“Aaagh! Eeeyaaaaa! Eeeeyaaaaargh…!” one of the three soldiers—the flippant one—screamed so hard that his voice cracked, spraying machine gun fire wildly. His entire body shuddered from the recoil. The bullets roared so loudly that I thought my eardrums were going to burst.
Along with the peal of the machine gun’s rapid fire, the sound of something shattering echoed throughout the air. There was a fair bit of distance between us, so I didn’t have a good view. But from what I could see of the backside of the flippant soldier, he was firing at the House of Mirrors directly in front of him.
Each burst of shells gouged out chunks of the House of Mirrors’ walls, which collapsed to the ground. The bullets marred and shattered countless mirrors on the other side. Glistening, the shards of glass shined as they danced through the air.
Apparently, the machine gun packed quite a punch. Just one of those things was enough to make the building look like flimsy Swiss cheese ready to topple. With a loud bang, the bright-colored sign proclaiming “House of Mirrors” fell to the ground.
Arriving to the scene a bit late, the other two—the commander and the woman soldier—looked like they were trying to talk to him, despite cringing over his abnormal behavior. It was impossible to make out what they were saying clear over by the souvenir shop. Of a mind to draw closer, I was about to take my first step, when…
“What the hell?! What the hell was that?!” The sound of the flippant soldier’s shouting made my pulse race. He must have been shouting at the top of his lungs for me to hear him with such clarity.
“He was devoured, inside the freaking mirror! By some goddamned monster! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! ███ had a wife and son! This is bullshit!” the flippant soldier screamed, mentioning a squad member by name as he continued to fire wildly.
Completely unhinged, he barely acknowledged the other two calling out to him. A trained soldier in his own right, he’d come across as calm and collected in this eerie theme park…until now. So what in the world had he seen? What had he witnessed that was capable of rattling, warping, and ultimately unhinging his mind?
He continued firing his machine gun until he completely unloaded the clip. Even then, he continued to scream and cry, oblivious that he was out of ammo, long since burning through it all. It was a bit quieter without the rapid-fire bangs of his machine gun, allowing me to barely catch what the other two were saying.
“Hey, what happened? Calm down and tell me. What did you see?” the commander asked in a calm yet slightly strained voice.
Snapping back to his senses, the flippant soldier was about to respond to the commander. But before he could, something wrapped around his neck. I have no idea what the heck it was. I could only describe it as some sort of murky liquid from out of this world. It wrapped around the flippant soldier like a frog’s tongue, binding him.
“……?!”
By the time the soldiers responded, it was too late. The next moment, the flippant soldier was being dragged into the House of Mirrors at lightning speed.
“Eeeyaaagh…!” His scream hung in the air, slowly fading away.
I was able to see what became of him. It looked like the flippant soldier was absorbed into one of the mirrors inside the House of Mirrors…and vanished.
Was that really what I’d just seen? It didn’t make any sense.
However, the next anomaly was already waiting for us, leaving me no time to puzzle over the last. Not all that far off, it was visible from my perspective. The creature was approaching the commander and woman soldier, who were left standing before the House of Mirrors. With their eyes stuck on where they last beheld their team member, they were in too great a state of mental disarray to notice it.
The thing walking toward the two soldiers appeared to be someone in a mascot suit. It went to show all theme parks and amusement parks had their own mascots… It had a creepy design that resembled a caricature of a gaudy pink hippo, its mask distorted, as if warped under extreme heat. It was sluggishly hobbling over to the soldiers.
The thing might have been able to pass off as cute once, but something about it didn’t feel right. At the top of my lungs, I warned the two soldiers to look out to their right. They glanced at me in surprise for a split second before turning toward the mascot with their guns in position. However, they didn’t immediately open fire.
This was the park mascot. There was a possibility someone was inside that suit. And no matter how suspicious a person might seem, it wasn’t in their nature to shoot on sight as long as that possibility remained.
The commander demanded in a harsh voice, “Who are you?! Don’t come any closer! If you’re human, answer me! If you don’t do as I say, we will not hesitate to shoot!”
Unfortunately, that was a painfully careless response. Inside the uncharted territory of the SCP object “Carnival of Horrors,” we were essentially in the belly of an unfathomable monster… There was no telling what dangers awaited those who didn’t act quickly. It wasn’t as though they were unaware of that fact, but their common sense—their human nature—made them hesitant to pull the trigger the moment their eyes fell on the mascot. And that wasn’t good.
✦ ✦ ✦
As if in response to the commander’s questions, the hippo mascot howled in an eerie voice. In contrast to its hippo-like appearance, it had the piercing screech of a demonic bird.
“KREEEEE!”
As it screeched, it began to charge with the speed of a great beast. It was hard to believe the hippo mascot had moved so lethargically until that moment. Barely able to follow it with my eyes, it moved with the speed of a professional baseball player’s pitch.
But with a gasp, the commander barely managed to react in time, quickly firing his machine gun at the creature. A moment later, the woman soldier shot a flurry of bullets from her own machine gun, which she held pressed against her hip. Not a shot missed. The mascot was showered in a spray of direct hits. But it didn’t stop. Hardly even flinching, it kept charging forward. There wasn’t so much as a single hole marring the surface of the suit.
The machine guns each of these soldiers carried were powerful enough to tear apart the House of Mirrors, yet the hippo mascot never wavered or dropped speed as it closed in on the commander.
“Wha—?!” the seasoned soldier cried, eyes bulging in surprise for a split second.
The next moment, the mascot thrust out its hand (front leg?) and snapped his neck.
It was over in seconds.
In the blink of an eye, the middle-aged man—the commander—lost his life. We’d been conversing only minutes ago. I saw him go down with my own two eyes, but it was over so fast, I was struggling to process what happened. He was dead? Killed? By a hippo mascot…?
“Aah! Waaaah!” the woman soldier screamed in terror, hitting the mascot with point-blank rapid fire. Even then, it didn’t seem to have an effect… It was like she was shooting at a hallucination.
“Stop—run!” The commander mustered the last of his strength, defying death despite his broken neck, to force out those two words. With tears welling in her eyes, the woman soldier gave an anguished nod. Following the commander’s final order, she took off running.
It was probably sheer coincidence, but she was racing toward me. Completely unmanned, her eyes were imbued with fear… Behind her, the hippo mascot plucked off the commander’s head as if it were picking grass. In a fountain of blood, his decapitated body swayed as it fell back to the ground.
That was about when the woman soldier reached me, her eyes growing round as she finally noticed me. Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, she firmly grabbed hold of my hand.
“Come with me! It’s too dangerous here! We need to run for it!” she practically screamed hysterically as she dragged me with her. I had no choice but to go along, desperately struggling not to trip or stumble.
The woman soldier held my wrist so tightly it felt like my hand was going to fall off. If I could feel pain, it meant this wasn’t a dream. But the situation felt more like a nightmare than anything…
There was a strange sound that piqued my curiosity, so I chanced a quick look over my shoulder. What I beheld was so trippy, I wanted to burst out into hysterical laughter. The hippo mascot drew the commander’s decapitated head toward its mouth as if to give a kiss. Then it appeared to be blowing air into the head.
As it did, I could barely believe my eyes as the commander’s head began to blow up like a balloon. His rough, gnarled, yet handsome face inflated dramatically. His eyes popped out of their sockets and dangled. The hippo mascot tied off its masterpiece—a grotesque, human balloon—with string. Having completed its task, it wandered off somewhere, the balloon bobbing airily on the string.
Save for the flesh and gore, it could have been any theme park mascot anywhere.
It was insane…all of it. In that theme park, none of the natural laws applied.