Don't visit the circus, they said. Dipper don't, you know you're a scaredy-cat.
Dipper is inclined to agree with that – he is a scaredy-cat. But a man had his pride and Dipper was a man. To prove them wrong, he's going to the damn (creepy)circus. He's staying out past ten and he's not taking his damn sister either.
Mabel doesn't take no for an answer, and two out of three was good enough.
Red and yellow tents that look like softened pyramids decorate the outskirts of the venue, forming the shape of a triangle. (It's all on the sloppy drawn map Dipper is currently viewing)
The ground is grey, littered with what appears to be fake snow. The sides of the designated paths to the tents are skewly dotted with cheap fairy-lights varying in colours. They blink out of sync and seem to favour the colour yellow.
Within the inner area of the circus, surprisingly, there are bright rides that belong at a carnival, not a circus. A circus was for attractions, carnivals were for the active experiences. Right? It was unorthodox, but he wasn't going to complain. Mabel begins to list which rides she wants to try: all of them.
The smell of candy-coated popcorn permeates the air, driving Mabel to be more talkative than usual. The popping of corn can be heard, too, but Dipper can't see where it comes form. The candy floss is the softest he's ever tasted, like he's eating a captured cloud they'd dyed pink. But when the floss is finished, a rotten understate, like decaying fruit in the summer, is left on Dipper's tongue. It's enough to make him spend the next few minutes gagging. He does not vomit, but God knows he wants to.
It happens with the beverages, too. Cold soda as if kissed by the goddess of ice herself, but once finished, tasted like warm and fresh urine from someone incredibly dehydrated. Potent and foul-smelling; his tongue is now tumid with disgust. Again, Dipper wants to vomit, but nothing comes out.
Mabel appears to not taste any of this. To her, the candy floss is still delicious and the soda is still cold and placating.
They enter a tent, and watch a golden clad contortionist. She's exceptionally skilled, and with the grace of an experienced and broken ballerina, she bends herself in delightful and horrific ways. But the twisting is not enough, soon she is swinging and twisting herself.
She swings and snakes herself around the rope which she dangles from. Her movements fluid and hypnotic, but with a touch of severity, as though the rope is her captive.
Dipper watches in amazement at the meticulous precision of the way her joints bend and rotate. The human body was capable of such wonders, and Dipper can't think of a single wonderful thing he's ever done.
She continues: swinging as she bends, twists and distorts her human figure into a ghastly inhuman one.
And then she swings a bit too hard, and her head crashes against the wooden slab from which she began her journey. Her skull shatters on impact. A sound like an egg-cracking stabs his eardrums while blood sprays everywhere, and no one but Dipper screams. No one but Dipper seems to notice. The blood is so very dark, so warm like the heat coming from beneath his own skin.
It is the rope that twists around her now, and she dangles limply in its dead-man-noose hold, swinging back and forth still. Entertaining her spectators until the very end– and beyond it, too.
His face is now flushed– coloured with her red on top of his skin and his own red bubbling beneath his skin.
He screams, and is instantly ushered out of the tent by a security guard, but first he begins to gag again. This time, it's painful, as if all his organs are on strike and trying to leave the building called Dipper Pines. It hurts, and hurts. They twist inside him the very same way he'd seen the beautiful contortionist twist.
But again, nothing comes out.
Mabel scolds him, telling him to stop imagining things. When he peeks into the tent again, the contortionist is as alive and radiant as ever. Smiling, as she waves to her new adoring fans.
They ride the carousel. Dipper thinks the slow ride might calm him down. In front of him, he sees a young boy with a small bat riding the horse before his own. The little boy starts to strike the horse as it goes up and down, and Dipper hears the horse neigh in protest. The boy keeps at it, beats the horse until Dipper starts to see blood drip from the battered body.
The horse's head was a fond spot of the boy's, and he hits and hits and then Dipper hears a sound that tells him the horse has passed on. Brutalised to an early death.
Dipper jumps off the ride and tries to throw up again, but nothing comes out.
Mabel's starting to get annoyed, but she feels sympathy and encourages Dipper to endure.
"You're spooking yourself out, brobro!" she says, and she's probably right, he thinks.
When he turns to look at the horse again, there's no blood and no boy.
They move onto the next tent. Here, they encounter the ring leader. A man so hideous, Dipper wholeheartedly believes his face must be special effects because no man could be this unlucky.
With tattered clawed teeth, he screams encouragingly at the patrons, hoping to entice them to stay longer, to spend more money. His yellow bulbous eye, the other sewn shut, watches every patron like a hawk, sizing them up– perhaps to make their experience more unnerving. He rotates his whole body to see, his neck seeming far too thick for any sort of flexibility. No hair save for a few strands and his almost-bare scalp reflects the rainfall of fireworks that began to go off.
The ugly man focuses on Dipper.
"Step inside the Fearamid, kids! See all your deepest darkest fears come to life before your very eyes!" He declares, waving his cane at Dipper and Mabel.
Mabel squeals with glee, rushes ahead. Dipper breathes, puffs his chest out and gives a very aloof 'sure'. He sounds a lot braver than he feels. His deepest darkest fears? How did they find it out? Did they simply guess? Pick something that would frighten every person?
He heads into the tent, the man watching with an intrusive gaze that makes Dipper feel like he has x-ray vision and can see a little too much. But Dipper refuses to be psyched out.
Mabel leaves the tent laughing, Dipper leaves with his face wet with the bodies of smothered tears.
The hideous man watches Dipper the entire time, until Dipper manages to evade his gaze by entering another tent.
The tent is pitch black, and he's separated from Mabel. He calls for her, but there's no reply.
"Ladies and gentleman! Welcome to Damned Dummies! With master puppeteer, Bill Cipher!"
The audience cheers, but Dipper can't feel the presence of anyone around him. The cheerful praise appears to emit from thin air, and it thickens the mood with an oppressive ambiance. Dipper shivers despite the warm weather and wraps his arms around himself as he treads closer to the illuminated stage.
"Our star of the night is a personal favourite of mine! I call her…Shooting Star! She comes once ever blue moon but to witness her, oh, is a splendid joy not everyone is lucky enough to experience!"
The iridescent red curtains part, and the favoured doll is as tall as a human. A human girl, with long brown curly hair, and dressed in a similar fashion to Mabel. In fact…it looked like…
Mabel…?
Then Dipper sees it, the bloody hands where the strings have pierced and knotted themselves into her palms like stigmata. The same has occurred to her legs, at the joints. The doll is jerked lopsidedly, and once she's spun around, Dipper sees it is Mabel. Mabel, with holes in her body, and rope tethered into the holes to allow them to be manipulated. She dangles as a puppet would off strings, blood dripping onto the stage and collecting into tiny pools.
Her eyes are glossy, unblinking. The rope at her mouth is thinner, and her mouth moves, "Dipper! Dipper!"
The voice is not Mabel's, it's the puppeteer's.
She dances across the stage, the spotlight following her. "Dipper!" she calls, further splattering the stage-floor in red.
"Dipper!" She cries out again.
"M-Mabel…" Dipper staggers to the front of the stage and timidly reaches out to her. "M-Mabel…are you…"
He isn't sure what to say. When did this happen? How? She was just at his side…
A trick? An illusion? A prank?
"Dipper! It really hurts!" Mabel cries again, and this time, it's Mabel's voice.
Dipper's eyes widen. He doesn't blink as he watches his sister get paraded around like a toy. She shudders and shakes awkwardly, as if suffering body spasms. Then she crumbles to the floor, covering her face with her raw, bloodied hands. She cries again, "Dipper! It hurts so much…"
He hasn't blinked, and his eyes now begin to tear up to lubricate themselves. Or maybe he's crying.
He's crying.
Mabel's head jerks up to face Dipper, and he sees her tears are red. Even her eyes…have been…
Then the ugly man, the ring leader from earlier, enters the stage. He raises his right hand, palm towards Dipper, spreads his fingers and with a wider grin than ever, jams his hand up into Mabel's back. Seconds pass and her head props up like a ventriloquist dummy.
The man then proceeds to perform a ventriloquist act using Mabel while Dipper watches, crying and unable to move.
It's too much.
"Oops, one of her eyes fell out! Ugh, that's why I hate investing in cheap things! Sorry folks!"
It's too much.
Dipper heaves and gags emphatically – something is coming out of him. Something is being pulled and yanked out, like a fish caught in a lake. As it comes out, the sensation similar to relieving himself overcomes him. He feels unburdened as it continues to be hauled out of him, whatever was coming out of him. Pulled and pulled, and then he's watching himself. Floating above himself.
"Real easy one, weren't you, kid?" His body says to him, with fish eyes and a smile so wide, Dipper can see too much gum.
"Knew this was the body I wanted the second you walked in! And who knew it'd be this easy to frighten you right outta your meat sock!" The Dipper says, feeling up his body enthusiastically.
No…
What was this?
"What did you do?" Dipper yells, but the other him just points and laughs.
"Thanks for the body, kid! Have an 'I OWE U'!" The Dipper does an eccentric dance, and then laughs again.
Before Dipper can do anything further, they are interrupted.
"Dipper, there you are! Hey, it's late! We gotta go!" Mabel, alive and well, runs in.
Grabbing Dipper's arms, she starts to drag him to the exit. "We're already past curfew! Where were you?!"
Dipper watches. It's all he can do.
"Oh uh, sure Shooting Star. Let's get going! Haven't been feeling too well anyway, a good night's sleep is just what I need!"
"Shooting Star? What's with that nickname? I kinda like it…" Mabel says, and The Dipper puts his arm around her, flashing a dreadful smile once more to Dipper.
"I got a lot of things you'll like, kid! What do you think of those ventriloquist dummies…?"
You stand outside the new circus in town.
The map outside is messy, as if drawn by a child, but you can make out most of the venue and attractions.
You decide to enter. It's cheap, you're bored and what's the worst that could happen?
Yeah, what's…the worst that could happen?
Dipper watches you enter.