Two days without direction.
I wander through bars, sleep between smoking whores and half-empty glasses. A shadow of myself - and yet... more awake.
Something inside me has shifted.
Feste lay on the filthy mattress, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. A beam of light fell across the rotten floorboards. The whore beside him slept lightly.
Sweat, smoke, stale perfume - better than what he called "home."
No contract.
No number.
No purpose.
Only memories...
He rose, washed quickly, pulled on his half-torn jacked, and grabbed his back.
Nearly empty.
Every movement felt heavy, as if he carried years on his shoulders.
( at the Marketplace )
The slum roared strangely today. Children ran with stolen apples, merchants shouted, music bounced of the walls.
Foreign.
Strange.
Feste pushed through the crowd, snatched an orange - reflexive, without thought - and stopped in front of the job wall.
Voice's blurred into a dull roar.
"What's Happening?"
He asked an old man scrubbing the cobblestones.
"The king is dead," came the dry answer.
No glance, only words that hit like a punch.
The king? Dead?
No coincidence. One of them
Feste recalled lucifer and the four - eyed man.
The Dark Triad.
The king killers.
"Officially, illness"
the man said.
Heat rose in his cheeks, his temples throbbed. Every breath demanded movement, demanded control.
I cannot stay still. I must not stay still.
He looked at the face around him: hungry, lost souls, marked by poverty, fear, and hopelessness.
I belong to no one.
Not the slum.
Not the past.
Not shame.
"I'm leaving," he muttered.
Louder: "I will see this world. I will wirte my own story."
Back in his room, he grabbed the knife, the torn cloak, the notebook.
One last indulgence with a whore. Then my new life begins.
I cannot look back.
Midnight.
Not in bed.
Not in the bar.
A tent, empty chairs, unnaturally warm light.
A men in a purple tailcoat, hands trembling.
"Welcome, Feste... I will show you your three cards."
Dream? Drugs? What is this here.
Three cards lay before him:
A clock.
A mirror.
And a clown.
"Hahahaha..., bye Joker."
The laughter echoed in his mind. A spark of fear mingeld with rage.
>I cannot move.
But i feel it.
The stage awaits.
Morning light.
Cold, sweaty.
The whore beside him.
He stared at his hands.
Dream? Or reality?
Bag slung over his shoulder, he climbed the slum hill. City's edge.
Forests.
Unknown paths.
The open world.
The wind tore at his cloak. No glance back.
Not the fool anymore. I wait no longer.
Each step heavy like hammer blows.
The performance begins and I wirte the script.
A dark, crooked smile spread across his lips.
No fun.
Just play.
A laugh drifted through the trees.
No wind.
No echo.
Only him.