Miku and Luka had been shocked at first, but their attention had quickly changed to the blood stains and bruises. The two girls were instantly worried and trying to find a doctor, but Len had shook it off and told them that he was alright. Rin was more important. The girls had reluctantly nodded before splitting up to find her. Miku had went north, and Luka had went east. Len continued south down the line of booths.
Len kicked himself internally like he kicked a can down the dirt path. He was so mad with himself. He had let his beloved sister go with such a jerk. What kind of brother am I? Rin didn't deserve that… That purple-haired jerk had left her somewhere. Rin had probably cried. She hated to be alone. She was scared, and it was all his fault.
Len couldn't take it anymore. The clinging sound of the can reminded him of a judge's mallet. He crushed it with his foot and clenched his jaw.
Memories flooded his mind, all depicting a little blond girl smiling. Then they broke like shards of glass. Len slumped down upon the ground, feeling hopeless and useless. He had let her go. Why didn't he go with her? Rin needed him..
Len jolted awake. Rin still needed him, and he wasn't helping her by sitting back and moping. The brother sprang upwards onto his feet and continued walking down with renewed energy. He looked left and right constantly. Still, no Rin. He began to fret at each second she wasn't there. Len chewed on his lip, and each turn and step was more frantic than the last.
Crunch.
He had stepped on something. It had made a sickening sound, and when he removed his foot, he only saw yellow fragments and sparkling glitter… Wait. He recognized these pieces of plastic. Len had seen them before. He instantly grabbed the pieces and held them up to his blue eyes. Rin's hairclip.
She was somewhere nearby. She had to be. This hairclip proved it.
Rin stirred from her slumber, moving her hands across the velvet cushions and groaning. She pulled herself up strenuously and blinked. "L-Len?" she called sleepily.
"There is no one by that name here," a voice answered.
Rin bolted awake, gasping. She turned her head rapidly, trying to find the source of the voice. Her fist clutched one of the pillows as if to use it as a weapon.
The voice laughed heartily with its face having smirked. "I'm right behind you, silly."
She turned quickly behind and sighed of relief. The face behind her wasn't a scary clown or Freddy Krueger. Though, it was odd to say the least. A porcelain mask like a woman's face made her shrink back a bit. It was shaped much like the comedy and tragedy masks with one side of the geisha's face being comedy and the other, tragedy.
The mask, suspended upon a thin neck, was brought into view with the rest of the body. A rather tall, masculine frame was adorned by a tuxedo of black. A shimmering blue cape had been thrown over one shoulder, matching the bits of hair that stuck out from underneath the top hat. He reminded her of a magician by the way he dressed.
Judging the interior of wherever she was, the man probably was. Hung on the silk-like walls were tapestries and various paintings. Plants with intertwining vines lined the walls in their Greek pots. Several books were strewn upon the rugged floor in various stages of reading. A single couch and leather chair were the only furniture that could fit in the rather small room. Rin was currently on the couch in an upright and uncomfortable position. The magician had sat in the chair, crossing the gloved fingers under his chin.
"W-who are you?" she dared to ask.
A single piece of paper was thrown at her. It flopped in the air, resting on the floor in front of her. She picked it up and recognized it as some sort of card. It had pretty little designs on it, including a little fool's cap. "Jo-ker," she read.
"That's my card and my name," he said monotonously.
"Joker? That's a funny name."
"Well, you could say that I'm a funny person. Now, what's yours?"
"My name is Rin," she said quietly, fidgeting with her fingers and avoiding the gaze of the mask.
"That's like the sound a bell makes. Charming name, Rin.."
This man made her uncomfortable. He peered at her intently, and the frown and smile of the mask was incredibly creepy and confusing. "I-I really need to go," she said suddenly, getting up from the couch to run as fast as she possibly could. However, she felt her hand being squeezed gently.
"Please.. Stay with me a little bit longer… I'm lonely…"
Rin looked into those eyeholes with uncertainty. However, the tragedy seemed to outweigh the comedy. He really must have been lonely in this tent.. "Okay," she finally said, chewing on her lower lip. "What do you want to do?"
He smirked underneath the mask and released his grip on her wrist. Spreading his fingers wide, he made sure that she could see them. The Joker waved his hands, and between each finger, a single card appeared. Eight cards in total.
Rin's mouth awed at the sight of the card trick. She had instantly sat back down on the couch, determined to see what would happen next. The girl thought of how he had done it, furrowing her eyebrows.
The Joker laughed suddenly as if reading her mind. "I can't tell you my tricks. What's the fun in that? … Rin, do you believe in destiny?"
"Huh?" It was an odd question to pop out of the blue. She couldn't even remember the last time anyone had asked her that. The girl fumbled with her words. What was the answer? "Umm… Sometimes?"
"Sometimes? Well, that's funny. Rin, I want to play a card game with you. It'll be fun; I promise." The Joker placed shuffled the cards to where she couldn't see them. He then displayed their ornately decorated backs to her. "Which card is yours?"
Sweat perspired all over Len's thin frame. He was running hard. His neck cringed with pain from how much he had twisted it. There was no Rin, and pretty soon, Len had reached a dead end. The dirt path had stretched for at least two miles before ending up at a wrought iron fence. He had lost sight of people and was now incredibly frustrated with himself. The boy sat on the ground, breathing heavily.
"W-where…. is … she?"
He had run into thousands of all shapes and sizes. There was a punk, a maid, and even an Elvis Presley impersonator. There was no girl with short blond hair wearing an orange dress, just people he had never met before. Maybe, Miku or Luka had found her. They were good, smart girls. Surely, they had contacted law enforcement, and now, the carnival was flooded with searches. They would find her.
… What was he thinking? He couldn't let someone else find her. It may have been considered selfish, but Len wanted to be the one to find Rin. The brother wanted the right to say that he had found his little sister to everyone. He had saved her from some strange pedophile or murderer.
That was selfish. Len should want to find her just to find her not for the glory. He should just have wanted her safe and sound. What if some child molester had gotten to her by now? It was twenty minutes, and she was still gone. During the first forty-eight hours was the best time to catch a criminal. Len had learned that from those dramatic crime shows his mother always watched. After that window of time, it was almost impossible. That window was getting shorter and shorter every second. Time was a bitch.
He had regained some stamina but not nearly enough. The boy began running yet again much to the dismay of his aching calves back up the path to try and see if she was in one of the tents he had passed.
Rin hadn't realized what she was doing. She was just playing along with the Joker. His cards were mesmerizing with their elaborate gold designs on a red background. They seemed to call out to her, one card in particular. She closed her eyes, reached forward, and plucked a card from the set of eight. Rin slowly opened her eyes.
The scene depicted on the card was rather dark and mysterious. A winding tower of black brick towered upwards and overshadowed the moon. A single black dot seemed to be spiraling downward from it towards the dark green hillside around it.
Just when she had gotten a hard look, it had been taken from her by the Joker. He looked at it blankly. It was hard to tell what went on underneath a mask. "Oh… I see.."
She shifted closer to him in her seat, trying to decipher whether this choice was good or bad.
"This is a good thing, Rin!"
"I-it is?"
"Yes, of course! It all makes perfect sense!" The Joker stood, waving his arms and talking to himself apparently. He had walked around the entire tent with Rin turning to watch what he was doing. "The Tower! The Tower! Oh! The Tower!" he cried like an ecstatic preacher. He sauntered up behind Rin now, looking down at her worried eyes with his mask of mixed expression.
The girl was now incredibly scared of this man. She reached for the nearest object, a pillow and thrust it at him. Rin began running towards the exit, not pausing to look back, but the sister had run into something hard. She fell backwards onto the ground, rubbing her head which now ached painfully.
"Now, Rin, that wasn't fun. That wasn't fun at all, trying to leave during my speech." He stepped forward when she began crawling backwards, reaching for items to throw at him. The Joker seemed unaffected by the sturdiest pots. However, he had cried, "Why must they all break the furniture?" He stood over her like a cat to a mouse when she had crawled into a corner. The Joker stooped down close to her and said, "You wanted to play, but you cheated.." The man raised his hand and hit her once across the head. He smiled when she fell onto the floor unconscious.
He had by this point reached where he had been before. Len had asked around for a girl with blond hair and an orange dress, but no one seemed to have seen her. He had checked a few tents so far, coming across an estranged fortune teller and even two teenagers having intercourse. Len had run out immediately from that with his face turning a bright shade of red.
After some distance, he boy noticed something odd in the road ahead. Reaching down, he plucked a blue ribbon from the ground. It felt silkily smooth and reminded him of those bows girls put in their hair.
Len looked around and spotted a dark blue tent on a lone hill. He frowned for some reason. It made him feel creepily discontent and even angry. The brother knew that that would be the most likely place to find his sister. Pedophiles often chose the creepiest places after all to do their horrific deeds. He began marching up the hill to the tent with a fierce glare. Then Len ripped open the flap.
Someone wearing black and blue was leaning over a couch, staring at something. The figure stood and turned around. What appeared to be a man cocked its head to the side painfully to stare at Len with a face reminiscent of utter evil, but the boy didn't pay much attention to the person.
The brother's heart had stopped. For behind the man rested the body of his beloved sister. Rin looked to be in a uncomfortable position of sleep with her mouth agape. Her limbs were strewn about. But what was most startling was her wide eyes. They were purely white, no pupil and no color whatsoever.
Len roared with rage and horror, rushing past the man with his elbow shoving itself into the other's chest. He bent over the couch, clutching that horrified face with his hands. "Rin! Rin! Wake up!" he screamed, practically shaking her ferociously.
A loud uproar of laughter shook the air, making Len's blood turn cold. He turned shakily towards the man behind him. The Joker stared back with the black covered eye sockets of the mask. Len's whole body exerted itself into one punch, aimed for the man who had dared to laugh at his sister when she was in such a state. Unfortunately, his fist was caught in the palm of the Joker's. Len cried out in pain as his hand was squeezed. He could hear the bones cracking and felt searing jolts shoot up his arm. Then he was knocked backwards on the floor.
Before Len could even react, his throat was being crushed under the force of a foot. The boy gagged, feeling the heat rise to his face. His eyes felt as though they were going to pop out of their sockets as they stared hatefully up at the man killing him. Len even had the audacity to slowly raise a middle finger.
That laugh shook the tent again. "I like your attitude."
Then the foot stepped a little harder as the Joker said with more malice, "Now, it's time to play a new game."
