3:33 and counting...
When your life is in the balance and Atropos has the thread of your existence between the sheers to end it all in the art of human 'fate' time seems to slow down. Sounds are clearer, memories come rushing back in pieces, the pulsating of your heart reaches to the tips of your fingers and creates a static electricity that causes your hairs to stand on end.
Moments in your life appear like wisps of smoke and you turn from them for the fear of the other side is much stronger that the desire for the warmth of the past. All you can do is hope that Atropos will simply hand the thread back to Lachesis that your life may be dispensed a little while longer. The wind is powerful enough to rush the fires of the torches and cause them to push heat from the flap of the monsters wings. Whatever this creature is it was not created by the fates; Clotho had no hand in it's spool and it was never intended to be the thing that brings the sheers in Atropos' hands to a close.
Carlos, with his steady moving feet and refuse to look back. Kendall, with his fingers wrapped tightly around that key. Their threads are being tightened by the silver glint of scissors and the other side calls out to them as they run past the other doors towards the circular room. They see Sam, slowly looking up at them. They see James pretty much lifeless behind glass. They see a teenage boy with thick black curly hair coming into view with a weapon drawn.
"Get down!" Dice shouts.
They both hit the deck. Stomachs colliding with the concrete of the cobblestone floor. There's a second of uncertainty. A trigger has been pulled. The world seems to stop moving. Lungs, everywhere stop breathing. There's a thud as the needle catches and the screech of the creature as it veers off crashing into another room busting the door open on it's way.
Jen tells them, "You still need to make it back to the Hellevator before time runs out. Our friend seems to like you, so I wouldn't waste any time."
Katie and Logan come running into the circular room and Kendall climbs onto his feet running straight for the glass room. Logan helps Sam to her feet and she listens to the mumble of his words as the pounding in her head grows worse. Carlos grabs Katie by the face and demands to know why she's here and why she's crazy enough to come looking for them.
Dice stares off at the place where the creature fell waiting for it to come back cocking in a second dart. It's his last one. He'll have to make it count. Turning to face the others he tells them, "We have to go."
Sam registers, slowly, who this is. A look of confusion spreads across her face but Logan has scooped her up into his arms before she can say anything.
Logan shouts, "KENDALL WE HAVE TO LEAVE, NOW!"
"THE FUCKING KEY ISN'T WORKING!" He shouts back as he digs into the chains coiled around James' meaty arms, "Stay with me buddy, I'm right here. I'm going to get you out."
There's a click and then Katie says, "Move."
Kendall looks back at her with wide eyes as she's got a gun aimed right at his head. He falls to the ground and she pulls the trigger sending a bullet straight into the pad lock dangling above James' fingers. The blue, and still devilishly handsome, boy slinks down into Kendall's arms and is pulled out of the icy, blue room into the light of the fire.
"Logan, what I do? He's not breathing." Says Kendall.
Dr. Mitchell looks down at James body and says, "Do you remember that time we were watching my nephew?"
"On his back?" Asks Kendall.
Logan tells him, "No. This is an adult. Chest. Right hand side. Hard as you can."
And then Kendall punches the fuck out out James right over his heart. There's a gasp of breath and the fate Atropos lets go of Jame's thread. James looks up at Kendall remembering where he is and his hand finds the buttons on that pink shirt, "Did you get the kid?"
"The kid? What kid?" Asks Kendall.
James shivers vehemently in Kendall's grasp, "They brought a kid in, a little boy. They put in him in that last room. Is he alive?"
Kendall looks up at Carlos who's already made up his mind as he's chucking the bag of cash into Katie's open arms. No amount of words can change that. Carlos is off in a run, speeding down the hallway.
"What the fuck is he doing?" Asks Logan.
Kendall scoops James into his arms, "Being a Goddamn hero."
Sylvia gathers this information rather quickly and, in the control room where she's been all night, she figures 'enough is enough' and she scoots back in her chair and stands to her feet looking down on Jen. There's a rage in her that never knew herself to be capable. She's seeing red.
"Jen, you want to explain?" She spits.
Jen, who's still distracted by the scene on her monitors, is also mad. She slams her fists down, "No! That's against the rules. No more playing when you free James. That was the deal."
"That's a kid, Jen!" Yells Sylvia.
Jen finally looks up at her sister in disgust, "RULES ARE RULES, SYLVIA."
Rules are rules. Jen has said that to Sylvia since they were two little girls with matching blood red pigtails, matching clothes, and matching faces. Every game they played, every time they did something evil, whenever things got too serious. Jen always pushed them a little closer to the edge. No one would ever believe Sylvia when where Jen was concerned.
"Rules are rules." when you're catching animals in a trap and the neighbor's cat happens to be one of them. "Rules are rules" when you swap out the shampoo in the locker room at school with nair and it blinds your best friend. "Rules are rules" when your sister sleeps with your boyfriend and then sends him to juvy for a crime she committed. Well... not anymore. Not for Sylvia.
That bottle of wine is still on the edge of the control panel. It's neck fits in Sylvia's hand so easily. It happens so fast; the collide. The glass goes everywhere and Jen was unprepared as only one of her eyes work. Sylvia picks her up with her fists and slings her across the room. They brawl. Shouts, claws, and teeth. This is the only way. Sylvia's grabbing a blunt object she doesn't really recognize but Jen's quicker as she climbs up and sinks her hands around Sylvia's throat.
They slip, they fall, they roll. Fist to the face but who's? Jabs to the abs, blood sprays in their spit. A pair of scissors fall off the shelf with the glass vase it was resting in. A silver glint catches the eye. Jen's fingers find the necklace around Sylvia's neck; the vile full of her sister's blood so they always have a part of each other. A sharp pull and the black beads go flying and scatter across the floor.
"I'm sorry." Says Jen.
Then the sheers find her throat and more blood flooshes into Sylvia's face as they both let out a vigorous wail. Their very own; 'final girl' moment where Atropos and Sylvia both held the scissors that ended Jen's thread. They clatter when they hit the concrete and Sylvia scoots away from her twin's dead body quickly and screams pushing her hands up into her hair. She then looks up at the screen at Carlos who's ripping into that room at the end of the Gauntlet corridor.
It's set up like a chapel, the room. It's the most satanic display Carlos has ever seen and he grew up catholic. From his lips the very prayer he and his abuela used to say every night before bed, "In nomine Patri, et Filli, et spiritus sancti."
Upon a cross, dressed as an alter boy, is a little blond headed thing. His hands are nailed into each side, as are his feet which are connected by the one. He's bleeding and his shoulder blades are arched like wings as he's losing strength. Behind him, on the wall, it is written;
Shepherds we shall be for thee my lord, for thee power hath descended forth from thy hand our feet may carry out thy commands.
So we shall flow a river forth to thee and teeming with souls shall it ever be.
A simple, peaceful chime befalls Carlos' ears as he walks up to the child. He reaches up with kind hands and find the left shin so cold to the touch. The little boys bright blue eyes open to find him and they are wet with tears.
"Are you here to kill me?" He asks.
Carlos shakes his head, "No... I want to help."
"It doesn't hurt anymore. Is that bad?" The little boy whimpers.
Carlos wants to tell him yes but he says nothing. No pain means easy retraction. So he begins to pull the nails out one by one and there's no resistance to them. Soon the boy is in his arms and he's trying to fall asleep.
"You keep your eyes on me, damn it. You hear me! You stay awake." Carlos demands and then he steps out into the hallway.
Only there's something blocking his path. The creature has pulled it's self up drunkenly from the place where it had fell. It pulls the needle out of it's chest and locks it sight on Carlos. That Hellevator won't wait forever. The creature is disoriented as shown in it's sluggish missteps. It begrudgingly trots along the hall and slips tripping over it's own torn wings. There's a half screech that comes out but a need to swallow comes as it's jaw is broken in two places. Carlos goes into a run and everyone is screaming out to him from the other side where the circle room waits for his return. This is it... the moment. He dives in channeling his old hockey-boy persona, using his head to jab the towering beast in the stomach and it falls. Backwards, it goes, into the room where Kelly died ripping the hinges out of the frame and taking the door with it. It flails and the bucket of poison burst pouring out over it's ugly black and green flesh festering like puss filled fish. All the while Carlos keeps his grip on the boy in his arms.
He continues down the cobble stone path and spits at them with his deepest tone, "LETS GO!"
Kendall, with James in his arms, is the first one behind him. Logan follows, holding tightly to Sam's shivering body. After them is Dice and Katie. They're out into the corridor in a flash and there's a swarm of crows that fly off upon their arrival. They're all yelling as they race for the exit. Time is ticking down and they know it. They jump over the bodies of goons who'd slit their own throats and push past the array of hanging bodies and marionette puppets. They're nearly there.
Sam groans in Logan's arms, "You can let me down now."
He ignores her as they all keep going.
She tries again and this time a little louder, "You can put me down! I can walk!"
This time he listens and lets go of her. Once she's on her feet she's on Dice like a spider on a wall. She's slamming him down to the ground.
"You want to tell me why you're here, punk!" She spits on him.
He struggles against her but her arm is blocking his wind pipe. Nothing in that fuzzy black hair will help him this time.
"Sam!" Yells Kendall, "There's no time."
She shakes her head, "He's working for them! How do you think they got all that information about you!"
His eyes are wide with terror and the need to breath but she just punches him in the stomach, "You were our friend! Where's Cat! What did you do with her!"
"She's dead." Carlos tells her, "She was in my challenge."
Tears well up in Sams eyes. Love lost. It's the number one motivation. Then she's screaming as blood comes pouring out of her mouth. A pig man stands behind her with a thick power drill spinning through her chest. It grinds up her heart and she rolls out onto the floor beside Dice who looks at her and screams. The pig man squeals in rage then turns the drill on it's self.
The elevator, up ahead, opens. In it is Sylvia Soska and she's calling out to them, "Come on!"
They don't hesitate. There feet move faster than they thought possible. It doesn't matter that Sam's dead. It doesn't matter that Dice is the enemy. There's something worse in these halls and it's hungry. So they file into the elevator and they wait for Dice. He's scrambling to his feet and stuck on Sam's blank face. The shouts of the others don't even register in his mind. She was right. He was their friend. Jen did this.
"Sylvia's innocent!" He shouts at them, "It was all Jen!"
Then the creature's feet claws are sinking into his shoulders and he's screaming out in the pain. It twists him so hard his pelvis breaks and his lower half stays entirely still while the rest of him rotates a three sixty. He's gone. The elevator doors close and the gate with it. They made it back to the Hellevator.