Down to the final two! This is a pretty dark chapter so be prepared.

The Dark Side of the Sun: Thank you very much for your kind words! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint :)

This is gospel

For the fallen ones

Locked away in permanent slumber

Panic! At The Disco This is Gospel

In an all girls boarding school full of pathological liars, anorexics, schizophrenics, children of traumatic childhoods, victims of rape, bulimics, lesbians (whose parents didn't understand love is universal), bipolar and depressed students, alcoholics and drug addicts - if and when someone was relapsing, word got around fast.

Back in October, everyone and their mother's were spreading rumors about Missy and her awful step brother and how tragic it was going to be for her during Winter break with her family.

Back in December, no one would shut up about Sarah Connors' shooting heroin behind the school dumpster.

Back in January, Gabby Rodriguez found herself in the spotlight for a good three weeks after someone heard her throwing up in her bathroom.

By February, everyone had heard about Carly Shay, the ex-famous internet star, who had stopped eating again.

My new roommate swore she never said a word.

I believed Lily Grey, since she swore she never said anything and knew the consequences if she did.

I knew Ally and Caitlin didn't care enough for me to start any kind of rumors.

It really only left Missy Robinson, who probably blabbed to one of the nurses. Someone must have overheard and then spread their own twists and spins on the story.

I became aware I was at the center of everyone's conversations the minute Madame Grey pulled me into an emergency session three days before we were scheduled to meet with each other.

"Carly, I'm going to be blunt with you. I've received word from one of the nurses that you're not eating again. I'm not even going to ask you if that's true or not, because either way you'll say no." She told me promptly, an enticing tray of fruits on the table between us.

No. I'm strong. I'm better than Madame Grey and her fruits of temptation.

I can do this.

"You do look a little bit skinnier than you were when you first came here, and I must say I think you've lost quite a bit of weight in your face. How are you sleeping?"

Ha! You think I'm going to fall for that one again? Try again, bitch.

"Not too bad now that I've changed rooms, Madame." I responded politely, not letting my lip curl at our last impromptu meeting.

"You want to switch dorms?"

"Yes."

"It's going to be a long and complicated process, Miss. Shay."

"Oh my God mom, just move her in with me!"

"Lily, hush, it's not that simple. Please state your reason for wanting the switch."

"Missy and I don't get along anymore."

"Please explain further."

"Mom, you literally sound like a robot."

"Hush, Lillian."

"We just don't get along. I'm having trouble sleeping in that room and it's really affecting my studies and since we're so close to the ocean, our room is super cold -"

"You're cold and you're not able to sleep?"

"….Yes."

"You do look paler in fact, and I don't believe it's because of the winter. What have you been eating?"

"Excuse me? I've been eating food, like a normal human being. Don't I eat, Lily?"

"Yeah, she eats."

"Besides, I think you're overstepping your boundaries Madame -"

"My boundaries?"

"Look, can we make the move or not?"

"I've been speaking with the nurses, Carly, and they tell me that whenever it's time to weigh you, you insist on being weighed with your robe on. Is that true?"

I frowned. "Is that a crime? I'm sorry I don't want to be stark naked in front of a bunch of lesbians -"

"Miss. Shay."

I blinked, surprised at the words that had flowed out of my mouth."Look, I'm really sorry, I don't know why I said that. I swear I'm not a homophobe or anything and I totally support gay rights but it's just that Kristina Glass has been smiling at me suggestively during weighing times and I don't want to be mean but she's not really my type."

Madame Grey pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled a long breath, full of desperation and pity and exhaustion. I wondered if four years ago, she had beautiful long blonde hair like Lily's. Or maybe she was a brunette, like me, but with a splash of freckles across her face like silver stars in a dark sky. But now she had short gray hair that fell delicately above her shoulders and -

I realized I had been zoning out.

"Miss. Shay? Carly?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

Madame narrowed her eyes at me, as if studying me some more, before taking careful notes on her clipboard. "Carly, we have a serious problem here. I'm ashamed we haven't noticed it before. You've lost weight, you can't sleep, you're moodier - when's the last time you got your period?"

Three weeks before Thanksgiving.

"I don't feel comfortable talking about this with you."

"You've stopped getting it, haven't you? When's the last time you ate a full meal?"

"I don't like what you're implying."

"That you need help, Carly? That you're afraid of getting better?" Her serious tone changed quickly to a more motherly, nurturing voice. "You don't need to be afraid of help. You don't have to be afraid of getting better. I understand it now -"

"Why do you all keep saying that?" I bursted out, suddenly jumping up from my seat. Bad mistake - Madame Grey saw you loll your head backwards because of how dizzy you got. "You don't understand - you couldn't possibly understand!"

"Understand what, Carly?"

"Her!" I shouted out. Hot, prickly tears clouded my eyes and my stomach just hurt so fucking bad, like it was being stabbed with needles and razors. Like I was dying. "You don't get it! I wanted to be better, I was better but then -"

"Carly, shut the fuck up." She said, slithering her cold, dead arms around my neck. "Shh, Carly, shh. You're making a big mistake."

"No, please." I whimpered softly, falling back into my seat. Madame Grey was yelling something at me but all I could hear the pounding thump thump, thump thump thundering throughout my forehead.

All I could hear was her sweet, bitter voice.

"Carls, they're trying to ruin you." Sam told me, standing in front of Madame Grey, blocking out everything but her perfect figure in front of me. "They're only trying to turn you into a fat demon. That's not what you want, right? That's never what you wanted. You just wanted to be like me, perfect and skinny -"

"Like you?"

Sam frowned for a minute but regained her composture. "You know what I mean. Carly, you need to get away from here. They know everything - Missy and Freddie must have told them. You have to get away from here. Come on, Carls, they don't care about you. They just care about their own guilty consciences."

"But -"

"Shh, Carly-kins. Shh."

"Shh, Carly-kins, Shh."

Ana whispered over my bed, as I sobbed into my pillow. Spencer was out with his new girlfriend again, and I was home alone, crying hot, sticky tears.

My stomach was bulging out of my pajama pants and my thighs thundered together every time I walked. My arms were full of flab and my face looked like a chipmunk. I couldn't believe how fat I had let myself get and all I wanted was to take a knife and cut off all the imperfect parts.

"It's okay, Carly. Remember how I told you I'd always be here? That I'd never leave?"

"I'm going crazy, aren't I?"

Ana laughed sweetly, relaxing next to me on my bed. "No, Carly. You could be perfectly fine."

"I could be?"

"If you listen to me. If you do everything I tell you to do. If you trust me and play the game with me, okay?"

Game?

I was good at games. I always won Checkers and Chess board games or any intellectual game - except sometimes against Freddie.

Maybe I could win this game too. Maybe I could be the skinniest of them all and beat Ana. I would stop myself before things got too out of hand, before I stopped eating forever.

I'd only stop eating to lose a few pounds. I would bring myself down from 125 to 115. And then I'd stop. I wouldn't play the game forever. I was strong and I'd know when to stop.

I'd be perfectly thin and perfectly fine, all within a matter of time.

What was there to lose?

The tears stopped flowing down my face and I inhaled a deep breath, wiping whatever trace of weakness was left from my cheeks.

"Okay."

I woke up in a dark and cold room.

For a moment, I was worried I was back in my former room and they were going to make Missy keep an eye on me, so I couldn't lie about eating and wear my robes filled with quarters.

But then my heart stopped when I realized what was really going on.

I was under white sheets on top of a white mattress in a white room (that seemed dark because it was night time outside and the lights weren't on) in the school's infirmary. I was in a green cotton hospital dress and beside me were machines and a plate of food on the nightstand.

What if they were going to force feed me?

I couldn't feel my toes because it was so cold in the room, even though I was wearing socks, and I was shivering under the thin blankets. The clock beside me read, 8:14 PM, and I knew I had very little time.

Clutching the railings of the bed carefully, I swiftly moved my legs over the side and escaped the metal railings on the bed. I found a pair of slippers, thankful for the small warmth on my feet, and headed towards the door.

I cursed when I saw the nurse hunched over her desk, blocking my freedom.

There had to be another way out, there had to be another way out, there had to be another way -

"Try the windows."

I jumped, and pain flashed through my body. My legs were nearly purple and my veins had never been more transparent. I quickly abandoned the robe and put on my sweatpants and sweatshirt from earlier that were laced with failure and defeat.

Sam smirked. "Hey, Carls. Nice little stunt you pulled out. Blacking out in the headmaster's office. You're right, though. You have to get moving."

I ran my fingers through my dead hair in frustration, clumps of hair tangling in my fingers, and groaned softly. "You have to go, Sam. You can't stay here."

"Oh don't worry, Carls. I'm coming with you."

"No, that's what I mean." I whispered, my voice quivering uncontrollably. It was so cold that my teeth were chattering. "You can't stay with me, Sam."

She raised her eyebrow. "What the hell are you talking about?"

You're the reason that all of this has happened. You have to go.

"I'll be better off my own. We have to say goodbye."

"You're trying to get rid of your best friend? You're such a bitch. I'm only trying to help you, you fat piece of scum!"

I was having trouble breathing. I was having a lot of trouble breathing. The room was getting too small and too cold and I was having a lot of trouble breathing.

"The windows, Carly." Sam repeated, her dark eyes narrowed. "Try the windows."

I hurried over to the windows, trying to be as quiet as I could, and pushed open the lock. I wasn't strong enough anymore to pull the windows effortlessly but I managed to open them ever so quietly.

So quietly the nurse wouldn't realize I was trying to escape and call for help.

The window didn't open very far. In fact, it wouldn't have been possible for anyone to get through.

Anyone who wasn't 100 pounds, even.

I tried to dive headfirst out of the window and found myself slightly stuck between the outside world and the inside hell.

"Push, Carly. Push."

I continued to fight my way through, shuffling and shimmying my hips until the upper half of my body had made it onto the garden outside. It wasn't a very far fall - maybe 5 feet at best.

I pushed the rest of my body out, my slippers miraculously still on my feet.

I was free!

"Where do you think you're going?"

It was a voice you heard in your sweetest nightmares.

I turned around slowly to face the grinning culprit.

"Trying to escape, are you? Very clever."

"What are you doing out here?" I asked her. "It's cold."

"I could ask you the same thing, but I think I already know." Lily told me. "I was out visiting my new boyfriend, if you'd believe it or not."

My heart stopped beating. "Freddie?"

"No, he's your territory. I respect girl code." Lily said, her sultry voice in full effect. "His name is Danny Santiago and he hears voices too. We really get each other."

"I need your help."

"Obviously. Your hair is a war zone. And what are those clothes?"

"Shut up. I need your car."

Lily's eyebrows creased. "Uh, you thought. I'm not scared of you anymore, Carly."

"Scared?"

Lily took a dangerous step towards me and it took everything in my power to not to wring my hands around her pretty little throat. "Schizophrenia isn't just about hearing voices, Carly. I interpret reality differently, because my brain isn't like yours. I might never be able to hold a job or live by myself, and you know why? Because sometimes I think the whole world is fucking against me and that people are trying to kill me. The whole irony of this whole situation? I'm scared of everything and everyone. Sometimes I hear voices that other people don't hear and it's fucking terrifying. Okay? Joke about it all you want but I thought maybe - just maybe - in a school full of crazies and psychos, maybe I wouldn't have to be scared anymore. God, maybe I'd just make everyone scared of me! But the world doesn't work like that, does it? Because then you fucking came along and you terrified me! Yes, Carly, you terrified me."

I was having trouble breathing. I was having a lot of trouble breathing. The world was getting too small and too cold and Lillian Marie Grey was telling me she was terrified of me.

"But you - you never… you were just so mean,"

She shrugged indifferently, her blue eyes brighter than ever. "Side effect of the meds my father ordered for me, probably. He's a psychiatrist you know."

"But then -"

"Why did my parents get divorced? If my mother's a therapist and my father's a psychiatrist, why didn't they run this hellhole together?" Lily reached a hook inside my mouth and pulled up the questions I had wanted to ask. "Because my mother is a very hard person to like, as you know. She struggled with depression growing up and she was always alone. Her parents never took her illness seriously and no one ever did. Except for my father. But even he couldn't fix the demons inside her head. So she decided she would fix everyone else's."

I couldn't stay and play story time with Lily all night. I needed to go. Time was running out and soon the nurse would notice I was gone.

I needed an escape.

"Lily, please, I'm sorry but I need your car -"

"No, Carly." Lily said firmly. "And I'm not trying to be mean. I'm…worried about you. I think you're going to die if you keep this up."

Oh my God, they've converted her too.

"Then come with me." Words flooded out of my mouth, like a tsunami erupting from my mouth. "Come with me, Lily. Let's get out of here."

Lily raised her eyebrow. "Pardon?"

And suddenly it just made perfect sense! Lily would come with me, bring her car and her cash - cause God knew I didn't have any - and we would run away somewhere else and burn this fucking palace to the ground after we had toured the world and kissed exotic boys and became pop stars or actors and made tons of money to go shopping in Paris and Rome and party in Barcelona.

I could feel my eyes shining and my hopes rising, and the world didn't seem so gray anymore. "We could get out of here! Get out of this hellhole and make something of ourselves and we wouldn't have to follow anyone's rules anymore. We wouldn't have to go the same stupid classes every day and -"

"Carly." Lily cut me off firmly, putting her sharp claws on my barely existent arms. "You can't do this anymore."

Time seemed to start slowing down or maybe that was me getting dizzy again. "Do what anymore?"

"You can't play pretend for the rest of your life. Someday, you're going to have to accept reality for what it is. I'm not Sam, Carly."

"Well duh, you're not me." Sam's voice snarled from behind me.

The midnight sky was darker than ever and I wished I could just disappear into it, until I was silver star shining down on Earth. "I don't want you to be Sam, I just want -"

"To get out of here, I know. But Carly, it's not the voices that are making me do the wrong things anymore, it's you. You're lonely as hell and you think you do a good job at hiding it, but I can see right through you. You pushed away your family and Missy because they wanted you to move on from Sam. You sought solace in Freddie because he's the closest thing you have left of her. You want me to run away with you because I look just like her. Carly, I'm going to tell you the truth. You have to let her go."

If you love me, let me go

I blinked and stopped shivering for a moment. "What?"

Lily frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Say that again." I asked her slowly.

"You have to let her go?"

Silence followed.

For a second, if just for a second, I could've sworn I heard Sam singing to me from Heaven.

For a second.

"Okay." I said softly. "Okay, you're right."

"Well, duh."

Well. Some things about Lily Grey would never change.

"I'm going to go back inside the nurse's room." I told her. "I'll meet you back in the room later tonight, okay?"

For the first time since I'd met her that cold, dreary day in September, the corners of her lips danced into a genuine smile. The kind of smile that made her eyes twinkle and the small freckles on her face fit into place. "Okay."

I watched her turn around and walk back towards the gates of hell. Her blonde hair followed her like a curtain, and she turned one last time to look at me with sparkling blue eyes. She waved before disappearing inside the door.

I rolled my eyes and muttered, "Dumb bitch."

"Are you ready, Carly?" Sam asked, appearing before me. Maybe it was Boston, or maybe I was hallucinating, but her blonde hair had become darkened by winter into a dirty brown color. Her eyes had become dark pits.

"Let's get the fuck out of here."

Down the street from New Horizons was a convenience store where Caitlin bought her chocolate stash.

She had mentioned it to me the other day in Calculus when I saw her munching on a Kit-Kat's bar and immediately assumed she was lying.

But true to her word, there was a dingy little convenience store that I hobbled over to after my escape into the cold February night. I pushed through the doors, thankful for the heating system.

The cashier gave me a strange look as I came up to him. "May I use your phone?"

He shrugged. "What for?"

"I need to call a taxi."

The cashier looked to be college aged, with a little midnight scruff on his chin and dreary green eyes. His pale skin looked washed out in front of the miscellaneous packs of cigarettes behind him.

His small pink lips pursed. "To go where?"

"What's it to you?"

He shrugged again, his white tee shirt sagging on his scrawny shoulders. "I could give you a ride. I'm pretty much done with my shift."

My shoulders tensed and my insides clamped. My brain was screaming, rapist alert! Rapist alert!

Sam materialized next to me and gave him a brief once-over. "Oh come, Carly-kins. What's the worst this guy could do? Poke you? He's probably as scrawny and weak as you are."

Ouch.

"No, thank you." I told him firmly. "I would like to call a taxi."

He rolled his eyes. "Do you even know the number?"

The cons to no longer having a cell phone meant that since I relied so much on Google, I really didn't know anything.

The pros were at least no one could track me.

I bit my lip. "No."

"Then let me give you a ride, sweet cheeks. What's the worst that could happen?"

The worst that could happen was I could die. You could ravish me and then kill me, like Mr. Harvey did to Susie. You could stab me repeatedly with your pentagram pendant, like Anna did to her best friend Elise.

My eyes begin to roam his neck for any traces of a pentagram pendant.

What honestly is the worst thing about dying, anyways? Apparently you could just come right back and haunt the ones you professed to love. Was dying, in the end, really all that bad?

It wasn't like anyone would've cared. They would've just wallowed up all their pain and projected it into hate, into new projects, into distance, into sending their little sister to boarding school. They would've been glad to get rid of me.

So I looked up and shrugged. "Why not?"

In the end, the worst thing that happened was that I willingly lost my virginity in the backseat of an old, beat-up Camry, while Don McLean mourned the day that music died.

And then finally when the sky was pitch black and the stars were shining for me, I found myself on the same beach I escaped to the last time.

It was probably dumb to go to the same place, where they could easily find me, but my time was running out.

If I was lucky, I would dead by morning.

It struck me late in the night, that I should've been scared. I should've been shaking my sweatpants and sweatshirts at the thought of being alone on a dark and scary beach by myself, without anyone to protect me.

Lately, the only thing I seemed scared of was Sam.

"One second the bitch acts like she couldn't give a flying rat's ass if you're getting better or not, and then the next second she's telling you she understands it now and that you don't have to be afraid of getting better." Sam continued to complain about Madame Grey. "What's her game?"

Game.

I was good at games.

I remained silent while Sam droned on. "Isn't it illegal for her to force feed you anyways? This is some shit you could take to court, Carly."

And maybe I was the one who was just beginning to understand it now.

"You're the one who took Government and Politics last year." I reminded her slowly, my eyes trained on her moving, perfect figure. "Is it illegal?"

Sam stopped pacing in the sand before me, her dark hair dancing like curtains behind her.

Sam didn't have dark hair. Not even in the wintertime.

"I don't know, Carly. I'm dead, remember?"

An itchy silence engulfed us for a minute before I finally found my inner balls and asked, "Then why are you here?"

Sam was standing in front of while I was sitting back, my pencil thin arms supporting my pencil thin body and legs extended before me.

She gave me a cold look, so cold it sent shivers down my decaying spine. "To help you, you baby cow."

"I can't wait to see the baby cow." Ana sneered at me, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Why are you always so mean to me?" I stood up off the bed. "I do everything you say and yet you treat me like dirt!"

Ana stared at me, the flicker of green in her eyes sparkling with curiosity. "Your point?"

"My point is that you don't act like a friend even though you constantly tell me that you're my only friend!"

"Who do you think you are, Carly?" Ana asked me, standing up slowly. "You think just because you finally have someone fatter than you to make you feel better, you're suddenly the shit? Well let me tell you something Carly-"

"Carly?" Sam knocked on my door, coming in.

thanks for rescuing me.

Sam rescued me.

Sam rescued me.

Sam RESCUED me.

I looked back up at the figure before me and whispered what I had probably known all this time, "You're not Sam."

"Sam"'s figure moved dangerously closer to mine and I understood why her hair and eyes had become so dark in this cold February winter. "Excuse me?"

"You're not Sam, Ana." I told her as firmly as I could. "You're not Sam, and you're never going to be Sam."

If I expected Ana's transformation back to Ana to be spectacular or magical, I was grandly disappointed. All it took was the blink of my eyes for me to see things for how they really were again. It was like a veil had been lifted, a veil that had separated me and reality since September.

The sky was pitch black and the stars were shining for me, I found myself on the same beach I escaped to the last time but this time, a stick thin monster with tan skin, brown wavy hair and evil green eyes was smirking right before me.

"I must say, Carly-kins," Ana sung in absolute delight. "I really didn't expect you to take so long. I should've figured you'd be so naive enough to believe your beloved best friend had come back from the fucking dead to haunt you."

I should have known it was never Sam. I should have known this wasn't some sort of dystopian society where magic prevailed and ghosts could come back from the dead. I should have known that Sam would never have said half the things that flooded out of Ana's mouth on a daily basis.

I should have known Sam would have never blamed me for her death.

"I'm going crazy." I muttered to myself, my eyes drifting in and out of focus. The dark sea was roaring wildly, the waves were splashing my face with salty water and the seaweed was covering my body like a sculpture.

I blinked. I was dry and Ana was winning.

"You're so stupid, Carly. You really thought you could beat me at my own game? Why the hell do you think they call it 'anorexia', huh? I invented the damn game, you can't beat me!" She roared and cackled in delight while I heaved in breath after breath but nothing seemed to satisfy my insatiable lungs. Sharp, horrible, burning, searing pains were flashing through my stomach and I wanted to throw up my cold, black heart. "You're going to die, Carly. You're going to go to sleep and you're not going to wake up. You're going to die and you're going to be just another pawn piece I can knock off my chess board. I always win."

I wanted to croak out, not this time, but I could barely speak. I tried curling my body to soften the hunger pains but Ana was right - nothing was going to save me now.

I thought I wanted to die. I thought I was ready to die because everything seemed so hopeless and the world seemed so gray. I thought my best friend had been holding me responsible for her death and I thought I was ready to be with her in Heaven.

But thinking you were ready to die and actually dying were two completely different things.

"Go to sleep, Carly-kins." Ana smirked and crouched in front of me, patting my head softly. "Go to sleep."

I didn't want to go to sleep anymore. I wanted nothing more in the world than to wake up and see the world for what it really was.

I even wanted that more than being with my best friend in the entire world and my mother.

Be careful what you wish for.

"If you love me, let me go." I whispered dazily, as my eyes stopped fighting my body and the world turned from gray to black.

Just a quick question, did anyone see that twist coming? "Sam" being Ana? In a way, Dark Side of the Sun, Carly was kind of day dreaming about Sam, but in the end she woke up and saw things for how they really were.

Next chapter is the last! Thanks for sticking along for the ride, guys. You're all the bomb dot com.