Page 2 of The Opening Act is Death
I leap into a jeté and into a death spin, my heel catching the beautiful arc of his throat mid-sentence; it slices open with a hiss. He begins to gurgle, stumbling as he stares at me like I’m a god, or a monster. It’s the same thing in my eyes. As he drops to his knees, blood blooming beneath him like a rose; dark, petaled and perfect. Applause erupts almost thunderously from the crowd. Eternal love, and I bow as The Carnival feeds.
Later that evening I wash in a basin filled with wine and salt. It does scald the skin, and that’s the point. I must stay clean, even if nothing in me is. The tent smells like my childhood, dusty, silk, perfume that I haven’t worn since before I had my name carved into the bone. I ignore the scent, yet something else is gnawing at me. A presence, something new. Not a predator, or even prey, something… watching me. Someone…
I turn sharply to catch whatever might be there, yet nobody is. Only the tent flaps rustling, but I feel him. I think The Carnival does too. It reacts to his presence, the lights begin to flicker, the bone-chimes hiss. The roses that I brought in from the stage have begun to bloom again. I plucked them all last night, one by one, they should not be blooming. They only ever bloom when I feel something, and I don’t feel anything anymore. I simply can’t. That was the deal I made,wasn’t it?I snap the rose in my hand, thorns piercing my palm, the petals are wet with blood that isn’t mine. He is here, and The Carnival knows it.
Five
Corvan — Mirrors Lie Best
The woman on stage just slit a man’s throat mid spin and they applauded her? Not that polite applause, or the uncertain, awkward sounds you make when you think something is fake but don’t want to be rude, no. That was the rapture, frenzied, religious and thunderous. She bowed like she was a god accepting worship, yet she didn’t smile. Not really anyways. Her eyes did, black as soot and colder than ash. She didn’t just kill him, she judged him, precise, unapologetic and beautiful. I couldn’t bring myself to move until the curtain closed again, red velvet dripping like fresh meat.
I don’t remember how I got here. Hours earlier, I was standing on a platform waiting for a train. The sky had that bruised twilight haze, and I was holding a ticket I don’t remember buying.
ADMIT ONE TO The Carnival OF THE DAMNED
No returns. No rescues. No refunds.
There was a smear of writing on the back, half erased:
“She sees what you bury.”
I told myself it was a pop-up haunt, maybe one of those immersive theaters for degenerates. That I needed this, a simple distraction not closure. A place to hide from the things that I couldn’t name without flinching. That’s when the fog rolled in, thick and wet, whispering a lullaby. Following it, The Carnival doesn’t have a front gate, you justend upinside of it.
The lights are wrong, flickering, sepia-tones, almost like a dying reel of film. The tents sway even when there is no wind, music bleeds from unseen speakers, but never lands on a melody. There are performers that don’t blink, children with sewn lips, and a carousel that does not turn, yet the horses still gallop. The air tastes like sugar and rust, yet I keep walking.
The First Test – Truth or Terror
The sign hangs above the mirror like a sentence. “Truth or Terror.”It’s cracked down the center, barely clinging to the frame. The letters bleed into each other. The glass doesn’t show my reflection, only a hallway. Dark, endless, lit by uneven candlelight, the flames leaning like they’re trying to escape. Then the voice comes, a woman’s voice. A voice that is familiar, soft and so very wrong.
“Show me what you did.”
I freeze. Her voice doesn’t echo, it slithers, it knows. I turn but nothing is there, only silence behind me, and still the hallway glows in the mirror. I don’t step forward, I run. Andfor a time, The Carnival watches, letting me believe I might escape.. Five minutes later, maybe ten, I’m back in front of the mirror. The Carnival leads you in circles until you’re ready to bleed. Same mirror, same sign, but this time my reflection has returned and she’s behind me. Elena. Soaked and silent, her hair clings to her face like black moss, she opens her mouth but no sound comes out. Only smoke. It pours from her lips in ribbons, thick and twisting wrapping around my throat, and suddenly the mirror isn’t a mirror at all;it’s a window.And I am on the other side. I’m trapped in that endless hallway, watching the flickering candles as the smoke twists and turns to water. My feet are soaked, she is still behind me. She reaches out, not to touch me, but to show me, and as she does the walls begin to melt. And this time I hear it as she parts her lips…
“Why didn’t you open the door?”
The images from a night I long buried, crash against the glass like waves.Her hand pulling mine back from the edge, the bottle I broke against the sink, the look in her eyes before she left and I let her. The door I didn’t open.I open my mouth to scream, like Elena, yet only smoke comes out. I feel the mirror pulse, like a heartbeat, and I stagger back, with lungs burning and the reflection gone. No hallway, no Elena, just me staring at a mirror that should’ve cracked under the weight of what I saw.I am not sure which to choose. Truth, or terror?
The Second Test – The Clown’s Tea
A clown waits by a rickety table, his suit is threadbare with seams unraveling like he has been holding this pose for centuries. His smile is too wide, stitches at the corners, eyes painted on, but somehow he watches me. Without wavering hegestures to the teacup, it’s cracked with black liquid inside. I swear it smells hungry. Like charred petals, like roses that died screaming, yet I drink it.Why, you ask? Why not, I always do what I’m not supposed to do. I’m taken back as I do though, it tastes like her perfume. Like jasmine and sandalwood, like the voicemail I didn’t listen to until she was already cold in the bathtub. I close my eyes and breathe through the memories, and when I open them, he is gone. Only the tea cup remains empty.My legs feel like they belong to somebody who isn’t afraid, like somebody who didn’t run.
The Third Test – The Puppet That Screams
The marionettist finds me next. He doesn’t speak, just presses something into my hands. A puppet that’s small and human shaped with blonde yarn hair, and a smile painted too wide. It’s just a toy, right? Or I think it is, until it screams, not a shrill, not scared, but a scream from the gut, the soul. I try to get rid of the puppet, yet it clings to me. Its strings wrap around my fingers, refusing to let me go. Finally I am able to hurl it up, and it hits the floor. It begins twitching, then crawls back to me. As it reaches my feet it stares into my eyes, and I swear that it recognizes me. I stomp on it before it can entangle me again, the wood cracks beneath my boot, and just like that the screaming stops, yet something inside me does not.
Interlude – The Bench
A bench appears out of nowhere as the room changes again, it wasn’t there before. I am sure I would have noticed…right?I see a sign beside it, and it reads:
YOU’RE DOING SO WELL. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONFESS SOMETHING?
I refuse to speak, unsure of what is next to come and then the sign changes once more.
SHE WOULD HAVE LOVED THE CARNIVAL.
I let out a small laugh, and I swear it sounds like bones snapping. I let out a cry as I fall to my knees. I let my palms catch my tears until all I can taste is salt and regret. The lights flicker above me, like a satisfied breath was taken. It appears The Carnival is pleased with me.
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