"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints."

- Billy Joel

12:01 a.m

9 days earlier

“Remember to block my parents' numbers before we leave,” Clay reminded as he threw the bags of spare clothes into the back of his father's SUV. He had changed into a pair of blue shorts and a white singlet, wearing sandals for comfort for the long journey ahead. He closed the compartment door gently. “We don't want them calling us in some bad situation.”

Tim complied, navigating the buttons on his old flip phone to activate the block function as he opened the passenger side door. Clay was designated to drive the first half of the way and Tim the second. The latter was also dressed for comfort, wearing a dark grey, loose fitting pair of trousers and one of his many hoodie-shirt, this one coloured brown.

Stella popped out from the door that connected the garage to the kitchen, locking the same door behind her. “I've left the letters on the kitchen counter,” she had her strawberry blonde hair held back by a headband, wearing a cloudy blue one piece dress and white slippers. “If we're going to leave, we gotta do it fast. Remember, dad's a light sleeper.”

“I got it, I got it,” Clay replied annoyed as he circled to the drivers side and entered. His sister jumped into the immediate back seat. “Okay, ready?”

Stella nodded to Clay from the rear-view mirror and Tim replied with a quick, “Yup.”

Clay, with the remote for the garage door in hand, replied, “Let's do this!” he hit the button and the shutter door rose clunkily, shaking and clattering as it did so. Reaching behind the wheel, he turned on the ignition, the engine churned awake.

Agitated and worried that the noise would have woken up their parents, Stella rushed, “Come on, come on!”

“The shutter's not high enough yet,” Clay replied, as he readied to leave by shifting the gear into reverse.

The door to the kitchen started to shake and they could hear Gordon Barber's muffled shout from the other side.

Once the shutter was two-thirds the way up, Tim shouted, “Go!”

Clay reversed out of the garage just as the door to the kitchen burst open, Gordon standing there dumbfounded as he locked eyes with his son in the car. The vehicle roof scrapped the shutter by mere centimetres, the car grinding out onto the pavement and onto the road.

Stella watched as her adopted mother ran out of the front door of the house, her hair bouncing as she moved, intending to chase the car on foot. “Get us out of here!” she egged her brother on.

Clay turned the steering wheel tightly, shifted the gears and floored the accelerator. The car careened in a small crescent before finding a path on the open suburban road before it. After a slight drift, Clay swivelled the steering wheel back and burst through the streets in a roar of speed.

Stella looked back towards their parents, her mother hopelessly chasing them until they turned out from the avenue. “I feel bad.”

Once they were out of the radius of their neighbourhood, Clay slowed down his driving, making their way out of the suburbs and turning onto the long, straight highway that stretched out to the horizons and out of Ridge Valley.

Finally given breath, Clay told Tim, “You should catch some sleep. I'll wake you up when it's your turn to drive.”

“I'm fine,” Tim replied, waving away the suggestion. “I've slept enough for the day.”

XXX

Surprised, Tim let out, “Huh,” staring around the empty dream scape he was thrown into. “Maybe I haven't slept enough.”

He was on an empty road that stretched endlessly in all directions, tall-grass prairie surrounded him on both sides with mountains lining the horizon. The sun was not visible anywhere in the sky but still managed to bathe the fields in bright red. He no longer felt any discomfort in his stump of a right elbow. Though quite certain his injuries had healed, - given the time difference he previously learnt about the dream world and the real world - he played it safe and kept the blood stained bandages on.

“Where the fuck am I now?” he asked, hoping to hear the white dressed Sister replying to him.

Cart turned on it heels,

Tim spun around to the sound of the words, sung by a young child's voice too pitched to be a boy but too rough to be a girl. About ten meters down the road, a large fire which wasn't there before burnt brightly by the road side. An unidentifiable black heap in its centre.

Filled with blood and horror.

Taking wearied steps, Tim approached the inferno. The fire coiled and rose, dancing like snakes under charm. For a second, he could have sworn he saw a face within the flames.

Up. Down. Through the filth,

As he neared it enough to feel the heat of the flames, he could hear a harp playing softly in his head to the tune of the rhyme being sung.

Shoot the man turned monster.

Whatever was beneath the flames exploded, the force of the blast threw Tim on his back. He looked up and the fire seemed to part like a seam. From within the blaze, the Sawman stepped out, his straw hat untouched by the fire, not a scorch on his clothes.

“Shit!” Tim cursed, scrambling frantically to his feet, painfully supporting himself on what's left of his right elbow to stand faster.

But before he could fully get off the ground, the Sawman closed the gap between them and slashed at him with its weapon, barely missing Tim as he tumbled backwards at a poor attempt at dodging. Again, he fell back, but without the strength to lift himself up a second time, he laid on his back, eyes closed, and waited for death. Only, the searing pain he was expecting from getting slashed by the saw never came.

His eyes opened, only to be instantly blinded by the bright light of the blue sky, a stark contrast to his previous dull red environment. Swinging wildly as he attempted to get back to his feet, eyes tearing as he frantically tried to regain his sight, he somehow managed to stand, stumbling around in a circle before his vision finally settled.

Taking in his new, brighter surroundings, he found himself on the roof of his school. It was a five stories building, with a view of the surrounding suburbs and the city's skyline in the distance. Ventilation turbine littered the cracked, grey concrete tiled floor at intervals. A similarly depressing grey box-like structure marked the roof access stairwell.

“I'm surprised to see you here,” Tim turned to Sister, her white dress flowing at length behind as she calmly walked towards him, a sly smile on her innocent looking face. “Usually I'm the one who finds you. You must really miss me.”

“What the hell Sister?” he shot through her advances, physically closing in on the girl. He was still agitated from his encounter with the Sawman and attempted to slow his breathing. “I just saw The Father!”

“What's so surprising about that?” Sister replied, seductively coiling her slender arms around his neck. “You are dreaming after all.”

A third female voice, sing-song in tone, but nowhere near as melodic as Sister's, called out, “Tim?”

“Not now!” he raised his one hand to signal to the figure that he was busy. He told Sister, “It can't be him! No way!”

“Why?” Sister asked, leaning closer until he could clearly see the freckles on her face.

“Cause I killed him,” he replied, lowering his voice to almost a hiss. “Stabbed a pipe right through his face and he turned to dust, right in front of my eyes.”

“That's not possible,” she pulled herself slightly apart in genuine shock. “None of us can die here. We're gods of death for a reason.”

The third voice asked again, “What happened to your arm?”

Tim shushed her with a “Later!” and returned his attention to Sister. “Then what is going on? You say he can't die but I'm pretty damn sure I murder-faced him at the warehouse.”

The third person yelled, “Timothy Kleve! You will answer me right now!”

“What is it Stell?!” he shouted back, turning around to face his friend.

She stood with her arms crossed, wearing the red tunic, white tights and black slippers combo she wore to class almost two weeks ago. However, her hair, kept in a bun that day, had been untied and let to flow freely behind her.

He had not told the Barber siblings about him having Sin yet, and as the realization of his appearance there dawned on him. He mouthed, “Oh shit,” realising Sister's arms were still wrapped around him, he hastily swiped them away. “It's not what you think!” he could hear Sister snickering at his predicament.

In all the years Tim had known her, Stella had rarely looked as annoyed as she did then. “What's going on?” she asked sternly.

But just as he was about to answer, he heard the twang of the harp.

Tick. Tock. Goes the clock,

He asked the two girls, “Do you guys hear that?”

Jack is led to slaughter.

Sister replied, “Hear what?”

Tick. Tock. Goes the clock,

Stella too, said, “I don't hear anything,” confirming his theory that only he could hear the hymns.

Five days till the rapture.

A new sound intruded mid note. Perhaps the most terrifying sound he will never experience again in his life if he makes it through the entire ordeal.

Zoot. Zun. Zoot. Zun.

The group turned to the roof access. Even though the sound was something in their heads, it seemed to have a direction.

“Okay,” Stella said, her tone suddenly shaking. “I heard that one.”

Zoot. Zun. Zoot. Zun.

“Sister?” Tim asked, remembering what she told him before about how the only way to get killed by a Family member is if that person had been marked by one of them beforehand, and how only one mark can exist on a prey at any one time. “Have you marked Stella?”

“No,” she replied. “Didn't think I needed to,” he also recalled how usually only one hunter is able to interact with one prey.

“Can you mark her now?” a loud bang echoed out of the door of the roof access as the Sawman hammered against it. He could visibly see the door vibrating even from the distance he stood from. “Like, right now now?”

After a short second of silence from Sister, she replied, her tone worried as he had never heard it before, “I can't. The Father must have marked her.”

Zoot. Zun. Zoot. Zun.

Bang! The door tore apart from its hinges, exploding outwards as if TNT had been placed behind it, flying through the air, over the roofs' edge and crashing to the ground floor below.

“Stella!” Tim shouted, extending his hand behind him. She grabbed it without hesitation and he instructed, “This way!” before pulling her in the opposite direction of the Sawman.

Practically flying across the rooftop, he crossed the short distance between where they stood and the edge in a sprint.

Stella asked, “Where are we going?”

They reached the edge of the roof. Even though they were looking down the deadly five stories drop, Tim did not feel his legs turning into jelly as it did previously when he stared down the plateau. Turning back, they watched as the Sawman step out of the doorway and onto the rooftop with the same feared confidence in its steps. Sister stood in the middle of the roof, watching the two groups.

Having never seen the man in the straw hat before, Stella asked, “What is that?

“Sorry about this,” Tim put his hand on her stomach and before she could react, pushed her off the roof.

Her screams on the way down pierced him in the heart like daggers, but the sudden cut-off of her voice when she hit the ground was the bullet that stopped it. He had just murdered one of his best friend. Even though it was to save her life, the idea that he did it still bit him harder than a shark.

Directing his attention to Sister, he pointed sternly at her and shouted, “We're still not done talking!”

The Father crossed the rooftop with the same lack of resistance to the laws of physics as Sister did before. With one last breath, Tim, without taking his eyes off his hunter, took a step back off the roof and plummeted to his death.