Carnival Souls

The Devil's Atlas

Bebinn led Lira up a flight of faded stairs, clearly worn down by years of feet. As she followed, Lira's mind spun wildly. There had to be some means of escape. Even if the forest wasn't a possibility—so Bebinn claimed—the carnival clearly stuttered between the human world and—well, wherever they were right now.

After all, she had been there with her parents and met her friends there. Well, her one friend who grudgingly spent time with her because their moms had gone to college together. Anyone who was Lira's friend was more so by occupational hazard than any desire to hang around her.

The point was people had been there. Real people, eating food, taking rides, playing games.

Lira no longer believed this was merely a nightmare she couldn't wake up from. And as the creatures, or whatever they were, had certainly not been there during the day time, she had to conclude this was not in the human world. She had crossed some portal, some kind of unseen barrier in the time between entering  the carnival and getting thrown from the carousel.

A tiny gasp escaped from her, thankfully unheard by Bebinn. The carousel. Hadn't everything changed once Baleros convinced her to get on the horse? It wasn't hard for Lira to believe the carousel had magical properties. She had been entranced by it the moment she set eyes on it. The question was—how did it work?

Lira's thoughts were interrupted at the sound of Bebinn's voice. Had she really ever thought her voice sweet? It was gentle in the same way a cactus was. Seemingly soft and fuzzy from far away, and dangerously sharp up close. It slithered around Lira like Bebinn's snake, tightly coiled, ready to tighten and squeeze at any moment. The feeling made Lira ill.

Bebinn had stopped outside a plain black door, nondescript in every way except the brass number 3 set into its center.

"You will be rooming with Atlas," Bebinn was saying when Lira's brain caught up with her ears.

Lira's thoughts immediately went to an actual atlas.

"I'm rooming with a map?" she thought stupidly. But then the past hour rushed into the void and her imagination kicked into high gear. An icy feeling of dread sluiced over her, freezing her into place. What if she was being locked in a room with one of those monsters? Those terrifying beings that only had the barest human aspects about them. Would she be a chew toy, a play thing, its next meal?

Bebinn had said "rooming with." Surely that implied she was being kept for some other purpose. But still, Lira shuddered, what if it was a creature? Her mind churned out a dozen different possibilities, each more awful than the last.

A cyclops with rows of shark teeth and spears for fingers. A woman with red eyes and the six extra legs of a spider, pincers clicking as she advanced. A black behemoth of a demon that could breathe fire that would melt the skin off her bones.

She had seen no such thing outside, but that didn't mean they didn't exist somewhere in this awful world she was trapped in. Lira began to hyperventilate, her small chest rising in quick gaps that did nothing to clear the blackness encroaching on her vision. She could barely see Bebinn's slender hand reach out to turn the knob.

The door was pushed inward and there, sitting at a desk in the corner, was a girl.

Lira blinked quickly, trying to clear the bright spots of color dancing in front of her. Not just a girl, but a normal one—a little younger than herself, maybe nine or ten. And the girl was studying—ironically, of all things—a map. It was clearly old from the look of the yellow parchment and the corners' inclination to curve inward, but it didn't look like any map Lira had ever seen.

At the sound of the door, the girl—Atlas—looked up and released her hold on the map which sprang back into a roll at once. She rose to her feet at the sight of Bebinn and Lira in the doorway.

Diminutive in stature, a body full of sharp angles, Atlas looked on the two with a reserved expression, though Lira could detect curiosity in her eyes. She cocked her head in a bird-like way, causing her black satin hair to fall over her shoulder and allow Lira to see that it was streaked with red. Her hands too, Lira now realized, also had a reddish hue, with streaks curving from her palms to meet in the middle of the back of her hands. The rest of her caramel skin seemed unaffected.

"Disease," was the first thing that came to Lira's mind. "Tattoos" was the next.

"Atlas will show you where to get bed linens as well as where you will eat and bathe," said Bebinn. Her cordial demeanor had returned. "You are permitted to walk around the staff quarters as well as the carnival, but remember what I said about leaving. I will not restrict your movements unless I have good reason too. And once a week at my bequest, you will complete the work required of you."

"Which is what exactly?" asked Lira, trying to process everything.

Bebinn's eyes flashed at the interruption, but she reached into a hidden sleeve at the side of her dress and produced a sheaf of papers. It was sheet music of all things.

"You want me to perform?" asked Lira, now thoroughly confused.

That's why she had been lured here in the dead of night and tricked into whatever world she was in now? To play the violin in a carnival of nightmares? A simple advertisement could have sufficed. Seeking musician to perform at carnival from hell. Those afraid of monsters and the dark need not apply.

"Why?" demanded Lira, anger once again over-taking her fear.

The snake on Bebinn's arm hissed angrily as the woman's lip curled.

"That does not concern you. What concerns me is your ability to play. You can ask Baleros what happens to those in my employment who fall short of expectations."

Lira thought to Baleros's playing with dismay. It had been beyond human ability, music to give the very Earth goosebumps and fold the time between seconds. If he hadn't met Bebinn's standards than how much shorter would Lira fall?

She took the papers Bebinn proffered, her eyes scanning them quickly. Her heart sank even further in her chest. She didn't recognize any of the notes. Wasn't music supposed to be a universal language?

"Wait!" Lira called as Bebinn walked away. "I can't read this."

Bebinn looked over her shoulder. "Then I suggest you make it your priority to learn."

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Thoughts anyone? :) I know you don't have much to go on yet, but any predictions about Atlas? Let me know :) Thanks for reading!