Soft sunlight glints off rides and merry go rounds, merry jingles floating through the air. The bustle of the carnival goes on around you as you stroll along, enjoying the day.
It’s breezy, yet the breeze is warm and butter-soft, gently wrapping your soft silk dress around your legs as you walk, the taste of ice cream on your lips and contentment in your heart.
You’ve always loved carnivals, loved the life and crowds and energy of them. Children rush past, made energetic by cotton candy and excitement. In the golden sunshine you see mothers rubbing sun screen on protesting children, teenagers shrieking with glee on the rides, or holding hands nervously with each other, delighting in their first taste of closeness with another. Young men cast appreciative glances your way, and you blush softly.
The sun continues to shine down upon you, the sounds and smells and sights blending together into a patchwork of sensations, the scent of cotton candy, happy shouts, a warm breeze…
Sudden freezing cold.
You pause, icecream melting onto your hand unheeded. In the warmth of the summer day, its easy to pass off that cold as a figment of imagination, yet it was so sudden, so intense and so real that your mind can find no explanation.
You try to shrug it off and enjoy the day, and soon you are happily watching a group of children learn a life lesson on trusting the carnies who say every ball wins a prize, even as cold wind buffets the back of your neck.
Your head jerks up, and sudden horror begins to crystallize in your brain as something invisible and unseen slips away, visible only by a sudden rustle in the grass. You shiver, the warm happiness of the day fading fast.
You move away, going faster then normal,frantically rationalizing to yourself.
You’re dehydrated.
You’re heatstruck.
You have an overactive
imagination.
As you rest by the hot dog stand, the seller pauses in ladling another scoop of onions onto a hotdog and asks if you’re alright. You not and assure him you’re fine you’re not and just tired. He nods and smiles, inquiring as to whether you’d like a hotdog. You decline politely, your stomach churning too much for food cold fingers stroke down your face.
The horror on your face is obvious, and you bolt, the sellers worried cries fading into the background. There is something after you, seen in the corner of your vision, no longer invisible but faster than your eyes can follow. You see…you don’t know what you see, details too faint, too strange, too OTHERLY to identify. Noone else can see it, you know that. It seems to pass them with no notice, normal life continuing around it.
You are the target. It wants you to fear.
Shouts and complaints follow you as you run blindly, sick horror filling you. You bounce into someone who grabs at you, swearing. You flail desperately, breaking free, almost screaming as the smell of its vile breath draws closer (how can no one see this!) light reflecting off unseen teeth (I don’t want to die!) harsh breath panting in your ear (God help me!) as it draws closer.
Something strange is happening to the crowd. The sounds blur together, becoming a sinister mockery with a muffled, underwater quality, the tinkle of the merry go round a vile parody. The faces seem odd, paler, melted, mingling with the bleeding colours of the rest of the carnival in a ghastly palette. The appetizing smells now churn your stomach, similar enough to taunt, yet wrong enough to terrify.
Your legs are tired, the air seeming to thicken and condense, as if you run through water. The creature has no problems. It’s gaining.
As you feel it behind you, you make the last mistake of your life. You turn and look. Before you can scream, your mind shatters as you get your first good look. It reaches you.
The carnival continues on.
Credit To – Christine Dell
(Derpnote: Happy Fourth of July!)
Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.
Carnival= Karn evil.
Meh, there was some things that total pulled me out of the story. I find Carnivals enjoyable and also very creepy depending on my state of mind, so I was hoping to enjoy this… but I didn’t. The descriptions of the girl did help since I am a woman, but I don’t wear dresses unless I go to church.. so .. I couldn’t really relate to that. As others have stated, 2nd person perspective is hard, and for men this was definitely hard to get into. This was not a bad pasta, just not a wonderful one.
I must say though, you clearly have imagination and writing talent, take our comments into consideration when you write again, you could do very well.
When I read the title, I thought it was going to be a Laughing Jack story. So disappointed. I think it was an okay story. 4/10.
I feel like I can relate as the story reminds me of how an anxiety attack feels.
Really?
This was a waste of 3 minutes…
The beginning descriptions were absolutely delicious! I was so happy to read something written by someone who knows how to use metaphors.
However, it seemed like everything fell apart after that. Suddenly there were spelling errors, improper grammar, and the plot became confusing. I really would have liked the descriptions of terror to match the fluency of the opening lines.
There is such a thing as too much detail and too many descriptive words.
It was distracting and I don’t know if it was just me, but that made much more difficult to follow. At times I even had to re-read bits as I was confused.
I didn’t find it all that scary.
Best… Ending… EVER!
I stopped reading when I (the reader) was referred to as a girl… I’m not a girl so this ruined it for me.
Sounds like she took drugs.
I certainly agree with Vox-it’s detrimental to the readers’ enjoyment of a story when the author makes use of the second person, but does not leave this supposed position available to all readers. I understand much of these descriptions were included to provide more potent sensory detail, but they actually detract and frustrate when you are unable to identify with them.
I also feel that the frightening aspects of this story were too generic. What I mean by this is while you employ strong sensory detail to help the reader picture themselves experiencing this fear…we have NO IDEA what we’re supposed to be frightened of. The story is essentially saying “And then you were terrified of the idea of being terrified!! BOOO!!” and then it ends.
Here’s what I think could improve this pasta drastically: give a face to this thing that’s hunting the protagonist. Maybe no one sees it but them. It’s peering from behind rides and it’s getting closer and more sinister the more you see it.
Overall a mediocre pasta, but with a great deal of room for improvement: 5/10.
sounds like this chick took some bad acid.
I enjoyed this. The terror of being the only person in a happy, bright, crowded place. The certainty that you and only you are in grave danger and no one can help because they can’t see the danger. Nice job.
Huh?
This pasta was quite brave; it took numerous interesting stylistic risks– the second person narrative, the line breaks and syntax, even the use of parentheses. The action scenes felt quite more lively for them, the pacing made more vivid and palpable.
The descriptions were, at least initially, quite well done. The background was well-illustrated, though retrospectively the pasta maybe spent too long setting up. In the closing parts the descriptions take on a nicely delirious tone, coupling with the stylistic flairs to create a vivid scene.
Critically, although this approach is to be applauded, IMO in the end this pasta fell short. The second person narrative felt like a shortcut to characterization; the protagonist felt flat, the appeals to substitute ourselves in her shoes weak. I felt this could’ve been a stronger narrative had the pasta included a more present protagonist.
The plot was dubious at best, shallow at worst. While the set-up was good, the second act was IMO too abrupt as the plot ultimately boiled down to ‘I was chased by an invisible monster’. The piece lacked gravity– there were no far-ranging implications: the protagonist disappears, the monster is invisible, the carnival seemingly has no relation bar as a backdrop.
The monster itself managed to be over and under-described at the same time. The author went to too-far lengths to keep the thing mysterious, in the process making the monster arbitrary and tacked on: it appears suddenly, it’s invisible, too otherwordly to describe and it cleans up its victims nicely. In the end, it felt like a cop-out; the monster was too obvious a plot-device.
Overall, while this piece was stylistically interesting, it didn’t hold up to plot-substance scrutiny. 5.2/10
I agree with you, and I want to add that the protagonist fell even flatter still for me, a man, reading this because I wouldn’t wear a dress and I feel like a guy wouldn’t be watching kids like that unless he were deranged. With too much description of the second person narrative, I just felt alienated from the story. I think, if you’re going to tell a story in the second person, you should leave the description open in ways that the reader can more easily associate with the protagonist.
I agree; that’s why 2nd person narratives are so hard to do IMO, you have to avoid making them feel generic, yet you have to avoid over-characterization, because you’re essentially throwing your character to the audience.
There’s obvious “THEN WHO WAS….” potential but ill leave that alone. Regarding the story..I didn’t know what to make of it really. It made no sense whatsoever! Like…Wtf is chasing this person straight out of the blue?! I just feel you wrote a story simply for the sake of submitting to CreepyPasta…and not to actually thrill the readers. 2.1/10