Title: Final Destination
Rating: M for language, mature content, sexuality, strong violence, horror, gore
Spoilers: Through Furt but everything to be safe. All Final Destination movies.
Summary: A Kinn spin on Final Destination. On their senior trip, Kurt has a vision and when several students are saved from a tragedy because of it, Death haunts the Glee Club and circles back to claim its victims. Horror/Romance/Drama. AU.
Warnings: Character death! This is *horror*. There *will* be a body count. Nothing too graphic, but characters *will* die throughout the story. Also, suspend your disbelief. This franchise is a black comedy as much as it is horror, and it rolls the way it rolls.
Disclaimer: Tragically, I own nothing. Glee and Final Destination do not belong to me. The only character I'm using from FD is Death….and I don't own that guy either.
A/N: I love the Gleeks, so I hate to do this to them…but I love Halloween! Happy October, everyone! Not everyone will die, but NO ONE is safe. Reader, beware.
A/N2: Special thanks to itsfreakingworthit for being my beta and making the awesome poster for this fic, which you can find a link to on my profile!
Chapter One
Graduation was around the corner. Finally. Kurt could say goodbye to crappy Lima with its homophobia and small town fashion sense, shunning everything within it except for the three shining exceptions that made life in Ohio livable for the time being. He had his arm weaved through one of them at the moment, and he smiled at Mercedes as they trailed behind the rest of the group on their way to the next exhibit at the Sysco County Zoo.
It was only a four hour drive on a charter bus and as far as senior trips went, the zoo was kind of lame, but it was the best little McKinley could do on its seriously strained public school budget. Kurt had to admit it was kind of fun. The koalas were so adorable he almost died and Finn had to fan him under the glaring sun until he had his fill and managed to stop squealing over them.
The tall boy was a few paces ahead of them talking to Puck, and his heart leaped. He took some satisfaction at the fact that he truly believed it would never stop doing that at the sight of him. He knew the reality of how often people actually stayed with their high school sweethearts. It was a grim statistic, but under the bright clear afternoon sky he couldn't get himself to believe that anything on earth was strong enough to tear them apart. Finn was exception Numero Uno. Possibly dos. His father really should be uno. A little guiltily, he let them tie in his head. As Finn flashed him a smile over his shoulder, though, the guilt dwindled away forgotten. How could anyone lower that on their list of favorite things?
The zoo was crawling with McKinley students, so he wasn't terribly surprised when Dave Karofsky and Azimio appeared at their side.
"Hey, Hummel," Karofsky smirked at him. "I just saw a monkey jerking off in its cage, and I thought it was you."
Azimio shoved Karofsky's shoulder with appreciative guffaws.
"No," Kurt drawled, utterly bored by his harassment these days. With the end of his sentence in Lima finally drawing to a close, he was ready to forget about these people altogether. "The one throwing shit at your face? That was me."
Karofsky's face darkened and he glared as he stepped closer to Kurt, but Finn was suddenly between them and shoved Karofsky backward before he got close enough to even graze him with his fingertips.
"Get lost, Karofsky." He warned and Kurt waited impatiently a few feet behind them with Mercedes as the boys sorted out the size of their jockstraps and determined whether the issue needed to escalate.
Puck stepped over to Finn's side. "Yeah, scram, before we throw you back in with the hippos. Those lazy bastards make you homesick, Karofsky?"
Karofsky hesitated and Mercedes raised her eyebrows stoutly. "Boy, you best be moving on or you'll be dealing with homeboy, Puckerman, and my diva ass. You get me?"
Kurt's lips twitched, but he repressed his smile. Yep, Mercedes was definitely top three.
"Whatever." Karofsky shoved Finn back to even the score board and turned with Azimio to walk ahead of them toward the arrow sign pointing ahead toward the aquariums.
Kurt yawned. He was so over it. Finn seemed to catch his pointed expression of disinterest because he didn't fuss afterward. They were on their senior class trip, and today was supposed to be about having fun and getting hyped for graduation in a few weeks. There was no room for mooning over Karofsky's ignorance. That guy would either get his act together one day or he wouldn't. It wasn't Kurt's problem.
Resuming his conversation with Puck, Finn grabbed Kurt's hand and they continued walking. The new aquarium had been the only part of the zoo that Kurt had looked forward to, so if Karofsky and company decided to piss all over his experience he was going to blow a gasket. As they drew closer to the line though his worries dissipated. Two of the chaperones on the trip, and probably the only two Kurt trusted to put an immediate stop to any Karofsky-isms, would be there with the other gleeks.
Finally after crossing the last of the uphill dirt path they made it to the cylindrical dome where a zoo employee in tan shorts and a tragic collared polo was counting people off at the door.
"Welcome to the Sysco County Zoo. I hope you enjoy our new exhibit." The pretty co-ed smiled brightly at their group, and Kurt decided to forgive her for the ugly uniform. Her makeup was gorgeous, and she probably had much better taste off the clock.
"Thanks." Puck winked at her as she opened the door for them and managed to make the one word sound like a position in the Kama Sutra. As soon as they stepped inside, though, he spotted his girlfriend ahead in the line and cupped his hands over his mouth. "Get back here, sugar momma!"
Lauren gave Tina a look but left her and Mike to amble back towards her boyfriend. It was pushing ninety-eight degrees outside and the sudden rush of air conditioning inside the long waiting terminal was refreshing. The floor was a ten foot wide bridge designed to make it seem like it had more give than it actually did. The reinforced panels sunk with their steps minutely, enough to add a slight thrill to the glass walls that encased the long bridge walkway to the actual door to the aquarium. The ceiling was domed and metallic creating a tunnel ambience.
Mr. Schuester was laughing and standing in Ms. Pillsbury's personal space, forcing Kurt's slightly grossed out mind to wonder if his Glee coach had managed to hit that yet. The guidance counselor giggled and shied her eyes away from Schuester, and Kurt figured not. She still wore gloves and scrubbed her grapes at lunch. Maneuvering past that kind of brain barrier had to be tricky, but when his mind started to go in the gutter he forced his thoughts off the teachers altogether. Because, ew.
For the most part everyone had scattered and done their own thing for the day, but the Glee Club had decided ahead of time to gather at 1:15 and check out the new exhibit together. Kurt's foursome was right on time it seemed. There were only a few people ahead of them to separate them from their group, including a middle aged couple and the jockholes themselves. It didn't matter much though. As long as they were let inside in the same group they were free to mingle and move around as they pleased. He counted heads.
The rest of the Glee Club was already there outside the door to the actual aquarium waiting for the attendant next to it to start allowing a new group inside.
"Ooh hell no!" Mercedes was holding onto the metal railing twined with tan frazzled rope that ran along the sides of the bridge, looking out through the glass. Kurt removed his Calvin Klein heavy black rimmed sunglasses and tucked a leg securely into the pocket of his tight white jeans, joining her.
"Hell no, indeed." He concurred.
Thirty feet below the bridge, swampy water was full of slow moving alligators. Their long scaled tails cut above the water and striking dark eyes rose above the surface as they swam and rested. Kurt eyed them with apprehension. Setting the closed-in bridge to the aquariums over an alligator marsh certainly created a nice little fear box for the people waiting to go in. He wondered who designed it and whether they were crazy or a genius. Fear sells after all. Six Flags wasn't lucrative for nothing. People pursued adrenaline rushes like crack. Much healthier, less addictive crack.
"Sweet." Puck stared down at the prehistoric creatures with a smirk.
Lauren eyed them studiously. "You know alligators drown their prey before they eat it? They lock their jaws around the head and twist them around under water until they die. It's called a death roll. It's awesome."
Puck looked at her with some reverence and nodded enthusiastically as he repeated, "Sweet."
Kurt couldn't deny they had a certain power in their nature, but he would be much happier when they were allowed off the bridge and into the aquariums. Whales. Dolphins. Those were majestic and pretty. And he was fairly certain Free Willy and Flipper never death rolled anyone.
Finn eyed them dubiously. "How much do they eat?"
Lauren frowned. "I'm not sure. But a lion can eat upwards of eighty pounds in a single meal."
"Whoa." Puck looked away from the animals below them in awe. "That's like a whole Rachel."
"Eighty pounds per meal." Kurt looked over at Finn wryly. "They're the Finns of the animal kingdom."
Finn looked sheepish but didn't deny it. He ate like others breathed, all the time with little pause. The tall boy looked at Lauren curiously.
"So are you going to be like a zoo…keeper…ologist, or something?" He asked.
The girl shook her head. "Nah. Just watch a lot of Animal Planet. Animals are gnarly. They eat, sleep, mate and kill each other. Like us, but they don't philosophize to make it more than it is."
Kurt raised his chin slightly and shared a look with Mercedes. Lauren clearly was not a patriot to her own species. Still…kind of true.
Up ahead of them Brittany was leaning her nose as close to the glass as possible and asked Santana idly, "Can alligators marry crocodiles or is that illegal?"
"I don't know." Santana shrugged. "Alligators probably mate with other alligators."
Brittany looked at her sadly. "Gay marriages aren't allowed yet, Santana. All alligators are girls and all crocodiles are boys. Everyone knows that."
Finn was listening and absorbing that too, so Kurt shook his head at him to dismiss the falsehood before it sunk in too deep. As he allowed his attention to wander, Finn came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his stomach drawing him closer. Kurt relaxed against him, content beyond reason. It was crazy to him that two years into dating Finn, the quarterback could still make him feel as warm as a trim cut Giorgio Armani parka.
"You having fun?" Finn asked into his ear, and even if he hadn't been, with Finn's lips so close to him in that moment he would have said yes.
Before he could answer, there was a camera in his face with the red recording light on. Jacob, the most obnoxious and actively annoying student at McKinley High, took a step back to widen the shot and looked at the picture in the small preview screen. As always, he was neither wanted nor welcome.
"Finn, word in the front office is that you're going to state school next year while Kurt's off to Parsons." He began interviewing them despite Kurt's clear frown. "Does this mean that McKinley's premiere gay couple is calling it quits?"
"Go away, Jacob," Kurt hissed at the same time Finn said, "No."
Going to different schools with miles and miles and miles between them was a touchy subject, and Jacob with his big fro and nosy questions wasn't going to ruin Kurt's day. He stepped away from Finn and raised his finger to him testily.
"Unless you want that camera in a gator pit you better wave it at someone else." He warned.
Jacob hesitated until Lauren took a step toward him, and he scurried off to the back of the line. Kurt raised an eyebrow of appreciation toward the formidable girl, and she nodded. A leap of excitement pulsed through Kurt as he noticed the attendant mutter some dorky zoo attendant lingo into his walkie-talkie and get confirmation that the group ahead of them had passed through the exit on the other side. She opened the door for them to begin filing in, and Kurt bounced on his heels. Finn grinned at him knowingly.
Since they got word of their trip Kurt had talked endlessly-and with much too much vigor-about the shiny new aquarium exhibit they just opened. It was high-end business for Ohio and took a lot of fundraising and state help to get it built. It sounded expensive and extravagant and Kurt was thrilled to be there only three weeks after it opened. The zoo was still crawling with tourists because of it, but that was actually kind of fun. One of Finn's new favorite things was photo bombing, where he jumped in the background when someone was taking a picture and made a stupid face to ruin it, so the tourist packed zoo had kept him and Puck entertained for most of the morning.
"Be careful in there, Hummel." Azimio leaned back to sneer. "I hear sharks can smell queers."
Kurt glowered, but his snappy retort was cut off as Schue appeared in a surprisingly helpful intervention. Honestly, sometimes Kurt wondered if Schue purposefully looked the other way when he was being harassed by McKinley's bottom rung.
"These two are going with the next group." He told the attendant and pointed to Karofsky and Azimio. The jocks instantly sobered and glared.
Jacob scooted forward, recording Schuester and commentating. "McKinley's sexually ambiguous Mr. Schuester once again favoring his Glee Club over others. Perhaps hoping to create friendships among his students to compensate for a lack of healthy adult companions. It raises the question, does nepotism better serve the favored or the one doing the favoring?"
Schue stared at him with his mouth slightly open and glanced back at the attendant. "Him too."
With a grin and no shortage of satisfaction, Kurt maneuver past the rebuffed students with his friends and joined the other gleeks as they walked over the loose feeling floor and through the door ahead.
It opened into a dark staircase that descended a full story down to enter the underground aquarium. Shimmering blue light filtered over the white lights built into the steps for guidance and the door above them closed as the attendant waited for the next group to gather. Kurt showed Finn and Mercedes pictures he got off the internet, but it still didn't prepare him for the breathtaking reality.
As they stepped down into the exhibit, one by one breaths hitched and whispers escaped surprised mouths. Kurt's eyes lit brightly and his mouth curved up in a gratified smile.
Beside him, Finn looked up, eyes growing. "Whoa."
Except for a strip of solid silver paneling that ran in a fifteen foot line across the rounded ceiling, the walls on both sides arched up surrounding the room in full glass. Kurt thought briefly that this must be what it was like to be inside a snow globe. Only it was a really beautiful snow globe. The temperature down there was at least a dozen degrees lower than the air conditioned bridge terminal above. It raised instant goose bumps to his skin, but that also might have been because of the sheer majesty in his surroundings.
It opened into the biggest attraction. Sharks. Beautiful, powerful, terrifying Great Whites swam around the manmade habitat as at home as they would have been in the ocean. With Santana's hands over her eyes, Brittany and her bestie walked straight through the shark aquarium and pulled the door open at the end of the long tunnel to enter the next one where less threatening swimmers would be showcased. There was a huge circular window in the wall between the shark terminal and the next one, so he could see Brittany clearly as she looked up and saw something much more her speed and began bouncing on her heels.
Mike began dancing around Tina and set his hand up on the back of his neck in the dorkiest impersonation of a shark before making his best underwater monster face and bumping into her. Tina shoved him away, making a face at his antics that was bellied by her amusement before moving out the way Brittany and Santana had. Mike kept his hand/fin on his neck and zoomed after her, biting at her neck until she swatted him and disappeared through the door.
"Creepy." Mercedes had her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at a shark swimming alongside the glass wall at eye level. She took a couple steps back.
Finn stepped closer. "I think they're kinda…totally awesome."
Kurt agreed with both of them. The closest shark was at least fifteen feet long and clearly one solid muscle of intense natural prowess against other species. While it was definitely unnerving, it was also rather humbling. Nature at its strongest.
Looking out the other wall, Rachel stood close to Mr. Schuester and though her voice was lower than usual Kurt could clearly make out the words 'Little Mermaid', 'mash-up', and 'Nationals'. He snorted. Leave it to Rachel to be staring at something incredible and still find a way to bring it back to show choir. Kurt really didn't see them singing 'Under the Sea' at Nationals next week, but now that song and the singing lobster were stuck in his head.
Artie was rolled up down the same side as Rachel looking up at the swimming sharks in wonder. He poked Sam. "If I were an animal, I would definitely be a shark." He decided.
Sam crooked his eyebrow. "Dude, we're gleeks. We'd be the fish the sharks eat."
Artie frowned, and nearby Quinn and Ms. Pillsbury shared a guilty look of agreement.
Beyond the nearest shark, a black steel cage was being lowered into the water on a crank, and Kurt gathered that it was feeding time. A man in black scuba gear, flippers, goggles, and air tank strapped to his back held onto one of the bars as the cage descended. There was a giant chest in the cage that was built into the bottom to keep from floating around once it was submerged and a long silver pole in the man's free hand. Now there was a job Kurt would sooner die than accept. There was also a good chance he would die if he did accept, considering he couldn't swim.
"Dude, he's gonna feed 'em!" Puck slapped Finn's arm and he obligingly swung his attention in the other direction.
A chill swept through Kurt, giving him an odd sense of déjà vu. It must have been the internet pictures he already saw of the place. It was playing tricks with his head. He stepped up to Finn's side and wove his arm through his silently.
The heavy black chain lowering the cage suddenly stopped and the cage jerked awkwardly. The man in scuba gear jostled against the bars and looked up as though confused. The air mask on his face hid any readable expression from view, but he swam up to the ceiling of the 12'-by-6' cage and looked around. Kurt stepped up close to the glass, releasing Finn as he was out of reach, and tried to get a better look.
The chain looked tight and taut, and he realized that the cage wasn't supposed to stop descending so soon. The crank must have stopped. After hesitating a moment, the man went back down and over to the chest, pulling the top open. He grabbed the pole and stabbed it through a package, lifting it up and shedding the cover off before poking it through the bars. A bloody chunk of something that made Kurt's stomach turn sent pink ripples in the water and in no time two sharks swam up and bit at it.
Puck pointed excitedly. "Dude, look at those hungry bastards. Probably love to get ahold of you. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Gigantor."
Kurt looked back at Finn who frowned at the comment and took a small step away from the glass. Mercedes laughed at his show of cowardice and went up next to Kurt, suddenly emboldened, as though their moods transferred to each other.
After a couple more packets of fish guts or whatever disgusting thing it was, the cage shook and rose slightly. The shark feeder looked up with the pole in his hands. His flippers swished in the water as he kicked, and Kurt followed his eye line back up to the chain. Without warning, the chain suddenly became slack and rolled down loosely as though the crank began rapidly spitting it out. The cage floated downward, but all at once the thick chain reversed, recoiling upward and snapped the cage up as it tensed. One wall of bars smacked into the scuba diver as it plowed suddenly upward, swinging to the side after the abrupt jerk.
Kurt flinched and immediately backed up with Mercedes. Quinn gasped looking over her shoulder, and the others looking out the opposite wall turned to see what was going on. The cage popped against the glass wall and everyone standing along it took stumbling steps back. The cage slammed up and caught on something out of their sight behind the steel strip of ceiling.
"Oh shit!" Puck exclaimed.
The sharks continued to circle the area where the fish had been poked out for them, but as the lid to the chest floated open and the packages came out they seemed to smell it in the water and swam close to the wall in anticipation of being fed. The cage zoomed up some more, and everyone looked skyward as it came to another abrupt halt. A resounding thud echoed through the tunnel. Kurt craned his neck and saw that it was now sitting directly on top of the steel ceiling, one corner hanging over onto the glass, the hanging edge grinding upward but unable to move off the ceiling as though the cage was caught on something that was forcing it in place. A pipe maybe or a piece of the steel ceiling.
"Oh my God!" Tina shouted panicked from the next room in the terminal and the screams of the others stabbed through Kurt like an iced machete. He jerked his head in the direction of the huge circular window/wall between rooms and saw the goth girl stumble backward and trip.
A crack in the glass created a thick lightning bolt of white as it cut down the wall and in an instant split the barrier between the terminal and aquarium open. A stunning ten foot hole blew inward, suctioning water into the underground tunnel. A huge spear of glass shot directly down into Santana's back and knocked her to the floor as the water poured in. Brittany lost her footing in the rush of water at her feet and fell back over Santana, head popping the floor and body going limp. Before Kurt could take a second breath the aquarium on the other side crumbled, cracking rapidly and bursting. The instant onslaught of hundreds of tons of water collided with Tina and Mike and forced them back in a powerful wave. They plowed into the circular window almost simultaneously, their heads pounding the glass and splattering thick red blood across the transparent surface.
"Mike! Tina!" Schue yelled in horror and lurched forward, grabbing the handle on the door. Kurt's heart leapt into his throat in a panic seeing the mistake in Schuester's desperate move to help. Water was already flooding through the bottom crack in the door in a rapid stream and as soon as he tugged it open the swell of water crashed through the opening. A long square of heavy reinforced glass rode the intense pressure of the flood and drove itself straight through the teacher's chest and out the other side.
Rachel's scream was so piercing it jolted Kurt from his state of frozen horror. Digging his nails into Finn's wrist, he reached for Mercedes blindly and began stumbling clumsily backward toward the staircase. The water splashed the floor in a rampant flood of speed, and they fell screaming a dozen feet from the bottom step.
As they went down, the room around Kurt seemed to explode. As though a giant swung its hammer into either side of the aquarium, the walls blew in spewing glass everywhere and pumping in thousands of gallons of water in a tidal wave of pressure. Kurt choked and desperately reached for a buoy as the water level rose too quickly for him to track. The water stung his eyes and he blinked quickly against it.
"Finn!" He screamed as the water surged and pushed him under. His arms outstretched in terror, reaching for help or hope or reality. His mind was spinning in shocked disbelief, unable to grasp the circumstances around him. As he sunk farther and reached for nothing and anything, he was met with a sudden reality check. Two body lengths away, a Great White pulled back its jaws and surged forward. Kurt screamed and the air expelled into the water releasing a stream of soundless bubbles.
Two hands roughly grabbed his arm and yanked. He pulled out of the way and his head abruptly broke the surface. He gasped for air and spun in Finn's arms, twisting to look for the shark. With him out of the path, it continued in a beeline for the next closest and before Kurt could so much as shout a warning the shark slammed its jaws around Sam and expelled a swell of misty pink water around the wound.
"Hold on! Kurt!" Finn shook him and the violent jolt cut short a stream of screams that Kurt hadn't known he was releasing. Finn was kicking in the disorienting terminal, swimming hard against the push of the water still flowing in on both sides. Kurt fumbled with shaking hands but rearranged himself at his side and clutched his shoulders so hard his fingers ached. Finn struggled as hard as he could but the undertow was too powerful and sucked them under again. They were forced back and Kurt lost some of his hold.
His body bumped something solid and he screamed soundlessly into the water again as he turned to see a shark but found himself met with Artie's lifeless body instead. He was out of his chair and floating limply with his eyes pink and open. Kurt snaked his arms around Finn's neck, head spinning in every direction. The cold water pulsed against his vision but he refused to blink. Behind them Ms. Pillsbury was stuck in the circular windowsill, impaled on a jagged edge of glass still sticking in the giant pane. The blood pouring from her abdomen was permeating the water. Mercedes was kicking nearby trying to fight the current and push away from the wall beside the broken window, but the bloody water was swirling around her legs. The lack of oxygen mixed with his sudden sickened panic and blotted out his vision in spurts of white. Thick grey fins cut through the water like razor blades and Mercedes' eyes had time to grow before three sharks drove their teeth into her limbs and began to fight for their share.
Kurt had no air left to scream and the result was choking in water through his mouth and nose as he reacted to the horrible scene of his best friend being torn apart. The white spots in his eyes blackened and he felt horribly light and overwrought with too many impulses at once. He clenched his eyes shut against the sight and began to jerk uncontrollably. Air! He needed air!
And suddenly they were moving. His arms instantly clasped tighter around Finn, and they were back at the surface. His lungs were burning from the water he inhaled and he coughed hard against it, sputtering and spitting it out. The water was much higher now. Only a few feet separated them from the ceiling.
"Finn! Come on, man! Hurry the fuck up!" Puck was halfway up the stairs in the narrow enclosed stairwell, knees deep in water, waving his friend on manically. Farther up, Lauren was soaked and struggling to get herself up the stairs.
Without warning, Kurt abruptly felt them being pulled downward and after a shocked moment of not understanding, pain like he never experienced ripped up his legs. He looked down and the air left him instantly. A shark was biting down on both his legs and one of Finn's, binding them together between his lethally sharp rows of teeth. Kurt's heart went into overdrive, beating so hard against his ribcage it felt like it was breaking. The nerves in his legs were sending so many panicked signals to his brain that he was close to blacking out again.
One of Finn's legs was free and he twisted in the shark's mouth pounding it down onto its head. Its jaws didn't so much as loosen, and Finn kicked again. Twice more and the heel of his sneaker popped into the shark's eye. At first it only twitched, but when Finn kicked it twice over the burst socket the shark shook them in its mouth and released. Kurt pulled his bitten, bleeding legs away, feeling the deep cuts stretch from his calves all the way up to his thighs from its massive bite.
Puck was suddenly in the water with them, reaching for Finn, but the shark had struck again and this time its bite only latched around Finn. Its teeth sunk into his shoulder and neck and he jerked him around with such incredible force Finn's head wagged over his neck roughly and Kurt's bloated eardrums filled with the contained sound of a large underwater snap. Finn's kicks instantly stopped, and he was thrust weightlessly in the shark's ferocious attack.
Kurt sunk farther down, body so raked with pain and mind in such a blinding state of shock that he didn't fight as he descended. Numbly, Kurt absorbed Rachel swimming frantically a dozen feet away from him, but as a fresh current swept below her she was forced several feet back and jerked as she slammed backward over a piece of glass jutting out from the aquarium wall. Beside her, Quinn released a long silent scream but there was no air in it. Eyes bulging she tugged at her skirt. She was stuck and wiggling desperately to free herself, but the efforts were weak and with a look of shock her muscles finally relaxed and she floated sightlessly beside Rachel's impaled body.
Kurt's own body was beginning to accept defeat, but once again someone was tugging at one of his arms and pulling him up. He swung his eyes over to Puck, kicking furiously under the water for the staircase. The spots had returned to Kurt's vision, and he succumbed to them momentarily before feeling solid ground under him. Lauren smacked him across the face, and he came right back to the horror around him. His nostrils were on fire and his throat felt like someone jammed a toothbrush coated with acid down the length of it.
Puck was throwing him on his feet, and he realized he was out of the water. He looked over his shoulder as he was shoved up and saw the room filled with water only a few feet down. A long fin jutted out of the surface over the bottom of the staircase alcove as a looming mass swam off in the other direction. He turned back around and stumbled on into the chaos above.
The door was wide open and the attendant was staring down screaming into her walkie-talkie at an earsplitting pitch while people on the bridge were gathered around the doorway peering down into the gloomy blue lit flooded aquarium in horror and stunned disbelief.
Lauren pushed past Karofsky, Azimio and Jacob and onto the bridge walkway. Puck shoved Kurt forward onto the plank and they were only a few steps out when a loud groan reverberated in the domed passage. The groan turned into a roar as the floor beneath them shifted and dropped significantly as the roped railings slanted downward with a metallic creak. Kurt was barely on his feet as it was, when the cacophony of panic erupted around him, he barely had time to reach for the nearest railing before the floor shifted again. The metal railing broke free of the wall, snapping down and with a deafening split, the wooden panels lost their foundation and grew loose, creating a big gap between the glass walls and floor. Kurt held onto the railing, barely able to scrape his feet along the bridge to help hold himself up.
All along the packed bridge, people not gripping the railing fell to the loose floorboards, and in a moment of white hot clarity amidst his utter amazement Kurt realized that it wasn't going to hold. The door that opened to the safety of the high ground on the other side of the terminal was pulled open by the nearest person. Kurt caught sight of the girl who worked the entrance earlier, up close to the aquarium's direct entrance having obviously moved in to talk to her co-worker when the commotion downstairs began.
Several people at the far end were able to hold on and pull themselves up and through the door, including five kids and what appeared to be their desperate mother. The bridge sagged again and as a heavyset man a few feet away from him fell hard upon it, it gave way. The ropes between the panels snapped and the bridge fell away, swinging down and slapping the sides of the solid walls on either side. Lauren fell between blinks. Kurt almost missed it as she swept downward to the alligator pit thirty feet below. He gripped the railing harder, muscles protesting his desperate clench.
"Lauren!" Puck yelled, holding onto the rail on the opposite side and looking down, face sick with shock.
Kurt looked down and saw the hard, scaled backs of the alligators as they moved over the water, snapping at each other. The high pitched screams of women and the gruffer ones of men were coming at him from all sides as one by one they lost their grip or slipped. They landed hard on the ground below with a heavy crushed sound that Kurt would never forget. As the second adolescent girl let go of the rail and shrieked all the way down, Kurt squeezed his eyes shut and shook so roughly it felt like he was vibrating from the inside out.
Puck grunted and squirmed, but he only had one hand wrapped around a piece of loose rope and didn't have any claim on the actual railing. His fingers clenched and his arm shook, but the stress was too much and in a silent release he kicked downward and landed smack over several quarrelling alligators. Kurt forced his eyes away and had a startling moment of self-awareness. In a shockingly short time he lost nearly everyone he had in the entire world. Almost everyone he loved and everyone who loved him. He looked toward the door at the end of the terminal, only twenty feet away but much too far to reach, and realized he wasn't going to get there.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt saw a flash of silver move as a video camera fell and looked over in time to see Jacob straining. One of his wrists was tangled in the rope along the rail, burning his skin and turning his hand purple. He screamed against the tight hold and dangled from the bridge by it. Azimio reached desperately for Karofsky as the railing slipped from one of his hands, and when the other jock lost his grip they clawed at the bridge, clumsy hands gripping a lower rung.
Kurt hung there, palms burning against the ropes, legs aching and pulsing, bleeding and burning from the deep bites torn into his muscles. Hot tears poured down the corners of his pink rimmed, stinging eyes, and his muscles quit. Fear like he never felt it clawed through his every sense and electrified his every nerve. His hands fell away from the roped railing and he freefell through the air toward the alligator marsh below-
Kurt gasped and stumbled backward, feet suddenly back on solid ground. He flinched hard and began to shake as he flipped his head back and forth. He was back on the bridge. The bridge was perfectly in place, only a slight normal give under his feet. The railings were attached, and the sun shined innocently through the glass walls guarding the terminal. McKinley students were loitering around preparing to go in now that the attendant had opened the door to go down to the aquarium.
"It raises the question," Jacob was saying as he filmed Mr. Schuester, his unruly fro sticking out all around his head in a frizzy mess. "Does nepotism better serve the favored or the one doing the favoring?"
Schue stared at him with his mouth slightly open and glanced back at the attendant. "Him too."
At that point Kurt was shaking so hard he felt like he might scoot right out of his body. Beside him, Finn put an arm on his closest shoulder and looked down at him concerned.
"Kurt? You okay?"
Up ahead, Tina and Mike were preparing to go down, grabbing onto either side of Artie's chair to assist him down the stairs. A switch in Kurt flipped, because whatever was going on-whatever was happening-he knew all the way down to his bones that it was real. He could still feel the cool wash of water dragging him under and the intensely excruciating agony of being attacked by a shark. His friends were alive. Somehow. By some miracle. They were alive, and they could not go down there.
"Stop!" He shouted at Tina and Mike, wincing at the memory of them slamming into the window like cheap toys being thrown against a block of pavement. "Don't!"
Finn was the closest so he flinched the hardest at his side, but several others jerked or gasped in surprise at his sudden outburst as well.
"No! No! No! No!" Kurt pushed his way forward and grabbed Tina's arm rougher than his frazzled mind could prevent. He yanked on her hard and she stumbled back, dropping her side of Artie's chair and making it bounce awkwardly back to the floor of the bridge. She cried out in protest, and Mike was instantly there, surprise on his face as he grabbed Kurt's arm and forced it off Tina, shoving him backward and moving in front of his girlfriend.
"Kurt!" Mercedes looked taken aback and Finn weaved past Puck, Lauren and Ms. Pillsbury to get to him.
Kurt paid them no attention. "You can't go down there!" He insisted, eyes growing urgently. He reached for Tina again. Mike made a confused but determined face as he blocked him, and Finn wrapped his arms around his shoulders, hauling him back should Mike feel the need to use force again.
"You'll die if you go down there!" Kurt shouted, jittering against Finn whose eyes jumped to the size of saucers at that exclamation. Mike's jaw dropped and Tina gaped at him as though he had grown a second head.
"Kurt, what's going on?" Schuester asked, stepping forward.
Ms. Pillsbury shadowed him. She wasn't very good at hiding the disconcerted look of bewilderment on her face as she tried to handle the situation. "Kurt, do you want to step outside and talk about what you're feeling?"
"The aquarium!" He insisted, twisting free of Finn's grip and staring at the others imploringly. "It breaks! I don't know how it happens! I don't know, but it breaks and then the bridge falls apart and everybody dies!"
Brittany stiffened and screamed, turning instantly and running back down the bridge toward the exit. Santana scoffed, turning a glare on Kurt with a bitchy look of incredulity.
"Thanks a lot, Buzzkill Barbie." She snapped and trotted off after Brittany in her yellow shorty shorts, ponytail swinging behind her.
"Kurt, did you take something?" Mr. Schue purposefully lowered his voice and stared at him critically.
"Of course not!" Finn answered for him indignantly, and then wavered looking down at Kurt with trepidation. "…Did you?"
"Listen to me!" Kurt tried desperately. "No! Wait!" He screamed at his friends as Mike beckoned Sam over to help him out with Artie's wheelchair.
"You're trippin' yo." Artie shook his head at Kurt. "I did not wait in line for twenty minutes to have to go back out in the blazing heat. Gentlemen." He raised his hands in invitation and Sam and Mike obligingly picked up either side of his chair.
"Sorry, Kurt." Tina offered sympathetically before turning and following them down the first few steps.
"Guys!" Schue called out to them, but Ms. Pillsbury held up a hand helpfully.
"I'll go down with them. We'll meet back around the front." The guidance counselor offered. "Anyone else?"
"Yeah, we'll go with this group." Karofsky moved toward Kurt mockingly as he walked to the front with Azimio on his heel. He leaned in close to Kurt. "Since the queer's gone psycho."
Finn's arm flew out and shoved Karofsky in the chest forcing him back. Karofsky reacted immediately, shoving Finn back with both arms. As Azimio stepped forward, Puck pushed past Jacob, who was recording the whole thing with happy jazzed eyes, and launched himself at the other jock. Karofsky shoved Finn again, and Puck drew his arm back and punched him square in the face. Finn stumbled into Kurt making him trip backward into the opposite guard rail. Azimio grabbed Puck by the collar and twisted as he threw him back into the glass wall.
The bridge shifted minutely under their feet, and as Puck popped into the glass, his arm flew out wide, elbow catching Rachel in the face. She fell down in surprise and Quinn gasped, kneeling beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she brought her back to her feet. Rachel's lip was bleeding and her eyes were round in surprise as Mercedes went to her other side and wrapped an arm around her waist. Quinn raised her other arm as a guard and they began guiding her past the scuffling boys back the way they came.
"Out! All of you!" Schuester shouted at them, stepping between the boys and having to push Puck in the chest when he started for Azimio for screwing his face up at him over Schue's shoulder. "Now!" He threw an apologetic look at the zoo attendant and began forcing them all out.
He grabbed Kurt by the arm and pulled him along, but Kurt struggled against him.
"You have to listen to me! You have to listen to me!" Kurt tried to break free of the teacher, but he tightened his grip and called to Finn. As Finn came back and grabbed Kurt's other side to help haul him out Kurt descended into tears.
Lauren waved at Puck as he neared the door on the other side. "See you on the outside, babe." She called with a smirk before following Ms. Pillsbury down the stairs.
Kurt gulped for air desperately. "I saw it! The crank on the feeding cage breaks-everyone dies! Please don't let them go down there!"
Finn's face was soft and strained as he stared down at him helplessly, not knowing what to do. They successfully pulled him out of the terminal and the sun swept over the goose bumps on Kurt's arms and warmed his skin despite the growing cold around his heart. By the time they were safely away from the attention of the attendant by the outside door, Kurt was crying so hard he could barely stand upright. Finn stepped back and swatted at Jacob's camera as he brought it right into Kurt's face, but Schue held onto him as he tried to run back to the aquarium shouting with manic urgency to get them out.
Jacob stepped out of reach of Finn but kept recording, "You saw it here first, folks. Calm and Collected Kurt has morphed before our eyes into Crazy Coo-coo Kurt. They're going to have to check his robes at graduation."
Puck reached over and shoved Jacob with much more force than Finn had, aiming for his arm instead of the camera and successfully ramming him several feet away.
"Dude, what's up with your boy?" Puck was staring at Kurt as though he might combust at any moment. Finn didn't answer, watching Kurt closely with his hands extended somewhat as though he wanted to touch him but wasn't sure how smart it was.
"Listen to me!" Kurt shouted in Schue's face, and then abruptly they didn't need to.
Screams started wafting out from the bridge terminal. The attendant outside heard them at the same time and stopped staring over at Kurt to pull the door open and look inside. The screams grew in volume and intensity, and Kurt knew it was all over. Schue's brow creased and he took off for the door. The others shot Kurt similar looks before running after him. Kurt's legs felt like jelly, but he forced himself to jog through the numbness. He stopped with the others at the door jam and held onto the structure for support as he shouted for the remaining people on the bridge to get off.
"The bridge is going to break! Get off!"
Several people fled without needing further warnings, banging into Puck and Azimio as they ran out. The others at the opposite end were too horrorstruck by what they were peering down at in the corridor below and started off too late. As they ran for the exit, the railing snapped off the side and the bridge gave out beneath them. Swears and shouts joined their terrified cries as they fell through the air hopelessly.
Kurt stumbled backward unsteadily, crossing his arms over his stomach and shaking. As he gulped down and repressed the heavy sobs threatening to consume him, he saw the looks on the girls' faces as they all stared at him. Mercedes stepped away from Rachel and wrapped her arms around Kurt. He shook harder in her embrace and looked over her shoulder at Finn as he slowly turned away from the horrible scene in front of him and looked back at Kurt. Breathlessly, he locked eyes with him until Kurt lost all control, dropped his head to Mercedes' shoulder and wept.