•MPHFPC ONE SHOTS•

<=DOLLHOUSE=>

[SPOILERS FOR THE DESOLATIONS OF DEVIL'S ACRE!!
This is part of an alternate ending called Fata Morgana, which I will probably write more of. That's all the context I'm giving for now :) ]

We almost arrived at the stairs that led down to the exit, when I stopped and felt something cold on my shoulder and looked to see a ghostly, blue-glowing hand placed on it. Looking up, I saw Mr. Bentham giving me a worried look. "My brother's close." he said.
"Who is close?" Noor asked and then tripped over something I couldn't identify in the dark and it tumbled down the stairs, making all the noises we'd been trying to avoid ever since we came here. Noises that would attract someone we didn't want to cross paths with.

And then we heard him—that ominous, continuous roar of his lower half in the distance. "To the wall!" I whisper-shouted. We scurried over and pressed ourselves against the cold concrete. Next to us was a window and I allowed myself to take a risky look outside, only to immediately reel my head back in as soon as I spotted that monster of a man racing toward us. Noor had shut her eyes and was quietly humming her song, which, now that we knew what it had been for, filled me with a pinch of sadness, but it wasn't able to overpower the adrenaline shooting through me.

The roar of the tornado got louder and louder and the floor beneath our feet started to shake. And so did the walls we were leaning against and for a moment I had the terrifying thought of the ceiling crashing down on us, burying us alive. Surprisingly, the shaking stopped and the noise started to slowly quiet down, like a vacuum cleaner turning off. This could mean only one thing, though—to my side I saw blue light shining through the window, turning off and on as the owner of the light blinked. A breeze reeking of death funnelled in and made me nearly gag.

Caul spoke to us. "I know you're in thereee..." he sang. "Found the first puzzle piece, hm?"
With puzzle piece he meant Noor. According to Mr. Bentham, Caul had scattered our friends all across Europe and America. I wondered if there was a recurring theme to the places where he had stashed them. If we figured that theme out—if there even was one and Caul hadn't chosen random spots to hide them—it might be a bit easier than it seemed at the moment.

"There is something...that you have...and it belongs to me..." Caul said, his voice seeming to slither its way into my head. "You know, if you give me that...something, I could give you hints on the whereabouts of your friends in return." I saw Mr. Bentham slowly shake his head at me.
"What something does he want? What do we have?" Noor asked, quietly.
"Me." Mr. Bentham replied and Noor let out a sorry sounding oh.

I heard a cracking sound coming from the wall and above me I saw a crack forming in the concrete. It seemed like Caul was leaning against the outside of the building, purposely putting us under pressure. How heavy was he making himself in order to make concrete crack? I didn't want to know.
"Why even bother keeping him around? You know he's full of lies and that he's just planning on betraying you again." Caul spat. "And let's not forget that he's almost pushing you to quickly get his soul back. Why do you think he's so eager to get it?"
I didn't want to admit it, but Caul had a point. If Mr. Bentham got his soul back, he'd be nearly as powerful as his brother and who knew what he was actually planning to use all that power for. After all, he was almost begging us to help return it to him. Maybe, I thought, maybe we should hand him over to Caul...

"Because I want to help these children fight against you, Jack. I won't make the same mistakes again. It's time for me to break the cycle." Mr. Bentham shouted.
"AHA!" Caul whooped and then a few of his fingers came shooting through the window, feeling the room for us and we went out of their way. "Come here...there's no point in hiding now..."
Next to me, Noor looked like as if she was about to puke and I saw a ball of light travel up her throat and she faced Caul's root-like fingers. Yes, I thought, even though I would have loved to say it out loud, burn him.
"Burn me?" Caul said. I forgot once again that sometimes he would read my mind, but fortunately for us, he didn't pull his hand back out in time and Noor spat the ball of light at his fingers. As it collided with them, Caul howled in pain, his loud voice forcing us to cover our ears.

A revolting scene played out in front us—a few of Caul's fingers had melted off and where now on the floor, still moving and twitching. Noor screamed, ran over and stepped on them, each of the fingers going rigid and then dropping back down, finally dead.
I rushed over to her, wanting to drag her away—if Caul peeked through the window now, he could spot Noor—when I realised that hiding was pointless now, as Caul had said. He knew now that we were here. He only had to catch us now, but we wouldn't let him.

Outside I saw Caul holding his hand in pain, but the fingers he'd lost were already growing back again.
"We should leave while we still have the chance." I heard Mr. Bentham say and I couldn't agree more.
"YOU LITTLE RAT!" Caul screamed and I heard and felt his tornado picking up speed again. "It was that damned light eater, wasn't it? Bring her to me! I want to crush her, I want to squeeze that sweet little life OUT OF HER!" One of his fists crashed through the wall not too far away from us and pieces of debris were sucked outside and into his stormy, lower half.

Caul managed to stick his whole hand into the hole he made and then we decided to run, because now it was coming after us, grabbing for us. We rushed down the stairs, but his hand was still behind us, the arm it was attached to growing in length and shrinking in size to fit through the hallways and then I had an idea, that would've made me laugh if only we weren't running for our lives—if we lured his arm and hand up and down and around the building, maybe we could tie a knot into it.

I didn't know if Mr. Bentham had a similar idea, but he said he would leave us for a moment and distract his brother, while we should sneak outside and we'd meet him there. "He can sense me. If we split up, he will automatically only go after me." he said. I didn't quite agree with that and actually wanted him to stay by our side, but there was no time to argue again and this seemed like it was our only choice.
"Try tying a knot into his arm." I said and hoped he had understood, then Noor and I were on our way to the exit.

We rushed down another flight of stairs. It was brighter down here, since Noor only took light from upstairs, so this time we made sure not to stumble over or kick anything on our way down.
We caught sight of the exit. Daylight was shining through the doorway and after what we just witnessed and were surely about to witness again and again, this seemed like the entrance to some paradise. So we ran out.
But what lay ahead of us looked nothing like a paradise. A huge part of the chain-link fence surrounding the place was gone, nowhere to be seen. The wooden fence had completely disappeared. If this building was ever going to be worked on again—if anyone was still alive to work on it in the end (Holy shit.)—they'd have to repair a lot, because parts of the facade were missing, bits breaking off and flying into Caul's tornado.

Speaking of Caul, he was still busy grabbing at us, or rather Mr. Bentham, inside the building. He was cursing, seeming to occasionally hit his arm or hand on things. Due to him concentrating so much, though, his tornado had calmed down and was now spinning peacefully.
Then my brain started talking to me, but it wasn't my voice. "Take my soul from him now." it said. It was Mr. Bentham. Before I got to remind him to stop speaking to me through my head, Noor was running toward Caul. She must've heard him, too and was now, naively, determined to help him get his soul back.
"Noor!" I shouted and she stopped, thankfully. I ran up to her and pulled her out of what might soon be Caul's field of vision.
"What?" she said, like I just yanked her out of a daydream.
"I don't know about this." I said and lowered my voice as I spoke. "I don't know if it'll be worth it. I don't...trust him." Noor gave me a slightly disappointed look. I knew how I sounded and how many times we've discussed this now.

"Now's not the time, lad!" I heard Mr. Bentham say again.
I sighed, shoved all the terrible thoughts I had about the possible outcome of this aside and said, "Fine. Let's do this."