Chapter Thirty-Three: The Grotesque Kiss

The way Roxie explained it, she knew that the fairgrounds were a place we needed to explore because she had never seen the arts and crafts fair before. The fairgrounds were a blank canvas. Much like the football game for Delta Epsilon Delta, this entire scene seemed to have been handcrafted for this storyline.

The Arts and Crafts Fair was very lively. There were dozens and dozens of NPCs looking at all the booths, playing the carnival games, and riding the rides. We spent time walking around all the booths, engaging in idle chitchat while we waited for the Off-Screen indicator to go off.

We had to be ready any time that we were On-Screen.

While we admired a half-size terracotta warrior that had been set up as a display for a booth that was filled with clay figurines, an elderly NPC approached us. He had a pronounced hunch and a long wispy beard.

We were On-Screen.

The NPC didn’t have a name. Instead, he only had the title: Sculptor. Plot Armor: 3.

“What a beautiful, young lady we have here,” the man said. He got really close to me and said in a feigned whisper, “You know if you buy her one of my figurines, she’ll have something to remember you by.”

Roxie let out a polite laugh.

“You want one?” I asked.

She moved over to the shopkeeper’s table and began perusing the figurines. There was a large variety of subjects on the table. Everything from ballet dancers to reindeer.

Roxie made her selection,

It was a small figurine of a frog. The frog’s mouth was spread into a cartoonish smile. The whole thing was about the size of a baseball.

“This one,” she said.

I hated to waste what little money I had for a short romantic bit in a storyline instead of actually spending it on myself, but I reached into my pocket anyway. I began fishing out some of the larger denominations of the demented Chuck E Cheese tokens that Carousel gives out as money.

“No,” Roxie said. “I’m going to buy it for you.”

She withdrew a small coin purse that she had stowed in a hidden pocket on her waistline and withdrew a handful of coins.

“Oh,” the shopkeeper said pretending to blush. “It sounds like she wants you to have something to remember her by.”

She handed me the small figurine. I stared at it.

“Thanks…. for the frog.” I laughed.

Roxie giggled. “If you kiss a frog, it will transform into a handsome prince.”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me along toward the Ferris wheel.

Suddenly, we were Off-Screen again.

“Wait was I the frog in that metaphor?” I asked with a laugh.

She laughed back. “I don’t know. We’ll have to see what you turn into when I kiss you.”

She then turned and ran to join the line for the Ferris wheel.

Oh shit.

How did I watch so many scary movies and so few romcoms?

We were loaded into the Ferris wheel. I gripped the bar tightly. My character was going to be afraid of heights because I was.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said.

I gave her a smile. “I’m just a little nervous,” I said.

She squinted. “You’ve been with a woman before, right?”

“Not about that,” I said. “I’m afraid of falling.”

“After one date?”

I laughed. “I’m afraid of falling off the ride.”

At some point in time in that exchange, we went On-Screen again.

I had thought up some talking points of what I was going to say. She was Arthur’s younger sister in the storyline. I thought I’d play off that.

“Do you think… do you think Arthur will be upset about this?” I asked.

She took her hand off me and turned away.

“He’s not my father. I know you can’t tell that because of how he orders me around but I am a grown woman.”

“I know that,” I said. I reached to grab her hands again.

She gave a slight tease of resistance but just for show.

“Do you know what I’m thinking right now?” she asked.

She wanted me to play psychic again.

I closed my eyes and focused. Was my character supposed to be telepathic? Who cares. I shook my head and smiled playfully.

Before I could say anything, she leaned over and kissed me. My heart didn’t seem to know that it was a pretend kiss, because it nearly leaped from my chest.

I don’t know if she intended to keep kissing me because as soon as our lips touched a bright light blinded me from down below. It got her too. We both recoiled awkwardly.

The sun was almost set. The fairground crew had just hauled in trailer-mounted spotlights that were powered by generators. They waved back and forth in the sky, announcing to the world that something was happening at the fairgrounds.

I cleared my throat.

We leaned away from each other for a moment.

Suddenly, we were Off-Screen again.

“We won’t be On-Screen for another 15 minutes,” Roxie said. She was all business. She had a trope that allowed her to know the next time she will be On-Screen. It made sense for her build. “That means this scene is probably done. We should get back before dark.”

As we crested the top of the wheel one last time, I looked in the distance toward the gothic church. It was about five miles away. It was the last place in Carousel I wanted to go to at that moment, but I felt like that a lot here.

We didn’t quite manage to make it back before dark.

The crimson-red vapors of sunset had just disappeared as we made our way to the church. Luckily the night was clear, and we could see well enough by starlight alone. Just as I was debating whether or not my sunglasses would make things too dark to see or whether I would need them at all if I could feign night blindness, Roxie said something that spelled our doom.

“Didn’t the church have more gargoyles on it than that?”

As if to answer her question, a large creature emerged from behind a nearby gravestone.

It was a Grotesque. In the flesh.

It wasn’t the same one that Janette had been sent. Nor did it have wings. But it did have the progenitor ability. Its tail was like that of a fish. Its body was like a bobcat’s. As with the other Grotesque, its head was human. Its face was distorted into an expression of anguish. Its teeth were like needles.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this creature was that it made no noise except for the sound of its teeth scraping against each other. It didn’t breathe; it didn’t growl.

As soon as we saw it, I could hear Roxie taking a breath. She was preparing to use her “A scream in the distance” ability to take us Off-Screen. I still wasn’t clear what the advantage of going Off-Screen was but apparently, it was important because several of the veterans in the party had tropes equipped that allowed them to go Off-Screen at will.

I expected to hear her scream and for the Off-Screen like to flicker on.

Neither happened.

Because this creature was not targeting her like it should have been. It was looking at me.

“What’s happening?” Roxie yelled. It wasn’t just her character that was confused.

The creature walked awkwardly but quickly. It was coming right after me. I tried to run but my Hustle stat paled in comparison to its. I might as well have been standing still.

As I turned to run it tackled me from behind. I was on the ground in seconds. I had no Grit at all. Any attack from this thing would likely be lethal. I turned over to try and push it off.

The creature raised one paw and slashed at my stomach.

Its claws dug into my flesh and ripped a long gash into me. A familiar pain spiked in my abdomen.

In a last-moment burst of desperation, I searched the red wallpaper for some explanation of why this creature had attacked me instead of Roxie. I found none. It had the same exact tropes that the one Janette had been sent had. It had many tropes that I couldn’t see.

One of those must have been responsible.

Roxie approached the beast and kicked it. The creature gave no sign of being injured but the kick was enough to send it a few feet to the left. This did little good as it was right back on top of me before she could do anything about it.

I wondered why she didn’t try to go Off-Screen right now but then I saw something on the red wallpaper that shook me to my core. The needle on the plot cycle was nowhere near First Blood. This thing should not have been attacking anyone right then.

I pushed back against the creature with my hands and its needle-like teeth bit into my fingers. This was not an animal attack. It was not trying to eat me. It wasn’t even trying to kill me. Its bites were ungraceful and uncoordinated. Its claws failed to hit their mark most of the time.

I realized that like the lower-level versions of the Grotesques, this creature must have had “It Plays With its Food.” Benny the scarecrow had the same trope, but for him, it meant that he made you run around his corn maze scared out of your mind.

For this creature, playing with its food was its only option. It had no killing instinct. It had no throat, no stomach. When its needle-like teeth sank into my hands as I tried to push it away, it didn’t clamp down and try to pull my fingers off as a dog might. It just opened its jaw and bit again.

“Run!” I screamed. Roxie didn’t have the build to defend me right now. Still, she tried her best.

It raised its feline claw again and this time I knew the end was coming. There was no way I could survive one more cut to my abdomen.

But then it didn’t cut me.

It wrapped its sharp claws in the fabric of my hoodie. If I didn’t know any better it looked like it was trying to get something from my pocket.

Upon this realization, I quickly unzipped my hoodie and pulled myself out of it as the creature clamped its teeth around one of the sleeves.

Quickly, I was out. The gash in my stomach wasn’t as deep as it felt.

This creature wasn’t trying to kill me, I realized.

It was after something else.

Soon enough, it had torn my hoodie to shreds along with my sunglasses until all that remained was…

The frog figurine.

Soon enough the little statue had fallen out of what remained of my hoodie pocket. The Grotesque threw my shredded clothing aside and focused solely on the small clay statuette.

Then in a complete departure from its previous uncoordinated behavior, it slowly bent down and touched its teeth to the smiling little frog.

At first, nothing happened.

Then I heard a cracking noise.

The frog had started to twitch. Horns started to grow out of its head and its smiling amphibian face chipped away to reveal the ghastly face of a human under torture.

Now a new poster appeared on the red wallpaper.

Grotesque.

Plot Armor: 15.

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