Page 43 of The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

Forty Five

Corvan - Illusions Unraveled

Secrets peel back like old skin, raw and exposed. Loyalty fractures beneath the weight of truth.

The air inside the Ringmaster’s tent is thick, heavy with secrets too long buried.

I follow the faint trail of smoke and old magic, each step drawing me closer to the heart of The Carnival’s shadowed truth.

Visha isn’t just the queen of knives. She’s the architect of this cursed place, and the keeper of its darkest betrayals.

Pages torn from old journals, hidden beneath loose floorboards, whisper the story she never told me.

Promises broken. Deals made in blood, souls sacrificed for power.

I feel the weight of it pressing down on me, cold and unforgiving.

Why did she keep this from me? Was I ever more than a pawn in her game? Or worse… a casualty?

My hands tremble as I touch the brittle pages, the ink smeared by tears or sweat or blood.

Each word is a knife twisting in my gut.

Visha’s face haunts my mind, fierce, unreadable, a queen who rules with fire but hides a storm beneath.

I want to confront her, to demand the truth, to hear the story behind the lies.

But The Carnival watches, silent, waiting and I know that some illusions can never be fully unraveled without breaking everything.

The loyalty I swore to her, to us, fractures in the shadows.

I am caught between love and betrayal, between the man I want to be and the truth I must face.

The final illusion demands honesty, and I am not sure if I am ready to pay its price.

The musty air of the Ringmaster’s tent presses down on me, thick with silence and secrets.

Each breath tastes like dust and forgotten promises.

I stare at the brittle pages in my hands, words stained with time and blood. They tell a story I wasn’t meant to see. Visha…my queen, my torment, is a maze of shadows and half-truths. The architect of The Carnival’s curse. The keeper of betrayals that cut deeper than any blade.

How long have I been walking blind? How many lies have I swallowed, disguised as love?

A twisting knot tightens in my chest. Every page I turn peels away the illusion I built around us, layer by fragile layer.

Her secrets are poison dripping slow and cruel.

Each revelation is a blade that severs trust, not just in her, but in myself.

Was I ever more than a pawn? An escape act in her twisted game? Or a ghost tethered to a dying Carnival? The truth is a mirror shattered across the floor. I see my reflection, fractured, bleeding, unrecognizable. The man who believed in redemption.

The man who hoped love could rewrite the past. But now, all I see is doubt.

Fear.

Betrayal.

I want to scream. To demand answers, to rage and fall apart, but the silence is suffocating, the weight unbearable.

And somewhere deep inside, beneath the rubble of my faith, I still want to believe that the woman behind the mask is more than the sum of her sins.

The final illusion is unraveling. And I don’t know if I’m ready for the truth to be revealed, or for everything to fall apart.