This has been the most difficult chapter I have ever written in my life. I have rewritten this at least 100 times, no exaggeration. I think I have finally found a version I can live with, and I feel really bad for making you guys wait so long (and I'm currently in Japan right now, so that's slowed things down just a tad too). Thank you all for your patience. The good news is, the rest of the book is indeed finished, so there will be no more several month waiting periods from now on for new chapters.
No reply.
The Earth had stopped on its axis but I still spun, the colors of finery and lifeless eyes spinning and spinning. I turned slowly, searching for the changeling among humans.
Where are you?
I passed a server carrying a silver tray and took a champagne glass, sipping on the bubbling drink. Sweet almonds coated my tongue – cyanide. I downed the entire concoction.
I dare you, I said with my eyes, searching every shadow, every masked face. Poison me, send the firing squad after me, stab me through the heart, Madman. If you think you can.
A wind stirred, swirling through the skirts of the high ladies. A single fallen leaf scratched against the ground like a dead finger dragging itself across the tile.
Scritch scratch.
The champagne glass shattered in my hand.
I became as unmoving as the dancers. A drop of ruby red bubbled through the smallest of cuts on the back of my hand. I stayed perfectly still, eyes staring straight ahead, and breathed.
Decay. Blood. The scent of dank cellars rotting with leaves and crumbling earth. Of nightmares soaked in sweat and the stench of fear drowned within salty tears. Of dark places and forbidden corners caked with hundred-year-old dust. Of flakes of skin. Of burning smoke. Of mold. Of stagnant water. Of brilliant, bright copper. Fresh, dripping copper. Thick, heavy, suffocating copper.
Scritch scratch.
Warmth wrapped my ankles as a breeze twined around my body. Scritch scratch. Fingers of mist ran themselves across my thighs. Scritch scratch. Kisses of breath brushed against my shoulder, down both arms, tasting each finger, tracing symbols on my palms. Scritch scratch. A phantom tongue, as hot as a branding iron, licked away the drop of blood from the back of my hand as invisible arms wrapped around my waist. The arms crushed my chest so I could not move even if I wished it, could not breathe.
Scritch scratch.
Scritch scratch.
Scritch scratch.
And the breeze became a whisper dripping into my ears.
Welcome home, Princess Pandemonium.
Still, I did not move as my heart began beat, beat, beatbeatbeatbeating in my chest and every breath of air became a battle against the invisible bonds around my body. "I never left," I said.
A line of tension as thin as glass stretched taut between he and I.
You left me, said the wind. In the dark, in the earth. Down, down, down, down, down, down below where nooooone could find me. No one but the little crawly worms. Can you imagine how bored I was?
"Is that why you ruined my game?" I asked.
A puff of air brushed aside a strand of hair over my forehead and touched my porcelain mask. A gentle finger traced the edges of my false face, pausing at my mouth.
And the glass line tightened.
You cut off my head. That hurt my feelings.
My lips were pinched together. Something pulled as if to tear them off my face.
I struck.
Like black lightning, I grabbed a fistful of nothing. And the nothing became air. And the air became a spine. And the spine became flesh. And the flesh became a monster as the Madman materialized before me with my hand around his throat.
Close, his face was too close, as if he meant to kiss me. Or devour my flesh.
Shinji leaned down, as unnaturally tall as he was, to look me in the eye. It is very rude, he whispered, to attend a grand ball and refuse a dance by your most gracious host.
And the glass line tightened.
I looked into his face. Into his eyes, which were not eyes at all but a kaleidoscope of stained glass shards badly pieced together to resemble the shape of an eye. Everything about him was a bad imitation of what it might be to appear human: he was too tall, his limbs too long and bent at odd angles as if his bones were improperly placed. His lips pulled just a tad too far.
He is... wrong.
He is beautiful and painful to behold.
For tonight, Shinji had dyed his lips as deep and purple as twilight, his long, pointed nails coated black and dipped in glitter. Each finger bore at least three silver rings. Heavy shades of blue eyeshadow haloed his eyes; on the lid of his left eye was painted a ring of five stars and on the lid of the right a crescent moon broken in half. He was the finest dressed gentleman at this ball with his rich blue double-breasted tailcoat and sharp dress pants. Along the seams of his suit were tiny embroidered nonsense symbols, letters indecipherable and made-up runes.
Ten years has not changed him one bit: Madman Shinji still wore bloodshed like a fine suit.
"It may be rude," I agreed, "if you had bothered to ask me to dance in the first place."
And the glass line tightened.
Perhaps you should learn to listen better.
And the glass line-
His skin split, revealing disgusting, rotten teeth stained orange. Cheese balls. He swears those damned cheese balls from the poem are the cause of the stains. But everyone knew that cannibals-
He took a step forward. I took a step back, releasing my hold on his neck. Flakes of lightning crackled between the cracks of his splintered eyes. I knew that look. I knew what he was about to-
Listen.
The scent of salt and caramel and sticky spun sugar churned with the stench of gallons and gallons of baking blood, human sweat, and the cruel summer wind. Neon lights lit the night brighter than a dozen suns, announcing wonders beyond human imagination, freak shows, Mr. Wiggle's Tits 'N Tumbles, hand-squeezed lemonade, elephant ears, candies and fried fats, and PRIZES PRIZES PRIZES. A pigeon and a seagull screamed from behind a garbage can, ripping out feathers and chunks of flesh as they fought over a crumb of hot dog bun. Off in the distance, the illuminated swinging pirate ship shuddered as it reached its apex. With a pop like a child's gunshot, a screw ricocheted and hit the elderly Mr. Wiggle, splattering his brain against the red and white stripes of his tent. The metal frame holding the metal ship trembled and then collapsed. The carnival attendees screamed with delight.
Little Amelia trembled as we walked down the rows of brightly lit tents and tempting attractions. In her white frilly blouse and blue skirt, she looked like Alice ready to chase down and skin any rabbit that crossed her path. A crown of white daisies and human teeth adorned her red hair; a present she had begged for the moment she saw it hanging up in the glass window of a hearse selling full tours of the Underworld, Hades, Hell, or whichever version you believed in.
"Stay close," I said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. Twice she had run off towards some shiny object and I had to coax her back with promises of sweets and the grand finale show in the main tent that would be starting – I checked my pocket watch – very shortly.
"Mistress, look! Look!" Amelia cried, dashing to one of the stalls. She waved me over, bouncing up and down with excitement. "Mistress! Mistress! Look, Mommy!"
Mommy.
No, that wasn't right. Shinji, stop-
Vendors shouted out their wares – foods and trinkets and sex toys – seducing eager couples and children to play their games. Little Amelia won a large stuffed giraffe by hitting the bullseye painted on a corpse's eye. I was so proud.
"Alright, you have had your fun," I told her as she proudly carried the creature that was almost as big as she was. "Stay close to me, duchess. This is not a place for little girls and innocence. We have a show to catch."
"Yes, Mistress."
"Good girl."
The crowds thickened near the entrance to the main tent. The structure was massive. Billowing sheets of dark, midnight blue fabric covered in red starbursts waved lazily in the stifling breeze. Four skyscrapers could fit comfortably inside and easily have enough room for several townhouses and a dozen rampaging elephants. The entrance was marked by a large archway made of the skulls of lions and bears and baboons. Across the arch, a single strand of fluorescent lights wrapped into one word: HOUSE.
"What kind of house is it?" Amelia asked as we made our way through the line to purchase tickets.
A teenage boy with a crew cut sat at the ticket booth. Chains held him to his seat, but they were unnecessary: his legs were crushed. The bones jutted through his black dress pants. He was a mutant freak, his body smashed and stitched together by a doll master who had no concept of what human form was meant to look like; his face drooped, his jaw unhinged and dangling in the open air. A clown stood behind ticket booth with a flamethrower, giving a sharp heated burst if he thought the boy was moving too slowly or did not smile wide enough.
I slid my dollar through the small opening in the glass and got two tickets. "Thank you, Spectacle," I said politely. Little Amelia smiled up at the boy; he stared back and smiled, eyes empty and lifeless.
Spectacle.
No.
He is dead.
You can't trap me in-
"A house is what you decide to make it," I said as we neared the entrance. "A birdhouse for those constantly in flight, an alehouse for those who drown themselves, a courthouse for those who deserve punishment, a dollhouse for the pretty and perfect, a doghouse for the lowly and wild, a glasshouse for the attention seekers, a firehouse for those who enjoy the burning, a greenhouse for the quiet growers, a guardhouse for the paranoid and loyal, a jailhouse for the tormented, a penthouse for the proud, a madhouse for the free, a poorhouse for the desolate, a slaughterhouse for the damned, a whorehouse for the... I think you are a little young for that just yet." I took her hand in mine. "Which would you like it to be?"
She looked up at me with those stunning green eyes soaked in childish innocence. "Which one would you choose?"
I smiled. "There is only one house I could ever call home." We stopped just outside the tent. Stones trembled as the ground shook with a sudden roar of the crowd just inside. An energetic announcer shouted something indecipherable and there was a mighty gasp followed by the boom of a cannon and a very audible crunching of bones.
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the scents of sweets and gore. "It is as the sign says, my child. 'House.' Be one and everything, and never let a single title control who you may become. Be mad and free, poor and proud, loyal and damned. Be more and less.
"The gutter is my house, the dumpster and the grave. The stars are my house, as is the wind. I reside in every bedroom, resting my head on the hearts of those who remember me, who love me and fear me. Inside nightmares and fantasies and the secret longings of man. I belong to chaos and order, and, in the impossible places in between, I build my house."
"Oh... I see."
"Do you truly? Do not lie to me, child."
"I... I think I do, Mistress."
"Good girl," I said.
Amelia was young. She had much still to learn. But there was a glimmer in her eye, a small seed of black beauty. If she could look at the wonders of a Madman's circus and not shy away, but embrace them, revel in them, dance and laugh and play amongst the insanity, then there was much hope for her.
Sweet child. She drank up my words. She would remember tonight, even long after I was gone.
Gripping the thick, heavy fabric of the tent, I pulled the flap aside. A bright burst of golden light poured from the opening, illuminating the small figure of the little girl like an angel swathed in Heaven's divine glow.
"Shall we?"
A snap of Shinji's fingers and time resumed. Music burst to life without pause or hesitation. The dancers never missed a step. I blinked rapidly, my thoughts swirling before my eyes like muddied paint. The scent of bloodied popcorn was still sharp in my nostrils.
It had not been real.
It had not been real.
It had not been real.
Odd. Usually, I can't catch you so easily, Mooney Noony. You've gotten sloppy. Or slow in your old age.
I fought to rearrange a sentence, still struggling against a torrent of false sights and sounds and tastes. I said, "The years take their toll on us all. Except, apparently, the decapitated. I hear grave dirt and earthworms do wonders for the skin." But the words fell flat, the jab unimpressive by the slur in my voice.
It was hard to think straight as if I were dragging each thought through a quagmire of coagulated blood. The Madman was there, swimming in my mind; I could feel him. Like slick oil, his unnatural power allowed him to roam freely through my memories, my senses, my private daydreams. The intruding presence paused in that last category the longest, amused or disgusted it was hard to tell, before leisurely floating along the boiling sea of Noon.
I made no effort to attempt to chase him out, as I had done many times in the past.
Why should I?
I hoped he enjoyed my little black dressy thoughts and wonderful contemplations. Let him find my desires for the Gentleman, my numbness to the pain, my newfound pleasure in caring for Cheshire. Let him dig his greedy claws in deep.
Neither of us was leaving this asylum tonight.
After a short moment, my host smiled pleasantly. The bones of Shinji's hands protruded from his crooked fingers as he reached out for me. Would you care to d-?
Doctor Simbasi, my least favorite one-eyed psychiatrist to ever crawl across the earth, walked past. I grabbed his serving tray and cracked it across Shinji's head with such force the silver snapped in half. As black, bloody tar trickled down the side of the Madman's face, I grabbed a fistful of his clothes and plunged the broken metal shard into his throat.
"Go to hell."
The body dropped and flopped on the floor like a fish drowning in air. The creature's wide eyes rolled, his mouth gaping as blood spurted from his neck. Every black drop sizzled against the tile like acid.
I rolled my eyes. "If it were that easy to kill you..." The body vanished, blood and all. I felt his grin stretching wider and wider, twisting from behind me like a length of rope tightening into a noose. My hand slipped into the Gentleman's coat pocket, gun cocked before I drew it. I whirled and fired five bullets into the new Shinji's face. "...I would have done it years ago."
The back of the Madman's skull exploded, spraying brain across the orchestra and their beautiful instruments. The illusion lasted for a split second more before Fever's body hit the floor, face mangled beyond all recognition except for her fingerless hand.
If I didn't know any better... I would say that you're actually serious about this "killing me" business.
Shinji blinked into existence at my side. The creature grabbed the back of my neck and slammed me against one of the tossed-aside tables. I kicked him between the legs but he did not move, holding me still with inhuman strength. He leaned in close and licked my ear.
If this is about what happened in the Square, I sincerely apologize for that. The decorations weren't nearly ready, you see. It would have spoiled the surprise if you got here too soon. I got a bit... carried away.
Let's not fight, darling. We were pleasant with each other once. Don't you remember the good, old days?
"I think you and I remember things a little differently, old friend," I ground out through clenched teeth. "We were never-"
The past took me again.
"You still have not told me your name."
"Haven't I?" I jumped and nearly choked. The voice of my neighbor had not come from the ventilation shaft above. It came from the door. The locked, prison door, which was opening. "How terribly rude of me."
A ghost stood in the doorway, dressed in less-than-flattering white prison garb. His skin was ashen white and seemed to glow in the light of the full moon. But his eyes. My heart nearly stopped at the sight of those eyes. Even in the darkness, they were chaotic whirlpools of color and insanity.
"Hello!" he said with a flamboyant bow, dipping down so low his head scraped against the padded floor. "My name is Shinji. I think. Well, not really, but that's what they call me. I'm not really sure why... But you, my Lady Lynx," he winked, "you may call me anything your precious heart desires."
In the back of my mind, I was faintly aware that etiquette bade me stand and curtsey and introduce myself to Shinji, as any respectable lady should do.
But
I
was
captivated.
My limbs became chained with bonds much stronger than the iron chain around my ankle that 'confined' me to the solitary confinement cell of Sceptre Asylum.
Those eyes.
I had never seen such beautiful eyes.
My hand reached out. "Which one is lovelier: your right or your left eye?"
Shinji's smile fell. He tried to reclaim it but failed. As I stood, he took a slow step backward but found himself trapped in a corner of my cell.
"That's... quite a look you got there on your face, older sister," he breathed.
The false confidence that cloaked him like a second skin trembled. They always think themselves brave – I will be the one not to fear the Mistress! How bad could she really be?
Yes, how bad could I really be?
My fingers caressed the side of his face. His skin was hot to the touch, almost painfully so. I moved closer until we were nose to nose. The shards of red, blue, black, rage, and maliciousness never stayed still, swimming like flower petals on a lake of blood. What a most glorious addition to my collection they would make!
My fingers curled, nails poised to dig deep into flesh and claim what I desired. Then my hand burst into flames.
This was long before I lost the ability to feel, and the pain was excruciating. The instinctive scream lodged in my throat as I stood there transfixed by the red and black flames that danced upon my fingertips Astonished, I watched my own skin melt and begin to drip to the floor.
Tears of agony ran down my face as the flames hit the bone. I realized that I was going to lose that hand, so I did the only action available to me: I smacked Shinji across the face.
The bones of my fingertips crumbled into black ash. Fire seared his skin in the print of my hand across his left cheek. For a moment, the flames blazed across half his face, igniting his skin, sizzling his hair. The putrid scent of charring flesh and burnt hair fermented in the cell air.
I saw, at least, I think I saw, a glimpse of the creature beneath: a skeleton that was not human. Its skull was deformed, twisted and spiked with a slack jaw gaping wide and a large eye socket wherein, instead of an eyeball, a cruel red light shone in the darkness, roaming, searching, starving. It was a beast from a child's nightmare, a hellion with no name.
But then, with a snap of his fingers, the fire was gone, and so was the burning flesh. I stood before Shinji, my hand intact and uninjured, raised as if I were about to strike him. He stood perfectly still in his little corner, beautiful eyes wide and watching.
My arm fell to my side, limp. I think my hand was shaking, but I could not take my eyes from his face.
"Who are you?" I asked.
Shinji took a deep breath. I feel his chest move, the odd sound of his erratic heartbeat taking off like machine gun fire.
Then, his teeth stretched wide as he looked me up and down. "Be still my heart, I think I'm in love."
He abruptly dropped to his knees, causing me to stumble backward. "Marry me!" he proposed, his bravado returned. "Or be a friend. With benefits. It's all the same anyways. Will you, my bonnie lass, become my murderess in crime. It's so boring being here on my own. And you're just perfect. So perfect. You'd slit my throat and cut me up into itty bitty pieces and probably cook my skin for breakfast. I can see it in your eyes. Please, be mine till the end of time."
I frowned, the spell of desire broken. "My heart already belongs to another. And you really aren't my type."
His lips pulled tighter and tighter until his head split in half, rows of pointed fangs dripping with drool grinning in the moonlight. I reeled back, disgusted. Shinji stood, and as he did so, his body seemed to grow and grow and grow before my eyes. His head brushed against the ceiling and he had to stoop down just to fit inside the small cell.
"We'll be magnificent together," he said. "That is my vow to you." He licked his lips. "They all said I was mad coming to talk to you, mad to even think the thought. Oh, the stories they tell about the Madwoman of the Asylum."
Shinji picked up my hand and pressed his lips to my palm. "We'll make stories of our own soon enough I suspect, eh, my dear?" He kissed both of my cheeks, leaning in so close I smelled the blood and rot on his skin. Then, he kissed my lips and shoved his tongue down my throat.
I gagged and bit down hard. I almost vomited at the flood of blood that poured into my mouth. The last thing I heard was the Madman's cackling laughter shaking the walls of Sceptre Asylum and then he was gone, vanished like a ghost into the dawn.
"You are beautiful," his lingering voice purred. Like the madness of a full moon rising at noon.
I spat the blood out through the cell window and scrubbed my tongue with my fingers for hours, but I could never get the taste fully out of my mouth.
I craned my head back and spat in his face. Shinji lurched back in disgust, just enough for me to grab his arm and twist, wrenching the limb out of its socket. Shifting all my weight onto one leg, I jerked him forward, throwing him off balance, and slammed the creature to the ground.
The moment the body hit the tile, it vanished.
A cold, ugly frustration churned in my heart. Every breath from my body came out slow. Lingering. My nostrils flared. These glass restraints I harnessed myself with, the purebred lady within me, she was beginning to crack. Something else was starting to emerge.
I read your book, the Madman said, clasping his hands behind his back, circling me from above as he walked across the ceiling. The orchestra below him wailed as the dancers broke their legs and stumbled and smiled pleasantly beneath their masks. All your cute little adventures with your little cat friend and ice boy. And you painted me as such a villain. I'm touched. But I had the thought: why don't I tell people what really happened between us all those very long years ago? His teeth glowed fluorescent orange in the speckled light of the disco Warden. Wouldn't that be the most-
"I don't care."
If you did not know Shinji, if you had not sunken to the pits of his madness and dined there morning and evening for tea; if you had not once married him as an April Fool's prank and then discovered three months later that the prank had, in fact, been very real and the little weasel had forged all the necessary documents to now make you a legally married woman; if you had not had his hand offered to you in trust as the other wrapped a barbed wire around your throat; if you had not cut open his chest out of curiosity only to discover that there was nothing in there at all, merely a heartless cavity, and had the body laugh and laugh and howl at the moon; if you did not know Shinji as I did, you would have missed the hitch of breath as he flinched. The current incarnation of the Madman showed no reaction, but somewhere in the room the real one finally shut his mouth.
I stared into Shinji's shattered eyes. "You're a lousy magician, Shinji, and I grew tired of you a long time ago."
Mr. Damian Corbin once asked me what I feared. He got the question all wrong. I do not lie awake at night fearing iron bars and a cage. If someone is under the delusion that they can force me to play on their puppet strings, if someone believes they can hold me hostage and bend my knee to their will, if one idiot is mad enough to interfere with the path of my life – a path I love, one that is all mine – then I will
destroy
them.
I
Am
Mistress
Fucking
Noon.
To anyone who disagrees with that statement, there's not a God alive that will have mercy on your soul.
I orchestrate my own life. Violently. Poetically. Beautifully.
Me, fear Shinji?
I told you before, did I not? I collect secrets as earnestly as I collect human hearts.
And I like playing with my food before I eat.
The truth of the matter is actually quite simple: Shinji, the idiot, has never been able to accurately recreate the smell of blood.
In the asylum cafeteria, I could taste it on my tongue. My nostrils filled with the aroma of thick, rich, golden copper grown sweeter with age. If it were Shinji's doing, the scent would be pleasantly honeyed and tempting. Only I knew of the thinness in the blood, the gasping stretch of life smeared across too many long days and not enough empty nights.
Shinji had not been able to resist kissing my hand – the real him – and there it was: my rotting blood on his lips.
Little munchkin voices sang in my head: Follow the red brick road! Follow the bloody red brick road! From between my breasts, I pulled out my final weapon, my most beloved: my red Colt revolver. I had not given Dawn a choice when it came to returning my precious killer.
My fingers wrapped around the familiar hilt and I cocked the hammer, pointing not at the Shinji standing above me but to a spot away from the illusions, a place where the Madman could watch his play without worrying that his pretty little head might get blown to pieces.
The familiar slither of oil surged inside my mind as another illusion burst before my eyes, but he was too slow; I already had his scent.
I took one last breath and pulled-
That
was
the exact
moment
my body
broke.
Like a marionette cut of her strings, I fell
to my knees.
The breath choked in my lungs like soured tar. My heart stopped. Colors splashed against my eyes, the world bleeding into each other like wet watercolors. The floor tilted and I vomited blood onto the floor.
Too much. I had pushed myself too much, too far. Was this my punishment?
No!
I spat out another mouthful and raised my weapon, but it was too late. The scent had vanished and now my traitorous body had created a smokescreen for the villain to use. Staggering to my feet, I grabbed onto one of the dancers to steady myself. Something inside me was torn, something inside was bleeding.
Something inside was dying.
NO, I WILL NOT DIE LIKE THIS.
You don't look so good, Princess. Maybe you should lay down. I hear the cots in solitary are quite comfy, the fake Shinji said with great concern, climbing down from the ceiling. I lurched away from the pungent puddle, trying to reclaim my senses. Just one sign... One hint... Shinji did not know of his great weakness. I may have startled him, but he still thought he had me trapped and he was free to play with his caged bird.
The Twins were still playing jump rope in the corner. The one jumping's leg bent at a twisted angle, the bone protruding from her skin, cracking more with every jump. But she did not stop. She continued to laugh even as the blood ran down her delicate flesh.
Someone was singing. Or was that the voices in my head? It was so hard to tell sometimes. Getting hard to think straight. The illusion Shinji started to dance, but he was horribly off beat and kept crashing into the others on the dance floor.
One breath at a time, though my body rejected the air. I forced each gasp down my lungs, would have shoved my own hand down my throat and grabbed hold of my heart if it meant keeping the useless thing beating.
I only needed...
THERE!
I did not give this broken body time to break again when the faintest scent of my own blood wafted from an empty space next to a prison guard holding a tray of fried fingers. "Filthy cannibal." I could not stop the violent tremor in my hand, but I took the shot
and missed.
The bullet hit the side wall next to the back door, nowhere near the server. But the illusion Madman flickered, like a DVD skipping, and I knew I had spooked the real man. I prepared to fire off another shot when
When a small body knelt beside mine and placed its fingers around the hand with the gun. Large, yellow eyes blinked up at me. "Mama," Cheshire said, "I don't feel so good." His bottom lip trembled. "I think I have... decapititous." The boy's furry head rolled off his body and bounced across the floor.
I roared, screaming some very unladylike words. Shinji cackled as the headless illusion of my darling vanished. Black, black rage swallowed my mind when
When
The air shimmered like a heated mirage. My muscles locked into place, my finger trapped by a power beyond my control, unable to pull the trigger. Even though I knew it was a fake. Even though I knew this was another illusion created by Shinji to distract me, to play with me, to watch me squirm and dance on his filthy fingertips. Even though I knew that he
"Noon."
He was
"Put down the gun, Noon," the Gentleman ordered.
The red Colt fell with a clatter against the bloody floor.
He took a step closer, one hand outstretched, his eyes cold with beautiful fury. The whiteness of his suit was blinding in the romantic lighting. His face was perfect, flawless, with not a mark on his face or body.
I could not move.
"Now, be a good girl and leave killing the Madman to me."
Oh.
Be a good girl.
Be a good girl.
Be a
Be a
Be a good
Good
Good
Good
Be
Good girl
A good girl
A
A
A
Be a good girl, Noon.
I smiled.
I saved him just for you, my dear. Let's kill him together. Quick knife to the heart. We can stab out an eye and roast it over a fire and sing Kumbaya. Speaking of eyeballs, did you hear the joke about the headless cat? Um, Noony, are you listening to me? He-llo? Noon?
...Noon?
"You talk too much, Shinji."
Hey. Hey, what are you doing? ...What is that? You can't just-!
"You tell me to play by your rules, but, honey, I came here to make my own. Tell me what I cannot do one more time, Shinji, and I will show you everything I am capable of!"
H-H-Hold on just a minute! C-Can't we talk about this or something? I did this all for you! Everything you wanted, the party, the mass murder, all of it. Why aren't you happy? Why are you looking at me like that? S-Stay back! I'm warning you! NOON! STOP IT, NOON!
DON'T-DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!
BANG