🩷🎪💄 The spiraling polka-dotted path of a clown: Chapters 9-10 💄🎪🩷

*This story is under my folder “Bone Boy”. Gacha Club character designs are under this forum: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic/117842-my-character-designs-lt-33-3?start=150. Enjoy!*

Chapter Nine-Don’t be so glum, we’re in a carnival

Rosemary was sitting on the dirt ground, her hands hurting a little from the jagged pebbles on the ground. In the distance, she heard laughter.

Her body tensed up. They were her friends and Valentina, all laughing together. But Harper wasn’t there. Didn’t they know that?

She got up from the ground and was about to follow the sound of the laughter, but she didn’t need to. They were right across from her. A bit of a distance between them, though not too much. She could just walk up to them.

All of them were eating cotton candy. None of them seemed to care that it was rotten and smelled of mildew.

“Put that down! Did any of you know that we were gone?! Harper is in trouble and she needs all of us to not be eating moldy cotton candy!” Rosemary shouted as she pushed the cotton candy away from Allan.

Allan glared at Rosemary before he knelt down to pick up the cotton candy.

“We’re just having a little bit of fun. You could learn to do that. And what do you mean about Harper? How could she be missing?”

If Rosemary felt like they weren’t understanding her before, Allan’s words sparked a strong fire in her that made her absolutely livid. Fun?! Fun! That was what she wanted and they didn’t listen!

“This is a big carnival. Anybody could go missing. She didn’t just go missing either, she was taken.”

They wouldn’t believe her at first. But she’d take them to Ceciliana’s tent. It wasn’t too far from where they were. They had to listen if they cared about Harper at all.

“Taken?” Shirley asked, cocking her head.

Shirley never seemed like she was entirely there, but she seemed more attentive than before. Julieta’s smile looked strained, yet she didn’t seem angry. Allan and Valentina both looked annoyed, but they did not leave.

Alright. She could begin.

“I don’t know how it happened. One moment we were with you guys and the next, we were in this tent with all of these old dolls. There was a robot doll-“

“A robot doll?”

“Yes, Shirley, a robot doll. Her name was Ceciliana and she was talking to us for a bit, but then she and the tent disappeared, along with Harper. I don’t know what happened, but I think that Ceciliana took her.”

It hurt Rosemary to say that about her, since Ceciliana seemed so nice. But she ran towards them both before it all vanished, so that could be the only plausible explanation.

Nobody said anything for five minutes. Rosemary was going to say something, but Julieta furrowed her brows and-

“Are you sure this isn’t one of your-“

“Why would I make up a story now?! Our friend is missing and you’re all just-why were you all eating that in the first place?!”

They had to have had some kind of belief in her. If they were in an abandoned carnival then wouldn’t it stand to reason that odd things would happen? 

But they probably didn’t see it that way.

“Like he said, we were having fun. The worst that could happen is a stomachache. Want a bite?” Valentina asked, walking up to Rosemary and sticking the cobwebbed cotton candy in her face.

Rosemary turned away, scrunching up her nose at the awful smell. If they were all going to waste time, then she’d just find Harper by herself.

Not an ideal choice, but there wasn’t much else to do. Valentina’s smile wavered a little, like the rippling of an ocean, before she tossed the candy aside and took a yellow cupcake out of her skirt pocket, complete with sparkly hot pink frosting, sprinkles and a bright red cherry.

She didn’t know how Valentina was able to pull that out of her pocket. The frosting somehow stayed intact. It looked normal enough.

“If you won’t have cotton candy, at least have a cupcake before we go find her. I made it myself!” Valentina beamed.

Rosemary looked to her friends to see what they thought. None of them looked as though they cared. She looked back at the glittering cupcake, just like the cupcake she got a long time ago, on her sixth birthday. It smelled like strawberry cake and was her favorite color. It didn’t look bad, but…

She didn’t even really know Valentina enough to receive that kind of kindness. And was it kindness, truly?

Still, it’d be a shame to waste such a pretty treat. 

“I’ll eat it later.” Rosemary said, taking it from her hand.

Valentina smiled wide before walking on, the others following suit. Rosemary stared at the cupcake before joining them as well.

She hadn’t gotten cupcakes as a gift in a long time.

Chapter Ten-Just a little taste of fun

Allan, Julieta, and Valentina were ahead. Shirley had lingered closer to Rosemary, walking in silence. The other three were not silent, but talking about Harper. Rosemary wasn’t listening, she was thinking about the cupcake and how easily Valentina had offered it to her. 

“How did Valentina take this cupcake out of her pocket?” Rosemary asked.

“Valentina is a magician. You should have seen her at the Halloween party! She made all ten of Allan’s fingers disappear. He kind of got scared for a second.” 

Shirley laughed a little to herself after she said that. Rosemary looked back at Valentina, then at the cupcake again.

“Do you like Valentina?”

“Yeah sure, she’s cool. Why, you don’t think so?”

Rosemary swallowed hard. There was no way that what she was about to say would make sense, even if it was Shirley that she was talking to.

“Her vibe doesn’t seem off?”

It took a minute before Shirley burst out laughing, her laughter so loud that Julieta turned to glare at her. Shirley rolled her eyes at that, Rosemary said nothing.

“Her vibe? What is this, astrology? You’re actually hilarious. I just-that’s what you’re worried about? Seriously? Come on now, there’s no such thing as vibes. She’s a magician and she likes to have fun. Don’t overthink it.” Shirley smiled, hardly able to talk without giggling a little.

Huh. Don’t overthink it. That was basically what everybody told Rosemary, no matter what.

Maybe just a bit of the cupcake would be fine. It probably wouldn’t even taste that bad.

She took a bite out of it and found that it tasted just the way it smelled. Like strawberries. It was light and airy, sweet, but not too sweet like medicine.

Rosemary offered it to Shirley. She shook her head, “It’s your cupcake, I’m not taking that from you.” So Rosemary kept biting into it, the frosting getting on her lips and nose, messy, but a shiny mess.

She’d have the cherry later, but first, she had to finish off the rest of the frosting and make sure that it didn’t go to waste. She could take a few more bites. Valentina might have been weird but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t good. Rosemary was weird too and she knew that it didn’t make her bad. Just different. It’d be unfair of Rosemary to judge her, especially since Valentina gave her a cupcake. A cupcake that was making her so hot, but-no, it wasn’t the cupcake that was making her hot. Was it? She only felt that way after eating it, not before. She was so, so itchy too. But that didn’t make sense. Her clothes never itched her before.

“Wow, those are some crazy zits!” Shirley remarked, her blue eyes wide in amazement.

Zits? A skittering feeling went up Rosemary’s spine. She didn’t have any zits. At least…she didn’t before.

When she looked down at her legs and arms, she saw not zits, but large, perfectly round, hot pink circles on her dark brown skin. She could feel some of them on her face burning inside her flesh, as though they were going to bloom at any moment.

The cupcake fell from her hand. It didn’t matter how delicious it tasted, it was giving her ugly pink spots.

And she couldn’t stop scratching them. Her fingers clawed at the spots on her arms, digging deep, shaking as she tried to pry them off herself. No, peeling would never work.

The others were getting farther, she couldn’t let them. Not again. She felt Shirley’s hands press down on her shoulders, as if that action would help anything.

Rosemary opened her mouth to call out to them, but-

She wasn’t outside anymore. She was in a room with many mirrors surrounding her, some of them foggy, covered in fingerprints, or cracked. A bright white light bled into Rosemary’s eyes. It was on an equally white ceiling. From the light, she could see that her spots were most definitely pink and Shirley was not there.

Yet again, she was lost. Yet again, she was somewhere else.

But yet again, she would run. She’d run as best as she could with those infernal, itching spots, anyway.