Shattered worlds

Shattered Worlds:

Chapter 1

At one time, people would’ve thought that a traveling circus was the place you would’ve ended up in if you had nowhere else to go, a home for any vagrant or urchin who needed a place to sleep, but nowadays, while it did keep true to that myth for some, it also acted as a place where anyone who looked strange or had talent could make some money; dirty or clean.

The Ringmaster took to the stage; a chubby man with a baby round face, but the dirt and grime gave him a sort of fish-like look. He wore what could only describe as a mix between a yellow jacket and a black corvet, with long blue pants and old red-heeled boots. He looked more like a clown than a Ringmaster.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen” The Ringmaster’s voice echoed through the tent. “The members of this circus would like to thank you all for coming to see our grand acts of wonder and amazement, today.”

They were mediocre at best, but the guy was a smart businessman and had already stated no refunds at the entrance.

“Now without further delay” a pause as he glanced over to the area where the performers would enter “Let the show begin!”

And out they came. The talented, the performers, the freaks, everyone who wanted, or in most cases needed, to make some money came out to show what form of oddity they brought to the circus. Be it flexibility that should have easily shattered the spine, to juggling a dozen knives with all three arms. From beneath the bleachers, hidden from sight was a young boy.

His sticky fingers were fast at work: the crowd was so enthralled by the freakshow, that they didn’t even feel his slight touch as he cleaned their pockets of any loose gold.

He moved, invisible as a ghost, from one pocket to the other, his only focus on not being detected and not on the circus acts.

To him, every show, every single one, was just the same thing over and over: the mediocre acrobats, the Beast-Tamer who balanced a ball on a quite possibly brain-damaged Vesok, a few crappy jokes and clown performances, the only thing that was really worth seeing at this place was the man with the third arm in his chest juggling knives. But, no matter how stale the performances had become, they presented him with the opportunity to pick a few pockets from an unsuspecting crowd.

The crowd continued to swim in their sea of blissful ignorance, all the while Jeagar continued his thievery until the circus acts came to their end. The audience rose from their seats, ready to leave. Some made it out of the tent without once even noticing the absence of weight in their pocket. Others, well they’d slip their hands into their pocket and instantly become furious. Most would growl under their breath and leave in a huff, while others would approach the Ringmaster and try and implicate him in the robberies.

Of course, they never could, but even the stubborn ones who absolutely demanded some form of compensation could do nothing in the face of a man who possessed a silver tongue. Eventually, they would leave, but not one of them would even notice the young boy, no way older than ten, standing next to the beast cage, the red hood of a black, slightly over-sized jacket covering his head, arms folded across his chests and a small, brown, sac in one hand. More yet, even if they’d given him a parting glance, they never would suspect that this boy was actually a girl. A girl whose name was Jack.

From outside the Ringmaster’s door, Jack could hear the ruckus unfolding: the discord of shuffling, the hard ‘thud’ of objects banging, and the harsh moans that sounded somewhere between a man with a lung problem and a dying goat.

She waited a bit for the noises to stop before he knocked on the door

“Come in” The Ringmaster called, from inside.

Jack entered and closed the door behind her. The room was a mess with objects littering the floor and the smell of salty sweat pungent in the air. But to her, the most disgusting thing in the room was the person who sat right in the middle of the room. The Ringmaster was seated behind his desk, in an old leather chair that he had swindled from a vendor a few towns before, and on his lap was his most recent “girl”, as he would call them.

In every town the circus traveled through, he’d get a new one. Sometimes they’d be old and sometimes they’d be young, but once he got his pleasure, he didn’t care. This one looked young, had soft features, and a glow that seemed to shine in the dingy room. She wore a clean shirt and blouse and had long dark hair, full lips with a bosom that the Ringmaster was using as a pillow.

“Hey, if it isn’t my favorite pick-pocket” His breathing was fast and sweat beads hung right over his brow, but the girl seemed indifferent with slow, deep breaths “What do you have today?”

Jack scowled, but her expression was hidden by her jacket’s cowl. She tossed the bag of stolen loot onto the desk.

With a greedy grin, the Ringmaster peered into the bag, but as he looked over his loot, his face changed into a disgruntled frown. Jack hated the guy even more when he made that face. It made him look more like the orc that he was

“This all you got kid?” The Ringmaster said, in a rather accusing tone.

Jack didn’t reply. Instead, the two stared each other down, until the corner of the Ringmaster’s eye began to twitch.

The Ringmaster nonchalantly cracked his neck, but Jack knew that inside he was drowning in fury “Listen, kid, if you want to keep yourself in this place then your gonna have to pull your own weight” A pause “I’ll admit that sometimes the crowd can be a little dry, but you got to do better than just a sack full of coins. You understand?”

Once again, Jack met him with silence.

The Ringmaster gave him a smirk “Of course if you don’t like my hospitality, your free to leave whenever you want”

Jack clenched her teeth in anger, so tight that she could almost feel the heat as if they were about to explode. He would have long taken the offer to leave on his own if that were the real intention, but he already knew exactly what that meant. The Ringmaster wasn’t about to let money just roll down the drain. No, instead, the pig-bull-faced money-grubber would sell him off to whoever had the most money. She’d already seen it happen to a few Carnie kids before. That was the sole reason that he stayed in this run-down freak show.

The Ringmaster seemed to be pleased with this bout of silence. With a flick of his wrist, he dismissed him, before his attention went back to the girl in his lap.

Jack exited the room. If the human body could overheat from anger, then she was a raging inferno. She needed some air. She made his way out of the circus tent and onto the snow-filled streets, the dying glow on the horizon quickly giving way to the birth of the gray haze of the night. The roads were a bit empty, but a few people lingered about here and there, covered from head to toe to protect themselves from the fridged atmosphere. From the inside of his jacket, Jack pulled out a tiny bundle of cloth. He unfolded it and if anyone saw him, they might have been able to see the ghost of a smile that was on his face. Ten coins that she’d stolen for himself. It might not have been a lot, but it could probably get her something decent to eat. At least something better than the slop that they ate in the circus. She folded the clothes and stowed them back in her jacket, then pulling her jacket closed, she set off.