Page 3 of The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

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 just end up inside 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. And for 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 he gestures 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.

* * *

Eventually, I end up at a tent that smells like roses, rust, and wine.

Velvet sways like a breath beneath the stillness.

The air here is heavy and thick with something that tastes like a memory?

The first outside is darker than the rest, wet, stained.

Petals litter the ground, some fresh, some rotted, some even still bleeding.

I don’t need The Carnival to tell me who is inside. I already know.

Her.

The one with knives on her feet, that dances like vengeance.

The one whose eyes didn’t just see me, they recognized me.

She has called for me, but I can feel The Carnival is preparing.

Somewhere, bone chimes rattle like teeth, and petals bloom from places that should be barren, yet the roses I pass seem to turn towards me.

Are they watching me, or should I take it as a warning?

I don’t dare to enter, yet I sit outside the tent shaking.

The perfume of rot and silk coils around my throat like a noose, and for the first time since Elena died, I feel something.

Not just grief, nor guilt, but fear; and worse, curiosity.

The velvet shifts, but nobody opens it. Instead I feel The Carnival pull me in without even touching me.

Suddenly I’m inside, or somewhere near, but not directly inside the tent.

The walls fall away and I am not in my own skin anymore.

I see her. Younger, human, twirling in pink slippers smiling.

She is beautiful, alive, until she isn’t.

Blood splashes across the satin, hands pull her away from the stage and I can tell they aren’t meant to save her.

They are hands that want to silence her.

“You were never meant to shine.” I hear a voice hissing.

She tries to scream, but her mouth is full of flowers now and they choke her as she dances.

Knives have replaced her feet, bones replaced her name and The Carnival wraps around her like a shroud, and she doesn’t shed another tear, instead she bows.

I jump back, gasping for air. Sweat runs down my spine like a blade and the velvet flutters. A shadow behind it moves, just once and in that moment she knows I saw, and now I know, that this place didn’t just choose her. It made her, she didn’t just survive The Carnival, she became it.