Page 17 of The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

Nineteen

Carnival Interlude I — The God That Demands Applause

Blood isn’t the price. It’s the promise.

They think The Carnival is just cursed silk and broken bones.

They forget it has a mouth, and it is starving.

We have them perform. We make them scream.

We stitched roses into their ribs and laced knives into their slippers.

We wrapped their guilt in velvet and whispered forgiveness in the shadows but they mistake our mercy for silence.

No more.

She was supposed to feel nothing.

He was supposed to disappear.

And yet they keep bleeding meaning into each other.

We warned them: Love is a disruption. Lust is a sacrifice. And devotion without obedience? That is rebellion.

If they want to rule this stage, they must earn it, with more than performance.

With more than pain, they must rip themselves open and beg to be devoured. We are not a haunted house, we are a god built from broken spines and final bows. Let them tremble. Let them burn, but most of all, let them bleed.

The Carnival is watching.

And it is waiting.