Meet the Ringmaster

The crowd's attention shifted in her direction when her voice filled the stillness of the night. The executioner slowly lowered his axe in surprise. Dialogue bubbles floated in the air as the citizens exchanged thoughts and reactions.

"You!" One of the workers on stage pointed at her. "Did you just scream?"

Jurie bit her tongue and secretly pinched her arm as punishment for her stupid action, which, if she hadn't done, could've cost McNeil's life. She already felt guilty for not finishing the kid's story and stopping his potential existence. And now that he was given the chance to exist in another world, she didn't want to ruin that for him.

She drew in a lungful of air and stood proud for what she did. "YES! I spoke. You have problems with that?" she bragged.

Though voiceless, the people's reactions were all over their faces. Some were astonished to hear someone's voice, as theirs had been gone for a long while. Others covered their faces in fear for her life. Some only gave her a side glance of jealousy.

"No one is allowed to have a voice here in Sicirus! Everyone's voice should belong only to the Ringmaster!" Even though Jurie was just reading the worker's dialogue, his intense emotion was evident through his bulging jugular veins. He scanned the surroundings before giving his orders. "Seize her! Make the Ringmaster happy!"

                                                                                    **

The workers tied Jurie's hands and dragged her to a tent. 

Unlike the other tents, with several long benches to accommodate the audience, this one contained bookshelves and a table like those in school libraries. There was only one high chair, specially crafted for the lanky, towering man sitting on it. He was holding a book with nothing on the cover. No image. No title and author name.

His velvety, purplish hood, paired with silky stilt pants, covered his body so Jurie couldn't guess how big or tall he was.  His outfit wasn't as decent as his label would suggest, being the Ringmaster. His hood was made from pieces of torn fabric sewn together. His upper garment was from scrap textile, as were his pants.

"What a lovely surprise," he said. His voice was a mix of deep from the underground and pitchy.

Jurie had to squint while reading his speech bubble because it was as blurry as a manuscript printed using a printer running out of ink.

"Where did you find her?" he asked. "Is she the intruder who helped little McNeil?"

"Yes, Ringmaster," said the guy on her left. "We had confirmed that she still had her voice when she screamed." 

The Ringmaster put the book down to reveal his half-rotten face. His left eyeball dangled to his cheek as he licked his soggy lips. Jurie winced in disgust at the sight of maggots jumping and crawling on his face. Her brain tricked her into hearing the tiny muffled crunching sound produced by the larvae, which made her skin crawl.

"Cage her!" ordered the Ringmaster. "Her voice is quite unique. I bet she could save me from this rotting situation." He scanned Jurie's outfit. "Get her bag. Throw it away."

The three workers obliged without hesitation. One of them grabbed the satchel from her, not even checking what was in it. "You won't be needing it in your confinement," he said. "I'll take care of it." He skipped his way out of the tent.

The stout one of the two workers pushed her to walk towards the human-sized cage, while the other one opened it. He slammed the metal bars and locked it in a hurry. 

"Pull my table and chair there, right in front of her," the Ringmaster ordered. "Your presence is not needed. You may go after that."

The Ringmaster sat across from Jurie's cage. "Why did you save the boy who stole a crystal from me?" He clenched his fist. "Stealing is unlawfu!" He slammed his fist on the table, making Jurie jump in shock. He then smirked, dropping some worms from his face onto the table. "Sicirus is a silent place, and yet you reacted as if you heard me hitting this wooden table."

She didn't respond, hoping she could trick the freak. She kept pretending to be mute.

"I'm not  buying your trick, human!" He put his long legs on the table, revealing his stilt already infested with termites. "Not speaking won't save you. My henchmen won't lie to me about you having a voice."

He snapped his fingers, and from the unlit corners of the tent, several flickering balls came floating like a posse of fireflies. With a swift gesture, the round objects gently dropped, one by one, in the bowl on the table.

He picked up the book he was reading earlier and asked, "Do you know what this book is about?" 

Jurie didn't respond. She just cowered in a corner of her cell.

The Ringmaster grabbed several crystal balls and sucked the glowing light inside them, one after another.

"I was once a character in a story,"  he began speaking, in between munching on and swallowing. "In the beginning, my story was so full of life and adventure. I even admired the author who wrote me because he was very consistent. He wrote every night for two to three hours; in the morning, he worked as teacher."

He  flipped a page and asked. "Are you a prolific writer as well? Or are you one of those characters brought to life by a pretentious writer?" He shrugged. "Don't answer. Your response is not that important. Do you want me to tell you a story?"

She still didn't respond, pissing off the Ringmaster.

"Fine! If you don't want to speak, then don't! Who cares about a useless voice anyway!"

His insults pierced her heart. Earlier it was Urie who was stomping on her ego; this time it was this hideous character from someone else's story. Whoever the writer who wrote this guy was, he was to blame for his unpleasant, rude personality.

"As I was saying," he continued. "A writer once wrote about me, and this book tells my story." He lifted the book slightly above his head as if he were stretching. "The story is about a carnival, a place where happy memories are made and where burned-out people go to  destress and feel like children again."

Jurie looked at him with curiosity because she noticed some changes on his face. After slurping the contents of around five crystals, his dangling eye gradually connected to its socket, and the rotten flesh on his face slowly began to regenerate. 

He seemed not to notice how Jurie stared at him, and he kept talking. "This carnival used to be a boisterous place filled with mirth. Then, he created me as the main character, a stilt man. My life was blissful then. I would wake up every day, feeling excited about what would happen to my life next. Until one day..." He paused and sniffed. This time, his entire face had healed, revealing his handsome Greek-like face. Tears welled in his blue eyes.

Jurie's eyes became heavy after reading long dialogues in the Ringmaster's speech bubble. She couldn't help but headbang and had hypnic jerks to stay awake.

"Are you seriously sleeping while I'm telling my life's story?! Is my life that uninteresting for you?!" He walked to the cell and began hitting it with the. "Is my life that boring that even the author himself didn't finish my story?!"

Jurie covered her hands on her face not to see the horrifying reaction of the man in front of her.

He was so hysterical that he started sending his chair flying across the other side of the tent. "How dare you make me feel that my existence is worthless!" With brute force, he lifted the table and almost smashed it to the cage when a woman's shriek stopped him.