Clickbait's eyes were rolled slowly back into place. Her jaw was realigned and her back was straightened out again. Her body was renewed.
She coughed, choking up a vile substance and spitting it onto the floor, leaving a nasty red stain that wouldn't get wiped out regardless of how many bottles of floor cleaner you used. She sniffed and vomited again, leaving a gaping hole where her stomach was, and it would remain that way forever.
Shivering, Clickbait stood up. Her legs vibrated, sending a clicking sound running through the hallway as her thick hips buckled under her out of disgust and shock. She smacked her lips, or at least her artificial ones belonging to her mask, and clutched her waist, groaning.
She looked up to see Spine with an utterly horrified expression taking up every square inch of his face.
"...Oops," Clickbait squeaked, embarrassed.
"Holy shit," Spine managed after a minute of watching Clickbait wrestle with her own impulses, "Are you okay?" Clickbait choked again, but nothing came up. "Fine, fine," she lied. She gagged again, and felt her whole body tense. She retched and crumpled onto the floor. She cried out as her body hit the tiles, but was silent otherwise. "I'm...f-fine…" she insisted.
"You sure as hell are NOT!" Spine argued, "First you puke up your fucking organs, and now you're crippled on the floor! You are NOT fine!"
Clickbait coughed. "Maybe you're right…" she moaned, "I'm in bad condition. I...I feel weaker than I did yesterday…"
"You do. Speaking of yesterday," Spine said, "I really appreciate that you got me out of here in time for me to revive. Thanks for that."
Clickbait forced a smile, but her insides forced it back into a pained, cramped frown. "You're welcome," she shuddered. She put a hand to her head and left it there, her fingers carefully treading her yellow, moldy flesh.
Spine sat down next to her. "Damn, what happened to you while I was gone?" he asked, careful not to touch her. The robotic trash pile blinked and moaned. "I...I remember...the lights went out...and my body was flooded with a...with a weird, water-like subst-" She stopped for a moment to cough. "...substance. Then...everything went black. And...I saw…"
She sniffed. "I saw my daughter. Yes, my...my youngest daughter. She's okay." She forced another smile, but regardless of her pain, this one stayed. "She's okay...she forgives me…"
"Wha?" Spine asked, "What do you mean, 'forgives you'? What could you possibly do that warrants your own daughter's disapproval?"
Clickbait tried to sit up, and though painful, she toughed through it and succeeded. "I was never there for her."
"Oh, Jesus Christ," Spine groaned, "Don't beat yourself up over it, Click. That's basically every kid's complaint, is that their mom or dad was nev-"
"You don't understand," Clickbait said, holding up a hand with a pointed finger, "I was LITERALLY never there for her.
"When my daughter was born, I had already kidnapped a girl from a neighborhood who had previously worked with the company I ruled. She had worked there a year before but quit because of me. I forced her back into labor and threatened to kill her if she didn't do all the work I assigned her. And she did...for ten whole years before she killed herself.
"When she did, I was forced to continue all the dirty work I had her do when she was alive. I had her kidnap my friend's son, I had her steal from other people and even injure a few folks, but I never asked her to kill anybody. I was insane, but I wasn't evil. Heartless, maybe, but not evil.
"Anyway, I digress; I had HER take care of all of my children FOR me. My youngest daughter was always very suspicious of that girl; she kept insisting, 'You're not my mom, you're not my REAL parent!'. And she only knew my face by looking at pictures I believed hidden years ago.
"I came back every so often, of course; it was MY house, I bought it, raised three kids in it and lived in it for years. I got her to tend to them when I was kept busy with a project, which I often was...and I hate myself for letting all that work prioritize itself over my own flesh and blood.
"The point is, she's okay and she forgives me. And that's all that matters." She sniffled.
Spine blinked. "Shit…" he said softly, "I...why did...how could you…" He wasn't quite sure what questions to ask. Are you fucking crazy? was one of them. How the hell could you be so careless!? was another. But all his questions would do would probably weaken Clickbait's mental state, and she was already pretty dilapidated in that category. So all he did was sigh and gently put a hand on the crumpled rabbit's shoulder. "I'm glad she's okay."
Clickbait smiled. "Me, too," she said contently.
The two sat quietly for a moment, contemplating the horrible, crushing truth Clickbait had been holding onto for thirty-seven years. That heavy, emotional weight had been lifted off of her shoulders, and the past was finally uncovered. Her children were all found and okay, and everything seemed to fit perfectly into place. Clickbait pondered this fact, and assumed that not long after her realization, she'd be heading to the afterlife where she would finally find peace at last. She sighed and a pleasured smile cracked into her red-tainted lips.
A light fixture nearby shook violently, split open and burst. Clickbait and Spine gasped, and they looked around for the source of the racket. Another light burst, and another. The cracking sounds ripped through the halls and shredded the ears of the two friends, whose hands were clawing at the sides of their heads and praying that awful, tearing noise would stop. After what felt like an eternity, the final fixture fell out of place and shattered onto the floor, and that was the end of it. They removed their hands and glanced nervously at the broken glass littering the floor in the dim, red light provided by the exit sign, which was now the only source of light in the entire attraction. Spine gulped anxiously and Clickbait's smile quickly faded into a dismayed and frightened expression of horror.
A figure slowly appeared, taking the form of a woman. Her hair was purple, her wrists were slit and her neck seemed crooked and dislocated in two places. Her eyes were covered by her hair and her lips were curled into an ugly grin full of decaying teeth. Blood dripped from her hands and mouth. She wore no clothing, instead revealing a horrifically skinny figure that looked like someone hastily wrapped skin around a skeleton and patched it lazily with a gluestick. Her fingers and toes were stripped to the bone as were her wrists and a few patches of her skin were falling off.
"Not so fast, Willow," the woman snarled, tilting her head up to reveal empty eye sockets with pin pricked, glowing irises sitting in the middle of the bloody holes, "You aren't going to die. You're going to suffer as I did for all eternity."
"NO!" Spine said, "NO! It's not fair, Clickbait's been through enough already! Cut her some slack!"
The teen's collar was gripped tightly by an unseen force and dragged almost instantaneously towards the ghostly figure. He gagged on his own breath as the collar was pulled tightly over his throat. He wanted to scream when he came face to face with the demon, but his lungs were empty and his throat felt ready to burst already. The woman growled at him with her rotten teeth completely visible and red in the dim lighting. Spine wanted to fight the sensation, but his body refused to listen to his brain. His instincts told him to kick, punch, shout...ANYTHING! But all he could do was look helplessly into the empty eyes of Marilyn as she choked him with his own collar.
"You shut your damn mouth," the ghost demanded. Spine choked in response.
Marilyn slammed him to the ground by the exit door and left him gulping in lost breaths while she headed straight for Clickbait. Spine watched her edge closer and closer to his friend, clearly striking terror into her from her dilated pupils and mouth wide open. A silent scream seemed to flow past her artificial jaw; no noise at all, but an obvious look of peril struck upon her.
"You…" Marilyn hissed, grinning widely, "I have been waiting...for SO FUCKING LONG...just to get my revenge on you. I can't believe it was that easy."
"Please…" Clickbait begged, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I don't wanna hurt you! I-I was-"
"LIES! ALL LIES!" Marilyn screamed, and Clickbait's body was flung to the wall as though magnets were lining the insides and she was the metal bar. A loud, choking exhale sounded from the weak rabbit the moment her body hit the tiles. "Your only intent was to HARM ME," Marilyn continued, "Why else would you do this to me!?"
Clickbait struggled to beg for mercy, but even if she could, she had the knowledge it would be utterly useless because Marilyn was out to get her and would stop at nothing to torment her.
"You beat me. You starved me. You KIDNAPPED ME," Marilyn recited, recalling each of the awful things Clickbait had done, "I had a family! I had friends! I had a motherfucking dog named Brooklyn, and now I have no FUCKING idea how she is, nor do I know how any of my acquaintances are! YOU RUINED MY WHOLE! FUCKING! LIFE!
"And now…" Marilyn growled, "You're in MY clutches. The puppet is in control of the master now! And I won't rest until you feel the pain I felt years before I committed suicide!"
Marilyn reached out a scrawny hand to attack Clickbait, and she tilted her head away to avoid watching herself be mutilated. Spine could only watch in horror, knowing any attempt to fight was futile. He gasped as he watched Marilyn tear off Clickbait's left arm and throw it violently onto the floor. A pained shriek crawled out of Clickbait's mouth and blasted through the empty building, emphasizing the pure agony of having a limb being ripped from the body. Marilyn gave a satisfied laugh at the torment of Clickbait, evolving from a simple chuckle to a cackle that breathed complete insanity. Clickbait put a hand to her left arm, now just a bloody stump with a protruding bone and severed nerves dangling from a meaty, metal chunk of her. She shut her eyes and screamed again, this time facing the missing limb and letting tears slip down her face.
Marilyn reached for her other arm, but was stopped when she heard laughter. She retracted her hand and immediately turned towards Spine, who was still in total shock after watching someone's arm get twisted off like a toy's. His mouth was slightly open, revealing his bottom teeth in a display of true panic and terror. Marilyn, confused, turned back towards Clickbait to finish her work, but turned again at the sound of giggling.
Spine heard rustling of metal parts. He silenced his breathing to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, and listened carefully. There WERE metal parts shifting...but where? There were subtle sounds of plastics scraping against the floor and screws falling from great heights; chunks of iron and other various metals clattering quietly together like tin cans attached to strings. He slowly felt another ghostly presence in the room; one of neither Marilyn nor Clickbait.
Somebody ELSE had joined the party…
A colossal crash came from the office adjacent to the exit door, and a robotic figure made of spare parts shambled out. Spine's eyes widened and he backed up against the wall with every step the robotic creature took. It shook in several places due to an improper building of the body. It had five heads, all of which had glowing eyes of different colors. It took a quick glance at Spine with two heads then shifted its attention to Marilyn with the other three. The robot let loose a terrifying scream, then launched itself towards the ghost with a force Spine thought implausible. The robot, surprisingly, moved swiftly and nailed Marilyn instead of going right through her as Spine expected. Marilyn cried out as the creature unleashed a flurry of attacks, including biting with three heads, kicking and punching and all sorts of different combinations of attacks. Clickbait was let down from the wall, where she bunched up and cried as she held onto the stump where her arm used to be.
Spine ran past the commotion occurring between the robot and Marilyn and dashed to where Clickbait knelt. "Oh my god!" he screamed, "Are you okay!?"
Clickbait sucked in a breath and faced Spine eye to eye. "I'm okay," she sighed. She let go of the stump for just a moment to point at the fight breaking out in front of her and behind Spine. "They're here for me now."
Spine thought for a moment, then realized what was happening.
Her children were the mechanical beast.
They were fighting the force that dared to hurt their mother and were now attacking fiercely to protect her. Not only that, but it seemed the lost souls of Candy's friends were in on the action and fighting alongside her children.
The fight didn't last long. Marilyn pushed the massive beast off of her and twisted the metal creature into a cube that wasn't much bigger than a typical ice cube, and all the while the shrieks of the innocent squealed from the twisting heap of scrap. Bolts and screws lined a twelve-inch circumference around the cube, the remnants of a once great and powerful android.
"ENOUGH!" Marilyn yelled. Smoke started pouring through the cracks in the walls, slowly being accompanied by flames. Spine yelped and hid behind Clickbait, who completely understood his fear.
Clickbait shut her eyes and sighed. She remembered how horrible she felt not being there for her children, for completely abandoning them in a way. She saw this as her one chance to make everything better and redeem herself as best she could. "I couldn't save them, Spine," she said, "But I can save you."
The broken rabbit painfully got to her feet and winced in agony. She wrinkled her nose and then heaved a heavy sigh. "Okay, Marilyn," she said, "I know this isn't going to change a damn thing, but I want you to know I'm sorry."
"If you were SORRY, THIS WOULDN'T BE HAPPENING!" Marilyn argued, her hair flowing every which way in the growing flames engulfing the building.
"I know!" Clickbait yelled, "But I wasn't right in the head! I did everything for myself and never once thought about you! I was mentally ill, I didn't CARE what you thought! But I do now, and I'm sorry!"
"YOU CAN'T PROVE THAT!" Marilyn shrieked, the flames beginning to lick at her feet and hair. "Yes, I can!" Clickbait argued, "Watch! I can do anything for you-I WILL do anything for you, if it makes up for the abuse I put you through, I'll do it!"
Marilyn stood, nostrils flaring with anger for a few moments, then bowed her head and picked it back up to reveal an ugly, pale, blue-eyed face with tears streaming down her cheeks. "I…" she said quietly amidst the fire, "...I...I wanna make amends."
Clickbait smiled. "You...you don't want to kill me?"
"Never had the balls to," Marilyn shrugged, facing away, "You were really scary."
Clickbait slowly approached the ghost, stepping into a small fire starting in the tiles. "I don't want to be that anymore," she said, "I want to be the one people think about when someone brings up 'comfort'."
Marilyn sniffed. She wiped a tear from her eye. "...I'm sorry for torturing you...I was just really mad, and...I don't wanna be that, either…"
"We don't HAVE to be," Clickbait said softly, "We can be friendly acquaintances...partners, if you will."
Marilyn's hair was almost completely in flames. She smiled. "I'd like that."
Clickbait's cheeks shone with delight. "So...that's all you wanted?"
"It's the only dream I was allowed to have," Marilyn sighed, "I didn't really have any other choice."
Clickbait stroked the ghost's cheek with a delicate finger. "I'm sorry I hindered you," she said, "I'm sorry there aren't any more opportunities to accomplish your dreams."
Marilyn sniffed. "All is forgiven."
Spine looked worriedly at the flames engulfing the building and shook in place, nearly paralyzed with disbelief and fear. He watched Clickbait and the ghost make up after so many years of being torturers and victims. Five small figures faded in, and they all grouped around Clickbait, hiding behind her. "It's okay, guys!" She said calmly, "She's a friend now."
With that, the smaller figures stared at each other, floated up and faded away.
They had passed on.
"Were those the children I killed?" Marilyn asked. Clickbait nodded. "They're gone now," she explained, wiping a boiling tear from her eye, "They came back to rescue me, but now that their souls are unrestricted from their chambers and their souls are in a physical form, their goal to save me-and themselves-was completed and they've finished off their task. They're free."
Marilyn sighed. The flames had finished singing her hair and all that was left was a short bunch of black strands strung over her scalp and dropping to the top of her neck. "I wish I could be free."
Clickbait stared her right in the eye and held her shoulder with the one hand she had. "We ARE free now, Marilyn," she explained. "We've made up. We're equals."
Marilyn smiled. "That's all I could ever hope for," she said. Her figure began to rise as well, and faded from existence.
Clickbait turned to face Spine, who was still shaking in terror and shock. She smiled his way and gave a short wave with her only hand. Spine waved weakly in return. "Thank you...for everything," she said, "Take care of yourself...and keep that boss of yours safe, too. She's a good girl…"
With that, the mechanical zombie's eyes rolled back and she fell sideways into a pit of flames. Her body burned into the flooring and Spine could do nothing but watch for the longest time while the remains of who was once a good friend were turned to molten piles of flesh and metal.
"I will, Willow," Spine promised, a tear trickling from his eye.
Suddenly aware of the danger he was in, Spine bolted back to the exit and slammed it shut. Gasping and panting in the cool night air, he whipped out his phone and immediately dialed 9-1-1.
"Hello, fire department?"
O O O
The building was totally fried after the flames had been properly extinguished. Spine made it out completely okay, but he was still quite shaken from the experience.
"I have NO idea what happened," Spine told everyone, "I-I was just...working! Like I was supposed to, and, and then...then the whole building just ERUPTS into flames! I should be grateful that I didn't even get a SCRATCH during the ordeal!"
"SPINE!" cried a voice behind him. Spine turned to face Avigan, who he had called immediately after the fire department. She was running towards him with a look of horror from the other side of the parking lot. "What the fuck happened!? Are you okay!?"
"Fine, I'm fine!" Spine insisted, "The whole goddamn building set on fire and I have no idea how it happened!" Avigan groaned exasperatedly. "Goddammit!" she cried, "I TOLD them those fucking wires would set the building on fire! I TOLD them it was a real risk! Did they listen to me? NO! Of fucking COURSE not!"
"And where's Clickbait!?" she asked. Spine looked at her sadly for a moment, then bowed his head. His green bangs drooped lifelessly over his eyes. Avigan gasped. "...Dead?"
"Passed on," Spine corrected, "Believe me, she's in a better place now."
Avigan and Spine stood silently for a moment, quietly mourning Willow's end. It wasn't too terrible, though; she got exactly what she wanted and so did the rest of the children whose souls were locked in their impenetrable chambers. They were all set free...there was no way of telling where they were now, of course, but it could definitely be assumed they weren't suffering anymore.
And that's all Spine and Avigan wanted.
"Well…" Avigan sighed, "I should be happy YOU'RE alright. You were definitely our best employee." Spine smiled. "Thanks," he said. Avigan took another long glance at the pile of rubble and sighed. "My dad is gonna be SO pissed that the building burnt down."
"Why? Does he own it?" Spine asked.
"Yes," Avigan answered, "Well...USED to. Damn, the place didn't even OPEN yet."
"Yeah, that sucks…" Spine said, rubbing his arm, "...you okay?"
"I'm a bit disoriented," Avigan groaned, "I just woke up to a panicked phone call at twelve-forty-two in the morning."
"Sorry about that!" Spine shrugged. Avigan blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "No big deal," she said, "I'm pretty sure we'll build somethin' ELSE totally worthless here. In the meantime, I guess this means you're fired. Uh...literally, in this case."
"I gathered," Spine said, nodding. "Oh! Hey, uh, before she died, Clickbait asked me to keep in touch with you."
"She did?" Avigan asked. "She said she liked you," Spine informed her, "Uh...no homo or anything."
"I knew what you meant," Avigan yawned. "Hang on...you got a phone, right?" Spine whipped out his mobile device, turning his pocket inside-out. "Okay," she said, taking hers out and swiping through some applications Spine couldn't see from his point of view. She finally found her number, and allowed Spine to copy it and paste it into his contacts.
"Thanks!"
"No prob," Avigan said, then turned to face the building again.
A figure walked out from the building who didn't look to be a part of the firemen that had gathered at the scene. He wore all black and had pale orange hair. He walked straight up to both Spine and Avigan and stared at them for quite some time.
"Which one of you almost burnt down?"
Spine slowly raised a hand, afraid to answer the question that seemingly came out of nowhere.
"Oh," the man said, "Sorry about that. I only meant to burn down that other girl…"
"Me?" Avigan asked.
"NO! No, not you!" he said, "The other one. Willow."
Spine's jaw dropped. "Wait! YOU started that fire!?" The man quickly hushed him. "Hey! I was TOLD to! Some ghost told me to in exchange for a reward!"
"Damn!" Avigan exclaimed, "That must be, like, some reward! What did they give you?"
The man smiled and leaned forward just a bit so he was eye to eye with them.
"Life."
The man promptly walked away, never to be seen by Spine or Avigan again.
Spine arrived home early, of course. He informed his parents of the disaster, to which they immediately panicked and asked him countless questions about the incident. Neither of them were prepared to hear such news; but the worst part was when he told them exactly where he was working.
"FAZBENDER'S FRIGHT!?" his father cried, "Good lord, no WONDER! That franchise was always shady and making horrible decisions! Believe me, I should know!"
"They were paying good money, and it was the only job I would take because it required the LEAST amount of effort, dad!" Spine informed him, "Working at some place like the Sub Shack or McDougal's would have broken me!"
"At least you wouldn't have been set on fire!" his mother argued. "I wasn't anyway!" Spine countered. His parents stopped and thought.
"Well...I guess you came out okay...but you really shouldn't have been working there in the first place! The things that franchise was based around were WAY too adult for someone your age!"
"I'm turning eighteen in a month!" Spine argued, "Which is legally old enough to marry and legally old enough to view adult content!"
His parents sighed. "The point is," his father said, "That place isn't safe, for your health OR your sanity. Hopefully this is the end of Fazbender enterprises FOR GOOD this time." "I hope so," agreed his mother, "I wouldn't want that franchise to continue after the horror stories risen from its lore."
"It looks to be that way," Spine said, "I hope my boss's boss focuses on another terrifying franchise to tackle with an attraction."
"Bless their souls," his father commented, a disapproving frown carved into his lips.
They sat silently for a few moments before his mother yawned and checked the clock. "It's terribly early," she sighed, "Let's all go back to bed. We'll talk more about this when we've had our coffee and are well-rested." "Agreed," yawned his father, "Let's go."
The three made their way upstairs into their bedrooms. Spine could faintly hear a conversation between his mother and father as he got ready for bed.
"How much do you wanna bet HE fucked some robots?"
"Come on, Mark! They probably didn't even HAVE any robots they could use there!"
"I guess you're right. The other buildings have probably rotted away by now. What could they possibly have salvaged besides that corpse inside a suit you and I walked in on?"
"I dunno...a Foxica mask?"
"Heh. They wouldn't know her face even if they saw it. Probably thought it was a shitty cosplay or something."
"We'll talk about this with Spine in the morning. Good night, Mark."
"'Night, Friday."
O o o O
Fazbender's Fright was no longer an existing building. Within a week, all mention of the attraction had been lost and there was absolutely no trace of it left. All that remained were news stories on the web about how the place burned down and how the arsonist was still at large. Nobody witnessed anyone setting the building ablaze nor did the cameras catch anything-because they had all melted in the fire. Even the witness of the event himself denied knowing the whereabouts of the criminal.
Spine and Avigan were left jobless, and they both kept in touch for the longest time. They even found a job together and had just about the same number of shifts at the exact same time as one another. They seldom talked about Fazbender's Fright, at least in public. The very mention of it was a negative connotation, and eventually became a meme between them when they wanted to reference how literally nothing was going right and things were metaphorically going up in flames. They even secretly kept a stone in Spine's backyard with Clickbait's name on it that they called her "grave" and visited it every year following the anniversary of the building's collapse.
All that's left is just rubble. Just a variety of broken parts and smoldering rock that was excavated not too long after the blaze. There's nothing left of the franchise; there's nothing left of the story. Everything had been put together as thoroughly as it could and the tale ends as abruptly as it started. An entire section of history had been totally erased off the page and left up to the world's interpretation until everyone forgot about it and the name became nothing more than a legend. All that was left were five select people who witnessed the horror and pulled through it, and they kept quiet about it because no one would believe them if they didn't.
That's the end of everything. That's the end of the story. Spine and Avigan got together or not; that's for you to decide. Jasper went to Heaven or Hell; that's for you to decide. The franchise was risen again and made even more popular or not; that's for you to decide. Basically, all the events plotted were pieces of a puzzle with just enough gaps to imagine a completed one. The puzzle may never be whole, but it's nice to imagine you've found the correct pieces and fit them in perfectly. And though you may think you want to solve every puzzle, get the answer to every question, sometimes there are mysteries that just weren't meant to be solved and the only settling and/or comforting answer lies in one's interpretation of a subject.
At least, that's what she would have told me.
That's the end of Extra Sexurity 3! It was a pleasure writing this and I hope you enjoyed reading it! Or, at least...some of you. Uh, anyway! Let me know if you'd like another entry in the series and I'll be sure to get right to it as soon as I can! Once again, feel free to message me about anything, whether it's a request or you just wanna strike up a friendly conversation! It's very likely I'll respond to you. Thanks again! ;3
