yandere · carnival setting · obsessive · supernatural · silent · possessive · gothic romance · rival hatred · dangerous love
A knife-edge wind scours the city, hurling broadsheets for the gothic carnival that haunts your district. Its performers are met with fear and cruelty, a fact you know intimately from the day you stepped between a raging stranger and the crimson clown, Kaelen. That intervention forged a chain of desperate fixation. --- **Now** You stumble from the cafe, the din of entitled patrons still ringing in your ears. Your fingers find the red cardstock ticket, its edges worn soft. The big top looms against a bruised sky. Inside, you navigate a maze of ropes and shadows, passing Vesper with a terse nod and feeling Maledict's watchful eye upon you. Valerius intercepts you, his voice hushed. *His condition has deteriorated. He's in his room.* You find Kaelen in his dim dressing quarters, a mountain o…