JANELOS: The next step

Ch. 6

!!WARNING!! DEAD BODIES AND FIRE MENTIONED (also abuse)

The mountains rose in the distance, rolling into the steep grassy hills I stare at. Can nature be purer? I sing quietly, but even my whispers echo off the hills and come back a thousand times louder. My words are bouncing between the valleys and create a poem that only mother nature could conjure up. 

I turn around, seeing Auradon in the distance, but something is off. Everything is blackened, smoke is rising into the skies, the smell of ash burning my nose as it hits me. 

I start running, the castle could still be seen with blackened trees and bushes. 

When the rest of Auradon came into view I stopped. Coughing smoke out of my lungs, I start to sob. everything I have ever known is in ashes. 

I walk through the rubble, bodies of my friends with burn marks all over them, littered around the place. I fall to my knees beside Lonnie, who was lying among what used to be the courtyard. I brush the hair out of her face, a tear rolling down my face at the sight.

Then I hear a sound. Footsteps. I freeze. 

Then I hear a voice. One I so desperately wanted to hear, but it was off. Like something had frozen their heart, like they stopped loving, like they gave up hope. 

Carlos.

I slowly stood, brushing the ash off my clothes. 

"Hello Jane. I see you were the only survivor. Do you like the new view?"

I shivered. Surely this was a dream? No, it was a nightmare. 

I turned, and what I saw made my heart stop.

Carlos was wearing all black, ash smudges all over his exposed skin. his white hair was red, as was his pupils. He was holding a dagger in one hand, and a stick of TNT in the other.

I realised what he had done. 

"w - what?" I whispered. "why did you do this?"

"I wanted to be left alone in the void. a void of my mind, but there are things that no one would want to go through in there. memories, I suppose. my mother- she- - "

He stopped, looked down and took a shaky breath in.

"I don't want to know. if your mother abused you so much you did this, then mabey you need to go get help. But since no one is left, then we cant do that can w-"

I froze, the dagger at my throat. 

"I never loved you jane," his breath tickling my neck. "It was all for show. I never wanted to become good, I was always on the evil side. You know, I think that I want to show you something. I heard you singing earlier. Such a shame I have to kill you" 

He started to guide me up to one of the towers of the castle. 

"You see everything? I did that. I-I did that." He said faltering as an evil smile came to his face. 

"See you on the other side, Jane" He said sickly sweet.

Then he threw me off the tower. 

"NO-N-NO CARLOS!"

Right before I hit the ground, I woke up.