Chapter 1
I had been walking for hours—maybe days, I couldn’t tell anymore. The forest stretched on endlessly, its dense canopy blocking out the sky. I had no idea how long I'd been walking, or even which direction I had been heading. The trees—tall, gnarled, and impossibly close—seemed to swallow me whole with every step, their thick trunks and tangled roots making every movement feel like a battle. Each time I thought I had found a path, it disappeared into the shadows, leaving me lost and alone. Every step I took seemed to lead me deeper into the tangled underbrush, further from any path I could remember. The air smelled earthy, but there was a sharpness to it.
I was beginning to panic. How had I ended up here? My thoughts kept circling back to the moment I had wandered off the trail. One wrong turn, one lapse in judgment, and now I was lost in a labyrinth of evergreens.
My mind began to play tricks. I could hear whispers, faint and unintelligible, on the edges of my consciousness. Maybe it was just the wind—though it was too still for that. The trees groaned softly, and the ground beneath my feet seemed to shift, pulling me deeper into the unknown.
The music grew louder, clearer. It was a faint melody, playful and haunting at the same time. I pressed on, my feet moving faster now, the forest seeming to part ahead of me. And then, as though the trees themselves had opened a door to another world, I stumbled into a clearing.
And then, just as my sense of time and place began to unravel, a strange flicker of light caught my eye. It was faint at first, like the glimmer of a lantern in the distance, but it grew steadily, pulsing with a warmth that felt almost… inviting.
There, in the center, was a sight I could hardly believe: a circus.
I hesitated, every instinct telling me to stay put, to trust nothing in this forest. But the pull of the light was too strong. I moved toward it, my steps hesitant at first but quickening as I drew closer.
It was not the kind of circus I had imagined—no colorful banners flapping in the wind, no cheerful music playing from loudspeakers. This was something different, something strange. The tent was enormous, its fabric a deep, almost unnatural shade of violet that shimmered faintly in the dim light. A twisted banner hung above the entrance, adorned with symbols I couldn’t read. Around the edges of the clearing, strange, twisted sculptures of metal and wood rose from the ground, each one depicting grotesque figures caught in impossible, contorted poses.
A massive striped tent rose before me, its colors deep red and gold, vibrant against the dimness of the forest. Bright, flickering lights danced from within, casting strange shadows on the ground. The air buzzed with an energy I couldn't quite place—excitement, maybe? Fear?
Around the perimeter of the clearing, strange, skeletal figures in tattered costumes moved in and out of the shadows. They seemed to float, or glide, without lifting their feet. A figure emerged from the shadows— dressed in elaborate garb, stood at the entrance, his top hat tall and crooked. His eyes locked with mine, and I could have sworn he smiled.
“Welcome,” he said, his voice smooth like velvet.
The oddness of the moment hit me like a wave. Was this real? Was I still lost? The trees around me seemed to fade away, replaced by the bright lights and distant, eerie laughter from within the tent.
For a moment, I almost turned away, but then the music swelled, the lights around the tent flickered, and something inside me whispered that I had no choice but to enter.
And yet, I couldn’t help it. I was drawn forward, pulled by an unknown force. The world I knew had slipped away, and in its place stood something strange, something that felt like it was waiting for me.