Page 39 of The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

Forty One

Corvan - After the Applause

The Carnival is dead. Or maybe it’s waiting. But she’s still with me.

The silence is suffocating. No music to fill the void.

No cheers, no gasps. Just the crackle of dying flames and the weight of everything lost. I hold Visha close, as her breath comes fast, ragged, raw.

Her skin is warm beneath my fingers, but I can feel the tremble of everything she’s holding back.

The smell of smoke clings to her hair, the faint metallic tang of blood still fresh on her skin.

The ground beneath us feels hollow, like we’re standing on the bones of a dream. But she is real…Here.

Her fingers grip my shirt like a lifeline, and I know, she needs me as much as I need her.

The Carnival may be dead, or maybe it’s just waiting — patient, dangerous, like a beast gathering strength beneath the ashes.

We are the last act, the final illusion.

Two broken souls stitched together by fire and blood and something fragile and fierce. And somehow, that is enough.