Blame

Restless

Elizabeth Jones was a clown.

She worked for a relatively small traveling circus troupe called Afton & Emily's Twisted Circus, where she had gotten the name Circus Baby.

The troupe traveled via a train, which was pretty much their home. Or at least, it was where they slept.

Their rooms on the train were practically all identical and reminded Elizabeth of coffins. They were small, claustrophobic, and really only consisted of a place to lay down.

The kitchens and bathrooms were shared between three or four other people within the same train car.

At exactly 5:00 a.m., Elizabeth wrestled open the door to her room in order to make her way over to one of those kitchens. She squinted a bit at the brightness of the lights in the narrow hallway that greeted her. The windows that lined the walls opposite of the doors showed nothing but black.

Letting out a small sigh, she passed by the room right next to hers, which belonged to Arlen Foxx. Arlen was a sword swallower that was better known as Funtime Foxy. 

Despite all of the years that she had been a part of the troupe, Elizabeth still didn't know that much about him. Mostly because he hardly ever said anything to her.

Or made eye contact with her, for that matter.

She passed by Freddy Brackett's (also known as Funtime Freddy) and Bon-Bon's room. The two of them made up a ventriloquist act. Freddy was nice. Sometimes too nice. Despite knowing that he was a rather genuine guy, Elizabeth couldn't help but feel unnerved by his kindness sometimes. Overly nice people, in general, made her feel unnerved. She always felt like they were trying to string her along for some reason, or like they were attempting to be nice out of pity and really struggling to do so. Bon-Bon was just a ventriloquist dummy, but he scared Elizabeth a little bit. She was almost ninety-nine percent sure that he was not only alive but also really unfond of her.

She passed by Jesse Foxx's room. Jesse, or Lolbit, was Arlen's twin sister. She was a sword swallower too. Elizabeth considered Jesse to be her best friend. Though if the sword swallower regarded her the same way, Elizabeth would never know. She was too afraid to ask.

Finally reaching the kitchen, she began to fumble with the coffee maker for a moment, attempting to turn it on in her half-awake state. 

Eventually, she succeeded. While she waited for the pot to fill, she put her auburn hair into a loose ponytail with a hair tie that she had been wearing on her wrist and grabbed a mug.

The sound of somebody else opening the door to their room became audible when Elizabeth started to fill the mug. Had she not felt half-dead, she probably would have glanced over her shoulder in a paranoid fashion when that somebody walked into the kitchen.

"You alright, Liz?" That voice definitely belonged to Jesse. It sounded like she was opening the fridge. "You look like a zombie."

Elizabeth picked up her coffee, not even caring that it was burning her hand slightly. "Y-yeah, I couldn't sleep so I finally d-decided to just g-get up." She stepped aside so that Jesse had room to throw together a bowl of cereal.

"Did Freddy's polka music keep you up? 'Cause that shit was so skull penetrating that made its way into my dream."

"No... I don't think so. It w-was something else..."

Jesse clapped a hand onto Elizabeth's shoulder. Because she hadn't really been paying attention, the action was unexpected to her and an unpleasant tingle shot through her body as a result, making her shudder involuntarily. "Well, hopefully, whatever the hell kept you awake doesn't bother you again tonight. Mister Afton says we're gonna be at our next stop tomorrow morning."

When Jesse left the kitchen, she threw the empty cereal box into the small metal trash can by the doorway.

Elizabeth flinched at the sound of the lid closing.