[center][h1][b][color=black]Death[/color][color=violet] The Dark Side Of The Carnival [/color][color=black]Mercy[/color][/b][/h1][/center]


They entered the Carnival together, three by choice rather than chance, drawn by different hungers but bound by the same curiosity. One sought escape from a jilted lover , another from grief, the third from boredom. At first, the lights and laughter took them like everyone else. Music pressed into their bones, colors felt brighter and the games promised answers shaped like prizes. They laughed easily, too easily and for a time they forgot why they had come at all.

It was the third who noticed something was wrong. Not wrong like danger, but wrong like repetition. The same jokes circled back. The same dealer smiled the same way, every time. They spoke it aloud, half joking and the other two felt it click into place. Once named, the enchantment loosened. It did not break, but it thinned, enough for them to see the Carnival as it truly was, beautiful, hungry and patient.

Breaking free together took effort. They argued, tested each other, grounded themselves in shared memories the Carnival could not rewrite without resistance. It helped that they trusted one another. When one slipped, another pulled them back. They stopped chasing joy blindly and started choosing it, carefully. The lights dulled a bit around them. The games became games again, no longer commandments.

Then they began the quests for exit. The Carnival offered them with pleasure, each path fair and possible. Win this game without smiling. Cross this path without lying. Give up something you love willingly. They tried, together, each time. And each time, they failed. Not catastrophically, but just enough. A laugh escaped at the wrong moment. A truth bent out of kindness. A cherished thing was clutched a second too long.

At first, they treated it like bad luck. Then like a puzzle. They refined their approach, planned, rehearsed. They encouraged one another, calmed frustration, swore they were getting closer. The Carnival seemed pleased by this, if anything. New quests appeared, more elaborate, more personal. The exits stayed just out of reach, always visible, always denied.

Time became slippery. Days felt like hours, hours like weeks. They watched others pass through the Carnival and leave, changed or broken or blessed, while they remained. The enchantment no longer held their minds, but something else did. Investment. Pride. The quiet fear that if they stopped trying now, all the effort would mean nothing. They told each other it was fine. They were still together. That had to count for something.

The strain did not break all at once. It crept in slowly, through the way jokes stopped landing and encouragement began to sound rehearsed. One of them, the one who had come to escape the jilted lover, started keeping score. Every failure became someone’s fault. Every almost-success turned into proof that the others were holding him back. His laughter thinned into something sharp, and when he smiled, it no longer reached his eyes.

Arguments followed. Small at first, then louder. He accused them of enjoying the Carnival too much, of secretly wanting to stay. The others pushed back, tired, reminding him that they were all trapped together, that trust was the only reason they had come this far. That word, trust, seemed to snap something in him. He laughed once, bitter and hollow and said it was easy to preach patience when you still believed there was a door.

It happened fast. Too fast. In the middle of another exchange, his hands were suddenly on the throat of the one who had first noticed the enchantment. There was no warning, no buildup, just a flash of rage and a sickening crack. The body went limp immediately, eyes still open, surprise frozen.

The Carnival intervened.

The moment the neck snapped, the laughter died. Lights spluttered as if starved of air, colours bleeding out of the world until only bruised reds and amber remained. Music warped, slowing into something distorted and wrong, notes dragging like chains. The paths beneath their feet narrowed, curving inward. The corpse vanished between blinks. Violence had been offered and the Carnival answered in kind.

The air thickened as the space rejected them. Walls rose where there had been open stalls, fabric tents transformed into metal corridors. The smell of sugar and smoke curdled into rust and old sweat. Neither of them was touched, yet both felt unmistakable pressure, a guiding force nudging, herding, insisting. This was no punishment spoken aloud. It was simply where they belonged now.

They were pushed onward. Every path behind them sealed shut, lights snapping off one by one until forward was the only direction left. The man who had killed stumbled, rage long gone, replaced by dread. The other followed, grief burning hot enough to keep him moving. Somewhere far away, cheerful bells rang, mocking in their distance.

The corridor opened into a chamber shaped like an arena, though no seats awaited an audience. Chains hung from the ceiling, swaying despite the still air. In the center stood a contraption of wood and metal, part game table, part execution device, its purpose unclear in the way that made it worse. Masks emerged from the shadows, figures neither fully present nor absent, their voices layered and cheerful in the wrong way.

“Welcome,” they chimed together. “You have broken the rules. Now you will play properly.”

The game revealed itself slowly. Two levers on opposite sides of the room. A timer, already ticking. Each lever eased the suffering of the one who pulled it while increasing the danger for the other. Loss was implied everywhere. The masks tilted their heads in unison, delighted. “Survive,” they added lightly. “And you may yet return to the bright paths. Fail and you will learn why we discourage violence.”

The lights flared once, harsh and blinding, then dimmed again as the timer’s ticking grew louder. 

One of the masked figures stepped forward, tapping the side of the contraption with a gloved finger. “We are not cruel,” it said and the others nodded in agreement. “We are fair.” The ticking slowed, just enough to be heard clearly and glowing script etched itself into the air between the two levers. The rules were plain. Each round would last one minute. Pulling a lever would grant the puller safety for that round, dulling pain, sealing wounds, steadying breath, while transferring the danger to the other. If neither lever was pulled, both would suffer equally. If both were pulled at once, the protections would cancel out and the machine would escalate.

The second rule followed. The game would continue until one of three conditions was met. One, a player conceded, in which case they would be removed from the game, alive but broken, ready for the next one and the other allowed to return to the brighter Carnival. Two, a player died, ending the game immediately. Or three, they both survived ten rounds without killing each other, at which point the Carnival would deem the lesson learned and release them. The masks clapped softly. “See?” one chimed. “Clear rules. Equal chances. What you do with them is entirely up to you.”

The minutes crawled by. Each round left its mark, not just on flesh but on resolve and it was the killer who broke first. His hands shook as the levers reset, the glow pulsing patiently. He laughed once, sharp and empty, then slumped forward. “I’m done,” he rasped, voice cracking. “I don’t want to win. I don’t want to play anymore.” The words rang louder than any scream could have, and the machine fell silent in response.

The masks turned toward him as one. There was no judgment in their posture, no anger, no satisfaction, only acknowledgment. “Concession accepted,” they said together, cheerful as hosts announcing a change in schedule. The restraints released him and he collapsed to the floor, gasping as the room’s cruelty peeled away from him like a bad dream. His wounds sealed enough to keep him alive, pain dulled but not erased, a reminder rather than a mercy.

The other man barely had time to react. The lights shifted, brightening around him alone, the oppressive walls drawing back as if embarrassed to have existed at all. A warm breeze swept through, carrying music, laughter, the familiar hum of harmless games and impossible prizes. He staggered as the floor beneath his feet, blood fading from his hands like it had never been there.

Behind him, the darker space closed in on the one who had conceded. The masks guided him gently, almost kindly, toward a narrowing passage where the lights were low and the air heavy with consequence. He was alive. He would remain so. But the Carnival would remember him, and he would remember the Carnival, every time he closed his eyes. That is, until the enchantment would be reapplied on his mind and the memories would disappear. Forever.

The killer was not dragged, nor thrown. He was escorted, politely, into a chamber that looked merciful at first glance. Clean lines. Clear light. A single mechanism at the center, simple enough to understand with one look. The rules were spoken softly, kindly, twice. Nothing hidden. Nothing rigged. It was possible to win. Entirely possible. The Masks would even show him how, demonstrating the motions with cheerful precision, like a tutor invested in a student’s success.

Then the game began, and the truth revealed itself. Each step forward demanded a choice that peeled something away from him, pride, certainty, self-justification. The pain was exact, not random. Every consequence tied directly to who he had been. The mechanism waited patiently between actions, allowing rest, allowing thought, allowing regret to bloom fully before asking for the next sacrifice.

By the end, shaking and bloodied, he understood the cruelty of it. This was not punishment. This was education. He could still win, even now, even like this. The exit stood open, visible, attainable. All it required was one final decision, honest and unbearable. The Carnival watched in silence, lights steady, rules fulfilled. Whatever happened next would be fair.

[hider=Summary]
A trio makes it into the Carnival out of their own will. One of them is a murderer. One is dead. One wishes he was. One of them is regretting ever coming to the Carnival.
[/hider]