“Watch where the fuck you’re going!”

“Ugh! He fucking stinks, don’t push him near me!”

“You’re getting my shoes dirty, you fucking punk!.”

“He’s fucking filthy, look at his hoodie, it’s covered in shit.”

They surrounded him.

A pack of wolves dressed as sheep, fooling the flocks of people walking down dirt paths and past tents dancing with lights and cloaked in hot, sweet scents.

They ganged up on him—some poor kid covered head-to-toe in clothes way too thick for such a humid night—and began taunting him with verbal blows that turned physical when the boy didn’t answer to their absurd questions or unlock his trembling body from a fetal position.

People passed, capable people—people who could’ve done something, but did nothing.

And those guys. Those monsters.

They kicked him.

They forced him into the dirt.

They belittled him. Made him whimper. Hurt him.

All because he was different because he didn’t bow to them and their self-appointed superiority.

It wasn’t right.

And one of them, a guy the others seemed to crowd around, who stood grinning like a hound on the hunt, snatched the boy’s hoodie with violent force and a horrible laugh.

That was enough.

“You fucking…ASSHOLE!”

His voice cut through their laughter like a blade through rotted flesh, and that sick bastard turned just in time to catch a glimpse of Zane’s fist before it slammed into his face, knocking him into the dirt where he belonged.

It happened so fast his pack stared in awe before coming to their senses and hurrying to his side, each one of them watching blood dribble from their leader's mouth—droplets he caught with shaking hands before red stained his precious clothes.

He failed.

“You…!” He snarled through saliva and blood, trying not to allow the tears to break free from his glossy, narrowed gaze. “You…fucking….you son of a bitch. You hit me!”

Zane took a defensive stance and keeping his feet nailed to the ground beside the boy, standing so close he was almost on top of him.

“What kind of lowlife picks on a fucking kid?!” Zane couldn’t contain his fury, which slipped out as a disgusted tone under his words.

The four of them watched him, especially the asshole he knocked to the ground, who shoved the others back when they helped him to his feet before he could gather his pride. His eyes held darkness, a seething hatred behind narrowed eyes.

“You’re…going to pay for this, you son of a bitch.” Still bleeding, his fingers closed into fists, and the four of them were ready to close in on him. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

Small hands clutched the edge of his pants, but Zane didn’t take his eyes off the pack for a second.

“Four against one seems like a bitch move,” A voice answered the man’s threat, and Lady appeared at his right side with Kendrick stepping to his left. The two of them carrying matching grins lifted by the promise of fists and pain. And their eagerness to fight only fueled the guy’s fury, and he was the first to rush at them.

“Cooper!” A hand grabbed the guy’s shoulder, stopping him, and in response, he whipped himself around to jerk away from the friend holding him back.

“People are watching,” His friend said, and they glanced around at the small crowd slowing their steps to follow the commotion with curious gazes.

Shivering with buried rage, Cooper tightened his fists so hard that blue veins and tense bones lifted against thin skin. Blood slid over the swollen cut on his busted lip, staining his teeth and shirt as bruising already started to show.

Cooper said nothing, but Zane felt the tips of ever dagger his eyes threw.

And when the crowd started to grow, and his friends became anxious, Cooper turned, pushing through his pack of wolves and fleeing down the dirt road.

A few seconds passed, and they relaxed.

Lady inhaled then laughed, a noise that made onlookers uneasy enough to depart in slight disgust and concern.

“That, my friends, was a child given too much money and not enough love,” Kendrick said.

“He was always a little prick in High School,” Lady straightened himself, crossing his arms and staring down the path guarded by hanging lights and colorful stands. “But, that his friend in the polo was kinda daddy.”

The two of them snickered, and while they talked amongst themselves, Zane knelt close to the kid still curled up like a frightened hamster.

“Hey,” He said softly with a gentle touch to the kid’s shoulder. “They’re gone now.”

The kid peeked out from behind his arm, but there was only darkness inside his hood.

And Zane offered him a smile, hoping to settle his shaking and get him to his feet.

It worked.

Slowly, and with a slight fidget, the boy got to his feet.

He was smaller than Zane thought, probably knee-high and fitted into a dirty hoodie with baggy pants held up by a belt tied around his waist, but he was so oddly shaped it almost looked like he had no waist. His shoes were mismatched, one bigger than the other, and he even had on gloves.

“Can we help you find your parents?” He asked, and past the shadows of his hood, deep within the darkness untouched by carnival lights, Zane saw two large circles reflecting and an odd red glare.

Zane inhaled.

But before he could look again, the kid turned his head with an inhuman quickness, as if someone had called out to him that Zane didn’t hear.

And he ran off, hurrying towards the stands but slowing just enough to look back with a little wave before disappearing in between two vendors.

“He seems fine,” Kendrick said as Zane stood, still staring in the direction the boy fled in.

“Yeah…” He responded, a half-ass answer struggling past his daze.

“Nice blow to Cooper Henson’s pride, Zane,” Lady said, pulling him away from his thoughts with a few pats on the back. “I’m only slightly disappointed it didn’t escalate.”

Kendrick laughed. “Yeah, right, says the guy who just got busted for vandalism.”

Lady grinned, revealing two dimples and bringing a gleam to his eyes scarred by heterochromia from one of many past fights. He was taller than Zane and Kendrick both, with the lean build of a man who did as little as possible but reaped the rewards of a great body. His blue-black hair was cropped into faux-hawk and styled as if he’d just crawled out of bed, which was more than likely the case. Several necklaces hung from his neck and laid over defined collarbones, metal rings embedded with skulls, crosses, and a variety of symbols decorated his fingers, and each ear carried four piercings each.

“I owed my babefriend a solid, and what else was I supposed to do when she confides in me for help? Turn her away?” Lady looked dramatically insulted. “Your lack of chivalry is frightening, sir.”

Kendrick watched Lady through glasses shielding his brown eyes. Black hair dyed with traces of red and cut into a hi-lo fade with solid lines framed the round, handsome features of his face. He had several tattoos along his neck, and both his arms sleeved with various anime characters coming together in signature poses. And the low beats of music vibrated from the headphones wrapped around his neck.

“Well, when you put it like that,” He smirked and crossed his arms.

“I wish I could’ve helped that kid find his parents or something,” Zane said with a hand on his hip. “What in the hell was that asshole thinking? Picking on him like that, and no one else stepped in to help!” That was probably the most annoying part of the entire situation, and thinking more about it only made Zane wish he could’ve gotten a few more hits in.

“Hey, it’s all good. The kid is okay and the douchbags are gone,” Kendrick motioned his head towards the heart of the carnival. “Come on, let’s go find the funnel cake stand and cheer your up.”

The three of them started walking.

The crowd was steady, it wasn’t every day a random carnival sprung up overnight in a park people tried to avoid. There were no families, no kids—save for the one Zane rescued—just couples and packs of friends wandering around aimlessly through a maze of booths and tents. Lights flashed in mesmerizing patterns, luring people closer to games and the darkness of opened tents—Zane heard a scream of terror, and he turned to a group of girls who shrieked in amusement as they rode a rickety ride.

His eyes tensed.

“Hey, how’s Dirk doing?” Lady asked Kendrick as he bit into his candied apple.

“Not too good, I went to see him yesterday, and his parents are a wreck.”

“What happened?” Zane glanced at Kendrick.

“His sister, Kayla, went missing the other day,” He said. “She was supposed to be out with friends, but they didn’t even have plans that night. No one knows what happened to her.”

It wasn’t an odd thing to hear.

Lately, things have been weird, maybe a little more than weird, but very few people seemed to notice as Zane did.

The city had become strange, and its streets crawling with malevolent vibes that threatened to expose themselves in the most frightening way possible.

A constant foreboding slicing at his skin for attention.

But, it was only a feeling.

They visited a couple more booths, mostly food—large clouds of spun sugar, funnel cakes fresh from the fryer, popcorns, and pizza carrying pools of grease. They played a few games, lost them all, but Lady managed to charm the man running the dart game into giving Kendrick a stuffed opossum with a missing eye. Zane stared at the man as he handed Kendrick the prize, only now noticing he was wearing a mask—a painted grin made of fangs, and in fact, all the vendors had them on.

At some point, they got lost in a house of mirrors, and Zane stared at his reflection under the glow of purple and blue lights—dark hair cut short enough to uncover his sharp features, though they were rather unflattering, like and elf or bat. Lady called him beautiful in a David Bowie-like way Zane couldn’t quite see. His teeth were too pointed and everyone assumed he was constantly pissed off because his brows were too narrow. A black steel ball rested beneath his full lips and two pierced through the middle of his brows. And as he stared at himself, he noticed the shadows moving behind him—something walking through the mirrors. He turned, and hundreds of doppelgängers mimicked his movements.

But there was nothing.

“You guys wanna head to Drake’s after this?” Kendrick asked after the three of them exited the house of mirrors, but he looked back into the shadows of the doorway with an arched brow. “I swear there was a couple behind us.”

“I’ll pass,” Lady said, fingers tapping against the screen of his phone. “I’ve got work in a few hours, but I’m managing tonight, so you guys can stop by for a couple of drinks if you want.”

Zane tried to focus on their conversation, but he couldn’t pull himself away from the strange noises hiding underneath the seemingly normal sounds of their surroundings—the slow, writhing movements of maggots, flies buzzing against his ear, and…screaming.

He stopped and turned to a sign posted beside the entrance to a dark forest path.

And he looked down at the red letters melting down dark wood as if written in blood:

Forest Maze. Get out, win a prize.