Candy Will Die

Author's Note: Carrion is thinking positive today…

Warning: This fic has lots of blood, violence, hints to suicide, and general nastiness… enjoy.

The girl was running, but she couldn't get far. Wherever she turned she seemed to get no further away from the man following her. Her legs were straining to move under her trousers, and her feet were pounding in her trainers on the ever-changing floor. One moment she was running on marble tiles, the next she was skidding on dusty pebbles.

She was outside the tower, running in the moonlight and the cold air of Midnight. Her breath, short and fast, painful in the chill, came from her mouth like bursts of white smoke. The warm air that had been expelled from her lungs filled the gloom around her, and finally dispersed; but only after it had brushed across Christopher Carrion's face.

Candy's legs burned, but it was worth it to gain precious seconds of a lead in front of Carrion. But there was no luck smiling on Candy that day, as just as she had the faintest spark of hope that she might just escape, she tripped over the fallen branches of a dead tree.

Falling onto her knees, Candy scraped her palms over the hard floor until she stopped her forward motion. Crying out in pain and the shock, she pushed herself up just in time to see Carrion barely two meters away. Staggering to her feet and back into her clumsy run, Candy rubbed her raw hands on her top, leaving bloody patches on her stomach.

Christopher Carrion stopped for the briefest of moments to look at the spot where the girl had fallen. His eyes looked at the disturbed gravel, and the little pale stones that were now tinged red with her blood.

He crushed them under his boot.

"I like the colour of your blood girl!" he shouted after her, in an echoing voice that seemed to bounce off of everything and only settled in Candy's ears.

Candy's eyes were filled with blinding tears. She didn't know where she was going, and she knew deep down within herself that she wasn't going to escape now. Her chest was afire, her legs cramping, she was slowing down, and her fate was closing in on her faster than she could run.

"Oh God," she cried as she ran. "Oh God, I'm going to die. He's going to kill me!"

But there was no God there to save her, only the fog that seemed to be stirring up from the plants around her, creating a haze that she was running into. It became more and more thick until she could no longer see, and her enthusiasm for running was dashed by the thought of running into a tree.

However, stopping was the last thing she should have done, for when she stopped, she didn't move again. Something was climbing up her leg, but in the fog she couldn't see what it was. It felt like a plant tendril, or a snake, but whatever it was it was strong and unforgiving.

Candy looked around wildly. Where was Carrion? He had been right on her heels. Had the plant got him too?

"Candy!" someone called her in the mist.

She snapped her head to the left, it had sounded like Malingo. But that was impossible. It must be a trick of Carrion's. Yet she could help but lean towards where the voice had come from, in the tiniest hope that Malingo was here to save her.

"Malingo?" she called.

"No, I'm not your friend."

Bang, Candy was pushed backwards. She felt as if he's just run smack into her, as all her front hurt with the force of the push. Suddenly Candy realised she was still falling, it seemed she was falling forever, falling and falling into the dark.

With her heart pounding, and her hands scrabbling in the air, searching desperately for something to cling to, Candy stopped screaming and as a thought occurred to her. It was impossible for her to be falling this far down to the ground she had just walked over moments before, even in the Abarat that was strange. She had no memory of why she was running in the first place either, or how she had gotten to this place. It was all so odd that there was only one answer that made any sense; it must all be a dream.

As soon as she began to relax, knowing for sure she'd never reach the bottom of this fall, that she'd wake up at any moment, Candy crashed into a pool of icy water. The force of hitting the surface almost knocked her unconscious, but she managed to resist the black swarming dots that threatened to take her away. Gasping for air and receiving a mouthful of water instead was enough to make Candy kick for the surface.

'Alright Candy,' she thought 'wake up now, its gone far enough…'

She was feeling dizzy, the lack of oxygen in her blood making her drowsy, she wanted to stop moving, but she hadn't reached the surface yet. Knowing any moment she would wake, Candy only half-heartedly broke the surface, but dream or not, her lungs welcomed the air with a gasp and splutter of relief.

Treading water and moving her arms around on the surface to stay afloat, Candy noticed someone standing on the water's edge. Christopher Carrion watched Candy drowning from the riverbank; in his right hand he held a dagger, rusty from neglect. He was going to plunge that dagger into Candy's chest and watch her blood pour out onto the floor.

He waited patiently as Candy fought the water, then she looked at him.

"I thought you were going to drown, I'm so glad you didn't," he said.

He stretched out his left arm and beckoned her with his finger.

"Come closer girl!"

Candy thrashed the water to keep her distance, but it wouldn't listen to her, it was obeying Carrion, bringing her closer every second. Candy spotted the dagger and her heart turned cold with fear, she wished she really had drowned in the water.

"No, please. It's just a dream, it has to be, he's dead!" Candy told herself, speaking aloud this time to assure herself, but still she didn't wake up.

Carrion waited, the trees around him taking on an eerie red glow in anticipation of the evil about to be preformed.

Candy reached the edge and Carrion snapped down to grab her with a harsh hand tangled in her hair. Dragging her out of the water, he stood over her dagger in hand.

"Candy wake up," Candy tried again.

"Candy wake up," Carrion mimicked. "What are you going to wake up to Candy? Are you going to go back to that school? Sit in that classroom, your only worry being whether the teacher is going to call in that homework you haven't done? You know you cannot go back. You gave yourself to me when you allowed yourself to be caught, and now I've had enough of you!"

"It's just a dream," Candy sobbed.

"It's all been a dream girl, and I want you out of mine."

Candy watched him raise the knife. She wasn't going to wake up. She was going to feel that pointy edge go through her skin and explode all of the life out of her in a moment of agonising pain.

"No!" she screamed, raising her hands to try and stop him. "Please, I don't want to die!"

Carrion stopped, regarded her frightened face for a moment and then smiled. Candy looked at his twisted smile and knew there was not one scrap of pity for her in him.

"I am going to kill you every time you close your eyes. Every time you sleep I'll be there, waiting, until you're afraid to close your eyes. I'll kill you in your dreams until you cannot bare to live a moment longer, and you take this blade to your own veins."

Candy cried a long cry of pain, she was frightened to her very soul, and she hated him more than she ever did before.

"I'll take it to yours!" she screamed hysterically.

Carrion nodded as if that was the answer he was expecting.

"I'm on Hobarookus, if you can find me, come and kill me Candy."

Candy blinked, she was about to try and plead again, but it was too late. The blade was slicing through the air, and before she could even draw her last breath, it had plundered through her left ribs and into the softness of her lung.

Eyes wide, Candy choked on the blood that was filling up her mouth and spilling over her lips.

"Beautiful," Carrion whispered.

Candy watched him kneel down beside her, her vision going cloudy. He was holding his hands up to his eyes, both hands covered in her blood.

"And I have the rest of your dreams to see it, again, and again…"

Candy closed her eyes, he could do what he wanted with her now, it was all over, and she was drifting away. Floating on something soft and smooth, the sun shining on her face. The sun, she thought, the sun was shining, and she wasn't dead after all!

"Da!" someone was shouting. "Da! There's a girl! Over there with all the fishes!"

"Well, bring her in son," an older voice answered.

Candy felt herself being dragged along by something and then lifted out of what she assumed was water and into some sort of vessel.

"Poor lass, shipwrecked were you? We've seen many souls shipwrecked today, most id never welcome abroad, strange looking folk, but you, you're strange, but a whole different kettle of fish."

Candy coughed up water, glad that someone was speaking to her, calling her back into the land of the living.

"Where am I?" Candy asked when she could finally sit up and look around.

"On my boat, me and my son are fishing these waters…"

"I'm in the Abarat?" Candy asked.

The man laughed.

"Of course! Where else would you be? Now, where do you live? Or maybe more appropriately…where can we take you?"

Candy sat in silence for a moment, she felt sore on her left side, and when she rubbed her left ribs she knew where she wanted to go. She looked up at the man and his son, she was ready to give her answer; she had never been more ready in all her life.

End

Author's Note: I'm in a lot of pain, pain is all I can think about, pain pain pain….(I had my wisdom teeth pulled out) therefore, makes sense that I should inflict my pain upon some other poor soul, aka Candy.

Anyway, what'd you think?