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Horror

Carnival of No Return

After a long day, a girl thinks she is going to find solace in a carnival that brings back childhood memories, little does she know she is going to be greeted with somethings that are out of this world!

May 21, 2025  |   6 min read
Espi Rivera
Espi Ocean
Carnival of No Return
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'It was one hell of a day," Katrina said over the cell phone, as she exited the school library.

It was late August and Already the sun was starting to set early. An orange orb hung low over the grey shadowy mountains. Pink clouds painted the sky like wispy cotton candy. The evening was warm and sticky, and it felt more like the beginning of July, but the seasons were certainly starting to change.

"I had 2 exams, and I feel exhausted, plus on top of all that, I have homework, and I'm not thrilled." She continued complaining to her mom.

Staying silent most of the time and occasionally chiming in to let her know she was listening; her mom gave great input. She responded.

"In the long run, you'll be happy. Continue to work hard and chase your dreams. Her mother said, encouragingly.

Walking down the pavement back to her dorm, her mom's comments really touched her and some of the stress started to drift away. Almost reaching her home, she was blinded by bright lights and a sinister music. Wondering what was going on, her thoughts were answered as she saw a large sign that had purple writing. It read:

CARNIVAL OF NO RETURN

Despite the warm evening, she felt a chill creep through her entire body. Getting close to that time of year again, she thought. With her backpack full of schoolbooks, she walked in the direction of the lights.

"I'll call you back, mom. Thanks for talking to me, I love you! "Katrina said

"I love you, too." her mom replied.

Hanging up the phone she, made her way to the carnival. An extra-large red Ferris wheel spun and spun, making her feel dizzy it was going so fast. There were stands selling lemonade and pickles and other treats. A stage with clowns dancing and singing and juggling. There were other tall rides and there was a house of mirrors. At the entrance a sign read:

Can you escape yourself, or are you trapped with yourself forever.

Wow! She thought, this place is eerie and awesome! Roaming around the grounds she saw a lot of people, couples and groups of friends, their expressions gleaming under the glow of the floodlights. The place reminded her of being a child, she always remembered wanting to go to carnivals for the snacks.

Making her way to a concession stand, she noticed the girl in charge was lethargic and quiet. Pulling out her credit card from her pocket, with a feeling of unpleasantness, Katrina ordered a pickle and iced soda. The girl nodded her head as if she understood and with tongs, removed the pickle from the jar. Her movements were robotic and slow, and Katrina couldn't help but think that the antennas she wore on top of her short sandy hair were tacky. One of them was bent and looked like it felt like clay. Filling up the soda, she paused, with the cup on the lever. The soda started to spill over the cup and into the drain of the machine.

"Hey, that's enough soda!" Katrina yelled out angrily.

As if not hearing her or perhaps ignoring her, she continued to let the soda flow over the cup. Impatiently, Katrina opened the door of the concession stand, Grabbed the soda from, the girl. When she did so, she noticed that the girl's hands were clammy. Ripping the soda and pickle from her, she looked into the girl's eyes and noticed they were sparkly violet purple, and her pupils were stars. Assuming she had contact lens' on, she reached into her pocket, pulled out $10 dollar bill and flung it onto the counter.

"Geez, lady! Next time hurry up!" She said grouchily.



The concession stand girl perked up, laughing, her eyes glowing even brighter purple.

"Yojne siht si ruo dlrow! Ew emoc morf tenalp pluto" she said in a high-pitched voice that echoed around them.

"Bye!" Katrina responded contemptuously.

Katrina was used to getting everything she wanted, when she wanted, for whatever reason she wanted. She had no manners and was very demanding, which is why it was difficult for her to make friends with her classmates. On the other hand, she also had a soft heart. Whenever she could, she would help people and was very empathetic.

Walking away from the stand she saw a UFO Ride. Taking a sip of her soda, she hurried over to it, there were several windows surrounding the top portion of the UFO, instead of one little round window. In each window were different scenes. In the first window there was a tall green man, operating on someone's brain. In the second window there was woman screaming for help, pounding on the window as a silver man with multiple white eyes was sharpening a silver, foreign looking object. In the third and fourth and fifth windows were purple sparkly beautiful alien women, they had extremely long straws inserted into different individuals' brains and were slurping them out.

"Wow, this is original," she said out loud, rolling her eyes and walking in the opposite direction.

Sipping her soda, and taking a bite of the pickle, she collided into a tall man, with black sparkly eyes and star pupils. His skin was a sickly green color, and he had bright green antennas on his head. His were more perfect than the girls but also looked like they were molded from clay. Speaking out in a robotic tone he said:

"Hello there! Turn back around! I'm telling you; you'll have the time of your life on the Taking Over the World ride, or as you humans call it, Unidentified Flying Object ride," he said in a voice that screeched in Katrina's ears.

Right as she was about to say something rude, her thoughts were interrupted by a loud, but soothing whirring sound. Turning in the direction of the noise, she saw a rainbow of colors lighting up the night sky, along with the glowing rainbow lights, was the ufo ride, it slowly went up and up to the heavens above,

"Wow!" Katrina exclaimed, in amazement, as the UFO spiraled high into the now dark sky, leaving a glittery rainbow in its wake.

"YOU missed it!" said the man disappointedly. "There's always the next time. . .We travel fast! He exclaimed.

Katrina rolled her eyes and started to walk away when, the man grabbed her shoulder, and with a Sharp glittering instrument, started to poke at her eyes. She screamed in horror as several flying objects, with rainbow lights trailing behind them came flying from the sky. Out the windows, came hundreds of Little colorful men and women with long black eyelashes and puffy red lips. They carried weapons that looked like squirt guns.

"This is the carnival of no return!" We are taking you all to our world, PLUTO!" A green person with large, glittery, silver eyes spoke out!

Katrina could barely see through one of her eyes, but from her other eye she saw the carnival goers being sucked up into the guns. Before she knew it, she could feel a strong cold wind around her and her body felt numb. Inside the gun was horrifying. She was dizzy as the cold atmosphere kept spinning around her. Blood pouring from her eyes, onto her shirt and hair. Before she knew it, she was shot out of the gun, and she tumbled into an even colder place. She landed in bright blue sand. The sky was dark blue and there were multiple vortexes. Screaming when she saw dozens of people on chains with straws coming out of their heads.

"The Carnival of No Return has brought you here! You will never see planet Earth again!"

She was one of the weak ones, she felt herself losing consciousness. At least she could say she reached the planet Pluto before she died.

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