Deformity! Oh, The Deformity! // A Dark Woods Circus fan fiction

1

My body felt heavy when I woke up this morning , everything felt sore almost like my body was telling me not to get up today, but without hesitation, I got up and did my morning routine.

Get dressed, Brush hair, eat, brush teeth, school, day after day was the same. Life becomes boring when it gets so repetitive. As soon as my lunch was packed, I zoomed out the door.

"Goodbye mom!" I waved towards mother as I began to walk on the sidewalk. She didn't wave back, just a sad stare and a puff on a cigarette through the window.

It was a sunny spring day, the smell of fresh dirt and the cool breeze in the air sent nostalgia down my spine. As I walked down the sidewalk, my eyes were glued to the ground, avoiding cracks and sticks. But then something unusual caught my attention.

It was a missing child flyer. Peacefully laying on the ground.

"Missing child: Hatsune Miku, last seen on xx/xx/19xx" There was an image of a smiling girl with two cute pigtails. she looked like she was in high school, much older then me. The girl was wearing the school uniform that was used for the high school down the street.

Butterflies flew around in my stomach.

I wonder where she is now

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"Hey did you hear about the missing high school girl?"

"Yeah! If a high schooler can go missing so easily, I wonder about what would happen to us middle schoolers!"

"What if she's dead?"

"It's possible... but what if she's still alive and stays missing forever!"

I live in a small isolated town, so word spreads extremely quickly. When there's only a forest of trees surrounding your town, there's nothing to do but gossip.

"I heard she was taken from her house!"

"Nah... someone told me they saw her at that circus that was in town the other night"

"Isn't it still going to be here for a few more days? Maybe the police should do something..."

The missing girl was the only topic people wanted to talk about today. Of course, I didn't say anything about it, I just sat back and eavesdropped as usual. It was difficult for me to join in conversations, I didn't have anyone to talk to at school, I was an outcast there as well.

School moved slower than usual, it was most likely the sad aura that surrounded the students, but who could blame them. That sadness soon turned into fear. Once that bell rang, the students quickly ran to the safety inside their homes. Including myself.

I took the same route I did every afternoon, a quick left, cross the street, then a right. But something was off this time around. A flyer hung on the telephone pole right where I would turn left. The paper looked a bit old with its rips and stains, but the nail attached to it looked very new. My eyes looked away from the rotting paper and noticed the children running home, paying no attention to the mysterious flyer. My eyes gazed at it again reading the smeared but still legible print.

"Come one! Come all!
To the circus for the dreaded and the deformed!
For children who wish for a mothers embrace
For children who were abandoned by god
OH THE DEFORMITY
DEFORMITY"

My blood grew cold as my body began to shake. Reading the flyer made me feel extremely uneasy...

But why?

I couldn't explain. Just something about it did not feel right. I've never seen or read anything like that before.

Deformity

That word played in my head.

Deformity

Over and over again.

Oh the deformity!