You Can Never Be Free

103.

The ship was gone, the fog was gone, there was only the carnival. Clarissa knew it wasn't real, that she had been thrown into whatever nightmare zone of the mind the forest can do to people, but it was still horrifying. The music was back, lilting and off key, augmented by the sound of children laughing/crying, but other than the noise Clarissa was alone in the park and had been ever since Gilbert vanished in front of her. She had wandered the entire carnival and seen nothing but the rusted and broken down rides and attractions. Whatever the fog/forest wanted it kept that to itself.

****

Clarissa was gone, Gilbert was just warning her to stay close to the flare and then she was gone. This was all his fault, he knew it deep down he should have not been so gung ho here. He knew he should be more cautious but he'd thrown it to the wind to chase a white whale and now he was there, a flare dying next to him as he tried to figure out how to fix a boat engine.

"She's mine now." The horror amusement person was there just out of the flares range, like a haunting imagine.

"No she's not, you have power this is true, but you don't control the seas, soon as I get this shit moving we'll be free of you."

"You'll never be free of me you know that don't you? You may escape today, but I'll always have a part of you, until you die from this world, and then in the next I'll have you."

"Keep talking, the more time you're here bothering me, the less you're doing anything to Clarissa." Gilbert's hand's hurt. The generator was full of sharp parts and metal snags, he'd cut himself several times already, but he knew he had to keep at it, he had to free Clarissa and himself from the Fog if only to have more time to deal with the fog.

"I can do multiple things at once."

"I don't think you can honestly, I think you are more limited than you claim, such as it always is with creatures like yourselves." Gilbert found something stuck in a gear and removed it. He sighed to himself and pressed the ignition button and the ship came to life. The carnival barker faded as well, in his place was Clarissa.

"Oh god Gilbert it was so terrifying."

"Later we have to get up to the top and get this damn thing out of here."

****

"It felt like I was in there for days." The ship was underway, the fog was trailing them uncomfortably always behind, but Gilbert felt they were going to make it out.

"You were gone like five minutes, what did you see?"

"A carnival but like it was empty, just the remains of a broken down one." Gilbert felt a chill go down his back.

"Surprising, when I've visited that place, it wasn't empty, it makes me wonder SHIIIIIII." Gilbert's thought was interrupted by the large ship in front of them. He knew it wasn't there a second before the crash, that the forest/fog had put it there, but he still felt stupid for hitting it dead on. Somewhere behind them as the fog remained nearby he heard laughter.