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The entire thing was a mistake. It was, in fact, a series of mistakes that ultimately combined together into one massive, collective mistake. It was the mistake-monarch of mistake-kingdom. It waved its sceptre of failure and bestowed its offering of hilarious misery on those it looked upon. With the car rapidly turning into the personification of tortured existence, Cross was reminded of a quote from a particular red-spandex-clad mercenary; 'When life ends up breathtakingly fucked, you can generally trace it back to one big, bad decision. The one that sent you down the road to Shitsburg'.
The first mistake, the first of many mistakes, came when they decided to all go in one car. They were going to shove all six of them into one car. But, when someone brought that up in the planning of their trip, Nightmare had pulled out a list of reasons why it was better for only one car: only one driver needed, only one navigator needed, no chance of getting separated, less chance of getting lost, able to spend the whole time with everyone instead of just two others, use the money that could have been used on hiring a second car on something else; the list went on and on. By the end, everyone had been convinced that having only one car was the better decision. Good idea on paper; wretchedly horrible idea four hours into the trip. If Cross got one more elbow into his ribs or one more foot onto his toes, then he was going to pull out his hack knife and see whether he could force an overwrite on a human car, Chara be damned!
The second mistake came shortly after the first, when they decided to let Nightmare be the driver. Poor decision. Poor, poor, poor decision. If there was one lesson to take away from this clusterfuck of a road trip, it was 'Never, ever, EVER let Nightmare drive'. Cross isn't even certain he consciously remembers the worst of it, either he passed out or repressed it, but he does remember feeling the very troubling sensation of his soul stop beating when Nightmare cut off that bus by mere fractions of an inch! The only reason he was still driving was because everyone was too scared to try and take the wheel away from him.
Problem number three arose a mere couple of blocks from their starting position. In fairness to everyone, not even Dust himself knew he got carsick. Thank fuck for Error, who recognised the warning signals and got Dust's head stuck out the window before the skeleton's breakfast made a surprise reappearance. And so they pulled over for the world's most pitiful pit stop, as Dust was reintroduced not only to his breakfast, but much of last night's dinner as well. At least it was on the side of the road this time.
Perhaps, in light of their terrifically terrible start, it should have come as no surprise that the entire trip was doomed to misery. Where were they going? Why were they going there? Who knew?! Not Cross! He slept through most of that meeting. Maybe he shouldn't have; maybe he could have prevented this disaster if he was awake. Instead, he had only woken up in time to claim shotgun when discussing seating arrangements. Not that he had that seat anymore. After Dust's carsick incident, he'd been forced to swap with Dust. Which is how Dust wound up in the passenger's seat, miserable and with a bucket in his lap, and how Cross found himself squashed in-between Horror and Killer in the back. The one with the most leg room was Error, who was stuck in the boot with the luggage; and who also appeared to be quietly willing himself into another plane of existence whenever Cross looked over at him.
'Really' Cross thought to himself as Nightmare skimmed the kerb going around a corner, and everyone grabbed the 'oh shit' handles (Cross didn't have that luxury; Cross had to brace himself with the seats). 'I don't think things can get any worse.'
It was right about that time that the AC carked it.
"What do you MEAN you need to pee AGAIN?!" Nightmare paused in yelling at Horror to scream obscenities at the taxi that just cut them off, abusing the poor horn for the umpteenth time today. "Why do you even need to pee AT ALL?! You're a SKELETON!"
Cross heard all of it as background noise, as much as you could with someone screaming it in your ear anyway. He was more concerned with catching as much breeze from the open windows as possible, while trying to prevent Killer from sticking literally half his body out the window, while ignoring the temptations to do the same thing. No matter how much cooler it was, he got the feeling no one would be impressed if either of them got the top half of their bodies turned to paste by the next land rover Nightmare clipped.
"It's excess magic from food and drink! I can't help it!" Why was Horror arguing? Driving had put Nightmare in a state of constant rage; there was no reasoning, only cowering. There was a smattering of horn blasts at a poor cyclist, an unfortunate outlet for Nightmare's rage. Cross was beginning to have serious fantasies about chucking himself out of the car.
"I don't need to, even when I eat and drink!"
"That's not natural!"
"The black secretion is MADE of excess magic, so it is PRETTY FUCKING NATURAL!"
"Wait," A new voice piped up, and Cross was horrified to realise that it was his own. "If your goop is made of excess magic, does that mean you are technically covered in…" He couldn't finish the sentence, but he didn't have to. Everyone had turned to face him with horrified looks, including Nightmare himself, which was scary considering that meant he was no longer watching where he was driving. There was the first true bout of silence within the car since the beginning of the trip.
"Changing the FUCKING TOPIC!" Nightmare twisted the wheel and the car screamed around a corner, brakes squealing in protest. The sudden slam on the brakes made everyone jolt forward. When the car finally screeched to a halt in the parking lot of some service station, Nightmare turned to them with a wide, unnatural grin. "Pit stop." The faux-sweetness in his voice made Cross more terrified than any yelling. Dust proceeded to punctuate the moment by vomiting into his bucket.
"Are we there yet?" "No." "Are we there yet?" "No." "Are we there yet?" "No." "Are we there yet?" "No." "Are we there yet?" "No." "Are we there yet?"
Cross was going to strangle Killer if he asked him that question one more time. He was already mad that Killer had taken the pit stop as an opportunity to run away, forcing the group to run him down and drag him back to the car (Inwardly, Cross was cursing himself. Why didn't he think of that?). Horror had gone back to sleep, Dust was in a stupor from his constant bouts of sickness, Nightmare had just stopped talking to anything that wasn't another vehicle (if you count screaming and swearing as talking), and Error had managed to get his hands on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones at the service station and was now staring at the ceiling with a thousand-yard stare. Which meant that Cross was now the only one for Killer to bother.
"Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?"
Just as Cross was about to reach out and strangle the little twerp, a fast food restaurant appeared on the horizon. Both his and Killer's stomachs growled in unison, and the two turned to each other with a nod, pact now formed. They both loomed over Nightmare's seat and spoke in unison.
"Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?"
Their chanting quickly awakened Horror, roused Dust, and alerted Error. When the three saw what they were talking about, they quickly began to join in the chanting. Together, the noise they made was deafening.
"Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?" "Can we eat?"
"ALRIGHT!!!" Nightmare boomed in response, turning into the takeaway place with his usual screech of brakes and flare of horn, startling a pedestrian and her dog into peeing themselves. "But everyone stays in the car! We're going through the drive-through!" The cheers of "Food!" drowned him out, everyone too pleased at finally getting to eat to be mad at the curtailing of any chance for freedom.
(As they are leaving the parking lot:
"Nightmare? Weren't we supposed to go straight, not take a right?"
"We'll take a left later on! We'll be fine!")
"I spy something green." "Grass."
"I spy something brown." "Trees."
"I spy something blue." "Sky."
Cross was bored; they all were bored. After they ate all the food, there was nothing to do but sleep. Most of them had dozed off, but when they woke up, they still hadn't reached the end of this accursed road trip. Not hungry enough to eat, not tired enough to sleep, and their phones had died hours ago (Why did no one pack any chargers?!); thus began the world's lamest game of 'I spy', and 'I spy' wasn't that exciting to begin with. Cross let out a dull yawn of boredom.
"I spy-"
"Please, for the love of everything, Shut Up." Nightmare wasn't even screaming anymore; the roads had cleared, leaving their little vehicle to trundle its way down the road alone. With nothing to focus on, even the lord of negativity was starting to get dreary-eyed. Thus, creating Dust's new job of 'making sure Nightmare doesn't fall asleep and kill us all'.
"Can we turn on the radio, then?" Dust was already reaching over to the knobs without waiting for Nightmare's response. He twisted one on, and the upbeat screams of some happy J-Pop song engulfed the car. With an enraged look they hadn't seen since the last car turned off about an hour ago, Nightmare reached over and turned it back off just as quickly.
“Please. Nightmare. I'm dying here." Cross, undeterred (and apparently driven crazy from boredom), reached for the second knob and twisted it on. This time, the words 'CD Found - Reading' flashed on the tiny display. There was a pause as everyone in the car awaited what would happen, then the stillness was broken by the tune of ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' blaring through the speakers.
Almost on instinct, everyone in the car began to sing along. There was no concern for tone or pitch, no concern for singing ability or voice quality; all that mattered was enthusiasm, and everyone delivered in buckets. Voices cracked on high notes, voices crumbled on drawn-out notes; it didn't matter to them, and they were the only ones around to hear. When the song ended, up started 'Mamma Mia', and the singing continued. Through 'Waterloo', to 'Take a Chance on Me', and into 'Honey, Honey'; the group sang each and every song. If they didn't know the words, they sang the tune and let those who did take the lead. It was loud, boisterous and crazy, and they were finally enjoying themselves.
When the disc finally looped back to 'Dancing Queen' again, they turned the radio off once more. Tears of laughter in their eyes, the final notes and phrases still being repeated through the car. Cross felt the grin that had taken residence on his face during the first song stay long after the final song had finished. Finally, finally, there was some joy in this road trip. As he looked out the window again, he felt the grin freeze on his face.
"Hey. Does this road seem familiar to anyone?"
They sat frozen in their seats, staring up at the castle. The dark, looming castle in front of them; their home, their starting point. No one moved, no one even blinked. They knew, on some subconscious level they KNEW, that the first person to move, to cry, to scream, to sob, would set off a chain reaction and there would be no containing it after that. As the moments ticked on, finally, someone moved. Nightmare, in possibly the only expression of defeat they'd ever see from him, let his head drop forward and land on the steering wheel, slamming face-first into the horn.
The poor horn, in a display of defiance from all the abuse it suffered, let out only a sad 'quack'.