Chapter Eighteen: Confrontation Day Three; 1:22 a.m.
Upon returning to the carnival, everything has changed. The stalls, rides, and other carnival items have vanished. All that remains is a clearing. The grass even seems a bit longer now. The fog seems to have lifted, making it possible to see throughout the entire clearing. Migel and Lilly stand there, amazed. At one end of the clearing is a path, the path which Migel and Lilly came to the carnival by. At the other end of the clearing is anohter path, one that leads out of view. Migel and Lilly take little more than a glance at eachotehr, before heading out towards the other path.
The clearing seems so different, without the rides and monsters everywhere. Migel puts his Desert Eagle into his holster, but leaves it ready to pull out at any moment. Lilly just lets the shotgun hang there, slung over her shoulder. The two of them practically dance towards the path in joy for the carnival being gone.
Upon reaching the path, Migel and Lilly are lead through the forest some more. Coming around a bend, the two of them can see a lake up ahead. The sand around the water is a weird gray colour in the darkness. Coming up to the shore, the water looks completely still, almost as if it's frozen there. Migel shifts his foot around in the sand and comes to realize that it's more like ash than sand. He kneels down and runs his hand through it, examining the strange feeling of it.
"Look, there's a boat over there." Lilly exclaims, and points at a small boat, with an old, rusted, motor held up at the back. The front of the boat rests in the water. Lilly runs over to the boat, excitedly. "We might actually get out of this place finally!!"
Migel just stands up and looks out over the lake, and mutters quietly to himself, "Something's not right..." He looks around, finding nothing to be around.
"What's wrong?" Lilly calls out to him from the boat. Migel just stands there looking around a little more, before walking over to her.
"I don't know ... just have this feeling that something isn't right," he pauses a moment, looking out at the lake. Just within view, a small rowboat drifts quietly along the water. There's a person sitting in the boat, rowing calmly. "It's ... another person." Migel announces. Lilly turns and looks out at the person rowing out. She points a little bit ahead of the person rowing.
"Maybe they're going to the island." Lilly assumes. Migel just nods.
"C'mon, let's get this boat in the water and go take a look." he tells Lilly, before he goes to the back of the boat. The two of them give a hefty shove and move the boat into the water. Lilly grabs the edge of the boat and pulls up, getting up to her stomach above the edge of the boat. She struggles to keep herself up, and is about to fall back, when a hand suddenly places itself on the back of her thigh, holding her up and helping her. She looks back and smiles at Migel helping her in. She jerks her head up suddenly at the sight of movement in the bushes and trees. Migel turns to watch the first few carnis come walking out of te forest. Following them is hundreds, maybe thousands more. "Holy shit!" Migel exclaims, before jumping into the boat and pushing the motor down into the water.
Migel heaves on the pull string for the motor, and his arm flies back, almost hitting Lilly, as the cord breaks. Quickly of reflex, he grabs the cord with his other hand before it shoots back into the motor. He pulls it taught and loops it around his hand, as Lilly panics, almost jumping around in the boat. The hordes of carnis continue toward the boat, almost in the water now. Migel's muscles bulge as he pulls with his full might on the cord wrapped tightly around his hand. The motor roars out and spits a few times before the boat starts moving.
He turns to Lilly, sitting down, and tells her, "Y'know, it'd be really great if you knew how to use that thing." He points at the shotgun slung over Lilly's shoulder. She just chuckles a little bit.
"What would that have done? There was thousands of them out there!" she practically screams at Migel. He just sits there and shrugs. Lilly turns around and looks out over the water, to see that the rowboat has stopped at the island and the person is gone.
Once Lilly turns, Migel starts unravelling the cord wire that has bore itself into his left hand. he clenches his teeth as he pulls the rusted wire out. Blood pours out from the lines, sliced, in his hand. The cord snaps back into the motor, and causes Lilly to turn back to him. Instantly, Migel puts his hand to his side, and hides the wound from Lilly. She just looks at him, at the motor, then looks down into the boat and her eyes flare up, her mouth coming open a little bit. Blood from Migel's hand has formed a small puddle in the boat, underneath him.
"Migel, you're bleeding!!" She exclaims and hurries to his side.
"I'm fine, don't worry." he tries to assure her, but she holds his hand up and starts panicking even more.
"Fine?! Look at your hand! Geez!" She moves to his left side, and wades his hand in the water, rushing by. The blood washes off quickly, and she holds his arm up.
"Just sit down, I'll cover it up." he tries to tell her, but she grabs the cloth from which Migel tore from before, and starts wrapping up his hand. "Uh, I think we have a problem." he calmly says, looking at the motor. Lilly quickly looks at the motor, and to the island which is about sixty feet away from them. She hten looks back at Migel. "I don't know how to make that motor stop. It started going once I pulled the cord, and there doesn't seem to be anything on it to shut it off."
Lilly steps over to the front of the boat and just watches the island coming closer to them. "Uh, yeah that would be a problem." The island comes within twenty feet from them, before a gunshot cracks through the air. Migel puts his Desert Eagle back into his holster, with the motor now broken. The boat drops dramatically in speed, just a little way from the shore of the island.
"Figured that would work." Migel calmly says. Lilly laughes and shakes her head.
The boat drifts up to the island and stops from hitting the sand. Migel gets up and steps out of the boat, grabbing the board for support again. Even though his hand and leg are injured and he suffers from a rather great deal of pain just to stand, he still holds his hand out to help Lilly down out of the boat. Lilly looks rather uneasy about getting wet, however.
"C'mon I'll carry you then." Migel tells Lilly, as he wraps his right arm around her legs, causing her to fall down over his shoulder. Slowly, Migel struggles onto dry land, and sets Lilly down on her feet. She stands there a moment, a bit surprised that Migel would be able to carry her with an injured leg like that. He just keeps walking, trying to ignore the pain.
Migel comes walking around a corner, to some stone steps, with Lilly right at his side, holding onto his arm. Looking back, the beaches look to be cleared. Migel turns back and looks at the top of the steps, where large, wooden, doors create the entrance to a huge church. At the top, there's a strange symbol of a circle, with a triangle inside of it, and in the triangle is an odd looking oval, with three streaks coming from it. The symbol look strange, mostly because the different pieces of it are just floating there, not attached to eachother at all.
Migel just ignores the symbol, having seen many things that were more abstract than floating symbols. Bells begin to ring out from the top of the church, even though it looks to not have a bell tower.
The giant doors hit the walls beside them, echoing throughout the church's interior. Migel and Lilly coming walking inside, searching for the person they had seen earlier. The two of them come out into the church's main hall. The bells continue to call out. At the front of the hall, a woman stands with her hands placed on either side of a pedestal, her head facing down.
Migel calls out, "Hello?" The woman remains there, motionless. Migel and Lilly walk into the walkway up to the front and stand there, looking at the strange woman. Suddenly appearing, at one side of the room, is someone wearing a long, dark robe, with plenty of symbols along the ribbons running down his body. His face is skeletal and has a small, spiked helmet on top of it. gripped in his hands, and the tip resting on the floor, is a gigantic sword, with strange markings along it. Another person like this appears at the other side of the room. The two of them just stand there, looking at the newcomers.
A quiet laugh starts echoing out from the woman. She raises her head, and looks at the two people standing there, still laughing quietly to herself. Migel puts his hand on his holster, ready to draw his gun.
"What exactly is so funny?" Migel yells at the woman. The woman stops and takes in a deep breath. A couple footsteps come out from the back of the room.
Looking back, Migel and Lilly see a muscular man standing there, wearing only a cloth, gauntlets, and boots. Gripped in his hands is a chain, connected to a humungous bell. Migel and Lilly don't recognize the bellman, but the woman at the front seems to.
"Isn't it interesting how a man can have so many killed, that he doesn't even remember how many he's done it to? How he can do this, and yet, nobody will do anything to stop him? Do you know why he could do this?" the woman strangely asks Migel and Lilly, who stand in the middle of the hall, Lilly holding herself up close to Migel. "He could do this, simply because it was a 'requirement' of his religion. The other reason, is because he actually had others do it for him. He simply stood there and watched, as an innocent person was burned, right in front of him."
"What're you babbling about?" Migel yells in confusion.
"It's almost the same as another man I know. However, this man knows how many people he killed." she stops for a second, and gives a sinister glare at the pair standing there, "Have you heard of this one family? This family, that a boy decided that he had the need to kill his family. All of them ... except for one. The father ... mother ... brother, and a sister. All of them, dead. Just because the boy felt the sudden need to. Do you know who that family was?" She looks at Lilly, who has tears coming from her eyes. She steps forward and screams at the woman standing there.
"Shut up, bitch!! You think that's a funny?!" The woman just smiles and looks at her.
"Not really, 'little miss over reaction.' I find something else funny though," she chuckles a little bit, "You'll just die from this joke I heard. I heard it a long time ago. It's about a murderer and his victim, walking hand-in-hand towards a dark forest. The victim turns to the other and says, 'I'm scared, mister. I'm scared of those deep, dark woods, there.' The murderer looks at him and replies, 'You're scared? How the hell d'you think I feel? I'm gon'na be walking out of them on my own!" The woman breaks out into laughter.
Lilly stands there, glaring at the woman, seeming rather offended. The woman ceases her laughter and looks at Lilly.
"Y'know what I find somewhat ironic though? That the boy, the boy who murdered his own family, actually found the one person who he didn't manage to kill. They found eachother, and didn't know who they each were. The main reason that they didn't know who they were was because the boy changed his name." she stops there a moment, her smile widening, "he changed his name and got himself a career in which he would be trained to kill. And now, let me tell you what makes the whole story even more interesting. That man who changed his name, changed it to ... Migel ... Halford ... Butch."
Lilly's expression changes completely, from bitter hatred, to utter surprise. She turns around, looking at Migel. He stands there, his hand still on his holster, staring back at Lilly.
"You ... you killed ... my family ... killed .... our family..." Lilly slowly spits out. She instantly lifts the shotgun, pointing it right between his eyes. Her eyes shift, glancing at the Desert Eagle, now aimed at her. The two of them stand there, aiming their guns at eachother, both ready to fire.
"No. I didn't kill my family," Migel calmly says, glaring at Lilly, "you're still alive." Right when he finishes speaking, a hand tenses on it's weapon.
Lilly stands there, facing her family's murderer. Migel stares back, a strong expression of hate in his eyes. Lilly's mouth comes agape, as does Migel's. Lilly's hands tremble, violently, her finger tightly holding the trigger of the shotgun in her hands. "No..."
"Hm." Migel grunts, with an arrogant tone, as a sadistic grin stretches across his face.
The shotgun's barrel remains untouched. No smoke, nothing. No shell was fired. A tear comes out from the corner of Lilly's eye. Another trigger squeezes, and a gunshot screams out.
Lilly looks at Migel, surprised and confused. She has a look of both horror and sorrow.
"I just wanted ... to make sure," he pauses a moment, a tear rolling dwn his face, "...that my little sister, just turned out alright..." He collapses to his knees and brings his hand to his chest, covering the wound he placed in himself. Lilly kneels down with him, just staring at him.
"I'm sorry." Lilly says to Migel, just before he falls to the floor, dead.
Lilly, sits there a moment, looking at her brother's body. She stands up and turns to the woma at the pedestal. The woman, just looks at her, not much of an expression on her face.
"You were only brought here ... to face your nemesis. You can go now." the woman tells Lilly. She then turns and walks through a door, and disappears. The three others in the room walk away, and vanish in their own places.
Lilly walks to the end of the row, and turns back, looking at her brother. She had no idea that he could have changed so much. They had no idea who the other was, until now, but now, he was gone. She had been summoned to this place, to confront her brother, to see the heart that he truly had. Now she had to leave him. She holds up the shotgun and pulls it open, checking the chamber of it. Inside the shotgun, a shell rests there.
Lilly pulls the shell out of the chamber, it's still live, and hasn't been fired. She tosses it to the side, and drops the shotgun.
She takes in a deep breath...