Snippets of the Multiverse

The 'Dark Carnival' Incident (Halloween 2022)

The old fairground sat abandoned, just as it had been in for as long as the residents of the town could remember. Trash littered the place, forming hills on the once-flat lot. Nobody really remembered why it had shut down, as it had been a bustling carnival one day, and suddenly packed up and left the next. There were rumors, of course- there always were with things like this. Some said the place was haunted by a group of teens who were killed in a failed circus act back in the 30's. Others thought they left because it just wasn't as profitable ever since the television became widespread throughout the 50's and 60's.

Still, a mayor with any amount of common sense wouldn't build a graveyard right next to it.

The mayor was a strange man, being rather lanky; easily over 7-foot, yet somehow under 200 pounds. His dark, chest-length hair was usually tied back, and always in stark contrast with his pale skin. Thanks to the slight lavender tint on the skin around his eyes, he always looked like he'd just pulled an all-nighter, wide, glassy eyes suggesting he might be hopped up from caffeine.

Perhaps the strangest thing about him, however, may be how obsessed he was with holidays. The denizens of the town had never known boredom on a holiday, and never had to spend one alone, either. The mayor made sure of that. He was always over-the-top with everything related to the things he loved, which was most of everything.

Now, this might make the mayor sound like a great guy, but as it was said he has no common sense. He's a partier, and should never have been given the responsibility of making decisions concerning the welfare of the town. Of course, when your other choice is a racist, sexist, megalomaniac of a man, a freakish and indecisive partier doesn't sound quite so bad.

Anyway, back to the story.

The mayor built a graveyard across the street and a little bit north of the abandoned fairground. Not the smartest idea, but it was never said the mayor was smart. And it seemed to be fine for a few years, until strange things began to happen one October. Nobody could describe what was happening, other than being 'supernatural' or 'paranormal.'

That one October, strange flowers began to bloom in the graveyard. They were white with two black leaves and a stem of the same color, resembling some sort of lily. Then, thorned vines began to spread across the cemetery, attaching to other tendrils, forming a sort of network between graves, and some people claimed to hear whispers coming from those flowers; often, these people had known the voice the whisper belonged to- parents, friends, significant others, even enemies on occasion. And those whispers seemed to link both ways- they could answer questions the people in the cemetery they infested knew the answers to.

And naturally, this would seem too good to be true for many. And it was, for one Halloween night, those graves were clawed open by the skeletons they held. It started with one or two, but eventually, the entire cemetery had turned undead- and it wasn't the only one. The skeletons of every burial site in the town, and a few miles outside it, clawed out of the dirt, and assembled in the streets, marching through the downtown to the old fairground. Most of the residents locked their doors, but a few decided to follow the parade of dancing skeletons.

Upon arriving at the fairground, they found it was no longer decrepit or abandoned, instead bustling with activity. It looked to be a combination of a circus and a fair- though all the participants were dead. It had all the usual stuff for both- gut-wrenching rides, rigged games, funhouses, tents, etc. And of course, in the center of it all, was the Big Top, just in front of a Ferris Wheel. The entire place also had either a violet/magenta & white or a black & metallic color scheme.

Inside the Big Top, the dead sat excitedly, ghostly whispers quickly exchanged between them. Then, a shadow formed, a top-hat upon its head, its gender unclear until it spoke, and the crowd became as silent as they'd been for upwards of twenty years before that night. After a moment, a masculine voice rang out from the shadow, its transparent Cheshire grin and wide eyes the only indicator of where its face was.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Monsters and beasts, Please put your limbs together, For our dark circus of freaks!" Announced the shadow, throwing its hat into the air as it burst into cold flames, before shapeshifting into a door, out of which came several monsters, most organic, some mechanical, and a handful being both. Those monsters began to preform, and as the night dragged on, any who watched the show and still had their mortality felt it slipping painlessly away from them, joining the ranks of the dead in celebration.

The carnival lasted the entire night, and just before dawn, the dead staggered and stumbled back to their graves, falling into them and back into their not-so-endless sleep. The bodies of those who had seen what was reserved for the sockets of the dead simply remained slumped in their seats as the carnival melted into dancing shadows in the morning sunlight, falling to the ground as the only sign anything had happened that night.

Within a week, everything was back to normal, as if nothing had happened. The only differences were the empty beds of those who had perished at the Dark Carnival, as the town's residents had taken to calling the incident. The mayor saw to the burying of the dead with an unnerving smile plastered to his face, shadowy tendrils undulating across his skin.

And so went the story of one of our Dark Festivals.