Every carnival has music.Every carnival sells tickets.But this one?This one punches your soul at the door.
The elevator to District 7's basement levels groaned like a dying animal. Metal strained against itself, cables creaked, and every floor it passed seemed to sigh in relief that it wasn't the final stop. The light above Asher Blackwood flickered from B1… B2… B3…
His reflection in the elevator doors looked pale, hollow-eyed, and tired of the whole damn city. He stared at himself, unblinking, as if daring his own bones to give out first.
He flicked the glowing butt of his cigarette at the grimy panel, where a cracked button read:
"Sub-Basement B4 – Maintenance."
Maintenance. Right.
Asher snorted bitterly. This wasn't maintenance. This was the part of the city where things stopped pretending to be normal. Where reality sagged like wet cardboard and let all the monsters crawl through the cracks.
The elevator gave a violent shudder as it descended, and suddenly—there it was.
Music.
Soft, lilting carnival music.
plink-plonk, wheeze, grind…
But it wasn't coming from any speakers.
It was coming from the walls themselves, vibrating through the iron and concrete like the bones of a corpse still trying to sing.
Asher muttered under his breath, voice raspy:"Already hate this."
And the thing was? He meant it. Every damn word. This was a job for someone with faith, or maybe just someone dumber. But here he was anyway.
Meanwhile, topside…
Detective Rosa stared at the forensics report spread across her desk like a crime scene of its own. Scattered photos of the carnival flyers—blown up, dissected, analyzed—lined the pages. She traced a finger along the margins, lips pressed thin.
The ink wasn't ink.
It moved. It wriggled.
Under the microscope, it behaved like a nest of microscopic worms, forming strange glyphs that shifted when no one was looking. The lab techs had coined a name she hated: organic glyphs.
"This city's cursed," Rosa muttered, slamming her palm on the desk hard enough to rattle her coffee cup.
She glanced at her holstered sidearm, then to the box of blessed bullets stashed in the drawer. Both suddenly seemed… insufficient.
Her eyes slid back to the report—one grim line highlighted in red:
"Organic glyphic contamination: SPREADING."
Rosa swore, grabbed her coat, and headed for the door. No way in hell was she letting Blackwood dive alone into that mess. Not again.
Sub-Basement B4…
With a final, reluctant groan, the elevator jolted to a stop. The doors creaked open like old bones cracking apart.
Asher stepped out.
He expected grime, concrete, rusty pipes. But instead—
Red velvet curtains.
From floor to ceiling, thick folds of fabric lined the corridor. Where the hell did those come from? He tugged one aside, half-expecting it to reveal mold or cracked walls, but no—it was all velvet. Endless velvet.
The air was thick with the sticky-sweet scent of popcorn.
And underneath it—something metallic. Blood? Rust? Both?
From somewhere up ahead, a voice drifted out, low and coaxing:
"Step right up… step right up… the show's about to begin!"
Asher's boots crunched, then squelched.
He looked down.
The concrete floor was gone. In its place—carpet. A plush, wine-colored carpet that squished wetly underfoot. Dark patches bloomed across it—too dark to be spilled soda.
He pressed on, every instinct screaming to turn back, but he couldn't—not now. Not when the city was already bleeding from the seams.
Peeling posters lined the walls as he walked:
"The Lady Without a Face!""The Fire Eater Who Devours Souls!""See the Hollow Gods Dance!"
Their ink shimmered faintly, as if breathing.
The further he walked, the louder the music swelled, swirling like a whirlpool in his ears. The lights above flickered between colors that shouldn't exist, bending his vision, making his stomach roll.
Finally, the hall opened into a small vestibule—a single ticket booth at the end.
Behind the scratched glass sat a figure.
It was part man, part… something else. A fox mascot head sat atop its shoulders, fur matted and stained, the painted grin so wide its cheeks cracked apart at the seams.
The thing twitched.Then it hissed, voice sticky with malice:"One ticket, Detective."
A small, crimson stub slid out through the slot.
Asher eyed it, the gold letters shimmering faintly:
ENTRY FEE: MEMORY OF YOUR FIRST KISS.
His breath hitched.
That memory. He hadn't thought of it in years—sweet and awkward, under the bleachers behind his high school. The feel of rain in her hair. The stupid, clumsy way they'd laughed after.
Gone in a second if he took that ticket.
The mascot's grin seemed to stretch even further, splitting like a paper mask soaked through with water.
"Come on," it cajoled. "It's just a little piece… You won't miss it."
Asher clenched his jaw, a deep ache blooming in his chest. His hand hovered… hesitated… and then—
He snatched the ticket.
Instantly, a sharp, stabbing pain flared behind his eyes. He staggered, cursing, clutching the side of the booth as dizziness swamped him. And just like that—
The memory slipped away.
Her face. Her name.The rain. The laughter.Gone.
Like it had never been there at all.
The booth flickered. Sparks danced along the glass.
Then—with a rustle like a thousand curtains being drawn at once—the velvet parted, revealing the heart of the nightmare.
A massive circus tent, pulsing with impossible light. Striped in shades that seemed to drip and writhe, its entrance yawned open like a hungry mouth. Inside, shadows writhed—figures without faces danced in twisted circles. A juggler tossed human heads into the air, each one screaming before it disappeared into the dark.
And at the center of it all—a throne of bones, massive and empty. Waiting.
From the dark maw of the tent, a voice slithered out, smooth and knowing:
"Welcome, Detective Blackwood… We've been expecting you. And tonight, you perform too."
Asher's hand shot to his gun—but the ticket in his palm flared red, searing his skin, binding him.
His boots scraped forward, against his will.
One unwilling step closer to the carnival of madness.
[End Of Chapter 52]
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Chapter 53 — "House of Mirrors, House of Lies"
The Carnival's maze of mirrors awaits. Asher steps into a labyrinth where every reflection twists his past, his guilt, and his deepest fears. But to make it out alive, he'll have to face the grinning fox's most dangerous game: the truth he's been running from. And not every reflection is content to stay behind the glass…