A/N: So this story is called the Dark Carnival. It will have some mature themes, some darkness, violence, death, and a little bit of humor sprinkled through. Every chapter, I plan to tell you songs you might want to listen to while reading this. For this chapter, listen to The Ringmaster by Insane Clown Posse. Enjoy!

"Luan? You're awfully quiet tonight," her mom said at the table. Luan looked up, suddenly paying attention.

"Sorry Mom, I'm just texting my friend about a school thing," she said, holding up her phone. Her mom sighed. "Well just put it away until after dinner," her mom said.

But Lincoln knew his sister better. She never texted about anything; it didn't allow her to make puns as well as speaking did. Dinner continued on like normal, with Luan cracking jokes, Luna talking about her next gig, Lori going on about Bobby, Lynn discussing sports scores, and of course Leni being, well, Leni.

Eventually their parents dismissed them from the table. Lincoln knew he wouldn't get anywhere with Luan; she might be all jokes, but when she wanted to keep something secret, she would. Luan had gone up to her room. Lincoln did homework for an hour before deciding to get his sisters together.

"Meeting, my room, now. Tell the others, but not Luan," he said simply. Within five minutes, all the sisters were crowded into his room.

"What's all this about, Lincoln?" Lori asked, irritated that she was crammed into the corner by Leni and Lynn.

"Something is up with Luan, I can tell," Lincoln said. He looked around at his sisters.

"Agreed. I've never even seen her use her phone," Lynn piped up. Then, an idea popped into Lincoln's head.

"Wait, the only person who really uses their phone in this house is Lori, and she just uses it to talk to her boyfriend. Do you think…" Lincoln trailed off as looks of understanding came over his sisters' face.

"Are you saying she has a boyfriend?" Lola squealed. Lincoln nodded.

"It would make sense. She has been late to get home several times from school," Lynn said.

"And sometimes she seems distracted when we talk about boys we like," Luna added.

"And I saw her tongue kissing with some guy in the back hallway in the school," Leni said. All the others fell quiet. Then all hell broke loose. Shouts of 'what' and 'how could you not tell us' were tossed around until they heard a knock on the door. They opened it to see Luan.

"What are you guys talking-" she started before she was tackled by Luna.

"How could you not tell us you had a boyfriend? You're not even old enough to date!" Luna demanded.

"Sorry, but I'm a freshman, and I found a fresh man. Get it?" Luan said, barely fazed by the tackle. When nobody laughed, she continued: "I didn't tell you guys because he's a bit older." She pushed Luna off and stood up.

"How much older?" Lynn asked.

"Well I guess he's a junior, so I guess he is 16. But-" she was cut off as Lori slapped her.

"You are 14!" Lori said. "You can't date a junior." Now Luan was frowning and covering her cheek.

"Listen, you guys don't know him. I like clowns, and he likes clowns. He's really nice, and he laughs my jokes. More than all of you!" Luan shouted, and with that, she turned around and stormed to her room. They heard the lock click.

"Luan! Come back!" Luna yelled as she charged the door. We just want to make sure this guy isn't bad news!"

"He's not bad news! You just assumed that!" Luan shouted back.

"Then bring him over tomorrow! Prove us wrong! Just let me in so I can sleep in my bed and not the couch!" Luna called back. Luan opened the door.

"Fine. I will bring Jordi to dinner tomorrow night. Now, stop talking about it!" Luan said. She jumped into bed as the siblings dispersed.

'Wants to date Luan, likes clowns? Tomorrow could be very very interesting,' Lincoln said as he sat down on his bed, and soon he was lost in his Ace Savvy comic book.

11111

While everybody was at school, Lisa was still at home, working on an experiment. She finished the small chip. It was about the size of a SD card, so small that she had needed to use her mechanical precision tools.

"There. It is finished. Now, to field test it," Lisa said. She left her room and walked into Luna and Luan's room. She located a pair of old purple headphones which she figure Luna probably didn't use anymore

She cracked open the area with the wiring (the area behind the actual speaker). She carefully snapped the chip in and put the headphones back together. She placed the headphones in a subtly obvious place, so when Luna put them on to listen to her nightly music, she would be affected by the chip. While the ethical concerns were bothering Lisa, her drive for scientific knowledge took precedence in this case.

Little did she know, she was about to set off a horrible chain of events.

A/N: I do like conflict. I'm excited about writing this story, but I'd really appreciate criticism and reviews in general to help improve the story.

~LL