The Killings.
Murders happen quite frequently, don't they? If you turn on the news, a woman has been stabbed; a man has been strangled. Isn't it awful? What would make someone do such a thing?
You value your life, don't you? Of course you do! You have control over your body, your mind, and sometimes you can even glance into your soul. What would make someone take all that away from somebody? You would never kill someone. Would you?
I myself, once knew a man. Well, there are men all over the place, but this man, there was something a littleā¦.different about him. We were good friends - we would drink together, though he never got drunk, and like friends do, we would talk about things. He was rather tall, this friend of mine, and although he was a little 'quirky', I always thought he was a good man.
Until, he told me about that goddamned circus.
Have you heard of it? The circus that lies in those mysterious dark woods, lit by bright lights. He said him and I could be co-owners of the circus. He promised me great things. However, I did not accept. He was furious! Have you heard what he wanted to do? What he has done?
Of course you have. The two headed monster. The blue haired cannibal. The woman who cuts off her arms, as if they have no feeling in them at all. The two ridiculously tall women, who waltz around the circus. And of course, the young girl, with the legs of a goat.
'Legs of a goat?' You say. 'Surely that is not that bad?' But, it was that young girl, who once lived on the streets, who really could not handle the power of the tall man. She went crazy. As mad as a hatter! So insane, in fact, that she began to play God, deciding the courses of other people's lives.
It was the two headed thing that she began with. Rin and Len, those were the names of the heads; I remember now. Len's face was drizzled with burn marks, and scars, whereas Rin always wore a fixed smile, below those half-dead blue eyes of hers.
They were close to Miku. They were of similar ages to the teal haired girl. Though, she wasn't really a girl anymore. A faun. That's the correct name for someone who is half human and half goat, I believe.
Len was always urging Rin to escape. Miku noticed this. Len wanted to escape, just like her! She was so happy! He would certainly oblige to her plan. She was going to set herself, and everybody else trapped in the hellish circus, free. She was such a good little girl.
One night, after all the jeering crowds had left and the circus was quiet, Miku sat by herself in her cage-like home. She had a knife down her sleeve, and it was making her shiver. It kept pricking her arm; covering the inside of her sleeve in small, red-brown stains. She didn't mind though. Usually she felt so numb, that she would have done anything to have a knife pricking at her arm.
Where did she obtain this knife, you ask? A particularly angry man had thrown it at her, the night before. He had actually thrown it, aiming for the Miku's head. The tall man had suddenly appeared, catching the knife in his hand. Somehow, he was then behind the thrower. The crowd when silent at the knife-throwing man was escorted out of the circus. How lucky for him.
Miku had been being very obedient for the circus ring-master that week. She had been obedient and kind, kind and hard working. The tall man's guard was down, and Miku knew it. That was how she slipped through the bars of her cage that night.
In fact, mostly everybody slipped out of their cages. They were allowed to, as long as they didn't leave the circus. Everybody would gather in the long corridor of a hut, where the two tall ladies - Haku and Neru, was it? - slept. They met almost every night, everyone apart from Pochi. He would sit with 'Master' sometimes, or just stay by himself.
They would all exchange stories for an hour or so, most of them about crazy crowd members. Yet, despite the fact they would all be laughing, there was always a darker undertone to their stories. Every single member of the group knew how to spot certain things, like when someone had been whipped. Their keen eyes noted every new burn or scar. For example, the night before Miku's rampage, they had gathered.
"I had a woman today who tried to take off my shirt," Meiko would say, leaving out the fact that the woman had tried to take off her shirt so she could purify Meiko's heart. She had come to Meiko, hands shaking as they held a little wooden cross. She said, 'Let me get the devil out. Let me get the devil out!'.
The group had tittered, as they always did.
"That's nothing!" Neru had countered, emerging from her emotional shell. She was used to her fellow freaks now. " Two people tried to climb Haku and I today."
Again, the group had tittered. When the two people had begun their climb, the women's bones had clacked together, causing a substantial amount of hurting. Neru and Haku had had to shake their legs to get the people off, and that hurt more than anything. Neru's golden, bloodshot eyes had shined with restrained tears. Haku did cry, though she was discreet about it.
They continued to exchange stories, although, they always kept large parts of the truth hidden. When Meiko, Miku, Rin and Len stood up to troop back to their respective homes, the group saw a large, circular, burn mark on the back of Meiko's neck. If her hair was a little longer, then the top of the mark would have been covered. The skin looked tight and puckered; it was a sore looking pink blob. But nobody said a thing. They never said a thing when Len came in with a crusty scabs on his arms, or when Haku was seen with shining, silver scratches on her hands, which most probably progressed to her shoulders. Not a word was said when the whites of Neru's eyes looked more red than their original colour. When Miku appeared with bruises on her face and neck, the dark purple splodges were politely ignored.
They avoided saying the things that scared them most. Pussyfooting around them, until they truly believed that they didn't happen. But nobody really believed that. Even Pochi wasn't that delusional.
However, nobody saw it coming. Nobody believed that Miku would do anything like what she did.
As I was saying, Miku had slipped out of her confinement. It was growing dark outside, and the air was cold and bitter. Miku went to find Rin and Len.
She soon found them sat on the grass at the left side of the circus. Perfect. Len was tugging at dark strands of grass, and the two heads weren't speaking.
Rin and Len were allowed more freedom than everybody else. It was ironic, seeing as Len was the person who seemed to talk most about escape. Though secretly, Miku knew all about Meiko's little run for freedom.
"Hello Rin, Len," greeted Miku, sitting next to them innocently. She wasn't thinking about killing them. She wasn't thinking about the knife that was pricking her skin. She wasn't really thinking about much at all.
"Hello Miku," Len greeted, looking at the grass in his palm. Rin looked up for a moment, but said nothing. It was almost as if since their transformation, their roles had switched. Len being the talker, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, the protector, whilst Rin was the one who was being protected, quiet and distant. They truly were as simple and as complex as each other.
"What are you doing out here?" Miku asked, her eyes washing over both Rin and Len.
"Nothing." Rin answered for a change. Her eyes met Miku's. They both looked terrified.
"Len," Miku whispered out of the blue. "Do you want to escape?"
Len's head jerked upwards. Escape? The big E word? "It's impossible."
"That's not what I asked," Miku replied softly. The knife was beginning to slip downwards, getting nearer to the palm of her hand. Rin was looking at both Miku and Len with wide eyes. What about the tall man? Wouldn't he hear them? Wouldn't he get them?
"Yes," Len replied cautiously, in an equally quiet voice. He glanced behind him, and Rin could feel the twinge of the muscles in his lower neck.
Miku was picking at the grass, looking downwards, smiling as if she knew a joke that the other's didn't.
"I thought so," she murmured. "I knew so." The knife, the needy knife that begged to be used, fell into her palm. Miku's pale fingers gripped the end of it, tightening around it.
Rin was the first to notice the glimmering metal. "What's that?"
"The answer."
"What?" Len questioned, looking downwards, towards Miku's hands.
"I told you." Miku said, looking up at her friends. She met their eyes, and her smile widened further. " Our answer."
Len, being curious, poked out his neck to try and see what the teal haired girl was concealing. Miku's hand suddenly lifted, the knife glimmering.
"Len!" Rin yelped, though her voice was hoarse, and the roof of her mouth was dry and painful. Too little, too late.
The knife swept across Len's throat gracefully, unveiling a large slit of flesh. Though, the flesh was only visible for less than a second, because blood began to spurt of cut. Len grabbed his throat, a strange gurgling sound coming from him. Rin was pushing her hand against the wound, growing paler and paler, her breath's heaving and heavy. Len continued to make that awful sound.
Miku face was covered in blood. She smiled gleefully. What a good girl she was. She took the bloodied knife and for a change, dragged it vertically down Rin's throat. As Rin began to press her hands against her own throat, and make that awful sound, Miku took the knife and carved a little love heart in the space above Rin and Len's shared collarbone. Blood began to drip down and fly, as the teenagers with the joined body began to struggle.
Yet, Miku could see it. Len's struggles were getting weaker and weaker. He had placed his hands on weakly on his sisters hands, which were still on her throat. He was trying to stop his sister's bleeding.
Len's head then lolled to the left side, though his hands stayed on his sisters. Dead man's grip. Blood began to pour from his mouth, to his chin, to the floor. Rin was still struggling, crying and convulsing. Eventually, she grew still, and her head fell downwards, resting on both her and her brother's hands. Blood gushed from her mouth, staining everything in it's path.
Rin's eyes were half closed, whereas Len's were wide open, his eye brows raised in shock and agony. The little, bloody love heart that Miku had carved, was drooling blood. It mixed with the blood from Rin's mouth. A whole river of blood, running down the body.
Miku smiled. They were going to heaven. How kind of her; how kind indeed!
"Goodnight Rin, goodnight Len," Miku said fondly, standing up and leaving, as if her friends were still alive.
AN: More gory than scary I suppose, but I hope you enjoyed! I'll be going through everybody that was included in Before The Circus. This song is based on Blue Ice Castle, where Miku kills everyone including herself. If you feel like dropping a review, feel free, but thank you for reading anyway!
