The light flickered above him, a naked bulb that hissed as if it could die at any moment. Every time it blinked, the masked faces seemed to warp, contracting into grotesque grimaces. The circus didn't need special effects to be unsettling; this filth, this deliberate shabbiness, was enough to remind everyone that here, nothing was stable, nothing was safe.
Theo stood motionless, his boots stuck to the sodden ground, his hands trembling slightly. Not from fear. Not really. Just that tension that always coiled in his chest when he felt things were about to tip over. He knew that feeling too well; it heralded drama, a rupture, another scar.
The masked young woman hadn't moved. Her gaze, despite the distance, had hooked him like an invisible fishhook. It wasn't the look of someone seeking entertainment, nor of a curious voyeur. It was something else: a raw, almost intrusive attention. As if she wanted to read him, to scrape away the surface of his cynical smile and lay bare what he spent his life concealing.
He hated it.
He snarled a low, hoarse laugh, a sound that echoed louder than he'd intended. A few spectators turned toward him, their porcelain masks tilted like the heads of dead birds. Their eyes, invisible behind the slits, fixed on his silhouette. For a moment, he had the impression that the entire audience was there only to watch him, not the show.
Then, with a sharp crack, the performance resumed.
A ringmaster entered the ring, dressed in a red leather coat that gleamed under the lights. His whip snapped in the air, and behind him surged creatures that no longer resembled anything natural. Human bodies stitched together with animal parts, eyes too wide, mouths slit to the ears. They moved awkwardly, as if every motion tore tendons or shattered bones. The audience applauded with an unhealthy fervor, their cheers ringing false, as if every mask forced its wearer to play a role.
Theo smiled again, but it wasn't a smile. His lips curled into a grimace of amused disgust. He knew this staging, this morbid fascination with what lay beyond the human. The circus wasn't selling dreams; it was selling disgust, shock, the spectacle of cruelty. And people paid dearly for it.
He straightened slightly, shoved his hands in his pockets, and let his laugh crack out again. Not for the creatures. Not for the ringmaster. For the audience. Because he saw in their eyes what they refused to admit: a perverse excitement, a relief at seeing others suffer in their place.
"Bunch of vultures," he murmured to himself.
And that's when he saw her move, the masked young woman. She rose, slowly, and stepped into the aisle between the seats. Her step was calm, too calm for someone in this hell painted in red and black. She wasn't looking at the stage, nor the creatures, nor the ringmaster. She was looking at Theo. Straight into his eyes.
A shiver ran down his neck. Not fear. But a deep irritation, mixed with a curiosity he would have preferred to smother. The rain outside continued to hammer the tent canvas, each drop resonating like a sinister note on an invisible drum. But inside, all that could be heard were her footsteps. Slow. Regular. As if she wanted everyone to see her, everyone to hear her. Yet, no one reacted. The audience remained frozen, hypnotized by the grotesque spectacle unfolding in the ring.
Theo frowned beneath his hood. There was something… false, in this indifference. As if the entire crowd was in a trance, forced to watch the circus's horrors without ever turning their heads. Only his eyes seemed free, still capable of tearing themselves from the illusion to observe something else.
She stopped three paces from him. The light hanging above cast a long, distorted shadow behind her frail body. Her mask, white, smooth, without a single slit to express emotion, reflected the flickering light like a warped mirror. Only two black holes, where the eyes should be, reminded you there was a human being behind it.
"You laugh too loud," she said.
Her voice was soft but firm, like a blade sheathed in velvet. Not a reproach, not an accusation. Just an observation that resonated strangely in the air saturated with the smells of blood and wax.
Theo burst out with a short, sharp laugh that made a spectator behind him jump.
"That's what made you move? My laugh? Not the freak show, not the audience applauding like dogs, not the scars hanging halfway out of those things' mouths? No, my laugh."
She tilted her head. A light, almost childish gesture that didn't match the gravity of her voice.
"Your laugh sounds false. Like their masks."
Theo was silent for a moment. His jaw tightened. Rarely did anyone dare point out what he worked so hard to hide behind his irony. His laughs weren't for others, but for himself, to cover the echoes of images he didn't want to see again.
He stepped forward, closing the distance between them to a breath. His dark eyes fixed on the holes of her mask, as if trying to see through them.
"And yours?" he asked. "Do you think yours is real, your mask?"
She didn't answer. Not from embarrassed silence, no. By choice. As if she knew the question required no answer.
The ringmaster in the ring suddenly screamed an order, his whip cracked, and one of the creatures collapsed in a scream of agony. Bones snapped, flesh tore, but no one in the audience flinched. Not even a sigh.
Except her.
A slight breath escaped her lips. Not a cry, not a moan, just a heavier, almost imperceptible exhalation. Theo caught it, and that was enough to confirm what he suspected: she wasn't like the others.
He snarled again, this time lower, a murmur that vibrated just for her:
"You don't belong here either."
She inclined her head gently, as if confirming. Then, instead of answering, she raised a gloved hand and placed it on his. Her skin, icy despite the glove, sent a shiver up his arm. That simple contact felt violent, almost brutal, as if she had just shattered a barrier he'd kept raised for years.
"Tonight," she said finally, "you will understand."
Then she turned and melted into the shadows, disappearing among the motionless silhouettes of the audience.
Theo stood rooted to the spot, his fingers still numb from her touch. Around him, the applause resumed, the cries of the beasts tore through the air, and the bulbs continued to hiss as if the entire world was balanced on a fraying electrical wire.
He knew two things. First, that this woman had just set fire to something he wouldn't be able to extinguish. Second, that this circus… was not just a circus.
The artificial laughter and hollow applause still echoed in the main tent, but Theo had already turned his back on the stage. His boots sank into the damp ground, leaving traces that no one seemed to notice. Yet, each step took him further from the spectacle and closer to what festered in the circus's bowels.
He lifted a frayed flap of canvas and slipped into an improvised corridor, narrow, where the smell changed immediately. Here, no more wax or powder perfume; only a stench of sweat, congealed blood, and mold. The floor was sticky in places, as if liquids one preferred not to name had seeped into it months ago.
The circus's backstage resembled a sick labyrinth. Cages lined against makeshift walls, covered with hole-ridden sheets, let through inhuman noises: a hoarse growl, a metallic clinking, sharp blows against the bars. At times, a malformed, clawed hand would shoot out through a gap before vanishing again.
Theo walked slowly, his eyes absorbing every detail. His hand brushed automatically against the leather strap holding the knife concealed under his coat. Not a revolver, not a firearm: cold, direct, intimate metal, the kind that forces you to see the other's eyes when you pierce them. Here, it was the only thing that still inspired his trust.
He passed an ajar door. Inside, a cracked mirror reflected a grotesque makeup job half wiped away. A hunched figure, back turned, was sobbing silently, its shoulders shaking like a child's. Theo stopped. The individual raised its head: its face was covered by a mask painted with a smile, but tears flowed from beneath it, smearing the colors and tracing rivers of misery on its skin.
"Are you lost?" asked a voice behind him.
Theo turned. A clown, if you could still call it that, stared at him. Its costume was stained, bloated with grime and dried blood. Its eyes, however, weren't painted: two sockets injected with red, which seemed to have forgotten sleep an eternity ago.
"No," Theo replied with his dry laugh. "I'm exploring."
The clown stared at him for a long time, then burst into a dissonant, half-strangled laugh, as if every burst tore a piece of its throat.
"Bad idea. Those who explore end up staying here. And believe me… no one stays willingly."
It took a heavy step forward, its wheezing breath filling the corridor. But before Theo could answer, a whip crack sounded further away, followed by a muffled scream. The clown froze, then retreated into the shadows, like a beaten dog returning to its kennel.
Theo resumed his walk. His boots echoed louder, as if each step called for the attention of whatever lurked in the corners.
He finally arrived before a large wooden door, reinforced with rusted chains. Above it, a half-faded inscription: "Hall of Mirrors." The wood trembled slightly, as if something behind it was trying to get out.
Theo offered a cold smile.
"Of course. The masks… and now the mirrors."
He placed his hand on the icy handle. Just as he was about to push, he heard a voice. A voice he already knew.
"You shouldn't go in."
It was her. The masked woman. She stood a few meters away, motionless, still shrouded in her mystery.
Theo laughed, a laugh that sounded more nervous than he would have liked.
"So what? You're following me? Planning to save me from myself?"
She didn't answer. But in the shadow of her mask, her eyes seemed to glow. Not with compassion. Not with fear. Something else. Like a certainty.
And Theo understood: it wasn't him she was following. The circus had trapped them both.
He gripped the handle, and without waiting, pushed the door open. It gave way with a long, painful creak, as if the wood itself was begging to be left shut. Theo entered, and the rain, the laughter, the noise of the entire circus seemed to die behind him.
The room was vast, circular, lined with mirrors from floor to ceiling. Not smooth, reassuring mirrors: cracked, distorted surfaces, some smeared with dark stains that looked more like blood spatter than dust. The air was heavy, saturated with moisture and a sickening, metallic smell.
Theo stepped forward cautiously. His own reflections surrounded him, deformed, twisted, multiplied. Some smiled while he remained impassive. Others wept while he felt nothing. One, in the distance, laughed with his same cruelty, but its eyes seemed to blaze with a madness he refused to acknowledge.
He stopped.
In one of the mirrors, he didn't see himself alone. The masked silhouette of the woman stood beside him. Yet, when he turned around, there was no one behind him.
"What are you trying to show me?" he murmured, not quite sure if he was speaking to his reflection or to the circus itself.
Then, the mirrors changed. They were no longer reflections, but scenes. Fragments torn from his past. His cruel laugh masking his wounds, his inability to protect those he had loved. Faces appeared—his friends, his loved ones—their eyes full of reproach, their lips spitting accusations he had buried long ago.
"It's you. It's always you."
The voice resonated everywhere, in every mirror, like an infinite echo.
Theo clenched his fists.
"I know. What did you think? That I'd forgotten?"
His laugh burst out, nervous, almost hysterical, but it trembled. He took a step back, and in a shattered mirror, his reflection leaned toward him… and spoke.
"You play the tough guy, you spit on everyone, but you're just a breathing corpse."
Theo raised his knife and, without thinking, struck the glass. The shatter resonated like a scream. The pieces fell to the floor, but the reflection remained. Motionless, intact, in the void.
Then, he understood. These weren't mirrors. Not really. They were prisons. Trapped souls, condemned to endlessly replay the truths denied to them.
And among them… he saw her.
The masked woman. But maskless this time. Her reflected face was marked by deep scars, her eyes swimming with tears of blood. She stared at him. Not like a victim. Like an executioner.
"Did you really think you could escape, Theo? You wear your mask better than all the others."
He staggered.
"It's you… you never left this place."
The mirrors exploded one by one, unleashing a rain of glass and screams. Malformed silhouettes pulled themselves from the fragments: circus performers, grotesque, hybrid, disfigured, all screaming and laughing at once. Their voices merged into an unbearable cacophony.
Theo retreated, his knife shaking in his hand.
And amidst the chaos, the woman finally appeared. Real, standing before him, masked once more.
"Welcome to the real show," she said in an icy voice. "Here, masks don't fall off. They weld to the skin."
Theo burst into laughter, a laugh that resonated like a fracture. His usual irony mixed with a terror he didn't want to admit.
Because deep down, he already knew. In this circus, you didn't come to watch. You came to be devoured.
The rain was still lashing the city outside. But inside, the curtain had just risen on a play from which no one emerged unscathed.