Jagged Refractions

Piper stumbles through a warped funhouse, pursued by an unsettling presence that mirrors her fears. The abandoned amusement park, reclaiming itself with spring's brutal growth, offers no solace as the carnival's macabre spirit closes in.

My breath clawed at my throat, each gulp of humid air tasting like rust and something else—something saccharine and deeply wrong, like old candyfloss left to decompose in a mildewed attic. My left knee screamed, a hot, throbbing ache with every uneven step. I'd scraped it raw on that rusted grate a lifetime ago, or maybe just ten minutes. Time had folded in on itself here, inside this colossal, leaning tomb of a funhouse. The smell of damp earth and blooming green things, usually a comfort, was perverted by the pervasive stench of rot. Spring tried to assert itself outside, I knew, but in here, it was only a damp accessory to the decay.

The mirrors. God, the mirrors. They weren't just cracked; they were warped beyond recognition, convex and concave horrors that stretched my already frayed reflection into impossible shapes. My face, smudged with dirt and a streak of something dark that I prayed was mud, became a grotesque mask. My eyes, wide and bloodshot, were alien pits. Every time I thought I saw a way through, a path of relatively clear glass, it would buckle, twist, and throw me into another dizzying labyrinth of my own multiplied terror.

A sound. A low, wet thud. It came from somewhere behind me, or perhaps from the reflection behind the reflection. My head snapped around, too fast, sending a jolt of pain through my neck. Nothing. Just the endless, fractured versions of myself, stretching into eternity, each one holding the same panic, the same raw exhaustion.

“Hello, dollface.”

It wasn’t a voice, not exactly. It was more like the sound of a fingernail dragging across a blackboard, amplified and slowed, a vibration that resonated in my teeth. But the words were clear, coalescing from the cacophony of creaks and drips. I spun, clutching my side, heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. There, in the furthest, most distorted mirror, was a smear of white and red. A smile, too wide, too sharp, painted on a face that was somehow both flat and grotesquely bulbous.

It shifted, the image rippling like water, not quite solid, not quite *there*. My gaze darted from reflection to reflection, trying to pinpoint its source, but it danced between them, a malevolent jig. Sometimes it was tall and thin, all gangly limbs and elongated grin. Other times, a squat, almost childish figure with wide, unblinking eyes. Always, the colour scheme of a cheap, faded carnival.

“Lost?” The grating sound again, closer this time, from a mirror directly to my left. My reflection stared back, eyes hollow. Behind my shoulder, in the glass, stood the tall, gaunt version of the clown, its hand reaching, not quite touching my reflected self, but close enough that I felt a phantom chill on my nape. I stumbled forward, away from the glass, my hands outstretched, searching for something, anything, solid.

The walls were slick with condensation, the plywood soft and spongy in places. My fingers brushed against a faded poster of a grinning clown, its colours bled by time and moisture. The paper peeled away with a wet tearing sound, revealing the dark, damp wood beneath. I just needed out. Out of the mirrors, out of the smell, out of this endless, mocking funhouse. The distant, tinny music swelled, then faded, replaced by what sounded almost like a child's laughter, played backwards, then forwards again, echoing endlessly.

### The Performer's Gaze

I pressed myself against a wall, trying to control the ragged gasps that threatened to give me away. Give me away to what? The air currents, the shadows, the ghosts of forgotten revelry? Or to *it*? I knew it was still watching. I could feel its gaze, a prickling sensation on my skin, like microscopic insects crawling beneath my shirt. My eyes scanned the fractured reflections, looking for a way out that didn't involve walking directly into one of the shifting, mocking images of myself and my pursuer.

A section of the wall, painted with a poorly rendered circus tent, seemed less warped than the others. I pushed against it, and it groaned, yielding slightly. It wasn’t a door, just a section that had come loose, probably from years of neglect and damp. A sliver of grey light, diluted by the grime, seeped through. Hope, a dangerous, brittle thing, flared in my chest. I crammed my body through the narrow opening, wincing as the rough wood scraped against my already bruised hip. My blood, warm and sticky, seeped into my jeans.

I tumbled out onto soft, yielding earth, the kind that had been churned to mud by weeks of spring rain. The air outside was colder, fresher, but still carried the ghost of the amusement park’s decay. Above, the sky was a bruised grey, threatening more rain. I was in a narrow service alley, choked with weeds and rusted machinery, behind the funhouse. My boots squelched in the mud, sinking an inch or two with each step.

Ahead, through a gap in a rusted chain-link fence, I could see the main grounds. Or what was left of them. The skeletal remains of a Ferris wheel clawed at the sky, its seats long gone. A carousel, its canopy ripped to shreds, stood frozen, the painted horses within locked in a permanent, joyous gallop that felt deeply, horribly wrong. The spring growth was aggressive here, tendrils of ivy choking old concession stands, wild primroses pushing up through cracked concrete. It made the decay feel more deliberate, more insidious.

I took a tentative step, then another, picking my way through the mud. My knee throbbed, a relentless drumbeat, but the need to move, to escape this immediate, enclosed horror, was stronger. I had to find a way out of the park, had to get back to the main road. The one my friend… my friend said was there. Where was he?

That thought, that question, was a sharp, cold jab to the gut. I hadn’t seen Pip in… how long? Not since the laughter started, not since the distorted reflection in the Hall of Mirrors. Was he okay? Was he even…

My mind reeled, a nauseous mix of fear and desperate memory. I shook my head, trying to clear the fog. Focus. Just move.

I heard it again. Not a voice, not the grating sound, but something else. A high-pitched, almost musical chime, like the bells on a jester's cap. It was faint, carried on the damp air, but undeniably there. It came from the direction of the carousel. My gut clenched. I didn't want to go near that thing. It felt like the rotten heart of this place.

But the chime sounded again, insistent. And then, a small, red balloon floated into view, bobbing gently above the carousel's collapsed roof, a single, defiant burst of colour against the dull grey sky. It seemed to beckon, to promise some answers, or perhaps a darker kind of invitation.

### Where the Music Lingers

My legs were burning, but I forced myself towards the carousel, driven by a morbid curiosity I hated. The closer I got, the more unsettling it became. The painted horses, once vibrant, were chipped and peeling, their glass eyes staring blankly. One, a magnificent white stallion, had lost an ear, and its lower jaw was cracked, revealing a gaping, empty maw. Another, a blue mare, lay toppled on its side, partially submerged in a large puddle of stagnant water, its tail long rotted away.

The air around the carousel was colder, heavy, despite the encroaching spring warmth. The bells chimed again, closer. It wasn't just one balloon, I realised. There were dozens, caught in the skeletal frame of the canopy, clustered like grotesque, colourful fruit. They pulsed, ever so slightly, with an inner, dim glow, a faint, sickly yellow.

I stopped at the edge of the puddle, my reflection rippling darkly on its surface. My head was throbbing now, a dull ache that resonated with the silence. No more bells. Just the drip-drip-drip of water from a broken pipe, the rustle of overgrown weeds in a non-existent breeze. I looked up at the cluster of balloons, mesmerised by their faint, unsettling glow.

Suddenly, one of them, a bright red one directly above the prone blue mare, burst with a soft *pop*. And from the empty space it left behind, a small, white-gloved hand slowly emerged. It was perfectly clean, pristine against the grimy, decaying wood of the carousel frame. It extended a single, pale finger, pointing directly at me, and then slowly, deliberately, began to curl inwards, beckoning.

My blood ran cold. I felt a scream clawing at my throat, but no sound came out. My feet were rooted to the spot, encased in the heavy mud. The hand, impossibly still, continued its slow, silent gesture, inviting me deeper, closer, to whatever horror lay within the decaying heart of the forgotten carnival.

Then, from the darkness behind the hand, two points of stark white emerged, followed by a sliver of red, curving into an impossible, silent smile. The carousel whined, a low, guttural groan from its rusted gears, and slowly, imperceptibly, one of the painted horses began to turn, its broken jaw seeming to widen, its empty eyes fixed on me.