Karla speeds down the empty streets, her vehicle bucking with each speed bump. Mya looks over with worry, too afraid to ask what’s going on. She just witnessed her mother kill a man, and presumably the other although it was never brought up.
“Mom, where are we going?” Mya asks.
“Somewhere safe, I don’t have time to explain baby. I have to get you away from here though, away from everything.”
“What about dad? Is he okay?”
Karla bites her lip and fights the tears merging, all she can see is the torn flesh atatched to a p***s. The wedding ring, so delicately resting in a crimson bath. The question of whether or not he was even still alive or not never trecked tnrough her thoughts, Mya had to go somewhere safe, nothing else could occupy her brain right now.
“He’s fine, I called him and told him where we’re going.” she lied.
“Mom why aren’t we calling the cops? People tried to kill us? Why are we leaving?”
“Because the cops won’t save us, they can’t. I’m not trying to scare you but this is bigger than what we see, the men that came after us were from the dark web.”
Mya squints her eyes and asks, “The dark web? You mean the deep web?”
Karla turns down Bryer Street and replies, “The deep web is like the hidden gem of the internet, it’s full of drugs and pedophiles mainly. The dark web is the underbelly of that layer, red rooms, hit men, etcetera. But all of it’s dangerous, some sites can even get you killed if you don’t know what you’re doing. My friends you ask about that are on the hallway picture, they didn’t just pass away. They were murdered.”
Mya sits in silence, trying to soak in everything. Looking up in shock she asks, “They were murdered? How?”
Karla wipes her eyes with her forearm and turns onto the main road veering towards the highway. “By these pyschos, but one survived. The only reason I know that for sure is because he found us, I don’t know what those men wanted, but something big is happening.”
Mya begins to whimper looking around the dark roads and flashes of light whirring by. “Mom I’m scared, are they gonna get us?”
“Baby I promise I’m gonna keep yo-”
A hand grabs her hair from behind and drags it back, jerking her neck upwards. Letting go of the wheel and trying to grab the hand by instinct, the car turns towards the edge of the road. It all happened in a blur, the roof of the car colliding onto the ground as it flipped over. Mya screaming as paper cups, trash, and all three bodies thrash around.
Everything goes black, pain in various places, numbness in others, it all fades. Snips of memories go back and forth between the over bearing weight of the darkness, slowly a conscience begins to stand on its two legs again.
Karla forces her eyes open to be greeted by a clown doll. Jumping up she scoots back hitting a wall, in her underwear and barefoot she looks around observing her surroundings. Dry blood stains the concrete floor she sits upon, a clown doll facing her direction lays with a note stapled to the chest. There was a ceiling and four walls, an extended hallway with pitch dark waiting at the end. The frayed yellow note stuck out on the porcelain doll. She rips the note off and reads the scrawled words on it.
PULL THE STRING
Turning it around she sees a string with a plastic loop at the end. As instructed she slides it out and lets it slowly recoil.
[An audio recording begins to play]
“Mom help me they got me in th-”
[Multiple blows are heard, a bone is heard being cracked with whimpering in the distance]
“Good luck finding us, test your might and enter the funhouse if you want to see her alive. But be warned, you might not want her after what I do to her!”
[A man’s voice is heard laughing as a young girl is heard screaming]
Karla screams and slams the doll down onto the ground. Running into the dark void she is enclosed by it, unaware if she’ll run into anything or anyone. Every worst scenario plays through her head, was she safe, was she even alive?
After a certain distance she feels the floor turn from solid ground into a wet substance. Stopping she swishes the liquid around then kneels down to run her hand through it. Lights flash on from the sky aiming at her face. In the glimpse of it she realizes she’s standing in what looks like blood, startled before the attractions before her eyes she hears a voice scream from the sky.
WELCOME TO THE FUN HOUSE!