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"Mr. Whorl, after careful consideration, I've decided - not to endorse your park."

He'd really have loved to get a chance to say that. Honestly he'd have loved to have just not died. There was no glamour in this. No irony. No significance. If this trip had been the plot of one of his comics, he wasn't even a character anyone would remember.

His doubts had been confirmed. The 'wonder' of Wonder Park was a lie. Dragons are dragons. Kitsune are Kitsune. And giant spiders do what giant spiders do. The amazement that they existed had taken backseat to the reality.

He'd been Disposable Character #1 in ADVENTURES IN WONDER PARK. With any luck, he was the last panel of the second issue and his gruesome demise would set up the next riveting chapter of the story as the heroes battled for their lives against the vicious creatures on the loose. He was lucky he'd been able to introduce himself and when the story was adapted to film, his lines would probably have been cut. Maybe he'd get a track on the score 'Track 12, Monster kills the Writer'. Even slimmer chance that a single obsessive fan would cosplay his spider webbed corpse.

Algie had never liked Hollywood or fandom.

And so his life had ended, not with a bang but with a smothered sort of flailing that indicated suffocation. It had been dark. It had hurt. By the time he was dead the venom had already numbed his physical senses. By the time he'd been eaten he was nothing but a plump morsel of flesh.

It reinforced what he'd said all along: He should have never left the house.

Claiming this post, because threeee is a magic numbaaaah.

Louise Pendergrass was now no more than a splattering of blood and flesh on the sands near the docks, all traces of his magnificent legacy slowly ebbing away with the tide.

Before Louise had been an overweight, dragon-costume wearing man, he had been an overweight dragon-costume wearing teen, and being an overweight, dragon-costume wearing teen hadn’t been easy. Other kids didn’t understand him, his teachers didn’t understand him and even his parents didn’t understand him. It didn’t really matter to Louise whether they understood or not, he knew he was a dragon and what he felt was all that mattered to him.

The truth was, he hadn’t always known he was a dragon. It had happened while browsing the web one day after school, with chubby little school Louise downing his mountain dew while his pudgy fingers mashed away at the keyboard. It had been a rough day at school, kids were mean, and he’d ended up eating his lunch in the bathroom alone to avoid ending up covered in it. But that didn’t stop them from harassing him at recess, or on the bus ride home. No, it was only at home and after logging into the medieval role-play forum that he frequented, that Louise felt safe and unashamed. Here he could play the brave knight, or the damsel in distress, or even an evil overlord, and no one cared. He didn’t even know these people, but they liked him for who he was. They didn’t care what he looked like, or that maybe he wasn’t that smart. They didn’t even mind that he was only allowed to be online for a couple hours after school before he had to start his homework. To him, it was an escape; it was paradise.

Louise had already trifled with most of the professions of yore and on this particular day, he thought about trying out a new character. A creature character. A dragon. He’d never played anything non-human before, but as he wrote up the description for the mighty beast, he felt something quiver in the very fiber of his being. It just felt right, as he tapped out the impenetrableness of his hide, the strength of his claws. And when he finally got to roll out the character with a thundering roar, Louise knew he had found his calling.

Dragons weren’t afraid of anything. Dragons didn’t get bullied. Everyone lived in awe and fear of dragons. In an instant, Louise knew that he was going to be a dragon, and no one was going to stop him. No one was going to hurt him anymore, dragons were impervious to insults, and mean-kid punches were only glancing blows against his impressive mass.

So Louise became a dragon. He carefully crafted his costume, remaking it over the years as needed, whether someone had torn it in their anger at him being different or if he’d simply outgrown it. But every morning he donned that green, scaly fabric, it didn’t matter that people hated him for being different. It didn’t matter that if they thought he was fat or ugly or a nerd or a loser (though the nerd thing often made him laugh, if only they knew that even the nerds didn’t want to hang out with him). All of it rolled off of his scales, because most important of all the dragony things he had learned over the years, dragons didn’t cry.

At least, they definitely didn’t cry over lesser mortals. He’d cried when user NightElf226 had passed away suddenly, and he’d cried even harder when his cat Muffy passed away. He had cried the hardest at 21; when after all of his life’s torment and agony, he won the lottery. They had been happy tears of course, because now, utterly and truly, he could become a dragon. Or at the very least, fund the research to find out how to do so. And suddenly, suddenly everyone was his friend. The social elite, all the way down to the homeless man that lived in the alley behind his apartment block. Louise, of course, chose to hang with Bill, the homeless man, who had been his friend beforehand and remained so afterwards. They even became roommates, and Bill, in a twist of events, turned out to be an amazingly talented businessman, urging Louise to start what would become an immensely successful publishing company. Bill had suggested they publish all manner of fiction, but Louise had made up his mind, they would publish fantasy literature, particularly the kind that concerned dragons.

With his wealth, both luck-brought and hard-earned, Louise began looking for research into dragons, along with founding several reptile rescues, and working part time at a pet-store (reptile section of course). Keeping busy helped keep his mind from troubling thoughts, like the fact that despite being constantly surrounded by ‘friends’ the only one who truly liked him was Bill, and that even all the money in the world couldn’t change the fact that people thought he was weird, and something to be laughed at. They just did it in quiet tones now, hushed behind closed doors when they thought he couldn’t hear.

Thus, though he hung up his dragon costume in favor of suits from time to time, Louise was determined to see his dream through to the end. He would make dragons a reality, and he would become one of them. When he had gotten the invitation from Daniel E. Whorl Sr., it had been nothing short of a miracle. The man was legendary when it came to mythical creatures being not so mythical, and Louise had nearly fainted when he realized he would have the chance to meet him. And maybe even… Dare he think it... Dragons.

Louise had definitely gotten to meet dragons. Well, one at least, but he had definitely seen two and the sight had taken his breath away. Unfortunately, the violent strike of the dragon’s claws managed to do the same and before he knew it, Louise found himself laying on his backside in the sand, his bones crushed and the metallic stench of his own blood leaking out of him filling the air. This had been his lifelong dream; this had been everything he had wanted. He had been so happy, even when the dragon first charged, that he couldn’t fathom running away. That massive tail loomed overhead, filling his vision, and as he lay there dying, those tears he hadn’t let himself cry for many years bubbled over, sliding down his bruised and battered cheeks.

Even you don’t understand me, he thought sadly.

He wondered, briefly, if he had wasted his whole life on something foolish, if he was truly the idiot that everyone thought he was, if he was really as worthless and stupid as they said. But thankfully, he didn’t have to wonder long because it was only a few seconds before the dragon’s tail crushed him with a sickening splat.

Layla heard the splintering of wood and then suddenly everything was hot and bright, the agony of flames licking her skin before something powerful long and slimy wrapped around her leg and pulled her under the blessedly cool water. Then she realized it was pulling her further under without intending to let go. She struggled free and gasped as she broke the surface of the water and gulped at the smoky air. She spotted Fluffy lying on the distant shore and moved to try and swim for it, but then the tentacle wrapped around her again grabbing her around the waist and dragging her back under.

She gasped, but instead of air this time salty water filled her lungs. She thrashed and struggled for seconds and then stopped. She knew, the tight pain in her chest, the way her vision was darkening. This had been what she wanted hadn't it? If she had to die it wasn't going to be looking at a creature she had raised and loved while it ate her.

Well, she thought, so much for the SUV crash being a sign from some greater power that she was supposed to survive. She should have just lain on that road until another car came along and ran her over or…no, no better die like this then…

She could still see the bloody mess, the human bodies broken and torn apart, the horror born of something that had once been beautiful and magical. It was like the legend her grandma used to tell her of the Two-Face, the creature that came like a handsome man from your dreams only to turn around and paralyze you with fear so it could eat you. It always attacked the vulnerable and sometimes it didn’t even eat you it just liked to torture and destroy. She wondered if that was the difference between the creatures, some killed out of fear or hunger, but some…like that terrifying thing that looked like a little girl probably killed just for the sake of killing.

It hardly mattered now if she solved the puzzle of what had happened at Wonder Park, what differentiated the Lab A and Lab B creatures because she was taking the knowledge of Fear and Wonder Park and Dr. Moore’s weapon to her watery grave.

She remembered her first day at Wonder Park the excitement and enthusiasm as she followed her Staff Lead and paid close attention. This position was utterly unique and incredibly important. She remembered her first time giving imagination pellets to the newly hatched creatures. Her first time slipping gloves on and touching something so unreal and fantastic she hadn't believed it. How dragons would come when she entered enclosures and eat a few mere feet away from her, or even right out of the palm of her hand. It had been magical, the best career anyone could have hoped for.

Layla was drowning, drowning in regrets and wishes.

As her air ran out and her lungs burned the pain became worse and adding to it was the knowledge that everything she loved had gone horribly wrong. Fear…it wasn't the joy of imagination that had made her life so complete it had been fear. Fear gripped her for a moment, and then faded because she knew what was coming. Dr. Moore's advice sounded so reasonable now; don't be afraid he'd said. She wished she'd taken the chance to get in the back seat with him, or kissed Dean a little longer, or enjoyed life a little more instead of dedicating it all to the creatures that had become like children to her. Creatures that were causing the death of her career, her home, her life, these were the things she loved most? Her life had gone horribly wrong somewhere if this is what it had all come down to. Wonder Park, too bad that such a wonderful idea had become such a wondrous failure.

Everything went dark, she remembered reading once that drowning and burning were the two most painful ways to die. Yet now she knew, because the boat explosion had burned her, and now she was drowning, but it still couldn’t be as bad as if she’d been eaten alive. She could see the creatures in her mind, not as they were now raging and violent, but as they had once been sweet and docile. If she had to choose, if she couldn’t make it out alive this was the best she could hope for. Damn Cecil Moore for not putting her out of her misery when she’d asked. If he lived she hoped he could at least summon up some guilt, not for her death, but for prolonging it.

Life it seemed was full of fear and regrets, but time was up for Layla Armrose as the sharp teeth bit into her and her lungs gave way under the lack of air she lost all her regrets, fears, dreams, imaginations, and hope.

Out at sea a badge floated away from Wonder Park the smiling picture of a dedicated staff handler who had lost it the only reminder of Layla Armrose.

Giant golden eyes filled Lesley's vision as the snake coiled tighter, head lowering down so close that the flick of that long, black tipped tongue tickled along his face as the massive beast hissed at him. He cringed away from it, but surrounded by muscular walls of scaled flesh he didn't have anywhere he could go. There was no escaping this, no light at the end of the tunnel. He was going to die here, now, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

But even knowing that, the adrenaline in him kept him from simply giving up and going limp. He swung at the snake, his fist connecting with the thing's nose. It caused the beast to rear back momentarily, but in the end, he'd really only managed to piss it off more..

And then he heard something else, great lumbering thumps as something else charged towards him and the snake. He barely had time to scream as the massive dark shape of fluffy collided with the reptile and sent it's upper body reeling.

Stunned, Lesley stared after the Cerberus as it attacked the snake, but even the sight of the monster coming to his defense couldn't hold him riveted to the spot. He made a break for it, throwing himself at the ground where the snake's coils were writhing, scrambling on hands and feet to get free of the coils. Almost there, almost! And then A sickening crunch as all that weight, when fluffy on top of it, came crushing down on his torso. Ribs broke, organs ruptured, and Lesley coughed blood as he fought to breath through ruined lungs. It was a quick hit, the battling monsters merely rolling on top of him, but he was only human, and that had been enough..

He was still struggling to breath when Fluffy came back to him after the snake stopped moving, and the man could do little but lift a weak hand to touch the great black dog on the nose. "S'alright, Fluff." He coughed, blood splattering up and onto his cheeks and the ground around him. "You tried.."

The memory of the over grown pup when he was created filled Lesley's memories, and blood covered lips cracked a shadow of a smile. He'd been such a cute babe, so tiny when he'd been born. The brute had never out grown his excitability, but he was young yet, even with the methods they used to speed their aging. Fluffy was a good boy, usually. Overzealous, but affectionate, and certainly loyal.

Something was fighting for them. He'd witnessed it in his last moments, and Fluffy's sad whines filled his ears as the world began to go black. He still wished he could have gotten to Melanie. Still believed, even then, that if he could have just found her, maybe they could have made it. Maybe something would have been different. It wouldn't, but hope sprung eternal. Strong fingers going limp and sliding off that warm, moist nose to lay still on the ground. He wished, just once, he would have told her that he loved her.

There time on the island flashed through his mind. years of memories all in the matter of a few seconds, but those seconds seemed to stretch on and on for Les. From the first, brief glimpses of the beautiful woman on the docks when they'd first arrived, when she'd caught him watching her and smiled. He hadn't considered their relationship being anything but friendship then, having fallen into that safe routine from the jump. She wasn't like every other girl he'd taken an interest in, so she wouldn't be treated the same either. Melanie was different, special.

It had taken almost three years to finally buck up the courage to do something about his feelings for Melanie, three long years, and so much wasted time. Yet he couldn't be sorry about it. Couldn't begrudge the time they had had. Even if they hadn't been together, they'd certainly been friends. How many cherry tomatoes had she pelted him with in the cafeteria? How many times had she raided his pockets, hunting for candy. He'd carried the sweets around just for her, knowing she'd come looking.

For a last night, Lesley had to admit it had been a wonderful one. Not something he'd have traded away for anything. They'd watched The Avengers, and he'd gotten a glimpse of just how adorably nerdy the woman could be. Titanic had come next, and they never made it to the end of their second movie.

It was this memory that he clung to as the darkness began to eat at the light and the pain in his body began to slip away. He didn't want to die, didn't want to leave, but if he had to.. If he had to, at least he'd gotten that one perfect night with the woman he'd adored since she'd walked off the boat.

The one thing going for Adler Green upon his death, that oddly enough with all that he had seen and witnessed on his short stay upon the island, was that he somehow still went out as a skeptic. Because through all of this he still didn't want to believe that all of this had been some sort of work of magic. That there had to be something more logical behind all of it, but he had no ability to prove it; science, illusions, common parlor tricks, he had never found out.

It would have been nice to say that he hadn't always been a stick in the mud. But he had always been a stick in the mud, even as a child. Growing up in a nice common and normal-ish neighborhood of the time, doing nothing with his time but progressing his studies because he never felt he had or needed the time to do what other children did, play. It was to further his life goals of getting a nice steady job when he was older, because even then he could imagine that some sort of financial crisis would befall upon them and he needed to get ahead of the game or something. His parents never understood what he talked about, but they supported him none the less. How could they not when their child excelled in school and met so many expectations. It was always too bad that he never had very many friends.

He went to school, he worked, he supported himself through a prestigious college and somehow a woman had found him charming enough to marry him and have two children with him. Two children who had been slightly disappointing in not sharing his world views, but one could never really be disappointed in their offspring. Just bothered because he would have wanted them to succeed in life as he had, to find a job as he had. His son would have probably thought this place spectacular, even as everything went to hell. After the power went out, the death that followed and the destruction that came raining down upon him.

They were some of the few thoughts that crossed his mind as he ran, the giant spider coming into the building and picking people off one by one. His son, who wanted to be in a band one minute and work on some boats the next. Who dove into the science fiction nonsense like he himself dove into work.

Adler ran, pushed past debris as he tried not to think about the horror that was probably coming after him. He ran past empty areas as people pushed past him and down a hallway with rubble coming down upon him painfully and hard, thankful that he had at least taken the time out of his life to stay relatively in shape to handle this kind of strain (though, probably not for things falling on him). He was out and running, it was probably a stupid move but it was at least away from things falling on his head. He continued to run.

In the end, Mr. Green found himself in some sort of portable bathroom set up. It wasn't really one of those plastic kinds but a nicer step up, like it was probably meant to be there on a more permanent basis but wasn't as refined as one found in one of the buildings. He shut the door tightly and locked it, and wasn't really sure why since none of those whatever they were could open doors. He still did, and pushed himself in the stall, closed that door and hid himself. And prayed and hoped that nothing would find him. Adler wouldn't have been sure what to expect, he was still stubborn and a skeptic but that didn't mean he wasn't scared out of his mind. A mind thrown into chaos when it was so set on order.

There had never been any protocol about something like this, no precedent, nothing in any sort of paperwork (probably anywhere, even on this damned island). Nothing in the sorts, so he had no idea what to do, but hope his spot wouldn't be found.

He wasn't so lucky. As the roof pulled away and a few of the sides of the pathetic building fell to the ground, little bits of wood and assembly bits raining down upon him. Adler came face to face with .. a something. He didn't know but he could see those gigantic wings beating into the air as the whatever it was roared from finding some prey, showing off those sharp teeth. It was almost like it grinned down upon him, twisting its long and windy neck before lunging its large head down with its jaws open so wide he knew he could fit inside of it. It was the last image Adler Green saw as he was eaten whole, didn't even have time to scream. But his last thoughts were of his wife, who had loved him even with all his stubborn faults.

And damning his company for assigning him to such a place.

"Give it to me." She leaned in, trying to snatch the candy bar out of his hands angrily.

"Give it to me." She whispered hungrily into his bare chest.

When Melanie woke up that morning, her mind had begun to track all the hilarious parallels between the way she spoke to Les before that night, and the after. There were tons, and she laughed each time she found one. The innocence of a phrase, turned into something else after a single night. It was as if years of playful banter had been rewritten, word for word, in the span of a handful of hours. It was fun to think about them all, one by one, while lying in bed waiting for her alarm clock to go off.

But it never did.

An eventual, lazy glance over made her realize the clock was blinking at her, unset. Her eyes widened and she screamed out an expletive, before tumbling out of bed and getting dressed. She was out and ready for work in minutes, tying her hair into a messy bun, when she finally realized something was wrong. And it didn't take very long to accept why.

"I knew it." She growled, stomping down to the grounds and heading straight for the docks. "I ******** knew it. I knew this was gonna happen, one day." She loved working at Wonder Park, but damn if she hadn't read one too many science fiction novels. Did nobody understand what happened when you tried to cage a monster up?

"This." She huffed out in answer to her own silent question, as she walked into the macabre scene of bodies strewn everywhere. Staff and guest alike.. nobody seemed spared at all.

Nobody.

Her stomach sank as she grabbed for her walkie talkie, tuning it to the correct channel to try and make the call. She'd managed to push the button down, but that was as far as it got. The walkie talkie dropped out of her hand when a giant tentacle picked her up off the ground and held her upside down by her ankle.

"EDDIE." She screamed, bending up and beating on the tentacle. "Eddie, put me down. Eddie, you know me. You know what you're doing is wrong. Come on, buddy. Think. I never hurt you. I never put you down. You were a good kraken, Eddie."

Melanie was slammed down on the ground like a toy, and picked up again. Her eyes rolled, and she put her hands up. "Okay. I get it. You don't wanna talk." Her voice was cracked, bubbly from the blood in her lungs as a rib punctured through. This wasn't going very well at all, and she reached for something - anything -

---

"It's kind of my lucky charm." She muttered, having paused Avengers just long enough to show Les the little Tesseract charm that hung off of her phone. When she touched it, it blinked. "I know it's probably stupid, but I get Loki. I really do. Sure, he's a villian, and he needed to be stopped, but the right way. And that's what Thor did. He didn't hop up to kill his brother, he gave up everything that was important to him, in order to stop Loki's plan. Because Thor knew Loki deserved nothing less."

She held the charm up to her eyes, and the blue glow glimmered in them. "He's kind of my spirit animal, and shut up I know he's not an animal. But he's trying to find his way in the world. And so am I. And I mean.. I really don't think I'm doing it in some heroic way. I know what we're doing here.. it's kind of wrong." She grinned goofily. "They were made to be ruled. In the end, they'll always kneel." She turned the tiny LED Tesseract off, and put it away. "That's what Moore thinks, and I'd like to believe it's true, because deep down, I'm the bad guy." Mel's grin faded, and Les' hand slid across her cheek, cupping it to pull her gaze to him.

"You're not the bad guy." His voice was so compelling, it made her want to believe it. So for a minute, just for fun, she did. But he could see it in her eyes - it wasn't a lie meant to last. So he gave her that smirk that used to make her wonder what it would be like to kiss him, and that look that made her wonder if he was always hiding candy in those pockets on purpose.

"But if you are, then I'll be your hero." He promised. "I'll save you - the right way."

When they kissed, she didn't have to wonder anymore.

---

"Not so much of a lucky charm now, are you." Her wavering voice chuckled as she stared at her little tesseract charm, upside down, as Eddie carried her off into the depths of the water. It glowed underwater just as prettily as it did out, even when her hand uncurled, and let the charm float away, sinking down into the abyss just like the real one had. She watched it fall, surreal in its beauty, even as Eddie pulled her down too.

It's okay, Les. Her mind floated the thoughts up to the surface, her last words, her goodbye. You saved me. You did. You're my hero.