Victory Road Inbox

[notvaljean]

Hi, this is Jean... [loud crackling in the background, the sound of sighing] ... and Blitz. We're busy right now and can't answer, so leave a message and we'll get back to you.

Comments

trick or tree ;)

[foolishwren]

<sub>[The colored lights all around blink on and off invitingly, the merry dooting of organ-grinder music drifts through the air, and a veritable whirlwind of bright, garish but somehow familiar and comforting colors are paraded with every pass of the horses. Bright turquoises, royal crimsons, rich golds! And the horses themselves, snowy white and frozen in grand, dynamic poses!]

[Even if Jean has never before seen the spectacle that is a fully functional merry-go-round, the sight evokes a sense of overwhelming, joyful nostalgia.]

[In fact, he rushes to get on it, hopping up onto the platform even as it moves and grabbing for one of the poles, its faux-gold metal smooth and cool under his palm. The rest of the park rushes past, left behind in the wake of this small army of cavorting equines.]

[It is, at first, a happy dream.]

[The first sign that something is wrong is when Jean gets too close to the horses.]

[Somehow their expressions no longer seem like they belong to proud, stamping creatures-- they are fearful, with bared teeth and flared nostrils and terrified, rolling eyes. Their hides ripple-- they are breathing.]

[The poles aren't poles anymore-- they're hooks. Huge meat hooks, buried in the flesh of the horses' backs to create monstrous mounds of ruptured flesh that don't look anything like the fancy, decorated saddles that seemed to have been there before.]

[The wounds bleed.]

[Jean doesn't feel joyous or nostalgic anymore, and more than anything, he just desperately wants to get off the ride. But it's going too fast-- the landscape is a blur. He's dizzy, and the whole ride feels like it's swaying, swimming around him. The horses, trapped in their own frozen flesh, continue to rise and fall on their hooks, though now the movement has lost its magic-- it's nothing but a grotesque mockery now, no longer whimsical, no longer magic.]

[It goes faster and faster, and in a flash between the horses, Jean spots it: a figure. Its flesh is blistered with burns, its hair and extremities blackened and charred. It looks deader than the horses-- like something dug from the wreckage of a burned building, not something that should for even an instant be standing upright.]

[But it is, and it's looking right at him.]

[Its eyes are literal coals, still glowing from whatever burnt it so hideously.]</sub>