Fuck.

I keep pressure on my stomach, around the knife. It's a strange feeling, maybe because of the blood loss, but it's doesn't hurt as much as it feels uncomfortable. That fucking bastard, he got me. The second Carnie's mom vanished he attacked, using the broken knife. The knife being shorter is probably the only reason I'm not dead yet, that, and Carnie showing up before I was choked to death.

Looking over I see Carnie pouring a vile down Red's throat. "Tha...nk... you" I can see the burns across Red's body fade away leaving not even a hint of a scar behind. I thought what I wanted the most was to kill John, yet, here I am, throwing that away. I can't lose Red, I can't.

"Mom? Where's my mom?"

"..." I'm sorry Carnie. As tough as she is I'm sure she's fine, but I know that's not what you want to hear.

POP! The whole hall shakes as more cracks begin to form on the floor, walls, and ceiling. A moment later Red shoots up scanning the room with rage. Finding me with her eyes she is struck with confusion as she touches her throat while looking down at her exposed body.

I answer the question her face seems to be asking, "Veronica..." After saying the name some semblance of understanding sprouts across her face and she finally looks me up and down, her eyes widening.

Tears form in her eyes as she speaks only one word, "No!"

Placing her hand on my shoulder, what is to be one of my final thoughts crosses my mind.

...I still have to kill him!

Pain assails my body and causes me to scream out but my jaw doesn't move nor my mouth open. I can feel all the flesh near my wounds moving. My leg pushing out the bullets buried in it, the knife in my stomach removing itself, all the holes on my body forcing themselves shut. I was familiar with the feeling of my body suddenly healing and this wasn't it. This was as if someone was squeezing my flesh together.

Red presses her lips to mine and my mouth opens in response, but it isn't her tongue that enters my mouth. The taste of bile fills my mouth and goes down my throat unresisted.

My wounds begin to heal for only a few seconds before stopping. Everything had healed just enough to close except my stomach.

"Hay, FUCKFACE! Where is she, I can smell her on you?"

While Red was trying to stop me from dying, Carnie was getting more agitated and nervous with every second she didn't see her mom. It might have looked like anger in her actions, but I could tell it was fear. With every step towards him, her nails grew longer, while he was slowly getting up off the floor.

Red grabs the chain that was a few feet from me and it coils up next to her like a snake. Touching a link of chain with the tip of her index finger the link snaps and opens up, letting the two links connected to it fall out. The broken open link stays against her index finger as if it was glued to it as she moves her hand towards me. I watch her place her finger just before my stomach, the metal chain link morphing into an absurdly thick, staple? She shoves her finger against my stomach which causes pain to shoot up my spine and I see what happens next before I feel the effects of it. The link had gouged into my skin, pinching the flesh and pulling part of the wound closed.

I cried out, "AHHHah!"

In an instant, I felt the return of the full-body vise grip. Now unable to move at all Red speaks to me with a serious tone, "Don't. Fucking. Move!" It was redundant to say now as there was no possibility I could move with her hold on me.

Her hand remained on my shoulder the whole time, it was most likely the only thing stopping me from bleeding out with how seriously my stomach was injured. She then repeated the process with another link of the chain which somehow caused even more pain than the one before, or maybe it was my inability to express it, only being able to scream through a clenched jaw.

"I've only got to do a couple more, so just hold out!"

The incredible pain caused me to move my eyes away from what was happening at my stomach in an effort to lessen the pain.

Carnie lept at my father.

No, Carnie, WAIT!

Despite acting as though he could hardly move, the second Carnie had left the ground he moved. Not backing away or dodging to the side, but forward. A knife he must have been concealing whipped around from behind him in his only good arm, sinking itself into Carnie's neck. Her neck was so thin that the knife came out the other side.

I screamed threw my teeth at Red, getting her attention and aiming it with my eyes. She turned her head and looked at Carnie over her shoulder, still without taking her hand off my shoulder.

Red turned her head back to me, "He'll be dead soon." only saying those few words before getting back to placing the, painfully improvised, staples in my stomach.

As I watched, Carnie grabbed his neck, unfazed by the knife in hers. Even while being strangled by her inhuman strength he didn't let up, still holding her whole body in the air with the knife in her neck. Then, Carnie did something I didn't ever expect. With her firm grip on his throat, she started pulling herself closer to him, the knife ripping and cutting through her neck as she did. If she kept this up she would end up decapitating herself with the knife, or so I thought. When the knife came out of the back of her neck I was able to see what she had been doing. Healing her neck around the knife as it cut through, she was able to stop herself from being decapitated. It was something only she could have done.

Carnie whipped her legs up, inverting her body and spinning around his head, no, with his head. In one fluid motion, she had snapped his neck, his head now facing backward. Uninverting her body and placing her feet on his shoulders, she jumped off, never letting go of his head.

Landing on the ground ten feet away from his body she held his head, pealing the scalp off of it.