She stood outside the old funhouse, like someone who’d seen a ghost, nervous and alert, staring inside at the flickering lights. Maggie shouted toward her, but Vera didn’t respond at first. When she eventually turned, her face was blank and distant. Her lips moved slowly.
“Maggie?”
Maggie stared at her and stirred her lips, her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t mean to come here…”
Maggie’s heart pounded as Vera ran to her. But something wasn’t right. Vera did not sound like herself.
Before Maggie could ask what was going on, the ground shook beneath them. The light of the rides flickered back to life, the Ferris wheel groaning as if it was waking up from a long slumber. Maggie grabbed Vera’s arm, trying to pull her away, but something strange seemed to hold them there. The air grew thick, and the whole park seemed alive in a way that was impossible to explain.
“I have to stay,” Vera said quietly, her eyes fixed on the glowing light in the distance. “It’s calling me.”
”What’s calling you? Vera, explain!” I screamed.
”I can’t lose my best friend again!” I cried.
Maggie shook Vera’s head, trying to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. But the park wasn’t letting go. The more Maggie tried to pull Vera away, the more the ground seemed to swallow them up, pulling them back toward the heart of the park.
In a desperate move, Maggie pulled Vera into her arms, but before they could escape, the park’s grip tightened. It felt as though the whole place was shifting, closing in on them. Then in the blink of an eye, everything went dark.
Maggie woke up in a cold and dark room, chained to a wall by the black fog around her.
Suddenly the fog separated and someone walked in with a liberty blue mask with a jar in one hand and knife in the other looking straight at Vera as they walked in.
So Maggie slowly shifted towards the door with fear in her eyes and jumped out the doorway, falling face first, breaking the floor under her.
“Ow!” she screamed.
Maggie started mewing to help her calm down, but due to her injuries, the process took her about 15 minutes. She soon had to stop because she heard someone approaching, but a moment later, an absolutely obese rat started re-enacting The Nutcracker. As Maggie watched in absolute confusion, the rat farted a sleepy gas and she tried to run as fast as she could but fell on the concrete floor, falling asleep from the tragic events that happened earlier.
The next day, the search for Vera continued. But no one would ever find her. The Wasteland had claimed her, and it wasn’t about to let go.
I wasn’t ready to let her go. I thought about her day and night until now. I see her all the time in my dreams, hoping she comes back. But she never will and I regret it.
