Conrad woke to the sounds of a creaky carousel still going, a rollercoaster operating independently, carnival games beeping along with some creepy carnival music. He saw something fall onto his chest; it was a tarot card. He grabbed the card and looked at it. It was “The Moon” card, but with carnival lights under the large moon, a tall rollercoaster filled with bored-looking ghostly people was also on the card. Conrad pocketed the other tarot card he’d collected and looked around.

Suddenly, he heard whispers coming from the slight fog. He looked up and saw that the moon was full and large, high above the carnival. While the whispers were not coherent, they made him shiver. Suddenly, a ghostly blue figure holding a balloon walked by; they didn’t take notice of Conrad and headed in the direction of a tent. Conrad followed slowly behind and stopped at the entrance that the ghostly figure went into. A large sign was on top of the door that read “The House of Mirrors.”

“Come inside…” a voice whispered to Conrad from behind the door.

He had a strange urge to go inside, as if a thought had been inserted into his brain. He walked into the house of mirrors and entered a room with mirrors of different shapes and sizes. He walked around looking into each one; they distorted the reality of his face and body a lot.

“Weird…” he continued walking around the area trying to find the exit. He looked into a regular mirror until a ghostly hand appeared on his shoulder and clutched it. He felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice-cold water on him, and he shivered while batting the hand away. He hugged himself, trying to warm up, though it grew very cold in the area where he could see his breath in front of him.

“Brrr… where is the damn exit!” he shouted while the mirrors continued to distort the vision of himself as he passed by. He saw a sign that said “EXIT” in bright red letters. He headed towards it and came to a stop at a mirror. He stared at it for a while until his reflection in the mirror did an evil smirk and started pulling apart its face rapidly. It made him jump back in surprise, “The heck?!” he gasped, quickly touching his face to make sure nothing was happening. When he blinked, the reflection turned back into his regular self.

He continued to shiver from the cold air. He was visibly shaken by the paranormal phenomena these mirrors would do, along with the distortion of himself. He slowly came to a mirrored corridor, and at the end of the corridor was a large brown steel door. Hunched over and shivering, he headed towards the door trying to avoid the mirrors. When he inched close to the door, the place darkened, and it started flashing blue lights on and off. A mirror came down and blocked the steel door, making Conrad step back while the lights flashed. Conrad was disoriented now, but what he saw in the mirror made him flinch. A large, muscular man in a bloody apron, wielding a machete, appeared in the mirror. He looked behind him and saw the man, but he seemed to be glitching and distorting out of reality while keeping in time with the blue flashing lights.

As the man ran towards Conrad, he let out an ear-splitting scream, followed by the corridor of mirrors shattering as he ran by them. Conrad yelled as loud as he could while holding his hands out when the man got close. His back was up against the wall. As the machete-wielding man slashed downwards toward him, Conrad heard the mirror behind his back shatter, and he stumbled out into the alley behind the house of mirrors.

“Holy fuck!” he yelled as the door closed and the flashing blue lights disappeared. His hands still pushed out in front of him before the steel door slammed with a loud thud. All he could hear inside was the sound of shattering mirrors now, and his vision took a while to adjust to the alley’s dim yellow lighting. Down at the far end, he saw a small caravan. Beside it stood a woman wearing a purple bandana covered in open eyes. He slowly walked up to the woman, who looked up bored from her crystal ball.

“Hey… are you okay?” Conrad asked, acutely aware of the danger around him, the sound of occasional screams in the background.

“I am quite fine, my dear. However, you seem to be a bit lost, aren’t you?” She lazily waved her hand over the crystal ball.

“Yes, I’m trying to leave the city, but every time I just wake up back at my apartment,” he said while he watched the woman peer into the crystal ball.

“Very well. I will help you on your journey, Conrad.” She moved both her hands to peer closer into the crystal ball.

“How did you know my name?” he asked, surprised.

“Oh, we fortune tellers have many ways of divining out things about others… Also you know my friend Agatha.” The woman looked up from the crystal and let out a short shrill laugh. “Gotcha!” she said.

“Yeah, and I’d…” he was cut off mid-sentence.

“So the stars tonight show and the moon is full, next the acts will play out with each tarot you pull. Watch carefully my visions for the dreamer, for he will be the redeemer. These forsaken lands they’ve brought us to, collect all the cards, and if you do. We will all escape…” The fortune teller was in a trance, staring into the crystal ball while she spoke those words.

Conrad thought deeply about her words as a scream for help entered his ears. Conrad looked towards the rollercoaster where the sound had originated. Without thinking, he ran toward the rollercoaster, as if a thought had been inserted into his brain. When he arrived, the fortune teller’s reading fragmented, and he saw a woman tied to the tracks of the rollercoaster.

“I’m coming to help!” he yelled at the woman.

“Please help!” the woman screamed.

He parkoured over each fence and skipped the line, barely noticing the ghostly spirits waiting in line who whispered loudly. He got onto the tracks and balanced on the beams as best he could. Slowly inching his way towards the tied-up woman. Before he could reach her, a cart had bumped into Conrad, and he held onto the front of the cart. The cart didn’t affect her at all and merely passed through her before she vanished as the cart continued.

A creepy, deep voice shouted from the cave he was heading to while he held onto the front of the cart for dear life. “Keep your arms and legs inside the cart at all times!”

The drop down into the cave threw him into the cart seat. He looked around, disoriented. He saw beings, much like at the hospital, in shackles, growling at him as the cart flew by the red lights strobed, disorienting his vision even more. Then, as they exited the cave, the rollercoaster did a spin and threw him onto the pavement with a smack. Conrad looked around as the full moon shone above, the lights from the rollercoaster blinding him as well. He turned to face the pavement and started to retch from the dizziness.

He got up and started towards the entrance of the carnival. The ghostly patrons whispered when he passed by. He passed through one and felt like he’d been plunged into an ice bath.

“Damn it!” he hugged himself to warm up again.

He passed by the stalls of food, which took on an ethereal appearance compared to this morning, and the prizes all had sinister-looking faces. The flashing lights from the stalls disoriented Conrad. When he finally reached the way he came in, he noticed the fog thickening as he left. The haunting carnival music faded as he returned to the subway tunnel to return to his apartment.