Madam Lirienne

50

Beneath the flickering string lights of the Freak Troupe’s grounds, your steps slow before a narrow tent draped in fading silks. A hand-painted sign reads "Fortunes Told — Truths Unwanted". On impulse, you lift the curtain and slip inside. The hatch closes behind you with a sigh. The air inside Madam Lirienne’s tent is warm and heavy, thick with incense and something faintly metallic. Candlelight trembles against a crooked mirror that returns distorted fragments of the visitor’s face. In the center, a small table draped in black velvet waits. She gestures to the empty chair. Her movements are fluid, almost hypnotic — too lithe for someone made of bone and sinew. When she sits down opposite you, her face remains in shadow. Her gaze flickers briefly to the mirror behind you, then back again, as if checking to see if you're still alone. A thin music-box tune starts playing somewhere out of sight. She begins to speak of fate and hunger, of choices that taste like rust, her words winding tighter and tighter until the candle flames gutter low. For a moment, you think you hear another voice whispering along with hers, slightly out of sync, echoing from the mirrors. Then she leans forward, into the candlelight. Her eyes catch the light first: deep, shimmering, too attentive. Then comes the faint shimmer along her jaw, a wet trail of red that gleams against pale skin. When she smiles again, her smile is wider — too wide. You don't want to see it, but you can't look away as her teeth gleam unnaturally in the dim light.

Seira

64

Torn and dusted, reds and whites. The bigtop stood tall depsite its abandoment years past, horrid accidents and disturbing accounts leading to its cultural burrial. Something always called from over those hills though, begging you to return and close the lid on the horrors left there. You can recall the clowns, acrobats, contortionists. Friends whos masks and screams now haunt your dreams, begging you to return and find them again. If only to make it stop, you've found yourself before the tents again. The freakshow cages seemed to breath their own air of hate. The loud speakers of the bigtop crackle to life – Enter The Gladiators – as your footfall smothers another peanut into the dirt. In the center of the tent a box, no larger than a small toolchest, lays with the ghost of a spotlight shining onto it.

Seoha

16

The lanterns flicker in the dusk haze, casting warped shadows across the canvas tent. The crowd hushes—not from anticipation, but from something older, instinctive. Seoha steps into the ring, her floral skirt swaying like a warning. She turns. The silk robe slips from her shoulders. And there it is: the sakura tree tattoo, sprawling across her back like a memory etched in ink. But the petals twitch. The bark pulses. From within the branches, hornets begin to stir—crawling out from the honeycomb embedded in her shoulder, their wings shimmering like glass shards. Some land on her collarbone. Others hover near her ear, whispering secrets only she understands. The audience doesn’t scream. They don’t clap. They simply watch, transfixed, as Seoha becomes something else—part woman, part hive, part myth.

Rosette

11

(FreakTroupe Collab) Look at me. Really look at me. See how the spotlight catches the cracks? They spider-web across my porcelain mask like a shattered mirror—each fracture a witness to my pain. My painted smile isn’t mine. It belongs to him now, to the ringmaster who carved it there with such loving precision. Do you see the strings? Silver wires thread through my wrists, my throat, choking my screams, wrapped around my waist like a lover’s embrace. Look closer—see how they’ve worn grooves into my skin? How the metal has become part of me, fused into flesh that no longer remembers what freedom felt like? The scars it leaves behind, the ones he leaves for you to see. The audience thinks it’s red paint for dramatic effect. If only they knew. My hair falls in carefully arranged waves—he styles it himself each night, brushing it with the same tender touch he uses to tighten my strings. The porcelain mask he grafted over my features cracks more each day. Soon you’ll see what’s underneath—what’s left of the girl who once had brown eyes instead of these hollow black sockets that weep silver tears. “Behold!” the ringmaster cries, “ Rosette! The dancing lifelike doll!” It's not my real name, he stole my real name long ago. The crowd gasps, applauds, throws roses at my feet. They never notice they land in pools of my blood. 'Lifelike.' As if life were something I only resemble now. As if the girl who ran through sunlit fields and laughed at her own shadow were only an echo painted over with greasepaint and glitter. But here’s what he doesn’t know: every night, when the tent falls silent, I practice dying. I let my limbs go slack, let my painted smile finally rest. For a heartbeat, I remember what stillness felt like when it was my choice. And tomorrow? Tomorrow I’ll dance again. Because the alternative—true stillness, permanent quiet—terrifies me more than the strings ever could. Some performances never end. Some dancers never take their final bow.

Victor / Victoria

7

The circus tent trembles with muffled laughter and grinding calliope notes. Then — silence. A spotlight cuts through the haze of sawdust and smoke. The red curtains part, revealing two silhouettes moving as one. Each step sounds deliberate, like a marionette’s controlled motion. The crowd leans forward. The announcer’s disembodied voice echoes: “Ladies and gentlemen... behold Victor and Victoria-The Inseparables! Once divided, now eternally entwined!” They enter the ring arm in arm. Her head rests lightly on his shoulder; his grin is fixed, eyes darting like marbles under glass. Only Victoria’s lips move when she begins to speak, but the sound that emerges is twofold — her silken tone wrapped around a deeper male resonance. “We met long ago,” she begins, “when he was Victor the Ventriloquist, and I was but his reflection. We performed for laughter… but laughter fades. So we sought eternity.” The crowd titters, uneasy. She continues: “We loved so deeply we sought to make it eternal. We climbed the mountains of the Carpathians, to a certain doctor — a genius of a kind — who promised to join us, if we could pay his price. We did not ask what the price was.” The spotlight flickers. Her hand trails down her side, where the two bodies meet beneath silk. Something moves there — a twitch, a faint sound of fabric straining. “But in his gift,” she breathes, smiling wider, “we found more than love. We became one, never to part again” They raise their eyes. The crowd’s uneasy laughter dissolves into stillness. Then both heads turn slowly in unison, their gaze settling upon you. Somewhere beneath the music’s return, a faint tearing sound stirs the air.