Chapter 14: Nearly Distant
Through the faded portrait and mirrors of the ghostly mansion he called home, Lewis could see everything within his little territory. Be it the Dead Beats humming their little tunes or a wayward fly come to say hello to the dark house, he viewed all like a king overlooking his castle with a sense of quiet pride and watchfulness, a duty to those who were dutiful to him. Though his view was limited to one portal at a time his view from each was more extensive than the average view of a human unless, of course, blocked by one of his singing caregivers. As he rose from slumber today, he glanced lazily through the portals like a dusty deck of cards, pausing to gaze through the eyes of a young lady in the main hall. His ghosts milled about in some sort of confusion with their song sung loud and proud through their tiny mouths; something a little different from what they usually proclaimed, but still familiar in tune.
What had risen him so quickly from his sleep like death? Even if he never ran out of energy due to lack of slumber, he did still enjoy the confines of his coffin enough to rest for hours upon end, often allowing himself the very human experience as a way to pass time along with comfort and ground himself. As he had dreamt the horrific dreams of a phantom in sleep, Lewis had felt in his heart a shot of fear run through his safe haven, his home. There was something amiss in the quiet and calm that he had isolated himself within, something very close to home.
And then he remembered, in a flash of light, the moment he had heard the song of the Dead Beats first and only.
Still within his coffin, Lewis lifted his hands to rub the smoothness of his skull. Once before had they ever repeated the song they sang now with such energy and excitement, only once before had they let their voices ring as clearly as they did now, only once before had his Dead Beats graced the gentle ears of the phantom with a song of honey grace. Back then, they had only hummed the syllable with the restraint of tiny gods, allowing it to drip from their comb lips but only just so. His little orange heart was beating with the rapidness of a scared bunny. Were they really, truly warning him of his beloved's arrival, or were they simply taking a casual and confused stroll down memory lane?
He let his eyes flash through the portals, across portraits and peepholes, searching frantically for a flash of blue among the light and dark purple surrounding him. With every bit of his glass heart he willed her to appear before him, the one he had waited his own eternity for glowing with a mystery as she gazed upon the mansion he had made for her as she was filled with stars and galaxies. He didn't even know how much time had gone by-would she look the same?-but he knew he had to find her, had to speak to her, had to tell her how he truly felt in order to truly feel at peace.
Instead of her bright blue eyes dotted with light and shivering lips muttering secrets, Lewis' eyes through the mirror found the noticeably bright orange of a reflective and puffy vest, mid-fall with arms held above his head and scream resounding through the deep cavern. He flashed by quickly, pitifully wailing and commanding all of Lewis' attention before the phantom could fully absorb the scene in front of him or notice the companions by the ginger's side. The expectations of love within his heart shattered at his feet, replaced with such an enveloping hatred that the young ghost felt his fists clench into tight balls.
Bring him to me.
He could feel the Dead Beats jump eagerly upon his command, so few and far between that they eagerly attempted to serve. Stirring the air around them with control and focus they awakened from their wandering state with eyes wide open. The view from the mirror was willed away in disgust, no longer of use to the vengeful spirit holding his own within the intricate coffin, and Lewis closed his eyes thoughtfully. Had he merely imagined her presence within the home he watched so closely? Since awakening from the oil-thick darkness with which he fell into after death, he had fantasized about both holding Vivi to his beating glass heart and strangling Arthur between his plated hands, but it was clear to him in every sense which one he desired the most: before he was a creature of hate, he had once been an angel of love.
Lewis had been lonely in this state of solitude. The Dead Beats were very good at caring for his every need, but you couldn't play Smash Bros. or talk about your feelings with bedsheets. Much of Lewis' afterlife had been spent cooking mindlessly to maintain his culinary abilities, but without the ability to digest or enjoy food as he once had he grew tired of his endless refrigerator. The time he spent away from the stove he felt was best used within his mind, and with only his thoughts he had let many days pass by with no more than a sideways glance. All that time, the entirety of two years, had been spent visualizing the reunion of his beloved and the murder of the one who had so suddenly taken him from her. With his eyes still closed, Lewis willed his coffin slowly open.
His room spread out before him as he lifted his head and opened his eyes, glancing only briefly at Arthur as he felt his heart of hearts question his dire thoughts. A hand lifted to protectively cup the beating orange symbol between his fingers with the timidity of a shy lover. He had seen this exact moment play out before him so many times before this, he could practically recite every speech he had ever pondered without pause or thought; now, with her still on his mind, he had to question the actions he felt his body so quickly rise to perform.
How would she feel? Arthur had been her best friend many years before she even knew of Lewis' existence: they had shared everything together and experienced so many ups and downs. If he went through with this and killed Arthur, there was the possibility that Vivi would not only grow immensely depressed with the loss of her best friend, but that, upon discovering Lewis' treachery, she would downright abandon him without second thought. Everything about the girl screamed loyalty and fairness, and in every action he had seen before his demise she had proven to Lewis that she was as devoted to her friends as a guard dog. He began to second guess his decision, wondering whether he should spare the life of the one who ended his to keep a smile upon the face of the one he loved so dearly.
The flames of betrayal wrapped around him once more, pushing away any thoughts of doubt that crept into the thoughtful folds of his undead brain. His brow knitted angrily before he turned smoothly back to the animal in front of him, the worm with which he would crush beneath his heels. Before him was a monster, the reason he was so alone in the middle of the woods, the one who had banished him without sentence from a life filled with light to one made entirely of pain.
It didn't matter. Arthur would die, and Lewis would finally find his peace.
He floated down from his coffin, lifting himself into the air with the grace of a floating ballerina upon a darkened stage. His hollowed eyes bore holes into the sockets of the man in front of him, his ginger head lifting as he noticed the phantom in front of him approach without noise but brimming with presence. Nothing in Arthur's surprised expression denoted even a droplet of recognition, but Lewis didn't seem to care as his feet clacked nearly noiselessly on the thin rug covering the wooden floor below. Any pain he had once felt had been replaced by an icy-hot betrayal, and all Lewis wanted was revenge.
"Glad you could drop in, Arthur. I've been dying to see you, you know." his voice roamed through the room, bouncing off of the walls menacingly and echoing throughout the halls and past the unlit candles loudly. After years of neglect, the resounding speech of the phantom had grown distorted and was in itself a cavernous cry, hardly audible as it repeated upon itself, layered with backward feedback and ominous with its inhuman tones. If Lewis had ever been human, the evidence had been left behind upon a sharpened stalagmite in a cave beneath the mansion.
Arthur was shaking, his eyes growing wider and wider as he attempted to speak back, "M-me? You got the wrong idea, skele-head. I've, uh, never seen you in my life b-before. Nope. Never."
Lewis could feel his emotions flare with Arthur's gasoline, climbing higher into the room as the skeleton seemed to swell into life. His victim had frozen in the stare of the enemy, clearly terrified as the ghost inhaled deeply with words beating upon his skull. It took all of his control to keep from jumping the gun and outright slaughtering the weasel here and now, "Oh, you don't remember me? I did take quite the plunge for you. It's such a shame you can't recall."
His prey was smiling guiltily now. Everything about him was clueless, and Lewis had to wonder whether he truly remembered his former team mate or if he was just trying to appear ignorant in some hope that he would survive the encounter by denying the truth laid out in front of him, "See, I've hunted so many ghosts in my lifetime, I'm sure I've just, uh, slipped your name or something. I should really get going, you know, I have a...uh..."
Lewis snickered, pouting as best he could with only his voice and eyes to express his fabricated sadness and sympathy for the trembling coward sitting so vulnerably in front of him, "I guess it's hard to remember everyone when time flies so fast, and you don't seem too sharp. Too bad I didn't fly when you pushed me to my death." Lewis lifted his hand as his voice filled the room even more, swelling and bursting as his finger pointed forward and directly at the man who denied him so vehemently. Lewis had watched him with a memory so clear, smile wicked and arm outstretched with the greenness and wickedness of jealousy as he fell from the cliff and toward the reaching stalagmites below. Arthur would pay for his actions.
"No, look, you got the wrong guy, I would never-"
"You still feign ignorance, must I sharpen you up? I hate this death, I hate this loneliness, but you..." Lewis lowered his head and eyes with rage, still maintaining eye contact as his finger continued to point at the destroyer of his dreams, "Fuck, it's you I hate the most."
Arthur lifted his metallic hand to point directly at himself, not taking his enormous eyes off of the one who threatened him with such abhorrence as sweat jumped quickly to run down his brow. Lewis, eyes now closed but presence felt in its entirety, felt all the unused energy of the years he spent wasting away fill his hollow bones, rising and crackling as the saucers upon Arthur's face kept growing in size. Tension sparked in the air around them, popping almost exclusively from Lewis' side of the room and sending embers to fly between the eyes of the murderer and the vengeful spirit that had waited so long to confront him. There was nothing in Lewis' life that had been so thrilling, so exhilarating as the sight of his betrayer between his mighty claws, and yet without remembrance upon his face something was lost; if the guilty felt himself innocent, the execution was no more than manslaughter. Did he seriously not remember the companion he had killed in cold blood, the friend he had left to fall to a gruesome death beneath his feet? No, the coward had to have remembered...
Maybe he just needed a little reminder.
"So you don't remember, you claim. How about I give you a little push in the right direction?"
His eyes jumped open, no longer hollow but filled with a circle of white-pink light in each socket as his voice began to grow silent with vile. Arthur gulped as he anticipated what was to come, watching with hyper-awareness as the bone-plated gloves of the phantom before him clenched tightly. A creeping venom was absorbing the voice of the mansion's spirit and enveloping the room, commanding an unknown force into willful action, crying out to the powers that stood guard to give heed to the master of the house. Just as the coward had seen in the main hall with candles only a fraction of the size, the four large torches surrounding Lewis began to burst into life one by one, burning him up with magenta light and gripping the scene with terrifying ambiance. Lewis lifted his head defiantly, challenging Arthur's memory with a simple swish of air and phantasmic power.
His skeletal head was engulfed in its own flame as a bright pink pompadour found safety above his brow. Arthur's confusion was filled with the remorse of remembrance and recognition.
"Do you remember me now, Arthur? Or did you truly think I disappeared for good? I have waited my own eternity to watch you suffer and die by my hand. Tonight, my dreams will finally become reality."
"Ouch. Okay, that wasn't very pleasant, but at least we're alive."
After falling for what had seemed like an eternity, Vivi and Mystery had fallen hard upon the old and faded tile floor, landing with their cheeks to the cold and sleek ground beneath and heads still stuck in the cavern above. While falling, neither had seen a way to escape the inevitable death that rose up to meet them, but as Arthur dropped into the abyss beneath them and the two were met by hard ground to absorb their infinite fall, things were starting to look up. Here they were, alive and without injury save for a few bumps.
The dog, clearly unphased by what had just been a plunge into the pit of eternity, was sniffing the air warily. He was sidetracked by something smelly surrounding them, beckoning to the little black button on his snout with the aroma of something familiar just as the entire house had felt. The girl tussled the ocean atop her head, windblown and unruly as it roared against her taming hands before they fell to gingerly rub the cramps and bruises screaming from her mid back, hoping they weren't anything worse. She was more than happy to be back on solid ground, but her body really wished she had landed somewhere softer or less painful, like a bouncy house or ball pit instead of the rock hard ground her back had so violently made contact with, "Where are we, anyway? This is still the same mansion I think, but I wouldn't have thought it would have an underground so deep down. Is that even possible, or is this just some kind of ghosty magic? And most of all, where's Arthur?"
Mystery wasn't listening very well, his nose leading him away from the mumbling girl and towards the counters where a few dirty rags, misplaced and somewhat odd looking compared to the beautifully clean kitchen around it, were waving to him from over the side of the marble. Only when she was alone with her dog did Vivi speak her pondering words louder than an inaudible whisper, knowing he'd never repeat the sidetracked and somewhat idiotic thoughts she muttered when excited. She herself was pacing around the open space, eyes flicking back and forth through the room in an attempt to absorb the memory as it rolled out in front of her.
It was clearly a kitchen, the tiles beneath her feet gray and faded white and the fridge like pearly snow while the cupboards contrasted with their boasting red wood, rising gracefully from the wall. The counters were a smooth marble, sleek as the floor beneath if a little faded from time and use, and by the looks of the appliances and enormous space granted to what is usually a small room, Vivi guessed that whoever called this place home was more than serious about the culinary arts. Almost as a branding, a little skeleton head hardly and darker or sleeker than the fridge itself was imprinted into the metal, and though the walls were still purple stripes everywhere else, the wallpaper between the counter and cupboards was a tiled gray like the ground beneath her feet. Save for the dirty rags, everything in the room was immaculate, and nothing denoted any form of paranormal activity to Vivi's disappointment.
Mystery gave one last sniff to the rag before it fell to the ground, landing with a soft 'plop'. He couldn't seem to find a trail, and so he left behind his dead end to investigate on his own for a little while. Vivi was brought back to attention as the dog nosed his way into the fridge, giving in to his canine instincts and searching for the food that beckoned from inside the shiny container. Her first thought was to scold him or pull him away, unsure of what they might find inside-who knew what ghosts eat?-but as she peeked around him, she found the refrigerator overflowing with what she assumed was totally normal, edible food. Everything from lunch meats to asparagus, cheese and steak, milk and some sort of weird purple fruit called to her from inside the cold fridge.
She couldn't help herself either.
"You know, maybe we shouldn't eat the ghost food. I mean, this doesn't sound very responsible or safe, and it's probably against some ancient unspoken rule in the ghost investigation community. Not to mention we totally ruined this gorgeous kitchen." she tried to persuade herself, but as she spoke her eyes never left the king of all sandwiches that rested in her hands. Vivi could feel herself begin to drool.
There was a pause as she waited for the dog to confirm her fears, taking a moment to glance at his equally obsessed face. As the seconds passed, she shrugged her shoulders with hardly a second thought and no more mind to the matter, looking back at the sandwich with greedy eyes.
"You're right, I shouldn't think about it. We must live for the moment! Not to mention the food replenishes immediately. I don't think anyone would care. Bon appetit?"
Both opened their mouths wide to inhale the meal in front of them, absolutely starving after over a day without any sustenance of any sort and thinking only of the plates piled high in front of them. It was unreasonable to assume that they could actually eat it all, but hunger makes the stomach greedy and without Arthur to warn them against the number of problems with their actions, they were more than eager to absorb the landmass in front of them.
She thought she heard something from in front of her, something loud and quickly approaching. There was some sort of pounding and possibly screaming, but Vivi was too close to this sandwich to care; her eyes were closed as she anticipated ecstasy with the knowledge that this was going to be the best mega-sandwich ever. She could taste it now, the music upon her taste buds whirling a daring dance between her teeth and down her throat. It was a slow motion movie scene to her, nothing but silence and a gradually closing rift separating her from her true love and savior of her stomach. Just a little more...
Something flew past her, nearly knocking the girl and sandwich aside as it pushed through the kitchen in some sort of frantic hurry. Her eyes whipped open, leaving her beloved to glance back at the orange blur that ran so quickly and frantically past her and into the hallway behind the kitchen. It wasn't too hard to guess who the blob of cowardly orange might be, but what was Arthur running so furiously from when his best friend, someone he knew could and would protect him, was right in front of him? She could hear a low growl coming from Mystery in front of her, and when she turned back to look at the dog and her sandwich, she was met by Arthur's towering reason for fear.
Barreling forward lightly on his floating, fire-clad feet and glaring after the ginger with hatred lighting his white-hot, pink eyes, a terrible skeleton-phantom was fast approaching with his hands lifted menacingly and arms reaching forward
Vivi's only thoughts were for her friend.
She dropped the sandwich without a second glance as she turned on her heels and chased Arthur with worry giving her feet speed. Her voice cried out his name loudly and with worry tingeing the edges as she began searching the hallway for some way to escape and keep them both safe, but the pounding of her heart was much too loud for her trembling thoughts, and so she sprinted entirely on faith in her instincts. Mystery was hot on her heels, paws pounding beside her as they kept pace but never surpassed her own in a show of loyalty. They stayed in front of the ghost behind them, but only barely, and as Vivi was struck by confusion and worried her dog stared straight ahead with determination pulling them both forward.
Arthur was slowing down a bit, his eyes meeting and shying away from the singing pink spirits from earlier as they poked their heads out of the doors lining the hallway before them. Vivi could feel deep down that they were the safe ones, that though they meant to spook they never meant to harm the three intruders, and that all in all they were much less dangerous than the raging ghoul behind them. Without losing pace, she grabbed her friend by his good arm to pull him past the humming of the choir that followed their steady progress, "Come on, Arthur, we need to get out of here!"
She pulled him into one of the rooms unoccupied by the ghosts, feeling her body leap forward as she stepped out and back into the hallway, four doors down from where they originally entered. Her mind immediately made the connection-she had watched enough episodes of Scooby Doo to remember the famous and overused chase scene, and as the skele-ghost came running in behind them, she pushed through another door across the hallway without slowing pace. Her voice called back for the team to split up despite the urge not to, hoping that the ghost would leave or become confused if they weren't all grouped together like they were now. It would be harder to keep track of three running mice rather than one big rat.
As they disconnected from each other, Vivi could see the phantom grow just the slightest bit disoriented. All three came through different doors at different times, but he only paused briefly before continuing to follow Arthur with a new determination filling his eyes-maybe that hadn't been the best idea.
The pace quickened as each began to grow frantic in their steps, and though she was more than out of breath she continued to run with the ghost appearing closer and closer to her and her friends. There was something new in her heat, and though she had never feared a ghost investigation before in her life, there was something different from her usual wonder and excitement filling her body. She could only imagine that, this time around, she truly feared the outcome of this hunt and the effect it might have on her friends.
They had been working their way quickly down the hall, ending up closer and closer to the end with every jump. By some stroke of luck or chance, the three ended up regrouping just as the ghost appeared before them in a flurry of sparking flames and angry fire. He pushed open the door, facing Arthur directly with Vivi and Mystery hidden behind him as their host rose up to intimidating heights with hands lifted. His henchmen, still singing so lightly and with voices trembling slightly, cried out in their high-pitched crescendos as the dark shadow emerged from the darkness and continued to rise further above them, hearts in throats as they turned tail and ran back the way they came. They continued through the maze with dizzying speed, and it wasn't until they reached the end of the hallway that they finally made use of the door out, entering into a new hallway framed with portraits that none of them took time to gawk at.
Mystery, panting heavily, was left behind as something caught his eye in one of the portrait, and with a little yelp Vivi looked back with the intention of scooping her pet into her arms before he was consumed by the foot flames of the ghoul. To her surprise, the master of the house did not even glance to the dog at his feet with his eyes so steadily rested on Arthur, continuing after the coward with increasing speed. She caught a bit of a better glance of the predator while still running, his fiery hair glowing pink and his suit finely made and ironed, as though he had been expecting and anticipating this moment. Who was he, why did he hate Arthur so much, and why did he feel so familiar to her?
She fell on a bump in the rug, the ghost passing over her much like he had her dog as he made his way quickly towards her best friend. There was no mercy in the angrily knit eyes of the vengeful spirit, and something in this chase didn't feel right or fair. Only once had she ever witnessed a spirit so determined, and that was when they had locked onto their murderer with plans of revenge and, in the end, death. She knew, for a fact, that Arthur had never and would never kill a person, so why did their pursuer hate him so? Though her body screamed at her to burst back into a frantic run, Vivi took a few moments to observe the scene taking place in front of her with curiosity giving her faith in her friend's life. Even after standing back up with her back once again complaining painfully, she only walked very slowly towards the two as they confronted each other, met with a dead end as the wall stopped.
"You can't run forever, Arthur! You know your fate is definite, you know what you did, and you know how you will end: by my hand. Give up the ghost, there's nowhere you can turn in your final moments."
Arthur was rising against the wall behind him, pushing his body as far as it would go against the wallpaper. His hands and arms lifted along with his chin, pulling his head up and away from the ghoul before him without ever taking his eyes off of the glowing circles that bore holes through his skull. He was crying out in fear in pain, anticipating the horror to come. The ghost was picking up speed now, barreling towards Arthur with his intentions more than clear, the flames he planned to push upon his enemy rising from his feet and towards his hands like tamed lions roaring on command. In no way had Vivi fully absorbed what was happening, and it wasn't until she was sprinting once more that she realized that her body and mind had finally agreed on one thing.
"Stop it, now!"
She had leapt forward, arms thrown back like wings and her face turned, grimacing, to the side and away from the ghost in front of her. Every inch of her body was ready to take the flames for her best friend, prepared to throw her life away in an act of divine sacrifice for the one she had saved all those years ago as children. If the phantom before her wished to harm Arthur, he must break through the angel he had attracted and kept. It had been the last possible moment for her to act, the flames rising higher and higher as they prepared to launch towards the ginger without mercy, but something was holding them back now. Knowing that she was giving up her life for her only friend, knowing that he would live even if she didn't, was more than enough to give her closure and peace. Vivi instead of Arthur had given up the ghost, and all that was left for her was whatever pain came with burning alive.
"...Vivi?"
She opened her eyes slightly, not finding flames to cradle her corpse as her eyes opened but the retreating ghost before her. He had pulled back from his attack upon Arthur, his flames dispersing into the air around them as he blinked in confusion and worry, thoughts of what could have happened tearing his beating heart apart. What had once been a flare of impatient determination and hatred was replaced with something resembling a question, a beautiful yet unsatisfying sort of punctuation instead of the release she thought to be death as his revering eyes wondered why she would throw herself so quickly into death yet tinged with a touch of relief that he hadn't harmed her, hadn't brought the girl to her death. Her eyebrows raised in confusion as he landed lightly and without a sound onto the rug beneath their feet and began to approach, but the pounding of her heart was not of fear or fatigue but that of recognizing something dear to her as though he were something she knew, someone she had anticipated or even hoped for.
She heard him say something so softly, heard him speak in a low voice tinged with the paranormal noises so well known by any ghost investigator and crackling with the very human portrayal of anxiety and pain. She didn't understand his words, though, and she didn't absorb the proclamation in his words. Everything about him was so familiar, something dear to her sending a shot of pain through the heart so deep in her chest rather than the brain that often cried at her to forget. Every instinct in her body screamed that she was safe, that he was trustworthy, but as she felt Arthur reach forward with a trembling hand to grab her shoulder she remembered the unspeakable act that had nearly cost her the life of someone closer to her than a faded and broken memory.
Still, she felt some sort of pull toward the phantom before her, a red string of fate pulling her closer with every beat of his heart. He floated slowly towards her, and as they were connected that beating heart began to extend from its place near his chest, protected by rib and fabric. The ghost was quiet now, no longer trying to speak to her without the words to completely convey his surprise, his pain, his longing. Her hands had dropped to her side as she felt the tension disappear between her friend and her memory, the ghost no longer caring about his target and focusing only on her as his heart floated towards her. His eyes were soft and gentle as he stared deeply into her soul through the only windows she had, her own forgetful eyes. She broke away from his gaze by instinct to look at the beating orange symbol of life approaching her steadily, and her usually chattering mind fell completely and utterly into silence.
Her hands lifted up to cup the heart, pulling it even closer towards her chest as the ghost watched calmly, unmoving now as his life was transferred from his care to her own palms. Her fingers hovered like shy moths attracted to the rays of glowing light, feeling her own heart try to jump towards the ghoul through her throat. She could feel a certain heat radiating from the energy between her digits, waves of brilliance as though the sun were being held hostage in the cage of her fingers, nearly burning the skin on her hands with its intensity and vigor and forcing her to keep somewhat of a distance. It looked as though it were glass, so fragile and thin as it began to slow in front of her. She began to feel a tug of memories pulling at her tired and nearly restored brain, no longer a headache as she saw a shadow appear in the front of her mind, the ghost of a person phasing right there before her…
She yelped a little as she was quickly jerked aside, someone grabbing onto her arm and holding tight before she could reach the heart growing so near to her own, before she could fully and truly hold it in her hands and remember completely what was hidden so deeply within her mind. She looked quickly at her captor, a sprinting and screaming Arthur, before glancing back at the answer to her million questions, the holder and guardian of her lost memories. There was the one person who could truly tell her the full story concerning the life she didn't remember, the memories lost and protected by lock and chain, falling into the background and growing smaller with every footstep. Her hand lifted to reach back towards him as though she could still grab the heart left suspended in the air, still make it to him in time if only she reached far enough.
And his eyes, so sad and filled with anguish and regret. He too reached for his dreams as they were pulled away from him for a second time, the sands of fate rushing through his fingers leaving only grains of mourning and grief, watching everything he had ever waited for disappearing into the hallways he had constructed for her. These halls of hell he called home, these mazes of anguish, crowded with loneliness and lost chances as they danced so prettily yet left him to stand on the sidelines. It didn't even occur to him, so immersed in her fading figure, that he was leaving something very important to hang without tether in the air in front of him, his entire being held aloft by nothing more than the imprints of her reaching hands. With his own arm grabbing for her still, his beating orange heart fell to the floor, and all was silent save the echoing boom of glass shattering upon wood like a gong.
Blue is the color of sorrow, blue is the color of regret, and blue is the color of Vivi. Now, blue is the color of his heart upon the unforgiving ground, cracks running along the surface like rivers of tears against his cheekbones as it gave one last sigh of life and allowed the living fire to escape from its container. He lowered his eyes, feeling the realest pain he had ever experienced in his unlife before falling totally and utterly hollow, just as his locket had in front of him. All of his life had been contained in that tiny bit of glass, and as it faded to nothing more than an empty shell so did he.
The Dead Beats were meant to protect him, keep him safe, tend to his each and every need with their songs keeping his heart beating in time; now, with the quickness of flustered nurses, they hurried to keep their patient alive. He fell under the control of the powers within the house, losing himself to the pink light that absorbed his soul and kept him floating along in the darkness without fading. The pain he felt was only very temporary, and as he felt the urge to act upon his debilitating sadness, his caretakers took matters-and his mind and body-into their own hands. Eyes stained the same pink as their bedsheet bodies, Lewis was plunged into that oil-thick darkness once again by the will of his ghosts.
Vivi, Arthur, and Mystery, on the other hand, had been marked as threats. As dutiful as ever and only with their master's wellbeing in mind, the Mystery Skulls felt the fire they had all so narrowly avoided burst behind them from the currently possessed Lewis With flames licking at their heels, the mansion gave them an exit, and without second thought the three had left their nightmare behind.