Cirque des Âmes

Dark ominous clouds hung overhead as the smell of popcorn permeated the air; as the spinning lights of a travelling circus lit up the night. The sounds of children’s laughter wafted among the noises of machinery as clowns made a mockery of themselves for the mere smiles and cheap pay.

Within a tent, aerialists swung about hanging from wire as they did an aerial dance.  The lights dimmed and a woman garbed in leather and little less than anything else was lowered into the soft glow of a spotlight. Drunken men hoot and hollered at the sight of her and the faces of children were innocent and aglow with delight as they waited to see more of the show. The woman’s short russet hair blew about, her sapphire eyes were captivating, and a smile played across her porcelain features as she weaved herself around a ring, which hung over her mesmerized audience.   

Smoke from a machine wafted around her and added an air of mystery to her and her act. Lights danced about her in different hues as she hung gracefully by her legs on the ring. From the audience point of view, she appeared to be a risqué aerial ballerina.

The crowd was unaware of the woman’s intentions as they watched her as if they were in a trance, but the woman had orders, very dark orders. She was not just a mere aerialist and the circus was not just a show. Behind their façade laid a darkness that was unnatural.

Music serenaded the audience and emphasized on the woman’s appealing act. Just as before the lights dimmed and left the tent in darkness as tableau lights befell upon the woman and her watchers. She was different than before she was clad in an ebony cloak. Her azure eyes were fierce and her expression was that of mystery as the music contorted to something of suspense as eeriness fell upon the tent.  

The woman began to murmur a string of words that weaved a tune of the crowds’ unfortunate future. The words became tangible and joined the darkness slithering in shadows among the captive audience.  The woman’s eyes gleamed with an otherworldly hue that was not like any color known to humankind.

The men’s lustful shouts and the children’s voices silenced as the woman’s murmurs rose to a melodic ballad that filled the ears of the audience.

Words became shadows and shadows became humanoid specters that swirled around the oblivious mortals with sinister grins plastered across their ebony faces.

The audience was hypnotized by the woman’s song completely unaware of the haunting specters that were approaching them.

As the shadows consumed all light, the tent fell in darkness the woman vanished and in her place was a beautifully deadly fiend. It parted its ruby lips and rows of sharpened teeth flashed in the beam of a single spotlight, the only one that didn't go out. Its hair was now a mane of fire and its eyes gleamed with the same unworldly hue.

The creature no longer sang, but the tune still wafted in the air as if it were a part of the atmosphere itself.  The faces of the audience were etched with jubilation and their eyes were blank voids of emptiness.

A sinister cackle pierced the air cuing the specters to become one with the audience. Every shadow slipped into the bodies of the humans, possessing them.

No scream or tear was shed no one run or hid. The captive audience simply sat in their seats during the endeavor staring blankly ahead. Illusions being fed to their minds as the specters ceased their souls.

Unexpectedly, the tent flashed with a brilliant red and the specters reappeared with gelatinous orbs of different hues in their claws.

The ruby lipped fiend cackled smiling like a Cheshire cat as it gestured for the specters to come to it. They did as they were told and the fiend took the spherical souls and devoured them whole.  

As the last of the souls were given to it, another brilliant red light flashed and smoke coiled itself around the being sucking the specters in. As darkness fell the creature stirred now twenty times the size of a human, it stood unfurling its ebony wings of darkness.

Its eyes searched the audience and found that they were still captive by his sinister magick. Content and stuffed it bound upward tearing a hole into the tent’s roof soaring into the night.

The circus still ongoing, oblivious to the events that went on were caught completely off guard as the creature filled the sky with its sickly darkness putting out every light of every star.

Darkness befell the world and screams never were uttered, as the specters possessed the mortals.

Soulless wanderers now walked the Earth as an obese devil moved onward to claim more souls that lived in the universe.