PLOT DROP 09; 08/25/1991
The carnival arrived as a welcome distraction from the heaviness that had settled over town. The gloom hadn’t fallen all at once, it had instead crept in slowly, month by month, until it seemed no corner of Cardinal Hill had been spared. For nearly a year, unease had lingered in the air, each passing season marked by new chills, new sorrows that left neighbours shaken and watchful. True tragedy had been mercifully rare, yet even one loss weighed heavily, and most agreed that losing even a single cherished soul was already more than enough for Cardinal Hill to bear.
The bright, dazzling lights and the symphony of carnival sounds stood in sharp contrast to the terror that had weighed upon the town over the many months of the recent past. The carnival was a colourful explosion of happiness, fun, and endless entertainment; it carried a charm that managed to draw even the grumpiest resident into its fairgrounds, and for its entire two week run, a majority of the town had loved it.
It was only a shame that the fun had to end on such gruesome terms…
Louise Nightingale
The bottles glitter beneath the game’s lights, dark green glass catching every flicker of neon, lighting up in different versions of its original colour so beautifully. You hold three remaining rings in your hands, and you look forward with intensity.
This is the shot. You’re determined.
You throw a ring towards its desired target, and it hits the sides of multiple bottles with an ear piercingly loud clatter. For a second, you worry that the bottles might have chipped, cracked, or shattered upon impact, but assessing the scene as the ring falls out of the way - disappointingly not around the neck of a bottle - the bottles remain safe and sound for now.
You hold up your second last ring, and you notice that your hands shake as you do so. You can’t place why, but you feel in your gut as you note the shaking that something doesn’t feel right.
Is it the crowd? The disappointment of not winning? Or could it even be fatigue hitting as the evening turns into night?
You throw the ring, in all honesty, no longer entirely focused on the game. This time, as it clangs against the edges of bottles - you having missed once more - the sounds coming from the game sound even louder again.
This is when your fear begins to sink in. Unexplained yet unescapable fear.
With only one last ring to go, you make quick work at tossing it towards the bottles. You no longer desire a prize, you instead crave an escape.
The ring whips through the air, and it successfully hooks around the neck of an illuminated bottle. Bells and whistles begin to chime in order to celebrate your win, the sounds completely drowning out the rest of the carnival behind you.
You’re unable to celebrate alongside the sounds, but you still stay and wait for the vendor to present you with the small prize. As the carnie turns their back, you hear it before you see it; the bottles all simultaneously smash right in front of you.
You squeeze your eyes shut and instinctively throw your arms up in front of your face to protect yourself from the glass that flies in every direction. Pain stings red and hot in your arms as multiple shards of glass slice open your skin.
You stumble backwards, heart pounding in your chest, blood oozing from your wounds - most of which are still filled with glass.
A mother screams beside you, ushering her children away from the sight, but no one else seems to notice. You look at the carnie, eyes desperate and wide in a silent plea for help, but they tend to their own injuries behind the mess of broken glass.
Your fear grows stronger, and your knees almost buckle as you feel yourself growing weaker.
You think to use your magic in order to help yourself combat the injuries, but nothing happens when you try.
The carnival surrounding you begins to warp and turn as you grow dizzy.
Finally, a stranger approaches to help.
Ash Wolffe
You hold the trigger of the water gun as tightly as you can, attempting to drown out the sounds of the laughs, cheers, screams, and music that surrounds you. You focus on the task at hand more intensely than you arguably should.
Your stream of water glows neon green under the lights above it, and you shoot it through the wide open mouth of the fibreglass clown in front of you. Their bright paint is slightly chipped, though the balloon growing on the top of its head is in pristine condition.
The competitors next to you are similarly locked into focus; your eyes flicker towards their balloons in between ensuring the growth of your own. You’re ahead of the rest, but not by much. You will yourself to stop looking at anything other than your own progress, as if staring will will the balloon to pop before any other.
You’re almost there.
As your balloon is surely reaching its capacity, your eyes begin to feel dry, and your finger on the trigger begins to weaken.
Hold on, just a little longer.
You blink a few times, and then continue to stare at the clown. As you continue on, you suddenly feel an uneasy feeling wash over you. It happens quickly, almost causing your grip on the carnival prop to falter. You shake your head, as if trying to be rid of the feeling.
But then you experience the strangest sensation.
As your gaze stays fixed on the clown, your perspective begins to shift. At first it happens slowly, almost so slowly that you can’t even notice it, but it swiftly hastens, and you watch as the clown seems to be shifting closer, looming forward, stretching its jaw open wider and wider until it seems as though you could fit inside of it.
You feel yourself growing smaller and smaller, your body simultaneously growing weaker and weaker with the change. It’s as if you're losing not only your ability to hold down the trigger and stand on your own two legs, but like you’re losing your magic, too.
Suddenly with a loud crack, your balloon pops.
Your eyes close as you flinch at the sound, and once reopened, the clown sits innocently beside the others, having not changed at all from its original position. You look at the others playing the very same game; they don’t seem to have noticed at all.
No matter how badly you wish to regain your composure, your strength, you can’t seem to find it. The weakening of your body and your powers rattles you, enticing the strongest feeling of fear.
The balloons above the clown heads pop one by one until the race is over and your competitors are gone. You don’t stay because you’re owed a prize, no, you instead stay because you feel momentarily paralysed by your fear.
What was that?
Another loud crack suddenly sounds, this time louder than the last, loud enough to completely deafen you of all other carnival noise as it happens. You jump back in fright, but not before you feel your body splashed by liquid.
The liquid came from the direction of the game in front of you, easy to be assumed as the water used in the race, but before you can think of how or why the game malfunctioned, leaving your torso soaked, you feel an itching, burning, pained sensation.
Proving to not only be water, the liquid begins to burn you, and as you look down, you see it starting to eat away at your shirt, threatening to add to your pain by reaching your skin underneath.
In a hurried scramble you strip yourself of your outer layer, lucky to catch it before it eats through the second and finally finds skin, and you begin to wipe the acidic liquid off of your body with the cleanest part of the fabric you can find, feeling dizzy with a mixture of pain and fear.
Ocean James
The cotton candy stall seems to draw you in like it’s put you under a spell.
Despite it being pure sugar, the bright pink and blue clouds look too good to miss out on on the final night of the carnival, especially as they’re lit up with the colourful lights that are so densely scattered all across the fairground, making them look all the more magical.
You wait in line patiently. The line is short in comparison to most of the other lines, but it’s to be expected that there’s at least a small wait for everything on the carnival’s closing night.
As you wait, you feel a pair of eyes on you. You scan your surroundings, you even turn around in order to check all of your surroundings to the best of your ability.
There’s nothing out of the ordinary.
You can’t see anyone even looking your way for more than a passing second, yet you still feel the sensation that you’re being watched. It’s unsettling, it’s frightening.
As the fear slowly makes its way through you, your mind drifts from the thought of cotton candy, and it isn’t until the vendor is holding it out toward you with a smile that you’re startled back to yourself, fumbling for cash and taking the stick with hands that feel suddenly too shaky.
You mutter thanks, quick and quiet, and step away, eager to leave the line behind you, though the feeling of eyes lingering still clings to the back of your neck.
You walk, clutching the candy almost absently, your pulse too loud in your ears for you to even consider eating it. You can’t seem to shake the fear. Every shadow feels darker, every sound seems sharper, and the joy around you, the laughter, the shrieks from the rides, the music, it all feels too far away to touch.
It isn’t until you finally glance down at the candy, almost trying to ground yourself in something sweet and simple, that you see it.
An eyeball. Detached, bloody, nestled among the spun sugar as though it had always been there.
The shock tears through you in an instant. You cry out, the stick slipping from your hand as you stumble backward, wrist twisting painfully as you hit the ground, your forearm scraping raw against the dirt. The sting barely registers against the horror of what you saw.
Breathless, heart hammering, you force yourself to look again at where it landed.
Nothing.
Only a mess of pink and blue sugar, half-dissolved into the trampled earth, as though it had been nothing more than candy all along.
Mateo Morales
The painted horses gleam beneath the cascade of lights, their bright colours flashing in rhythm with the rise and fall of the ride. The sound of the calliope music drifts across the fairground in sweet, melodic waves, and there’s something in the music that makes you feel particularly nostalgic tonight. You can’t explain it, but it feels safe.
Perhaps that’s exactly why you buy a ticket and step aboard.
The platform begins to slowly turn just after it creaks under the newfound weight of yourself and the other passengers. Everyone chooses their horse, and you go with one near the outer edge.
Your horse has a glossy white coat, and a golden blonde mane. You settle onto the worn leather saddle, just in time for the ride to begin to move gently.
It quickly finds its pace, spinning smoothly beneath the bright lights. The horses climb and dip steadily, and the lights around you throughout the rest of the carnival begin to turn into colourful streaks as the ride’s pace quickens.
It’s nice, before something shifts.
The music grows louder. It’s not by much, but it’s enough that you notice. The notes are suddenly sharp, shrill, just a little off. You grip the brass pole tighter, grounding yourself against the sudden unease curling in your stomach.
Everything begins to feel off. The sensation is intensely frightening.
The horses around you seem to blur as the carousel turns faster. You turn to look at the glossy black stallion beside you; it’s clearer than the others, but you find no relief in the sight.
Its painted smile no longer looks like a smile at all; its teeth are too pointed, its eyes too wide, its face moulded into something closer to a menacing snarl than a pleasant grin.
You blink hard, as if to blink the sight away. The carousel jolts beneath you, and it begins to turn faster again at the very same time. You feel yourself slip back slightly on the small leather saddle.
You look around you, as if searching for a way out, but then your attention is once again stolen by the horse underneath you. For just a second, the horse beneath you feels like it’s breathing, like its chest is rising and falling against your legs.
With a gasp of fright, your palm slips against the brass pole, catching on something rough, and pain lances across your hand. You pull it back to see blood welling from a sharp gash, red streaked down the polished surface.
The ride slows suddenly, unnaturally quickly, you think. The horses lower into stillness. The music fades. The other riders are laughing, absently chatting, dismounting their horses as if nothing at all went awry.
You dismount your own horse, noting that it is as glossy and as fake as the moment you chose it. The black stallion beside it wears a matching pleasant smile to it, once again in the same unchanged state as what you first saw it in.
You rush off, firmly holding the cut on your hand, knowing you need to immediately seek medical assistance.
Elijah Owens
The mirror maze glows with soft lights that pulse against the endless amount of reflections.
Inside of it, the first thing you notice is the silence. The sounds of the carnival dull immediately upon stepping inside, fading into little more than muffled traces behind the walls.
What replaces them is your own breathing, steady but strangely loud in the cavern of mirrors in which you stand. A thousand versions of yourself stretch into infinity, faces caught at every angle, some warped slightly, others clearer, all watching you in perfect unison.
You could have sworn that there were others in the mirror maze before you, but the only company you can see is the other versions of yourself. All others seem to have disappeared.
At first, you smile. You even laugh under your breath, brushing a hand against the cool surface of one pane, amused at the way your face elongates when you tilt your head just so. The illusion is clever, entertaining, a simple trick of reflection.
As you walk deeper, the laughter dies.
The mirrors begin to bend you in ways that are less funny, more unsettling. You can’t place exactly why it feels so off, but you can’t deny the feeling as it settles tightly into your chest.
Your body stretches impossibly tall, your arms pulled thin like strands of wire. In another pane, your face seems bloated, skin mottled, eyes sunken deep into shadow. You shake your head, willing yourself not to focus too hard, not to let your imagination twist these harmless distortions into something more sinister.
And yet, you notice it. A hesitation.
One reflection lingers behind for just a fraction too long as you turn your head. You try to ignore it, quickening your pace, but in the next corridor, another version of you stares back, not entirely mirroring, not aligned.
You stare, and then move. Its movements are delayed, its smile too sharp, its gaze too intent. This time you can’t deny it.
Your chest tightens. Your hand brushes the glass, searching for the seam of the path forward, and the surface beneath your palm feels warm, as though it’s holding the heat of a body pressed against the other side.
You tell yourself it’s only your imagination, only a trick of light and nerves, but then the reflection slams itself forward.
The impact of your reflection’s forehead cracks the mirror, a shattering sound like thunder in the confined space. A spiderweb of fractures bursts across the glass, splintering outward in jagged lines, and you stumble back instinctively, your heart hammering.
Something about the fear in the eyes reflected in the broken shards of the mirror panel tells you that it’s you again, only, there’s a nasty, bleeding wound on the forehead where the other you attacked the glass.
You reach up, and you hiss in pain as you feel it.
The wound is very real, confirmed by the blood that you see on your fingertips as you pull it back into sight in order to inspect - this time not in the mirrors that you feel as though can’t be trusted, instead with your own two eyes.
You press forward, weaving through the maze with frantic steps, your breath loud and uneven. The reflections look wrong everywhere you turn, some twisted beyond recognition, others watching with expressions you know you haven’t made.
When at last the exit comes into view, the relief is overwhelming. You shove your way through the final pane of glass and stumble out into the carnival night.
The sounds rush back all at once; laughter, bells, the bark of carnival workers calling out prizes.
Blood trickles slowly down your forehead. A group leaves the mirror maze closely behind you, all chattering happily. You didn’t see them inside, and a gut feeling tells you that they didn’t experience the same event as you.
Dimitri ‘Dimi’ Starling
The painted tower of the strongman hammer game rises proudly, crowned with the brass bell that dares challengers to strike it. At its base, the iron plate waits glittering under the lights, as if trying to further tempt you forward.
A carnie with a bright face holds out a heavy mallet invitingly, exclaiming a well rehearsed spiel about how they believe that you can do it. It almost feels rude to turn it down.
You wrap your hands around the mallet, its weight heavier than you expect, but it seems to fit perfectly in your grip. You take a moment to get used to it, getting a feel for its heaviness, finding the right position to hold it.
You set your stance, heart thrumming in your throat. As much as the carnival is crowded, you have no audience, and yet, you can’t help but to start feeling nervous. You have nothing to lose, but the pressure begins to build almost painfully inside of your chest.
It feels as though you should be wary of something, almost as if you’re in danger.
You try to shake the sensation away. You raise the mallet high above your head, your shoulders straining with the effort, and then, in the heartbeat before you swing, the revelation strikes.
It’s too late to stop the swing, but the crushing certainty of what lies beneath it makes you wish that you could. It's not the iron plate, not the mechanism waiting for your blow, but the fragile body of someone innocent.
A person, faceless and nameless, but real in every fibre of your being. You know this with the same conviction as you know your own heartbeat, that you’re about to bring the mallet down on them, that you are about to end them.
You can’t see them. You know they’re not there, that it’s not real, that nothing bad is going to happen. Still, you squeeze your eyes shut as the mallet drops from your hands, horror shaking your entire body with a fear unlike any other.
The mallet slams down. The plate rings out in a metallic shriek, the vibration racing up your bones. The puck rockets upward, clattering along the track, the bell within reach.
The puck strikes the top of the tower, rattling the brass bell with a hollow clang that echoes longer than it should. The tower trembles in celebration, and the worker beside you celebrates also.
You hardly realise that you’ve won as the fear of the feeling still lingers. You begin to move away without receiving your prize.
You can’t explain it, what happened, or how it felt. All you know is that it felt so real, the sensation of bringing the mallet down on a very real, very innocent human being.
Alice Owens
You see your brother slip inside of the mirror maze before you’re able to catch his attention, so you simply decide to wait. Perhaps you can use the time to tentatively plan out what rides or games you’ll ask him to join you on.
At first, it’s nice. The bright, buzzing atmosphere is riddled with a contagious type of happiness. While it’s the last night of the carnival, it’s not a sad affair, no, it instead seems quite the opposite.
It doesn’t take long before the atmosphere in which you wait shifts.
The air begins to feel oddly thin, and very suddenly you feel as though you stand a little too far from the heart of the noise. Music drifts in weakly, laughter comes muffled, and the shadows of the maze’s walls loom heavier than they should, heavier than they did only a second ago.
You shift uneasily, looking around as if there’s a tangible reason for such change.
Then came the first tug.
A faint pull at your sleeve, so slight you think you imagined it. You brush at your arm quickly. You feel nothing, and you can see nothing either.
You almost forget the sensation as quickly as it happens, but it’s unable to slip away from your thought as it happens again - stronger this time, deliberate, unmistakable.
Your heart jolts, breath catching, fear crawling over you. There’s no one, just the fabric of your sleeve pressed against your skin. But then you notice it.
The fabric of your sleeve is creased, looking as though it’s being pulled away from your body, exactly where you felt the tug.
The fear builds more strongly than you expect.
You pull back with force, stumbling a half step, sleeve snapping free and noticeably dropping back down, flat against your skin.
When you straighten it out, you see a line, a thin, fresh score across the fabric, cutting deeper than cloth alone. You instinctively reach to trace it, and when your fingertip comes away with a small bead of blood, the floor seems to tilt beneath you.
It hadn’t just grabbed you. It had scratched you.
Whatever it even was.
The sting spreads across your forearm then, sharper than it had any right to be, a shallow wound that burns with a heat out of proportion to its size, and blood begins to ooze from the wound. You clutch your arm through the ripped sleeve, the fabric warm and wet against your palm.
You look around quickly, searching for the culprit. Someone crouched close, a prankster hidden just out of sight, something. Anything.
You’re completely alone still.
You stare, baffled, afraid, and then you feel it again. The sensation of pressure, as though invisible fingers grip your arm, higher up this time, cold and persistent.
You turn fast. There’s still nothing. You take a few steps towards the mirror maze, and as you walk the pain in your arm seems to spread. You lift your sleeve up to your shoulder with your bloodied hands.
Your bicep is bruised in an unmistakable pattern. The bruises form the shape of fingers, as if a hand has gripped you incredibly tight.
You gasp, and as you do, the sounds of the carnival come crashing back to you, like the event’s volume has been turned up on a dial, double the volume as it all was before.
The sounds seem to bring you back to the carnival, it feels as though you were somewhere else entirely before. Unfortunately your injuries still persist, even as the intensity of your fear begins to fade to a normal, humanly possible amount.
Brook Adams
You step forward, shifting slightly in order to avoid a bright, colourful light that shines directly in your eyes.
The balloon darts stand is bright and cheerful, a cluster of inviting colours and lights. You don’t hesitate to pick up a dart at the vendor’s encouragement, though as soon as the small object is in your hand, something begins to feel not quite right.
Your stomach twists with an unease you can’t place, a chill threading down your spine. Nothing tangible should be causing such a feeling, though you can’t seem to shake it off.
You line up the dart, hands twitching just a little, and you try to focus on the floating balloons ahead. They sway lazily in their spots, shining under the lamps, each one an innocent target.
Every pop from a dart in someone else’s hand makes you flinch as though it has been aimed at you. You grip the dart tighter than necessary, finger tips whitening.
Everything is okay.
Your paranoia starts first, but it’s closely followed by your fear. Nothing alludes to it being justified, but your feelings are so real, and they only strengthen.
You throw a dart at the first balloon you see, almost as if playing the game will rid these feelings as quickly as they’ve come on. Miraculously, the chosen balloon pops with a loud bang.
The lights above you flicker suddenly, first a stutter, then a shudder. Your heart sinks.
You know something is wrong.
Sparks hiss from the overhead wires, an unpleasant smell curling your nostrils. The warmth of electricity mixes with a creeping, inexplicable dread that makes your knees tremble.
Then, a small flame catches near the back of the stall, licking a strip of cardboard and paper prizes. The heat hits you before the smoke does, acrid and sharp.
The small crowd around you breaks out into shrieks and distress. Bodies move swiftly, incoherently, desperately.
Someone swings a dart too quickly in panic, misjudges their aim, and it strikes your leg with a sharp, stabbing pain. You cry out, your balance threatening to fail as you try to step back from the growing fire.
Another person shoves past in their own scramble to escape, and the shove is enough to send you stumbling forward, feet catching on the uneven ground. You fall, and your pain worsens as you land both on the dart - furthering it inside of your flesh - and the edge of the small yet growing blaze.
The fire licks at your arm. Heat stings your skin, and for a moment, it feels impossible to breathe, the flames and fear blending together into something suffocating and inescapable.
There’s no magic inside of you to get you out of the situation. Instead, it feels as though it’s been replaced by your fear.
Panic and pain blur together, every sense stretched taut. You scramble backward on the dirt, rolling to avoid the flames. Your hands reach blindly, clawing at the ground, at the air, at anything solid to hold on to.
Then, relief, sharp and sudden: hands on your shoulders, firm grips pulling you back from the flames. Voices shout over the panic, offering support, offering calm in the chaos. Someone lifts you, steadies you, and the fire is pushed back, contained, the heat receding but leaving your arm throbbing, raw, and shocked.
You stumble slightly, leaning into their help. Slowly, the intensity of the feelings you feel in the moment begin to fade, as if landing in a place that feels more appropriate, more yourself.
Nathan ‘Nibs’ Hale
You walk the stretch of game stalls at an unhurried pace, drawn by the clatter of rings tossed at bottles, the pop of balloons giving way to cheers, and the sharp bark of a man advertising prizes that glitter faintly under the strings of bulbs.
The air is thick with sweetness, and somewhere in all of it, music winds its way through everything and everyone. There should be comfort in the moment, but instead, there’s a tightness creeping up your throat, something unplaceable that feels more and more like dread.
You’re just walking. Just. Walking.
You scan your surroundings. It isn’t that anyone is looking at you, no, in fact, it’s actually… the opposite. Not a single person seems to notice you at all. You brush past shoulders, sidestep groups, but no one shifts for you first, no one gives you the courtesy of meeting your eyes. Their chatter carries on, laughter breaking around you like waves that don’t touch the shore, not once.
The longer it lasts, the more your skin crawls, a sick thought rooting in your mind: if you screamed right now, no one would hear it.
The stalls begin to blur together, their bright banners bleeding into one another, the prizes smearing into nothing more distinct than colour and shine. You know your feet are still moving, you can feel the packed earth under your shoes, but the space around you feels wrong, stretched thin, warped like a funhouse mirror.
The music rises - or maybe it’s closer now. It’s high-pitched, insistent, like it’s rattling in your skull rather than playing anywhere outside of it.
It feels as though everything has gone from completely fine to breathtakingly terrifying in a split second, and the sudden, jarring, unexplained shift makes it harder to stomach.
Why is this happening?
You don’t even know what is happening. You stop moving, and you shout. Your brain doesn’t even process the word you say, you only think to ensure that you say it loud. You scan the faces of everyone around you desperately.
No one even bats an eyelash in your direction.
You move again, and you quicken your pace. Someone bumps your shoulder hard, and you spin instinctively, ready to snap, ready for the simple relief of a human face to ground you - but there’s no one there. Just a clear patch of air, as though the world skipped for a beat, as though you imagined the solid weight of contact.
The realisation hollows you out, drops fear into your stomach like ice water.
Your vision is tunnelling now, breath short, head light. You take a moment before you begin spinning in circles, desperately searching for anything that feels real. Then you notice it.
Everyone in the carnival is gone.
You’re the only person in the fairgrounds, there’s no other sign of life. With this revelation, you bolt.
You run as fast as you can in the direction of your hopeful escape, running with a force that almost feels inhuman. You only come to a halt when you feel your body smack into something with more force than you would have thought your body could take.
You saw nothing ahead of you, but as your body is launched into the air upon impact, headed towards the ground, you feel the warmth of the seemingly invisible obstacle radiate against your skin. It almost felt alive.
Momentum carries you down before you’re able to do anything to catch yourself. The world crashes sideways and your body hits the earth with brutal force. The pain bursts bright and searing in your arm as bone gives way with a sick crack.
It’s instant, overwhelming, the kind of pain that takes your voice with it. The crowd moves around you, skirts your fallen form without pause.
The crowd, they’re back.
You want to be relieved, but you curl inwards, gasping, clutching your ruined arm. You cry out in pain, feeling a definite break, but no one seems to stop to help you. It’s like you’re invisible to them once again.
The calliope music swells again in an instant, shrill enough to pierce bone, and though your eyes blur with tears, you swear the lights above the stalls flicker in time with it, pulsing like a heartbeat not your own.
And then they come. Strangers, offering help, concern written on their faces, all of their attention once again on you.
Noelle Wakefield
The boat rocks gently as it slips into the dark mouth of the ride, the last wash of coloured bulbs blinking overhead before shadows swallow you whole. The water licks against the sides, though it does so in a gentle and assumingly safe manner. The darkness, to most, is not scary, but instead peaceful.
The painted archway promises romance, promises hearts and roses and soft-lit fantasy. You ride alone, sitting comfortably in the boat typically meant for two, hearing the darkness be accompanied by silence as the rest of the carnival seems to melt away.
The air inside is different, thicker, hazier, as is to be expected of the ride. Amongst flashes of mood-setting lights, something else has to act in order to cloak the papier-mâché grottos and painted cherubs.
The haze is beautiful at first, beams of dim yet colourful lights hitting exactly the right spots on the ride, but then you notice the way that it clings to your throat.
You draw in a breath and feel it scratch, feel it burn. It makes you cough once, then twice, but the sound swallows itself up in the dark.
The boat pushes onward, nudged by unseen currents, gliding deeper into the tunnel’s glow. Somewhere overhead, shapes of plaster and light lean down: cupids with slack grins, hearts stencilled in bleeding pink. Their shadows stretch and skew, warped on the walls by the low bulbs that flicker through the mist.
Your focus on the ride itself is stolen by the way you feel.
You feel absolutely dreadful.
The haze grows heavier with each breath, rolling thick, wrapping itself into your lungs until every inhale feels shallow, insufficient, desperate.
This isn’t right.
You shift in the seat, dizziness dragging at your limbs. A weakness trembles through your fingers, spreads into your arms like water seeping into cloth, and it terrifies you more than the dark, more than the falseness of the world painted around you.
The fear feels more inescapable than the ride itself. It hits you like a ton of bricks, like tens of dozens of cupid’s arrows have been shot at your chest all at once.
You try to steady your breath, but it rasps as though you’ve swallowed gravel. Sweat beads cold at the back of your neck, your body betraying you in slow collapse.
The boat bumps softly against the sides of the channel, the scrape of wood on metal echoing unnaturally loud. You clutch the edge with one hand, your grip faltering, skin clammy against the damp rail. The ride feels endless now, time stretching as the air grows poisonous, as strength slips away no matter how hard you fight to hold it.
Every flicker of light overhead wavers and doubles in your eyes, tear filled and reddening eyes that burn. A low hum starts in your ears, muffling the drip of water, the creak of gears, the chimes of the so-called romantic music.
You think you hear laughter somewhere deep in the haze, but you can’t be sure.
You try to summon the will to resist, to keep something of yourself steady, but it feels as though whatever power is yours is slipping like sand through open fingers.
By the time the boat lurches back into the light, the world blazes too bright, too sharp. You stumble when you try to stand, legs like jelly, stomach twisting with discomfort. Your throat still burns, every cough tearing through you until you taste something copper.
You stagger forward, clutching your side, sick and shivering. The fear and dread still overtakes you, that is, until a person approaches, noting your sickened expression and raspy cough.
They ask if you’re okay, and it's as if in that moment, the danger halts.
You take deep breaths of the fresh air, and it feels soothing on your burnt and wounded throat. The feel begins to fade, at least a little, and you know that you’ve made it out.
Leon Park
The stall calls to you with its string of fairy lights and painted sign, the garish promise of a memory you can take home with you, a photograph to prove you were here. The machine sits squat and inviting, red curtains pulled back, the glossy seat just wide enough for two.
You slip inside alone, the world growing quieter ever so slightly as the fabric falls closed behind you, the buzz of the carnival muffled to a heartbeat. It’s peaceful.
The air inside smells faintly of dust and chemicals, old velvet, something faintly metallic. You slot in the coins, the click of gears setting off the quiet hum of life, and for a moment you let yourself lean into the anticipation, waiting for the bright burst that will capture your face, that will spit out the strip of images you can either cherish or later toss - whatever feels right for you.
The first flash comes sudden and violent, a blinding white that sears itself into your eyes. You blink away the spots. You weren’t expecting it to be so intense, but a fear begins to build inside of you, marked by the very first flash.
You try to pull yourself together, ready for the next photograph, but something no longer feels right.
The soft whir of the machine is abruptly followed by the next flash. It bursts sharper, hotter, it burns your vision to white for a moment longer than the first. You flinch away, hand catching on the side of the booth. The glass inset there cracks beneath your weight, the edge biting into your palm until blood wells fast and slick.
Panic rises, hot and dizzy. You try to stand, but your knees buckle, your legs trembling as though someone has reached inside you and flicked a switch. The next flash bursts, and your fear grows again. You try to tend to your injury, but you’re frazzled by the intense feelings and unexplained happenings.
You press a hand to the side of the seat for balance, your blood smearing bright against it, your breath shallow. Another flash bursts, your vision drowns again, and this time the weakness sweeps you harder, as though it’s not only your blood dripping away but something deeper, something vital.
You no longer feel any of your magic inside of you.
The hum of the machine has grown louder, almost greedy, like a throat swallowing.
The final flash feels as though it burns your skin. With it, you finally seem to regain some strength, at least enough to carry you out of the small booth that grows to feel claustrophobic.
You try to catch your breath as you assess the damage done to your hand. You hold pressure on the wound, hissing as it stings, and you turn your head back towards the machine as you hear the photostrip drop into the tray on the side.
You reach for it, and you almost don’t look at the images, but they catch your eye in a way that makes you feel as though you can’t look away.
It’s you in the photographs, yes, but it’s also… not. Your own eyes stare back hollow, empty as sockets, your skin pale to the point of ruin, your mouth twisted into a grimace you don’t remember making. It doesn’t look alive. It doesn’t look like you ever have.
At first, you think that all four photos are the same. They certainly aren’t what they should be, given the position you sit in is perfectly still throughout them all. When you look closer, however, you notice it.
The imitation of yourself in the photographs grows more hollow and lifeless. From the first photograph to the fourth, it almost appears as if your life is being siphoned from you.
In the fourth photograph, you look like a shell of a human being at best.
You will yourself to look away, gasping for a much needed breath, but something pulls you back in. You’re surprised at what you see, not because it’s terrifying, but for a different reason.
The photographs have transformed, and are exactly how they should be - though now smeared with your blood.
Did you imagine all of that?
Jacquetta ‘Jackie’ Owen
The Ferris wheel looms above you, its lights blinking in a lazy rhythm, each carriage swaying gently as though rocked by a hand too large to be seen. It doesn’t look frightening, not at first.
You pay the vendor, step into the painted carriage alone, the metal bar lowering with a decisive click against your lap. The wheel groans and begins to turn, pulling you upward.
For a moment it feels harmless, even peaceful. The carnival sprawls below you in all its noisy chaos, the lights and laughter spilling across the dark. You breathe a little deeper, letting the breeze brush against your skin, watching the world shrink with each slow rotation.
Then, without warning, the carriage shudders.
It rocks violently to one side, so sharp you’re thrown against the bar. The metal jams hard into your ribs, pain sparking hot and immediate, leaving you gasping. You grip the frame, knuckles whitening, but the movement doesn’t settle. Another lurch, harder, harsher, and the sound of bolts straining rings in your ears.
Your chest tightens. The bar presses deeper with every sway, bruising flesh and grinding against bone. You try to steady yourself, but the ride seems intent on tearing itself apart, each swing more vicious than the last.
And then you see it.
From the carriage ahead, a figure tumbles out, arms flailing, a scream torn raw from their throat. They drop, swallowed into the shadows below. Another follows, and then another. Some fall without sound, limp and lifeless, their bodies rag-dolling against the air. Others cry out in terror, their voices carrying thin and piercing before cutting off. Carriages up and down the wheel begin to spill their passengers, one by one, falling like scattered coins from a broken hand.
Your stomach heaves. The air is filled with screams and silence alike, the rush of bodies plummeting, the sickening certainty that you will be next. You hold tighter, bruises blooming along your ribs, your breath fractured, waiting - waiting for the carriage to betray you too.
Just keep holding on.
The ride seems endless, circling through a nightmare. The wheel creaks, groans, rocks, each sound a threat of collapse. Time loses meaning; all that exists is the height, the sway, the fear of falling, the vision of broken bodies below, and the intense pain.
It feels like a lifetime passes before you reach the ground again, somehow escaping the death trap with your life intact.
The bar clicks open, your body stumbling free before your mind catches up. Your ribs ache with every breath, your legs shaky beneath you, but you force yourself to run, needing to see, needing proof of what just happened.
There is nothing.
The ground below the wheel is empty, no trace of broken limbs or blood, no pile of bodies waiting where you swore they fell. The air is calm again, carnival lights twinkling innocently, laughter carrying through the night. The wheel turns steady, gentle, as though nothing had happened at all.
The vendor waves at you with a bright, easy smile, calling out over the noise. He tells you that heights aren’t for everyone. He tells you that that’s okay. He recommends the freshly popped corn.
Your fear lingers sharp in your chest, but already it begins to thin, fading like smoke in open air, fading like it never really existed to begin with. Like it was only as real as the bodies that apparently didn’t fall.
Still, you were sure.
You were so sure.
Annette Sinclair
The ride begins like any other, a rickety clatter as the cart hauls itself up the incline, chains grinding beneath, the air filled with the smell of oil and the copper taste of nerves.
You press yourself back into the seat, gripping the restraint bar until your knuckles ache, reminding yourself this is just a ride. Nothing more. The anticipation is purposely built up to make you afraid, but that doesn’t mean that something will go wrong.
But the seat feels wrong beneath you. It isn’t just the hard plastic or the vibration of the climb, no, it shifts, only subtly, like something is breathing beneath the surface. You tell yourself it’s your imagination.
It must be part of the mechanism.
Yet each time you exhale, the seat seems to sigh back, a faint pulse against your spine, in rhythm with a heartbeat that isn’t yours.
The cart crests the top. For a moment, the carnival sprawls harmlessly below, then the drop swallows you. You scream, but the sound is whipped away by the wind. The bar slams into your ribs, cruel and unyielding, and pain blooms sharp, deep, one bone cracking with sickening clarity. Your breath catches, shallow, every inhale a lance of agony.
The cart hurtles on, but then, the track ends.
You’re unable to process the amount of fear that you feel, but even still, you know that it’s intense and unrelenting.
You can see it clearly, the rails shuddering into nothing, a black gulf opening beneath. Gravity rips you downward, and you are certain you will fall, certain you will plummet into the void. Your stomach wrenches, your body weightless and helpless, your vision tunnelling. You claw at the bar, the pain in your rib near blinding, but there is nowhere to hold, nothing to save you.
You hurt yourself more by first trying to find something to hold on to, and then by trying to find some sort of escape. Neither plan makes sense. Neither plan works.
Then, the track reappears as suddenly as it vanished, slamming into your reality with a vicious jolt. The cart crashes down onto it, rattling your bones like dice, your shoulder wrenching against the restraint, bruises splitting across your body.
You gasp, ragged, still convinced you should be falling.
The seat beneath you shifts again. This time it doesn’t just pulse - it grips. Something cold coils around your waist, unseen but undeniable, pressing tight as if the cart itself is trying to drag you inside. Your muscles weaken where it touches, your limbs trembling, your strength leeching away. The harder you struggle, the stronger it presses, until your body feels as though it might fold in half.
You squeeze your eyes shut, praying for the ride to end, for the track to straighten, for the horror to release you. When the brakes finally shriek, the seat lets go with a shuddering sigh. The bar rises cleanly, as though nothing had ever been amiss.
You stagger out, chest aflame with fractured ribs, body battered and trembling. The world tilts dangerously with every step, the memory of the missing track still carved into your mind, the echo of that alien heartbeat still thrumming in your bones.
You can still feel the cart breathing, deep inside your skin, even while you know that it’s over.
Bowie Feng
The entrance to the funhouse stands before you, painted in curling colours that are chipped and weathered, but clearly intended to feel inviting.
You step inside, expecting something whimsical, a laugh or two, harmless tilts and tricks, but the smell hits you first, something sour beneath the sweetness of sugar and popcorn. It clings to your skin. You move forward in hopes of escaping it.
The first hallway tilts gently, the floorboards groaning underfoot. You steady yourself against a wall, but it shifts subtly beneath your hand, as though the house itself breathes, and doesn’t wish to work in your favour.
The corridors twist, turning back on themselves in ways that make your stomach lurch. Each corner brings another bend, another passage that looks the same as the last yet slightly off, a looping pattern that refuses to end.
You try to move faster, but the floor jerks sideways beneath your step, sending you stumbling into a low-hanging beam. Pain cracks through your shoulder, sharp and sudden, and your body weakens in response, muscles trembling as though the house leeches your strength.
You grit your teeth, pressing onward, only to have the next wall protrude, closing too quickly, slamming against your ribs. You collapse against it, the impact bruising deeply, air knocked from your lungs.
You don’t expect this, and you don’t expect the fear that rises within you.
The hallways are endless. Each twist brings new threats, subtle and invisible. A plank rises unexpectedly beneath your foot, pitching you forward into the railing. Splinters bite into your palms, tearing skin. You scramble, tripping over an unseen lip in the floor, scraping your knee as you fall. Bruises bloom across your body, each scrape and impact feeding the relentless fear that twists tighter inside you.
Then the walls themselves seem to lean closer. A ceiling beam drops with no warning, striking near your head, forcing you to lurch sideways just in time. The scrape across your temple stings as a bead of blood trickles down.
The house pushes back, shifting, forcing you into walls, into corners, each impact marking your skin, each jolt shaking the breath from your lungs.
The house itself seems far more threatening than the obstacles set up inside of it. You navigate twirling ropes of foamy material, vibrating stairs, rotating floors, and all of the usual fun house fixings with a sense of relief compared to the bare, twisting, menacing hallways that seem to be a real threat.
Somewhere ahead, a door seems to promise escape. You crawl toward it, heart hammering, ribs throbbing from blows you can barely recall, your wrist scraped and bleeding. The floor tilts sharply, as if the house itself tilts with malicious intent, trying to fling you off balance. You hit the edge of a railing, pain blooming across your forearm as your body hits hard wood. The door seems to retreat further with each step, a cruel tease just beyond reach.
Finally, you burst through the door, lungs burning, limbs shaking, body battered and bruised. You’re in so much pain, but you’re optimistic that there are no breaks, no serious life threats. You’re ready to assess the damage, and to put as much distance between yourself and the fun house, but then you notice it.
You’re not in the fresh air of the night as expected, no, you’re in the very beginning of the attraction once again. You turn to look behind you.
There’s no way out.
You do the entire fun house again, again, and then one more time. You manage to escape with minimal additional injuries, though all earned on that first go around worsen and grow excruciating - as does your fear.
It well and truly feels endless, until you push the door open with no ounce of hope left.
To your surprise, you stand in the open night.
The lights of the carnival beam like the guiding light of a lighthouse, bright, calm, normal. You glance back at the funhouse, expecting something enormous, monstrous, and yet it sits quietly, as if nothing happened.
But the memory lingers. Each impact, each scrape, each bruising force presses in on your mind like a living thing.
Even as you walk away, every step reminds you of the house, its impossible angles, its relentless, predatory design.
Goldie Green
You step into the Gravitron, the ride’s metal floor vibrating faintly underfoot. The lights above flicker, a stuttered warning, but the attendant waves with an easy smile, as though everything is normal, as though nothing could possibly go wrong.
You cling to the wall of the ride behind, muscles tightening, waiting for the music, the whirring, the anticipation.
The lights flicker again.
It lasts longer this time, almost concerningly so, but then they return and the sound of loud whirring signals to the beginning of the ride before anyone can question the attendant.
The ride begins turning. Slowly at first, almost innocuously, then faster, centrifugal force pressing you into the wall until your arms ache, your legs strain to hold you steady.
It’s fun, until it isn’t.
The air shifts. Something is wrong. A stench, rotted and fetid, creeps in, curling into your nose and throat like thick smoke. You gag, swallowing hard, but the sensation is almost impossible to breathe through. Every inhale makes your stomach twist, every exhale seems to carry a taste of decay that is not yours.
Your heart hammers in your chest. The walls of the Gravitron blur as the lights flicker violently, the ride spinning faster than you think it should, faster than it seems capable of.
The smell grows, a thick, choking miasma that threatens to suffocate you even though your lungs are empty. You press your hands against your chest, trying to ground yourself, to convince yourself this is just motion, just smell, just nerves.
But everything feels off.
Every rotation feels too long, every shadow seems too stretched, every scrape of metal against metal sounds to be screaming that something is wrong, that nothing here is right.
You’re so afraid.
You struggle to lift a hand to your face, like even the simplest movement feels weighted, distorted, heavy with an unnatural sensation. You close your eyes, willing the ride to end, willing for it to release you from this nauseating horror.
Your fear only grows.
Finally, the machinery slows. The ride grinds to a halt, but the lingering rot hangs thick in the air, sticky and clinging to every surface. Everyone around you struggles upright, blinking against the sudden stillness, gasping for normal air. Relief almost starts to edge in, that is, until the body falls.
It lands with a wet, final thud, and you see the pallor of skin long dead, a mouth slack, eyes empty. The stench is unbearable now, overwhelming, curling into your throat, clawing at your stomach, the room thick with the sense of dead rot and time spent long past on this earth.
The body has clearly been dead for some time.
How did it end up here?
Screams break out, sharp and terrified. Everyone stumbles backward, away from the corpse, away from the smell that seems to seep into their very clothes, their hair, their skin. People flee toward the exits, tripping, shoving, barely able to breathe without retching.
You stumble too, legs unsteady, stomach heaving, mind reeling, the horror still clinging like a second skin, a memory that refuses to fade.
Even as you push through the exit and the cool night air hits your face, the vision lingers - the body, the stench, the impossible time it spent there unnoticed.
The carnival lights seem absurdly cheerful beyond the doorway, but not for long.
It doesn’t take long at all before the entire carnival is shut down early, authorities swarming to the scene like a swarm of bees.
This plot drop featured 15 of our player written characters;
Louise Nightingale is left with deep cuts to both of her forearms, experiencing substantial blood loss.
Ash Wolff is left with substantial chemical burns to his arms, and minor chemical burns to his torso.
Ocean James is left with a sprained wrist, and a substantial scrape to his forearm.
Mateo Morales is left with a deep cut to his palm.
Elijah Owens is left with cuts and a deep wound on his forehead, along with minor blood loss.
Alice Owens is left with a scratch on her forearm, and severe bruising on her bicep.
Brook Adams is left with a deep wound in his thigh, and minor to substantial burns on his arm.
Nathan ‘Nibs’ Hale is left with a broken arm and bruising.
Noelle Wakefield is left with a sore throat and chest, and nausea.
Leon Park is left with deep cuts on his hand, and minor to substantial blood loss.
Jacquetta ‘Jackie’ Owen is left with severe bruising on her torso, and minor bruising across her body.
Annette Sinclair is left with a broken rib, and severe bruising.
Bowie Feng is left with severe bruising across her body, minor to substantial scrapes, cuts, and sprains across her body.
All witches felt the sensation of losing their magic. Their magic returned after the episode.
01 unidentified resident (NPC) killed in the previous plot drop was left in the Gravitron ride.