Carlos is on his knees. There's sweat pooling on his back, his heart is racing, and his brain is telling him it's about to turn to stone. His heart, his body, everything. Then this small thought occurs...
"I know who I am." It's small, so small it's a whisper.
Only this echo whispers. Knowing who you are means knowing who you want to become and when you start acting like who you want to become your brain notices and starts to change the way it interprets you.
"Fabian." He says as he looks up at the glass before him, "This is something new for both of us but I need you to know that I have seen things in this concept before and that I am set in what it is I must do."
Catching the British chap's face in the reflection he asks, "Can you assist or is your place out in the hall because if I've learned anything from my friend Dr. Mitchell it's that scrubbing in is for people who are serious? Are you serious?"
Fabian nods, "I've got to find Nina. No matter the cost. I'm here, whatever you may need detective."
Nina was her name, Carlos thinks. The girl from the concert.
That was so long ago. Still if Carlos' love for Kendall is that strong it's not entirely impossible that Fabian could be chasing Nina. All of the Amun Boarding school seemed to be haunted. It wouldn't surprise him if the house of anubis had been the plot of some big Egyptian conspiracy. Carlos groans as he stands and takes one of the spheres into his grasp.
"Ricky, is he about to do what I think?" Asks his only intelligent sibling Dawn.
He draws in a deep breath and then let's his petrified siblings know what he's gathered, "We're a set of ten pens and we could be decapitated if they miss."
Dicky, who's usually the most daft of them, registers this right away. He's played a lot of zombie video games and like the voices of the men in songs his mama listens too everything in him drops.
Nicky, the one with taste, calls out to his brother. "Hey. No. You don't get to bow out."
Upon closer examination they see that Nicky's left eye is bruised. The pink ribbon slips out of Dawns hair. Ricky's eyes, like a broken faucet, won't stop leaking. Behind the glass they fear it's over. Curtains. Nothing left to sell.
There's a loud slam and the first marble sphere comes fast in their direction. Spinning in the crossing triangle castings of fractured evergreen and cherry cough syrup is a swirling emerald, lapis, and Amethyst marble spiral. Across the slick tiles in a rumbling tumbling acceleration. Ricky looks down past his feet where the blinking lights on the pins draw his attention. He's located pretty center and that ball is coming straight for him. It's big enough to knock him out but paired with what rests in the mechanisms of the black chain link cage above his head he'll take his chances.
The sharp glint of silver sparkles. Ander rises up on his gurney in the radiology scan room. The lights in here are a soft blue hue like early morning and as cold as he is in that thin blue gown he's comfortable. It's awfully early to be here. He imagines Guzman and Polo are back at home still asleep. That seems to be all those three can do as of late that doesn't require excessive amounts of energy. Just waiting to listen to Amelia Sheppard has him feeling groggy.
She and Schmidt, the timid resident she keeps attached to her hip, enter the room. The student hands Ander a cup and when he looks inside and sees the orange color he says, "Is this a mimosa?"
"Just juice, kid. Here in the US you have to be twenty one to drink." Smiles the younger of the two doctors.
Ander doesn't complain. This juice is the first non-water thing he's had since the night of the dance and even that punch was spiked. The feeling of static that washes over him when he sips from the cup is enough to divert his attention. Out into the hallway the three of them go, Ander in his own wheelchair. His eyes go to the TV monitor on the wall out here in the corridor where the knockout rounds of the voice display a kid named Kique belting out lyrics from Hey Ya and all Ander can think is, "That's kind of hot."
They enter into the room he's got to himself and that hollow feeling returns. He just wants Guzman and Polo but he doesn't want to disturb him.
Amelia helps him onto the bed and hooks in an IV. She smiles down at him, "It'll take a few hours to get the scans. We'll go from there. In the meantime Dr. Schmidt is at your disposal. Anything you need."
"How much orange juice is there?" Asks Ander.
Dr. Levi Schmidt switches on the TV and NBC is on. The remote Ander has allows him access to Peacock so he scrolls through and finds the episode that's already playing but he just wants to watch one performance. "With Outkast's Hey Ya, here's Kique." Says Carson Dailey and the music starts. The two doctors leave him by himself and the song is enough to ease the agony.
Agony is all Ricky can feel. He's buried beneath two of those pins and pretty sure something is broken but he's too in shock to know. The first toss landed him and only him on his back and he's sure he has a concussion because he felt his entire nervous system vibrate and his skull moved faster than his brain. The whole back of his head vibrates as if he's been locked in a washing machine that's too full.
He looks up and can see his siblings swaying frantically in the air above him. A scream is coming from the other side of the translucent divider keeping detective Garcia from them. He's injured. A sacrifice, it seems, for getting to roll the ball. His siblings are running out of time. Maybe there's something he can do to help. He goes to move and the beeping of the pins get louder, faster even.
These are bomb and if Ricky doesn't play exactly how he's supposed to he could end the game for all of them too soon.
So he has to sit here and take another hit if it comes to that. The three pins that were knocked down are lifted from around him and pulled up into the lock sockets above in such a harsh way that all Ricky can imagine is the worst. He stays still and the beeping of the remaining three pins behind them is steady. Another slam, following by another agonizing scream, and then the hum of the ball as it's rocketing towards them. It's headed for Dawn.
Ricky can't look away as the sphere sinks into her stomach throwing her backwards onto the pin directly behind her. She rolls out next to him and her face is bleeding when he moves to rest her head on his lap. The two of them look up at the wall where the third and final bowling ball will come soaring. This game is almost over. Can they get two pins and two Harpers in one throw?
One can only hope. There's the sound of the pin locking into it's place and then a mechanism somewhere spins in it's cogs and they wait.
"I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I'm going to die!" Dicky's beginning to panic.
He's not as dumb as he looks. There's a pattern here. It looks like only three fourths of a chance of survival was in play this entire time. Ricky, nor his other siblings are ready to say goodbye to either one of them. This is madness. Only then, because time is so slim, comes the slam, the hum, and the screams. Ricky and Dawn look away. The sound of gears turning is followed by that all familiar snaking of the ropes, then, like clockwork, the final snap of pins back into their place occurs. Everything left not knocked over is going to be pulled up into the ceiling with them.
A shower comes down upon them. He thought it was water but the red droplets that scatter across his arms and legs are not that. It's blood. Three Harpers look up just in time to watch their brother come plummeting down. They scream in a dissonance that's so very nasty as they look upon Dicky who has an entire bone lodged between his jaws and his eyes are blank as the angel of death kissed him before he even hit the ground.
"NOOOOOOO!" Screams detective Garcia, "DAMNIT!"
Ricky reaches out to Dawn and Nicky and the three of them race out into the cold. Up a staircase, through a tunnel, and out a cellar cover that's already been busted through, they run for their lives from the building but not even two yards away the three of them stumble and tumble out across the snow covered field. Turning back to see what they'd tripped over they discover a burned gentleman.
"It's someone else who played a game." Says Nicky.
Ricky, shaking his head no, examines the body. Checking for a pulse he verifies the young man is still alive but then he questions Dawn and Nicky, "The man over the tape that played for detective Garcia said we were his second challenge. We have no way of knowing who or what this is." He looks up at the river surrounding the school, "Or even where we are."
"We can't just leave him." Says Dawn and her brothers know she is right.
So they work together to lift Valerio in their arms and drag him away from the school and away from the nightmare.