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Excerpt from "Cursed Symphony", a little writing project I'm working on!

As Koda emerged from the forest, suddenly, there it was. A rusty scaffolding-type sign greeted him, marking the entrance to the old carnival. He guessed it had once said just that, “Carnival”, but all of the letters except for the ‘C’, ‘i’, and ‘l’ had fallen off. He couldn’t help but pronounce it “kill” in his head; the whole place was spooky and decrepit, invoking that sort of interpretation. As the sunset faded away, brilliant gold changing to the dark blue-grey of twilight, he pushed away all his foreboding and continued on, walking beneath the sign. The Siren wasn’t real. He knew that. Therefore, he had nothing to fear, right? He was just here for photos, nothing else. He’d be fine.

The carnival was huge. It took five minutes of merely walking through circus-style tents and stands before he found a single ride, and that was only a run-down merry-go-round. Strings of lightbulbs, most missing, shattered, or filthy, ran overhead, though quite a few had fallen down across the path. There was the occasional graffiti, not nearly as much as one would expect with how long the place had remained out of use, most of it faded; he saw perhaps one spot that actually looked somewhat recent, but that was very early on along the walkway. People had only really started talking about the Siren within the past year or two; were they actually this afraid? Only a few claimed to have ventured into the park and, when pressed, had admitted they were too spooked to go very far. He was determined to prove himself different.

As he shot a photo of an old wooden roller coaster, which had appeared very far away when he’d seen it from the entrance, Koda began to wonder if he perhaps should turn back. He’d been here for what seemed like hours, though his phone said forty-five minutes, and he was beginning to doubt his ability to find his way. He pressed on, though. There were some bumper cars, a Tilt-A-Whirl, a very mildewy log flume, and many more common amusement rides. Over it all towered a gigantic Ferris Wheel and drop tower, the former near what looked to be the far outer rim of the location, the latter in the center.

As he took a couple pictures of a crumbling stage, a thunking plastic noise from inside the somehow-still-standing cotton candy tent to his right caused him to almost let go of his camera. He froze. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

After a couple terrifying moments, he, voice trembling, called out, “Hello?”

No response.

Hesitantly, he moved forwards, looking over the counter and into the stall. A bottle of water lay in the center of the floor, appearing to have fallen off a mildly slanted shelf; the water inside was still sloshing back and forth. Koda let out a sigh of relief, then did a double take. The bottle was clean, not even crunched up too much, and had clearly been opened. Only a little dust, likely just what had been stirred up from the floor, coated the outside. Unlike everything else in the park, this was clearly something that had only arrived here recently. He clambered over the shelf somewhat awkwardly and knelt to grab it.

It looked to actually be a bottle of vitamin water. That was oddly perfect; not a month prior, Koda had done a project for school on the expiration period for various different types of water. Vitamin water’s was typically nine months after production. He turned it over in the darkness, trying to find the date. Quickly determining the futility of that, he switched on his phone and used the light to read it. It was due to go bad on August 5th of that year. It was April 30th, so it had been produced some time in November. A shiver ran down his spine.

“I… think I’m going to head back,” he muttered out loud, dropping the bottle and turning around, climbing back over the counter, then moving away from the tent at a quick walk.

As he strode away, unease taking over him, he felt an odd chill, very similar to the feeling of being watched by someone. Don’t be silly, you’re just scared, he chided himself, shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge it. However, a soft rustle from behind him put an end to that line of thinking. He stopped, hands moving slowly to his camera. He really didn’t want to turn around, fearful of what might possibly be lurking in the darkness, but it would be better to face whatever might attack him.

Koda slowly pivoted, raising his camera as he did so. The night seemed to suddenly go deathly quiet. Silhouetted against the cloudy sky, an ominous shadowy figure was perched atop the popcorn stand, a building just to the right of where he’d found the water bottle. Large wings were gradually spreading out to either side of it, feathers unfurling. All the myths and ghost stories about the Siren rushed through his head, terror and adrenaline pulsing through him as his eyes widened in horror. Was he going to die tonight? Quickly he released the shutter on his camera, aiming it directly at the figure. Running would be impractical; the creature had wings, it could easily chase him down and catch him. If it flew at him, he’d fight it, and now he had proof of its existence.