3. Karma
CHAPTER THREE
KARMA
Ihate the bright lights.
They flash when I swing and momentarily blind me. My glowing eyes were made for the darkness, not the show ground.
Cheers from the audience fill my ears, gasps and applause coming after each trick. Everyone in the crowd has come to see the circus, come to see me. The contortionist with pink and green hair. The girl with a creepy smile and glowing eyes. The star.
My hands are wrapped around the red-painted steel bar, my eyes locked on the next one like a target. But the audience draws my attention. It always does.
Who will I choose tonight? No one is yet to spark my interest, but it’s impossible to see all their fleshy human faces with the bright lights blocking my vision.
When I flip onto the next bar, it slowly descends for me to drop to the floor with elegance. I finish with a forward walkover that makes the stitching in my leg pull awkwardly.
Kreo will have to check that later.
Electricity pumps through my veins now that I can see the faces of my victims. My mouth waters, the tip of my long tongue running across the jagged edges of my teeth as I stare into their small, white eyes looking back at me with expectancy.
Humans don’t like to look at me for very long. I fascinate. And then I disturb.
As I turn and slowly bend backwards to lay my forearms to the ground, twisting my body to stretch and bringing the tips of my toes to rest beside my head, the crowd’s eyes bulge. Moving my body in extreme ways always brings out a good reaction from the watchers.
My movements become jerky, my hunger nearly insatiable. I need to hunt. To eat. And I’m growing really frustrated that I can’t find the perfect face in the crowd.
I’m allowed one human to hunt, kill, rob, and eat per show night. That is as much as Kreo permits. One person isn’t enough anymore. I want more. Need more. More fear, more chase.
But I don’t disrespect Kreo.
As I walk on my feet and forearms, my spine still bent backwards, I look out at the humans who surround me. They all stare at me in a way I’m used to—morbidly interested, with a hint of fear and disgust. I hate the attention. I do better in the shadows where no one can see me.
Finally, the sharp face of a young man catches my attention, stealing my focus for a passing moment, excitement making me salivate. As soon as my eyes land on him, I know I want him. I want his flesh. His soul.
He’s covered in shiny things like me. Shiny things are my favourite. I love taking and wearing them. And he’s got loads.
His hair is bright blonde with pink streaks and beautifully curled.
Black ink trails around every inch of unclothed skin up to his neck.
His eyes, too far away for me to certify the colour, watch me with rapt attention.
It’s a look I can’t understand. No one has ever looked at me like that. I see no disgust.
He looks shy. Sweet to eat. I bet he’ll be tasty.
Drool leaks over my chin, and I’m forced to uncoil myself and step back, my urgency for his flesh tainting my mind uncontrollably. My act is finished. I need to leave. To follow him and kill.
But as I take another step away, the person sitting beside him snags my attention.
A second man, with hair so dark I can barely distinguish it from the air around him.
He isn’t looking at me but at the decorated man beside him that I’ve chosen for my feast. Head tilted and dark eyes focused.
Compared to the bright-haired man, he’s like a dark horse, taking the light and energy from the air that surrounds him, sucking it into his soul.
He looks tasty too. Not adorned with shiny metal, but he looks like a fighter with thick muscles beneath his t-shirt. I like a fighter. A runner.
He isn’t enraptured by my show, but rather, by the side of his friend’s face.
Never mind. I have already chosen my target for tonight. The shiny one will do for now. For tonight.
I’m excited for more jewellery. Maybe I can find somewhere else on my body to stick a needle through. I’ve run out of places.
The tent goes dark as I exit the stage, lighting up again with music blaring through the speakers as the clowns make their way back on, but I need to find Kreo to fix my thigh before the show ends and the crowd parts in the direction of their homes.
Because that is when my hunt will begin, and I can’t let my prey get too far.
My right leg wobbles as I walk, the stitching around my thigh coming loose with every step. By the time I reach Kreo’s tent, I’m dragging it along.
There is no door to knock, only a curtain to pull. After he opens the show with a big top hat and matching red jacket, he retreats to his science, his experiments.
“Ah, come in, my child. How was the show?”
I pull up the pant leg of my jumpsuit, revealing the loosened appendage. Kreo places down his instrument and clicks his tongue, turning and patting the metal table in the centre of the room. Without a word, I hop on, letting my legs dangle. Gravity pulls the thread, stretching it further.
“This leg has always been a bit of a nuisance,” he mutters, tugging over a four-layered compartment stand. With his white leather gloves, he picks up a thick needle and a roll of black string.
Kneeling before me, he places my ankle on the base of his thigh, freeing his hands to squeeze the parting in my skin together.
As he pierces the flesh and drags the thread through, I attempt to comprehend what pain would feel like, but it’s entirely unknown to me.
“Have you chosen someone tonight, child?”
Grinning with teeth, I quickly nod, salivating at the thought of getting my tongue against a juicy thigh or stomach. Our last show was two days ago, and I was scarcely satisfied with the woman I’d hunted, so desperation is clawing at the back of my throat for more.
“I want you back in two hours’ time tonight, Karma. This is a new area. You don’t know it well enough yet.” I huff and roll my eyes. He says the same thing every three weeks. Every time we travel. I never know somewhere well enough. “And be gentle with this leg. The glue needs to settle.”
I don’t know why he bothers with the glue after the stitches. We both know it disintegrates after a few days.
After he’s finished sewing and glueing, I pull my jumpsuit leg down and hop off the bed.
The bells in the neon pink balls attached to the ends of my hair jingle loudly, making Kreo smile.
He’s always called it the ‘death jingle’ or ‘toll of death’, because if you hear it following you, it means you don’t have long left to live.
He connected them to my pigtails to teach me how to move quietly before he allowed me out into the world to hunt by myself.
I’ve become stealthier with practice, and now the noise is minimal before I pounce.
“Enjoy your evening, child. And what do we remember?” he asks in a tone I’ve overheard a woman in the crowd use to scold her little human.
I huff again. “Only one human.”
“Good girl. Only one human. Now off you go.” He’s quick to return to the cut-open cockroach on his desk, slipping on a pair of magnified goggles and grabbing a set of thin silver tweezers.
I don’t understand what he does or why he does it, but I also don’t question it. Not Kreo. Never Kreo.
As I stalk through the tent halls, being careful on my right leg, the music from the show slips through the tarp. The acrobats will be back on now, which means the show will be over soon. Enough time to get out and find a hiding place.
My attached limbs feel lighter as excitement hums beneath my skin.
I’m more thrilled than usual. That man… So striking, so shiny, so fleshy.
He’ll make a tasty treat. But as I sneak outside, I can’t stop thinking about the one beside him.
Maybe I’ve made the wrong choice. I love sparkly jewellery and men who look like they whimper when I bite into their flesh, but I also love a challenge, a fight.
This is a hard decision.
The dewy grass in the field tickles my feet, flitting through my toes with every step. When I circle round to the front of the tent, the poster beside the entryway catches my attention. It’s always there. My glowing eyes are always there.
I stay behind a wall nearby, peeking my head around the corner so I can watch the tent and all the people who will flood out of it very soon. The sun was starting to set when the show began, so darkness now reigns supreme, my excitement with it. I work well in the shadows thanks to my eyes.
And a human’s fear is always so heightened in the dark. So tasty.
Clowns pull open the tent flaps to allow the attendees to exit the show. Everyone’s on a high, bustling and excited as they leave with their friends or families to go home. I’ve seen many different types of people at our circus.
My eyes are focused on finding the man with white and pink hair.
I never forget a face, certainly not his.
His jaw was like a sharp knife. I don’t know how much meat he’ll have on his bones, but I can still lap up his blood, sink into flesh, and make a nice piece of décor out of his teeth for my tent.
And he’s alive, which means he has a pulse—that’s my favourite part.
I don’t have a heart. I don’t have blood. I don’t have a pulse pumping through me. And when I hear their heart beating harder out of fear, feel their pulse pounding under my fingers, I lose all sense of control.
I’ve never been patient. Kreo likes to tell me to slow down, calm down, or wait. But I hate it. I hate this part of the hunt especially. Waiting and wondering when I’ll see them.
As soon as my eyes fall on the target, his jewel-clad ears hooking me instantly, the electricity charging my vessel intensifies, making me tingle.
He’s walking beside his friend from before, who towers above the public around him.
My target is shorter, barely bigger than me, so I don’t think he’ll put up much of a fight.
I wish I could have them both.
Not allowed. No, no, no.
The crowd disperses as they head back into town, retreating to the false safety of their homes for the night, and I focus on where the pair go. They turn left, the opposite direction to me, but I’m quick to follow, sticking to the shadows.
I lose them for a moment, anger quickly fuelling me, but I see his white hair pop up a moment later before they turn a corner.
We’re heading into smaller backstreets, the alleyways getting narrow as I follow them. They’re walking leisurely, so I have to force myself to keep pace.
As they turn off into another alley, one so dark I can sneak right after them, I lower to my hands, crouching and waiting behind. I can’t get too close and risk the glowing green of my eyes alerting them.
Whilst I watch them, I notice how the smaller one likes to speak more of the two. He’s quiet and shy, like I thought, but far more talkative. He says he liked our show. The taller man with dark hair barely says two words.
Every time their hands skim, they jerk away like they’ve been hurt.
My excitement is thunderous now that I’m so close. I can smell them. Saliva keeps threatening to slip out my mouth, my long forked tongue begging for a lick.
The man with dark hair stops walking, and his friend stops too, turning to face him. “What is it, Micha?”
I turn my head, confused as to what they’re doing, and the bells in my hair jingle faintly.
Crap!
Micha looks around. I shut my eyes abruptly so he doesn’t see the glow. Only when he keeps talking do I open them.
“I hate this,” Micha whispers, a softness I’m not expecting to his voice.
“The circus? I know. You said you’d come with me. I didn’t ask—”
“Not the circus,” he groans, taking a step forward, getting closer to his friend who tilts his head back. “This, Arlo.”
“I-I don’t know what you mean.”
They go silent, and I don’t understand what’s happening, but for the first time in my life, the need to consume raw flesh doesn’t overrun to the point where I can’t hold back any longer. I’m not struck with desperation to eat and steal and cause fear. I’m intrigued.
I’ve never felt so curious.
This new energy passes between them, like tense air. I can’t look away when Micha takes another step forward, and Arlo swallows loudly, taking a step back to be hit with a wall.
Then the scent of fear hits me. But it’s alongside something else, something heady.
A feeling I don’t understand courses through my body, centring in the spot between my legs, and the urge to touch my pussy damn near overwhelms me.
What is happening to me?