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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Voodoo_Clerk on 2024-03-20 04:04:49.

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Finally arriving in Santiago’s room, I was surprised it wasn’t filled with clown items like balloons or streamers. It was pretty plain and only really had personal photos to decorate with. But he had plenty of photos, as they covered an entire section of his wall. It was him with every member of the circus. From Nikolai and Abby to even members I’d never seen before. Members I assumed had met the same fate that he and Nikoali had faced. Gripping the materials I’d brought close to my chest, I quickly laid them across the floor and began setting up the plan I had hatched.

Taking Izara’s advice into my plan I had to find a way to both ensure that Garibaldi fell asleep and that I could get past the shapeshifter. Setting out my map and props, I tried to think of a few ways that could ensure that I could escape. The idea of fighting Antonio one-on-one wasn’t viable after I had seen what he had done to Santiago and Nikolai. So I had to think of a plan that played to my strengths. The most important thing was to make sure the Garibaldi fell asleep. The fact that tonight would be a new moon probably ensured that he would be on high alert.

As I pondered on some ideas, I was interrupted by knocking. I held my breath as several more knocks quickly followed the first one. I was worried by what lay behind the door, but the French accent on the other side quickly dispelled some of the fear I had growing inside of me.

“You’d better open the door before they bash it down,” Mathieu said. I quickly shot up to my feet and opened the door. And was quickly tackled to the ground by the Aces. They all hugged me and clung to me. They had been worried for me after I had left breakfast in such a bad mood.

“Seems like you’ve been busy.” The Frenchman walked past me and the Aces and over to the crude map I’d laid out on the floor. I finally got the Aces off of me and quickly closed the door so we wouldn’t have any unwanted eyes on us.

“I’m planning on leaving tonight. It’s a new moon and it’s going to be my best chance.” I told him as the Aces followed me over to the map. All of them looked down at it inquisitively and moved the little monster Garibaldi model I had made around the map. I smiled a little at them and was glad that they could calm me down as much as they did.

“That’s probably for the best,” Mathieu said as he sat down on Santiago’s bed and tapped his cane on the floor. “I take it by the look on your face, you’re snagged on something?” He asked me, his voice muffled behind his barely held-together mask. I nodded and sighed as I knelt and took the Garibaldi model out of Club's hands.

“I can’t figure out how to make sure he falls asleep tonight. Izara told me that he barely sleeps, and I figured tonight he isn’t going to sleep at all,” I explained to Mathieu. He nodded and tapped his fingers on his cane in thought.

“I’ve got something that could help.” He sighed and stood up from the bed with a pained grunt. He reached a gloved hand into his pocket and pulled out a prescription bottle. He tossed them over to me and I caught them in surprise. “My sleeping pills. I’m in pain constantly because of my condition so those help me sleep at night. Find a way to get him to take those and they should knock him out cold.”

I nodded and looked down at the bottle filled with pills. I could somehow get Garibaldi to eat them, the best way was to somehow get it into his food. Of course that was going to be difficult, but I at least had a way to ensure he fell asleep tonight.

“Thank you,” I told Mathieu to which he brushed it off and started heading towards the door to leave. As he reached the knob he stopped and turned back to look at me.

“It’s best for you if you run as far away as possible from here and don’t look back. If you dwell on it, it’ll be as if you never escaped.” With those words of advice, he opened the door and left me alone with the Aces. I looked down at them all because they were all staring up at me. I figured that they’d guess that I was running away and they were divided on how they should be feeling.

“I’m sorry you guys. I…have to leave.” I told them and all of them looked down at the floor in obvious sadness. All except Spades. He approached me and pulled down his long sleeve. I stared at the skeletal hand that stared back at me. It was bleached white and looked almost like a fake skeleton that they use in classrooms. But despite that, I didn’t take too much notice of that. Instead, I looked at the bag of marbles sitting in the skeletal hand.

“For me?” I asked Spades hesitantly. He nodded and extended his skeletal arm out further for me to take them. I reached out and took the bag. Opening them up I took a peek inside and saw that each marble had an ace symbol on them. I smiled and could feel tears welling up in my eyes as I closed the bag and reached out for a hug from them. They all quickly pounced on me and shoved themselves into me. I gave them all a tight hug and finally realized why all of them had felt so lightweight and thin. They were literal skeletons underneath their costumes. But that didn’t matter to me anymore.

They waved goodbye to me and as one final trick, they all held hands and formed a wheel to roll out of Santiago’s room. I couldn’t help but giggle at them and wave goodbye. Now with the means to ensure that Garibaldi would fall asleep, I had to tackle the problem of the shapeshifter. Knowing his power and what he was capable of, he was the next biggest obstacle to my escape. I somehow had to get him separated from Garibaldi and away from him.

I figured that while I was thinking about how to get the traitor out of the way, I decided to make my way to the kitchen to spike Garibaldi’s food with Mathieu’s sleeping pills. Slipping out of Santiago’s room I quickly closed the door behind me and started making my way down the halls. Before I got very far though I was quickly grabbed from behind and yanked into one of the spare rooms. I was about to bite down on whoever was grabbing me, but they suddenly let go of me. Spinning around to see who it was, I was relieved to see that it was Starla.

“You’re all better now,” I said thankfully, quickly wrapping my arms around her in a hug though being careful not to break her in half. She nodded and reached over to the table near us and handed me a glass jar with a lid screwed onto it. I stared at it and then looked back up at her. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

She pointed at the floor behind me. I looked at her and then followed where she was pointing. It took me a while to figure out what she was even pointing at since at first I figured that there was nothing there. Then I realized that she was pointing at my shadow. And that’s when I figured out that she was giving me the jar to trap the shapeshifter in.

“Can you…not talk anymore?” I asked her. She stared back at me from behind her mask and softly shook her head. I clenched my hands around the jar so much that I thought I was going to break it. It seemed like since I had joined the Freakshow I had only succeeded in getting other people hurt. Ezekiel, Santiago, Nikolai, and Starla. It all felt like it was my fault.

Before I continued down that line of thinking, however, Starla wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a hug. Although she couldn’t speak it made me feel like it was her way of telling me that it wasn’t my fault, that it was up to me to get out of here. I shoved my face into her differently colored torso and worded a teary apology to her.

She left the room first so we wouldn’t be seen leaving together. Garibaldi was probably already suspicious of her after she had told me to go into his office, so it was a good idea. I waited a few minutes before leaving with the jar and heading towards the big top. From there I quickly moved past Eva and Jasper as they practiced a new routine. They were so busy arguing with each other that they paid me no mind as I went into the room that led to the kitchen.

I’d never been back in the kitchen so I didn’t know exactly what to expect. It looked like any giant kitchen might look. Sort of like a diner’s kitchen just equipped with more items like an espresso maker and a deep frier and other appliances. I had to figure out what we were even eating tonight and which plate would be Garibaldi’s. As I started wandering around the kitchen I heard someone approaching from the big top and instantly started panicking. Thinking quickly I opened one of the ovens and crawled my way in. Just as I did so, I nearly let out a surprised shout as I saw something moving inside of the oven. It was that burnt piece of toast with human eyeballs inside of it. The eyes were looking in all directions and before I could even figure out which eye to look at, it quickly hissed at me and scurried out of the oven. ...

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