HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! I'M TURNING SIXTEEN! AND I'M UPDATING A LOT! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

Wires

Red wire, black wire...

This had to work. There was no other answer. This was the invention. It was going save everyone.

The copper wires sparked throwing flames up into his face. He let out a panicked yelp. The darkness was illuminated for a second, the squalid surroundings seemingly unreal. His breath came out in agitated puffs.

"Leo."

He pretended he didn't hear his name being said. Red wire, black wire...

"Leo, you have to stop."

He focused on his numb fingers. His fingertips, barely visible in the shadows of the night. The cuffs of his leather gloves squeezed his arms. His goggles hung around his neck, useless. He could smell the corrosive grease caked on them. The left lens was cracked, but it still smelled like home to him.

"Leo! This isn't a game anymore!"

Leo looked up abruptly, "I never said it was!" he snapped at her. His voice was broken, cold and harsh. He wasn't the same.

She stood at the far end of the room, the tattered remains of his tailored coat covering her dirty, stained white corset. The dress that had once been the highlight of galas and bouquets was no more. "Then wake up," Calypso whispered miserably, "Please, Leo. I can't keep doing this."

"Doing what?" Leo cried, "Surviving?" His hands clenched into fists. His bag of spare screws fell over, spilling onto the ground.

"I can't keep following you around like this!" she said, "You're going to run yourself into the ground!"

The wind picked up, and she tugged the jacket around her. Her short choppy caramel hair was ruffled. Her eyes pierced the darkness, searching him for something that wasn't there. "Leo, you have to give this up. You can't save him."

The words cut the silence, driving into Leo's chest like a sword. The words were ugly, like the blood that was dried into his tunic.

"Shut up!" Leo yelled, "I have to!"

"You can't!"

Leo flung around, "He's my best friend!"

"He killed Piper!"

The name sliced the air. The silence rang out, the wind whispering hollowly as if she was trying to speak to him still.

"Hey Repair boy, you comin' to my wedding?"

"No." Leo whispered, "No." His entire body shook, "He wouldn't....He didn't!"

Calypso stepped towards him. Her boots crunched on the broken glass. "He did."

Leo gripped his hair, the greasy curls with soaked with oil and dirt from the past weeks. Piper. Her laugh. Her smile. Her disregard for the rules. It didn't matter if she was a debutant. It didn't matter if she was at the height of society. It didn't matter if he was just a peasant boy who liked steam powered robots.

"He didn't!" Leo said again.

Piper was still out there. She was urging him on still. Her face splashed with dirt, and her peasant cap pulled low as she pulled another interpretation of her body guard, Hedge. She was still there. A smile on her face and blood free clothes.

"Leo..." Calypso said gently, "You can't bring her back. You can't save him."

"I can!" Leo insisted, I have to. He picked up his contraption again, his hands shaking so bad he almost couldn't work. He didn't need the light. He could feel it.

Red wire, black wire...

Calypso's voice sang into the night. It wrestled past his blockades, shattering his reality, "They're gone, Leo."

The screwdriver froze in his hand hovering over his metal wiring box.

"Look Out!" A push.

"Leo!" A scream.

"This is your fault! Your fault she's dead!"

Jason was breathing hard, tears falling down his face. His fist full of Leo's shirt. His heart was beating erratically. Blood soaked his hands, his fingers, his wedding ring.

"She trusted you!" Jason screamed, "You betrayed her!"

Piper's lifeless body lay on the ground. Her skin pale and unnatural. The laugh they'd been sharing earlier had drained out of her features with the scarlet puddle on the ground around her. Her fake peasant guise tarnished with the ugly ruby color.

And it was all his fault.

"No." Leo said again, "It's not real. Festus wouldn't have done that!" He wiped away the tears flooding his grimy face, "I...The program couldn't have malfunctioned. Mom built him...she... I tested it thousands of times! Festus didn't kill Piper!"

His voice rose with every syllable. His shouting carried by the wind, the night sky. It bounced back off the empty abounded walls. He didn't care if the monsters heard. This machine...It would save them. It would turn his best friend back to normal. It would give him back control over the robots.

It had to.

Calypso put a hand on his shoulder, "It's time to let go." She whispered.

"This will work." He insisted. "This had to work, there is no other answer."

"If you do this I can't follow you Leo!" Calypso cried, "I don't want you to get yourself killed! So pick one; me or your malfunctions."

"Festus won't hurt me!"

"That thing out there is not Festus!" she yelled, "It's a bronze murdering machine, Leo! Festus is gone! Just like Piper and Jason and the rest of the world!"

She stared at him, hoping that her words had finally broken through to him. The world was empty. His metallic beast had killed everyone they knew.

The world was dust and rumble. The virus had struck through every stream powered invention. It turned everything into killing machines. It obliterated the world.

Leo kept working on his project. His black wires and his red wires. His compete darkness wrapping around him in a cocoon. He didn't acknowledge when Calypso left. He didn't hear the broken door swing closed. He focused on his contraption, his plan to save the world.

Minuets later, he didn't hear the girl in the faded white dress scream. He didn't hear the mechanical clanking of gears or the sparking of snapped wires. He didn't see the sick red eyes burn holes in the dark fabric of night, or the whirling of is bronze mechanical razor teeth.

Red wire, Black wire...

"I can save them." Leo whispered distantly, "All of them."

Except there was no one left to save.