A/N: Welcome to the second-to-last of The Thing! I can't believe I'm actually done with this story, I almost forgot to update it here on Fanfiction!

Alex Ho: Yeah, some of my worst cliffhangers yet.

Bonnie stood petrified as the knife remains dangerously above her neck. With his arms firmly around the little girl, Ash glared at the two children before him with the whites of his eyes - no longer were they seeing his dull, emotionless eyes but the sclera. The two stood frozen, afraid that even moving a centimeter will lead to Bonnie's death. Clemont didn't even remember the lighter he had previously lit to burn Tommy's corpse in his hand.

But Ash did and glared at it. "Drop it," he growled, removing the knife from Bonnies neck - making the young girl visibly relax - so he could point it at the lighter. Clemont's gaze immediately turns to the lighter in his hands and drops it without moment hesitation.

"It's down, Tommy," he tells Ash, bringing his hands up in a surrender position. "Please let my sister go."

Ash looks down at the trembling Bonnie in his arms before he turns back to them. "I'll let her go after I get my sister back."

"But to do that you'd have to kill her!" Serena argues. "Tommy, please! Do you honestly want to do this? She's your age when you died!"

To her surprise, it did make him hesitant a little bit. The way Ash shifted his head towards Bonnie's direction, how his face showed discomfort at the sound of her whimpering. It never even occurred to her that maybe Tommy might have had seconds thoughts through his whole ordeal. Perhaps killing wasn't his first option and tried, desperately, to find a different solution that wouldn't affect his morals before having no choice but to go down the homicide path.

However, what sympathy he had for Bonnie passed and he returned to glaring at them.

"Does it look like I care?" He growls, teeth bearing. "Did anyone care how old Maya was when she died? No! My sister's life was ripped away without her consent but now I can finally change that. She will get to live her life the way she would have wanted before she died!"

His words had gave Serena an opening. "But that's the thing, Tommy; Maya doesn't want you to do all of this!"

This made him freeze completely. "W-What are you-?"

Realizing where Serena was going wit this, Clemont immediately dove into his pocket and pulled out the diary Serena had gave him. "Look at this, Tommy," he opened the book to a random page where Maya had written and showed it to Ash. "You recognize this writing, don't you? You've spent enough time with Maya to remember her handwriting, right?"

If he did recognize Maya's writing, he did a wonderful job at hiding it.

Clemont went to search for the page he wanted and quickly begins to read it once he found it: "He wants to bring me back. He used Willy as his puppet to possess the strongest person in a group that would enter the house. He will chop off everyone's body parts and try to find the one that matches me. He's making me a new body. Stop this, Tommy. I don't want this," he looked up at Ash with sincerity in his eyes. "See, Tommy? Your sister never wanted you to do any of this!"

"She's horrified, Tommy," Serena adds in. "She's been in the same house as you ever since she died and she watched you killed all those people. She wants you to stop all of this so you can be with her again. You said you would do anything for your sister, right?!"

Ash stood rigid there, trying to process everything that's been told. Meanwhile, Bonnie had notice that his grip on her was loosening ever so slightly. Maybe, if she were careful enough, she could slip out of his grasps without him noticing. She slowly started to lower herself when Ash's grip on her neck tightens enough to make her cry out but when the knife suddenly appears right in front of her it made her stop her shriek abruptly.

"You actually think I'm going to believe that pack of lies?!" Ash snarls at them. "I know you're an inventor, Clemont, so how should I know that you didn't used a machine to copy some letters you found in her handwriting?!"

They have to admit, for someone who died when they were eight-years-old, he was actually pretty smart for thinking that could've been their whole plan if Maya didn't actually wrote in her diary. The only problem was Maya did write all of her diary entries but Tommy's in denial and doesn't want to believe that his sister actually saw him kill all of those people so ruthlessly.

"Tommy, I swear, I did not make this up," Clemont tells him sternly. "Maya Lewis actually did write in this diary!"

"You're lying!" To their horror, Ash brings the knife out, ready to strike Bonnie with it. "I'm sick and tired of hearing you people telling what I should and shouldn't do! I'm going to get my sister back and I'm not letting anything stop me!"

"Tommy, don't!"

"Not my sister, please!"

But their words fell on death ears as Ash plunges the knife down.

"Stop!"

However, hearing that voice crying out of nowhere did make him stop. The knife was held at least an inch away from Bonnie's eye and the young girl could have sworn she just saw her whole life flash before eyes once again. Still, she slightly relaxed when the knife made no movement to go any further than it already has.

Ash, meanwhile, had become stiff. He recognized that voice from anywhere, but for over the past years it had become nothing but a deformed version of its former self, constantly blaming him for what happened to her. Now, though, the voice sounded just like what is was before her death.

He didn't notice Bonnie had managed to slip herself out of his hold and immediately ran over to Clemont's comforting arms while he slowly turns around to where he heard the voice. The knife slips from his grip and fell carelessly to the ground as his gaze lands on the figure standing in the doorway.

It was Maya Lewis.

Not the ghost of Maya Lewis. No, it was the body that Tommy had spent years trying to make for his deceased sister. Only, it wasn't lifeless anymore. It was alive, standing even as it stood before him. But what really unnerved them was how she had no eyes. In the place where her eyes should be were two holes filled with dried and clotted blood, showing that her eyes must had been gouged out a long time ago. It made Bonnie cover her own eyes as she thought of what would have been her if Ash did managed to stab her in the eye.

The body took a slow step closer to Ash, as if she was afraid that if she did any sudden movements he would snap. "Tommy..."

Ash slowly pointed at her with a trembling finger as his eyes grew wide with panic. "Y-You're not real..."

"I am real, Tommy," Maya tells him calmly as she took a few steps closer.

"No, you're NOT!" Ash yells at her, desperately trying to convince himself that this was a hallucination in front of him. "You're dead! Why won't you leave me alone?!"

"Thomas James Lewis, do I look like one of those horrible hallucinations the ghost that you made the deal with usually conjures up?!" Maya didn't yell at him per say, but she did use the same scolding tone that Clemont would usually use on Bonnie when she would refused to believe something that he said.

This made Ash falter; true, she did not look like the Maya that would usually torture him for killing her. That Maya looked like a walking corpse shell of what his sister used to look like before she died. Not to mention there were times where she would pull off her own rotting skin just to taunt him because that was what he "wanted". But never before had he hallucinate his sister as the body he was trying to make for Maya, it was always that corpse torturing him.

He slowly lowers his hand as he took a few steps closer himself. "M-Maya...?" His voice still held hesitation, not fully believe that the ghost of his sister was possessing the body he was making for her right there in front of him.

What really convinced him was the small smile Maya gave him as she held her arms out to him and said, "Come here and give me a hug, goofball..."

This made the tears fall as he ran into her arms and hug her with all the strength Ash's arms had left. Maya smiles softly as she strokes his head, though she did feel slightly uncomfortable since this was someone else's body that Tommy had apparently stolen from. Still, it didn't stop her from comforting him and he sobbed into her shoulder.

Meanwhile, the others watched the scene before them with softening expressions. While they knew it was a spirit of an eight-year-old boy occupying their friend's body, it did pulled the strings of their hearts when they saw Ash cried like that. It made them realize that both of the two brains were both tortured beyond repair and it made them feel sympathy for Tommy for the first time ever.

"I'm so sorry, Maya," Ash chokes out. "I swear, I never wanted you to die!"

"Tommy, it's okay!" Maya pulls him out in front of her so that she could stare at his white eyes. "You didn't know that the price you had to pay for bringing Willy to life was to give souls to the ghost. How could you have known that horrible ghost made Willy have the ability to suck out a person's soul?"

Now Maya's death made sense to Serena; she died from having her soul ripped out of her body when she made contact with this thing called Willy. It explains why no one could find any sort of illness or injuries in her body. She literally died by magic.

"But it still doesn't change the fact that you're dead because of me!" Ash argued, sniffing every now and then. "If I hadn't made that stupid deal then you would still be alive!"

"Tommy, look at me!" He did while wincing slightly when he saw her gouged out eyes. "Whatever horrible hallucinations that ghost put in your mind, don't believe them! Because I don't blame you for what happened to me."

This only made more tears sprout from his eyes as Ash cried. Everything seemed too good to be true; he thought that after all this time, Maya had hated him for killing her and it was the reason why she didn't try to contact him as a spirit. But he was wrong; Maya wasn't mad at him and now he knew for sure that the body he made for her has worked. Back as he stared into the gouged out eyes he knew that not everything was complete.

He just needs to get that little girl.

"Tommy, don't you think about it!" Maya tells him sternly as he made a go for Bonnie - which made the little girl flinch - but she grabbed him by his arm to prevent him from going any further. "You leave these poor kids alone!"

"But she's the only way you can finally get your life back!" Ash argued.

This made Maya sigh. "Tommy, I never wanted my life back. I wanted us to move on!"

Ash froze when he heard that. He turned his head towards Maya with confusion in his eyes. "W-What are you-?"

"Did you really think I wanted you to kill all of those just to bring me back?" Maya asked him rhetorically. "Tommy, I wanted us to be together as spirits. To move on together. I'm sorry that you had to go through all of this but I was afraid that you were so far into your killing spree you might have done something you'd regret under that ghost's influence, but I'm here. Come on, Tommy, do you really want to murder people for the rest of your life?"

Ash looks down at his feet, unable to meet her gaze. Finally, he answered in a meek voice, "No..."

"So, why don't you get out of that poor boy and we can leave this crazy life?" Maya's voice was filled with mirth but her expression clearly told him what he needed to do in order for both of them to be at peace at last. By the look on Ash's face, he knew it too. But for some reason, he hesitated. Why was he hesitating now when he finally has his sister back?

Suddenly, he let out a sob. "I'm so sorry! For everything, Ash!"

Then he threw up.

It wasn't like the nearly digested food that usually comes up when someone vomits - although, if it were the case, they figured it would just be mostly water because Ash didn't even ate anything for a whole day - but it was gallons of that black liquid that Ash had previously thrown up. What was really disturbing was how it piled on top of each other like it was somewhat solidified enough to be able to do that. After what seemed like minutes flew by, Ash's body finally expelled all that horrible substance, making the boy fall to his knees in retaliation.

"Ash!" His friends were immediately by his side to make sure that he was alright. They didn't even notice Maya's makeshift body disappearing into thin air with Tommy's corpse doing the same thing. Not even the sudden weight release in the air that finally made them breathe easier got their attention. No, what got their attention was the pile of the black substance before them. After seeing the top looking like somebody with their eyes closed they couldn't help feel uneasy.

"Is it, dead?" Clemont hesitantly asked. He was responded with getting hit in the leg by his sister.

"Haven't you learned anything from horror movies, Clemont?!" The little girl demanded. "You never assume the monster is dead because it will spring back to life and attack you!"

Before Clemont could comment on that, he was cut off when Ash suddenly took the knife he had previously dropped and stabbed the pile with it. Once he was sure it was good in there, he let his grip slip.

His friends stared at him with jaw-dropped expressions.

Without looking up at them, he tells them in a tired voice, "I think it's dead now..."

He fell to his side after that.