Sighing, I shook my head. I could hardly believe the things I had done as a teenager, all sorts of things that would forever be engraved on myself. I turned my arm around, as if observing it for the first time. Scars. A lot of them. A painful reminder of the time I had been bipolar. They had faded, they weren't as bad as they were once, but they were still there. They always would, to remind me of how stupid I'd been.
I didn't know why I was having a trip down memory lane, I usually never dwelled on the past. I stopped doing that a long time ago, it's one of the many things I grew out of. Like I grew out of my depressions.
Like I grew out of my hate for my family. Like my hatred for any sorts of physical contact.
And like I stopped believing in things that I knew many a tale of.
Yes, I stopped believing in things I had done as a fifteen-year-old. I had been immensely stupid back then. The memory of the Carnival of Tears was only faint now, I only remember my immense hatred for it.
But that's where, and how, I met my wife, actually. I had been idiotic, believing I had seen a unicorn at the circus. But I realized a long time ago that, with all the gene-technology about, it was just a horse that was genetically manipulated to grow a horse. They did a fairly good job on it, since I fell for it.
I thought I'd seen a dragon as well. And a griffin that babbled. I couldn't really remember anything else that had been there, though I believed there were a manticore, a hidra, a centaur, a Pegasus, and so much other nonsense I could only ask myself what the hell I had been smoking.
I broke into the circus that night, determined to free all those helpless animals that were probably afraid of the insane, fifteen-year-old Goth who was running around with a knife, picking locks. The girl that would end up being my wife a few years later walked in on me, trying to knock sense into my by saying she would go off tattling. It must have worked, since I wasn't in jail after that little adventure.
I admit having been a real oddball at that age. But I didn't really recall having taken drugs. Maybe all those attempts at committing suicide got at my brain after al . . . killing off a few brain cells and all . . . Yes, that had to be it.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Reminding myself to never, ever watch any type of horror movie again, as that was probably what had inspired my random visions of amber eyes, filled with sorrow. Again, I shook my head. I decided to get up, before I went totally nuts up here.
The house was rather quiet when I went downstairs, wondering how long I had slept. I was an early riser, even on the weekends. It was Saturday, it probably meant my wife was up and about the kitchen already.
A small smile touched my lips. Yeah, that's how she was. Always busy, always needing something to do, otherwise she could be annoying as hell.
When I entered the kitchen, she was sitting at the table, her face buried in her hands. Sobs raked her body; I had never seen her cry like that. Something had to be wrong.
"Honey, are you alright?" I asked carefully.
She looked up, face wet with tears. She shook her head, unable to say anything. "I- I . . ." she stuttered, before choking on her own words. I pulled her up and gathered her in my arms.
"What is it?" I whispered. "What happened?"
She shook her head, crying harder. Shaking, she pushed me away gently, and tapped a finger on the newspaper that lay on the kitchen table. I reached over her and picked it up. My eyes went wide when I read the article on the front page.
A circus had burned. A circus known as the Carnival of Tears.
My stomach clenched painfully at the name.
No survivors, everything had burned to the ground. Including the animals. The amount of damage wasn't clear yet, but it was definitely going to be an expensive business. The reasons for the fire were yet unknown, though the police thought it might have been carelessness, such as the dropping of a still-burning cigarette. The ground had been incredibly dry from the lack of rain in the last month, it would have been easy to start a fire unconsciously.
I dropped the paper back onto the table, lacking words to express how I felt. I squeezed my eyes shut, holding my wife's shaking body close to mine.
In the darkness of my vision, there were amber eyes. Burning brightly. Accusing me of having broken my promise.
Accusing me because I had listened to s selfish girl.