The Opening Act is Death (The Carnival of The Damned)

60. WELCOME TO THE CARNIVAL

Sixty

WELCOME TO THE CARNIVAL

You don’t remember arriving.

One moment you were walking — maybe running — through a back alley soaked in rain. Or maybe it was blood. The memory is vague, like a bruise half-faded. Then the wind shifted. The sky split open like theater curtains. And there it was:

The Carnival of the Damned.

The tent is impossible — too tall, too wide, its stripes flickering between red and black like breathing skin. Its fabric isn’t cloth. It’s hide. Stitched with thread you pray isn’t hair. A sign arches over the entrance, swinging in a wind you can’t feel:

“Admit One. Perform or Perish.”

There’s no queue. Just you.

But you step inside anyway.