourself dead out of exhaustion is way better?!"

"Shut! Up!" Alexis caught his head. "Both of you!"

"Boys, boys! This ain't the time and place to fight," Belial intervened. She gently pushed Vladimir away from Max. "Let me handle this one, sweetie. You did great."

The woman kneeled beside Max for a minute, checking his pulse, just looking at him, placing a hand on his forehead. Then, nodding to herself, she got to her feet.

"Get some damp cloth on his wounds," she instructed Mei. "Someone please get the guy somethin' to lie on while we carry him."

"Where to?" Vladimir asked.

Belial fixed her weary eyes on him, then on Vincent. "Home."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shim here. Again. Wanting to apologize for the delay. Was gunna UD yesterday but the power's been out since the other day due to the typhoon. Wishing y'all are safe and sound in your homes. Credits to @KatieHennessy  for the super awesome banner and thanks to @luluookami for the playlist addition

Lotsa love... Shim