The Ringmaster

Chapter I

In The Woods

“Come on, hurry up” . Said a boy riding his bicycle. Behind the boy was another who had just turned 10 two days ago.

He had silky black hair that almost covered his grey lifeless eyes. He went by the name of Totomo Otonashi.

Most people just called him Toto as a nickname. The other little boy riding the bicycle in front of him was Toto's friend , Eren Heart 

Eren and Toto have been friends since they were in kindergarten, childhood friends to be more exact. “ Eren you need to slow down”. Toto tried yelling, but he was getting tired from riding the bicycle. Toto and Eren were heading into the dark and mysterious woods behind their neighborhood park.

Eren informed Toto that while he was looking for his dog that ran out the door, he noticed a strange mysterious book laying underneath some leaves in the woods. So Eren and Toto were on their way to find the book and see what they could uncover.

Night time was soon coming into the horizon and was about to cover the sky like a blanket covering a child. After a few minutes of riding into the woods and falling over some tree stumps, Eren came to a sudden stop.

Toto eventually caught up to him and dropped his bike catching his breath, not being able to ride anymore. He took a look at the old and dusty book laying before him on the ground.

“ What type of book do you think it is”? Toto asked. Eren was staring at the book with very intense eyes.

“It looks really old, it's dusty and has a bunch of wrinkles on the cover,” Eren said.

Toto bent over to the book and tried picking it up.

It was heavy.

After many attempts of struggling with picking up the book, he eventually dropped the book flat on the floor. Once he caught his breath, Toto got on his knees and started to turn the pages. On the very first page were letters that looked foerign. Toto tried to pronounce the letters with great difficulty. 

“Ve Lans Junti A Sinkeri”.

After saying the words, an enormous gust of wind instantly slammed through Toto and Eren, knocking them to the ground. Toto blacked out for a few seconds but regained consciousness. As he started to get back on his feet, he felt something wet in front of him.

Blood.

Toto looked around for any sign of where the blood could have come from. After finding nothing, he checked himself from head to toe, but saw no sign of major or minor injury.

Toto heard something rustle from behind him. He slowly turned around and saw that the book was where the blood was coming from. Toto stared at the book with wide eyes of fear and confusion as the book was pouring out blood.

In an instant second, the book suddenly sprung open, scaring the shit out of Toto, and was flipping through the pages. It came to a stop about midway through the book, Toto was staring at the book as a bloody hand was rising out of it.

 The hand was searching for ground as it was coming out of the book. 

Once it found ground, it started to push up, revealing an arm.

 A second hand and arm started to make its way out of the book. With both Hands and arms, it started to push the rest of a  body out of the book.

 The body was covered in blood from head to toe, it had no clothing, and not a single strand of hair. 

Toto poked the body but shot straight back as the blood begun to disappear. As the blood disappeared, the body started to look like a normal naked human being with black hair. 

Toto was frightened by the sight but could do nothing but stay on the ground.

It was at that moment of shock, that the most dreadful thought struck Toto.

Eren was gone.

He was nowhere to be seen.

Toto whiped his head around in a panic looking anywhere for any sign of Eren.

After a couple of minutes of the body laying there, Toto saw that clothing was starting to appear over the body in bits and pieces. 

After staring at the sight, the body took full form of something Toto never expected. It took the form of a Ringmaster 

The ringmaster's hands moved around pushing himself up like when it was pushing its body out of the book. After the ringmaster stood, he smiled a very devious smile with his sharpened teeth showing. To Toto, he looked to be around 6´2. 

Toto was never as frightened in his life as he was now. He started to slowly back away, He came to a stop when he hit the tree with a loud thump. The Ringmaster noticed him and started to walk towards his way. When he came to about an inch away from him, he bent over face to face.

His teeth were showing the entire time he was smiling.

“ Why hello there, there's no need to be scared, I'm not gonna hurt you.” 

 The ringmaster's voice sounded very raspy as if he was sick, as the ringmaster talked, Toto could smell a foul odor coming from his breath, one would say it smelt like death.

“ You're not?”

Toto said in a squeaky voice. “Of course not, you're still far too young. I'll tell you what though, you won't be able to escape death. You will be free of death for the next 6 years, but, when that time ends, you will surely meet your fate.

Toto was frightened by the Ringmaster's devious smile.

“Now then, scram along”.

The Ringmaster stood up and started to back away slowly still smiling at Toto.

Toto took this chance to run away from him, he shot straight up and ran as fast as he could, smacking many tree branches and getting cuts. Wind was rushing by his ears as he ran drowning any noise, but he could hear ever so faintly,

“Hey, have you heard, the circus is in town”.