The horrors only continued from there. The theme park—the Carnival of Horrors—had slaughtered over 200 people, and now it revealed its true nature. It showed us one terrifying attraction after the next. Each one was a nightmare that claimed lives in horrible tragedies. They were so atrocious and cruel, it made me nauseous… I never wanted to set foot in another theme park so long as I lived.
There were several decapitated corpses riding the rollercoaster with the sign “Thriller Chiller.” Some must have died a long time ago; their bodies were rotten and festering. But then others were still fresh… Outfitted in the same fatigues as the soldiers, I could only assume they were the missing team members.
At the exit of another ride with the sign reading “Tunnel of Love,” piles of bodies were merged at multiple points as if fused together. There was also the merry-go-round, rotating endlessly with bodies skewered on the support beams. Chunks of flesh that looked like human innards were frying on grills at food stalls. Tormented expressions haunted the faces of the men and women trapped under the oddly red-tinged ice of the skating rink… And those were only a few of the things we saw.
It felt like a sick joke as the numerous attractions appeared before us no matter where we walked, filling us with a wealth of dark emotions each time. After seeing more horrors than I could take, my mind started to grow numb.
Faring no better than I, the woman soldier probably didn’t even realize she was still holding my hand anymore. She quietly muttered to herself, “This is Hell. This is Hell on Earth… I want to go home. I want to go home. I want home!”
Eventually, she swayed and collapsed to the ground, her knees crumbling under her, more from mental fatigue than physical. With her hand still wrapped around my wrist, I fell to my knees with her. That seemed to remind her of my presence, for the woman looked at me in mild surprise.
“███…” the woman said, calling someone’s name before tears began streaming down her cheeks. She sat and cried, sniffling like that for a while.
Unable to call her name, unsure of how to comfort her, and lacking the strength or energy to do anything, I simply sat there in a daze. I couldn’t even cry. It all felt so horribly surreal.
The only things I felt were surges of nausea. Instead of crying, I went behind a nearby bush to empty the contents of my stomach. Panting as I vomited, my entire body trembled, and my eyesight dimmed. The strangely calm part in the back of my head analyzed my sorry state as if it were happening to someone else. It made an almost academic observation: So this is what happens when a person is truly pushed to the limit. After panting for a while, I raised my head to find the woman soldier looking at me.
“…Here,” she said, sounding dead and empty as she removed a bottle from her secured waist pack to offer it to me. It was mineral water. I guess she wanted me to rinse out my mouth.
I gratefully filled my mouth with the water, gargled, and spat it back out. I didn’t even have the strength to swallow it down. I was so sick of it all.
“I wonder if we’re the only survivors,” the woman soldier (come to think of it, I still didn’t know her name) whispered half-heartedly as she gently patted my back.
“I don’t want to end my life here, not in this stupid theme park… Mom, Dad, ███, I want to see you… I can’t take it! I can’t! I can’t,” she cried, in an increasingly incoherent train of thought. After hanging her head between her shoulders for a minute, she popped back up with a look of determination.
She faced me head on and leaned forward to grab my hand tightly again. “Let’s get out of here. Since the commander is dead, that would make me the highest-ranking officer among those who infiltrated the Carnival of Horrors. I am the commanding officer here now. So follow my orders.” Her voice cracked but was clear with determination.
“We are going to head toward the main entrance, the one we used when first infiltrating the theme park. I don’t know if we can make it out…but all we can do is run in the hope that we can,” she said, and then added as an afterthought that fighting wasn’t exactly an option.
“What in the world are SCP objects, anyway…? Why do monstrosities like these exist? What the heck are they? What was God thinking when he made them? Ha ha! There is a theory that even God is an SCP object,” the woman said, laughing as if it were a hilarious joke, but she might simply have been on the verge of cracking completely.
“Hey, kid… If I die on the way, and you still manage to get out of here alive, I’d like you to tell Mom, Dad, and ███ back home about what happened to me.”
███? I repeated the word that sounded like a name, bringing a faint smile to her lips.
“My younger brother. Even though you’re different ages and races, you remind me of him. It’s probably my mind playing tricks on me, but I guess that’s why I couldn’t help but take you under my wing.”
The two of us rose, hand-in-hand.
“My family and I were refugees. We were chased from our first home, so we’ve had to rely on each other to get by. But my parents sustained injuries in the war that have left them bedridden, and my brother is still too young to work long hours. I’m the one and only lifeline for my entire family… That’s why I don’t want to die,” she whispered, her eyes looking out into the distance.
“My life insurance will go to them if I die, but I’m not sure it will be enough to support a family of three forever… That’s what has me so worried and scared. Kid, I don’t even know your name, but please check on my family as much as you can in my stead,” she asked, her head lowered solemnly as we slowly trudged on.
“And if there are any problems, please help them… I know this might be challenging for you as a Class D, since you never know if you’ll live to see tomorrow, but you’re my only hope and prayer.”
She brought the heart tattoo on the hand not holding mine—her right—to just above her heart… As if offering a prayer, she said, “God, please don’t let this cruel world bring further harm upon my loved ones.”
Those were the last words I ever heard the anonymous woman say.