Page 50 of The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

Fifty Two

Carnival Interlude IV: The Breath Beneath the Velvet

The Carnival waits. It breathes beneath rotting canvas and rusted iron, its pulse a slow, sinister heartbeat tangled in whispers. It knows her, the Queen of Knives, how she trembles on the edge of mercy and madness. It feels his presence, the Escapist, a flicker of light too fragile to last.

The tents shudder, the mirrors ripple, as the beast stirs, hungry and unforgiving. It wants blood, demands sacrifice, hungers for chaos. But something new coils beneath the velvet folds, a thread of mercy woven into the darkness, a crack in the endless night.

The Carnival watches, waiting, for the moment the warden falls, or rises.

And in that breath, everything changes.