Aqualina Schiller was one of those children that were curious about certain things whenever something new would come to town. Though young, she had known a lot of things about the world on her own.
Her mother died a few months ago due to a disease she couldn’t even describe. At a young age, seeing her own mother die on her bed gave her a sense of loss: She was only eight when this had happened, and her younger brother at the time was only two. It didn’t help that her own father wasn’t helping with the grief that she was feeling right now. Given, he was already taking care of her little brother with a few housemaids as help but after the death of her mother… she felt alone.
It was dusk when she had decided to take a stroll into town. The little girl had money with her, just in case she might get lost on her way back or when she would get hungry. It was more of the former, in this case. The town was unusually crowded, which was odd.
“Oh, you’re here! You’re here!”
Aqualina stopped in her tracks as she saw a large carriage roll by. There were two people on it, which seemed to be twins of the opposite gender. The male twin was holding balloons while the female twin was throwing out flyers of some sort. Aqualina slowly followed the carriage, now seeing that the two twins were joined together as if they were forcibly sewn like parts of a ragdoll.
“Tonight, we’ll be showing,” The male twin on the right spoke before the other, the female twin continued. “The sad fate that some of this world carries.”
“Children of God,” They spoke in unison now, the carriage stopping as the passersby had stared at them with mixtures of fear, confusion, and curiosity. Aqualina had backed away from the carriage before they had spoken again, the twins placing their hands on their hearts as their joyful expressions became solemn and sad. “Has abandoned, restlessly creeping out.”
“Children who couldn’t bear to carry their trembling limbs that they were born with.” The male twin says with such distaste as the female twin continues with a soft yet sad tone. “Their shaking tongues even accidentally cry out.”
They passed down a flyer to Aqualina. It was a red flyer which had a flower which she had never seen before, along with the written words, “Insanity Circus” in white.
“The crown of their heads that touch the dark clouds.” Aqualina looks up at them, seeing that their smiles had flickered for a moment before returning to normal. “They smile, dreaming for the loving embrace of their loved ones....”
Aqualina looks down at the flyer once more. She was intrigued by the circus that the conjoined twins had mentioned. She looked back up, seeing that the carriage had already gone off to the pathway leading to the forest. ‘That was weird,’ The young girl thought. She didn’t hear the coach make a trotting sound, which was usually heard whenever a carriage would pass by.
“Aqua!” She turned around and saw a girl around the same age as her, and Aqualina sighed in relief as she knew who it was. “Hailey. It’s been three days since we’ve seen each other, right?” Aqualina asks with a smile, to which Hailey nodded.
Hailey Comette was Aqualina’s only friend, and was the only one who had comforted her in the stages of grief that she had been going through. Hailey’s cheerful personality was one of the reasons why Aqualina had kept on going for a while. “What’s that, Aqua?” Hailey takes a look at the flyer that Aqualina was holding, and she raises an eyebrow. “You got one too?” The brown-haired girl asks. “Even Percival got one earlier this morning.”
“It’s interesting.” Aqualina stated. “The conjoined twins that handed this out were talking about abandonment and such.”
“Really? Conjoined twins?” Hailey asks in confusion. “Percival said that it was a woman with goat legs…”
Aqualina looked at the pathway leading to the forest, then back at the flyer. “Is Percy going? Because if he is, we can all go together---” “Aqua! We can’t go to the forest, remember? There are weird, and I mean weird people there. Haven’t you heard what happened to Ray Dark?”
“Shh!” A boy hushed from behind them, and the two girls looked behind them to see a boy with dark-lightish purple hair that was tied into a low ponytail. “We don’t talk about what happened to Ray!” He whisper-shouted.
“Percy, we just mentioned his name.” Aqualina reassured him. “We’re not going to go into detail on what happened to him. Though, it makes me wonder…” Aqualina looks at the pathway to the forest again. “I really want to see that circus. It’s intriguing…”
“Oh no, there goes the curious one.” Hailey sighs and Percival Travis crosses his arms. Percival was one of the so-called “wise” children in the town, but was known to be the emotionless ones. At least for now anyway. “But the flyer is eye-catching,” Percival starts and looks at the flyer before looking back at the girls. “Why don’t we take a peak?”
And so what’s what the three children did. As the ochre colored sky changes into a more dark blue tone, they travel through the forest with only an oil lamp as their source of light. It was Percival who had brought the lamp out of skeptical intuition, even though Hailey had told him not to.
Minutes felt like hours as they found hanging lights hung on wooden poles. “I guess we’re here.” Percival says, turning off the lamp before they go forward with the lights guiding them. As they were walking on the now stone-paved ground, Hailey looks around and sees much more younger children playing around the area. It was… odd. “I thought kids weren’t allowed in here.”
“We’re not allowed in here, Comette.” Percival rebutted, giving Hailey a deadpan expression.
Hailey huffed at that. “I know, but it’s just weird.”
Aqualina was confused at the two: She wasn’t seeing anyone except for two figures dancing around them, and it was lucky that neither of them had bumped into Percival and Hailey. The mentioned figures are ten feet tall, a male and female dancing like they would in a ballroom. It made the girl uncomfortable, for lack of a better description.
“One with two heads, they are ---monsters--- and a
Deformed diva who is half a freak
Then there’s the blue beast who loves to eat
Cold things because to him it tastes so sweet…”
“What’s that sound?” Aqualina snapped out of her thoughts when Hailey called her and Percival’s attention. Straight ahead was a giant circus tent with the sign, “Gladly Enter!”, and a ticket booth. “Shoot.” Percival pulled out his flyer. “The poster didn’t say anything about tickets!” He whisper-shouted to the two girls. Hailey huffed, looking at the empty ticket booth. There was no one there and she smirked.
‘Oh no. Hailey has one of her plans again.’ Aqualina thought, looking around as Hailey began silently plotting a grand entrance and Percival begins to contradict before she could say anything.
“Help…”
‘Huh?’ Aqualina saw a small girl from the corner of the tent. She was younger than her, probably around five years old. Her turquoise-colored hair was disheveled, her clothes, ragged and ripped off as she was holding her broken stuffed animal. ‘She must be the one screaming help… but, why?’ Aqualina looked at Percival and Hailey, who were already busy arguing. She turns to look back at the girl, her broken arm pointing to the forest. ‘The forest…? But we just came out of there… is she telling us to leave?’
“Aqualina, tell Comette to stop with her plan of sneaking inside the circus!” Percival whisper-shouted as Hailey rolled her eyes at him. “Relax, Travis. Besides, we’re kids! There’s no way they wouldn’t let us in!”
“I think Percy’s right.” Aqualina quaked, looking at them with worried eyes. “Whoa, Aqua, are you OK? You looked like you’ve seen a ghost.” Hailey says worriedly.
“See? Even Aqualina’s scared.” Percival huffed. “We should just go back the way we came. It’s better than being caught by something we can’t stop.” He adds.
“But we came here for nothing!” Hailey fumed. “You guys can go then! I’ll watch the circus on my own!” She huffs, turning their back on the two as she enters inside the tent just as the usher was going to the ticket booth. “We should hide and wait for her.” Percival suggested, pointing to the corner of the tent. Aqualina hesitated on the idea, but they couldn’t leave Hailey behind. Who knows what could happen if Hailey were to go back to town alone.
Percival and Aqualina snuck to the back of the giant circus tent, where they saw cages: Cages that fit humans of all ages. Percival quickly covered Aqualina’s mouth before she could scream. “Shh! Someone might hear you!” He whisper-shouted again, carefully taking his hand away from the girl. Aqualina took a short breath, looking at Percival. “We should find Hailey. Then inform the townspeople.” She trembled, looking at the cages again. “I’ll go.” Percival sighs. “If you panic and run, that means you’re reporting this to the police.”
Aqualina didn’t want to be left alone at the moment, but nodded anyway as Percival went back to the entrance. ‘So this is what the girl was trying to warn…’ She thought in realization. ‘Oh no… if Hailey and Percival get caught--!’ Aqualina was about to make a run for it when she felt something hit her back. She panicked, afraid to turn around. A giant shadow was looming over her, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. Aqualina gulped, already trembling in fear. “Well, well, well. A little girl found out our little secret.” The giant figure chuckled darkly, his crooked hand squeezing Aqualina’s frail shoulder.
“And whenever someone finds out about the secret,” The giant figure removed his hand, making Aqualina face them as she was about to run. The giant figure had a skull-like mask, his teeth rotten to the bone except for two fangs gleaming in the moonlight.
“They get punished~”
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