text: Wilson answered immediately, "middle aged people have the highest suicide rates."
  
  Oizys looked even more depressed, "you got it right again. White middle aged men in particular have the highest suicide rates of any demographic. Final question, answer this right and I'll let your sister out of the suicide room and you two can skip off to whatever horrible fate awaits you."
  
  Wilson's heart sank to his feet, "S-suicide room! What did you do to her?!"
  
  "It's not what I did to her, it's what she'll do to herself. Well, you can keep that anxiety with you while you answer my final question: Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is a condition wherein a person goes through alternating cycles of depression and intense high moods, known as manias. What is the minimum number of cycles in a one year period in order for a bipolar person to have what is known as 'rapid cycling?'"
  
  > Four per year
  Knowing the answer, Wilson answered immediately, "there are at least four cycles per year during rapid cycling."
  
  Oizys sighed deeply and looked down, as if her shoes could help her. After a few minutes, she finally answered him, "I'm sorry to say that that is correct. You never gave into anxiety, even though I went to all this trouble of combining your three biggest anxiety causers: tests, public speaking, and the thought of a family member being in danger."
  
  She continued to look down, seemingly done talking. Wilson interrupted her staring, "hey, you're going to release Mariah now, right?"
  
  "I want to play with you some more."
  
  Wilson had already accepted the fact that he was going to die hours ago, "fine, but only if you release her right now!"
  
  Oizys' head shot up to stare at him, "what did you just say? You would beg for your sister's life before your own? That's.....not....that's not how it's supposed to work."
  
  "Release her! Please!"
  
  Oizys face morphed into one of pure confusion, "ugh, fine, I'll release both of you and play with someone who'll actually feel anxious."
  
  With that, the platform Wilson was standing on began to lower and by the time it reached the ground, the crowd which was once surrounding him was gone and replaced by Mariah.
  
  "Mariah!" he cried as he bear hugged her, "I thought I was never going to see you again!"
  
  Mariah awkwardly patted his back, "y-yeah, I was scared, too."
  
  Wilson pulled back immediately, "you? Scared? I doubt that's possible!"
  
  "Just because I don't show my fear doesn't mean I'm not scared, dumbass!" she broke into a whisper, "I'm more terrified than anyone." she paused, "Come on," she glanced up at Oizys, staring at them from above, "let's get out of here, we'll talk later."
  
  The pair hurriedly walked out of the alley and continued on their way, this time walking straight towards the castle.
  
  While walking, Wilson told the story of what happened on his end with Oizys. Mariah listened intently, then explained what had been happening to her, "one moment, I was standing beside you, and the next I was inside a room with no doors nor windows. For some reason, it was light in the room despite me not being able to locate a source of light."
  
  Wilson interrupted, "I suppose goddesses can do what they want."
  
  "Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, this room was full of what looked like dangerous weapons, but upon closer inspection, I determined that they were all tools commonly used in suicides. There was a noose, an assortment of blades, a bathtub, a toaster plugged into a socket, blunt objects of every variety, a myriad of different kinds of pills, I could go on, but you get the picture. My original thought was that Oizys would do what Eris did. Eris is the goddess of discord and she made us feel extreme discord, so I figured Oizys, the goddess of depression and anxiety, would make me feel such extreme depression that I would kill myself."
  
  "When I heard you were in something called a 'suicide room,' that's what I thought as well. I," he choked up, "I thought you were already dead."
  
  "Oizys is far crueler than Eris ever was. Her plan was not to make me artificially depressed and kill myself, but rather to drive me to such hopelessness that suicide was the only way out. If you answered one of her questions wrong, then she was going to kill you, but not me. Oizys was going to keep me locked in that room with no food or water and watch me become anxious and depressed as I chose between suicide and death from dehydration."
  
  Wilson stopped walking as he imagined his sister in such a depressing situation. Shaking his head, he continued walking. The pair walked on and on up First Hill towards the castle, not seeing a single alive person on their way.
  
  Wilson turned to Mariah, "don't you think it's strange that the only people we've met that have been alive have been when we're with goddesses?"
  
  "I suppose most people are dead by now. Judging by the body count we've seen around the city, I'd bet that's the reason."
  
  "Honestly, I'm shocked we're not dead yet."
  
  She sighed, "So am I."
  
  Mariah and Wilson walked on in silence, trying their best to avoid looking at the cadavers laying all around in the streets. They were near the castle, only around five or six blocks away, when Wilson saw a hooded figure out of the corner of his eye. The figure was around fifteen feet tall and stood a block away from the siblings with his back turned.
  
  "What the...?" Mariah stared at the mysterious hooded man.
  
  The figure began to slowly turn towards Wilson and Mariah.
  
  > keep staring
  Wilson stared at the figure dumbfounded as it turned to face him and Mariah. The hood completely hid his face, leaving only a dark shadow beneath his black hood. His long black cloak hung all the way to the ground, hiding his feet from view. The cloaked figure stared at them for what seemed like minutes, hours, eternity.
  
  Mariah yelled up at him, "who the hell are you and what do you want?!"
  
  The cloaked figure boomed his greeting back,
  
  "I am Moros, god of doom
  
  You have not long to live
  
  Your death, it shall take bloom
  
  When violence you take and give."
  
  Without another word, the cloak began to fall, as if whomever or whatever was previously occupying it had disappeared. It fell slowly and elegantly to the ground, softly flowing back and forth as it floated down.
  
  Mariah spoke first, "I hope he's as bad at seeing the future as he is at poetry."
  
  Wilson, too stunned to speak, just nodded his head.
  
  Mariah turned to him, "somehow, we're still alive. I don't really get it, but we're alive. May as well keep going."
  
  She continued walking towards the castle, Wilson on her tail. As the pair walked, they recognized the sounds of people in pain and clutched by bloodlust coming from the castle.
  
  Wilson began breathing hard, but Mariah stayed calm, as usual. She turned to Wilson, "we'll be fine, come on. If we survived this long, how can we die now?"
  
  They walked directly towards the castle and directly towards the sounds of war. Four blocks away, three blocks, two blocks, finally they were one block away from the carnage. Looking on, they saw people, hundreds of people fighting seemingly at random. It seemed their numbers had been greatly reduced because the entire battlefield was covered in a layer of one to two bodies, which the fighters had to stand on in order to fight.
  
  Wilson turned around and threw up, surprised that this was the first time all day. But then, he looked up. Above the war zone flew hideous female-looking creatures with black wings, often diving down on the bodies of the recently dead and eating bits of them. They egged the fighters on, begging them to give each other the most violent deaths they could.
  
  Perhaps it would've been okay had Wilson and Mariah just been passing by, but the war zone took place directly in front of the castle doors. Mariah turned to Wilson, "what do we do?"
  
  > get Inside the castle no matter what obstacles
  Wilson grabbed Mariah, "cone on, let's go!"
  
  He dragged her directly into the middle of the war, dodging flying baseball bats and knifes. Mariah yelled to Wilson, "why doesn't anyone have a gun? Why don't we have a gun?"
  
  "This is Seattle. Nobody in Seattle has guns! The small percentage that do have them are probably dead by now, anyways."
  
  By the time they were in the middle of a battlefield, walking on the disfigured bodies of the fallen, Wilson realized his grave mistake. There were people all around him, staring him down with murder in their eyes. A woman from behind came at him with a bat, but Mariah grabbed the bat and twisted it out of her hands. She proceeded to hit the woman with it until she laid on the ground with blood gushing out of her skull. The winged monstrosities immediately flew down and surrounded the dead or dying woman and proceeded to rip out parts of her flesh and eat it. Wilson wrestled with an unarmed man while Mariah tried to hit one of the creatures with her bat.
  
  One of the creatures turned around and glared at her, "you wouldn't want to hurt a Ker, would you? We're spirits of violent death and we don't take to opposition kindly."
  
  The Ker turned back to her meal and continued decimating the poor woman's corpse. Mariah held back her urge to throw up and allowed another rush of adrenaline to take her. She hit the man Wilson was wrestling with, knocking him to the ground.
  
  "Come on," she yelled as she ran towards the castle doors, Wilson close on her heels.
  
  But just as Mariah was ahead of him, he felt something enter his back. He dropped to his knees, vomiting blood. He faintly thought it must be a knife as it was pulled from his back, then inserted again. This time, Wilson fell all the way to the ground, and regardless of if he was dead or not, was attacked by Keres who devoured his body enthusiastically.
  
  Mariah glanced over her shoulder to make sure Wilson was still behind him, then watched in horror as the Keres were eating him. She screamed, "NOOOOOO!"
  
  Just then, three men tackled her to the ground. Without much effort on their part, the Keres were eating Mariah as well.