Chapter 20: The End of the Journey

The claws retracted and the filthy skin started to slide away. It seemed to withdraw back into the children's scalps, disappearing as gracefully as it had emerged at the library, in room C4 and in this tent a few minutes ago.

Slowly, relentlessly, the mangled corpses of Sophie, Tommy and Amanda were revealed. Their pale faces were frozen in miserable screams of pain and unanswered pleas. Blood was still flowing from their mouths, nostrils and bullet wounds. Where their skin wasn't covered by the dark red blood, the bruises left by table leg and meat tenderiser gave it a bluish colour. Sophie's petrified face was especially unbearable to look at.

Matt turned around and took a few steps away from the gory heap of his embodied memories. The huge pink rabbit costumes sitting in the chairs on the other side of the metal fence contemplated him intently. He definitely wouldn't be too surprised if they started applauding, now that tonight's big show was over.

"Well, what happens next?" he muttered. "What, oh mighty Gods or Silent Spirits or what-fucking-ever you're called? Got any more ugly creatures for me to fight? Any more weird areas for me to explore? Any more stupid puzzles to solve?"

The rabbits just smiled and stared at him.

No, not at him. It felt like they were looking into him, into his mind …

"What am I thinking? They're just big costumes. And it's not like there's anyone inside. At least not anyone living, I guess …"

Amamet's hand suddenly caught Matt's scalp and spun the man around 180 degrees so they faced each other. Then, both of the gloved hands rested on Matt's shoulders and the angel thrust his grotesque head forwards, thus driving the sword protruding from it through the normal head of the sinner.

Matt didn't have time to fight back and escape from the vice-like grip. He screamed as the hot blade and flames pierced the skin of his forehead, continued through his frontal bone and into his brain. Blood and tears blurred his vision, then everything went black.

---

Truth may seem, but cannot be;

Beauty brag, but 't is not she;

"Here's your peanuts, sir. Enjoy."

Truth and beauty buried be.

Matt opened his eyes.

He was sitting in the plane. The middle-aged bald guy sitting next to him had just bought a bag of peanuts and was now pouring them down his throat. Stewardesses (with no more than two arms) wandered around the plane and sold such snacks to the passengers (who were all alive and kicking).

"So it was just a bad dream. Whew … that's got to be the craziest dream I've ever had." 

He looked out the window. The plane was about to land in South Ashfield's airport. Two long lines of tiny yellow lights indicated the runway.

A police car was parked down there, two cops standing outside, waiting. As the wheels reached the ground and the plane started gliding down the runway, Matt realized that his dream had told him one true fact: He had killed Sophie back in L.A.

The passengers gasped and screamed when they saw the cops hurry into the plane. The bald guy to Matt's right dropped the small plastic bag, peanuts were scattered on the floor.

Matt felt the cold handcuffs tighten around his wrists. Feeling exhausted and dizzy, he only caught a few words of what one of the men droned: "… for the murder of Sophie Hardt … anything you say can … you have the right to …"

He was soon sitting in the back seat of the car as they drove away to the police station. The cops on the front seat were talking about the murderer they had just arrested.

"That guy killed his own wife. And I even heard they had two little kids!"

"Jeez, what a bastard."

Matt just stared silently out at the shops and apartment buildings of the city. Stars were clearly visible on the sky. A few butterflies fluttered around the traffic lights.

---

A/N: Try listening to "Tears of …" from the SH1 soundtrack while reading the next chapter. It just really fits.