They all erupt into cheers of thunderous applause. The Ringmaster looks at the group and finds himself almost puzzled. People don’t really come to the circus anymore. And when they did, he knew. But these six had slithered up into the stands without any sign of them being there. He couldn’t be dreaming, but for a moment he didn’t believe it’s real.
He spins on his heels to face the group, now addressing them alone. “We’ve a wonderful show planned for you today, and I’ll be your guide to show you the way. So hold tight to your seat and tighter to your mind, lest you lose yourself in the tricks we provide.”
The six settle down into their seats. They whisper words of excitement to each other before Peony hushes them all. The lights around them fade into darkness as the Ringmaster leaves the stage, leaving behind only the small flickers of firefly tails. The smoke rises again, though this time daring not to enter the stands. When it clears, there stands before them the Escapist.
Reader, I cannot tell you much more than what I am to tell you now; he will be listening to my every word. You give meaning to your shadows and demons despite them being no more than faceless ideas and silhouettes. What you believe to be there is not.
The Escapist throws open his arms in exclamation, his cape fluttering out behind him. He bows, and they all clap for him. From the ground erupts a box decorated with velvet and brass studs stained with age. He presents a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, and proclaims that with his hands bound, he will escape from the box. A wispy blue light removes his billowing cape, leaving it to lay on the ground. The Escapist turns around, and the light binds his hands behind his back. The lid of the box opens, and the smell of charcoal wafts in the dead air. The Escapist calls for the attention of the audience, then tosses himself in the box. The lid falls shut, and a loud groan echoes through the tent.
“Did you see that?” Juniper whispers.
“What, the box?” Fuego whispers back.
“No, the green stuff on his hands.”
For a moment, all seems well. The box isn’t moving, and the sound of rustling within it draws the group forward from their seats. They sit, leaning against the barrier, waiting for the escapist to make his triumphant emergence.
There is banging from within the box.
The box begins to rattle as the banging grows louder. The voice within it begins to scream, albeit muffled from the velvet and old hardwood. The agonized hollering can only proclaim that something has gone wrong. Something has gone wrong, and that it can’t breathe. The words crawl their way through the cracks of the box, but soon they’re silenced by glimmering green slime which seals the lid shut. The banging continues, now nearly a faint pounding, and the words have turned to the growling and roaring of an animal. Then, with the force of a gunshot, the box flips over on its side.
They all find themselves pressed to the back of their seats in shock. The banging only grows, but the frothing slime glues the box in place. Slowly, it creeps all over the old wood, forming cascading tendrils of mucus and phlegm that anchor it to six spots on the ground. The pounding slowly grows less violent, and the few of them that possess superb hearing find themselves met with muffled groaning from center stage.
The ground around the box grows bumpy with little round figures that scurry as if they were beetles trapped just below the skin. From the six spots, metal prongs rise up, and their rust almost shines in the white, hot light. Ever so slowly, they grow from the height of saplings to the grand statue of oaks, though they never achieve the same thickness. With horrifying precision, they pierce the box like arrows. They dig their way inside the wooden cage, and soon the faint smell of bleach rises to fill the air. Now, there is finally silence.
They all wait for the Escapist’s next move. To emerge from the box, the side of the stage, to let out a word or a scream, anything. But the box remains silent, unmoving. Something drips from the puncture wounds, but it isn’t the goo. Nothing about it says blood, either. They all lean forward from their seats, hungry for an answer. Before they can get any better look at it, the claws begin to drag it down beneath the dust. Like a fine machine, it slowly lowers the box into the cold, dark grave of the dust. All that remains are the fireflies which flit helplessly around the burial, slowly dropping dead themselves.
Adderall and Fuego begin to clap, however awkwardly. The others slowly join in, not sure what else to do. They dare not to break their gaze with the stage.
“I, uh,” Peony stutters, her hands quivering as she tries to clap.
“I guess it’s the thought that counts,” Juniper replies.
“I guess,” Peony grimaces, thinking of how it would feel to be pricked with so many needles.
“What a wonderful attempt from our dearest Houdini,” The Ringmaster begins, walking atop the spot where the box had been dragged under. “We could call this magician a wand-erring soul, couldn’t we?”
The group stares at him in silence. By now, they’ve stopped clapping.
The Ringmaster rubs the back of his neck. “Tough crowd, I see. No matter, our next act is sure to make you burst with glee!”
They all look at each other, each one feeling as if they’ve been punched in the gut. They each wait for another to make a move to leave, but no one lifts so much as a finger.
Next to the stage is a Juggler, wearing bright colors of every hue. She waves to the audience, and the group waves back. She doesn’t notice. From the looks of things, she’s too engrossed in her performance. The others don’t mind.
When she goes to pick up her juggling balls from the milk crate beside her, they’re nowhere to be found. She scratches her head, then calls out to someone somewhere about her missing props. For a moment, all is silent. Then from nowhere, a voice replies to her, saying she has what she needs already.
She scratches at her head again, then stops. Her eyes go wide with sudden realization, and she curiously scratches at her stomach. She hits a tear on her suit, and she peels it away to reveal her stomach, patterned with boils and scabs. She picks at a blemish, and soon it too begins to open. She sticks her fingers inside the infected hole, and with absent strength tears her flesh away like wet tissue paper. Her organs pulsate and writhe within her body. The Juggler, almost unfazed, traces her organs until she finds her stomach. She takes two fingers, jams them in the tissue of her stomach, and tears it wide open. Three colorful balls stained with acid fall to the ground. The Juggler hasn’t even so much as looked down to dignify the gore. She continues her vacant stare into the audience as she picks up the balls and begins her routine.
The group looks on in terror as she begins to collapse. Her feet hold strong, but everything else seems to go all in unison. From the hole in her stomach droops her intestines, which all slowly unwind and fall to the ground. Black dots, perhaps spiders, crawl up into the wound, and soon bits of muscle fall like rain. She has no blood to be found, and yet her hands go pale. She breathes harder and harder as the bottoms of her lungs begin to peek through the hole in her stomach. Her juggling slows, and her eyes begin to turn gray. She slowly starts to drop the balls, each one falling to the ground and slowly rolling away. She drops the last ball, then collapses in the dust. When she is at last fallen, the balls roll their way back into her stomach, and her eyes roll back into her head.
Juniper almost faints. DJ puts two clawed hands over their mouth, trying to hold back the sharp nausea building in their throat. Adderall and Fuego mutter to themselves, occasionally breaking eye contact to look at the Juggler on the ground. Peony scratches the back of her void hand. Sebastian can’t even move.
The Ringmaster springs back onto the stage. “Boy, you’d really bust a gut at that one!”
He looks at the group, each one of them ghastly pale. They can’t even find the strength in them to clap for the Juggler.
He frowns in anger. “Come on, all of you, start having some fun!”
They all look at each other, each waiting for another to do something. A word. A gag. An awkward applause. Something.
Sebastian, however, can. And all he can do is stare. Staring at the motionless heap on the floor. The heap that should have been human. He waits like a vulture for a single sign of life. Anything, a rise of the chest, a twitch of a finger, something that would tell him she’s alive. Just a little bit of hope. But try as he might, he can’t find anything. Not even the balls that stuffed themselves back into her husk move. Nothing at all. She just lies there in the dust, her colors leaking away in the air, her figure melting away into the dust below her. First flesh, then organs, then bone.
He laughs. Oh, how he laughs! He can’t believe any of it, none of it at all! Wake up, wake up! He thinks to himself, but he can’t. Oh no, he can’t. He clutches his stomach with his arms, doubling over in hysteria as he grips himself tighter than a serpent’s pitiful prey. Buds of tears bloom in his eyes as the voltage in his blood amps up. He won’t look away from it. No, he can’t look away from it.
The others slowly turn their gaze to Sebastian. First Fuego, then Adderall, then Juniper. DJ debates putting their hand over his mouth to shut him up. Peony can’t even bear to look. Between them all is stunned silence.
“Now there’s someone among you who’s in good spirits!” The Ringmaster grins, twirling his cane and pointing it at Sebastian. “Now you know what you can do here, so as long as you can hear it.”
The Ringmaster turns away from the group. Peony tugs at Sebastian’s sleeve and hurriedly whispers to him.
“Sebastian?”
“We’re going to die here, aren’t we?” He giggles, still gazing off into the stage. “Vi kommer til å dø-”
DJ reaches over and finally puts their hand over his mouth. For a moment, he thinks to scream, but the look in DJ’s eyes hints at even graver consequences for doing so.
“Pull yourself together, Sebastian.” They growl, “We’re not going to die here. I’ve told you this a thousand times, in the forests, on the train, and in the shadows of monsters, and I’ll tell you again now, in this circus; I am going to make sure you stay alive.”
Sebastian takes DJ’s hand from his mouth. His voice is still quivering.
“You promise?”
DJ sits back in their seat, slightly worried at the prospect of another promise.
“I promise,” They reply, hoping their hesitation doesn’t show.
“Promise me that too,” Peony demands.
“Why? Haven’t I already promised you that?”
She hesitates. “I want to be sure of it.”
“And I don’t want anything to happen to her,” Sebastian interrupts.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Sebastian and Peony look at each other in agreement.
DJ sighs. “Then yes, I promise that to you too, Peony.”
The three turn back around to the stage. The sight in front of them is rather hazy, to say the least. Still, Juniper, Adderall, and Fuego are engrossed in their viewing of it.
Adderall leans over to Fuego. “He needs to get better props.”
Fuego nods solemnly. “Nothing here looks real. Like some sort of ten dollar haunted house.”
DJ squints off into the fog. There’s some sort of figure dangling from a tightrope. They can only make out shadows in the distance.
“What are they doing?” DJ whispers.
“They just fell off the tightrope,” Fuego mutters in reply, “They lost their head on the wire.”
“I can’t even see the vertebrae in their neck,” Juniper grumbles, “What kind of show is this?”
DJ looks at the three as if they’ve just uttered something in a foreign tongue. They look out into the mist, then back at them, then back out in the mist. They squint to no avail. Something could be out there--and they did believe something was out there--but whatever it was, it wasn’t meant for them to see. The three beside them start to clap, and so do Sebastian and Peony. They clap in unison, and when the others begin to laugh, they follow their lead. All the laughter around them sounds genuine. Was there something they missed?
The fog clears from the stage and the Ringmaster returns once more.
“I’m glad to see you all unwind your spools,” he begins “But now’s the time for something really cool! For our last act today, we’ve got a small puppet show.”
The Ringmaster turns up to the rafters, cupping his hand besides his mouth. “Whenever you’re ready up there, just go!”
The Ringmaster walks back off into the stage, and the lights around him dim. A small spotlight shines up a halo above him, focusing on a much smaller stage. From behind him, there’s a small round of applause.
He turns around. It’s only coming from one person. They’re clapping and cheering, but nothing’s even happened yet. And they’re cheering a name. A name? What name is it? There’s not supposed to be a name!
“Ikimono! Yeah, buddy!”
Ikimono? He thinks to himself.
He turns back and shrugs. What do I know?
Up in the small stage, the puppet of a shepherd draped in gray lowers into a lovely hand-painted field. Cotton ball sheep surround him in the greenery. From above the stage rings a jaunty tune of bells and keys. Then, someone begins to speak.
“A long time ago, in a land far away, there lived a shepherd and his flock. He did not live very close to the town, but everyone agreed he did very good work for a shepherd.”
The tune changes in harmony, and the sky behind them slowly darkens from a baby blue to a deep purple. Small lights twinkle against the background, and soon a pale circle descends from the stage above.
“But this was no ordinary shepherd,” The narration continues, “This shepherd was a werewolf!”
The music sharply changes to frantic banging and clanging. The shepherd flies out of the stage, leaving the puppet of a wolf to take its place. The wolf begins to thrash about, flying at the throats of the cotton-ball sheep. The sheep seem to leak some sort of red from their stuffing, and soon they too are flying from the stage. When the music calms again, only one sheep remains.
“Every full moon he’d kill some of the flock, but one night, one sheep grew wise to his violence. He fled from the flock and into the town, hoping to warn the people of the shepherd.”
The fields behind the sheep turn into the cobblestone roads and houses of a town as the sheep leaves behind the wolf. Paper people crowd along the bottom of the stage, and the narration starts once more.
“The people of the town were confused when they found a sheep roaming their streets. Something must have happened to the shepherd, they thought, and so they went out to investigate.”
The sheep then leads the paper silhouettes out into the grassy fields once more, the full moon still gleaming in the sky. But when the wolf returns, it seems more terrified than before. Its button eyes no longer glimmer with the beastliness of a wolf, but like the marble eyes of a man.
“When the people of the town saw the werewolf, they were mad!” The narration exclaims, “No wonder there was never enough mutton or fleece to go around! And not to mention, of course, a werewolf among them all. So, they all did what they knew was right…”
From behind the paper silhouettes rises matches, needles, and forks. The wolf cowers in fear as the music slows to a halt.
“...And killed that werewolf right where he stood!”
The music swiftly turns into shrill banging as the paper people lunge at the wolf. From a source unseen, a fire quickly erupts, catching the wolf by its tail and quickly overtaking its form. The sheep, the people, and the background fade away from sight as the wolf dangles in the middle of the stage.
The wolf burning is a rather uncanny sight to behold. It just stands there, motionless, even as the banging and discord continues in the rafters above. It simply burns. Its arms and legs slowly disintegrate, and soon too, its body. As the head burns away, the glassy eyes of something once human refuse to burn. And when the last of the wolf is gone, they fall to the ground, hitting the Ringmaster on the head.
The Ringmaster turns around in sharp anger. He turns up to look at the stage above him, and soon Ikimono falls into their stage on their noose.
Ikimono dangles above the audience. They’re all looking at them, and Ikimono knows their eyes are real. Finally, real eyes! They think to themselves. They take a deep breath and yell to the crowd.
“Last call for mortals, better cover your tracks,” He yells, “Ganglionic dendrites get you stabbed in the back!”
Ikimono scrambles back up into the rafters, hardly even offering a bow to the guests. The Ringmaster looks up into the stage, but his puppeteer is nowhere to be seen. The Ringmaster grumbles, then returns his attention to the audience.
“It says things sometimes that don’t quite make sense,” He begins, “I’ll be sure to have a talk with it after this.”
“Talk?” DJ asks.
The Ringmaster is startled. Audiences aren’t supposed to respond with anything other than applause.
“Talk, yes, that’s what I’ll do,” He begins, his speech starting slowly. “I don’t think it ought to concern that of you.”
“None of the other performers have left this stage alive,” DJ growls, “I want to be there when you talk to them.”
“Hey now, none of the others have died! And it’s rather a stretch to presume they’re alive.”
“One of them lost all their organs and the other one couldn’t breathe. I’m pretty sure breathing and having organs are quantifiers for being alive.”
“Having guts and a breath don’t make someone that way. They’ve neither blood in their veins nor thoughts in their brains.”
“And how, then, would you prove that your puppeteer is not alive?”
“It’s a rather simple choice: outside of its act, it hasn’t a voice.”
“Baloney!” Sebastian shouts, shooting up from his seat, “They talked to me before the show! Plus, they’re the one who led us to the tent. Now, I’m no big city doctor, but I think being able to give verbal instructions means you have a voice.”
The Ringmaster looks as though the information he’s received was not the information he wanted. “Even if the puppeteer could speak, it hasn’t a name, so your argument’s weak.”
“Their name is Ikimono!” Sebastian chides, “They’ve got a name, they’ve got a voice. Surely, they must be alive. Alive by your standards, at least.”
The Ringmaster takes a small step back in astonishment. He never named the creature. The creature never spoke to anyone other than him, and he daresay it was too afraid to speak to anyone else. Why would it say a word to this guest? It would never see him again, anyway. He had to be lying. But the neurons didn’t lie, and neither did he. Could they see the neurons like he could? There was only one way to tell.
“Then that’s simply a lie, my green-robed friend,” the Ringmaster replies with a coo. “And I hope that this talk has made your thoughts emend.”
Sebastian leans over on the wall, grabbing the top of it. Before he can hop over, Peony takes hold of his arm. Sebastian sighs. He sits back down in his seat, kicking at the dust on the ground. He grumbles something under his breath, but nobody pays any heed to it. Nobody could understand it, anyway.
“If I didn't have the gift of temperance, I’d argue it further,” DJ resumes, leaning forward in their seat. “But listen, I’m not letting them alone with you. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
The Ringmaster’s aggression slowly unfurls into a wicked grin. “If you want to protect it, I’ll give you the chance. Join the circus, dear dragon, and I’ll let you be its lance.”
DJ’s eyes widen in shock. They look up to the fabric ceiling of the tent, hoping for some sort of shooting star to give them an omen. They can’t see the skies from here. The only omens they can find are the ones in the beating of their heart. Do they dare trust them?
They look at their friends, then to the upper stage, then at the Ringmaster. When they open their mouth, the words fall like ripened fruit from a tree.
“I accept your offer, Ringmaster. I cannot speak on behalf of my company, but I will remain here. Whatever catastrophe, misfortune, or tragedy it brings, I accept it.”
The others look at DJ in stunned silence. After all this, after every bit of pain in the show, and yet they still went through with it. DJ isn’t one to back down from a joke, not one to not commit to the bit, but this?
They all wait for someone else to stand beside DJ. Even DJ waits for someone to join their side. For the longest moment, it seems like nobody would.
Sebastian stands up too.
“I’ll join. I can’t let anything happen to DJ or my little buddy.”
Then, shaking, Peony rises. On instinct, she gently takes his hand.
“Sebastian, I’m coming with you.”
Juniper hops up from her seat. She’s a lot more plucky than the others.
“You all are lucky my dad won’t mind it if I leave.”
Then, Adderall and Fuego rise to stand.
“This is gonna be so much fun!” Adderall cheers.
The Ringmaster smiles. He’s gotten so much more than what he bargained for. So, so much more.
His voice booms over the stage. “I’m very much so honored by your triumphant decision, but first I must go out and grab compulsory provisions. It really isn’t much at all, just for record keeping. Like, what all of your acts will be and where you will be sleeping.”
The Ringmaster turns around and trots off back into the darkness. The six stand in their places, each in varying degrees of anxiety. DJ looks at the dust on the stage, and a little tuft of smoke rises from their snout.
“Did we do the right thing?” Sebastian asks.
“I did,” DJ replies, looking up at him. “I can’t say the same for you.”
…
Ikimono slides down the silken rope and hops down on the ground. Their puppets jingle inside their satchel. For once, they’re satisfied with the show. Hopefully they got through to the people. Maybe, they hoped, those booming voices below were them finally standing up for themselves. How wonderful that would be, to finally put him in his place. They smile, free from pain. For a moment they ignore the looming shadows of the boxes beside them and skip merrily to the exit.
The clicking of dry joints and the stomping of boots halts Ikimono in their tracks. They didn’t do anything wrong, did they? Well, the message, maybe, but-- oh god, the message! He wasn’t dumb. If there’s one thing the Ringmaster isn’t, it’s dumb. He knows, oh, he knows! They lower their head in shame and brace themself.
“So, you have a name? That I didn’t know. I don’t remember calling you,” the voice scoffs, “Ikimono.”
Ikimono spins around to face the towering figure behind them. They fall to their knees, clenching their fists together, blood already welling up at their eyes. The figure stares, his crescent-moon eyes not even blinking.
“I came up with it on the spot!” They plead, grabbing their arms to give themselves a hug. “I was asked for a name and I didn’t know what to do! I swear, I didn’t!”
“Do I need to remind you of your place in this world?” The Ringmaster continues, “You tell your stories and you let yourself be unfurled. And was that name in the language I barred? Answer me frankly, lest you end up with scars!”
“It was! It was!” They sob, blood trickling down their face and into their holes. “I was nervous, it was the only thing I could think to do!”
“You’re not lying to me, are you? You better not be, you know what I can do.”
“I can’t lie to you, Sunshine. You know I can’t. I bet you even know how scared I am right now. And you can’t even see me crying!”
Sunshine grins. “That’s a good creature, now listen to me. You’ve got quite a crowd of supporters, I see. They have trust in you, why I don’t know, so you and I are gonna give them a show. You gather them all within the pack, and you figure out how they think and they act. Then teach me to know what they are and they dread, and I’ll figure out some way to get in their heads. if you won’t help me, I’ll still have my way, and you’ll end up with more trouble, I dare say. Go find your new puppets, and string them with care. It’ll be one hell of a show, so get on out there!”
Ikimono shivers and nods their head. “Yes, Sunshine. I won’t let you down.”