Something seemed so wrong here. I’d always known Barrel was an ass, but I never thought he was evil. Despite the popular opinion, I've never seen any of them as evil but that could just be because they're my friends. Yet there was Barrel standing next to Oogie enjoying the scene as Dad, Jr., Lock, and Shock tried their hardest to get past the bugs. Oogie had lied, there had to be more than twelve of them here. These creatures didn't go down easy and would continue to fight even if you cut their heads off. Being chained to the wall all I could do was watch helplessly at the consequences of my actions. Jr. fired his arrows with perfect aim, but even with arrows sticking out of them the bugs continued to fight. Shock fought gracefully, odd for a witch, with her dagger slicing off limbs easily for such a small weapon. Dad fought without a weapon, but he didn't need one. For the first time I noticed that Lock had brought a sword. It seemed a rather medieval choice, but I'll be darned if he couldn't use it. Even from here I could tell his eyes were slits, like a cat's, and he moved very fast considering he was carrying such a heavy weapon. As well as they fought it inched closer and closer to the six minute mark. That's when I heard a great buzzing noise like from a machine. I looked up and saw it; it could be best described as basically being a modified meat grinder. I had to get out now or not at all. They couldn't save me; they were still preoccupied with the warrior-bug-things. I was panicking and didn't know what to do until an idea hit me. It was so obvious I can't believe it hadn't occurred to me sooner. Oogie had magic-proofed the cuffs so I couldn't get them off, but would he have thought to magic-proof the wall the chains were attached to? Nope, (note: remember not all spells require speech to use) the walls melted around the chains, and I jumped off the platform just as the grinder reached the place where I had been only seconds before.
I think I broke something in the fall but there was no time to make sure. Pain or no pain I had to move. Oogie had realized I was not being ground into meat and I soon found myself facing Barrel. He pointed a gun at me and without thinking I grabbed the chains and hit him with that. I heard the gun go off as it spun out of his hands and as he was knocked backward. Everyone else had noticed my escape at this point and was telling me to run for it. The chains, no longer attached to the wall now dragged on my injured wrists which felt as if they could fall off at any second. I was not going to run away. I got us into this and I was at least going to help get us out of this. A fired off wordless spells that instantly killed the warriors. I had been right; there were way more than twelve. Junior had somehow found a way to light his arrows on fire and the flaming bugs ran around panicking. It seemed that we might be able to win this when I saw Lock lose his weapon. I ran over to help, but the warrior had already grabbed the sword. I ran in front of Lock right as the beast struck. I fired a spell at it killing it, but I had been struck. I could feel the cold steel in my skin. When the warrior fell it dragged the sword with it creating a huge gash that showed my insides. The building started shaking and ruble fell from the ceiling. I couldn't feel my legs. Fire licked the sides of the building, what warriors were left ran from the fire. I fell back into Lock's arms. I couldn't feel any of my limbs anymore. Blood rushed into my mouth and ran down my face. My vision was going, I was dying. I heard lots of shouting in the background, but I didn't understand any of it. The only person I could hear clearly was Lock, lying through his teeth, saying we were going to get out of here. Then I heard him say, "Lini, I...I ...love you." 'What!' I wanted to say. Had I heard him right? But it didn't matter anymore, and everything went black.
