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His assailant’s foot connects with Fabian’s chest and he goes flying into a support beam, which shudders. From up above among the flames, a strut shifts, and a flaming, heavy beam plummets down, crushing Fabian and pinning him to the floor. With the wind knocked out of him, he struggles to breathe; sucking hot, smokey air into his lungs, which triggers a coughing fit. Before he has a chance to compose himself, the tuxedo-clad Harvestman is standing over him.
Fabian barely has time to register the glint of steel that swings at him. He cranes his neck as far away from certain death as he can and successfully – literally – saves his neck, but not without a cost. With a spurt of blood, the sword slices through flesh and bone and carves out his right eye. The eyeball goes soaring through the air, leaving a little trail of blood in its wake. Fabian doesn't really feel much, just the sting across his face, though he realizes something is wrong when he suddenly only sees half of what he had before. But even then, it’s more than enough to see his target.
As the man turns and leaves, Fabian’s hand –sword firmly gripped – snakes out and he successfully stabs him through the hand. He can see it – through the smoke and the heat – he can see that he’s pierced the man in the tuxedo. You’re mine now, asshole. A rumble from up above announces the roof collapsing even further, and a shower of burning lumber cascades down from the rafters, separating the two foes. The assailant disappears back downstairs to safety, and Fabian is left beneath the beam, blood pouring out of his eye socket.
He shoves at the beam, trying to lift it, but it doesn't budge.
He’s going to die here.
Fabian tries again, pushing harder, despite the heat of the log against his hands. Still, the beam refuses to give an inch, and if anything, sinks deeper into his chest as it shifts.
He’s really going to die here. On prom night. Unable to save his Papá, unable to help his friends save the world. He’s going to die.
Again, Fabian pushes against the beam. He can hear the sounds of his Papá fighting in the next room, his sword clashing against more swords, the sounds of bullets being fired from his flintlock. He’s so close! He must make it!
But again he fails.
At last, after the sounds of battle fade from the next room, he manages to squirm his way out, scraping and burning himself, lungs scorching as he breathes in the acrid smoke of his home burning down around him.
He’s not going to die, but when he enters the room beside him, a part of him still does when he sees the state of his Papá.