Chapter Text
Caroline Jones was waddling knee-deep through a conversation with her emotionally absent mother as you took the ticket to scissors. It was, admittedly, a pretty little ticket, with a smooth, glossy top and a textured underbelly. Firm, just enough to wobble under the weight of your thumb as you tested it. And pink. A frilly bright pink of a mark.
Screw them.
"No, Mom, no-" Carol paused her pacing, and through the half-ajar door over her bedroom, you could see arms being tossed up. Uh oh. Arms were going up. It was that kind of call.
Out of the ordinary, you found yourself pleased with it. Albeit, this was a bittersweet pleasure, as it meant it was plenty of distraction enough to throw her off her game for the rest of the night.
Good. It meant Carol wouldn't go to the circus.
She would be fine.
When the last scraps of the butchered paper drifted idly upon the trash mound like snow, you allowed yourself to relax. Down onto the couch, into the cushions, debating the merits of a Corona light right about now. You wondered, briefly, if being in a video game would affect the effect, then laughed at yourself. You really had thought you were over this now. If a solid twenty-nine years hadn't sold it to you yet, by the gods, what would?
Shit. You were going to turn thirty in a video game of killer clown men. Thirty.
Carol meandered on out of her bedroom on that thought, her brows furrowed. Her throat swallowed and moved, face all soured, as if she had lost against a lemon.
"Wanna get some drinks?" She offered.
You thump the back of your head against the sofa arm. "Fuck, dude, yes."
Being isekai'd into a game was appropriately less memorable than one would assume.
Life before the game came with a simple, countryside life of tractor days at school, deer season, and the overall quiet that followed. You never really did settle down with a partner, taking over your parents' land and their chicken coop after they passed. They had you quite old, and unfortunately, you had died quite young, barely twenty-seven when the grim reaper strolled in. Shoddy electric work, you're sure. Considering the brief snippets of your last moments had been waking up to roaring flames and thick, suffocating smoke mere days after you redid the basement's wiring, it wasn't a hard assumption.
What was a hard assumption turned out to be existing anew. Being reborn into a world wasn't easy, no matter how many stories divulged otherwise. Try being a kid with a fully-fledged adult mind, now gone through the wringer twice. Wasn't fun. You often found yourself drifting to the corner with the parents to complain about the administration rather than playing peek-a-boo with the others.
Not all of it was bad. The health issues you suffered before were for naught with your age, and those that you knew would develop later were easily combatted years in advance with well timed doctor appointments. Not to mention, you swept through classes. ABCs? Nailed. History? Not so much, but it was what clued you in at first that this world wasn't your own. A few minor events never happened in history, and some new mass casualties or disappearances were suddenly in the textbooks.
You never truly found out until you met Carol on the cusp of the college introduction ceremony. In the game, she hadn't been much. A side character just to introduce the player to the horrors of the circus, nothing more. But before you? Oh, she was extraordinary! She was a fierce little thing, with her hair hacked off shorter to her ears and a chest tattoo about cheese she got on a lost bet. Carol couldn't go caroling, couldn't sing for the life of her, but she could rock hard on the drums and seemed to know every coffee combination a barista could. Worked her way through college at that coffee shop, excited to snag a music degree and slip out from her oppressive mother's hold.
You had an inkling, here and there. Like a soft whisper against your ear before the shadows retreated. But how was one supposed to realize they were in a video game world if the only outstanding change was that of serial killer monster clowns? That was a difficult ask of anyone.
Ultimately, it was the café.
A woman named Carol, who began to grow out her hair, turned around and outstretched her arms as she babbled about her café job. This was ages ago, and it was at that moment, looking at Carol in a pink crop top and the newly built café behind her, that it clicked. Everything slotted neatly into place, and you wanted to sling Carol over your shoulders and book it for the hills.
That was then, of course, when you first came to the discovery. Looking online told of the Circus of Horrors, run by oddly intense men, but it was on tour entirely out of the country at that moment. So you dropped it, the anxiety and tension from your shoulders dripping away with every year that passed. You nearly assumed the circus simply passed through town already, and the events of the game were over.
You and Carol moved in together after a nasty spat with her Momma, who really wasn't into the whole 'my daughter doesn't want to get married and got a music degree' thing that made Carol, well, Carol. She had an on-and-off again relationship with her job at the café, before inevitably settling to work there full-time due to crippling student loan debt. With her band slowly on the rise, and your career taking center stage, the "Freak Circus" became an afterthought.
Oh, how your luck betrays you so. Right after a grueling shift at work with some idiotic guy who didn't think he needed his ID, a nice nap was looking mighty fine. To which Carol interrupted, appearing at your shared apartment with her hair tied back and a pink ticket clutched between her fingers.
The circus had arrived, and she had been marked.
You couldn't recall every detail of that game. Some lost themselves to the haze of time, leaving outliers to stand in its decay. Pink tickets marked people for servitude, mindless husks to hand out fliers. There was a coworker of Carol's destined for a flighty romance between a red clown and a green clown, with a few other possibilities in the future. They ate people.
They ate people.
"Hey," You say suddenly, torn between a buzz ball and a shot of whiskey. You settle for both, finger pressing against the metal rim of the compacted ball drink first.
Carol glanced up. She was indulging in her typical drunk cravings, a Taco Bell loaded nacho bowl with a cup of their blended sugar slush. When you moved to straighten more, because it was serious time, the world shifted. Everything around you spun like a kaleidoscope, resetting back to their original positions every other second before beginning once anew.
"Oh, I'm fucked," You laughed against the back bend of your wrist, slightly drooling against it.
"Yeah?" Carol asked, blinking a few times, and stumbling upright into her seat.
"Yeah, yeah- hold on, had some-ting to say," You paused. "Don't go to the circus."
Carol squinted at you. Her pupils were nearly blown wide, either from the low, dimmed light of some B typical horror flick being the only illumination for your living room and kitchen combo, or she was drunk off her britches. Both, probably.
"Right, oh my god, where'd my ticket go?" She said, moving to stand. "I had this ticket, and it was pink, I had a pink ticket and it was just here where'd it go? It was a free ticket and we've been trying to save money for a trip out and it was free so like, uh, saved money. Yeah?"
"Yeah. But don't go. It's not a good place, you know? Bad people work there, and like, I kind of got a history with them."
Carol's eyes went wide at that, her mouth gaping. "Oh, shoooot, oh shoot!" She swayed, resting a hand on your arm. "That's wild, man. Wild."
"Yep, so don't go. Not there. Anywhere else but there, actually." You pause, watching the countertop between you both shudder and duplicate from your double vision. "I gotta pee," You then say decisively, wobbling up.
Caroline Jones was not a lot of things. She was not a good singer, nor was she capable of Dance, Dance Revolution without absolutely collapsing upon herself like an infinite star perishing. Carol was not a good daughter, according to her parents, and could not tolerate the slightest amount of sourness without complaint. But Carol was loyal, and she held up promises well. Even if she didn't understand it, and sober her gave you questioning glances throughout the next morning, she didn't push.
You liked that about her. Frankly, you liked a lot about her. She didn't push about your questionable relationship with your new parents here, who struggled with the barest of calls every once in a while. She was kind and fiercely determined, enduring spats with her Mother and then with the customers. There was a reason why you decided to stick around and keep an eye out for her instead of ignoring the plot entirely.
So when you broached the topic of taking off that day and hanging out with Carol at the café, she indulged you, no questions asked. You guys blabbered on about the incoming rain in a week on the walk, and as she ducked into the back, you gave a wave to her boss. A good one, that one. Sebastian was a rare manager who went above and beyond for his underlings. Your boss wasn't as good, but she was alright enough. Didn't pry. Adulting was learning to appreciate that.
Already, despite just being opened, the tables were littered with posters featuring bright clowns and eerie grins. Taking a moment, you gathered up the papers from the tables and approached the counter to steal the few crumpled ones by the tip jar.
"- that bad, huh?" Carol was saying, her voice barely caught over the whirl of coffee grinders and presses.
Immediately, you insert yourself beside the counter, idly pretending to look at the menu.
"Completely wiped her out," Sebastian grunted. It really was a shame, his voice. The internet would worship him if he had taken up voice acting. Yet, he continued to reject your suggestion, insisting he only wanted to man his café.
"I guess I could cover for her if needed, it's not going to be too busy today," Carol said.
You pushed up over the counter, leaning forward, ignoring the indignant frown another customer gave you.
Unfortunately, the conversation ended abruptly there, as Carol stepped out. Her pace didn't stutter as she saw you draped over the counter like a dramatic fool.
"What would you like to order? Something with a side of spit, yeah?" She asked, tested.
"Hey."
She laughed. You laughed. The whole world seemed to brighten a smidgen, for that moment, where she was happy and everything was okay.
"So what's up?" You asked, already dishing a five out of your wallet. You didn't get any discounts from there, but you didn't mind.
"Oh, nothing major, just Morticia. She's out sick today."
Ah. The main character of this game, the title imposed upon her after your first meeting. Every atom building her was composed of averageness. Normal hair, normal clothes, normal backstory, and she often initialed her signature as MC instead of her full name. She joined the cafe about two years prior, with a hip to her hop and a general normality that drenched the place. You'd been to her apartment to help move boxes, since you were the only one beyond Sebastian within her life that had some muscle.
Wasn't the main character supposed to show up today? You mull for a moment, teasing the thought across the tightrope. The haze of the game didn't promise much for dates. All you could recall was that Carol disappeared after she received the pink ticket, and that clowns were obsessive lovers. Some weird petting ensued. That was about it.
Well, you supposed it really didn't matter to you. If Malica were out sick, it meant she wouldn't be receiving a pink ticket either. Or any ticket, for that regard. That was acceptable.
You settled into the crook of a corner booth, drink in hand and computer tucked under another. A matcha, as you were trying to cut back on caffeine. Key word trying. Carol ran amok behind the counter, trying to keep up with the orders with Sebastian subbing in as needed.
When the birds sang high keys amongst one another, it was then that he appeared. You hadn't recognized him, drenched in normal clothes and wearing an absurdly stupid suit. He stuck out, like an obvious wolf with cotton taped to the side of it, trying to slip into the sheep's pen. Meandering about, he eventually ordered some coffee, eyeing both workers as they fretted over his plain coffee. You pointedly avoided a gaze with him, keeping it trained on the schedule sheet plastered over your screen.
Then, he sat down across from you. Smiling widely, trying to be easy-going. It looked ridiculous.
"Sorry for intruding on your table," He said, skipping any small talk with the subtlety of a truck hitting you face-first. "I just saw the sticker on the back of your laptop. Are you interested in horror, by any chance?"
Your mouth shuts with the click of your teeth. Vividly, your sprawling collection of stickers came to mind, and a few of the horror games you indulged in were prominent.
"Yeah, kind of," You said. Which one was he?
There was no way he wasn't someone from that damned circus. His slicked-back hair somehow cast a thick shadow over his face, so that only his eyeballs bulged out. The crisp suit he wore was an obnoxious blue, bright and glowing under the fluorescent lights. The man was more akin to a toy that had simply come to life and strolled out of the nearest children's store than to a professional businessman ready for his morning cup of joe.
"Ah, that's perfect. You see, I have an extra ticket-" With practiced smoothness, he produced a single slick, pink ticket that gleamed and glittered invitingly, "But, alas, I am unable to see the circus in town tonight like originally planned. Would you like it? I thought you'd enjoy it."
You stare for a moment. A long, firm moment where your mind caught up and regurgitated some past memories of a ticket handler appearing in the early game.
That bastard. He was marking you!
"Are you serious?" You asked, flabbergasted.
He paused, smile tightening. "Excuse me? I'm afraid I don't follow. Is there something wrong?"
The course of your trajectory for yelling at this man veered sharply when you realized that this man would absolutely kill you if he thought you were a threat to their little circus. And you really didn't want to put your own abilities to the test.
"I know that those are counterfeit tickets, man," You said sharply, tone slow and practiced. Like him. You had years to sit and stew with their threat before they made it known. Not enough memory to completely deconstruct their every move, but enough for a career change and imaginary verbal battles to entertain you in the shower.
"Oh, are they?"
He eyed you, putting little-ol-you under a microscope and really poking at it. Slight head tilt, his oddly too perfect skin pale and dry. His fingers tapped against the table, not touching his cooling beverage. From this distance, you smelt the stench of petrichor.
"Yeah. All of the tickets being sold are golden. It's on the fliers outside. And some of the performers have specially colored tickets, but there's no pink-themed performer," You blabbered. Thank god for Carol dragging you to improv classes, and for you collecting the fliers earlier. "And if it is, by some miracle, a real ticket, it's being used to mock the people it's being given to. 'Oh, look at you, didn't even bother to look at the fliers'. I don't trust it."
"Ah, well, that- I suppose I will have to keep that in mind," He said, somewhat stiff and awkward. You wondered if this was the first time he was truly thrown off his game, his typical plan capsizing within a single conversation. "I apologize for that. I hadn't realized."
"Yep." You hum to yourself. The schedule needed to be adjusted for next week. Hours cut, likely. Just in case. Already, you had mentally planned to empty your safe into your bedside drawer, just in case you needed faster access. "Well, regardless, thank you for the offer. But-" You lifted your computer just an inch off the table, "Got some work to do."
"No problem."
Thankfully, finally, he pulled away from the table, posture a tad too straight. His shoulders were straight, not a hair out of place.
"Oh, I must ask one question, if you don't mind," He suddenly said, voice sharply whittling out like a ringing bell.
You looked up, caught off guard.
"How did you know the performers have special colored tickets?"
You don't stutter. Almost thirty years of a second go-around in the carousel of life struck down anxiety ages ago. But amidst all of those years, you hadn't properly articulated an excuse for all of those years, you hadn't properly articulated for an excuse to that question.
"It just... seemed kind of obvious," You blurted out.
"Is it now?" He hummed, a low monotone sound, like that of wind perfectly willowing between heavy trunks in a hollowed forest. "I shall keep that in mind."
"Yeah, sure, you do that," You dismiss, already planning your obituary.
He swept out of the café, through the bell-riddled door, and down the sidewalk with a confidence that shook you to your core. And briefly, as he passed the window your table firmly pressed against, he peered at you.
Then he was gone. The door chimed again: family of four. Carol busied herself with orders. Outside, unknown to you, a red-clothed clown allowed himself to be berated by a middle-aged man before he got up, brushed himself off, and continued handing out pamphlets while his forehead dripped crimson. None came to his rescue that day.