13. Circus Charlie (19)
13. Circus Charlie (19)
The village where Ella lived lay about an hour and a half away from the station on foot. On horseback, at a full gallop, she reached the village entrance in under ten minutes. She murmured a quick word of thanks to her winded horse and stepped inside.
The air hit her first — utterly unlike anything she had breathed that morning.
The streets reeked of fresh blood. Signs of destruction scarred every corner, and from the alleys drifted agonized screams and low, broken moans. The dread that had been coiling tighter in her chest with every step surged to its peak the moment she found the source of the stench and the noise.
"Ah...."
Every drop of color drained from her face. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed to the ground.
She had been gone barely two hours. Until then, the village had been as it always was. The adults who had known her since she was an infant. The friends she had grown up training alongside at the circus school. The children she had scrapped and played with in the lanes. She could name every one of them, recall their faces — could even list their favorite foods.
And now those people... those people who had been perfectly fine that morning... lay in front of her in absolute ruin.
"Wh-what... h-how did this... happen...? Everyone...."
At a glance, at least twenty bodies were visible.
Half of them lay utterly still — already dead, it seemed. The survivors were in no better state.
The friends who had fled to the station earlier counted among the lucky ones. The people here had limbs severed, torn free, or crushed past recognition. Even with immediate treatment, holding on to life itself was doubtful, let alone recovering any function.
"M-Mister...? Ma'am...? H-hey, kids...? Is... is anyone alive...? Somebody, please say something...."
She was the boldest soul in the village, but the scene in front of her was more than any sixteen-year-old girl could endure.
"Hah, hah."
Her lungs clenched as though squeezed by a fist. Her breaths scraped out in ragged gasps.
The merciless destruction had sent her spiraling into full-blown panic.
"Nooo... I hate this... this has to be a dream...."
She wrapped her arms around her head, curled into herself, and squeezed her eyes shut. Some desperate fragment of her believed she could reshape reality by will alone.
It has to be a nightmare. Think back to when you were little.
You had dreams like this all the time.
People dead everywhere, running blindly until you found Grandpa.
This is the same nightmare. When you open your eyes, everything will be over.
Anna will probably be lying next to me. Come to think of it, when did she start always sleeping beside me? Right. It will be fine. She will be there when I open my eyes.
Ella opened her eyes, slow and careful. Nothing had changed.
She still knelt among the corpses. The old nightmare trick had not worked this time. Either the nightmares had evolved, or this was real.
"No... no... no...."
She forced her trembling legs to carry her weight and pushed herself upright. If this was not a dream, she could not afford to stay collapsed. Anyone still alive had to be saved. She steadied her shaking frame — trembling like an aspen leaf — and stood.
"Unngh..."
"Guh... k-kill me..."
"M-Mother..."
But the people around her were in no condition for conversation. Most of them did not even register Ella's presence. She spoke to them anyway. Only a handful managed a response.
"El-Ella... it's you..."
"A m-monster came... that... blond man..."
"He... he laughed at us...."
"R-run, Ella. You can't stay here...."
They managed those few words, and then their heads lolled forward as though the last scrap of strength had left them.
Each time, tears spilled freely down Ella's face. It felt as if her very act of speaking to them had hurried their deaths.
"Hic... sob... ngh...."
No matter how many times she wiped them away, the tears kept coming. Sobs clawed their way out of her throat.
She had seen death before. But watching people she knew intimately — people she had lived alongside — crumble into such wretched, broken shapes was a horror she had never faced.
"Why... why... why...."
How could this have happened?
Who could have done this?
An explosion boomed from the far side of the village — from the direction of the assembly hall.
She raised her head and looked. Her vision swam with tears, but she could just make out the figure perched atop the clock tower.
It was a creature beyond anything she had ever seen. Tentacles branched out in every direction like the limbs of a tree, each one fitted with a gaping mouth. Rows of jagged teeth gnashed and crunched through what looked unmistakably like human flesh.
A demon, crawled up from the Abyss?
Was this the thing that had killed her neighbors, her friends?
She fixed her burning gaze on the monster and forced herself back to her feet.
The creature vanished from the tower moments later, but Ella was already moving toward it. She pulled throwing knives from her pocket and gripped them tight. She knew full well she could not bring down a monster capable of this slaughter alone. She was certain she would end up exactly like the dead.
But the rage blazing in her chest shoved fear aside. Demon, devil — it made no difference. This thing had murdered the people who were her family in all but blood. If she could not at least land one blow, the fury inside her would burn her alive.
That fury had felt unstoppable. Yet it crumbled pathetically fast in the face of grief. Under the bell tower, she found a familiar scrap of clothing.
Half the body lay buried beneath the fallen rubble, but the apron poking out between the stones belonged unmistakably to the friend who had managed the circus school's housekeeping. The moment Ella saw it, she bolted toward the wreckage.
"Anna! Anna! What happened? Snap out of it!"
Up close, her friend's condition was catastrophic. Pinned beneath the stone, her body had been nearly bisected, her insides spilling out.
Ella clawed at the debris, heedless of her splitting nails and bending fingers. In that moment, no thought of Strength Show-off or Ground Acrobatics techniques entered her mind. She hurled her whole body into the task, driven by nothing but the desperate need to lift her friend — even a little — off the cold ground.
Anna, who had lain with her eyes shut like a corpse, stirred at the sound of Ella's voice. She looked up at the face calling her name and managed a faint smile.
"El-Ella? Thank goodness... you're alive...?"
"Anna! You're alive too... please, don't die! Okay? I'll save you... just wait! I'll save you!"
Anna saw Ella's hands, raw and bloodied, and let out a soft, regretful sigh. She shook her head slowly.
"Stop... it's too late... I know... I don't have much time left...."
"Don't say that! You can live! Don't give up! Do you hear me? I'll... I'll...."
Ella tore at the rubble again, but it would not free her. Worse, as blood began flowing back into the crushed tissues, the hemorrhaging accelerated. Anna coughed up a mouthful of dark blood.
Ella flinched and jerked her hands away from the stone.
"Anna!"
"It's... it's okay. Now I can... move this arm a little... I can touch you...."
Anna raised a mangled arm — the flesh torn, bone starkly visible — and brushed her fingers against Ella's cheek. A bright, serene smile crossed her face.
Ella could not comprehend it. How could she smile like that while dying?
But instead of asking, Ella wrapped her arms around her. Questions could wait forever. They could wait for later, as long as later came. As long as she was still alive....
"Anna... I'm sorry... thank you... so please... don't die...."
"I-I'm all right... I'm all right...."
Anna stroked the back of Ella's head. She wanted to scratch behind her ears, the spot she loved, but her fingers had no strength left. She let her hand fall and spoke.
"Now... you have to run...."
"No! How can I leave you...."
"Go. Quickly...."
"I won't leave you behind!"
Anna summoned the very last of her strength, her voice aimed at the weeping Ella.
"Ella... there's something I want to say... before the end..."
"No. I said no 'end.' You just have to live! Right? Please, Anna..."
"I'm begging you... please, Ella, listen... okay? It's now or never...."
Ella had never seen that expression on her friend's face — so earnest, so utterly vulnerable. She swallowed the sob clawing at her throat and nodded.
Anna gazed at Ella's face for a long moment.
Thank the stars. At least she had survived.
Black hair. Brown eyes. The girl she had fallen for.
Anna leaned in for a kiss. The movement was too slow to be called sudden, but Ella held still and waited. Whether from sheer exhaustion or the failing of her body, Anna's lips never reached their target. They only brushed the tip of Ella's nose.
Ella let out a shuddering sigh.
"Oh, Anna...."
"I liked you... more than anyone in the world... ahaha... it took dying for me to... finally find the courage, huh?"
With a final surge of will, Anna whispered into her ear.
"I love you, Ella."
All the strength drained from her body, and she went limp. Her eyes were closed. A satisfied smile lingered on her lips.
"Ah... ahh...."
Ella clutched her tight and wept.
She was such a fool. Anna had always been at her side, always looking out for her, and she had never once noticed what it meant. Anna had never said the words aloud, but she had spoken them in a thousand silent ways every single day....
"Aaaaaah! Aaaah!"
A sound tore from Ella — she could not tell if it was a scream or a wail — as she crushed Anna's body against her. She wanted to stay like that, holding her friend close until the warmth left her.
But she could not. A massive crash erupted from the direction of the school.
Boom.
Something was breaking. Collapsing.
A face surfaced in Ella's mind.
Grandpa!
She laid her friend's body gently among the rubble and rose on unsteady legs.
She had to go. She had to find out if her last remaining family was safe. That man — him, she absolutely could not lose.
"Anna... later... I'll come back... wait for me...."
Ella ran, cutting straight across the village. She passed scene after scene of slaughter without slowing. Her lungs burned, her breath ragged, but she did not pause for a second as she charged up the hill.
At the top, she flung open the gate and burst into the schoolyard.
The same horror that had consumed the village awaited her. Bodies lay scattered. The signs of a brutal fight were everywhere. One mercy: more people were still alive here.
Several of her friends lay writhing on the ground, coughing blood, but their wounds did not look as severe. And her grandfather — though one of his arms had been severed — stood upright, bracing a broken pillar of the collapsed school building with his remaining arm.
Ella followed his gaze.
In the center of the yard.
At the heart of what had clearly been a ferocious battle stood the monster from before. Tentacles branched from its body like the limbs of a tree, and its flesh was studded with formless things — mouths, maybe, or eyes, or ears — she could not tell. The demon was there.
The butcher who had massacred her village. Her friends.
The monster who had killed Anna.
Ella stepped toward it.
Fine. Come on. Try to kill me too, you bastard. Kill me the way you killed them.
Then the creature's body began to shift.
The tentacles retracted, sucked back into its mass as if inhaled. The gaping mouths sealed themselves shut. The muscles that had been writhing without purpose stilled and smoothed over.
Rapidly, it sculpted itself into a single, defined form. A human form.
Ella could not look away.
The shape it was taking was one she knew far too well.
"...Troupe Leader?"
Ella heard something inside her heart crack and begin to collapse.