The entrance tent swallowed them whole.
Literally. The striped fabric rippled as they stepped through, lips folding over them like the mouth of some slumbering god.
Rafael barely had time to scream before the world tilted, twisted, and spat them out into the center of a warped carnival ring.
It doesn't really look like inside of a tent. More like a dimensional crackhead.
The sky was purple now. Or maybe it had always been. Hard to tell with the way gravity swirled sideways and the moon blinked. A flock of screaming rubber chickens flew overhead, leaving trails of glittering gas.
Calyx landed beside them in a crouch, grinning like this was the fun part. "Welcome to the Trials. Survival's not guaranteed, but the funnel cake is to die for."
Stanley stood, brushing pink sawdust off his jacket. "So, uh, what kind of trials are we talking about? Trivia? Obstacle course? Pie-eating contest with haunted judges?"
"No spoilers," Calyx chirped. She clapped twice, and the ground lurched.
Massive bleachers rose from the earth, creaking and groaning, populated by shadowy figures with glowing eyes.
Ghostly carnies, stitched-together clowns, and skeletal mascots cheered from the stands, tossing popcorn made of bone shards.
A band of skeletal kazoo players struck up a tune that sounded suspiciously like circus jazz played backward.
[Event Triggered: Carnival Trials Initiated!]
The center of the ring reconfigured itself into a series of platforms, one a spinning teacup full of knives, another a trampoline shaped like a screaming face, and a third that was just a pit labeled "Regret."
Rafael groaned. "I swear, if we end up dying for a snack,—"
"Shh!" Calyx held up a finger. "Here comes the emcee."
From a puff of green smoke, a ten-foot-tall clown descended. Its face was painted into a permanent expression of delighted agony. A sash across its chest read HOST OF PAIN. It carried a microphone made from a severed goose's neck.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMADMEN!" it boomed, "WELCOME TO THE BATTER TRIALS!"
Confetti exploded. A pie slapped itself into Rafael's face, unassisted. It tasted like lemon and bad memories.
"Trial One!" the Host of Pain declared. "Make the perfect funnel cake… while being attacked by sugar gremlins!"
A table appeared before them, complete with batter, fryer oil, utensils, and a flamethrower. Dozens of tiny, gibbering sugar gremlins with peppermint eyes began to swarm in from all directions, giggling as they gnawed on Stanley's boots.
"I hate this place," Rafael muttered, firing waffle blasts into the oncoming horde.
Stanley elbowed him. "Focus! Fry the dough, not the goblins!"
Rafael tossed a gremlin off his back and shoved a ladle into Stanley's hands. "Tag in, Chef Waffles!"
Stanley rolled up his sleeves. "Time to flambé some chaos!"
They swapped places in a blur, Rafael swinging the fryer basket like a mace while Stanley flamboyantly drizzled batter in midair, letting it sizzle into spiraling art.
Sugar gremlins leapt at them, only to be slapped aside by a hot spatula or tripped into a vat of oil with a foot sweep.
Rafael grabbed a piping bag and blasted one in the face. "You want icing? Here's icing!"
Stanley flipped a perfectly browned funnel cake onto a plate, only for a gremlin to steal it midair.
Calyx hurled a spatula like a boomerang, knocking the thief out cold. "This is the best brunch battle ever!" she howled.
Calyx danced between attackers, flipping a gremlin into the fryer with the elegance of a deadly chef. One gremlin latched onto her hair, only to be spun into a bowl of batter and promptly deep-fried.
Thirty seconds later, the ring smelled like fried insanity. Gremlin bits sizzled on the floor. The Host of Pain sampled their creation with a long, unnerving slurp. Then nodded.
"ROUND TWO!" it bellowed.
The floor fell away. Rafael screamed. Stanley whooped. Calyx laughed like this was a rollercoaster.
They landed in a chamber full of mirrors. Their reflections stared back, each twisted and wrong, versions of themselves with claws, hollow eyes, or enormous novelty foam fingers. One Rafael in a cracked mirror wore a crown of fried food and wept gravy.
"Defeat your inner hunger," a voice echoed.
"I already did that at the mall," Rafael muttered, then spotted his reflection lunging.
What followed was a surreal brawl of self-doubt, weaponized cravings, and mirror-glass kung fu. Stanley headbutted his doppelgänger using a candy apple. Calyx threw glitter like shuriken. Rafael square-danced with a mirror clone until it exploded in a puff of powdered sugar.
A moment later, the floor briefly turned to jelly, and Calyx used it to pole vault into a mirror version of herself. It shattered into a burst of sour apple mist.
When the dust cleared, the mirrors shattered themselves out of shame. A slow clap echoed from somewhere behind a cotton candy pillar that spontaneously burst into flame.
"FINAL ROUND!" the Host of Pain roared from above. "Endurance. Dance. Battle."
Music blared from nowhere. The ground lit up like a disco inferno. A dozen animatronic mascots descended, grinding and twerking with unsettling precision.
Rafael blinked. "Nope."
"Yes," Stanley said, cracking his knuckles and moonwalking into the fray.
They danced. They dueled. They survived.
Barely.
At one point, Rafael found himself locked in a tango of doom with a robotic squirrel in fishnets. Calyx somersaulted through a ring of fire while juggling rave glow sticks. Stanley breakdanced so hard the floor cracked.
A sudden conga line of plush demons swept through, and for a moment, they were all just... dancing.
The mascots began to malfunction one by one, limbs flailing and sparks flying, until the music slowed into a haunting music box version of "Heal The World."
When the lights died down, the Host of Pain wept with joy. "YOU MAY CLAIM… YOUR FUNNEL CAKE."
A silver plate descended from the sky, steaming with fried perfection. Rafael reached for it, and found himself actually smiling.
Maybe it was worth it. Maybe the madness was just part of the flavor.
Stanley took a bite. "This... this tastes like winning."
Calyx raised an eyebrow. "Ready for Act Two?"
A distant scream echoed, followed by the unmistakable sound of a giant rubber duck explosion.
Rafael sighed. "Bring it on."
***