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Jester checked the time and let out a sigh. Pierrot was late again. “Harlequin.” He called.

“You rang~?” Harlequin drawled out.

Jester didn’t bother to entertain the tease. “Pierrot still isn’t back yet,” he said.

Harlequin eyes rolled on cue, almost as if it was instinctual. “He probably got distracted again.”

“I don’t disagree, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s still late.” Jester took a step towards the shorter monster. “I want you to go and find him. Make sure he gets back here in a timely manner.”

Harlequin groaned. “Always me. Why me?”

“Because I’m busy overseeing everything, Ticket Taker is finishing organizing our tickets and budgets and other such necessities, and Doctor is attending to his usual duties. And because I said so. Now quit whining like a petulant child and go.” Jester’s eyes narrowed. “You still owe me for covering for you when-”

“Ok, ok, I’m going!” Harlequin cut him off with a hiss. “I’ll be right back, mother.”

“Good. Off you go.” It was only after Harlequin disappeared that he fully processed what was said. “Wait, what did he just call me?”

—————

Following Pierrot’s trail was easy enough, like every other time. Unlike every other time, however, the trail came to a sudden dead end in a park, no sign of the red clown anywhere, other than a single throwing knife upon the ground.

“Now that’s peculiar…” Harlequin thought aloud to himself, picking up the knife and turning it over in his hands. Pierrot could be clumsy and he was indeed the most common target among them by humans, but he always took care of his knives. They were something he took great pride in, and they were essential for a lot of his shows.

It was only then that Harlequin took actual notice of his surroundings.

The park was quiet, still. No wind, no animals, no humans, and no sound. He’d been to this park before. It was almost always bustling at this time of day, so seeing it like this? He was overcome with a sense of kenopsia. This place felt wrong. So very wrong. He backed up, prepared to leave and tell Jester of his findings.

That’s when he fell, swallowed by an invisible hole in the ground, an event that happened so fast he didn’t have the chance to make a single sound to disturb the eerie silence before he vanished.

—————

“Here,” you said, handing a bottle of almond water to Pierrot. “Drink up.”

You had handed these drinks to him often since the two of you had met, but Pierrot had never really stopped to actually look at it. He turned it over in his hands. “You collect this whenever you can and won’t let me or yourself drink anything else, not even regular water. Why is that?”

“This stuff,” you began, tapping the bottle in his hands, “is liquid gold here in the Backrooms. It helps you focus and keep your sanity, seeing as almost every second spent here chips away at the mind. It halts the Wretched Cycle. You can use it to trade, tame a couple entities, repel some hostile entities, cure common ailments that occur here, it can be used as a disinfectant,” you rattled off the several uses of this apparent miracle drink to him, each one causing his eyes to further widen as you explained what he was starting to realize was basically the Backrooms’ panacea. He couldn’t help but think that the Doctor would go nuts if he got his hands on Backrooms almond water. The thought made him chuckle just a little before going quiet. How he missed them… All of them… Doctor, Jester, Ticket Taker, even Harlequin. How long has it been in the Frontrooms (as you called them) since he disappeared? Were they ok? Have they noticed he’s missing yet? Have they tried looking? He hoped they didn’t think he ran off on them…

“You alright?” Your words drew his mind from the recesses of his brain and back into his body. He shook himself and gave you a smile, not entirely trusting his words at the moment. You frowned but didn’t press, instead nodding at the bottle. “Drink up,” you repeated, “You’re going to need the sanity boost where we’re going.”

Pierrot tilted his head. You usually only said things like that if the level the two of you were about to enter was… very dangerous. And so, he did, savoring the sweet taste of the beverage while putting all his focus on you as he’d learned this was when you usually explained the rules of the level you were about to enter. He still felt a bit weird about eating and drinking in front of you, a human, but you told him that you’d known he wasn’t like you from the beginning and had no qualms with him being what he was so long as he never brought you harm. You’d even helped him hunt these entities you called “facelings”, the creatures closest to being human in the Backrooms, and held on to extra meat for him in your bag for when he needed it. Your acceptance of his true nature only made his ever growing obsession- fondness for you even greater.

You spoke between sips from your own bottle of almond water. “The level we’ll be entering next is a Class 5,” Pierrot froze at that. You had briefly explained most of the survivability classes in simple terms to him not long after you had met. As far as he understood it, a Class 5 level was the most dangerous of the main six classes, usually categorized by being unsafe, unsecure, and infested with hostile entities. Since meeting around… a week ago, he wanted to say, you had been able to avoid taking him through a Class 5 level, but had warned him that you would not be able to keep away from them forever. Seemed the time had come. When you noticed his unease, you placed a hand on his shoulder. “The level is survivable, and relatively simple compared to most other Class 5 levels.” You reassured him.

He nodded, feeling a bit relieved at that, more for your safety than his own. “What are the rules?”

“Never stop smiling.”

Pierrot blinks. “That sounds… very simple.”

“It is simple in concept,” you agreed, “But make no mistake, your life will depend on your smile.” He leaned in to show you he was listening attentively. You smiled to yourself. He was a lot better at listening and taking your advice than most you’d met. He’d also proved very adaptable and he was always more than happy to help you out. Not to mention the fact he was a big sweetheart to you and pretty good company. You’re happy that you decided to take him under your wing. But your frown quickly returned as you went back to explaining the next level to Pierrot. “Level GRIN is inhabited by hordes of a single native entity; Entity 390, also known as the Grinning People, or Grinners.” You then quickly added, “Not to be confused with Smilers.” He nodded once more. You must’ve read the question on his face. You already knew him so well~

You continued. “Grinners are almost indistinguishable from humans at a glance, so wanderers, like us, are usually able to blend in with them pretty easily so long as we follow that one rule. Their inner anatomy is theorized to be different given the way they behave, but outwardly, they’re the same as a human who never stops smiling. So as long as we grin around them, big and wide like every other Grinner, we’ll be safe.”

Pierrot couldn’t help the question out of his natural curiosity. “What happens if we stop?”

You sucked in a breath. “If we stop smiling, even for a fraction of a second, the Grinners will know there is an intruder in their domain, and… well…” You met his gaze. “They never take kindly to that idea.”

Death. You meant death. He should’ve expected as much. The clown could only nod his head again in understanding.

You looked down at his now empty bottle of almond water before looking back up at him. “You ready?”

“As ready as I can be, my dear.” Pierrot said, putting the empty bottle in your backpack. It had almost become habit for him to just put it back where you would pull it out from after he was finished with it. You had told him that while, yes, almond water could be found in bottles, it could also be found from water sources in some levels, such as faucets, and so you liked to keep some bottles on you. Filling your own bottles also lowered the risk of tampering, something he was both surprised but not at the same time to hear about. With how dangerous and horrible the Backrooms could already be, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to make it worse. But, then again, Jester did always say that humans were cruel creatures by nature… Other than you, of course! His darling dear, who takes such good care of him and guides him with a steady hand and loving heart~ He could never group you together with the rest of your deplorable species.

You hummed, making your way towards the door. “Then let’s get moving, shall we?” You turned back to him one last time and made a smile gesture with your free hand. “Big and wide,” you repeated, plastering a smile onto your own face. Once he did the same, you grabbed the doorknob and twisted.

The level wasn’t exactly what he was expecting… He wasn’t sure what he thought he’d see, but it wasn’t this. The level seemed to resemble a suburbia of sorts, but… unnatural. Fake. Lifeless. Like he’d just stepped into a tabletop model town. The common feeling of wrongness he got in most levels of the Backrooms seeped into his bones right on cue. But there were people here, just as you said there would be. They were everywhere, and each had a wide, face splitting grin that he knew just couldn’t be comfortable on a normal human face. His body was screaming DANGER! DANGER! as he walked by them, but they merely glanced at his face and went along their way upon seeing his grin. He stepped closer to you, that need and desire to protect you vibrating through his very being, but you subtly side eyed him and shook your head. ‘Stay calm,’ the gesture said, ‘Don’t make a scene. Don’t become a target.’

Your smile became slightly gentler as you saw Pierrot take heed to your advice. He was faring a lot better than most human wanderers you’d taken through this level, many of which squirmed and grew increasingly uncomfortable under the gazes of the uncanny humanoids until their smiles eventually cracked and you would have to leave them to the Grinners to prevent your own demise. It was something you always hated doing, but the last thing you wanted was to share their fate.

You paused when you heard a hiss. That wasn’t right… Grinners usually remained silent, communicating through body language and occasionally unnatural vocalizations. Vocalizations that didn’t include hissing. You looked over, only to spot…

A clown.

The creature was very similar to Pierrot, in more ways than one. Similar mask, same void eyes (albeit different color), same Frontrooms feeling, same circus aesthetic, same sharp toothed smile his red counterpart sometimes got. A smile that was very strained and close to breaking.

“Pierrot,” you kept your voice low and your smile wide, “Don’t let his smile fall. Pull his cheeks if you have to. Keep that smile wide, or he dies.”

Pierrot was moving before you finished. He seemed to know this clown. He was behind him in a few mere seconds, pulling the green clown’s smile as wide as his own.

————

The tugging came out of nowhere. Harlequin hissed as his lips were pulled into a wide grin, his assailant knowing exactly where to hook to pull at his actual face behind the mask. He moved his hand to grab at whatever was pulling at him, but the voice he heard stopped him.

“Smile, Harlequin. Big and wide.”

Harlequin’s eyes widened, and his face instinctively tried to form a frown of frustration, but Pierrot’s fingers wouldn’t allow for it. “Pierrot? What are you doing.”

“I can feel you trying to frown. Don’t.”

“Or what?” Harlequin asked, his usual cockiness rearing its head.

“Or you’ll perish.” Pierrot’s words were blunt, and worse? Wholly serious. Pierrot threatened violence upon Harlequin often (usually in retaliation for something Harlequin did), and then tended to follow up on those threats. But this was different. This time, Harlequin could sense he meant every word.

“Just. Keep. Smiling.”

“You’ve gone mad,” Harlequin scoffed, but after looking around again, he wasn’t as confident in his statement. This place gave him the same feeling of kenopsia the park had, but a hundred times worse. Everything felt wrong. The grass looked too fake, the houses like something you’d find in a doll set, and the humans? Were… they even humans? He had never seen humans smile so wide, so crazed. And they were looking at him… All of them. They were just standing perfectly still and staring, those unnatural, maddened smiles practically splitting each and every one of their faces, smiles that seemed to get wider as they noticed him looking at them all, back and forth, left and right, uneasy panic steadily growing. One took a step forward, and it moved so strange. Why were its limbs bending in all the incorrect places? Why did it move as though it were a puppet on the strings of a very inexperienced puppeteer, all stiff and robotic?

What were they? What did they want? Why did everything feel so terrible? So crushing? So eerie? So wrong? Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong-

That was when another stepped in front of him, facing the other so he could only see their back. They held a cane, and their movements were floppy and odd, just like the others, but in a way that seemed almost… purposeful. They released a series of uncanny sounds that his brain vaguely registered as words, but when he tried to understand them, he only heard gibberish. The one that was approaching came to a stop and tilted its head in acknowledgement, raising its eyes to look at Harlequin just one more time before turning away. Its spine twisted and fell unnaturally as it did so, dragging its upper half upon the ground so it could stare at the trio as it left them behind. Harlequin shuddered, but never once did he stop smiling (mostly because Pierrot wouldn’t let him), and that seemed to satisfy whatever the thing was.

When the one who had stepped in for Harlequin’s aid turned back to face him and his fellow clown, they nodded ever so slightly. He could feel Pierrot return the gesture before he pulled on Harlequin to guide him away. Harlequin grunted but was too stunned to fight back. The cane wielding human(?) hobbled along beside Pierrot, leading him towards a door in the middle of a hill. Their movements were less jerky and unnatural now, leading to Harlequin thinking his assumption that they were a human merely performing for whatever creatures were surrounding them was accurate. They grabbed the knob, twisted it, and pulled it open. Pierrot pushed Harlequin in first before following after him, and the human was last. As soon as Pierrot’s fingers were gone from his face, Harlequin’s smile fell and he coughed. He whirled around to snarl at Pierrot, but the words caught in his throat at the split second glimpse he caught of what was through the door before the human slammed it closed.

All the human-ish creatures within that strange little town had turned pure black; skin, clothes, hair, and all. Their eyes were white voids and their grins a terrifying mess of white teeth on straight shadow. Malicious, cruel, and predatory, all reaching for him, the one who dared not smile in their presence.

He shivered.

————

You sighed and sank to the floor, back to the door. Pierrot was instantly by your side, checking you over. “I’m fine, Pierrot.”

“Are you sure?”

The words from the normally silent member of the circus snapped the green clown back. “What was that?!” He demanded. “And who is this?!”

Pierrot growled defensively. “They’re the one that saved your life, Harlequin. Show them proper respect.”

Harlequin, as he seemed to be named, hissed back. “Where even are we?! Pierrot, you were late to the show! Jester sent me to look for you! All I find is one of your knives in an empty park and then I’m here?! What is going on?!” He pulled the aforementioned knife from he pocket as if he’d just remembered it was there and threw it to the ground at Pierrot’s feet, the blade narrowly missing the red clown’s shoes as it stabbed into the floor.

Pierrot snarled, instantly lifting you into his arms. “Mind yourself! You could have hit YN!”

“Since when were you so fond of humans?! More importantly, since when did Jester give you permission to speak to one?!”

Sensing the very obviously rising tension, you raised your cane between them to catch their attention. “That’s enough, you two,” you said, voice calm and relatively unbothered despite the current situation. That’s what years in the Backrooms will do. You looked over at the green clown. “Harlequin, was it?” You asked. “I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.”

Harlequin snapped his teeth in anger. “Where am I?!”

“You’re in the Backrooms,” you responded, same tone as before, albeit slightly gentler now.

“What was that?!”

“Level GRIN, Class 5 and crawling with hostile entities.”

“Who are you?” His voice was somewhat evening out the more you spoke, your tone almost soothing his frayed nerves as he came down from the adrenaline.

“My name is YN, and I’ve been here for several years.” You tilted your head. “You seem to know Pierrot. Are you part of the traveling circus he was in before coming here?”

“You speak of that like it’s a done deal.”

You inhaled. “It is. No one who has entered the Backrooms has ever left.”

Harlequin went still. “... What…?” He breathed out.

Pierrot set you down and, in a rare show of genuine care for the green monster, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You’ll get used to it. We’ll make it through together.” He looked back at you fondly. “Plus, we have the most amazing guide this hellscape could offer.”

You smiled. “Welcome to the team, Harlequin.”

The air around the Freak Circus of Horrors was a thick, cloying tapestry of contradictions. It was a perfume of profound wrongness, a signature that announced the troupe’s presence long before their garish wagons, tents, and flickering lights came into view on the city’s grimy outskirts. It was a smell you knew intimately, one that had imprinted itself onto your memory a week after their arrival and had refused to leave. The sweet, sticky rot of cotton candy spun in machines that never seemed quite clean. The earthy aroma of fresh sawdust, scattered to soak up spills of uncaring attendants. And underpinning it all, a coppery sharp tang that prickled the back of one’s throat, the metallic tang of old pennies, of a bitten tongue, of something far less innocent and carefree. Though you suspected you were the only one who noticed.

This miasma clung to everything: to the battered and striped canvas of the tents, to the costumes of the performers, to the very soil they trod upon. But it clung, most persistently and potently, to Pierrot and the other circus performers.

You’d known it from the very first moment, a week ago, when his black-gloved fingers had given you his ticket. Replacing the vibrant, almost unnatural pink, ticket you’d gotten by random chance, with a crimson one matching his own costume. Insisting that you use it upon your visit to the circus. The contact was a spark of awareness of something inhuman, a silent scream against your sharp nerves. A sound like dry leaves skittering across stone, a silent, rasping breath, had escaped the perpetually grinning, painted black smile on his stark white face. His eyes, visible through the upturned holes of his mask, were not eyes at all. They were voids of absolute blackness, windows into a starless midnight, each centered with a single, terrifying blot of firefly gold. They didn’t just look at you; they saw you. His stare felt like a physical pressure, peeling back the layers of your own careful human disguise, scraping against the real you hiding beneath. He wouldn’t often speak, as his role of the pierrot demanded, but he would speak to you in that hushed tone when you were alone.

His rival, Harlequin, noticed your bizarre effect on Pierrot almost immediately. Where Pierrot was a study in near silent intensity, Harlequin was a trickster’s whirlwind of emerald and black, his motley a pattern of playful, almost sinister hearts. He’d swooped in as a suave contrast, his voice a smooth, melodic baritone designed to fluster, charm and thrill. His eyes, vibrant jade-green lights floating in the same impossible pool of absolute blackness, twinkled with a knowing, predatory mischief. He had given you a gift: a pendant of a green heart, its enamel gleaming. “To keep my heart near yours, my lady,” he’d said with an impossible wink that played on his mask of a face. You decided to wear it on your collar, for despite their strangeness they interested you. 

Pierrot, seeing the heart of his rival upon you, seemed to be incensed by the sight, and quickly produced an enamel pendant of his own. One of a yellow star that matched the pattern on his hat. He’d pinned it so close to the heart that it overlapped it with two of its points. It was clear from then on you’d landed yourself at the center of a rivalry that was older than the span of multiple human lives. 

You were a novelty to them, you quickly realized, a fascinating puzzle. A human who didn’t flinch or look away, who returned their unsettling gazes with a steady one of your own, who accepted their strange, ominous gifts without a tremor of fear. They circled you, these two ancient, feuding predators, intrigued by the calm little field mouse that did not run from the hawk right in front of it. They thought you didn’t run because you were too oblivious or naive to see the predator in them. When in truth, you saw it clear as the autumn rain dancing against the coffee shop window. You were just a better, more practiced pretender and a monster in your own right, so you feared nothing from them.

Your entire human life was a carefully constructed diorama of normalcy. A small, bland apartment that perpetually smelled of overpowering bergamot perfume, which was a desperate attempt to mask your own natural, earthy scent. Something more important than ever with other monsters prowling about now. A monotonous job as a barista at a quiet café was where you worked. There you served lattes and smiled with polite vacancy and manufactured simplicity. Your true nature hidden behind a face you had consciously chosen to be average, plain, and utterly forgettable.

But at night, you hunted. The city’s grim underbelly provided. You sought out the bad men who lurked in rain-slicked alleyways, the ones who saw a lone woman and thought only of easy prey. They learned, too late, that the hierarchy of predator and prey was not what they believed it to be. Your code was strict, criminals only. You would only claim the lives of the lowest scum of the earth, the people no one would miss. And in this city of near lawlessness, there was a never-ending abundance that would last you a lifetime. Really, it didn’t surprise you at all to see that other monsters like you would make the same discovery of this den of cutthroats and thugs.

But while much of this place was inhabited by unsavory characters. There were still those sparks of light that shone through with true goodness in their hearts. One such human was Carol, who belonged so purely to the world of sunlit normalcy. Carol, with her laugh that sounded like carefree wind chimes and her stubborn, relentless insistence on bringing you a blueberry muffin every single Saturday after her shift because you’d once mentioned being short on money to buy one for yourself. She was kindness incarnate, a soul of such genuine brightness it sometimes hurt to look at her. She didn’t see in you a quiet, plain barista with secrets, she saw a person she worried was too lonely. In the grey, exhausting monotony of your façade, she was a splash of pure, undiluted color.

And now you discovered she was gone. The world had now gone silent and empty, the echo of that silence louder than any scream. The scent of sawdust and candy floss and copper that surrounded you now smelled only of promise, a promise of reckoning.

The police weren’t interested. Another missing person in a city full of so many. But you knew. You’d caught a fading trace of her perfume, lilac and vanilla, mingled with the unmistakable, coppery-sharp scent of the circus on the edge of the park where she’d last been seen.

So you went to the circus. You had to, even if you dreaded what you might find. What you might learn.

The big top was a cavity of roaring laughter and gasps. You sat in the front row, your senses screaming. Harlequin’s puppet show was a masterpiece of macabre comedy. His marionettes, too lifelike, danced and died with gruesome precision, their painted eyes seeming to plead with the audience. He winked at you as a puppet’s head popped clean off, strings severed by his sharp, gloved fingers in a way that had everyone cheering with morbid delight.

Then came Pierrot who worked like a knife-throwing poet. He was silent, a study in graceful despair as he hurled silver blades at a rotating target, each THUNK a punctuation mark in a poem only he understood. His partner, a woman passed off as simply a limp doll, a dummy used to sell the image of a grotesque performance where the point was not to miss the target pinned to the board, but to hit them dead center. 

And Pierrot’s final throw sent a dagger slicing through her head. The crowd erupted. Pierrot didn’t acknowledge them because you were there. His black-and-gold eyes found you, and he offered a deep, sweeping bow, one hand over his heart, his fingers tapping his collar where the star pendant was pinned on your own. The crowd of sheep, none the wiser to the silent exchange of the wolves in their midst, believed the body to be a mannequin. They likely saw the blood gushing forth as a prop to sell a gruesome image fitting the circus of horrors, but you could smell the copper, the viscera, the offal… it was all unmistakably human and real.

So you had been right, they were leading humans here to use as sustenance that conveniently played an added role of serving as free props in their shows.

When Pierrot’s performance ended. The crowd filtered out to the next attraction that caught their gaze, buzzing with delighted horror of sights they would never truly comprehend. You didn’t move, Pierrot came to you immediately as you expected. He asked your opinion of his show and was delighted to hear you enjoyed it. You said nothing of the corpse you knew decorated the floor, you smiled at him and nodded politely, treating Pierrot no different than a patron at the coffee shop. Once a respectable amount of time elapsed, and it was clear Pierrot wouldn’t let you leave his sight. You made a soft excuse about needing to use the restroom. He let you go then, and you slipped into the shadows behind the bleachers, into the off-limits labyrinth of wagons and storage tents. Far beyond where you knew the bathrooms were.

The air back here was different. The candy-floss smell was gone, replaced by the raw, meaty odor of a slaughterhouse, poorly disguised with hay and sickly sweet fragrances that were poor imitations of candy and flowers. But there, beneath it all, a faint, fading trace of something sharply recognizable was found, a mix of lilac and vanilla.

Your heart hammered against your ribs, a frantic, human rhythm that put your hidden teeth on edge. You followed the scent, a thread of light in a world of deepening dark. It led you to a small, isolated tent, its flap tied shut with a thick rope. The smell from within was a nauseating cocktail of fear, sweat, blood, and Carol.

You sliced the rope with a claw-tipped finger you allowed to show for just a second. The interior was pitch black, but your eyes adjusted instantly. She was there, in the corner, slumped against a crate. Unconscious, pale, but alive. A thin trickle of blood dried on her temple. Relief and fury warred within you.

You knelt, gathering her in your arms. She was light, fragile. You lifted her effortlessly, your true strength, the strength that could rend steel, making her feel like a doll. You turned and fled, bursting out of the tent and into the cool night air, heading for the tree line that bordered the circus grounds. Safety. Home. You could protect her there.

You were swift and silent, a ghost among the trees. But they were native to this darkness as much as you were.

A twig snapped to your left. Another to your right. Then another. Shapes detached themselves from the shadows, moving with an unnatural, liquid grace. You were surrounded.

You stopped, holding Carol tighter against your chest. They emerged into a small moonlit clearing, flanking you and cutting off your escape in every direction. Pierrot, his white face a grim mask of anguish. Harlequin, his usual smirk replaced by a tight line of concern. The self-assured Jester, who looked quite irritated over this entire mess. The tall, gaunt figure they called the Doctor, his long fingers twitching. And the Ticket Taker, who looked the calmest of them all, standing still with an assessing gaze like an immovable object.

“My star,” Pierrot’s voice was a raw, pained whisper that cut through the silence. “Please. Put her down. Let us explain.”

Harlequin stepped forward, his hands spread in a placating gesture. “You don’t understand, love. It’s not what you think. It’s merely… sustenance. Survival. We have no choice but to pick what we can from your numbers, we would die otherwise.” His words sounded rehearsed, careful, and softly disarming. You wondered if he’d been planning to discuss this with you already, or at least considering it. “We take only the forgotten, the ones who won’t be missed. We are careful.”

But that comment just set you off.

“She’s not one of the forgotten!” you snarled, your voice trembling with a rage you let them mistake for mere human terror. “She is my friend! You had no right!”

“Right?” Jester scoffed, his voice was an uncomposed mess. “We’re hungry. That’s the only right that matters in the dark.” He took an elegant but menacing step forward. “I’m tired of talking. Let’s just take them both and be done with it.”

“No!” Pierrot and Harlequin said in unison, shooting him a venomous look.

A tremor of profound sorrow shook Pierrot’s voice, stripping it of its usual jovial rasp. “We don’t wish to hurt you,” he pleaded, the words a soft, desperate incantation. His expressive, golden eyes, usually sparkling with mischief, were wide with genuine, terrified anguish. “You are… different. A spark in the grey. My lady, please,” he implored, the honorific he and Harlequin insisted on using felt so wrong to you now. “Do not make us do this. The choice is still yours. Just give her to us, and you can walk away untouched.” 

Jester’s eyes widened when he said this, clearly he didn’t agree.

Pierrot continued. “We will forget this ever happened.” His eyes looked to his companions, pleading silently with them to accept his compromise. “You can still come to the circus, watch our shows, and laugh with us.” The promise reminded you of the bloody flower he’d gifted you. Pretty at first glance, but poisonous once you knew the truth of it.

So Pierrot’s words landed not as a plea, but as a physical blow to the gut. The air left your lungs in a quiet rush. 

Harlequin nodded in somber agreement, his usual sharp grin absent in this rare moment. “He’s right, for once,” he murmured, his voice a low, coaxing thrum. “We care for you, little heart, truly. Don’t throw your entire, precious self, on the pyre for one so unworthy. Whatever care or companionship she gives can be replaced. But you,” he smiled.” You are one that’s not so easy to come by.”

Their reasoning felt like a loving gambit designed to make you betray your own moral code. But while the three of you were locked in an anguished debate. The Doctor, with a sigh that was pure unadulterated exasperation, broke the stalemate.

He was terrifying in the efficiency of his motion. One moment he was a silent, hulking shadow; the next, he was a blur of calculated, massive movement. He didn’t go for Carol, cradled against your side. He went for you. His long arm, possessing a medical precision that was more chilling than any wild swing, snaked out. His target was not to maim, but to neutralize: a precise, paralyzing blow aimed for the cluster of nerves at the side of your neck. It was the cold, dispassionate strike of a hunter who had felled a thousand prey, a perfect equation of force and calculation.

It was the mistake they all made. They saw the costume, not the creature within. They saw a human woman, a fragile thing of bone and soft flesh. Someone to be reasoned with, placated, or, failing all that easily subdued and disposed of.

The blow landed. It connected with a solid, shocking impact that should have sent lightning bolts of numbness through your system. It should have severed the connection between your mind and your body, sent your knees buckling, and crumpled you into an inert heap on the cold ground. It should have ended the confrontation then and there.

Instead of the dull thud of flesh meeting flesh, there was a sound that was utterly, terrifyingly wrong: a sharp, percussive crack like a rock striking solid granite.

The Doctor’s eyes, visible for a fraction of a second in the shadow of his hood, widened not with pain, but with pure, unadulterated shock. His clinical detachment shattered, replaced by the primal, gut-level terror of a predator who has just discovered it is, in fact, the prey. That infinitesimal moment of his understanding was all the warning there was before your own transformation erupted from you. It was not a conscious choice; it was a visceral, automatic response buried deep in your cells, a defense mechanism as innate as a hand jerking from a flame.

Your human form shattered. It didn’t fade or melt, it exploded.

Your skin hardened instantaneously to a glossy, obsidian chitin that seemed to reflect nothing. Containing naught but a pitiless, dark void. The single arm that held Carol became two, then three, then four. They multiplied and reconfigured, cradling her protectively against a torso that was now a formidable, armored core. Your face elongated, your jaw unhinging to reveal a maw of profound darkness lined with rows of needle-like, glistening fangs. From your scalp, the last remnant of your disguise, long, silken threads of your true hair shined in a pure, impossible white. It spilled forth like a waterfall made of the finest spider silk, delicate, yet each strand stirred with a sentient life of its own. And finally, four pairs of gleaming, compound white eyes opened across the upper expanse of your face. 

They saw the change happen all at once. Pierrot’s face frozen in awe, Harlequin’s unsure step back, the Doctor’s paralyzed disbelief. Each calculating every minute twitch, every shift, every potential threat.

You didn’t roar. Didn’t taunt or gloat. You simply acted. One of your free upper arms, a limb of terrifying power and speed, shot out. It closed around the Doctor’s throat not with a crush, but with an inescapable, vice-like precision. You lifted the massive man off his feet as if he were weightless, a doll made of straw and cloth. With a scornful flick of impossible strength, you threw him.

He became a projectile, crashing into the thick, unforgiving trunk of an oak tree ten feet away. The impact was a sickening, woody crunch that spoke of shattered bones and dislocated joints. He slid down the bark, leaving a dark smear, and moved only enough to lift his head and show the others he wasn’t dead.

The silence that fell was absolute, profound.

You stood revealed in the moonlit clearing, a nightmarish matryoshka doll. The quiet, polite barista is gone, replaced by the ancient horror within. Carol slept on, blissfully unconscious, in the cage of your protective limbs.

The circus troupe stared, a tableau of shock and reluctant fear.

It was Jester who moved first. With a roar of fury at the attack made against one of his own, he too began to change. His purple and black motley strained and tore as his body swelled, becoming a hulking mound of grey-purple flesh. His face split into a wide maw lined with jagged, uneven tusks, as his claws tore through his gloves, revealing dagger-like appendages. 

“How dare you!” He bellowed, his voice a guttural avalanche. He charged, a tidal wave of rage aimed directly at you.

But he never reached you.

“Jester, no!” The cry came from two voices at once. Pierrot and Harlequin moved in a blur of motion, their own transformations swift and terrifying. Pierrot’s slender form became leaner, sharper, like a razor-edged shadow. The red and black costume tore away to reveal sleek, dark fur. His face elongated into a canine muzzle, his black eyes with their golden irises now glowing with a feral light. His hands were wickedly clawed.

Harlequin’s change was smoother, more sinuous. His green and black attire seemed to melt into iridescent green scales that shimmered even in the weak moonlight. He grew taller, more lithe, a serpentine predator uncoiling. A long, forked tongue flicked out from between his own rows of needle teeth, and his green-irised eyes held a cold, calculating intelligence.

For once they moved as one, intercepting Jester’s mad charge. Pierrot latched onto one thick arm, sinking his claws deep into the grey flesh, while Harlequin wrapped his long, scaly body around Jester’s legs, trying to trip the behemoth.

“Stop this, you fool!” Harlequin hissed, his voice a sibilant whisper. “Look at her! She is one of us!”

“She lied to us!” Jester roared, thrashing against their hold as he gradually lost more ground.

“You will not touch her!” Pierrot snarled, his usually silent, poetic voice now a raw, bestial growl. His golden eyes, burning with a possessiveness that bordered on madness, flicked to you. 

Their struggle was a whirlwind of fur, scale, and immense muscle. You saw your opening. With a speed that was pure instinct, your four lower arms shot out. Two grabbed Jester’s flailing limbs, your chitinous fingers digging in with unyielding strength. The other two slammed into his chest. With a grunt of effort fueled by panic and a deep, primal power, you shoved the monstrous Jester back and right into Pierrot and Harlequin.

The three of them went down in a tangled, snarling heap of monster limbs. Behind them, the Ticket Taker, who had remained in his deceptively mild human form, was helping the dazed Doctor to his feet, whose head lolled at a slant, a trickle of blackish blood oozing from a cut on his temple. His human eyes, blinking rapidly, were wide with pain and confusion.

The brief scuffle had given you a moment. A precious, fleeting moment. You backed away, putting distance between yourself and the recovering troupe. A low, chittering screech ripped from your throat, an alien and terrifying sound, a promise of aggression. From the flowing abundance of your hair, threads of stark-white silk shot out, not aimed at the other monsters, but at the environment around you. Your silk wove a frantic, shimmering barrier between the trees closest to you. Forming a warning fence, all of it glistening with a mild paralytic venom.

“Stay back,” you warned, your voice a distorted rasp, layered with clicks and hisses. “The next thread won’t be a warning.”

The group hesitated. Jester was clambering to his feet, still enraged but now wary of the silken web. Pierrot and Harlequin stood tall in a protective stature, though who they were protecting was suddenly a question with a very conflicting answer. Their monstrous forms were poised, tense. The Ticket Taker held the Doctor steady, his expression unreadable.

Jester went to surge forwards again but halted at the sizzle of a warning thread that brushed his feet. “I should have known you were suspicious from Pierrot and Harlequin’s accounts,” he spat, his tusked mouth adding a unique depth to the form of his words. “All this time, did you know what we are?”

Your multiple eyes scanned them, this macabre family of predators. You saw Pierrot’s wild, golden eyes full of desperate, confused longing. You saw Harlequin’s calculating green stare. You saw the visceral focus in Jester’s expression and the cold observation in the Ticket Taker’s.

“Yes,” you answered, the truth simple and stark. “I knew. I’ve always known. Your forms may be hidden, but my senses are keen.” 

“Why didn’t you say so, my lady?” The tone of Pierrot’s voice was a menagerie filled with pain, joy, excitement, and fear. “Had we known, we would not have hurt you.”

“We would not have hurt you anyway.” Harlequin shifted, his back bending in a regal curve. “If you hadn’t taken our prey. Are you short on food, my heart? Or, don’t tell me, you have something against us monsters culling the humans for sustenance?” 

You allowed a hint of disdain to color your rasping voice. “I didn’t care. Why would I? Hunt your cattle. Live your lives. Another monster’s existence is none of my business. I would have left you to it. I would have never given you a second thought more than what you forced on me each day you came around.”

Your voice dropped, becoming a venomous drip that all but oozed with your disdain. It made even Jester take a half-step back. “That is, if you hadn’t touched one of mine. One of my friends, then we wouldn’t be here, but we are because you’ve tried to take her from me.”

The accusation hung in the air, thicker than the sickly-sweet scent of your venom-laced silk. You were an outsider judging their laws, and the injustice of it burned them, most of all Pierrot and Harlequin, but your truth was pure to your own heart.

It was Jester who broke first, a guttural laugh erupting from his tusked maw. “Yours? You defend a human?” He took another measured step forward, and another thread of silk, faster than the eye could follow, snapped from your hair and embedded itself in the ground between his feet, the soil around it turning a faint, ominous grey. He froze, his bravado momentarily choked by the display of lethal precision, then hissed in frustration.

“Friends…” Pierrot whispered the word as if it were a sacred, terrifying thing. His low, raspy voice was thick with an agony that seemed to physically pain him. “My lady, my star, you call them friends? These… these fragile, fleeting things? They are sustenance. They are prey. They scream and bleed and break. They are not… they cannot be…” 

Pierrot’s voice broke, and the raw confusion in it was more disarming than Jester’s anger. He took a half-step toward your barrier, not in aggression, but in a desperate, pleading motion. One black-gloved hand rose, as if to reach through the silken threads for you, but he stopped short, knowing the cost. “We are your kind. We are the same. We are the things that hunt in the dark. They are the light we snuff out. It is the way of the world.”

“Your world,” you corrected, your voice losing some of its venomous edge, replaced by a weary, ancient coldness. “Not mine. I have seen what my ‘kind’ does. I watched a monster like you tear my mother apart. I watched humans burn my father alive for the crime of loving her. I am the child of that love and that hate. I belong to neither world, so I have made my own. In my world, Carol is my friend. And you tried to take her.”

Harlequin, recovering his wits, let out a low, thoughtful hum. “A fascinating philosophy, little web-weaver. You curate your diet alongside your sentimentality for them.” A sharp-toothed smile played on his lips, devoid of its usual mocking humor. It was a smile of genuine, morbid fascination. “But it is a precarious line to walk. What happens when your ‘friend’ discovers what you bring home from your nightly hunts? What will your Carol think of her protector when she learns the truth of your… dietary preferences? It’s almost funny, for at one point I had to consider such a thought, and now, seeing you as you are, I know that I no longer need to. But you,” his eyes narrowed as his smile widened with morbid intrigue. “Very much need to consider that question.”

And it struck a nerve in you, a deep, buried fear you kept locked away. You offered no answer, because you had none. The silence was admission enough to how gravely it affected you.

The stalemate held, a silent battle of wills between nightmares. Then, a sound, so soft and fragile it was almost swallowed by the tension, cut through the clearing.

A whimper.

Your head snapped toward the source with frightening accuracy and precision. Carol was stirring. Laying there on the cold ground where you’d laid her, she shifted, a faint moan escaping her lips. Her eyelids fluttered. Consciousness was returning, slow and lethargic, but it was returning. And returning at all, now and here, was too fast no matter how slow the pace.

Panic, cold and sharp, bolted through you, far more potent than any fear the circus of monsters could spark. Your human life, your carefully constructed normalcy, your hard-earned peace was now all moments from shattering like a crystal glass on the edge of a table. If Carol woke up now, if she saw you like this, surrounded by these creatures, it would all be over. The apartment, the coffee shop, the day to day that had been your life would all burn to ash.

There was no time to think, only to act. You moved, not as a monster, but as a protector. You were at her side in an instant, your monstrous form crouching over her fragile human one. One of your upper hands, still vaguely human-like in shape though made of hard chitin, gently brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. The other lower arms kept a defensive posture toward the circus troupe.

“Shhh,” you whispered, the sound a distorted imitation of comfort. “It’s alright. You’re safe.”

But her eyes were opening. Her confused, blurry human gaze was focusing. In a second, she would see the darkness where a face should be. She would see the six white eyes.

A solution, cruel and kind in equal measure, presented itself. It was the only way. One of the silken threads from your hair dipped down, its end sharp and needle-like. With a tenderness that belied your form, you pressed it against the side of her neck, just below the jawline. A tiny drop of mild, soothing venom, not a paralytic but a sedative, entered her bloodstream.

Her eyes, which had just begun to widen in dawning horror, fluttered shut again. Her body went limp, her breathing deepening into the rhythms of artificial sleep. She would remember nothing. She would only wake in her bed, believing she’d had a terrible dream.

The action had taken only a second. You looked up from Carol’s peaceful face to the circle of monsters. Their expressions were a mix of understanding, scorn, and continued fury.

You gathered Carol into your arms, all six of them coordinating to lift her with an effortless, gentle strength. You cradled her against the hard plates of your chest, a perverse image of a mother and child.

You turned your multifaceted gaze back to them, a final warning in your stance. “Do not follow,” you rasped, the threat absolute. “Do not seek me out. Do not even look in my direction. The next time I see any of you, I will not be so merciful.”

You didn’t wait for a response. You turned and melted into the shadows of the trees, moving with an unnatural silence that was more terrifying than any thunderous exit. The forest swallowed you and your burden whole.

Back in the clearing, the silence returned, heavier now. The Doctor groaned, shaking his head. Jester let out a frustrated roar that was muffled by the trees. Pierrot took a step toward where you’d vanished, a low whine building in his throat, but Harlequin’s scaly hand fell on his shoulder.

“Let her go, fool,” Harlequin murmured, his serpentine eyes fixed on the empty path. “There are some webs even we should not be eager to touch.”

---

Author note: Credit for the unique monster concept of MC in this story is credited to @avokadouwu! The amazing idea was entirely theirs and I wrote the story based on it 😄

I had SO MUCH FUN writing this one! I loved the idea of getting to write a "what if" around the concept of MC being a monster who also gets into conflict with the circus members. Thank you for reading! And thank you again to @avokadouwu for the commission! You are incredible for commissioning all these writings, thank you so much!!! ✨

Writing commissions are still open and extremely helpful to me right now in affording therapy and other necessities while I’m trying to find a job, if you’re interested, check out this post!

You can also leave me a tip on Ko-fi!

Pierrot

Honestly, Pierrot wouldn't really notice that you're awful at flirting.

Depending on what you do he might think you're joking with him, but he'd otherwise view it as intentional and heart racing. Because poor performance or not, you're still giving him attention and trying to woo him, so that's plenty enough in his book.

Though he might get a bit confused if you were to trip him up to play that line. He's very careful around you and is very aware of how close his body is to you at any given time, so if you were to try and trip him, he'd notice. Pierrot wouldn't see it as you tripping him and likely thinks you're just stretching your leg out and would step over it. Though if you're quick about it, are walking with him, or otherwise distracting him, his foot would catch on your shoe and he'd stumble.

"Did you just fall for me, Pierrot?"

Poor sweet Pierrot would right himself, look down at you with the expression of a confused puppy, and just stare for a moment before grinning.

"No, I didn't fall, my dear. No need to worry."

Cue him worrying almost immediately at the sight of your disappointed face. Did you want him to fall over? Surely you didn't want to hurt him, so maybe you were just playing a game. I don't doubt that he'd be halfway to the ground before you sheepishly explain your attempt at flirting.

Once Pierrot realizes that you were trying to be flirty and playful, his face would break out into the biggest smile. He might've gotten hurt if he had properly fallen, but he doesn't spare that fact a moment of thought.

"Oh! So you are playing! Do you want to try it again? I promise I'll fall just right for you."

Harlequin

Oh, woe is the MC who can't take it nor dish it out, because Harlequin will gladly take advantage.

He thinks it's charming that you're so... unfortunate with your attempts at seduction and takes great delight in taking your "flirts" and pushing it to eleven.

You fumble through a pickup line you thought was so clever? You must be so enraptured by Harlequin's presence alone that you've gone and rendered yourself speechless, hm? Oh, are you seriously trying to fluster him by leaning against the wall next to him? He will take great delight in watching your eyes grow wide when he leans over you, getting impossibly close under the guise of hearing your line better.

When you attempt to trip him and play your little trick on him, he sees it coming from a mile away. So, instead of you jutting out your foot to trip him, Harlequin instead tugs your arm just enough to throw you off balance. He'll grab your waist in lieu of keeping you steady while looking down at you with that wide, toothy grin of his.

"Aww, poor thing. Have you got two left feet all of a sudden?"

When you frown and push yourself off of him, his hands don't let you slip by so easily. He rests his claws just above your elbow as he leans closer again, forcing you to look up at him with proximity alone.

"Oh, don't pout like that, dear one. You're far too tempting to not toy with; can you blame me? Try a little harder next time, and perhaps I can... give you a little grace."

Jester

Being as perceptive and intelligent as he is, it's not difficult to tell when you're failing miserably at charming him with half-baked flirtations. Though Jester handles them in a bit of a funny way.

He responds to each silly pickup line with a serious answer just to watch you pout, and if it's a rather corny one, he can and will laugh in front of your about it. One of those laughs that says "Oh, you poor, dumb little thing."

He finds your little flirts more funny than endearing, even though that wasn't exactly what you were going for. Though, at least he isn't turning you away or showing any sort of annoyance! Progress!

When you get a little more daring and try to trip him, Jester actually gets caught off guard. He was mid-conversation when he found the curved toe of his boot suddenly catching your shoe. His step stutters, he looks down at your shoe and then to you, then promptly stomps your foot.

"Do you not remember your manners?"

His smile is sharper, your foot aches as you reel back, and yet you still manage a come back.

"Sorry— I, er... Can't quite control myself around you..."

The line only thins his smile slightly before he starts walking again, expecting you to follow.

Later, after he's walked you to the front gate and said his farewells, Jester watches you walk down the pavement with the softest grin. With alarmingly sudden realization, he quickly bites his lips and turns back into the circus.