I met a lot of crazy people in my life. From crack addicts who hung out by the neighborhood's corner liquor store, to Ringleaders who're obsessed with a circus, but this boy. This boy in front of me. Might be the craziest of them all.
Cause what psycho provokes a being that's the size of a mountain? This boy apparently.
No one said anything as the Clown stared down expressionlessly. The forgotten bomb that was still in my hands, was becoming more noticeable by the second.
I peeked down at it and then peaked over at White. Her pink eyes were also looking up at the Clown. Her body is tight to the point I don't know if she's breathing or not.
"Maze event: Ring Toss stage two has been activated." The sudden announcement echoed out, and the suction of air could be heard all around.
"What are you doing, you fool?!" A girl in a leopard mask, who looked to be one of the oldest, screamed at the boy who looked at her and the two began arguing. My eyes began twitching while watching them bicker.
The space was becoming noticeably brighter and red while the two argued. My eyes burned and when I blinked, the chaos began. The sound of metals clashing together sounded above and many rings came descending like asteroids.
Most didn't even enter a barrier and slammed into the ground causing craters the size of pools. Thus when the rings did enter the barriers with children the result was bloodbaths.
The rings had four functions. One where balloons come out and the person gets hanged, another where the rings strangle the person until decapitation, and the third one where more than one ring goes into a space but instead of going around the neck the rings go to each limb and pull each limb in a separate direction, and lastly the fourth one were the ring just penetrated through the child from head to bottom.
The third one is the worst to experience and witness. Watching as the limbs were each going in a different direction and hearing as their bodies tore was nauseating. I looked away as the child with a mouse mask was being dragged apart and the sound of their limbs tearing one by one from their body seemed to override the child's screams.
The feeling of wanting to puke spread again but nothing came up besides gags. I looked up and more rings were coming down.
I looked down at the bomb in my hand and was about to use it but banging stopped me and when I looked towards White she shook her head and pointed towards the eyes and the Clown.
"It won't work. It will only lead to the Clown becoming more furious." She signed before a ring plummeted between our two barriers causing us to be thrown into the barrier and onto the ground. I couldn't breathe as the wind was knocked out and the world became dizzy, however, I quickly looked into my robe and breathed out a sigh of relief as the small dog looked to be fine.
When I looked up White's mask fell to the ground and she was holding her now bleeding head. "You okay." I tried to ask through my lethargic state but she understood me and nodded her head with a pained sheepish smile.
Honk, honk.
The black acidic mucus came cascading down and all the craters filled up to the brim. I backed away as the crater between White and I filled. It gave off a decaying stench as visible smoke wafted in the air.
I felt everything burn. From my skin to my eyes. My sight became hazy as tears blurred my eyes and I faced the opposite way to get away from the acidic pool as much as possible.
"Fuck!" Through my blurry sight, I saw the bear boy looking up, and when I looked up too, the Clown was back to smiling and in his hand a ring. He reached out his hand making everything dark besides the glow of the red eyes.
Smiling bigger, the Clown dropped the ring, specifically over the bear boy's barrier. The boy could only grit his teeth as the ring aimed straight at him.
Visibly every red eye focused there, even the Clown bowed down closer to watch, its big smile becoming so huge to the point that I could see inside its mouth through the cracks of its teeth.
From the dark space, I notice something moving. Blinking away the tears as much as possible, I tried focusing on what I was looking at. In the beginning, it was just a shadow before it stopped moving, and two white circles were looking out from beneath the teeth.
Eyes.
The eyes looked around before they looked in my direction. At first, I didn't know if it was staring at me or White but then a long arm came sliding out. The arm was long, similar to a rope, and as skinny as bone. The hand attached to such an arm was disproportionately big, about the size of two rulers.
The whole limb was covered in what looked to be tight-fitted fabric of dark red. It was so tight that it looked like the muscles under a person's skin.
The arm stretched out and then pointed at me, or more specifically it pointed at my hand, which had the bomb in it. My heart plummeted in my stomach as the hand pointed a finger up and shook it in a reprimanding action.
Slowly I put the bomb back in my bag and the hand didn't show signs of saying that I was wrong. When I tightened up the bag, the hand made a thumbs-up sign before slowly slithering back into the black space.
The white eyes that've been staring at me the whole time curved up, as if the being was smiling before it disappeared altogether. I still stared up into the dark space before numbly looking at the bear child.
Surprisingly throughout my whole ordeal, the bear boy was dodging the ring with little to no room. His body was agile as he leaped from barrier wall to barrier wall. It was only then did I knew there was a roof over our heads that we could not go through, around the 8th foot mark.
However, despite his nimbleness, it was visible to all watching that he was growing tired while the ring was like a shark smelling fresh blood. It chased after the boy with passion, never once dropping to the ground.
Eventually, the boy stopped, and panted, finally running out of steam. My heart pounded as the ring came flying towards him, aiming to settle around his neck, and right as it was about to do so, the boy moved his head out of the way and replaced it with his arm.
The ring, having no time to properly differentiate the difference between the two, tightens up quickly. The ring was the second version and soon the boy's arm plummeted towards the ground.
Not once did the boy make a sound, even while blood was gushing out. He even smiled up at the Clown who looked bewildered by the circumstances.
Yet again the Clown didn't smile as the two stared at one another, and once again I want to break out of here and punch the boy in the face.
"Why are you still picking fights when you just lost a whole arm? I thought you wanted revenge?! You're not getting it if your head is the next thing leaving!" My eyes twitched as I cursed inwardly.
I looked over at White and discreetly tried to get her attention. Her eyes were focusing on the two nut cases, before looking quickly at me and realizing I was trying to get her attention.
"Did you see that person?" I signed and she looked at me confused before shaking her head.
"I was focusing on the situation in front of us, who did you see?" She signed back, moving her eyes to look between the still ongoing stare down in front of us and our conversation.
"I didn't see the person fully, but he was in red fabric and had a very long arm, even his hand-."
"The Contortionist." She said out loud in a breathless whisper. Her whole attention was now on me, and her eyes reminded me of how she looked when at the hospital when she was telling me the Circus was looking for me.
"Where did you see them?" She asks hurriedly.
"In the mouth of the Clown." I answered, causing her to swivel to look up at the slowly growing mad Clown.
Her eyes searched frantically as if trying to see through the dark but coming with no results she turned to ask me, "They say anything to you?"
Nodding my head, I answered, "They told me to put away the bomb." Her eyes subconsciously looked towards my hands but seeing nothing there she breathed out and nodded her head.
Seeing her body relax a bit, I asked my question while time was still with us, "Who are they?"
"The right-hand person to the Ringleader." She said tiredly, while she dragged her fingers through her hair. I was going to ask another question but the Clown finally moved, casting away all desires to talk.
From beside me, I heard White say, "Good that you listen to him. He's an Ethereal Dark Blue Cultivator."
Ethereal Dark Blue?
I placed the new term in my head while watching as the Clown fully stood back up at its maximum height.
"It's about to start," White said while her body was growing tense.
Seeing that, I also prepared myself and looked up towards the Clown who finally moved and gave one more lasting stare towards the boy before turning and walking away.
I saw other children relax when the Clown was no longer in sight but for me, it was the opposite. The more the Clown was gone the more I felt my whole body grew tight.
"Maze Event: Ring Toss Stage Three has been activated." Suddenly all the barriers disappeared and the smell of the acdic decay came at full force. Looking over at White who looked over at me, she said in one breath.
"Run."
Honk, honk.
Giant balls came crashing down and everybody ran for their lives. The balls were massive and each bounce they made when they connected towards the ground made the whole space vibrate and caused the acidic pools to spill over onto the surface.
Each ball was big enough that one could not dodge it if it was 10 feet away from them, forcing each of us to use our whole body weight to dodge. Thus I had to look up white dodging each pool and their acid spills.
Watching a ball coming to me, I quickly moved out of the way. Successfully I dodged the ball while moving out of the way of the acid that came spilling out into the air but in doing so I ran into the girl with the leopard mask.
Luckily both of us didn't topple towards the ground into the pool of acid that was close by but a ball was coming at us from 5 feet away at high speeds. I was about to stand up and try my luck on dodging, the leopard girl stood in front of me and roundhouse kicked the ball.
I heard a crack and the girl hissed but she was successful in kicking the ball another way. Turning back around I was going to start running but quickly I was picked up by the leopard girl and my heart pounded and I punched her face.
"Fuck! Don't hit me! I'm just trying to get us to the wall!" She yelled while she jumped and dodged. My body tense the whole way, and I gripped her clothes with an iron grip.
"If you toss me to the wolves, I'm dragging you down with me!" I screamed to myself while also focusing on everything around us. When we made it to the wall we dropped towards the ground using the wall as a barrier for the incoming balls coming at us.
Finally, she let me go, and I did the same. I could hear her grumbling as she rubbed her neck, "Why do children have such tight grips? I felt like I was going to be strangled to death. Never going to save someone again. "
My eye twitched but when I looked down at her leg that looked off, I couldn't help but feel bad. I looked at my bag but didn't do anything as I was face to face with multiple red eyes everywhere.
Thus I could only tug on her sleeve and apologize. She looked at me, and through her mask, her brown eyes looked me up and down before sighing and saying, "It's fine. Shouldn't be picking you up in this high-emotion situation."
Looking at the wall beside us with the eyes all looking at us, she grimaced."Is there no other game they wanna watch or something?" She muttered before looking through the warzone space.
We were both trying to breathe but also trying to breathe as little as possible. From here the sound of children dying was coming from everywhere, but my eyes were only trying to track a certain white head.
A scream broke out from the side of us and as we looked over, a kid was on the ground and it was noticeable that his legs had been crushed by a ball. They were crying while their hands reached out for us. By my side, the leopard girl's body grew tense and she took a small step over to them but that's all.
She didn't run over to save them, no matter how much the child cried and tried to drag their body to us.
I turned my head away as a ball came and bounced causing the acidic pool next to the child to spill. I could hear the child scream before eventually dying. I peeked over and all that was left was bones and still melting flesh.
A feeling was spreading in my chest but before it could manifest a question was asked from beside me. "Do you think I'm a bad person?" I looked up at the leopard girl who was staring at the body with little to no emotion in her eyes. Slowly she looked down at me and asked, "You think I should have saved them?"
I didn't understand why she was asking me this. A toddler who she just met at most 10 minutes ago but thought that she was also a child, the oldest being maybe 13 and that's if she wasn't in the same circumstances as the other girl, this might be a question coming from the need of comfort.
"Their survival is not your duty to save." I signed to her truthfully. She looked at my hands without expressing anything. Thinking she didn't understand, I was going to sign something simpler but she let out a sigh and nodded her head.
"You're right, their survival is not my duty. If anything it's that bastards." She hissed out before looking around the area. "Once I find him, I'm going to beat his ass." I didn't need to be smart to know who she was talking about.
"Ignis!" Both me and the leopard girl turned our heads and White came running from the side. While running White's agility made me reevaluate her. White was agile and extremely fast. She barely needed to dodge to get to us as sometimes she was even faster than the ball. When she made it to our side there were barely signs of her being out of breath.
"White, you know when this is going to end? You've been here the longest out of all of us here." The Leopard girl questioned, a hint of aggitatedness seeping with each word. She looked out towards the area and finally paused in a direction.
Turning to face where she was looking, I saw the boy in the Bear mask running, while also helping other children escape the balls whether it was by pushing them or pulling them towards a wall before running out to save more children.
"He wouldn't need to play hero if he kept his pride to himself." The Leopard girl growled under her breath. I can see her body tense more by the second. I thought she was going to leap and follow through with what she said earlier but White spoke from the side and visibly I saw her relax a bit.
Watching the transformation, I couldn't help but look at her and then at White. A thought appeared in my head but I cast it aside as the situation was tense at the moment.
"We have two more minutes." White said pointing upwards. Both of us followed her finger and at first, I didn't see it until I raised my sight sense to my current max potential and finally, I saw a very tiny clock that was ticking away. "Once the big hand reaches the 6 it will end and we will pass."
The Leopard girl didn't say anything but hummed but even that was blocked short as both me and her dodged as a tree branch penetrated the wall, not so far off from my face and not so far off from her waist.
"Oh fucking course there's trees!" The leopard girl yelled before all three of us dodged as more tree branches were ripping from the ground and penetrating everything. The walls got pierced, the balls got pierced and of course, the children got pierced.
I didn't dare look around me, keeping my attention fully on the balls that were coming at me from above and simultaneously paying attention to the trees and acidic pools below. However no matter what, the sounds of their cries connected to my ears, and the sound easily was able to paint a picture of what was happening.
I dodged as a ball came at me however when I landed on the spot, a tree branch came spiraling out and I was only quick enough to move my head out of the way but not my hand.
A silent scream ripped from out of me and tears pricked my eyes as my hand was pinned on the ground and the tree branch grew upwards before turning around and crashing straight down back towards me.
The speed was coming down so fast, that my only option would be to rip my hand away, but before I could even do that, a tiny fluffy head came from underneath my chin and a blazing fire was shot out burning the whole tree branch.
All red eyes zeroed onto me but I didn't care as I grabbed my bleeding hand and resumed running. While doing so I felt Po lick my mask, and a feeling of a little bit of comfort spread through me.
Glad you're okay Po.