Young Writers Society

*This is yet another story that I wrote. Gacha Club character designs are on my wall. Like most of my stories, this is very dark, so please be careful when reading. However, if you’re into that stuff, then I hope you enjoy.*

Chapter One

Once upon a time, there was a playground.

It was just like any other playground. There were swing sets, slides, and all the other fun stuff. Small children played at the there, Teenagers hung out there and parents watched over their children, whether young or old, when they were at the playground.

But…if a teen or child was to go to the playground at exactly 12:30 A.M...They would never be seen or heard from again…The playground never closed, so they could go there…if they dared.

This is the sinister story of an evil, child-taking playground.

This is THE PLAYGROUND.

Chapter Two

Speaking of which, a family was arriving at the playground. A mother and her two daughters. They were sitting in a park bench.

The older daughter, Vivian, a teenager, was teasing the younger daughter, Vicky, who was only six years old.

“I DARE YOU TO GO HERE AT 12:30 A.M.!” She yelled at her mortified younger sister.

“No one is going here at 12:30. It’s too late. Besides, the legends aren’t true.” Mom said absentmindedly.

“Those stories are scary! But they’re not just scary, they’re real.” Vicky said, wide-eyed with fright. They absolutely terrified her. She heard from a friend of hers that a kid in their school went there at 12:30 A.M. and never left. Another story was that a ghost hunting team went there at 12:30 A.M. and brought a camera with them. It was live. When they were recording, a dark force swept past them and made their eyes bleed. They were never the same again.

Some kids in her school thought a monster lived there, taking away children. But it was only one in thousands of urban legends about the playground.

Vicky wouldn’t take her chances.

“Maybe you’ll die and get eaten by the monster. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with you.” Vivian snickered. Vicky ran over to hide behind a slide, so her sister wouldn’t find her.

“VIVIAN! DON’T SAY THAT!” Mom yelled, getting up from the bench and going over to Vicky’s slide.

“I can’t put up with this nonsense. I’m taking you two home.” She said, grabbing Vicky’s hand, dragging her away from the slide. Vivian followed after. Vicky started walking and held tightly to Mom’s hand. They were going home.

But she knew that it wasn’t over. Vivian would continue to tell her awful stories about the playground.

Chapter Three

So, when Vicky and her family arrived home, to Vicky’s utter delight…

Her best friend, Samuel, was here! He was only one year older than her and her friend since kindergarten. To top if off, he brought his dog Mr.Woof over!

Vicky ran over to the living room to play with Samuel and his dog.

“What happened today?” Samuel asked, seeing that she didn’t hug him like she normally did whenever they met.

“Vivian was scaring me and wanted me to go to the playground at night. But I don’t want to go!” Vicky wailed.

“She’s mean. At least you have me.” Samuel said.

“And Mr.Woof.” Vicky said, smiling as she petted Mr.Woof’s fur.

Yeah, at least Samuel and Mr.Woof cared about her.

Chapter Four

Vicky awoke from her bed in the middle of a Saturday night. She wanted to go to the playground at 12:30 A.M., to prove to her mean older sister that she wasn’t scared of it and could handle anything.

So, she walked out of her room, tiptoed upstairs to her parent’s room and told them what she wanted to do.

“Are you sure, Vicky? It’s late. What if you’re cranky tomorrow morning?” Mom asked.

“I was asleep for the rest of the night. I want to go to the playground at 12:30 A.M. Can I go? Please? I won’t be cranky tomorrow morning.” Vicky pleaded desperately.

That is, if she even had a tomorrow.

“Alright, fine. Since it’s the weekend, we’ll let you go. But don’t blame us when you’re tired.” Dad warned.

Vicky smiled. Her parents would let her go!

“Change out of your pajamas first.” Dad said.

Vicky ran into her room, hardly containing her adrenaline.

She was going to the playground! At 12:30 A.M.!

……………………………………………………..

Mom had driven Vicky to the playground.

“Oh look, I see Samuel’s family’s car, too. You’ll have your friend to play with.” Mom said. Dad was back home with Vivian.

“I’ll be waiting for you right here.” Mom said.

“Okay!” Vicky beamed. She opened the car door and skipped to the playground.

Samuel was there, sitting on a park bench.

“My Mom is waiting for me in the car.” He said.

“Mine too.” Vicky told him.

For a while, nothing happened with them. Nothing at all. It wasn’t creepy like the legends said. Soon enough, they grew bored. They were about to leave, when, suddenly, they heard loud, booming circus music.

“Who is there?” They asked, covering their ears and squeezing their eyes shut. The music was so loud. They wondered why no else in the neighborhood could hear it.

After a while, the music stopped. Both felt safe enough to open their eyes and uncover their ears.

Standing before them was a rotting corpse woman in a bridal dress and veil. She had smeared makeup on her face.

“Hello there, children.” She said with a raspy voice.

Chapter Five

Vicky and Samuel just stared at her.

“I see you have decided to come here at 12:30. Please, don’t leave yet. I have a story to tell you.” She grinned.

They could have left, but they were interested in this woman, so they stayed.

“My name is-was-Juliet Rosè Henderson. I’m dead now. You may refer to me as Juliet or the clown’s bride. Any title will do.” Juliet sighed. She seemed to long for something. Life, perhaps?

They listened intently.

“Back when I was alive, I did sooo many things women at my time wouldn’t dare to do. I spoke up for myself. I wore short dresses, which, at the time, could be considered “vulgar.” I went to the circus. You get the picture, yes?” Juliet asked. They nodded.

“Unfortunately, I was laughed and picked on for being different. I was even ridiculed by own older sister. Even though I was often called a fool, I didn’t care. For there was one person who loved me deeply.”

“He performed as a clown and experienced the same things I experienced. We saw each, we fell in love, blah blah blah. Now ,I’m getting to the interesting part.” Juliet was now standing next to the swing sets. The children scrambled over to her.

“We were having our wedding, at his circus. You should have seen it. It was wonderful! He was still in makeup, but he looked lovely in the wedding suit. We were going to kiss, but suddenly…children, around your ages, came running towards us, spiting spitballs at us. SPITBALLS! You wouldn’t believe the audacity of those mongrels, those excuses of children. Their Mothers didn’t even tell them to behave, so we were about to teach them a lesson. But then, a child who happened to have a slingshot, a slingshot, mind you, fired a tennis ball at the letters that told people the name of the circus, fired so far enough, that they fell, crushing our bodies. We were no more.” Juliet said sadly.

“This playground used to be the circus we almost got married in. It was at 12:30 A.M., too.” Juliet informed them.

“Hey, want to follow me?” Juliet asked, no longer seeming sad and intense.

“We have to go home. Our families will be worried about us.” Samuel said. Vicky nodded. She still wasn’t over how Juliet talked about children, but Samuel seemed to have gotten over it.

“Don’t worry. I’ll bring you home.” Juliet said, beckoning them to her.

Samuel walked up to Juliet, seeming to trust her. Vicky looked back at the car and then at the two of them.

She didn’t want to go back home yet.

Chapter Six

Vicky and Samuel were getting farther into the woods now. There was a forest growing in the back of the playground, for environmental purposes.

Juliet led them farther and farther away from their families. The children started to get nervous.

After almost tripping over many twigs, they finally reached their destination. An abandoned, decrepit carnival.

“AHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!”

They jumped at the sound of insane, evil clown laughter. There was no clown in sight, but they knew a clown would pop up any moment.

They heard the evil laughter. With evil laughter comes evil clowns. They knew that very well.

“I-I think we should go now.” Samuel stuttered, shaking. Vicky took his hand. She was ready to go home.

“You kids aren’t going anywhere, anytime soon!” Juliet cackled.

“I want you to meet my groom. He’d just lovveee to say hello. Come out, dear! We have guests!” Juliet called out.

Suddenly, there was movement in the bushes.

Then, a tall, ugly, pasty, and dirt-faced clown appeared from the darkness. He was wearing dirty wedding clothing. He was rotting, just like Juliet.

It was the most horrible sight the children ever saw and the last, too.

He grabbed them by their left wrists. They screamed and kicked their legs, but Juliet just laughed and said:

“I hope you have fun!”

……………………………………………………

He took her to a tent. She tried to find an escape, but was too panicked to notice one.

To Vicky’s surprise, Mr.Woof was there too!

“Mr.Woof?!” Vicky asked in disbelief. She ran over to pet him, glad that they weren’t entirely alone.

“I kidnapped him, just like I did you.” The clown said.

“Where’s Samuel?” Vicky asked, for she had not seen him since the clown had thrown her in the tent.

“I already dealt with him.” The clown replied. The circus tent wasn’t so dark anymore.

Unfortunately, she could now see exactly what he had done to Samuel.

Vicky stared at his dead, bloody body in horror. He had his eyes removed and everything. He was just a bleeding skeleton.

The clown pushed Vicky down, so she was lying on the dirt. Vicky screamed. Tears started streaming down her face.

She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want Samuel to be dead either. Maybe this was all a nightmare. Maybe she would wake up soon.

He grabbed a knife and began gutting her alive. Vicky could only watch in horror as he removed her intestines, the pink organs decorating the floor.

She was dying, yes. But she was still somehow alive. She could feel everything. She could feel the sharp knife point intruding into her body. She could feel it.

That wasn’t the worst part. He reached towards her face, with his hand…

And plucked her eye out! She watched the long,veiny string of blood that connected to the white eyeball fall to the ground. Her vision was getting so terrible and red…

As if things couldn’t get more awful, he picked up the eyeball and ATE IT! Actually ATE IT! As if it were a SNACK!

“Mm…not bad.” He said.

She still had one eye, so she had to watch as he ripped her arm straight out of its socket. Organs came shooting out. The bone of her arm still stuck though.

The clown smiled. He grabbed Mr.Woof.

Vicky didn’t have the strength to speak. She was growing numb to the pain.

He ripped Mr.Woof in half with his hands. A single tear slid out of Vicky’s messed up face. Not Mr.Woof too! Not him!

“I’m not done yet.” The clown smiled.

What? Why could he not be done yet? What else did he have planned?

He grabbed stitches and began SEWING the top half of the dog on the bone of Vicky’s arm!

“Now he’s your arm!” The clown cackled, seeming to think that it was the greatest joke ever made.

Finally, he removed her other eye. She couldn’t see a thing.

Vicky lay on the ground, dead. Defeated.

Chapter Seven

“Vicky?!” A voice called out to her.

Vicky knew that it was Samuel calling her.

Mr.Woof started barking.

“Shhh! That’s my friend!” Vicky shushed. He stopped barking.

It appeared that they weren’t dead. They were just….undead.

Vicky followed Samuel’s voice until she was certain that they were next to each other.

Vicky hugged him. He hugged her back.

“Why is Mr.Woof your arm?” He finally asked. Mr.Woof himself was sleeping at the moment.

“Oh, he just sewed the top half of Mr.Woof onto where my arm used to be.” Vicky said causally. Now that she found Samuel, she wasn’t scared anymore. At least she could be with Mr.Woof all the time.

“Now what?” Samuel asked.

“Hello there!” Raspy voices exclaimed happily behind them.

They turned around.

Vicky had no eyes, but somehow, somehow, she could see.

Standing before them was a group of gouged out children.

“We suffered the same fate as you two. We were foolish for trying to come here at 12:30 A.M.” One child garbled.

“Welcome home.” They all croaked.

Chapter Eight

ONE WEEK LATER…

Vivian couldn’t take it anymore. After she heard the horrible news about Vicky and Samuel’s disappearance, she knew something was up.

She also couldn’t live with the fact that the last conversation with Vicky was an act of bullying, but that was besides the point.

She called her boyfriend Evan on the phone. Maybe then, if they could go to the location at 12:30, they could figure out what happened.

Their parents didn’t suspect a thing. They just thought they were going on a regular date together.

It’s funny how parents like to talk about being the responsible adults, but they know so little about their own kids.

They expect less of them.

Chapter Nine

After much walking, they finally arrived at their destination. Vivian and Evan searched everywhere for the two lost kids, but they were nowhere to be found.

“Do you want to just give up? Leave it to the cops?” Evan asked.

“NO! I think they still might be here…” Vivian trailed off. She still believed that they were here, at the playground, somewhere. Anywhere. Just at the playground.

But before they could do anything, sharp claws grabbed their backs and carried the two teens away.

Chapter Ten

“What’s going on?!” Evan screamed, for this was far beyond what he was expecting.

The person dragged them out of the playground, into the forest and stopped at an old carnival, tucked away from the world.

The teens noticed that the person who dragged them was a rotting woman in a bridal outfit.

Just like in the legends.

“I absolutely HATE teens and children! They make me SICK! The last time there were kids here, I let my groom deal with them. But now, I’M going to deal with you two.” She laughed. She spit blood out in the process.

They cringed. How could she be so disgusting?

She tied them to the back of a single white carousel horse. She then took out pliers, knives, and spoons.

“You first, girl.” She snarled, raising pliers at her.

Vivian wasn’t scared. What could a corpse woman with pliers do? All she was ever good for was being gross. This was all just an act. She was just some crazy woman who really loved Halloween-

She changed her tune when the lady stabbed her stomach with the pliers. Blood came splashing out, the red staining the woman’s black bridal dress.

“Now, you may call me Juliet or “The clown’s bride.” Anything works. You know, the stomach is my favorite part of the body, because it’s squishy and fun to cut open.” Juliet said gleefully as she removed some of her organs. When could she not be so…so…ugh?

Juliet continued to rip Vivian apart, until she was no more.

“Now, YOU!” She beamed at Evan.

Evan screamed, but not a soul heard him.

He died the same gruesome, indescribable, slow death as Vivian and many others before him had died.

“Perfect.” Juliet said, smiling at her work.

She cackled at the sight of their mangled corpses.

“Another kill?”  Christopher, her love, asked, hugging Juliet by the waist.

She nodded. She felt safe with him. Like she could be herself with him.

Then, they kissed like there was no tomorrow, like the world might end the next day, like they would disappear into thin air any moment..