Wendell+Carnegie

Full Name: Wendell Adam Carnegie __** ELIMINATED **__ Columbus, Ohio Male Caucasian -dark brown hair -clear blue eyes with subtle dark under eye circles -5'9'' tall and 140 pounds Received a free ticket in the mail and figured it would be a good opportunity to add some black and white carnival type photos to his portfolio. Wendell is the only child of a wealthy couple deeply involved in business and is naturally expected to follow their path in the industry and suit up alongside them... except he'd rather hang himself with a paisley tie than wear one. The result of having had to grow up misunderstood and distanced from his parents deeply influenced Wendell's social life, leading him to become quite introverted in high school. He soon found the world of the arts as a solace and quickly immersed himself in its culture. On his eighteenth birthday he applied to his dream school, the Cleveland Institute of Art, only to be politely rejected. Thrown into utter depression, and his self worth completely destroyed, he vowed to devote his life to art until he could build up another portfolio and muster the confidence to reapply. Currently, Wendell is 19 years old, working as a retail clerk for Macy's and still living under his parents' roof. Wendell prefers to be called by his middle name, Adam, but everyone ignorantly insists upon calling him by his more obscure first name so he doesn't really advertise this fact. He is also a compulsive counter-- steps, people, toothpicks... you name it. Wendell also gets pretty twitchy when he tries to talk to people.
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=DAY ONE= Honestly it was smaller than I had expected it to be. I could see several larger roller coasters and a Ferris wheel poking their necks out from behind a large wall surrounding the park, silhouetted against the dense greenery of the forest. I crouched to one knee, uncapping my lens. The sign at the gate was glowing, proudly displaying an obnoxious fringe of colored light despite the early hour of the day. A couple walked in front of my shot, blocking my view. I cleared my throat. I should say something. //Excuse me.// Too subtle? //Please move. Pardon me. Trying to take a picture here.// No that's rude. "Excuse me!" I yelled awkwardly to the couple who had already begun walking away. They turned around, probably confused as to why a scrawny boy sitting in the dirt, halfheartedly holding a camera was calling them. Opening and closing my mouth, I tried to explain. "I like pictures." I blurted out, wiggling the camera side to side. //Stupid.// The guy raised an eye brow at me and walked inside. //Stupid.// I tried again to get a picture of the sign, but it seems it just wasn't meant to be. The light was all wrong and one of the forty-six lights of the sign was blinking out. I almost couldn't help but smile at the irony of the so called "new" park. Sighing, I gave up. I was already getting here a day late, why stall any farther? "Hi, sorry, I have this ticket here you see.. Um it came in the mail. It says free admission?" I felt the muscles in my face begin to quiver. I passed the ticket under the tiny slit. "Anyway, um, can I still use thi--" "Hel-lo. Wel-come to Dante's Park." An animatronic feminine voice cut me off with this strange greeting and a red band was dispensed into the dish below the counter. She explained that this would assure full access to all of the rides. Pretty creepy, but pretty cool if you ask me. I nodded, pawing the band out of the dish and trying to attach it to my arm. I really hate these things. The glue that's supposed to hold it together always ends up sticking to my arm hair. I walked into the park, feeling the eno rmous weight of the doors as they closed behind me. I turned around and glanced up at them. They seemed unnecessarily large. At least three times my height. //Huh.//

=DAY TWO =

 There is no way out. I've walked the perimeter of the park three times, thinking that I'd missed an exit, a gap in the wall, a place to climb over or under. There was nothing. The walls were smooth, no place to grab a good hold of, and they were tall, at least thirty feet into the air.  Each time I walked past the gate-- the entrance I came in through --I did a double take, thinking that the giant doors had somehow miraculously opened again.  I felt like I was going insane. There were close to no park employees; the rides were all automated and controlled by computerized voices, and the guests themselves looked equally as confused as I was. And instead of doing anything real about it, we all just hobbled around in a sort of timeless daze.  At one point I just gave up trying to figure it out. I must have stopped walking, because movement caught the corner of my eye.  I turned to see a great large spinning carousel playing that overtly blithe tune.  It looks eerie with no one on it. But it keeps spinning. The glassy eyed beasts struck through with multicolored bolts of metal, their mouths agape with unsung emotion ready to escape their lips.  I stood there, counting each horse as it raced by and came around the bend again-- an infinite loop of startling plastic creatures-- and I could not take my eyes off them.  The corners of my mouth twitched. This would be one for my portfolio.

=DAY THREE =

 We as humans, when stripped down to our most primal qualities, are no different than any other animal you might encounter. So then naturally when faced with danger, we as animals must make a decision between two choices: fight or flight.  Now, I have never been a fighter. I remember a time in middle school when Billy Gorman punched me in the stomach eight times before I decided to do anything to stop it. Pacifism has always been my strong suit. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> So when I heard the deafening siren call of metal on metal closing in on me, that instinct kicked in and I picked my feet up into the air and I ran. It didn't matter where I was running. My only thought was to move as fast as I could as far away as I could. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> When my senses finally kicked in and the rest of my body caught up with my legs-- it wasn't until later that I surmised that I had only been running for a few seconds --I realized I was headed towards the place the ear splitting noise was coming from. Glancing slightly upwards, I saw a looming metal roller coaster. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> My eyes grew wide. There was a cart plummeting to the ground. A cart full of people. And I was right in its landing zone. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I'm dead. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Move. Run. I made one last dash to my left. My eyes were glued to the falling cart. I could see the tortured faces of the falling people. Onetwothree..fourfive. Pure terror. Something flew out of the cart into the air. I tried to focus my eyes on it but it was moving too fast. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> What looked similar to a small change purse knocked me on the side of the head before I even registered that it was coming towards me. I stumbled backwards. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> W-ow! A piercing white noise filled the air and the world turned upside down as my vision dimmed...

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DAY FOUR =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I woke with a start. In the confusion and hysteria of the terrible wreck, someone had mistaken me for a corpse and was attempting to move my body. I yelled in surprise, causing the man to jump and drop me back onto the pavement with a jolt. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Ugh.." I moaned. My head was sore what the heck happened? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Ah! Sorry, sir! I, uh, thought you were..." He trailed off, looking down at me sitting on the pavement. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Dead?" <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Well... Yes." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I stared at him, trying to think of something to say. I think I held eye contact too long because he appeared to be growing uncomfortable. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"I'm Adam." I help out my hand. Hey that was pretty good, *I'm Adam*. Maybe introductions weren't so difficult after all. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Pleased to meet you Adam, I'm Silas." He seemed to be just about the most polite man I'd ever met. And I soon learned he was more than just polite after I'd questioned him what he was trying to do with what he thought was a corpse. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"They can't just lay out here in the open! Someone needs to bury them." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I glanced at his crutches. I almost didn't understand why he would put himself through that and all by himself. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Do you... want some help?" I couldn't even believe I offered. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now it was him giving me the once over. I could tell that my skinny arms and tall gangly stature didn't exactly excite him. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"I'm sure there's something you could do..."

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DAY FIVE =


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mom and dad **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Won't even be sad **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When their friendless boy is dead **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A camera filled with pictures of his gory severed head. **


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Your only hope lies **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the strength of allies. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My hand shook as I read this-- a neatly folded piece of paper I had found taped to my chest after waking up from a short nap. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At first, upon finding the little letter, I assumed Silas left it there to explain his disappearance. But after opening it I soon realized that it came from someone entirely different. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Silas and I had done a great deal of talking to help distract us from the morbid task at hand. We were locked in this murderous amusement park, at the hands of some sort of sick genius psychopath. You'd think more people would have stuck together, but I was having the hardest time finding anyone before Silas came along. And now he's gone too.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Your only hope lies **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the strength of allies. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That line sent chills down my spine. I knew Silas wouldn't have left unless it was for a good reason. He seemed like a decent guy. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I felt like screaming in frustration, the jubilant carnival music grating against the inside of my skull, bouncing all around inside my brain. It was enough to drive a person mad. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I got up, feeling all jittery and twitchy all of a sudden. I needed to move. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I shoved the note in my pocket. Seven lines of fear guided my feet towards the only sound in the entire park besides that awful music. There was some sort of commotion coming from the base a large unfinished roller coaster. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">People.

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DAY SIX = <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(exactly 450)

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">It wasn't long after I heard the commotion that I decided to get up and stiffly hobble down the steps of the giant waterslide Silas and I had both slept on the night before. I felt protected up there at the time but going a whole night sleeping on the cold metal scaffold had done a number on my back. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.5;">Now which direction was that noise coming from…? If I was facing the opposite direction on the slide and it came from my left… There was a roller coaster over there… Then… <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.5;">I was so awful with directions. This was ridiculous. I scratched my head and took the note out of my pocket, rereading the eerie poem.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Mom and Dad **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.5;">Won’t even be sad **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.5;">When their fr— **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">“What are you up to?” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">I jumped. Silas appeared from nowhere and the sudden question startled me. //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> Where did you go? Are you okay? Why didn't you wake me? //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">A million thoughts swirled in my mind but I had forgotten how to speak and couldn’t force a single one out. Instead, I shakily handed him the letter. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">“Who gave you this?” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">I wanted to know the same question, but, unable to find any coherent words, I just shrugged. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">“...Where’d ‘ya find it?” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">I gingerly grabbed the paper from his hands, which were now shaking as well, and finally found proper words to answer him with. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Silas looked startled, then angry. He took the note from my hands, crumpled it up and tossed it into a close by trash bin. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">“We’re not playing his little game.” <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">My eyes widened and a shiver jolted down my spine. For some sickening reason I felt like he had just cursed us both. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">I opened my mouth and just as I was about to yell at him, Silas muttered, “…oh yeah,” and recovered a chunk of a soft pretzel from his pocket and plopped it into my gaping mouth. I instantly forgot the discarded note and chewed contentedly. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">“I was out looking for food this morning and I didn’t want to wake you. I hope you don’t mind.” He said, now pulling out a bottle of water and handing it to me. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">I was so grateful for the food that mid-pretzel-bite I think I could have blurted out the words “I love you”. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">“What was that?” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">I swallowed the mouthful of food. “Uh, I think I heard some people over in…that direction. We should try to see what they’re up to.” <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Regardless of what Silas had said about playing along with this game, I wanted to find more people. There is always strength in numbers. //Your only hope lies in the strength of allies//, I thought to myself.

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">DAY SEVEN =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">*read Diego's first*

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I remember a long time ago waking up in the dead of night to the smell of smoke. Everything was dull and hazy and confused as I got out of bed and stumbled around in my dimly lit room and numbly tried to understand what was going on. I remember discovering the door... and opening it with a quick jerk... and reeling back in surprise and terror of these blinding, bright, orange flames. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Everything I felt in that one instant; everything from the initial timid, quiet fear of the unknown to the sudden terror that accompanies realization; that is the best way I can describe the emotions coursing my body as I opened the door to basement of this two bedroom shack. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I glanced at Diego's face, illuminated with the blue glaring light of the surveillance monitors. Mouth agape, eyes wide, motionless, soundless. Still. He looked the same way I felt. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The stillness broke with a loud slam and my eye caught a wisp of Violet's hair as she disappeared behind a door on the opposite side of the room. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Violet!" Diego shouted, lunging out of his stupor, pouncing on the girl's exit way. It was locked. He growled in frustration, pounding on the door frame. "Violet! Violet!" He called in vain, sinking to the ground. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I stood opposite him, no further in the room than when I had first opened the door. My arms hung limp at my sides. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Where do you think she went?" He finally asked. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"She //was// calling for her father..." I looked around the room at the mention of his name. Besides a chessboard sitting on a table in the corner, the row of television screens was the only thing in the room. I took a couple steps towards them and sat in a large chair that faced the line. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">From this point I felt like Dante himself, seeing everything that he would be seeing, feeling everything that he would be feeling. I felt Diego standing behind me, resting his hand on the top of the chair. The park was so vacant and lonely looking. I shivered. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A flash of movement drew my attention to the bottom corner screen. I gasped. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The frame held three men. One of them was laying on the ground, covered in blood. The other was standing in front of the wounded man protectively. And the last of the three was wearing a blue hoodie... //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dante. // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Come on! We have to help them!" <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As Diego and I flew out the door I took a backward glance at the screen and saw a fourth person come into view... <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We had to keep moving...

=DAY EIGHT=

I lie on the ground... blood gurgles out of my mouth as I try to breathe. My body is motionless but I roll my eyes and take in the scene around me. Diego is down. Another girl lies on the ground close to him. A man stands, horrified and still at the corner of my vision. Dante and Violet are talking but I couldn't hear over the deafening white noise clogging my ears. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I was going to die. I wasn't going to have to the chance to reapply to college. I wasn't going to see my parents again. I coughed, spewing blood onto the white pavement. I tried catching my breath but everything seemed so distant. The pain wasn't even the worst part about dying. I felt like I was in my own bubble, isolated and alienated from everything else that was going on. The worst part was... I felt like they wanted me to die... Maybe it would be better that I was gone... I was going to die. I wasn't going to have the chance to be rejected again from college... Who was I kidding, I was an awful photographer. I wasn't going to

EVERYTHING I TOUCH DIES.



i feel like this is him
 * 1) thestruggle

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