Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 493. La La La La (by Charlie P)
Henry’s POV
KENNY!
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" A distorted voice crackled from a loudspeaker.
KENNYKENNYKENNY!!!
I can’t move, seeing only darkness.
Why?
Why did we not teleport?
"MAY I PRESENT TO YOU, THE ALMIGHTY... HMMM, IS IT A LION? IS IT A WOLF? IS IT A MONSTER? WHATEVER IT IS, WE ARE PRESENTING HIM EXCLUSIVELY TO YOU! In addition we have... an ordinary tiger."
Where is Kenny?
"BOTH WILL BE JUMPING LIVE, IN FRONT OF YOUR VERY EYES, THROUGH THE RINGS OF FIRE AND CRASHING INTO THE POOL OF PLANES!"
Drums rolled, and I could smell the hay.
Suddenly, light blinded me, and I could finally snap my eyes open.
I greedily absorbed every little impression around me in search for him.
A circus ring.
We were inside a massive tent in orange and red.
A voice behind me yelled, "JUMP!"
A whip cracked, something pushed me, and I fell.
Everything happened so fast; I saw fire around me before landing softly. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
The audience applauded, stomping their feet and clapping their hands together in a frenzy.
I finally saw the thousands of people surrounding me, seated from low to high, with each row increasing in height, just like in an arena.
I mechanically grabbed one of the papers I had landed on; it was a paper plane.
Unfolding it, I saw myself in one of the drawings Kenny made of me.
I reflexively touched my stomach but only felt skin. The drawings were gone, and so were my old clothes.
Now my upper body was in a black, tight-fitting, bodysuit-like thing that had a triangular cut from my collarbone to each of my hips, showing off my muscles.
My lower body was covered with loose black jeans that were ripped around the knees.
Desinterested, I clutched the paper plane and stood up to realize I had landed in a big colorful plastic pool filled to the brim with paper planes.
I cupped my lips.
"KENNY!!!"
"Marrr!!" came from above me.
I looked up and saw the literal rings of fire I had jumped through, and further up, I saw the flexible diving platform usually found at swimming pools, where Kitty was clinging to it for his dear life, not daring to jump after he had pushed me down to evade the whip.
Behind him stood the man with the said whip, his face not visible, smudged—as if someone had brushed their finger over wet paint.
The audience quieted down: a scream from above, then a familiar voice.
"HENRY!"
I jumped up and climbed out of the pool while looking at the audience.
"KENNY!!!" I roared, but the audience either clapped or just silently watched the stage, completely ignoring me after I had finished my jump.
When I stepped closer to the edge of the circus ring, I could finally take a closer look at the faces of the people.
Half of the faces were smudged, just like the whip holder above; some intact faces had a familiarity I couldn’t put my finger on, and while looking around, I also found Jordan’s parents as well as Danny’s mother sitting there.
Something was wrong with them—they had smiles on their faces, as if they were just excited for the show.
"HENRY! HELP ME!" Henrietta yelled my name once again, and I eventually looked back at her.
In the menagerie were different artists, and it was crowded.
On the end, however, was a human-sized rotating disc, and Henrietta was chained to it; while the speed at which she was circled never decreased, Omar stood a few meters away from her, throwing knives at her.
A classic knife-throwing trick.
"NOW YOU ARE AWAKE?" I sneered, not moving toward her whatsoever.
Omar’s knives never hit her but made her yelp in fear every time she felt the impact right beside her neck, torso, or limbs.
Omar was clothed in an exotic high-collared outfit with gold and white, and his demeanor was also as unusual as his movements; instead of panicking, he moved as if controlled.
I spotted Ren not far away, closer to me than Henrietta.
He wore a black and white striped shirt, black dungarees, and a black beret on his head, with white paint on his face, while the brows, lips, and eyes were accented in black.
A pantomime.
He was sitting on a red pillow placed on a glass stool inside a 1.5 x 1.5 m glass cube, with a glass table with a bunch of sweets and juice in front of him.
I ran to him while he dangled his feet and ate a cupcake. He looked around in fascination, and when he saw me, he giggled and waved.
His eyes weren’t bright red but had their usual color.
I tried to lift the cube from the hay on the ground—it didn’t work.
"COVER YOUR FACE!" I yelled, and when he did just that, protecting his cupcake as well, I elbowed the glass container.
The moment my elbow made violent contact with the glass, everything around me went dark.
"MAY I PRESENT TO YOU, THE ALMIGHTY... HMMM, IS IT A LION? ..."
Drums rolled; light blinded me.
The sound of a whip.
The push from behind, the rings on fire around me, and I who landed for the second time in the swimming pool full of paper planes.
"HENRY, GET ME DOWN FROM HERE! BROTHER!" Henrietta screeched.
The content of her screaming differed—so it wasn’t a time loop but a reset of positions, probably because I had tried to get Ren out of the glass cube.
"KENNY!!" I yelled again, but nobody answered.
Again, the scream from before, and this time I looked up.
At about half the height of the flexible platform I had jumped from, just more to the left of it, were the twins.
While one of them clutched the swing she hung from with dread, the other had fallen with a scream and lay now in a safety net she couldn’t get down from, both clothed in your typical trapeze artist styles.
The latter looked down from the net, and our eyes met.
"WHERE...?"
Good question, though I can guess already.
What I wanted, NEEDED to know was rather, WHERE IS KENNY???
"KENNY!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, but this didn’t bring me anywhere.
Then I heard a familiar curse.
"Fuck!"
My head snapped to the sound, and I saw one of the clowns had fallen from his bicycle.
The audience laughed exasperatedly, then applauded.
"...What is going on? Mum?" It wasn’t Kenny.
FUCK.
"Danny," I took a few steps forward to the little clown who was lying on his back, groaning but unable to move.
Juggling balls were all over the place, while beside him was a much taller clown who was still on his bicycle.
With the paint on their faces and exaggerated jumpsuits on them, it was hard to tell, but I recognized Jordan instantly after seeing Danny.
Jordan, contrary to the others, was skillfully manipulating his bicycle; instead of juggling balls, he mixed cards, then performed card tricks in the air, before slightly bowing to the audience and then repeating.
I went to Danny and helped him up, but he seemed to have lost consciousness.
Fuck this.
I roared Kenny’s name multiple times, trying to find him in the massive audience, but eventually, I turned to the exit of the tent.
A wide pathway of hay led outside; a few people were scattered to the left and right of the entrance, watching from there.
I jumped over the small red-and-white-striped barricade that separated the stage from the audience and exit and walked down the corridor.
Outside, exclamations from the audience were not as prominent; instead, a violin played at the right side of the entrance, while further ahead on the left, a few wagons were scattered.
Many people roamed around, went to the big tent, and exited it; this was a ’well-visited’ place.
Not all had faces, but at the same time, not all of them were smudged either.
"IS THIS HELL? DID WE GO TO HELL?" An old female voice roared.
"WHAT IS THIS ON MY FACE?"
I sped to the wagon, of which I could only see the backside from where I stood, full of yellowed posters and flyers; on the way, someone walking on high stilts bent down, trying to place a flyer in my hand.
I sidestepped and walked a few more steps ahead, then turned to my left to face the wagon.
The wagon was barred; the livid old woman locked inside stared at me in disbelief.
"WHY ARE YOU HERE??? And why do you look like this??"
That’s what I want to ask.
The big tacky sign before her wagon read ’Beard Lady, age: old.’
