Hello there! I thought I'd include an author's note this time around. Mostly because I need to apologize for not posting a chapter up sooner; I was afflicted with the dreaded writer's block. I've had this chapter planned out for literally a month, but the actual words just wouldn't flow. But I finally finished it, yay! And, it's very nice to see that people are reading my story, but I would appreciate some sort of feedback from my lovely readers. I mean, I hardly know if you guys even like it, but regardless, I'm going to continue it. Even if it's for my own enjoyment. Thank you for the people that did review, followed and favourited, I love you guys.

I keep forgetting to include a disclaimer so: I do not own The Devil's Carnival or its characters.

Also, small reminders:
A full paragraph in italics is a flashback.
Bolded line breaks of various designs (xoxoxo/x~x~x) mean shifting point of views.

Thanks for reading, reviews are very much loved and are used as inspiration!


"What do you mean I can't go?"

The Scorpion's usual bad boy persona was dramatically reduced by the childlike whine in his voice when he addressed his boss; the big Kahuna down in Hell, the Fallen Angel, Satan. Lucifer. The delinquent ran a hand over his slicked back "hair", missing the feel of real strands instead of what Hell had awarded him with when he accepted his boss' offer to become a carnie — plastic. His hair was as fake as the act he had put in front of Tamara in order to get her to trust him.

"You can't go. And that's final, Scorpion," Lucifer's voice was impatient, though there was a thread of understanding in the deep tones. Of course he understood why the young man was upset, it wasn't every day that Hell got to wage war against Heaven for the right to save lost souls. "Tamara still hasn't awoken from the last time she died here and she needs someone to stay with her, she cannot fall prey to the others outside of the Carnival. She needs your protection, Scorpion."

It was Satan's own fault that she hadn't woken up yet, since he had been the one to take her off of the Scorpion's hands, telling the young man to leave her to him instead — that he would get her to see the lesson she was supposed to learn. Needless to say, it hadn't worked and now Scorpion had to pay the consequences for it. He bit his tongue to keep himself from complaining that it wasn't fair, that he shouldn't be the one to take responsibility; but since this was Hell, there was little that was fair. Instead, the pale man looked at his boss in confusion, why did she have to be under his care? Why not Doll's? He knew that she had some sort of twisted curiosity about the brunette.

"Why me, boss? Why do I have to stay here?" The Scorpion's voice was still plaintive, though it was obvious that his fight was giving out. He already knew that he was going to stay in the abandoned Carnival, but he kept on going, if only for appearances.

"She is your case, Scorpion. I entrusted her to you so she could learn her lesson and her punishment must be carried out, with or without me here. You are one of my best employees, if a little rebellious, so I trust that you will teach her that she is not to trust anyone," there was a pause, Lucifer leaned back on his plush chair, hands entwined. "It is quite the shame though, I wish I could have taken her along; she would have been so disarming — her innocence could have given us the perfect edge."

The Scorpion's lips twisted bitterly, pulling out on of the many switchblades that he stored on his person, "You know what else would have given us the perfect edge?" he twirled the knife, showing off the skills Lucifer already knew he had before continuing, "My knives."

With that, the Scorpion slid the knife back into his pocket and stormed off. The Devil thought nothing of it, already used to the young man's tantrums after years and years of being subjected to them.

x~x~x~x~x~x

The Scorpion was now trying to find the young woman who had escaped from him so easily. It seemed that he was starting to lose his touch — or maybe it was because Tamara was starting to learn the important lessons that were supposed to redeem her. In either case, the fact that he couldn't find her was starting to irritate him. She was meant to stay by his side, because how else was he going to protect her? He wasn't telepathic or telekinetic, or any of those fancy tele-words.

With mumbled complaints, he looked in another tent before calling out again, making his voice warm and inviting, "Tamara? Tamara where did you go?" The Scorpion wasn't really expecting her to respond, but it was worth a try. Goosebumps rose on his arms beneath the leather of his jacket as he searched. He could feel another being's eyes on him — watching him, waiting to see if he would slip up. This is exactly why Tamara needed to stay by his side; there were worse things in the Carnival now than a few kooky, irate carnies with a penchant for knives. Lucifer was the one who kept out all of the crueler, scarier demons out of the fair, and now he was gone. The knife-nut was amazed that the others hadn't invaded the nearly-abandoned carnival earlier, but he couldn't help but be grateful that they hadn't. Tamara was still A.W.O.L. after all.

"Tamara? Tamara, this is serious. Where are you?" there was a lot of desperation in his voice now as he looked in tents and behind the few game stands that were still propped up. There was no sign of her, which was near impossible. Where had she gone? His hard, blue eyes scanned the area in which he had last seen her, mentally checking off the tents he had already checked. He subconsciously pulled out the knife in his jacket pocket and twirled it thoughtfully — one of his nervous habits. His gaze fell on the tent which he knew led to Satan's office, the one he had left not a few hours ago, and he mumbled a soft curse under his breath. Of course, how stupid was he? The Devil's Tent was the most luring of them all and it was still standing, which made it an obvious choice for hiding.

The Scorpion entered the tent and looked around, the bulbs on the ground flickered but provided brief light. He walked to the black curtain, vaguely noticing how the bulbs burned out as he walked by them. The sign above the curtain caught the carnie's attention. Where it had once said "The Devil and His Due," it now said something else that caused chills to run up his spine and a twisted sense of glee bubble in his chest. He couldn't keep the devilish smirk off his handsome face as he read the new sign out loud, "'The Frog and the Well' Huh. Looks like fun, Froggy dear."

What was not so fun was having to go through Tamara's personal Hell, which laid beyond the thick satin of the curtain. With a soft, disgruntled sigh, an adjustment of his scarf and jacket, and a caress over his hair, the Scorpion pushed aside the fabric and made his way inside.

oxoxoxoxoxo

Tamara was scared. Or perhaps, scared was a mild way of putting it — terrified was a better way of putting it. She had entered, expecting nothing more than maybe a long hallway, or a maze of mirrors at the moment. She had forgotten that she was in Hell and that she was supposed to be serving penitence. What she was met with was instead complete darkness, interspersed with flashes of blinding light that allowed her to view her surroundings briefly, once she got used to the abrupt brightness. It was mostly empty, from what the brunette could tell, apart from dark bulks of what she assumed was furniture in the corners.

The young woman tried to stumble through the area, her heels getting caught on seemingly random items scattered on the floor: a jacket, keys, a purse with its contents strewed all around — she proceeded to nearly trip on a lipstick tube when she realized that all of these items were hers. 'Impossible,' she thought in a panic as she picked up the soft leather handbag in her free hand. Oh, it was hers alright. And that wasn't all, the placement of the items reminded her of…

There were several flashes of lights in quick succession, revealing a man's figure of imposing stature and build clouded in shadow. It was impossible to see his features — it looked like he had none — but Tamara could have sworn that he was a double for her ex-boyfriend. She spied something that was metallic and gun-shaped in his hand and her heart sped up, adrenaline shooting through her veins as she realized what was going on and what he was holding.

Without wasting any sort of time, she tried to run for the exit, the door at the end of the room. She wasn't going to make it. With every flash of the strobe-like light, she realized that he was getting closer without seeming to move at all. His posture was the same, yet he was getting closer and closer. Her slender hand tightened on the hand of the doll that she still carried, it was oddly comforting despite whose visage it was made in.

Her suspicions were proven correct when in one of those many flashes, the figure ended up right in front of her, effectively blocking the exit. This close, Tamara could see that the man really did not have any features. His skin was rippling shadows of dark blue, black and grey in the light. There was a terse moment of silence, her wide eyes fixed on him, waiting for something to happen.

"Tamara, open the fucking door!"

Huh? That wasn't exactly what she had been expecting. The words were a distorted roar, but she understood well enough. Cowering, she tried to take a step back from the creature that replicating her ex's words. The man's fist shot out and hit her square in the jaw, making her cry out in pain as she crumpled to the ground. The stinging brought back a lot of unpleasant memories and she blinked away tears — she had to escape, she couldn't afford to become a blubbering mess at the feet of this creature! Who knew what he would do to her if she did.

The man seemed to stare at her for a moment, as if he hadn't been expecting her to fall to the ground. Tamara took the opportunity to try and crawl out of the room, since the exit was no more than a few feet from her. She shuffled slowly, as to not draw the creature's attention, crawling around his legs and through the exit, nearly blinded by the bright lights that were beyond the door.

Tamara got to her feet shakily, her hand still gripping the doll at her side tightly while her other one went up her jaw, which was already swelling from the powerful punch. It took her a few moments to register what she was looking at — cars. A massive maze of tightly packed, familiar cars. She ran up to the nearest one and opened the driver's side door, finding nothing; no keys. Of course. How naïve of her to expect anything else. Slamming the door hard, she realized that it was her car. Her baby. The only car she had ever had in her nineteen years of age and the car that was supposed to have lasted her through college.

It was her 1997 Honda Inspire, the black paint chipped in various places and the driver's side door had a small dent from a run in with a wayward shopping cart. The teenager remembered naming it Scar, since it made quite the unique roar when she turned on the engine. She ran her fingers over the dent, shocked to see that all of the cars had identical marks.

"This is impossible…" the brunette murmured, her eyes as wide as saucers as she started to make her way through the mass, the space between each car barely big enough to fit her not-quite petite, but certainly not huge, frame. 'Not impossible, Tamara. This is Hell,' she reminded herself as she squeezed through an especially tiny space, nearly losing the doll in the process.

A sudden squeak of a door pulled the young woman from her thoughts and made her pause in her determined path through the cars. She turned, expecting to see a certain carnie that was getting to be a thorn in her side. Unfortunately, it wasn't him, but the doppelganger who had gotten out of one of the nearby cars, his huge shadowy bulk making Tamara's blood cold.

"Baby, it won't happen again. I'm sorry! Trust me! I love you!"

The words rang in Tamara's ears, pulling her ex's old pleading into her mind. It was always the same after he had hit her, or cheated on her, or broken something of hers. Always the same stupid words and always the same stupid Tamara, who trusted in everybody. Gritting her teeth (an action she immediately regretted when her jaw complained painfully) she watched as the man pushed the two cars encircling him away, the metal bending easily with sharp, ear-splitting crunches and screeches under his hands.

This time, she couldn't help it. She screamed bloody murder as she started to run through the crowded maze of vehicles, crying out when her dress or the doll caught in the mirrors of the cars. She didn't understand why this phantom of her ex was following her — was this to be her punishment? Was she trapped in this place for all eternity? She shouldn't have entered this tent so callously, she now realized that she should have thought about it, instead of recklessly rushing into it.

As Tamara squeezed and slid past the vehicles, something in the driver's seat of one of them caught her eye. It was small, clad in muted colours — another doll. She paused only for a moment, for the lumbering footsteps of the doppelganger were too close behind her for comfort. Moving quickly, she opened the door and took out the doll, not really stopping to look at it. Now, she had two dolls, one in each hand as she ran out of the second room and through an open door which slammed shut behind her.

The young woman took the opportunity to catch her breath, her chest heaving with a combination of exhaustion and panic. Her last two awakenings in Hell were nothing compared to this one — she had never felt this scared in her life. Nearly sobbing, she straightened and tried to calm herself, since she had a feeling that there were still many ordeals to go through before she found her way out of this damned tent.

She stopped to take a look at her surroundings — mirrors. A hall or mirrors, each one of them reflecting a girl, powdered pale and painted to look like a doll with wide, frightened eyes. However, there was already a faint, purple mark marring the doll's perfect jaw — Tamara didn't take much account of her appearance, she didn't really care. Her attention slipped to the dolls in her hands instead, the strangeness of them making her skin crawl.

The doll she had picked up was a replica of the strange lady who the Scorpion had been kissing, the one who had been standing idly by when Tamara got impaled in the chest. Except, she saw now that the dolls were not identical to their real-life counterparts. The Painted Doll's face was whole and beautiful, angelic in its perfection and the eyes were both the same shade of soft hazel. She touched its face gently before moving on to the young man's doll. His had real hair, soft to the touch and the colour of a raven's wing and it looked healthier, not as pale and pasty as its counterpart. The red scarf that he always wore was also missing.

"Tamara?"

The young woman jolted so roughly that she nearly dropped the dolls. The carnie's voice drifted from somewhere amongst the mirrors and she realized that she had been standing in one spot for longer than she meant to. She shifted both the dolls to one arm so she could pat the mirrors with her free hand. To her shock, she saw another reflection join her own, his broad figure taking up the space behind her. The Scorpion looked confused, his brow furrowed, until he caught sight of her and instantly, a relieved smile spreads on his lips. Tamara only stared with wide eyes as he started to make his way over to her — at least, he was, until he ran straight into a mirror, the hard thunk echoing in the room. Tamara felt the horribly inappropriate urge to giggle as she looked at the young man, sprawled on the ground, rubbing his forehead.

Her lips twitched only once before she turned around and began to search for the way out with a renewed vigour, she slid around them and left the young man behind quickly, not even glancing back at him for a moment. She soon reached the end of the mirrors — it was simple and a nice change from the horror of the previous rooms.

She ended up in a long hallway, with many signs plastered on the wall. She only took a brief moment to read some of them, "that way, trust me" "trust me, exit's over here" and "exit's through there." There was nowhere else to go but in the direction that the signs pointed in. Tamara did not see the few that said, "foolish frog," as she ran through the hall, excited to get to the end of the nightmarish tent.

She opened the last door cautiously, revealing what looked like a lush, if dark and creepy, office. A large book laid on a desk and she reached out to touch the cover gently as she walks by it. Her fingers tingled oddly and she pulled back, rubbing her fingers and thumb together to get rid of the sensation. She wandered around a bit more, finding a vanity with many tubes of makeup and jars littered on it. Raising an eyebrow, she put down the dolls and looked at herself in the mirror. Her curls were frizzed and no longer perfect, her powdered cheeks had a few streaks where her tears had wiped away the makeup and the bruise on her jaw and cheek looked dark and painful. Tamara gently touched it and winced, damning the doppelganger for having such a powerful punch — just like her ex.

She moved away from the mirror abruptly, not wanting to see her face anymore. There was a plush chair in the middle of the room that looked awfully inviting, her feet suddenly ached from all the running she had been doing. She approached it cautiously, lightly touching the wooden arm. Suddenly, there was only darkness beneath her feet as the floor instantly fell away, the chair disappearing quickly into the darkness. She felt herself follow the chair and she let out a sharp scream that permeated the darkness.

As if responding to the scream, a strong hand encircled her wrist, making her cry out in pain and relief. The hole was abruptly illuminated by a large sign, the bulbs on it flashing gaily as they made up mocking words clearly aimed at her. The "Foolish Frog." With the bright light of the sign, she could make out the face of her saviour; and she found herself wishing that she would have been eaten by the blackness of the hole instead as she gazed upon that too-familiar, sheepish smile.


Lesson Two: "Look before you leap, foolish frog."
-Aesop's Fables: The Frog and the Well