A Carnival

---

You don't feel as though you're moving save the knowledge that you cannot stay in one spot once darkness has claimed you. As the mist retreats, forming a hazy image in front of your eyes, a fingertip runs along your cheek, tucking a stray hair behind your ear. Once again, the voice whispers instructions...

"Go get your fortune told."

---

The mist that surrounded the mansion seems to have followed you here, to this crowdless carnival. It covers the ground like a gaseous soup, spreading around the abandoned rides and tents. There are noises here-sometimes, a ride will turn on, occasionally driven by an actual ride operator. The tents have voices coming from them. Feel free to play the games provided, although the prizes might be... unexpected.

Keep your eyes on the prize.

---

Todd found himself between two large tents. A flap to one of the larger tents stood open right next to him. Inside, there was utter blackness.

"A visitor," a voice from inside the tent said, her voice giggling the words out. "This is..."

"Good," another voice replied. It was almost the same voice, but the tone implied a different person. "He really hasn't eaten for a while. Even then, the last time..."

"She was flesh and bones," the first voice intoned. "He really should..."

"Pounce now," the second voice finished. "It won't stand around for forever."

Suddenly the blackness shot out, in the form of gray claws and a gaping mouth. And that image was the last thing Todd saw before white flashes of pain, and then darkness.

---

Skreeg stumbled, holding his jaw and then cracking it around. Boring? He also had to provide entertainment while trying to survive?

"Aw geez, aw geez, aw geez," he said to himself, rubbing his hands together and pacing back and forth. He put his hands on his head. If he displeased the lady last time, he had to win. Like a rat of crack, he scampered around. At least he remembered the mission this time.

Skreeg passed a lot of things, like tents and booths. "Oye, wanna try yo' luck?" a voice called out from one of the booths. A long-limbed man, with 5-day growth on his face and looking like he hadn't bathed in a week, sat idly in one of the booths, a limp, unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. "Knock the bottles down, win a prize. One dollah fer three balls." He jutted a thumb to the balls behind him.

"Can you tell my fortune?" Skreeg blurted out.

"...I'm just the ball guy, kid," the man whined, leaning back further, looking incredibly off-balance. "Ye'd have to find, y'know, one of dem fortune tellers. Stupid..." He turned his head away and muttered the last part.

"Well, uh, you wouldn't happen to know one, would ya? Heh heh.."

"Nope," the guy immediately replied. "...although, if ye play the game, it could jog mah memory."

So that's how it is, eh? Skreeg grumbled to himself and checked around in his pockets. "How much was it?"

The man grinned, sitting up finally and unfolding from his spot. Standing, he was suddenly much taller, a good head or two above Skreeg. "A dollah for three balls," he answered, suddenly much more enthusiastic.

Skreeg looked up, blinked then gulped. "There's, uh, not a catch to this... is there?..."

"No catch, just step right up t'the pitch, throw the balls at the milk bottles there, knock'em over and win a prize," the guy rattled off, the speech sounding rehearsed. He plunked three weathered softballs, turning brown with age, down at the table and jerked a thumb at the milk bottles, who had collected quite the layer of dust. Nobody had played in quite a while.

Skreeg gave him a suspicious squinty eyes look and h pulled out something that was barely recognizable as a dollar. He took one of the balls, held out a hand and pointed to line himself up like a kid practicing throwing in kindergarden, and he limply threw it.

They didn't really hit any bottles, instead bouncing off the stand. The bottles wobbled but didn't fall. The guy, however, was way too into it. He stared at the bottles with red eyes, viciously biting his lip.

"Again," he said, his voice hoarse.

Skreeg scowled at the bottles. "Hey, these aren't glued together or filled with cement, are they?" he complained.

"Go again," the guy growled. "If you knock them over I'll tell you where the farking psychic is now go, go!"

"Geeeeez..." Skreeg said, tucking in his neck and turning his head slowly, looking at the guy out of the corner of his eyes. He took another ball, pointed and threw it.

The ball almost hit the bottle, tapping it. It spun a quarter-turn and stopped, accompanied with an audible strangled gasp. "Goddammit, knock the bottles over!" the guy yelled, a vein popping out of his forehead. "Knock the goddamn bottles over!"

"Ok... ok.... You, uh, sure there's no catch?" Skreeg asked again, rolling the ball clumsily between his fingers.

The guy's head whipped around to stare at Skreeg. His eyes were wide-open and bloodshot, and he looked nearly half-crazed. "I cannot knock those balls down myself, and I must stay here until they are!" he growled. "You knock them down now or I swear to the God above, I'll..."

"Wow! Ok! As long as they, uh, don't spurt acid at me or anything... " He straightened himself up, pointed and whipped it so hard he almost fell on his face.

Once more they tipped the bottles. The guy roared his disapproval as they seemed to not be falling over, and violently punched the frame of the booth in his anger. It rattled the table so hard that the heavy milk bottles finally fell over, hitting the ground with small 'tinks.'

All of a sudden, it was like the storm was over. "Ah, that's better," the guy said, now totally calm. His fist was bleeding where he had punched the booth, but he didn't seem to notice. "Now I kin finally get rid of this." He grabbed a teddy bear, the last one, from the top shelf. It was missing an eye. "The little freak has been staring at me for at least a year, it seems like," he said to Skreeg, giving him the bear whether Skreeg wanted it or not.

Skreeh took it and held it out in front of him, staring at it with an odd look for a while before he looked at the man and tucked the stuffed animal under his arm. "So, uh, fortune teller?"

"Oh, right then," the guy replied. "The new one moves about a bit, but last I heard, she was near the Outskirts." He pointed down the row of booths to his left. "Where the tents end," he added. "She's in a trailer, methinks. Can't miss it. I certainly don't."

Skreeg ran off in that direction without thanking him. He needed to win. He couldn't imagine he was very entertaining so he wouldn't be able to survive on that alone.

Of course, the way to the end of the tents wasn't straight. At first, they seemed to stretch on forever, a row of tents in different states up upkeep or abandonment, with weird shadows or remnants of life. But they began to twist and turn, and at one point, there was a wall of them in front of Skreeg. It was beginning to turn into a maze. He could either go right or left. At the fork in the tents, there was a small woman, knitting quietly. Her fingers were unnaturally long.

Skreeg scurried about, getting more and more flustered until he spotted the woman. His heart skipped and he scampered forwards, rubbing his hands together in excitement. "Uh," he cleared his phlegmy throat unattractively. "Hello, heh."

The woman looked up. She was small, and her eyes were stained black. She was dressed all in black and was working with white thread. She didn't look too impressed with Skreeg, just looked up, assessed him, and continued to knit.

He stood watching her, then pushed his bangs back. He took a half step forwards then rocked back to where he was before. "Are you the fortune teller?" he asked.

The woman gave him a look like she wasn't all too fond of him. She held up her fingers, splayed, and hanging between them was a pattern of the yarn she was working with. In the yarn was the word, 'No.'

"Oh, uh, do you know where she might be then?" asked Skreeg, stretching his neck to the side.

The lady's hands came back together, her gaze never breaking from him as her web of yarn collapsed. Her fingers worked for a while, and then spread in front of her again. Simple arrows pointed to her left and her right; underneath that were the words, 'Both Ways.'

Skreeg recoiled at the extreme cat's cradle of sorts. "Oh well, heh. That helps. Could you, uh, tell me anything more specific?"

The lady made a motion like she was sighing, although she made no sound. The yarn collapsed once more into a mound before she extended her fingers. 'Both ways lead to the fortune teller,' it said, a little more complicated. Then with a twist of her fingers, it changed into a picture of a sign post. In the two signs, the one pointing to Skreeg's left said 'Pins,' and to the right was 'Needles.'

Skreeg flinched. That didn't sound pleasant. "Thanks?" he said unsure. Being a drug addict, needles didn't sound too bad. He went right.

The small woman's eyes watched Skreeg for a little while. Then one hand extended, and a small thread shot out in front of her. More followed, and soon a net was formed on the ground. It glistened strangely, and the woman retreated into the shadows, her eyes gleaming in the darkness as she sat, waiting patiently.

Skreeg began to pass various tents, some with voices coming from inside. They were hushed, but a few tents seemed alive.

Skreeg hugged the teddy bear to his chest, skittering around, extremely paranoid and jumpy.

"Well, don't you look odd," a voice from a tent murmured, cackling a little with laughter. The flap was drawn back, and in the shadows within, figures could be seen.

He jumped to the side and then hunched over peering through. "Are- are you a fortune teller?"

"Why, would you like me to tell your fortune?" a woman's voice purred. As Skreeg's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was greeted with a strange scene: a fat, bearded lady lounged in a nice, wide couch, with a strange, lean boy laying in a skintight suit on the ground beside her, stretching. Across the tent, sitting in front of a mirror, sat a man who looked covered in scales. He grinned at Skreeg through the mirror, and sharp, pointy teeth gleamed in the shadows.

"... Maybe..." he said with a little grimace.

"Oh baby, come on in," the Bearded Lady said, taking in his appearance more. "You don't need no fortune. You belong here. What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Ehhhh..." he stepped back a little. "I kinda need to see the fortune teller, er, like now. So uh... have any directions?"

The Bearded Lady sighed. "Baby don't wanna play," she said. The contortionist echoed her sigh, his chin currently perched on his crotch. "Fine, darling. Just go down these tents, make the first three lefts you got. Bitch is in a raggedy trailer under the Oak Tree. Oh, and avoid the Others," she added. "You not gonna want to mess with them. They's going to be coming out in a bit."

Skreeg went from thinking the woman was going to eat him, to thinking she was a saint from above. He gave a crookedy unintentionally nervous looking smile with his yellow long teeth, and started nodding while thanking her a thousand times. That last thing she said though... He decided he'd run. He sprang off, looking to his left and following her directions as he steadily started wheezing.

Skreeg finally got to a left-hand turn down a dark alley, constructed with tall tents on either side. Spiderwebs lined the alleyway, making it impossible to get through without wrecking at least one or two. At the end of the alley, a lanky figure lurked.

Skreeg skidded to a stop, out of breath and wiping his greasy head with the back of his hand. He hoped to god this person wasn't one of the Others. "... Hello?" he said nervously.

The figure straightened, stepping sideways a little to get a better view of Skreeg. A stray beam of light fell on him. It was the guy from earlier, the one who had charged a dollar for the ball toss. He didn't say anything, just lifted an eyebrow at Skreeg.

"Heeeey!" Skreeg said, his face lighting up as he held out the bear to explain who he was.

The other eyebrow went up, then both plunged back down. He frowned at Skreeg, not moving from his place at the other side of the alley, as though trying to figure something out.

"The fortune teller is through here!" said sharing the news.

The man's face broke into a strange grin at the sound of Skreeg's voice. He began walking to the man, his legs so long he covered the distance in half the time Skreeg would have. His long strides were accompanied by odd swaying motions, as he avoided all the cobwebs still strewn across the alley, with the exception of the biggest one in the middle. There he stood, looking at Skreeg, as though considering him.

His weird behavior was making Skreeg nervous. He hugged the bear to himself. "You... you ok?"

In response, the man broke into an ever freakishly-wider grin, a hand reaching out and curling under Skreeg's jaw. Then, with one swift motion, he leaned down, lips parting...

And licked Skreeg on the side of the face. From jawline to temple. His motion was halfway between 'taste Skreeg' and getting Skreeg as wet as physically possible.

Skreeg squirmed and screamed, finally delivering the man a kick in the shin.

The man let out a hiss at that, but didn't lose his grin. He grabbed Skreeg's wrists and began to dance through the alley, forcibly twirling the smaller man. He let out a laugh that shrilly echoed in the small space, ruining all the cobwebs as they danced. As they moved further, his moves got more aggressive, and his grip tightened and hurt.

Skreeg struggled the best he could, screaming stupidly all the way. "What's wrong with you?!" he managed it yell out at some point during it all.

The man giggled, releasing one of Skreeg's hands to spin him around, releasing him with an excess of momentum. As Skreeg spun, or stumbled, the man reached down. From his boot, he withdrew a hidden knife. The weapon made his grin take on an edge of malice. It was clear, at least to most people, that this man was not the same bored, maybe a little quirky man who had earlier taken Skreeg's dollar.

Skreeg stumbled and spun with a hand on his head until he flopped on his ass. As his eyes began to refocus, he spotted the knife and tensed up with a snap. "Aw geez, aw geez..." he said, kicking his feet and shifting his arms to scoot backwards. "Wha- wha- what do you want? I gave you my dollar... I uh..." he padded his fraying trench coat for something to offer him. He dug his hand into one pocket and pulled out a small bag of cocaine. "Oh..." he said, not knowing he had it. "Coke?" he offered.

The man reached for the bag, but only to slap Skreeg's hand so hard as to make him drop the bag, along with probably bruising his wrist. The same hand shot up, following the line of Skreeg's arm until it gripped Skreeg's throat. The grip was not strong enough to crush the windpipe, but with the look on the game man's face, he was just toying with Skreeg.

Skreeg yelped at the slap and whimpered at the throat grab. "Hey... hey, can't we- can't we talk about this? You're uh... obviously not well. Maybe you should sit down? Heh?"

The man frowned then, strange on the usually grinning face. He didn't like Skreeg's reaction. He seemed... disappointed. His grip tightened, enough to almost totally cut off Skreeg's air as he backed him up against a wall. His knife hand came up and the knife trailed along Skreeg's cheek as he watched Skreeg's eyes intently.

Skreeg gaged as he was strangled and he grabbed at the man's hand, squirming pathetically as he panicked. His eyes bulged, then squinted, watering a little from the lack of oxygen and the general discomfort.

The man leaned in, finally speaking, his voice so much different from the ball man's from earlier. "Fight," the man said. "Claw, kick. I want to hear you scream." He took Skreeg from the wall, his grip loosening to allow Skreeg to make noise as he dragged Skreeg along, destroying more cobwebs as he went. Skreeg's toes barely touched the ground.

"They always scream," the ball man said, turning Skreeg in a circle as he danced slowly. "They-"

He ran into a newer-looking web. He frowned as it stuck to his clothes.

Skreeg wasn't much of a screamer, rather, his more rodent instincts tended to kick in trouble and squirming and twisting about frantically was all he was good for.

The man's attention was now divided between Skreeg and the substance, he was picking it off his clothes between his fingers. He was slowly getting more interested in the string, which was sticking to his fingers. "What the..."

Suddenly the string tightened around his chest and pulled him straight up. The man lifted Skreeg off the ground a foot before his fingers slipped and he dropped Skreeg.

The man was dragged up the side of the tent, held securely by the strings, until his head was almost at the top. The owner of the strings, the woman from earlier, the one with the strings, darted into view and sank her teeth into the man's shoulder. He stilled and she pulled him up out of sight. Her black eyes watched Skreeg. "Run," she said, her first word all day, he voice dry as a leaf.

Skreeg didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled up and bolted in the fortune teller's direction.

He found himself staring straight ahead towards a trailer with a giant eye painted alongside. It looked far away, but he could see somebody leaned against the outside. It was a small boy, looking as though he was trying to not pass out.

From the shadows to his left, Skreeg heard a low growl.

Skreeg turned slowly, trying to figure if he should slowly sneak towards his goal, or bolt.

Crouching in the shadows, darker than he ought to be, crouched a lion. The tip of his tail twitched as he sat in a stalking position, his eyes on Skreeg.

This was definitely a back away slowly moment. He began to drift away, his eye twitching as he watched the lion.

The lion crept forward as Skreeg kept back. He blinked, slowly, as though bored. His ears flicked over to the trailer as the small boy looked around the back and then headed to the door of the trailer. A low rumble appeared out of his throat. 

"Well, ain't that just fucking epic," a voice breathed to Skreeg's [#right].

---

As the surroundings came to Johnathan, he couldn't quite register the jungle of fun around him. All he could realy do was stare off with a goofy grin and guffaw. He shivered and wriggled about a bit. Ahh! She had touched him! She had stood right in front of him! He couldn't get the tingles off, there were just too many. "Ah, fair lady, you give me chills!" After a few moments, however, Johnathan realised just where he was. "Aww yeah!" Bringing his fist down in a victroy thrust, he checked around and headed into the first empty face painting booth he could find. "Oh, what fun!" He proclaimed whilst grabbing up the reds and blacks and whites to put on in good humor.

The mirror didn't seem to work very well there, though. For a few seconds, it would show him his face painted as he liked. Then the colors would turn sepia, like a picture out of the fifties, and the background behind him would be full of movement, a lively crowd within the mirror.

Johnathan watched the flickering images with wonder. "What's this then?" He glanced back, seeing only fog. "Strange." He then leaned towards the mirror, but cursed when his own face got in the way of the background images. "Your stinkin' face keeps gettin' in the way!" He whined to himself.

The images in the mirror shifted, back to normal and then back to the olden days, repeatedly. Over his shoulder, Johnathan could see a booth growing in popularity throughout the day. An older woman sat at it, smiling mysteriously as she sat raised above their heads, flashing cards.

"Hot dammit!" Johnathan exclaimned with glee at the image in the mirror. "Terot cards!" He jummped up from the seat and began to bounce along backwards to keep a watch on the mirror yet still find the correct booth, tripping and landing on his butt only one time. Once he reached the popular booth in the mirror, he slowly turned around with an exaggerated motion to see the booth as it realy was.

Contrary to the old, rotting frame of a booth, whose chair had been tipped over and forgotten, the mirror showed a new wooden structure. The woman didn't have any customers at the moment, and was worriedly shuffling her cards. She put them down, then fiddled with a pendant.

The image flashed to the present and back again a few times before the picture changed. The fortune teller was looking at the tent beside her like she had just seen something odd. Unfolding her legs, she walked from the booth and into the tent, the flap swinging shut behind her. The mirror flickered back to normal.

"Hey! Card lady, come back here!" Johnathan yelled at the mirror while his eyes constantly went from the mirror to the booth right beside him. A giant aggravated huff exited him. He would have to follow the lady. However, he had doubts if he could do that without the mirror. "Oh well. You might as well check, anyways." And off he went to examine the tent.

He found himself in a whole maze of mirrors. A million Johnathan's looked back on the original, all of the looks the same as his, if only at a slightly different angle. However, beside the suspicious lack of dust, there seemed to be nothing odd here.

"Oh! Well, hello there, good lookin'." Johnathan examined the mirrors with shear delight while posing in quite questionable ways. "How handsome." He chuckled before answering his mirrored images. "Why, thank you. No no, you are quite welcome. I must say!" He went further into the tent so that almost everywhere he turned, he saw only himself. "Say, did any of you see that card lady?"

His copies followed his every move, albeit backwards, looking back at him devilishly. One, almost so far away as to not be visible, surrounded by perfect copies, was just a little off in his timing.

Now, Johnathan was no fool, so he was able to catch, if only a bit, the lagging image. He pointed in the general direction, not sure if he was just crazy or not. "You there! The dippy one! Yeah you!" Then a pause. "Hey! I'm not dippy." Johnathan proclaimed with an inane pout before chuckling within his throat.

The clone, now caught, ceased attempting to mimic the original. He straightened, gave the original a jerky salute, then turned and left. Where he was was just an empty mirror.

"Hey hey now!" Johnathan scrambled to the mirror to inspect it. Actually, he had been quite suprised that the image had just left like that. "Who do you think you are?" He put his fingers to the mirror's surface.

When he finally got there, that particular mirror was empty of Johnathan's reflection. It looked like just a plane of glass with Johnathan's background drawn in. Directly behind him-through him, whatever-there was a brief motion of the exit flap of the tent swinging shut.

"Aw damn." Johnathan twisted around quickly to see that the tent flap realy had closed, and the lights were dimmed slightly. He crouched down slightly with more movement than needed and shifted his eyes around, looking around at his many images and the closed tent flap.

The tent flap didn't make any more movement, and it didn't seem locked at all. His reflections no longer did anything out of the ordinary. It was just... dead.

Johnathan straightened after moments of just listening and watching the silence. It was unnerving, being so alone. He turned back to look at them empty mirror, touching it once more with his fingertips. "Come back." He said softly, tapping the glass. There was actually a bit of fear in the young man's voice, for he didn't like the feeling of being this alone. At least he had images of himself to keep him company, but not in this mirror. He turned to leave, heading for the flap, and reaching to pull it up once he was there.

Johnathan could see just the tip of a huge tent above a bunch of smaller, very interestingly-colored tents. He had entered into the main attraction area. There were platforms for performers, secret tents for the more obscene shows, and the beginning of the rides far to Johnathan's left. And in the other direction there stood a booth in the middle of the fair. Information.

Again, Johnathan became shify, like a child with an attention deficit disorder. "Which one, which one." He complained outloud. There were so many to choose from. There were the rides calling to him, the colorful tent, and the information booth that all caught his attention. "Arg! This is too dificult! Damn." He decided to go forward to the middle booth to check that first. So many choices...like a stupid candy store. He walked up to the booth and peeked around it and finally looked through the booths glass.

He could see a vague map of the carnival's attractions. It was obviously drawn with flexibility in mind, but Johnathan could see a bright red 'you are here' sticker in the middle of the 'games' section. From where he saw the rides, there was an area labeled 'rides.' Then he could see the 'main tent' and the 'mini-shows.'

Examples were given of each, like 'goldfish toss' and 'ball roll.' In the attractions, there were a few neatly scratched off. 'Strong man,' 'lion tamer,' and 'psychic' were a few. Someone had rewritten 'psychic' under the name, though.

Johnathan stared at the map a good while, expecting it, like the door, to jump out at him at any given moment. He tapped on the glass a bit and then turned away from the booth, seeing all that the map had covered and going over the places in his mind. He pointed. "Games, rides, main tent, mini shows." His finger traveled to each of them and he turned in circles, catching the tips of the attractions with his eyes. Again he got fidgety, not knowing which way to head. "Find the phychic." He told himself, while walking in circles around the booth. Still not knowing which way to go, he closed his eyes, spun around insanely fast in tight circles and took off in a random direction, his eyes still shut. "Fate will decide!!" He spoke loudly and drunkly.

He was heading into the rides, away from the main tent. He soon found his way blocked by a leak in the dunking booth, though, just around the corner from the carousel. It formed a neat little muddy lake that stretched from the booth on one side of the path to the tent at the other, and looked at least a foot deep in the middle, although it was impossible to tell in the opaque water.

"Damn!" Johnathan's head was still swimming from all his self-conducted circles. "Seems to me that I mights needs a boat!" He splashed the big toe of his boot into the water a moment. If there was one thing he didn't trust, it was a leak at a circus. "Ha! Realy now...you just made that up!" He told himself with a laugh. After standing and staring for a few moments...wishing he had a mirror to keep him company, he scampered over to the edge of the closest booth and sat his bottom down on the its counter. "I'll just scoot on over." How smart he was!

It was a good idea. He was sitting on the counter of the goldfish toss, although half the bowls were knocked over and the goldfish long gone. Some algae was on the counter as though there had been a large fish walking over the trail, and at the end of the booth, if Johnathan tried really hard, he could jump to the other edge of the puddle and only get his boots a little muddy.

There was just a little ripple in the water.

"Theah we ah." Johnathan squinched his nose a bit. Now his pants were dirty with the algae from scooting. It was strange realy, how his mind went back to the goldfish in the office building. Once to the end, Johnathan stood upon the wobbly booth's counter, bent so that his head didn't bump the top. "One, two,...THREE!" With that, he crouched his legs and then sprang with a slip slip slide in the bit of mud he landed in before straightening himself. "Well then, now that I've reached the other side...."

From behind him, a hand shot out of the water, and gripped Johnathan's ankle. The arm was very thin, but quite wiry, and its grip was quite strong. Its pull wasn't as strong, but it still yanked towards the puddle, where there was a lot more splashing going on.

"Owh buggah!" The young man began to thrash his foot about like a kid caught in a briar bush. "Damn! Shit! Damn!" He swore over and over again, his wide grey eyes stuck on the arm. "You can let go now!" Johnathan whined whilst still flopping around his foot, barely keeping his balance even with his great personal skill. "Hey! If you let go, I'll give you some nice drugs. Would you like that? Huh? Drugs? You would like them! It's the good stuffs."

The violent thrashing on his end pulled the owner out of the water a bit more. It was the upper half of a girl, her skin clammy and blue, with her body all angles and no flesh. Her hair was stringy and black, uneven and rough, with her eyes wide and completely black. Her mouth was a thin line, which she opened to reveal a few rows of sharp teeth. Gills opened and gasped in her neck as slits on her face, her nostrils, flared. The lower half of her body disappeared beneath the water, but flashes of what was splashing in the water showed what looked like a long, scaly tail, and possibly a fin. Her other, webbed hand slapped on the floor to support herself as she grimaced, showing off her teeth once more, insistently trying to pull Johnathan to the puddle. "Drugs," she hissed, her voice box slurring the word horribly as she mimicked Johnathan, her black eyes flitting around, focusing on a pulse in his neck.

Johnathan made quite a gruesome face with a curled up nose and tounge sticking out. Still, he was hopping about on one foot trying to get loose. "Ewww...." Johnathan didn't quite like the way she was looking at him...like a piece of meat. Perhaps that's what girls thought of him sometimes, though. With his momentary ADD, he had to laugh, which made him fall too his bottom in the mud. "Hey hey, now, lady, I could...uh...help you...uh...or something if you let go." He was scooting back jerking his foot around. There was no way she would get him in, but he certainly didn't want those teeth in his leg or anything.

The girl hissed, her eyes narrowing in focus as her other hand came to clutch Johnathan's ankle, as well. She had woken up just in time. She was pulled enough to show that her skin dissolved into scales, attached to a thick, powerful tail. It began thrashing, and she started using the momentum to tug him closer towards the water... And now that he was sitting on the mud, she had less friction to work against. He began to move closer to her, a few startling inches. She snapped her teeth; they were meant for delicate ripping rather than any sort of grip, but they were impatient, and she seemed rather hungry. Her nails dug into Johnathan's skin.

"Ha ha, well, if that's the way you want to play, Miss Fishy." Johnathan gave the fish girl a great grin, reguardless of the fact that she was now pulling him along through the mud. What an effect that grin had, showing through his freshly painted face. Quickly, he reached into a back pocket of his mud encrusted pants and pulled out a small box-cutter like razor that he pulled the cover off of and slit across the fish girl's wrists with haste. He hoped it wouldn't kill her...he liked the way her scales glinted when her tail splashed out every so often.

The girl hissed, instantly releasing him out of pain. She bared her teeth as her blood seeped into the water of her puddle, her eyes glaring at him, full of hatred.

And then she had other things to worry about. The blood had attracted others. A set of powerful jaws wrapped around a portion of her tail, shark-like, and she gave out a screech before diving back into the water to fight.

The thrashing in the water faded, and soon, the puddle was once again a puddle, giving off the impression that it was only a foot deep in the middle.

Johnathan sat and stared a few moments in awe at the puddle. Then, a bit of saddness swept across his face, giving the paint a strange twist while he wiped his little razor free of blood. He sighed, alone again. To his feet he pulled himself with another pitiful sigh as he walked with a heavy, droopy frame towards his set direction. "You dippy person." He began playing with his razor while looking at all the attractions he went by, absentmindedly pricking his finger with the corner.

Johnathan was now perusing the rides. Most of them didn't have a ride operator, and sat in various stages of disuse. However, one, the Ferris Wheel, had a lanky boy at the controls, a hat tugged down over his eyes. He looked asleep, his feet up on the controls.

"Aha!" Johnathan whispered to himself as he saw the boy. Quietly, he tippy toed like a cat over to the sleeping person and began to circle and inspect. With his excitement at finding another person, he acidentally cut his hand a bit on the razor, which made him remember to put it back where it belonged before messing with the boy. After a full inspection, Johnathan straightened with his usuall manical grin while tapping his chin with his not bloody finger. What could he do? Oh well, how about simple? He lifted the hat with his forefinger and gave a loud. "BOO!"

The boy yelled, his hat falling off as his limbs flailed in surprise. He caught himself at the last second and jerked to standing, glaring at Johnathan. His eyes were as pure white as the mermaid's were black, but other than that, he looked completely normal, if a little on the freakishly tall side. He picked up his hat and pointedly brushed it off on his pants leg, sitting back down in a huff. "Jerk," he muttered, putting his hat on haughtily.

"Aww, come on, suga'." Johnathan laughed with an exaggerated southern accent while bending down inches away from the boy's face to inspect the wonderfully white eyes. "You just excited me!" He dropped the accent and continued to stare with his usuall crazed expression and wide grin. He scanned over the boy's tall frame a few times, always coming back to the lad's eyes.

The boy was more than a little creeped out by the closeness of this stranger. "You got a problem?" he asked, trying to sink down into his chair. He began muttering something about a summer job, and working with weirdos.

"I sure don't, lovely. Do you?" Everytime the boy sank farther into his chair, Johnathan only followed the movement by bending over a little farther, resting his palms on his knees. "Well anyways! Enough with problems and issues and such!" Johnathan interupted before even letting the boy think about answering. "Let's talk about me." He smiled a cheesy smile, still quite in the boy's face. "I've talked to a goldfish, met a ghostie, painted my face, watched a fish lady get eaten, and now met you. Isn't my life grand?" Again, he didn't let the boy answer. "But there is still something else I need to do... I suppose."

"Uh... huh," the boy said. "Is there, er, something I can... do for... you?" He was getting more uncomfortable with the closeness, but once his butt slid to the edge of his chair he couldn't really go anywhere else, and he didn't seem to know if he could tell Johnathan to back off.

"How sweet of you to offer, lovely!" Johnathan chimed in a way too enthusiastic voice. "I seemed to have misplaced one of my reflections. He was a pesky bugga'. Called me dippy, or maybe I called him dippy." He shrugged with exagerated movement. "Guess I made him sad. Anywho, I would like to find my reflection and maybe even someone else. Say...can you...uh, read palms, or do any of that weirdo, creepy stuff with the future?" He knew the fortune teller had to be the woman in the mirror, but since the picture was older looking...and the woman was already decreped anyways, he figured she had kicked the bucket, croaked, or something like that.

"No, I'm just here for a summer job," the boy muttered. "Just a ride operator. I leave when the summer's over." He glanced around, although it was almost impossible to tell, seeing as how he lacked pupils. "Thought it seems like the summer's going on forever. ...dude, if you back off and stop calling me lovely, I'll let you ride the Ferris Wheel for free. You can see practically the whole carnival from the top, so you might be able to spot someone. I mean, this place is practically abandoned and I haven't talked with any normal people for a really long time, but I'm not that desperate for human contact."

"Hmmm...you look that desperate to me." Johnathan chimed with his tease and a shrug before straightening up. His eyes scaled the ferris wheel. It did excite him, just like everything here excited him...well, besides from the emptiness of the place. He didn't like empty. "Alright then, darlin'. I'll take you up on that." Happily, Johnathan, in all his painted face glory, jummped into one of the colorful ferris wheel seats which swung about with his weight. When he reached the top... maybe he could find something.

The boy's gaze went then to his buttons, although again, it was hard to tell. He pressed a few buttons and then held one down, his face turning to Johnathan as the machine lurched into motion. There was a long screech as it worked through quite a bit of rust and dust, and then slowly worked Johnathan's cart to the top.

The boy let go of the button, looking up. "See anything?!" he shouted up to Johnathan, getting a little into this.

Of course, Johnathan could basically see the whole layout of the carnival. Now above the tents, he could also see that it abruptly stopped at one point, the land phasing out into cracked earth and absence of plants. Within the tents, Johnathan caught a glimpse of Joshua coming out of the main tent in the middle of the carnival. Skreeg was standing in front of a tent looking scared, and Jiten was walking around, apparently having made a friend.

However, the closest form of life was at the end of the attraction tents, close to Johnathan, Skreeg heading in that direction. At the edge of the carnival, about twenty feet from the last tent, on the cracked earth and under the only tree available, there was a trailer. A large eye was painted on the side of it, and a woman in her mid-twenties was standing outside. She looked around, hugging a gaudy shawl around her shoulders, a scowl on her face. Then she headed back inside.

"Why, yes I do, Darlin'!" Johnathan called down to the white eyed boy as he scanned the carnival over. First, his eyes darted to Joshua, who he could just make out. "Blimy! He looks like he's been to hell and back." Johnathan chortled a bit before his eyes went to Jiten. "Ahh, the little cross dresser hasn't been eaten by a fish or anything yet." Then, to Skreeg his eyes went. "Maybe he found my reflection!" And finally, he looked over to the lady who had just gone back into her trailer. He worked his mind over and over while staring at the big eye on the trailer. Had he seen something like that before? In the mirror maybe? "I think I've found you!"

Johnathan, being quite excited now, didn't even wait for the boy to ride him back down. Instead, he jumped out of his seat and climbed down the giant metal framework of the ferris wheel and was down on the ground in no time. "Well, Darlin', thanks for your help, but I must be going." He stood and waited for a moment, however, to see if the boy would bid him good luck or something of that nature.

The boy didn't even know what Johnathan was doing. "Yeah, whatever," he said, sitting back down in his section. He looked sullenly off, not even having gotten the chance to run his ride to completion. He already looked bored again.

Johnathan crinkled his nose a bit as he put his fists to his hips with a slight 'humph'. He felt a certain distaste for this boy now, but it didn't realy matter. Johnathan just felt like being a drama queen. "Well if that's all I mean to you!" He pointed his finger accusingly at the boy with fake tears at the corners of his black smudged eyes. Abruptly, he swivled around and stalked off, turned for a moment to blow a kiss at the white-eyed boy, and then started a jog towards the trailer he had seen.

Leaving a very perplexed ride boy behind, Johnathan found himself going through the rest of the ride section. Soon it gave way to a bit of colorful tents, where Skreeg had been seen, although Johnathan would probably not run into him. But just up ahead, Johnathan could see Jiten and a [#clown boy], stopped at a fork in the maze of tents.

---

Joshua, becoming used to this mean of transportation, opened his eyes after the mist departed from his body. His breath coming more easily as it had the last time, Josh ran his hands through his hair to try and relieve his anger towards the contestant named Johnathan. In the new environment, Joshua crotched into a defensive stance with his whip out and ready. After taking two deep breaths, Joshua looked around to see what was around him.

He found himself in a main arena, standing under the ropes of the tightwalker, in the middle of the ring where the animals were ridden in circles to entertain the stadiums full of cheering people. Except it was empty. Some of the tent was falling apart, and the raised arena where the ringleader would stand had a big hole in the middle where it had collapsed. To the side stood a showgirl, sitting next to what looked like... the head of a horse.

Joshua relaxed a little bit when he recognized the environment around him. Before this tournament, Joshua had once been a lion tamer; that is where he learned how to handle a whip. When his eyes fell upon the showgirl, a smile was starting to sprout on Josh's face. The only thing that would stop him from overt flirtation was the horse's head right next to her which made Joshua feel not to comfortable. After a second of hesitation, Joshua spoke to the showgirl. "Hey love, how are you doing? Do you know where I can go to get my fortune told?"

The showgirl looked up, her face streaked with running facepaint down in tear tracks. "She was the fourth to go," she whispered, voice hoarse. She was pretty at one time, but now she was just muddy and sad. "No... fifth. She was the fifth. I could have sworn she knew, the way she was acting."

Joshua felt sympathy towards the showgirl. Moving towards her, he put away his whip and held out his hands as if to comfort her, but slightly hesitating because Josh didn't know if she would act crazy a moment later and also with all of his dare deviling he hadn't had much practice in comforting girls. Kneeling down so Joshua could be at eye level to the showgirl, he asked, "What happened? Anything I can do to help you?"

Her eyes followed him, wide-open, but it was the only part of her that did. "The fortune teller," he said. "I can't help you. She did the only good fortunes, and it got her right after it got Betty." The showgirl looked at the horse's head. Up close, it was obviously in some pretty groady stages of decomposition. "I was right here. The fortune teller was acting weird and didn't even blink at it, or Betty's screams."

Joshua was confused with every single sentence that the showgirl said to him. Trying to make sense of her reply, Joshua asked, "What got her, and Betty? Is there a monster of some sort here?"

"The lion," the showgirl said, her eyes distant. "The lion got out in the middle of the night. It got trapped in the house of mirrors, and when it came back out, it was... Different. It got the tamer first, then the strong man. The third person nobody knows, because all that was left was an arm, but it came here for me and it got Betty." The girl was just pouring it all out now. She was skinny, in that 'I haven't eaten for a while' sort of way. "The fortune teller had come here cackling about something, and when the monster came... It took Betty and her and left. Her daughter is the only fortune teller left. But she's no good."

Despite the somber situation, Joshua smiled slightly in the corner of his mouth. Just like back home with the lion. Feeling full sympathy for the showgirl, Joshua draped his arm around her shoulders. "Hey, everything will be alright, I was once a lion tamer, back home. But listen, I'm in this contest and I have to get my fortune if I want to survive. Could you help please?  Come with me, I'll protect you, miss..."

The showgirl shook her head. "'snot a lion anymore," she said woefully. "And I can't come with you. If it sees me again, I'm dead. Don't matter how good you are. It'll finish what it started." Her hand limply raised up to point towards the tent. "I think if you head out that way and go straight for a while, you could see the fortune teller's daughter," she said, although her eyes asked him to not leave. "Nobody's visited her since the lion got out and her mom died, though. Not worth the effort."

Joshua ran his hand through his hair, trying to find some way to bring the show girl along with him. It wasn't so much that he needed her for a specific purpose, but his heart cried out to her being alone in this scary setting. "Look, I can tell that you don't want me leave you, I can sense it in your eyes. I've been at death's door and even beyond, trust me, I'll protect you." Joshua got up for a second and took off his jacket, and wrapped it around the show girl. "Before we go, could you tell me everything you know about this lion monster? Did it act strange around certain objects, were there any apparent weaknesses?" Joshua wanted to know if he could find out any useful information concerning the beast, just in case Josh came across the monster's path. Joshua continued to stand and reached his hand to the show girl to offer to help her up. "Please come with me, if the monster could have entered this room before it can surely enter it again, looks like it would be more safe to have someone with you, ya know?"

She shook her head, her hands digging into the hair of the decomposing horse head. She obviously wasn't leaving. "The lion... it was dark, and it was smarter than a regular lion. Like a human. You could tell. It's not sane, though. And it's... angry. Angry at us. I don't know why."

"Thank you, miss. You've been helpful. I want you to come along, and I don't want to leave you, but my life is on the line here. I hope you understand." Letting the show girl keep his jacket, Joshua gave her one final look in her eyes before he headed out of the tent. Going away from where he once was, Joshua kept his whip out at all times, wondering how a lion could transform into a monster. Once he was away from the show girl, Joshua looked around to see what was around him and any indication or sign that would tell him where the fortune teller's daughter could be located.

He hadn't gone very far out of the tent when, from inside the main tent he had just left, he heard a very loud scream, obviously from the showgirl. It was cut off abruptly. Then, much much lower, was a small chuckle.

Joshua stopped walking, closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh. Hesitating only a second before his courage prompted him to go back into the main tent, Joshua turned around, gritted his teeth together in anticipation of a fight and snapped his whip once out of sheer anger. Boldly continuing through the tent flap, all traces of fear left Josh's face when he thought of the showgirl, only anger and silent determination replaced it. 

Inside, there was a bloody mess. The showgirl lay on her back, her neck almost severed in two with the force of the attack. She had maybe tried to stand, but had fallen on the head of her horse. Over her stood a lanky, bloody figure, one side almost completely covered in the showgirl's blood. It looked up and grinned.

It was Johnathan.

Johnathan gave a quirky smile, holding onto a knife that was drenched in red. "Look what I found!" he said, although it wasn't easy to tell if he was talking about the knife or the girl.

Joshua stopped as soon as he started to run into the main tent, looking into the eyes of who killed him before. Nothing but pure malice could be found in Joshua's gaze towards Johnathan. Taking a quick look around, Joshua snapped his whip as fast and loud as possible, trying to release his anger that could soon cloud his reason. Closing his eyes slowly, Joshua exhaled a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, an unknown quality could be sensed, one that had been with Josh when he was released from death's grip. Never looking away from Johnathan, Joshua asked him, "So is this what you like to do for fun? I guess you get off on this, don't you. You better hope that the Goddess calls you back from that hell hole not even the devil is worthy of after this round is over." With that, Joshua slowly walked towards Johnathan, his whip snapping with every step.

"Are you sad over the girl?" Johnathan replied, grinning and crouching slightly. "She was just sitting around, waiting for Death. Well... found her." He was flipping the knife around in his fingers, his gaze unafraid of the whip as he stood, waiting for Joshua to reach him.

The only remark Joshua said after that was, "See you in Hell." With that he lunged forward and swung the whip around, aiming for Johnathan's foot to trip him up. Josh's plan after that was to force him down the large whole in the center of the main tent.

The whip wrapped around Johnathan's ankle and knocked the boy bodily to the ground. Just as quickly, with inhuman reflexes and strength, Johnathan had jerked out the knife and snipped off the end of the whip that was keeping him down. He began to laugh, running straight at Joshua, in danger of getting too close for the whip to work well.

Joshua, realizing he probably only had one more good snap at Johnathan before his whip would be partially useless, at least for the main purpose of it, aimed at Johnathan's eyes, hoping to blind him. Before he could pull off the action, trying to match Johnathan's speed, Joshua tripped as he was power walking backwards. "Oh damn," he stated as he could see Johnathan's eyes getting closer and his laugh becoming louder. In a last ditch effort, Joshua rolled over to his side as fast as he could.

Johnathan lashed out with his knife, scoring a shallow hit on Joshua's non-whip arm, stopping his chuckling as he stumbled past, taking time to regain his balance, flipping the knife in the air as he straightened and turned to track Joshua.

Joshua grunted, squeezing his injured arm with his hand, trying to stem the blood. Throughout all of this fighting, Josh had to chuckle a little bit. At least I got him to stop laughing for a second. With the adrenaline shooting through his veins to an all time high, Joshua was fighting to focus on not only his attacker but the surroundings. As quickly as he could, Josh looked around to see if there was anything useful he could use against this Johnathan who had super human reflexes and strength.

There were a few useless things lying around, remnants of old acts: a few broken plastic hula hoops, a deflated ball, a worn bit of an old horse bridle, a few scraps of fabric. The closest large thing was the collapsed platform, with broken wood poking out from the hole in the center, once painted a bright white and now dulled and splintered, nails still embedded. The only two actual weapons in the place were Joshua's whip, now missing a good foot or two, and the blood-encrusted knife in Johnathan's hand. Johnathan's face was sporting a mocking grin as he locked eyes with Joshua.

Even with the situation not turning out as Joshua had planned, his courage and resolve didn't shrink. With an idea already formulating in his mind, Joshua tried to snap what was left of the whip at Johnathan's eyes. Not even looking to see if Josh had hit his mark, he spun around towards the broken platform. Stopping at the opposite side of hole with splintered wood sticking out, Joshua waited to see how Johnathan would react.

Johnathan jerked his head out of the way just enough to not get blinded, although the whip tore across the side of his head and left an ugly rip-gash along his cheek, traveling from his jawline up past his ear. He stumbled a bit, apparently not oblivious to pain, but insanity won out and Johnathan continued to advance. He got to the platform and grimaced, jumping up and balancing at the edge of the platform, looking down at Joshua with almost contempt.

Joshua feinted as though he would try to strike Johnathan's face again but then changed the angle to wrap around his feet. His only prayer was that he would trip up Johnathan and swing him into the hole before he had time to react.

Johnathan had crouched, only to have the whip wrap around an ankle. His strange angle drew him into the hole as though he was sitting down. Johnathan gave a yell as a nail from a loose board stabbed into and through his leg. He scrunched his eyes, pausing, then opened them, still focused on Joshua. He grinned, the blood from his wound seeping into his mouth until he looked like a crazy clown covered in red facepaint. Johnathan began trying to yank his leg up, still trapped to the board.

Joshua didn't smile when his victory was at hand. Returning Johnathan's stare with an even colder one of his own, Joshua said, "That was for killing me in the abandoned mansion." Straightening out his whip, Joshua's eyes left Johnathan's and looked over his shoulder to the remains of the now deceased show girl. "And this, is for her,” he stated as his gaze returned back to his murderer while Joshua raised whip very high, aiming for Johnathan's eyes.

Johnathan jerked his arms up in an automatic reflex to hide her face. The whip, when it came down, bit into the flesh of his arms. Johnathan bit back a yelp, then in retaliation, flipped the knife towards Joshua. The combination of the slick handle and his semi-mutilated hands caused the knife to go rogue... Otherwise, Joshua would have been breathing out of a hole in his throat. The knife managed to make a good-sized cut in Joshua's shoulder, and Johnathan began pulling at his leg more urgently now. He didn't look like he feared death, only the end of his playtime.

Joshua yelled out in pain, dropping his whip to try to stem the bleeding. He crouched as he tried to stop the agony searing through his shoulder. Looking at Johnathan in sheer amazement, Joshua never encountered who could dismiss such pain in all of his life like Johnathan could. "Who the hell are you...what the hell are you?"

"Beyond the looking glass," Johnathan muttered, grabbing his leg and pulling it up severely. He growled at the pain, blinded for a few seconds, before adrenaline caught up with him again and he stood, wobbly. He wasn't fully in control of his injured leg, but enough to stand. Johnathan looked down and picked up a board with a couple of wicked-looking nails out the end of it, stumbling like a drunk on drugs towards Joshua, letting the times he almost fell propel him forwards. His grip was slipping on the board, too, but his eyes were wide with enthusiasm.

Joshua's calm face dropped to a jaw dropping wide-eyed face of disbelief. He was now certain that this probably wasn't Johnathan, if Johnathan was human, this thign certainly wasn't. His hand still on his shoulder and with his whip lyign on the floor, Joshua was running out of options. With no time to reach for his whip due to Johnathan advancing on him, Joshua prayed silently to whichever gods were listening as ran forward and aimed both feet to kick Johnathan's injured leg. Joshua closed his eyes, hoping that he would hit the right spot and that would knock.

Johnathan certainly wasn't prepared for that. He yelped as Joshua sent a flare of pain up his leg, and fell over, rolling clumsily as he released the board, his hands twitching with the pain. Johnathan tried to get up, but only ended up falling down again; something in his leg had broken, and it refused to support him any longer. His face whipped up, eyes still tracking Joshua even as he lay bleeding in the dirt. His hands were curled into claws and he still looked as though at any moment he could run up to Joshua and tear his throat out.

Joshua for the second time yelled out in pain. Due to both feet attacking Johnathan, Joshua was forced to land on his side and that didn't sit well with his injured shoulder, causing more blood to flow from it. After a second had passed, Joshua forced the pain from his mind and immediatly sat up to see if he had downed his attacker, groaning from the pain in his shoulder while doing so. As fast as he could, which wasn't very quick, Joshua reached for his fallen whip. When he retrieved it, Josh also went to pick up the dagger Johnathan had thrown at him. With both weapons, Joshua walked back to Johnathan with a grim, somber look in his eyes. Joshua never did enjoy killing the man at the copier in the first round, but he had to do in self defense. Now it seems that Joshua once again had to slay a lethal force to stay alive. Thinking about the show girl and that pleading look in her eyes, Joshua didn't hesitate to aim his whip at Johnathan's throat to cut off his air supply.

Throughout the subsequent choking and muffled screams, Johnathan's grin never went away. He was still trying to stand, but was unable; his hands no longer obeyed his commands, and his vision was going black from the shock to his windpipe. He could only lay there, still grinning.

Throughout all of this, Joshua could only wonder what Johnathan really was. Killing him certainly wouldn't bring back the showgirl, but at least justice would finally be served. After a second, Joshua simply stated, "See you in Hell."

With that dramatic last line, Johnathan finally passed out from lack of oxygen as his windpipe collapsed from the stress. He died with the grin still on his face.

Joshua slowly turned and walked away from the now deceased Johnathan with everything that happened in the last couple of minutes on his mind. Taking one last look at the mangled showgirl, Josh exited the main tent, in the direction of the show girl's last words on where the daughter of the fortune teller.

He found himself once again outside, now walking down a row of tents. A few platforms sat in front of them, empty, but some still held the aura of possibly holding life within. Once upon a time, criers would stand outside and try to get people to see a freak of nature for just a dollar, or fifty cents, within the tent. But now the freaks were alone, if they were even in there.

Around one of the tents, there was a loud buzzing noise.

Joshua cautiously went towards the buzzing, with what was remaining of his whip in his hand. Once he had to stop and close his eyes along the way, trying to push the pain out of his shoulder. Joshua was about to call out and see if anyone was there, but wisely held his tongue. He continued to see what was causing the buzzing noise.

The buzzing turned into a humming, like a hive. The air didn't exactly grow thick with flies, but there were a lot there that hadn't been previously.

And then Joshua could look down a dark 'hallway' between two tents, barely narrow enough for two people to stand side-by-side. Down a ways there was a slightly open flap.

The source of the flies was right in front of the opening in the tent. The head of Todd, one of the competitors, lay at the opening, face facing away. The head looked ripped off, sections of the neck gouged by what looked like the claws or teeth of a massive animal. The blood was so thick on the ground, having been in the summer heat for at least as long as Joshua had been in this carnival, that the air was almost chokingly horrific.

Joshua took a step back by reflex, coughing like he had just inhaled a deadly amount of smoke. With his good arm trying to cover his mouth, Joshua took a good look at what remained of Todd's head. Another one bites the dust, huh. He didn't have any quarrels with Todd and Joshua felt pity for him, not even having the dignity of being buried. Even though Josh was pressed for time, death didn't destroy his empathy, so Joshua took the Johnathan's knife and started digging a small hole in the ground outside the tent. When he was finished, Joshua bravely went inside and grabbed Todd's head, quickly dropped it inside the hole and shoved dirt over it. "Rest in peace,” Joshua said, trying his best to remember the contestant's name.

"He took the head," a low, female voice whispered in the tent.

"Was it going to be bait?" a similar voice echoed, although distinct from the first.

"I hadn't decided yet," the first voice whispered, getting quieter. The two voices giggled.

Joshua, as quick as he could, spun around and crouched, readying his whip; all oh his adrenaline was rushing back into his veins that took away the pain in his shoulder. "Whose there?" he proclaimed loudly, knowing that secrecy won't help this time since they already knew where he was.

"Oh no, the boy heard us," the second voice muttered, sounding entirely unconcerned.

"Why don't you come inside our tent and visit?" the first voice purred. "We're just two..."

"Lonely sisters," the second voice finished flawlessly. If it weren't for a slight change in tone, it would have sounded like the same sentence.

Though Joshua hasn't had much experience with girls in his life and the thought of any girl admitting that she was lonely sounded perfect to his hormones, Joshua had time to think through the situation. Ok, think Josh. Who in their right mind would stay in a tent that smelled so raunchy and actually had a dead body in it? From what his very short experience of this tournament, Joshua could figure out the chances of it being a sort of trap. After a moment, Joshua awkwardly said, "Umm, I'm good. How about you two come out here? To gross to go back in there," he lied, even though it was very disgusting.

The two giggled again. "It isn't at all, this is..."

"Just the way we like it."

However, there was movement at the tent flap, and then a girl poked out her head. She didn't look much older than the showgirl, but was a lot prettier, or at least looked better maintained. She had avoided an emaciated look, and her stage makeup wasn't smudged with constant tears. A second head poked out just below the first, and it was a mirror image. The hair was done up in different styles on the two, but it was obvious that they were twins, or at least closely-related sisters.

"He's cute," the one on top giggled.

"For It, or for Us?" the one on bottom whined, her bottom lip sticking out.

"I haven't decided yet," the sister replied. She turned her attention to Johnathan. "Please come inside," she said. "There are fewer flies in here. They don't like the dark, and there's nothing to eat in here... anymore."

Joshua had to stop himself from dropping his jaw when he saw the two extremely gorgeous girls. His hormones and blood started to pump fast through his veins , but in the end his reason won the internal battle. "You know what, I think I prefer to stay out here. But actually, do you know where the fortune teller's daughter is? I need to have my fortune told; it is kinda a life death situation."

"Life..."

"Or death?" The lower sister's face fell into a frown, but the one up above kept her composure. As a unit, they moved into the light. Once they were fully illuminated, it was obvious why they had to move together.

They both had on a strapless dress with slits cut into the torso, running up and down the sides, ending a bit after the navel. The slits were numerous, and through one of the slits, it was obvious that the sisters were thoroughly connected at the hip. Literally.

Their eyes scanned his own body, hands resting casually on each other's hip or shoulder. They were now obviously identical twins. "Lion-tamer, the fortune teller is dead," they said in unison.

Silently thanking himself for not going into a dark place with the two girls, Joshua tried hard not to stare at them. "Yes, I've heard about that. And before you tell me that her daughter isn't very good, could you tell me where she is? I've been through hell, literally, and just want to finish this tournament." Displaying no hostile signs, Josh waited for the typical cryptic answer.

"She will be dead, as well..."

"Soon," the second sister finished, the frown disappearing to a smile. "Very soon. It is looking."

"It had a snack, but soon, It will be hungry again," the first sister purred. "You waste your time on this."

"Look, if your not going to help me that is fine, I'll start looking on my own. It would be a whole lot faster if you at least told me which way to go." Joshua's patience was starting to lessen with each passing moment. Figuring the chances of the two twins actually helping were small, Josh started to turn to walk away.

Both sisters scowled, then one withdrew a whistle. It wasn't a dog whistle; when she blew on it, the sound was audible and quite piercing. But then she put it away. Although she was still frowning, there was almost a steel-edged smile in her voice.

"Go find her, then," the first sister said. "You two can die..."

"Together."

From somewhere in the carnival, there was a roar. In fact, the sun was going down.

In light of the situation, Joshua smiled. At least they gave me a solid response instead of wasting my time. Thinking that the monster was closer to the fortune teller's daughter than he was, he promptly flipped the twins the bird and raced after the direction where he thought the lion was.

"Too bad," the first twin muttered, clinging to her sister. "I would have liked to add him to our collection. He so deserves..."

"The preservation process." The two sisters picked their way into the tent, looking up in the dim light at the mummified corpse nailed to what used to be the wall against which someone would stand and have knifes thrown at them. The remains were very dried up, but it looked like two people, side by side. Nails were buried into their arms and shoulders, pinning them to the wall together. A thin bit of tearing, dried skin attached them at the waist. "Can't collect them all," the second twin mumbled. "It has to eat some. And It will..."

"Soon get another meal," the first twin purred.

Joshua soon found himself in more of the attraction area; mainly, the tents where the freaks were held. He could see a rustle as a woman stuck her head out and regard the sun, then close the tent flap firmly. Sound within the tents drew to a minimum. The place was closing down.

Joshua found himself thinking maybe to climb a tent and see what he could find, but after considering the state of his shoulder is he doubted he could get very high up. So against his better judgement due to this place being filled with freaks, he knockdd on the tent's flap, hoping the woman would help him to get to the fortune teller's daughter.

From inside the tent, there was a muffled noise, like a squeak. There was a pause, and then the woman said, "Nobody's here!"

With his patience running though, Joshua knocked again but this time instead of waiting for an answer he just walked right on in.

It wasn't as easy as that-there were pegs embedded into the floor that held the tent flap closed, plus a few ties doing the same along the side. But after a bit of force, especially from practically falling into the tent flap after it not opening right away, Joshua got through.

It was dark inside the tent, obviously, and it took a second or two for his eyes to adjust. By that time, he was able to see that he was on the wrong end of a knife that was uncomfortably close to his throat, with an indignant woman on the other end. She was almost literally covered with tattoo's, and scowled at him. "I could gut you now but I'm tired of cleaning up my floor," she scowled. Behind her, there was an older woman on the floor, playing with some cards, looking indifferent to the situation.

"Okay, okay, I was wrong to barge in here," Joshua said, raising his hands to look passive. "Please, I won't be any trouble. I just have to find the fortune teller or her daughter to get out of here. Do you know where she might be?"

"Yeah, you bet your ass you were wrong. And yeah," the tattooed girl said, not lowering her knife. "I know where she is. You might wanna leave, start figuring it out yourself."

The woman behind him pulled Joshua's whip out of her sleeves. "He's not an Other," she murmured. "You should go with him."

Joshua was just so very confused now. "What are you talking about, an Other? What Others?" When feeling his whip being taken from him, Joshua flinched. He usually would grab at it, but seeing how there was still a woman with a knife to his throat, he thought it best not to make any sudden moves. "Umm, can I have that back? I kinda need if you guys throw me outside."

The magician woman tugged a large hat closer to her, then stuffed the whip inside. Soon, Joshua could feel a familiar weight at his hip. "You don't belong here, obviously. Old woman's intuition," the magician murmured, shuffling some cards. "It's towards the end of this place. And it's might be the actor in me... I always love a good curtain call."

The tattooed girl stuck her knife back in her sheath. "If something big's going down, I should be there," she said pointedly, staring at Joshua as though daring him to deny her.

Josh could hardly believe how his luck has turned around. Feeling the whip back on his hip, his hope was starting to rise again. Straightening his back a little, Joshua looked to the tattooed girl and certainly didn't disagree with her. "So, you guys want to help me?"

"Only me," the girl said, ushering the Joshua out of the tent. "And I'm more of a tagalong to see what's going on. We don't get visitors anymore," she added, starting up a brisk stride down the row Joshua had been going down. "You being here's got to mean something." The knife at her hip gleamed menacingly in the light left to them, and though they felt eyes on them, they weren't confronted.

Joshua felt confident, now having someone at his side in this hell of a place. Walking beside her, Josh asked, "So the fortune teller's daughter is close around here?"

"Should be right around the corner," the tattooed girl said. "I'm the Painted Woman, by the way. 'case you couldn't figure it out. I had a copy, way back when," she said abruptly. "Killed it. After that, the other copies left me alone... probably waiting for me to get weaker. Nobody else really fights back." She shuts up at that, squeezing between two tents and dragging Josh behind her.



When they came out, she stopped all of a sudden. To their left, Skreeg was standing there, his intense gaze staring into the shadows and drawing their own eyes. In the shadows, darker than normal, was the lion, his tail twitching as his golden eyes focused on the two newcomers.

"Well, ain't that just fucking epic," the Painted Woman breathed, her hand immediately going to her hip and grabbing her machete.

Joshua followed suit and grabbed his whip, making a sound snap in the direction of the monster lion. Leaning slightly to the Painted Woman, Josh didn't have any time to ask her what she meant by "copies" but instead asked, "So...do you know how to kill this thing?"

"It dies just like everything else, I'd assume," the Painted Woman said. "Except, y'know, it's a lion." She stared at it as it stared back, its eyes on the whip. "And it's smarter. The first Other made. I think it's the..."

The lion opened its mouth then, roaring out a challenge. In the shadows around them, shapes began rustling about, eyes opening in the dark as the sun sank down.

"Leader," the Painted Woman said, her voice more of a curse.

Skreeg jumped at the woman's voice, blinked at them then back at the lion. He continued to back away from all the movement.

Joshua wasn't really in the mood to fight a lion just now, since his shoulder was still bleeding from Johnathan's attack, but he reasoned no where else he could go now. Hearing the roar, his courage rose once again that day to fight this monster of an enemy. Challanging back the roar, Joshua cracked the whip twice in rapid succession and to further taunt the beast Josh finished with a, "Here kitty kitty kitty kitty." Throughout all of this, his eyes quickly scaned to his left and right, trying to see what was making those shadows move.

The lion glared at Joshua. He rumbled, low, and the shadows began to manifest into forms.

"Shit," the Painted Woman said. "Shit fuck damn. The Others have never all come out at once like this. They've never been this organized. Shit, why now?" She twirled her knife and took out the first attacker with a clean swipe across the throat. Another lunged at Skreeg, and one at Joshua. They were testing them.

During this, the lion slinked around the group and started to stalk towards where the other contestants were, who were now outside and speaking with an old woman while a younger woman screamed at them.

Luckily for Skreeg, he excelled at darting around and evading things, so like the little rodent he was he yelped and sped this way and that, trying to find somewhere safe to hide.

From their vantage point, they could see the old woman press something into Jiten's hands just as mist began to curl around their feet. The Painted Woman looked on with an incredulous expression as Skreeg and Joshua disappeared into it. The last thing they saw was her taking a sharp blow to a shoulder, the wound leaking blood as she spun to nearly decapitate the secret attacker.

---

Jiten looked around slowly. This seemed to be some kind of festival, except there were hulking contraptions unlike anything he had ever seen. There were booths everywhere, and many of them housed what looked like games. "Fortune," he muttered to himself. "Hm." He was so tired of this tournament, and the last stage of it had put quite a dent in his energy. His stomach gurgled and he realized that he had not eaten since the morning before he had been whisked away to the arena. Maybe one of these booths had food... He wandered through the fog in search of some kind of sustenance.

He found himself in a row of booths. They were silent, but some of them were for making food. The equipment was there, but nobody stood by the fryers or condiments to make anything. However, they hadn't been abandoned long; there was no dust on many of the flat metal surfaces, although a lot of what Jiten saw was coated with a healthy amount of carnival grime.

Jiten sighed. That would have been too easy. He rummaged through some supplies in one of the booths and found some small packages. He ripped one open and white powder poured out. He picked up a pinch of it and tasted it; it was sugar. Well, that was a start... he stuffed a couple dozen packets in his robes. When he saw there was nothing left in that booth, he moved on to the next, where he once again rummaged through the supplies. This time he found a few bars of pink... something wrapped in some kind of clear packaging. He tore one open and sniffed it, but it just smelled kind of sweet. He cautiously bit into it. It tasted like the caramel corn that Seril had gotten him at another carnival, but sweeter. The taste brought back images of his adoptive mother. He wondered if she even knew he was gone.... Suddenly he snapped back to his senses. He had to get moving if he wanted to win this round. He finished the bar he had in his hand, and grabbed a couple more, which he stuffed in his pockets with the sugar. He once again wandered out into the fog. "Fortune," he murmurered under his breath once again. There had to be a tea-leaf reader or some such around here somewhere. He wandered through the booths, looking for eyes, runes, or other markings associated with the fortune-telling trade.

Now that he was looking more closely not just within the booths, Jiten saw movement in a narrow space between two of the food tents, where the people had apparently been throwing their trash.

Now that he wasn't so hungry, Jiten was far more vigilant than he had been. As soon as he saw the movement, he crouched into a defensive stance and rendered himself invisible. When nothing happened, he relinquished his hold on the light around him and walked slowly to the space between the booths.

A small boy, about three inches shorter than Jiten, froze, crouched in the garbage. He stared at Jiten. His face was covered in clown makeup, streaked on crazily as though it was almost thrown at the boy. He held a half-eaten caramel apple in his hand. He refused to move, waiting for Jiten to make the first one.

Jiten spoke quietly. "Hello." He pulled out one of the bars of pink corn-like substance and proffered it to the small boy. "Hungry?"

The boy's eyes widened, staring at the food. He looked around, like somebody was going to hit him, then snatched the bar from Jiten's hand, standing it and tearing off the wrapping almost angrily. The apple dropped to the floor, brown and dry. Now that the boy was standing, it wasn't hard to see him wearing clown clothes. They were even more exaggerated on his frame. He had probably filled them out better a while ago.

"So you're a performer?" Jiten asked the boy. "Do you know of a fortune-teller around here?" He pulled another of the bars from his robe. "I'll give you this if you tell me."

The boy gave the bar a rueful look, knowing he can't take it. He cleared his throat, obviously an effort for him. "The girl saw her get eaten a while ago," he said. His voice was incredibly raspy from disuse. "Her daughter tells the fortunes now, but she's no good."

Jiten tossed the bar to the boy. "Then can yout tell me where to find this daughter?" He watched the boy carefully as he ate.

The guy scarfed down the bar, not even questioning it. When he was good and done, he stared at Jiten, licking his fingers. "It's not safe to go by yourself," he said. "It's wandering around all the time."

"'It'? What is 'it'?" Jiten asked. "You seem to be out by yourself, which means you probably know your way around pretty well. If you come with me..." Jiten thought about what he could offer the boy. "If you come with me, I'll show you where I got that food." He hoped that would be incentive enough for this boy to help him.

The clown boy's eyes gleamed and his face broke into a wide smile. It seemed almost insane, but only because of the haphazard makeup smeared over his face. "Yes," he said, having planned to at least follow Jiten around, if the boy was smart enough to get food. "I can show you. But we have to be quick." He began walking down the rows of booths, now ignoring the trash, although his eyes glanced over at the piles occasionally out of habit.

Jiten followed the boy carefully, ready to turn invisible and run at any moment. Hopefully this boy was smart enough not to lead Jiten into a trap. If he did that, he'd never get his food.

The young boys came four-way path. In the middle, there was a stick; the clown walked over to the stick and picked it up, balanced it on its end, concentrated, then let go. The stick hovered vertically for just a second, then finally gravity took over and it clanked to its side, down to the boy's left. "We're going to see the midget," the clown said. "He knows everything, and if she's not there anymore, he'll tell us."

Jiten glanced nervously at the stick, hoping that the hovering was the only thing it could do. "The midget?" he repeated as he followed the boy.

"He runs a lot of this place," the clown said, walking. "Some people says it runs itself, and he just looks on. Either way, he should know about..." His eyes darkened and he pulled up to a stop. "Wait," he said, his gaze now flitting around. His eyes widened, and he crouched down a little, the sound padding paws almost audible now. "Quiet," he hissed. Without warning, he grabbed Jiten and pulled him behind a small pile of crates, into a shadow, curling himself into a little ball and squeezing shut his eyes.

Jiten prudently hid behind the boy and rendered himself invisible, looking for whatever it was the boy had noticed. "What?" he whispered. "What is it?"

"Shh!" the clown said, his eyes widening at Jiten's disappearance and even more at the fact that Jiten might reveal him. He closed his eyes again, his dirty hands clenched into fists.

From just out of the corner of their view, a dark tail swished into sight. And then suddenly, not twenty feet in front of them, was a lion.

The lion was strange... it was as if somebody took a picture of a lion in shadows and photoshopped that sort of effect onto an actual lion. It seemed eternally covered in darkness that was always shifting over its flank. And something about it was wrong. Normal lions didn't stalk that way, as if they had somewhere important to be. They didn't look like that at all.

The lion slowed a bit, then stopped, looking over its shoulder. Its dark eyes seemed to stare straight at Jiten, and its jowls dripped bright red blood, still fresh. Its eyes were too intelligent for any normal animal. Then it turned, dismissing the two, and padded off, hurrying to a certain portion of the fair. It turned the corner and then vanished.

As soon as it was out of sight Jiten turned to the boy without reappearing. "What the hell was that?" he asked angrily, his voice seeming to appear out of nothing. He had seen some very strange animals in the employ of Seril, but that had been.... He needed to learn to just take things as they came in this tournament, that was the only way he would survive.

The boy glared at Jiten, or the space his voice was coming from, standing and brushing himself off. He was still shaking slightly, but was slowly getting over it. "Not important," he said, still acting miffed that Jiten had talked while they were hiding. "Just gotta keep moving." He glanced down at where the lion had been, gauging its prints to see exactly where it had been heading off to, then headed not quite in the opposite direction, but avoiding the lion.

Glad to be going away from the lion, Jiten reappeared and walked behind the clown boy. "Sorry I spoke," Jiten apologized. "I didn't mean to upset you, I was just curious as to what that creature was. I suppose in this case, curiosity almost caused the cat to kill." Jiten nervously chuckled, his joke an attempt to lighten the mood.

The clown kept moving, his glower not even lightening. "Probably already made a kill," the boy said, gloomily. "Dunno who. It's not like there's many people left." His face darkened, an odd look with his makeup. "It killed most everybody else."

The boy stopped up short. "This is his place," he said, folding his arms over his torso, suddenly acting self-conscious. "...you sure you want to do this?"

Jiten thought about the other things he had done in this insane tournament. "Well, no," he replied honestly. "But I don't really have a choice."

"Always gotta choice," the boy muttered, but he still reached out and rustled the flap of the tent they stood in front of.

There was general grumbling inside, but a voice eventually said, "Come in." The boy pushed open the flap to show a very dimly lit space, covered with bookshelves and books. There was a very narrow path, and one had to transverse it carefully in order to not knock over any of the piles of manuscripts, rolled-up posters, or thick volumes that were haphazardly strewn about. The boy rounded a corner and came upon the owner.

He was seated in a very tall chair, so that he was about eye-level with the books. The boys could both now see the middle-aged dwarf who sat, peering at them skeptically. "And what are you doing here?" he snapped.

Jiten looked at the clown-child before speaking, "I am in need of a fortune-teller. I am a contestant in a maddening tournament run by the Goddess," he paused, remembering the names that the woman had gone by in the other stages up to now. "You may know her as the Lady." He peered hopefully at the squat figure that sat perched in the chair.

The dwarf scowled. "The records say that the fortune teller is disappeared," he said, a shrunken hand snaking out and opening a yellowed tome. It fell open to the right page, and his eyes perused it. "Either dead, or not a part of the carnival. And the only Lady I know is the Fat Lady." He smirked. "And she ain't no Goddess. Now either stop wasting my time or get out of my sight."

"You don't understand," said Jiten. "I need to get my fortune told." He made a low sweeping bow. "If there is anyone in this crazy carnival that can tell me my fortune, I would be much obliged if you told me where they are."

The dwarf made a snorting sound. "Her daughter's still on the premises," he said, almost hesitantly. "I'd hardly call what she does fortune telling, though. Not worth the trouble of walking around in daylight around this place." His hands pushed aside the yellow tome and he stood, jumping down. He glanced at the various volumes surrounding his head until he found a very thin one, walking back to his chair and climbing back onto it. He opened it carefully, his eyes scanning the page. "...Well, if you're brave or stupid, she's on the edge of the carnival. Away from here, in a trailer, just past the attraction tents. Where a lot of the killings have been done, actually. If you are neither brave nor stupid, then don't go... You can stay with Conner here." He nodded to the clown boy. "Hard to make a living, but at least that's what you'll be doing."

As tempting as it was, Jiten had to turn down the offer. "I'm sorry," he said. "I have to get my fortune told." It was the only way he would ever get home. With that, he walked out the door and headed for the edge of the carnival.

The clown boy looked at the dwarf, who sneered and closed his book. The boy headed outside the tent after Jiten. "You still need help?" he asked.

Jiten stopped to let the boy catch up. "Sure," he said. "You seem to know your way around here, at least more than I do." As he started walking again, he realized that he had never told the boy where the food stash was. "Oh hey, did you still want to know where I found that food?"

The boy looked at his feet as he walked. "Yeah, sure," he said, muttering. "I guess after we find the fortune teller." He bit his lip. "I dunno, they said she died, but I heard rumors that..." He trailed off a little. "People have been disappearing and reappearing a lot," he finally said. "But when they reappear you can't always trust them. They're different."

"Different? Different how? Different like that lion?" Jiten shuddered at the thought. "The food was in one of those booths near where I found you. We can go get some right now before we head out to the edge of the carnival, if you want," Jiten just wanted to get to the fortune-teller, but the happier his guide was, the faster they would get there.

The boy bit his lip. "You're going to leave once you find the psychic, aren't you," he said. His voice was twinged with an odd emotion on such a young boy... Bitter envy.

Jiten stopped. "Well... I would imagine so. I guess I could ask the Goddess to take you with us... but I don't know if that's such a great idea." He thought about the last stages of the tournament. "But if you help me win, my request will be more likely to be honored. So let's go find that psychic."

The clown boy looked at his shoes, biting his lip. "It's okay if you leave me behind," he said. "Everybody leaves but nobody gets out of here. It'll be... good to know that somebody could leave. The dwarf said my name was Conner," he added abruptly as they passed by an opening to the rides section of the carnival. "I'd forgotten, but you can call me that if you want."

Without waiting for an answer, he pulled up short, gripping Jiten's arm. They had come upon what looked like a wall of tents up ahead of them, with two ways to go: right or left. But the boy wasn't looking at that, but rather at the muddy ground in front of the fork. A few glimmering strands shone from the mud.



Johnathan gave a great grin as he came upon the two, mainly because of the familiar face. He sauntered up behind the two silently and towered over them without a word and only a smile. His eyes followed the line of sight that the boy holding onto Jiten's arm was keeping. "Eh, wot we got 'ere?" He asked with a slight whisper while bending over just a wee bit.

Jiten followed the clown boy's sight and saw the strands. As he heard Johnathan whisper behind him, he whipped around. "Johnathan," he said with a smile. Suddenly he realized that this once again meant competition. His smile shrank a bit before he could stop it. He looked at the clown boy, "Clown boy, this is Johnathan. Johnathan, clown boy. Sorry, I don't really know your name," He apologized to the young boy. "Anyhow, what's all that shiny stuff?"

Johnathan patted the top of Jiten's head. "Ah yes, 'tis I, 'tis I." With every syllable, he gave another pat untill his eyes rested on the 'clown boy' and so his hand just rested on Jiten's head. "Say, after we find what this wonderful substance before us is, how 'bout you two tell me if you've seen another me skulking about...." He tapped his chin with his scabbed over finger. "Though, you probably would have only seen him in a mirror. I feel that I have hurt his feelings."

The boy had gone through quite a few emotions. First, his eyes lit up at the sight of another clown, resting on Johnathan and glittering a little. Then he began to sulk as Jiten forgot his name after he had just told him-although, quite frankly, the clown boy had forgotten it by now as well. And now the clown boy jerked into attention at the mention of the word mirror, the strands forgotten. "You got... A copy?" he asked. "I think I've seen them before, although the original is usually disappeared. You won't want to go looking for it, sir. Imitations around here are... never good news." He shook his head as if to emphasize his point. "Dun worry about hurting its feelings. I dun think they got any."

Johnathan stared almost dumbfoundedly for only a moment at the boy. "Ahhhhhhhhhhh, so I see!" He nodded a few times.

"Sorry Conner," Jiten said, realizing he had already forgotten the boy's name. "It's just that I saw Johnathan here, and I remembered... other things." From what he had just heard him say about copies, he made a mental note to stay away from mirrors while in the carnival. "Anyhow, what are those little strands?"

Conner looked at Jiten strangely until he remembered that Conner was his name. His gaze then traveled to the strands. "We can't touch them, and there's not enough room to safely go around," Conner said. "Anybody here got anything... shiny? Or small and alive?"

"Well, we have you, small one." Johnathan said with an all too unnerving smile. "You happen to be small and alive." He lifted his palm from Jiten's head and began to fish around in his pockets. With every movement of rummaging, Johnathan made a different, quite humorous face untill he snapped his attention back to 'Conner'. "But I think I've found something better." He stood frozen with his hand in his pocket for a moment of suspense.

Instead of leaning in during the moment of suspense, like he was prone to do during some of the circus acts, Conner felt himself withdraw a little, hunching his shoulders and frowning. He had seen enough of the damage the strands could cause, even though it was usually stray cats, that joking about throwing him in wasn't funny at all. "Let's see it," he said, ruining the moment.

"Well, poo, small one." Johnathan wrinkled his nose just a tiny bit before pulling the object out. It was a small, mechanical mouse made of clear plastic with a wind up key attached. It glinted even through the smokey atmosphere of the circus. "Bet you're jealous." He said to no one in particualar. "Not everyone has a cute little wind up mouse in their pockets. It moves like it's real and it's shiny." Johny poked his chin out a centimeter.

Now Conner was reluctant. "Can we use it to bargain with the Widow?" he asked, not wanting to take it from him if it was that precious.

Jiten had considered offering up the nightstone he had procured for Seril, but when he saw that Johnathan had a much shinier, and much more interesting offering, he decided against it. "The Widow?" That sounded like Seril... the strands had to be spiderwebs. Spiderwebs he could deal with, but what had lain them there... He surveyed the scene and realized that whatever had created this web had to be very large.

"Yeah," Conner said. "She's sort of, uh... I guess one of the freaks. She can be called off by bargaining with her, though."

"Bargain?!" Johnathan sounded mildly shocked, though he realy wasn't. He just like to overplay emotions. "What's wrong with my mouse? You're not going to bargain with it, are you?" His long fingers curled around the object before a soft grin covered the faked shock.

Conner crossed his arms over his stomach, already thinking about other possibilities. "It's more of a distraction," he muttered, missing the soft grin as he stared at his feet. He was used to dealing with overly dramatic people, but usually, they took themselves overly serious to match.

"Distractions are good." Johnathan said with a nod to himself. He grabbed the short one's hand from its crossed position and curled the boy's fingers around the little object after depositing it in his palm. "There we are. Use it as you please, small one. I can steal another."

Conner looked up at Johnathan, decided he wouldn't get mad, and then turned to where the next started. He skirted around the outside until he found a good position, then raised his hand up to his mouth and gave whistled, long and loud. "Oye, Widow!" he shouted.

From the shadows a figure stirred. A small woman, dressed in black with her eyes stained the same color, crept from the shadows; she had been so still before that they hadn't noticed her. The tips of her fingers were intertwined with yarn that led into the mud-the net.

"For safe passage," Conner yelled, although a little quieter. He held up the mouse, made sure it glinted in the sunlight, then wound up and threw it over her head. It landed on the flat surface of the tall tent behind her.

Her eyes naturally followed it, then returned to the group. She regarded them for a cold moment as though at any minute she might charge. Then, with a speed so quick as to be unreal, she wound up the yarn in the mud, flicking it as she did so to easily get rid of the dirt, and then turned away once it was all around her fingers. She climbed up the tent like a spider.

For a brief moment, she looked back at the three from the top. Her hands worked at her side for a bit and when she held them in front of her, outspread, the yarn within them had formed a pattern that said, 'It comes.' Then she turned and disappeared over the top of the tent.

Conner began walk-jogging through where her net had been. "She'll not eat us while distracted with that toy, but if we're here when she gets back, she might change her mind," he said to the others. He didn't really know where the fortune teller was, though. Johnathan had seen that they should go left.

The sun was going down at that point. Faintly, the three could hear a whistle. Then, somewhere in the carnival, almost too close for comfort, there was a roar.

Johnathan looked on with slightly sad approvement as Conner niftily got them a way through, but once the roar sounded, he gave a wide grin. "Well...that can't be good." A few chuckles came before he decided to take off in the direction he knew was right from what he had seen from the ferris wheel. "Vamos!" He shouted while waving his arms wildly around for the others to follow.

Conner had no idea what Johnathan had said, but it seemed as though the taller one knew where he was going. It was ironic, but Conner at least knew about where they were going. "To the Oak Tree?" he muttered under his breath.

They didn't get very far before a figure stood before them, glaring them down and blocking their path, in a sense. His skin was covered in what looked to be scales, like a lizard, and his teeth were pointed. He looked at them curiously, his head tilted so blond dreadlocks fell over his shoulder, contrasting only slightly with yellowed skin. Conner recoiled. "It's the Lizard Man, but... the sun is setting," he gasped, almost out of breath at shock and running. He wasn't exactly healthy at this point of his life.

Johnathan skidded to a halt, his eyes wide with wonder. "Oh, wow!" He exclaimed while looking the scaley guy over. "Aren't you sumthin'!" He drew nearer and nearer but only just near enough to bend in and stare dumbly at the man, forgetting, for a moment, that he had an objective to complete.

Jiten had gone silent at the sight of the mouse. Johnathan's playful demeanor had reminded him of the young girl they had buried, and he had been quiet ever since. Suddenly at the sight of the strange Lizard Man, he snapped back into reality. "Connor..." he asked quietly, hoping the strange creature in front of them couldn't hear. "Connor, what happens when the sun goes down?" From what he had seen thus far... it could not be good. He watched anxiously as Johnathan approached the man, torn between thoughts of how Johnathan had saved him in the mansion and hoping that the monster would kill him. Maybe it would be better for both of them if Johnathan were no longer living... one less obstacle, and one less person he cared about to worry about getting hurt.

"The freaks go back to their tents," Conner said, his breath regained. He stared at the Lizard Man, now seriously concerned. "Because... when the sun sets, the copies come out."

The Lizard Man grinned, showing off sharp teeth. It seemed a very unnatural look on him. Then, with the same sharp teeth, he darted towards Johnathan, with every intention of viciously biting and tearing.

"Ah Shit!" Johnathan scrambled back wildly with his arms flailing about and his whole form looking on the verge of tipping over. This was the second time...no, the third that something had tried to eat him! Getting his footing finally, Johny planted himself, and as the lizard man came at him, he shoved his shoulder into the guy's gut. Hopefully it was enough force to send him to his back.

The force knocked the Lizard Man back, but he twisted with animal quickness, his body a solid bit of muscle. His pupils dilated as he crouched down, tracking Johnathan until Conner moved and he became aware of the two smaller boys. He darted to the side and lunged directly at the two.

Jiten grabbed Conner and dodged to the side, rendering them both invisible as they tumbled along the ground. He quickly withdrew several small curare-coated darts, throwing them with one hand, and keeping the other hand on Conner's shoulder. If they lost contact, Conner would be visible again. Hopefully the poison would at least slow the monster as it had with the crazy woman back in the mansion.

Just as quickly as Jiten had vanished, Johnathan, being Johnathan, pouced upon the lizard man's shoulders. He threw all his weight in one controlled direction, aiming to push the scaley fiend face first into the dust. Part of him staying instead of running away was due to protectivness; however, another part was due to how much fun he was having. "Eat dirt, George!"

The Lizard Man was carried forward with Johnathan's weight. When they were a few inches from the ground, they stopped. Johnathan could feel now how muscular this guy was, and the Lizard Man seemed to be almost more comfortable on the ground, crouching like an actual lizard. He turned his head slightly, coming face-to-face with Johnathan. His forked tongue darted out and his muscles tensed, and with one half-roll, half-flip, Johnathan was pinned on the ground by his shoulders, nails digging into the flesh. The Lizard Man paused at the sight of his weaker prey, as though almost deciding what exactly to do next. He was almost totally ignoring the dart sticking out of his shoulder, the one that had hit. It was slowing him down, sure, but with dinner three inches away he didn't need that much speed.

"Damn, shit...." A much longer than usuall string of curses poured out of Johnathan's mouth as he felt his skin being broken by the lizard man's nails and the heat of his own blood turning a bit cold. He struggled for the small razor while still cursing in the creep's face as loudly as possible while flinging his limbs about as much as he could. In an instant, he was able to pull the razor out, managing to bloody his hand up a great deal with his haste, and shoved the entire blade into the lizard man's abdomen and slashed across as far as his restricted arm would allow. Then, he curled his legs up and tried kicking the beast off with his most powerful attribute. "Off'fa meh!"

Knowing there was nothing he could do, Jiten covered Conner's mouth and dragged him to a dark corner where, hopefully, the beast wouldn't notice them if it survived. "Don't. Say. Anything," he whispered viciously into the clown boy's ear. He retained his hold on the light around him, and waited to see who would emerge victorious.

The Lizard Man hissed viciously, although it was a quiet sound for a deep wound. When Johnathan kicked him in the same wound, he went flipping over Johnathan's head. He still manipulated his motions though, and while he was bleeding now, he turned towards Johnathan in a flash and slammed his sharp nails into Johnathan's shoulder. It was no longer a question of food, but a question of self-defense. He prepared to go for the throat now.

Conner's eyes widened at the very real thought that Jiten was making him invisible. With the boy's efforts to keep in contact, it wasn't hard to see that if he broke away, he would not remain so. But the tall one was in trouble. And Conner had recently realized something. Conner wrenched away from Jiten and darted across the way, tackling the Lizard Man. They tumbled briefly before Conner scrambled away. The Lizard Man landed in the shadows near an exit. He hunched his shoulders, still crouched to the ground, then darted away, leaving behind a trail of blood.

Scrambling to his feet, Conner stood, staring at where the Lizard Man had left. He was gripping the front of his dark, loose shirt, twisting it with nervous motions, looking a little nauseous after that act of bravery. "When the sun goes down, nobody's safe," he finally said, shaking a little. "We have to hurry."

Johnathan's breathing was bordering on turbulent as he watched the lizard man dart away from his upside down vision. Then, hearing Conner's warning, he rolled over onto his knees, holding onto his now punctured shoulders. "What fun...." He muttered, his usual grin not quite there anymore but replaced by furrowed brows and a grumble. Oh well...it wasn't the first time he had been on the edge of death. He hopped to his feet, not using his arms any more than needed and straightened with a poked out lip. "He took my razor." His frame drooped for only a moment before his senses came back to him and he began to once again scramble for the trailer he had been heading to, knowing the others would follow. He'd have to give Conner a hug or something later for saving his life. The grin came back.

Jiten was horrified for and proud of Conner's actions. They had saved Johnathan's life. He grabbed Johnathan's uninjured arm and Conner's shoulder, rendering all three of them invisible. "We'll be safer this way," he said, as a reassurance to himself as much as to his two friends. "Lead the way," he said to Conner.

Conner's eyes were dark, although it was impossible to see. He began walking forward, one hand still clutching the front of his shirt. "Just around the corner," he said.

He wasn't lying. They turned the corner and suddenly they were at the edge of civilization. The ground was cracked under their feet. Conner shrugged off Jiten's hand so they could see him point with his free hand. They could see a trailer parked underneath a wizened old oak tree, with a large, peeling psychic eye.

Johnathan went and stood beside the small clown boy and ruffled his hair with his not bleeding palm. "Thanks, small one. For saving me and bringing us here. But, tell me...." He had seemed to come completely back to normal from the encounter with the lizard man with steady breathing and his none too sane look already plastered back on his face that now looked a bit grotesque thanks to the running face paint. "Will this lady try to eat me? I seem to be a pretty popular and tasty treat here lately." While he was talking, he had slowly moved up to the door of the trailer and stood there looking at it quite dumbly.

"Well, c'mon," Jiten said to Johnathan and walked up to the door. "Oh, Conner, that food... I told you where it was right?" He had a feeling that he probably wouldn't be leaving this trailer once he had entered it. He released the door handle and gave Conner a hug. "Good luck... to all of us." With that, he swung the door open and walked into the trailer.

Conner leaned up against the outside of the trailer, blinking hard to keep his focus and prevent his eyes from glazing over. "She's not gonna eat you," he muttered, staring straight ahead even though he was talking to Johnathan.

Inside of the trailer, Jiten could see that it seemed much larger inside than out. A woman in her mid-twenties, with dark brown hair, sat at a chair staring at him fearfully. Her eyes narrowed as she assessed the situation. "Well, you ain't one of the freaks around here, I can tell that," she said. "What the hell you want?"

"I... we," he said, gesturing to Johnathan, "Need to get our fortunes told." He looked at the woman hopefully, knowing that she might be the end of his search in this carnival of insanity.

"You better be tellin' the truth, small one." Johnathan muttered out of the side of his mouth before heading in and grinning his grin at the lady, hoping that she wouldn't lunge at him with a fork and knife. "Ah, yes, dear poppet, as the cross dressing one declairs." He gave a long, sweeping, awkward bow with his smiling, nervous eyes latched onto the lady...just in case.

"Ha! Fortunes. Nobody here would ask me, not since the tourists stopped coming, that's for sure," the woman said. She started rummaging around her desk, looking for something. "Live on the edge and you drop off the map. Just get to sit back and watch as this freak show collapses in on itself." She began piling things against the wall, trying to find something. "Stupid asses. They find out the mirror room is making people disappear and turn it into a fecking game. Now I got to lock my place when the sun goes down." She lifts up a deck of tarot cards. "Ah," she said, happy. "Here." She sat down her tea on the table, but when she turned her back, the tea fell off the edge. The woman scowled, but ignored the liquid soaking into the cheap carpet, instead heading over to a small table. "Shuffle this while asking it a question," she said, shoving the cards off on Jiten while sitting on the other side.

Jiten slid the cards off the edge of the table carefully, and began shuffling them clumsily. He had never been very good at shuffling.... He thought about what to ask it for a moment, weighing all the possible questions carefully before settling on one. "How am I supposed to get out of this crazy carnival?" he thought to himself. It took several attempts, as thoughts of what would happen to Conner and Johnathan kept seeping into his head. Once he finished shuffling, he proffered the cards to the woman, and hoped he had asked the right question.

Johnathan had been bent over Jiten's shoulder, watching him as he shuffled, and laughing with quiet snorts. "I don't suppose you gamble much, do you?" He ruffled the boy's hair yet another time, still placed in humor from watching the silly display. Then, to the lady, "I went into the mirror room." He grinned and straightened with a self-satisfied smirk and tilted chin, looking as if he was worthy of an award because of it, though he knew not the significance...if there was any.

"Asshat," she muttered, taking the cards. "The Mirror Room is a cursed, fucked-up little shithole. The moment we figured it out the place got isolated from... everything." She sighed. "Kid, you gotta ask the question out loud. I gotta know what..." She got cut off as a book fell off the bookshelf behind her. "What you asked," she finished, gritting her teeth and focusing on the cards.

Jiten picked up the cards and shuffled them again, repeating the question out loud, "How am I supposed to get out of this insane carvnial?" He handed the cards back to the woman. "What happened in the mirror room?" he asked Johnathan.

"Get out of the carnival, goddamn," the woman repeated, laughing. "Alright, I-" She stopped as a card slid out of the deck onto the floor, landing face up. A skull grinned up at the group and she frowned, more intensely than before. She just picked it up and slid it into the middle of the deck. "Alright, I'll just flip over the first card. It'll represent your-" The woman flipped over the first card and fell silent. The card she had put into the middle of the deck had reappeared on top, the Death card.

She was silent for a while, then stood up and viciously kicked a wall of the trailer. It was the wall that had been facing away from the group, the side against the Oak Tree, that they couldn't see. "Knock it off, mother!" she snarled. "You can't do this to me!"

Jiten looked nervously towards where the woman was shouting. "What? What's wrong?" he asked the fortune-teller.

"Aiy!" Johnathan proclaimed quite excitedly but quietly while bending down close to Jiten's ear, forgetting the question about the mirror room. "I know! The old crone in the mirrors....She must be the potty-mouth's mother." Again an almost pompous look came over his face. "She was the real fortune teller, I think." He cackled in short bursts. "Well, she looked the part to me." Then he reached and took the death card between his fingers. "Hmm, well that's just spiffy."

The fortune teller snatched the card back. "The first card signals the present," she grumbled, trying to continue on. She put it down: Death, right-side up. "It could mean an actual death, or it could mean a rebirth... Death of the old. The death of your being here in the carnival, whether through leaving or literally dying." She flipped over another card. A woman, reclining on the moon, greeted them. "This is the moon card. It signals your past influences still having an effect. There could be hidden enemies from your past, or tricks, that might pop up to haunt you... Or it could symbolize a great creativity surrounding you. And this..."

She flipped over the next card and immediately dropped it, as though her hand had been burned. On the card, there had been a wheel. More significantly, in bright red letters as though written by blood, was a single word:

Outside.

"You... you fucking hag!" the woman shrieked, punching the wall of her trailer. She began to cry at that, her knuckles split open.

The door knocked and Conner poked his head in. "Uh, guys... might wanna look out here," he said. He was very pale.

"Ah, shit. What now?" The potty mouth seemed to be pretty upset about something or other, but Johnathan paid her no mind after Conner stuck his head in. The way Johny moved and grinned was in complete contradiction to his words, for he could only feel excitement while rushing to look outside.

Jiten cautiously followed Johnathan to see what Conner was talking about, hoping that whatever had scared the little clown boy was not something entirely terrible.

Conner limped around the outside of the trailer until he got to the side they couldn't see. There, leaning up against the trunk of the Oak Tree, was a very old, tanned woman. It looked like a much older version of what Johnathan saw in the mirror. She sat almost serenely on the ground, her eyes closed.

"Don't go near her!" her daughter said, having followed them outside, blabbering nonsense to their ears. "They think she's dead! They killed her Other by accident and if you reveal her they'll kill her next!"

"Why would they want to do that?" asked Jiten, suddenly suspicious of the fortune-teller's daughter. He had been told to have his fortune told, and the daughter obviously wasn't going to tell it. Completely disregarding the woman's advice, he walked up to the fortune teller under the tree and tapped her shoulder.

"They have already found us, dear," the old fortune teller said, ignoring Jiten for the moment. "They've followed the blood." A bony finger pointed at Conner. "Now," she added to Jiten, as if she didn't say anything remarkable. "You are here for a fortune."

"The House of Mirrors is creating demons!" the daughter blurted out. "Demons in the form of the people whose images get reflected in the mirrors. They think Mother can stop them because she's psychic, so they're out to kill her and if they... What the hell did you do?" she said, rounding on Conner.

"Hey!" Johnathan's face contorted defensively as he went to Conner's side and towered over him with his hands resting protectively on the boy's shoulders. "He didn't do nothin'!" With that he stuck out his tounge at the potty mouthed lady and smiled down at the small clown boy. "You just got a little bloody, that's all." He said, not realy knowing at all, but still, if he got it from the lizard guy, it would be potentially Johny's fault. Then, grinning crookedly at the old woman. "Yes, madame, yes we are. I saw you in the mirror, you know."

Jiten stood by the old woman, ignoring Johnathan's remarks. "Yes... that's our goal in this carnival," he said carefully. "You can read my fortune right?" Suddenly something Johnathan had said struck him as odd. "Wait, Johnathan," he turned to the insane jester. "If you saw her in the mirror, doesn't that mean you were reflected in the mirror? Which in turn... is there an evil copy of you somewhere around here?" That was a terrifying thought; two Johnathans.

"Ashes to ashes," the woman murmured, withdrawing some tarot cards from her hand. "Another one of the tall one is the least of your worries right now. Sit down, boy, before you have a coniption."

She wasn't talking to Jiten, because just then Conner slumped against Johnathan. The hand that had previously been clutching his shirt was bright red, and his face was very pale. His dark shirt was now obviously soaked through in the front.

"Is he going to die?" Jiten asked the woman. If Conner was dying, Jiten could ease the process with any of a multitude of poisons he had with him.

"Don't concern yourself with it," the old woman said. "Conner will choose his own path. You've already altered things enough around here." Her words seemed like she was scolding him, but her voice was anything but. From the top of the deck she drew a card. "This is the fortune of anybody who wants it."

From behind the group, a loud roar was heard, which drew their attention. Down a ways, they could see the figures of Skreeg, Joshua and a strange, tattooed girl surrounded by people from the carnival. Just barely, in the shadows, they could see a lion that started heading towards the group.

The moment Conner had slumped against Johnathan, he noticed the blood and drew his face into a pained expression. All in all, it was quite a dramatic look paired with the makeup. However, he couldn't linger on the boy's injury for very long, and a deranged, burnt, and toothy smile lifted his darkened eyes as the shadowed creature came into view. With eyes darting to the card for a moment, he pulled Conner more fully into his arms and dragged him to lay beside the old woman while studying the card. "Quick, hag! Whatsit mean?"

"Hag?" she scoffed, drawing her legs up beneath her. "No respect..."

Her daughter screamed as the lion began to lope towards them. "Time is so relative nowadays," the old woman sighed. "That, my boy, is The Chariot," she said, without even looking at the card. A warrior, riding a chariot pulled by a black and a white horse, greeted Johnathan with an angry look. "It implies a war, a struggle... Like the contest you are in now." She looked straight at Johnathan, her joking demeanor vanished. "This card can signify loyalty, faith and motivation, to win no matter the odds. However, it can also signal a ruthless, diehard desire to win at any cost. Be warned to save your energy for what comes after. Victory is just the beginning."

The old woman leaned back, smiling faintly. "...in bed," she added.

A cold, black mist began to encircle Jiten's feet. "Quick," she said, taking another card and pressing it into Jiten's hands. "Do not think of the circus; by this time tomorrow, the war will be over. Who won and who died never matters, just that it will all be over." She grasped Jiten's hands. "This is the Strength card," she breathed as she faded from his view. "A card of courage and energy. Inner strength, boy, can beat raw physical power. Maintaining your wits will be crucial." Her old face turned sad. "I envy none of you," she whispered as the mist took them over.

"...in bed."

---

The group found themselves unceremoniously deposited in the library. Jiten, still holding a card, then Skreeg, Joshua, and... Todd's head. The Goddess made a face as she flicked her hands to make that dirty artifact disappear as soon as another body arrived. Johnathan lay face-down on the floor, obviously dead.

The Goddess frowned and picked it up by the hair, studying the face as intently as she did when she called them off. "Nope, wrong one," she announced, making that disappear. The real Johnathan appeared a moment later, alive and whole.

"Well, well, looks like everybody had some fun," the Goddess remarked, noting the wounds that a few had gotten in the course of events.

Skreeg was extra jittery, twiddling his fingers together and sweating at an insane level.

The muscles in Johnathan's arms tensed a bit, getting use to the fact that the little boy Conner was no longer in them. Again, that pulled together look pained his face for such a short moment that it might not even have been there before his eyes landed on the goddess. His shoulders dropped and he gave a sigh of contentment while oggling her. "Swing low, sweet chariot." He hummed quietly, multitasking by also thinking of the card the old hag had turned over.

Jiten stared intently at the card, barely even registering that they had been transported to the Goddess again. He reverently stowed the card in the pouch that held his poisons and looked up. His relief at getting out of that insane carnival was overcome only by his grief over Conner.

Joshua oriented himself to his surroundings and looked over to Johnathan with a puzzled look on his face. Turning back to the Goddess, Josh took a knee out of respect. The Goddess did save him from death so the least he could do was show her some respect. "So, if you're really the contestant, who the hell did I kill?” Josh asked as he regarded the dead Johnathan and the living one.

"It's so hard to find a good fortune teller nowadays," the Goddess said, sighing, ignoring Joshua. "They never end it proper. 'In bed.' She's a keeper." She went over and opened a book, frowning. "Too bad that place'll collapse. It's getting more difficult to come across a closed-off arena for my games."

The Goddess blinked, snapping back into reality. "Seems like I'll have to make the elimination again, seeing as how nobody had the decency to get themselves killed," the Goddess sighed, her gaze drifting over to Skreeg before yondering to Johnathan. "Although some people came depressingly close," she purred, suddenly at his side and regarding the wounds he sustained. In a fluid motion, she drew her tongue along the cut. She withdrew in the same motion and watched with half-lidded eyes for his reaction as his wound became strangely numb, sliding her tongue across her upper lip to wipe away a speck of blood. "How does it feel knowing your life was bought in the exchange of another?" she murmured, just for him to hear, a slightly sadistic gleam going across her face.

Not that it was any surprise. This whole affair was slightly sadistic.

In the same vein, she didn't help Joshua, but instead gliding over to Skreeg. "I'm sorry, am I boring you?" she asked, standing in front of the man as she grew a few inches taller, making him seem even more diminutive.

Jiten sat down silently in an armchair and thought about Conner. He considered asking the Goddess what would happen to him... but that was surely folly. He closed his eyes, and leaned back in the chair, realizing he had not slept in a very long time. A little nap surely couldn't hurt... He shook himself awake. This was no time to let his guard down. Even though he was out of the Carnival... that didn't mean he was safe.

Joshua kept kneeling even though the Goddess hasn't healed him yet or anything. While she was talking to Skreeg, Josh looked over to Johnathan and giving him an evil eye. Even though it was apparently obvious that it wasn't the real Johnathan he killed, Josh still hasn't forgiven him for leaving Josh to die in the last stage. 

Johnathan, however, didn't see any of the evil glances that might have been thrown his way, for all he could do was stare dumbly and lean towards the goddess as she wandered away from him, the place at his shoulder tingling so that his whole body felt the effect. How could he feel when the only concept he could grasp at the moment was her? No other life mattered when she was in the room, not Conner, not Joshua, and not even Jiten.

"Because it feels as though you don't want to be here," the Goddess continued, talking to Skreeg. "You hardly fight, and even if you didn't get injured at all, you could at least show some character development." She sighed, breezing past that possibly confusing statement. "Everybody else seems to be enjoying themselves in that regard," the Goddess added. "Seems like you're literally less man than mouse..."

Her hand shot out, latching around Skreeg's neck. "You didn't even tell me about it," her voice hissed out, sounding almost inhuman. "You mentioned nothing to me." Her grip tightened, Skreeg's eyes bugging out involuntarily, until he... popped.

A cloud of smoke covered where he once was, and suddenly, there was a dirty-looking rat in the Goddess' hands, squirming in her grip.

"Better," the Goddess said, her voice back to normal, dropping the rat and the current loser to the floor. It landed, hard, but stumbled up and ran off to the corner, trying to find escape.

"I'll deal with him in a second. As for you children, looks like it's time for you to go back to school," the Goddess muttered, almost not paying attention to them anymore, now in a thoroughly bad mood.

Not letting them protest, talk, or even blink a second more, she clapped her hands, the sound hitting them in the chest and taking them to a school.

---

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