WARNING: If you don't like tragedy or character death, you'd best skip this chapter. Just saying.

Now that that's out of the way…I don't own anything (still) and I think you'll love this chapter. Note that this is unrelated to the previous chapters. It takes place right after the battle with Apophis, where Carter…well, you'll see.

Enjoy :)

O-o-O

Hey now, all you sinners,

Put your lights on, put your lights on,

Hey now, all you lovers,

Put your lights on, put your lights on,

Hey now, all you killers,

Put your lights on, put your lights on,

Hey now, all you children,

Leave your lights on, leave your lights on…

A thousand little lights filled the hallway. They danced on the ends of their own candles but could not fill the darkness, nor could they chase the shadows away. The space that was not occupied by light was filled with sounds, whispered from a thousand urgent mouths. Everyone knew the story: the hero was in the healing room, balanced on a knife's edge between life and death, with his sanity slipping away like water held in cupped hands.

Some voices said that he was dying, even now. Others argued that he was just under the surface, ready to wake up. Most said he was trapped in the iron grip of Apophis' spirit.

No one disputed the last one.

There's a monster living under my bed

Whispering in my ear…

Carter was trapped.

He could feel the scaly coils wrapping around him, pulling him down, down into the endless abyss. Trapped, suffocating, sinking in the dark. He thrashed and struggled, trying to resurface, but the light had vanished a long time ago.

[Serve me, the voice says. Bow to me. He refuses. The chords pull tighter.] He can't break free this time.

There's an angel with a hand on my head,

She says I have nothing to fear…

Zia refused to leave Carter's side. She knelt by his bed with her own candle burning on the nightstand, casting a weak glow on his fevered face. Her hand stroked his sweaty forehead and ran through his hair, and occasionally brushed Sadie's, which was resting on his chest while she whispered his secret name over and over again. Zia knew it now, and she called to him.

"Come back to me, Brave One," she pleaded. "Come back. You are safe now. You need to come back." Tears spilled over from her eyes and splashed onto the sheet. "Come back to Sadie. Come back to me." She closed her eyes and bent so that her lips brushed his ear. "Come home." [Because this is their home now, but it's not home without him.] "Please, come home."

There's a darkness deep in my soul,

I still got a purpose to serve,

So let your lights shine

Into my home

God, don't let me lose my nerve…

He could see them. He could not reach them.

He was trapped in a black room, and he could see them all: Zia, Sadie, Walt, Bast, Bes. They were so close, but when he reached out his fingers hit a sheet of glass. He pounded against it, yelling for help, and they stared back at him with expressionless faces. Indifferent. They did nothing to help him. [They do not care for you, the voice hisses. They are happy to watch you die.]

On the other side, there was light. They blocked it. He screamed and sobbed and pounded on the glass with bloody hands, tears pouring down his face, and the trails of his blood making lines of desperation and loneliness. He sank to his knees and a trapdoor opened beneath him, leaving two identical clawing lines on the glass splattered with a gore-painted HELP ME.

He plummeted, and far above the glass shattered.

Hey now, all you sinners,

Put your lights on, put your lights on,

Hey now, all you children,

Leave your lights on, better leave your lights on…

Walt knelt beside the door, a tall white candle clutched firmly in his hand. He did not notice the hot wax streaming over his fingers, burning them. His thoughts were with the girls on the other side of the wooden door, with Carter. [His friend is slipping, he knows it. They can't save him.]

The crowd had stopped whispering a long time ago. There was nothing left to say. They waited for some sign, a sign of whether the battle was won or lost. Some people rubbed charms around their necks, others scratched hieroglyphs on the dust-covered floor. Walt waited. He listened to the sounds of a silent war in the next room.

There's a monster living under my bed,

Whispering in my ear,

There's an angel with a hand on my head,

She says I have nothing to fear…

Zia could feel him die.

A cold breeze swept through the room, making the candles gutter, and a few blew out. His chest stopped rising and falling. His pulse stopped beating in his wrist. [It feels like a part of her has died, the part that let her drag through the endless days.]

Sadie raised her head and wiped her red eyes. "We couldn't save him."

Zia pulled Sadie to her feet, reaching across the bed. As she pulled her hand back, she slowly pulled the sheet up so that it covered Carter's face.

She held Sadie as the younger girl started to sob, and led her outside the empty room.

You shine like stars

And fade away…

The door creaked open, and every face in the hallway turned up in cautious hope. Walt examined the girls' faces as they stepped out, with Sadie staggering on Zia's arm, terrible ripping noises coming from her chest as she sobbed.

Walt stared at Zia, asking a silent question. She looked down and shook her head. He hadn't made it. [And the world is ripped out from under his feet, because Carter is—was—his mentor, his brother, his friend. Now he is gone.]

The girls vanished around the corner, and no one wanted to follow them. They could hear Sadie's screams of agony echoing through the halls.

Walt stood up and slipped inside the open door. The healing room seemed dreary, with blank walls and a single bed, containing nothing but a lifeless lump covered in a pristine white sheet. There were two candles on the nightstand, one a shimmering white and the other a dark red. Sadie and Zia's candles. They had both blown out. Walt relit them both with his own tiny flame and left his candle on the table, keeping vigil over Carter's empty shell.

He turned and found Chief Lector Amos standing in the doorway, staring at Carter's body with an expression of horror, though he did not know who was under the sheet. "Who…" he whispered, as if he didn't want to know the answer. Walt just shook his head and brushed past him into the hallway.

He found Sadie and Zia in an alcove a few corridors away, curled up as though they were trying not to fall apart. Sadie was resting her head on Zia's chest, sobbing and screaming. Zia had buried her face in Sadie's hair, and there was a horrible, broken noise coming from her chest, like her pain was clawing its way into the open.

Walt sank onto the floor beside them, placing a hand on Zia's back. She looked over and rested her head on his shoulder, and then Sadie wrapped an arm around him, and suddenly they were clinging to each other, and Walt could feel his torso ripping apart while he choked on his own tears.

And so they held each other as they cried, and together they descended into darkness.

O-o-O

Feel free to yell at me. I know it was awful.

Reviews would be appreciated.