The Colors And The Deal With Death - Chapter XI: For All That Remains (Part I)

After we arrive at a small clearing in the woods, the hand that holds us all, slowly lowers to the ground. We look around and see a house fit for a giant, shabbily built and ready to burst at the seams, but since this was likely built with just two hands, this is certainly better than it could have been. Just outside of the house is a big table, likely where many banquets have been held in the past. Around the house, a moat of colourful flowers, live ones at that, stand proudly... the only things around this barren wasteland that avoided death’s touch. In a poetic way, this fills me with hope that this place can be fixed if time allows.

“This is the place I call home. This may not be a castle, but it’s got everything I need. Ready yourselves here, for this is the last chance you will get to for a long time.” Garcia says, pointing to the house from a distance.

“Thank you. Now, I should probably send my old faithful to scout on ahead.” Blue says, opening one of her many compartments, pulling out a strange metallic bee with flashing red eyes.

“What is that?” I ask, checking it out in great detail.

“That bee is going to help us?” White asks, stepping a small distance away from it.

“Rox- Blue, are you sure about this? It didn’t survive the last-“ Green asks, remembering the thing all too well.

“That was last time. I was inexperienced and less mature back then. This is Scout 2.0, so let’s see if this old dog can learn new tricks.” Blue says, throwing the bug to the air, as it flies away.

“Oh, now you got me thinking about puppies. They always soothe my soul.” Yellow says, in her usual pure demeanour that is so sugary sweet, it makes my teeth itch.

As we watch the bee fly away, and Blue brings out a strange tablet device from another compartment of infinite surprises, I can’t help but notice that while the flow of air doesn’t seem to travel here, there is a cold feeling tumbling down my spine, sending a shiver from the top to the toe.

“I will go get you some food to keep you going. Make yourselves at home for now.” Garcia says, placing a hell of a lot of trust into us, probably a little too much.

“Oooh, I wanna go too.” Yellow says, climbing into his hand again, as the two walk off into the woods.

Suddenly finding myself alone again, I can’t shake the feeling that something has been following me this entire time. I turn around and see a strange shadow poking out from the trees. I really hope it isn’t those remnants from the train, out for revenge.

As it comes closer, the face grows clearer, though I wish it never did. It is the skeletal demon from my reflection that has plagued me for far too long, the personified embodiment of what the world made me out to be, the part of me that I couldn’t control, and the part that wishes I would just die. If it has really taken physical form for some reason here, I had best confront it.

My legs take me towards the beast, even without my direct input, as if I’m being controlled by something. As the distance between us gets thinner and thinner, even though its face never changes, I can tell it is smiling at me. As I watch it stand inside the fog, I can’t hide the fact that I am almost afraid to make the first move, and I find myself at a loss for words. But if I must...

“So you continue to haunt me still? I know what you are. A narrative of my scars, a manifestation of everything they think I am... everything I thought I was. My violent nature has cost me more friends than I dare count, leaving me alone every time. My family saw me for you, and even now, people still see you. I can never forget everything that has happened to us, but you belong in my past, not my present. Please go, I want... I want to be happy!” I speak to the demon, though I’m not sure if it is even listening to me.

It starts to walk towards me, but I am still unable to move. It grows closer to me until we are face to face. I can see every little disgusting detail in its face, but on closer inspection, it appears to be a mask of some sort. It reaches its bony hand out to me, as if it wanted to forge a deal or something. Seeing no other choice, I take its hand, as a flash of light fills the room for just a second before everything goes pitch black.

Suddenly, the world comes back to me, as I see White looking over me, starting to smile at me.

“Thank goodness I found you out there. I went out for a walk to make myself a little braver, but I found you. You were talking to yourself before you randomly passed out. We need to get you that cure, fast. If I’m going to make up for what I tried to do to you, I have to face my fears.” White says, helping me to my feet.

I was talking to myself all that time? Of all the symptoms I could show now, hallucinations isn’t a welcome addition. My stomach already feels like it is about to explode, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it decided to. All I can do is lay back down on the huge bed, close my eyes really tight and pray that this is all just a hyper-realistic elaborate dream sequence before waking up in my own bed... if only I was that lucky.

“I’ll let you get some rest. If there is anything you can do, just let me know. I’ll be here for you.” White says, as she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

I get up from the bed and see a giant room with a purple glow across the walls, courtesy of just one purple lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, which I could never hope to reach, even with a ladder. After a moment to get my head together and fully wake up, I leave the house and join the others at the giant table, though Blue. Brooklyn smiles at me, and puts her arm around me.

“Morning, sleeping beauty. You feeling any better now? Your friend told us all about what happened.” Brooklyn says, as Bonnie looks over to me from behind her shoulder.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine, really.” I say, not wanting to make them worry about me, though it kind of feels nice to have someone show they care, something I still can’t get over.

Everyone looks pensive, as if they know that this mission could very well be our last. Before I can open my mouth to relieve the tension in the already dead air, we can hear the usual stomping of our resident giant... I hope.

“We have returned. And I caught us some food.” Garcia says, triumphantly holding what looks like a bag with a puddle of blood dripping down from the bottom.

“I... may never get that image of my mind... ever.” Yellow says, as her makeup and glazed expression tells that she has been crying quite heavily.

Garcia lowers his hand to the ground to let Yellow walk to the table, as he slams the bag on the table with the other. He slowly opens the bag as we all watch with bated breath, except for Yellow, who is slowly rocking back and forth in her chair, wrapping her knees in her arms. He manages to get the knot of the pullstring undone, before the bag bursts open. Inside the bag, a fresh yet mangled creature falls out. It is a white horse with a horn place firmly on its- wait, this is a unicorn. A real life empty shell of a unicorn. Looking at its poor body, it seems to already be stripped of organs and bones. If Yellow truly witnessed that event take place, she probably won’t ever be the same again.

Looking at the sad sight, each of us gasp, backing away in our seats. Everyone except for Brooklyn and Bonnie.

“What? You never seen animal carcass before? Trust me, it looks a lot better when it’s cooked to perfection.” Brooklyn says, likely coming here for dinner a little too much... then again, we eat pig or cow despite the gruesome ends they meet... too bad I like meat too much to give up now.

White jumps up from her seat and dashes as fast as she can into the trees, strands of vomit seeping through her fingers as she presses her hands to her mouth. As White leaves, Blue passes by her and walks towards the table, a small spring in her step, so hopefully good news is ahead for us.

“Hey guys. Guess who found us our plan. I’m starved, what we eat- oh my lord, what the hell is that?” Blue asks, changing her tone immediately after seeing the unicorn.

“Pretty, isn’t she? Since Mandy’s reign triggered the migration patterns and this place became abandoned, these little things are pretty rare around here. Some of them maybe didn’t get the memo.” Garcia says, as he picks it up and takes it inside the house. “Anyone want some?”

“No thanks, I’m not hungry anymore. Anyway, my dear pet, Scout 2.0 here, went ahead and scanned the castle for a clear route to the goal. Look at this.” Blue says, as she places a tablet on the table between us all.

On the screen, I can see what looks like a rough computer generated interior map of a fifteen story establishment, no doubt the castle itself. Both inside and out, there seems to be a sea of red circles, no doubt symbolising enemies. The spookiest thing of all though, is the entire top floor, which while still present, it is covered by interference and static... I’m no analyst of good business strategies, but it goes without saying that our target is in that last room, hiding away from the world... not for long though.

“Alright. This is what we could salvage from the castle itself. The ghouls don’t seem to be any the wiser, but they aren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack, though I imagine that they would be quite dangerous in this quantity, unless we had some pure power to cull the numbers. Now here’s my plan. We prepare ourselves and fight off the swarm of ghouls, with the help of Garcia. As the numbers diminish and a path is set, Black, Brooklyn and Yellow, our ranged attackers will storm the castle through a secret underground passage at the back. While the rest of us continue to keep the ghouls busy, you three will climb the castle to the third floor. There, you will see a balcony above the entrance. As you all shoot from afar, the rest of us will slowly slip away and join you up there. From there, we will take on the rest of the castle together. Any questions?” Blue says, as she places little crosses where everyone needs to go.

“Just one. Say we succeed and get to Mandy. What do we do from there?” Green asks, understandably not wanting to go up there without a real plan.

“Never thought I’d say this about a woman, but we have to beat the crap out of her.” Red says, overconfident in his abilities, especially considering how we all got our asses kicked flawlessly last time.

“That I’m not sure of. I ran diagnostics on her so many times, trying to find a hidden weakness, but unless we don’t have a clear indication yet.” Blue says, in a tone that leads us to believe that even she doubts her statement. Not a good move for morale within the group.

“Argh, this wouldn’t be an issue if we just had those stupid rings. It sucks being powerless.” Green says, getting frustrated as we seemingly walk around in circles.

“It has to be something to do with that crown. It’s a long shot, but if someone can get that crown, won’t they feel its power too?” I ask, suddenly remembering about the crown that she always wears.

“I would love to celebrate and say well done now, but it doesn’t work that way. I don’t know how many owners can access a ring, but the crown will only acknowledge its current master. The only way to do that is to kill her or get her to give it to you.” Brooklyn says, though I’m not sure on where she could possibly have got that information from.

“Alright then. But if we can get it away from her, that should stop the flow, correct?” Blue asks, though I was just about to ask the exact same question... glory hog.

“I suppose that wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility. If we are all in agreement, I believe we have our master plan.” Brooklyn says, excitedly as she lights her cigarette, making me crave for one again.

We all nod in agreement, as we all mentally prepare ourselves for the biggest battle yet. Suddenly, Garcia comes back out of the house with regular plates in his hand, containing weird rainbow coloured steaks.

“Alright, it’s all done. Now, who’s up for some food before the action starts?” Garcia asks, sounding so happy, probably mostly at the prospect of getting his castle back.

After we all hesitantly chow down the unicorn remains, only because there is physically no food otherwise, we all prepare our weapons for battle.

“Are you all ready?” Garcia asks us, now with a huge axe strapped to his back.

“Yeah, let’s get going while we have the pre-emptive strike.” Blue says, climbing onto his hand.

As we attempt to walk off, we notice that Aera is flying in the air just above us, likely having watched us for a little while now. After an intense stare, it flies away back towards the castle.

“There goes our pre-emptive strike. Alright, it’s now or never. Let’s not keep them waiting.” Brooklyn says, patting Blue on the back.

We all prepare our weapons and readjust our suits as we all make our way to Garcia. Looking as if she is crumbling under the weight of the world, Yellow walks next to me.

“Hey. I’m never one to sound like a downer, but do you really think we can win here? We don’t have to kill anyone either, do we?” Yellow asks, looking up at me with her puppy dog eyes.

“To be honest, I’m not certain. Just keep focused, and remind yourselves that anyone we have to fight died a long time ago. We’ll get through this somehow.” I say, not sure what else to say, having no real confidence in this mission either.

Anxious of our current situation, we all climb onto Garcia’s hands as he walks through the ghastly trees again. My focus wanes every now and then, but every time I look up, I see the exact same scenery, like we’re going around in circles... I suppose this place is his home now, so he must know his way by now. About 20 minutes into our journey, I notice a small clearing that has been barred off by a little wooden fence, with the word “Condemned” crudely written across it with black paint.

“Hey, hope you don’t mind me asking, but-“ I try to ask before I hear Garcia clearing his throat.

“You shouldn’t concern yourself with its contents, my dear. They belong to a past best left forgotten.” Garcia says, trying to deter me from its mystery... too bad it’s making me want to go in even more.

After a few more minutes, we find the exit of this labyrinth of trees, Garcia stops just short of the end, as the air falls silent.

“Something wrong?” Yellow asks, pulling out an arrow from her little quiver in preparation.

“Do you hear that?” Garcia asks, listening into something from afar.

We all stay quiet, but we can’t hear anything.

“This is silly. I can’t hear any-“ Green says, before getting shushed by Blue.

“Wait. I can hear it too.” Blue says, as everyone falls silent again.

A moment later, the roar of a huge crowd echoes faintly through the trees, followed by the buzzing of a microphone.

“My loyal followers, my dear friend here tells me that we have guests arriving. Guests who wish to bring me harm. I have summoned you all before me, because you are who I consider best of the best. If you have any respect for your queen, you will bring me their heads. Those who do will be handsomely rewarded. Your queen has spoken. Now do me proud.” Mandy says, leaving the microphone as the crowd roars even louder.

We all look at each other, trying to think of supporting words to boost morale, but coming up dry.

“Hey, there might not be that many there waiting for us.” White says, nervously giggling to herself.

Garcia pushes the leaves of the nearby tree aside to give us a peek on the other side, and true to our fears, we see a dark castle courtyard, in which a sea of walking corpses occupy, like the most ambitious death metal concert. There is a row of statues modelled after Garcia in two straight lines, as two dried up fountains rest furthest on either side.

“What are we going to do? That’s far too much for us.” Yellow says, freaking out as she paces around.

“Don’t worry. There may be hollow shells of my former men amongst the crowd, but they are but mere toys to me. I will carve us a path” Garcia says, putting us down to the ground before preparing his huge axe, a look of seriousness and anger in his eyes.

“Remember the plan, guys. And remember that we all must work together. There is no competition here.” Blue says, reminding us one more time, as we expected of the mother of the team.

“Hey, we’re still doing it, yeah?” Green asks Red, whispering to him, looking slyly at Blue, who is none the wiser.

“What? If we take on an army, the one with the biggest body count wins a favour?” Red asks, pulling his red helmet down.

“Hell yeah. Just try to keep up.” Green says, pulling out his bag of tricks.

Alright. This is it. Whatever happens... happens. I prepare my guns, as Brooklyn appears next to me, doing the same. Bonnie cracks her knuckles, a sadistic smile from ear to ear.

“Good luck out there, kiddo.” Brooklyn says, putting her hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah, likewise.” I say to her, my mind in such a fluster to come up with more colourful words.

With Garcia’s lead, we all walk into the courtyard, approaching the crowd. Though I think we would be better off not getting their attention at all, they are covering each possible entrance. We walk up quite a distance before the bird notices us and shrieks at a ear-piercing pitch. The crowd all turn to us, as their mushy brains take in their orders a few seconds after. Before long, they all run towards us, screaming and moaning at us, with little pieces of them flying off and falling to the floor already. The stench is almost too much to bear as it starts to affect my stomach again.

With no time to second guess, we begin carving our way through their numbers. To my surprise, they don’t seem to be putting up too much of a resistance yet, as I continuously shoot through their chests and heads.

Red uses his brute strength to swing his sword around, taking out a big number right off the bat. Blue is taking things more into consideration, taking one of Green’s explosives, throwing it at a nearby statue of Garcia, shaking it up from its foundations. She wraps her whip around it and swings it at the ones who advance on her. Green is placing little mines around his area, as the ghouls are much too stupid to realise not to step there. He throws random makeshift molotov cocktails around, watching as some of them catch fire.

Yellow is firing nonstop from her bow, as Brooklyn backs her up with her collection of guns. Bonnie and White seem to be going around together, as White cuts them with daggers almost gracefully, like a dance routine, while Bonnie is delivering the finishing punch afterwards. As for Garcia, he seems to be covering a lot of ground with his axe, sweeping up a huge group of them at once.

Filled with admittedly misplaced confidence, I walk over to Yellow and Brooklyn, taking out anyone who attempts to mess with me.

“Hey guys, you ready?” I ask, tapping them both on the shoulder with either hand.

“Thought you’d never ask. I know I’m probably speaking too soon, but these guys are pushovers.” Brooklyn says, running out of bullets before throwing the entire gun at a nearby ghoul, hitting it in the face as it falls to the ground.

“Please don’t jinx it. I’m sure Mandy has some tricks up her sleeve.” Yellow says, her eyes affixed to the ghouls around her.

As we make our way towards the castle, we take shots at any of the ghouls who run towards us with their little swords and sticks. Going around the back of the castle, we can see that there is a decrease of numbers the further we go. We hide behind one of the pillars in the castle’s architecture to notice that there is one ghoul guarding the door, albeit on a slightly bigger build than the standard grunt. The three of us silently count down from three, using our fingers before jumping out at it. The arrow penetrates its slimy forehead, as our two bullets pierce either side of its neck, making it crumble to the ground in a bloody puddle.

As we walk to the door, Brooklyn and I exchange a high five in victory before opening the door, but as I hold the door open for Yellow, she doesn’t look her normal happy-go-lucky self anymore, she just looks sad, as she doesn’t even look at me or even say anything. Closing the door behind us, we find ourselves in a nearly pitch black room, set alight by only one medieval looking torch in the centre of the room, just holding up on the support beam with one solitary nail at the handle, and the flame is nearing its last night.

I flip my phone for the torch function, but I remember that the power ran out a while back. Luckily, Brooklyn’s phone seems to be working well enough, as the flash on her camera illuminates the room. Looking around the room, we seem to be inside an abandoned dungeon. The cells contain nothing but bones and spiderwebs. Suddenly, Yellow starts to scream, as we turn around sharply toward her, shooting our guns just behind her.

“What? What happened?” I ask, frantically looking around the room.

“I almost stepped on a skeleton. I’m sorry, I just hate death so much.” Yellow says, obviously trying not to cry as she steps away from a skeleton on the floor, breathing heavily.

“Please don’t do that, Yellow. My heart almost exploded out of my chest.” I say to her, putting away my gun as my heart makes up for the beats it just skipped.

“Also, we might want to keep our voices down, you’d never know who has their ears to the ground.” Brooklyn says, still as cool as the inside of a fridge.

Falling back to the silence, we make our way for the door on the other side of the long room. I slowly pull the handle, but to our disappointment and annoyance, the door is locked, not budging an inch.

“Really?” I say, as I try to force the door open, pulling it as hard as I can.

“Of all the obstacles we faced, who’d have thought the biggest threat is a closed door.” Brooklyn says, giggling to herself.

“Hey, there’s a time for joking and a time for helping, and this is definitely the latter.” I say, trying to push and pull the door open, secretly hoping that the lock would just rust and fall to the floor... with no such luck.

“My, aren’t you girls in a bit of a bind.” A weird deep voice says to us from inside one of the cells.

“What? Where are you? Come out with your hands in the air.” Brooklyn says, swinging the light of the torch around the room in a panic.

“Come on, baby. What are you, a cop? I’m over here. Cell 28.” The voice continues with a less than serious tone in his voice, considering his obviously bleak situation.

As we shine a light on each cell, we come across number 28, though it appears to be completely empty, save for a strange stuffed toy of a little lyrebird, with black silky artificial feathers, red crest and a lovely rainbow tail that is almost as big as the rest of his body put together. Suddenly, the bird starts to get up by itself and walk towards the cell.

“Alright, here’s the situation as I know- helloooo angel face” The bird strangely says, so obviously changing his tone for Brooklyn’s sake.

Something tells me that I should be afraid that a stuffed toy is walking and talking, but considering everything I have seen so far, I am pretty much numb to it all now. Brooklyn however, a regular of this world, somehow can’t believe her eyes, her mouth gaping open at the sight, alongside Yellow.

“The bird can talk? First time for everything, I guess. So, you were saying before?” Brooklyn asks, unable to believe that the voice is coming from the bird, continuing to look behind it for another person.

“Oh my stars, that is adorable.” Yellow says, not able to take her eyes off him

“Huh? Oh yeah. Well, here’s the thing babe, I-“ The bird starts to explaining before getting Brooklyn’s gun pointed at his face.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’m not your babe. If you need something to call me, just Brooklyn is nice enough.” Brooklyn says, her finger gently tickling the trigger.

“Don’t shoot the poor thing.” Yellow says, covering her eyes with her arm like a child.

“Listen to the little one, would you? Alright then... Brooklyn. Listen, the master key is just hanging up over in the corner of the room. That will not only open the door you need, but the only door between me and freedom also. So what do you think? Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” The bird says, trying to bargain for his life in the smuggest tone possible.

“Hmm, what would you do for us, exactly?” I ask it, not wanting this to be a one-sided deal.

“You lovely ladies are likely new to this place, and I know this place like the back of my hand. If you can let me out, I will repay you by... I don’t know, taking you to the throne room. Sound good?” The bird says, probably reading our faces enough to see that we don’t have a clue how to get around in this place.

“Hmm, tempting. Fine, you have my vote for now. How about you?” Brooklyn asks me, walking over to a small hook in the furthest corner of the room and grabbing the key.

“Couldn’t care either way. It’s your call.” I say, wanting no blame for when this decision comes back to bite us in the ass.

“Alright, but try anything funny and we’ll be having roast turkey tonight.” Brooklyn says, as she unlocks the cell and the bird starts to walk out.

“Hey, do I look like a turkey to you? Say, you’re acting a little quiet toni-“ The bird says as he flies up to take a closer look at my face before realising something, screaming and jumping back into his cell.

“I wasn’t trying to escape, Mandy, I swear. I’ve been good, just ask anyone.” The bird says, backing away as I walk closer.

“Relax, Mandy isn’t here. We just... happen to look alike.” I say, honestly getting sick of all of the people mistaking me for her all of a sudden.

“Oh. Awkward...” The bird says, as he steps back out of his cell.

“When you lovebirds are ready, the door’s open.” Brooklyn says to us, spinning the keychain in her finger.

“Wait, if you’re not Mandy, who the hell are you?” The bird asks, flying up onto my right shoulder like my personal parrot.

“Just call me Black for now, and this is Yellow. What do they call you?” I ask him, pointing to Yellow, before poking his little beak with my finger.

“Black? Yellow? I’ve heard of Blue or Violet as a name, but geez. I’m Lyle.” Lyle says, trying not to laugh at his own dumb joke.

The four of us leave through the door together, as I get ready to explain the situation to Lyle. With him on our side for now, I just hope he knows what he’s talking about. I hope the others are getting on alright out there. Don’t worry guys, just a little longer.