Warning: This work has been rated 16+.
There was no moon, nor any stars, as the rose bloomed in the center of the dirt road, far faster than was natural. As each petal unfolded from the next, the crimson dripped heavily like dew, hitting the dirt with an effect that resembled shattering glass. The droplets fanned out, dancing as elegantly as an performer, as if giving one last strike of beauty before it sank into the ground. The vividness of the crimson liquid, the scarlet rose, the black sky lit only by a faint red tint, startled me. I am left yearning for motion, and yet question my own ability to move. I feel... weighted; I cannot move. I cannot move.
In the distance, a howling wolf makes me think of red. I watch the rose bloom larger, until the stem can no longer support the weight. It bends, the flower falling in slow-motion to the dirt, joining the crimson drops. As it hits the dirt, I feel the jolt. Coming. It's coming.
What's... coming?
I jerk up, arms flailing, shouting out nonsense as my senses--sort of--return. I hear chuckling, and look to my right. Vical is laughing her little butt off at me, snorting and tearing up at me like any pig. "What?" I hiss, not in the wood. I rub the back of my head, sore from sleeping in an awkward position.
"That--" She wheezes, choking, "was funnier than you'll ever understand."
"Got that right," I grumble, but I get where she's coming from, really. I guess I must have woken up when we hit a bump in the road. People make the most entertaining faces when they're woken up like that. Especially if it's timed just right with a dream.
"Your face," she gasped, pointing to her eyes, dropping the reins, "looked so frightened. Your eyeballs almost popped out..." Her eyes squeeze shut as she keeps thinking about it--no doubt replaying it again and again. And again. Just for good measure--and I roll my eyes when she cracks up again. And again. Just for good measure.
"Ah, shut it. Focus on drivin'." I grab the wooden handle on the side of the cart and lean way out to the side, squinting my eyes against the setting sun to look ahead at the Ringmaster's cart. "The Joker sees you and we're both dead." I use the Ringmaster's popular--and almost always used--nickname. Not many of us even know his real name. I think I've figured it out, but I'm not telling.
That quiets her down. Her face falls so quickly, her humor lost, and I sort of feel bad for ruining her mood. Joker had been so... irritated, I guess, as of late. None of us know why, but it started in the last city. I glance at Vical, sitting back down beside her. She looks so sad, I feel like I have to say something. She beats me to it. "What do you think he ran across in that memory of his that made him so angry?"
The softness of her usually loud voice startles me. There's an emotion in there, caught up in the sound as it slips from the glistening red paint on her lips. I watch the light reflect off the paint, wondering if she realizes how pale she is. How white her skin seems in comparison to the red.
Red.
The thought of the color jolts me, but I can't recall why. "Well, he did bump into that woman. While we were out on the town on our last night?"
"What woman?" Her head snaps around, eyes ablaze. A cannon ball drops into my stomach, and the weight makes my stomach churn. Why the sudden mood change, ya' witch?! Wait to scare the living--yes, living--crap out of me.
"Uh... some dark-haired lady. He didn't know her, and when I asked why he sort of... I don't know, went into shock? He told me she just looked like someone he used to know. Someone that left, and he ain't seen in a while. That's real poetic-soundin', don't ya' think?"
"No," she grates, gripping the reins of the four horses that pull us along like she's choking someone. Mentally, she likely is. "Now shut yer' hole and let me focus." Staring straight ahead, Vical makes it plain she ain't talkin' no more. Shame, really. We don't talk much.
I shrug, hiding any hurt feelings that might try and leak out. "I'm gonna go check on Joker and see how much farther we'll go till we break camp."
She doesn't say anything, her soft blond hair blowing in the growing breeze that flows from the hilly valley. We're coming up on mountains, so the air ought to get colder. I watch the pale strands of her hair flail in the wind, thinking briefly that it would look good covered in a dusting of snow. From one of my snowballs. I smile at that thought.
Deciding she ain't talking any time soon, I lean over and jump off the wagon. One of the horses kind of prances, irritated at the sudden movement, so I pat him on the brown-flecked nose before jogging on ahead to Joker's wagon.
As I come up to the front of his cart, I reach up, grab the wooden handle on the side, and haul my scrawny butt up onto the step a good four feet off the ground. Stupid gigantic wheels; it wouldn't be so breath-taking--and I mean in a negative way; there ain't nothing beautiful about wheezing and groaning as you try and wiggle unattractively into a lumpy half-sitting position--to get up here. I feel Joker's eyes drift to me, then drift back. You can always feel when he looks at you. It's kind of eerie.
"What's up?" I ask happily, hoping he'll be in a better mood than Vical. Joker smiles, his very pale orange hair falling all over his face. Joker has a weird haircut; some locks are long, others short, and his bangs cover his eyes most of the time. He pins it up and ties it back in all kinds of crazy ways during show-time, but it's usually just hanging there in a junkyard mess.
I watch him half-look up, his smile getting a little bigger. "Nothing much; some oranges and pinks, a purple in the distance, a fading sun and some scattered clouds. No rain, though. Or cats and dogs, aside from Jester." He chuckles, petting the ridiculously lazy cat in his lap. I think it's called a calico. The cat's called Jester for a few reasons, two main ones being 1. It's Joker's cat. What else are you gonna call it? And 2. It has an oddly-shaped marking on its forehead that looks a lot like a jester's hat. I wonder where Joker got him; he's never told.
I settle into the seat, looking down at my lap. The black and red diamond pattern on my baggy pants mesmerizes me as I try and think of something to say. I've been having to do that a lot lately. Better than mute, like I used to be. "So... when'll we stop and set up camp?"
"About five minutes." He sighs, yawning. Jester yawns with him. It's kind of cute, because their faces look similar, different species or not. I look at Joker's hair as some of the darker strands fall forward, hitting sunlight. The orange deepens into a deep red against the light, jolting my memory again.
Red. Deep, thick red.
That was really good, Sherri!!!! I loved how you kept repeating the word red in different parts of the prologue. Is Joker based on the Batman Joker????? I'm actually writing a book called Harlequin, and this made me think of it. Coincidence, or not???? I do not know for sure........Anyway, I really did like it. Really great work, Sherri!!!!!! 
So, let me start by telling you that you're doing a really good job here. Love the dialog, it's so realistic but it's not written in the same way all the time. What i mean is, it seemed to me that you sometimes used the usual form of writing, other times you didn't, like this: "don't ya' think" and so on. You should stay the same, you know? Apart from that, this prologue really got me into your story (which I just started reading). Hope next chapters will be just as good 
Hi there! Dropped in for a review! I actually clicked on chapter 1, but then saw that it had a prologue. It would be unfair to judge chapter 1 without the prologue, right?
Okay, moving on.
This is a very interesting concept you've got here. I daresay this could turn into something very classy. I can totally imagine the genres being incorporated. Apart from that, this was a very good way of introducing us to the characters. Vical seems like a nice person, while The Joker sounds intimidating. I like how it picked up, with a dream. But think you could work on making it a bit more obvious because it is sort of confusing. There are a very small number of typos that you could fix when you edit this. I like the descriptive imagery. People say I'm a good writer, but my imagery sucks. Trust me. The imagery is what captured my heart, first and foremost. Then it was the storytelling.
There is one thing that I don't get, though. It is the gender of the narrator. It's not obvious from this piece. I guess the situation doesn't call for it. But it would be nice to know.
First and foremost I would like to say you are very descriptive but not smothering, so it's easy to get into your story and follow it.
Secondly I would like to point out a small, but rather obvious issue which I only see in the first paragraph; you switch from past tense ("bloomed", "unfolded", etc.) to present tense at "...the black sky lit only by a faint red tint, startled me. I am left yearning for motion..." If one word were past tense I actually wouldn't have noticed, or it may have even worked given the sentence, but one half it a different tense than the other and I understand that this may have come from the sudden epiphany of "It would sound better like this!"
Next, I want to say how much I love the use of color vs memory ("...the color jolts me, but I can't recall why.") and the fact that you don't smother with it, it's in there at just the right moments to make it seem like something mysterious.
That said, your repetitive writing for this makes it easy, for me, to see issues that don't quite fit within the story (basic things everyone forgets). In this following section I will point out one thing that doesn't fit with how you'd set up the story so far, in the last sentence:
"'What woman?' Her head snaps around, eyes ablaze. A cannon ball drops into my stomach, and the weight makes my stomach churn. Why the sudden mood change, ya' witch?! Wait to scare the living--yes, living--crap out of me."
Previous to this the informal speech was kept strictly to dialogue and although this occurs multiple times after, I just noted that it threw me since she wasn't speaking and I initially thought you'd forgot quotation marks. Maybe it because of the color red this happens to her inner dialogue as it's placed by the suggestion of red (the memory thing going on)? I don't know. I do like how you use repetition for emphasis in this paragraph...
But not so much in a prior one:
"'Your face,' she gasped, pointing to her eyes, dropping the reins, 'looked so frightened. Your eyeballs almost popped out...' Her eyes squeeze shut as she keeps thinking about it--no doubt replaying it again and again. And again. Just for good measure--and I roll my eyes when she cracks up again. And again. Just for good measure."
The "and again"'s work up until "she cracks up again," at which point the one's immediately after serve so purpose other than to remind, again, that she's replaying it, again. Something else I literally just noticed is that you said "she gasped". That's past tense, which doesn't fit.
______
I'll leave you with this as I don't really see anything else that disrupts this pretty darn good story. I'm sure if there's more you'll be able to find it yourself, as it is your story.
Hello, happy Review Day! I really enjoyed reading this. I take it they're some kind of circus group, and I think that's a really interesting and unusual group to write about. Particularly for a supernatural romance. I'm intrigued. Your writing style is really nice. I enjoyed your descriptions and use of figurative language a lot.
Here's a few nitpicks:
"elegantly as an performer"
"An" should be "a".
"Why the sudden mood change, ya' witch?! Wait to scare the living--yes, living--crap out of me."
This sentence totally threw me off. I'm not sure what this is even referring to. What is happening here? I'm confused.
I'm also not sure if I really like the ending or not. It's a prologue not a first chapter, so I can't decide if it had enough of an ending or not. A lot of times prologues are really exciting bits of exposition and/or they leave a big cliff hanger or a big question at the end, but this just seemed to end. I liked that red imagery, but the ending just felt a bit abrupt. I'm curious about what will happen next because of how nicely this was written and the whole circus situation, but this prologue didn't really leave me with any big questions to drive my curiosity. Just something you might want to think about.
Anyways, I thought this was a great little piece of writing overall. I hope you continue this. I'm not really into romance that much, but I find this very interesting so maybe it'll be an exception.
Good work and happy writing!
-Masq
I'm really bad with reviews. I apologize. The format I do them in is just not very pleasing for the reader, but it's efficient. I'll first give you my criticisms, which I'll write as I go along, like comments. Then I'll tell you what I thought.
"There was no moon, nor any stars, as the rose bloomed in the center of the dirt road, far faster than was natural. As each petal unfolded from the next, the crimson dripped heavily..."
You have two repeating phrase structures here. You should change up the first sentence as it's a little awkward. Avoid the "as the..." starter for that sentence.
"I am left yearning for motion, and yet question my own ability to move."
This sentence is incorrect for the following reason: you begin the sentence with "I am," so we should assume that the fragment after the comma should also be an "I am," fragment. It's not. You either need to change it to an "I am," or insert "I" before or after "yet".
"... as my senses--sort of--return."
Only single dashes there, my friend.
Actually, the rest of my nitpicks have been covered. I agree wholeheartedly with heavymetal247 when they addressed your description of the rose. It was absolutely beautiful how you were able to paint the picture in my mind. I have always envied those writers who are able to paint with words.
I'm very interested in the Joker. I guess that's the point. All of his passages are so mysterious and you can feel the palpable tension in the air when he's mentioned. I very much like that about him. He seems like a very good character.
The only other nit pick I have is that you tend to use "jolt" a lot. Try to be wary of that.
Holy! I'm excited please tell me your going to continue this. I just love how it somewhat fills you in with the story, but it won't answer all your question that seems to be dancing around the mind. I love the imagery in the beginning I believe it was a dream if I'm not mistaking, and how you just describe the peculiar rose growing, and splaying apart its luscious crimson petals, the imagery was so flawless and beautiful, chills just grazed along my spine. And I like the relationship between the two female characters, it's very realistic. The idea with Joker and a cat named Jester was really creative and fun, I see Joker as a kind of dude that maybe serious, mysterious with a hint of I don't know how to describe it, like a riddler? (If that's even a word) Someone that doesn't give a straight forward answer, he hides around the bush till you figure things out yourself. (I do not know why I felt he would be that type of guy. XD) But I believe this is amazing, I usually don't get too excited with supernatural/ romance genre, I'm more of horror/ supernatural with maybe some romance here there (you know for the girlies XD) But I literally falling off my seat, excited for the chapters to start! Great job and rock on!
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