Page 40 of The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

Forty Two

Carnival Interlude — The Carnival’s Last Whisper

The Carnival does not bleed, it does not break. It waits, beneath ash and bone, beneath fire and ruin.

“She is the breath between flames,” the shadows murmur,

“The edge of the blade that never dulls.”

Velvet ropes twist like veins, tightening, pulling, a heartbeat echoing through cracked mirrors and shattered glass. The smoke carries her voice, faint, fractured, and raw:

“I am not done. Not yet. The stage still waits.”

Ghost laughter curls around the tents, a thousand voices rising and falling like a tide of forgotten sins.

“She is ours — bound in blood, bound in pain,” they hiss,

“The queen who dances with death and lives.”

The earth trembles with the promise of return, The Carnival’s breath slow and waiting, coiled like a serpent beneath the ruins. And somewhere, between shadow and flame, Visha whispers back:

“I will rise — or burn trying.”