Headcanons And Hijinx

Father Louis P. Marcus had seen a lot in his 48 years of life, but this was undoubtedly the worst.

Today, September 14th, was the day of the long awaited choir competition… and the day the choir ended. 

All six students were dead. 

He couldn’t even begin to process it. He’d taken them to the fair after the competition as a reward. They may not have won but he knew how hard some of his students had worked and thought they’d deserved something to lift their spirits, and maybe it would bring the more disinterested students out of their shells. 

They seemed to have a good time. Excitedly, running around and laughing… until the Cyclone. It would have been the last ride of the day before they returned to the school, if the children had survived it, that is.

It had all happened so quickly and now he was looking at those poor six children, who lay side by side as they were covered by sheets found by the carnival staff until they could be taken away.

He thought of those children now. Their smiling faces as they climbed into the rollercoaster car, although Mischa almost never smiled and Ocean’s had seemed slightly strained as he looked back on it. 

They just…

They weren’t smiling anymore.

Paramedics swarmed the area, trying to find any signs of life at all. The body bags being brought over quickly.

Father Marcus didn’t know what he’d say to the group’s parents. He didn’t know how he’d tell them that their children were dead under his care. His chest ached at the very thought of it and his arms were starting to feel numb as he prayed for the teenagers’ souls over and over again. 

Father Marcus wasn’t even sure in which order the students died. Had they died at the same time or died seconds apart? Did they realise what was about to happen, did they have time to be terrified? Or was it over before they knew what was happening? The only student whose place in the order of deaths that he knew for certain had been the first one to die. 

A girl who was thrown from the back of the cart. Father Marcus didn’t even know her name, she had only joined the choir the day before. But he’d remember her screams as she was thrown for the rest of his life. He wasn’t even sure how it happened, maybe when she’d hit the tracks, but the police were searching for her head. 

“Jane Doe’s missing head had been the most obvious cause of death. How could it not have been? What wasn’t as easy to determine was her identity. The girl’s missing head had eliminated the most common methods of identification.”

Constance Blackwood had been in the front of the cart. The method of her death wasn’t clear to him, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted it to be. There was very little blood, just some leaking from her lips, and with the fact that he had very little medical knowledge as to what could cause such a thing, it was left entirely a mystery to him. 

“As she had been in the front of the cart when it derailed, Constance and her fellow front seat passenger, Ocean, had taken the brunt of the impact. As the cart derailed, Constance was thrown forward in her seat so harshly her ribs snapped on impact with the lap bar, causing them to pierce her heart and kill her almost instantaneously. A small mercy in the grand scheme of the days events.” 

Sat next to her on the right side of the cart had been Ocean O’Connel Rosenberg. In a ghastly comparison to Constance, it was hard to know what had killed her because of all the blood covering her uniform. The dark red liquid was everywhere, saturating her dress and leaking from her lips and nose in thick streams. 

“Ocean O’Connel Rosenberg had been sat in the front right seat of the cart and had been so brutally wrenched about in her seat that half of her chest was caved in. It was hard to see what had happened to her body, under her uniform as it became drenched in her blood. The other half of her chest? It had shattered during the crash, acting as an internal shrapnel grenade, puncturing her lungs until Ocean drowned in her own blood.” 

Sat in the right side of the second row was Mischa Bachinski. It was unclear what part of the accident had killed Mischa. Apart from a nasty cut and bump on the side of his head as well as some bruising beginning to appear around his neck, he looked alright compared to the other children. He could even have been passed off as sleeping. Sleeping after getting into a fight, which wouldn’t have been unusual for the boy, but sleeping none the less. 

“It was unclear what part of the accident had killed Mischa Bachinski until the autopsy. (An autopsy that Father Marcus would never know the results of.) The answer had been horrific. After sustaining severe whiplash as the Cyclone derailed, Mischa had been internally decapitated when broken vertebrae in his neck severed his spinal cord. However, a previously unseen object had been found on Mischa during his autopsy. A cellphone with a shattered screen showing an image of a young woman had been cradled protectively in one of his broken hands.” 

On his left had been Noel Gruber. His cause of death was obvious as part of the cart had somehow impaled him through the back. The paramedics had had to separate Noel and Mischa’s hands as they were removed from the wreckage of the cart as they were found to be holding each others hands, perhaps they had been able to grant each other a brief comfort before the end. (That had answered some of his earlier questions. Some of the children had enough time to realise that was about to happen).

“It’s true that Noel Gruber had been impaled, but the real cause of his death was the head trauma he suffered. The theory that came about during his autopsy was that Noel’s head, and the head of one Mischa Bachinski, had collided during the crash. This caused immense damage to Noel’s brain and lead to a fatal brain bleed.”  

In the final row of the cart, on the right side of the cart had been Ricky Potts. After everything Ricky Potts had been through in his life, this is what killed him. His body was probably the most damage along with Ocean. 

“Ricky Potts had been aware of what was happening the entire time, had even morbidly enjoyed it a little. The sensation of utter weightlessness had been something Ricky had dreamed of for most of his life and he was finally experiencing it at the end of it. Ricky somewhat ironically was the last to die in the accident as he was partially crushed as the cart collided with the floor of the fair. Death had been instantaneous. A quick end to a short life.” 

Father Marcus had sat himself down on a bench overlooking the chaos some hours ago when the first body (Constance) had been removed from the cart and his legs had given out, muttering prayer after prayer for the children’s souls over and over. 

He only stood up when the first body was being moved into the ambulance to be taken to the hospital morgue and moved to go into the ambulance. He was quickly stopped by an EMT. 

“Sir, only family members are allowed into the ambulance. I can’t let you in unless you’re a relative. Are you?” 

“The children were under my care and their parents and guardians aren’t here yet. I will accompany them to the hospital to help explain it to their relatives. I couldn’t protect them then, please let me protect them now. The children deserve that much at least.” He pleaded.

The EMT, a young man with brown hair and pity in his eyes, just sighed. 

“Alright, just this once.”

That had been hours ago. So long that it was now past midnight. The children’s relatives had long since arrived, the ones they could find, at least. His chest ached thinking of a family that didn’t know that they had lost their daughter and were waiting for her to come home. 

The ache in his chest and numbness of his arm was getting worse and worse as he sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair of the hospital corridor. He suddenly found himself gripping his hand over his heart as the pain grew and grew. 

“Sir? Sir, are you alright?” A passing nurse questioned, but he couldn’t answer. The pain in his chest growing even worse by the second. 

He became unaware of what was happening around him, belatedly realising he was now laying on the floor on his back as someone shone a light in his eyes.

A light that completely covered his vision until everything faded away.

***

Today was Tuesday, September 15th in Uranium City, Saskatchewan. 

Yesterday was Monday, September 14th in Uranium City, Saskatchewan. 

The day that would forever be known as the day of the ‘Cyclone Rollercoaster Disaster’. 

At 6:17PM, The Saint Cassian Chamber Choir boarded the doomed rollercoaster. 

At 6:19PM, The rollercoaster derailed at the apex of the loop-de-loop, hurtling all six members of the choir to their unfortunate demise. 

At 6:19PM, Jane Doe died after being tossed from the cart as it derailed, and decapitated as she landed on the tracks. 

At 6:19PM, Constance Blackwood was killed when she suffered from blunt force trauma to her ribs, breaking them and causing them to pierce her heart. 

At 6:20PM, Ocean O’Connel Rosenberg died after sustaining severe blunt force trauma to her abdomen, shattering her rib cage and causing massive internal damage and severe haemorrhaging.  

At 6:20PM,  Mischa Bachinski died after being internally decapitated after experiencing severe spinal damage. 

At 6:20PM, Noel Gruber died after being impaled by a faulty safety bar and enduring a fatal cerebral haemorrhage. 

At 6:20PM, Ricky Potts died after being crushed as the roller coaster cart collided with the ground. 

Today was Tuesday, September 15th in Uranium City, Saskatchewan. 

The day after the ‘Cyclone Rollercoaster Disaster’. 

At 1:21AM,  Father Louis P. Marcus died after suffering a stress induced heart attack in the aftermath of the ‘Cyclone Rollercoaster Disaster’. 

***

Thank you guys so much for reading! I’m still not sure whether I’m satisfied by how this turned out but I hope you enjoyed it at least.

I also don’t know if it’s clear enough but all the writing in the italics is supposed to be Karnak narrating the things that Father Marcus can’t.

I’d also like to go into some of my thought process so here are some details and my reasons for each of the choirs methods of death.

Penny/Jane: she was thrown from the coaster as it derailed, but her obituary is crossed out to reference her resurrection.

Ocean: In ‘Waiting For The Drop’ Ocean does this dance move that looks like she’d being jerked around like crazy. Her and Constance do the same move but Ocean’s are much more exaggerated so while I think they had similar injuries, Oceans were worse as she was on the right side, which is the side that derailed first. Ocean’s smile is also described as being strained by Father Marcus because of her line in ‘Fall Fair Suite’ where she mentioned that she didn’t feel safe getting in line/on the cyclone.

Constance: Similar to Ocean, but quicker as in her monologue she says “all the screaming just stopped.” Which I took to mean that she died fairly quickly. Hence the whole being second to actually die after Jane.

Mischa: I realised that he and Noel headbang together during ‘Sugar Cloud’ and then had the thought of ‘let’s make that cute moment angsty!’. They also dance together during ‘Uranium Suite’/‘Fall Fair Suite’ and I heard someone question if that was supposed to imply them clinging to each other during the crash and I have not had a moments peace since.

Noel: this is gonna sound so dark, but I really wanted Noel to be impaled/stabbed by something in the back due to the line in ‘Noel’s Lament’ “the pretty knife that I stuck ten times in his back”. I thought really long and hard about it and came up with an idea for what actually impaled him. The safety bar that came loose and impaled him was actually part of Jane’s bar that broke off during the derailment and allowed her to be thrown out seconds before the coaster derailed. I know it doesn’t make a ton of sense but it seemed to be the most logical way for the implement/stabbing to come about. He also has similar head injuries to Mischa as stated above.

Ricky: I struggled with trying to think of Ricky’s cause of death the most out of everyone. Then I had a thought that I’ve tried to take a piece of everyone’s songs to relate to their deaths, however, for Ricky I’ll be using a piece of information from his introduction monologue by Karnak. What’s Ricky’s favourite ride? The Gravitron. And in Constance’s ‘Jaw Breaker’ monologue she mentions this feeling of weightlessness. I thought it would be really sad to have Ricky experience this feeling of utter weightlessness, something that’s he’s probably desired to feel for a long time given how enamoured he is with sci-fi, have it be better than the effects of the Gravitron, only mere moments before he dies.

Father Marcus: his is as stated by the show. Dying 7 hours after the incident.

Thanks again for reading. Please take care of yourselves. Eat something, drink some water and remember to take any meds if you have them. Love you all,