Page 134 of Circus From Hell

I need to keep looking.

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Humans. It’s humans she requires.

My creation attacked one of my performers today. An acrobat who hasn’t been with us for very long, and I can’t say I cared terribly, but it was exactly what she needed. A live human.

That is dangerous.

It seems I haven’t yet figured out how to create a living dead person who can fit into society. Despite her blue flesh and stitches, she was learning and expanding her mind. But we’re at a standstill. She is a cannibal, and I can’t figure out how to change that.

When it comes to my human creations, they seem to require something devilish to sustain themselves.

But it wasn’t as chaotic as last time. I feel, if I can monitor and isolate it, I may be able to keep this one pieced together this time.

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Four weeks have passed since I brought my showgirl to life. There have been no other accidents, no other deaths aside from the humans I’ve picked and stolen from the audience after the show. She is maturing.

I am aware that she needs more. She likes the hunt and the kill, and I’ve found that I can bribe her with anything particularly silver and shiny.

But now I need to decide what to do with her.

My eyes narrow as I read that line, over and over. When I continue, that horrid sinking feeling in my stomach intensifies, mixing with what I now understand to be sadness.

I can’t figure out where the bloodlust, the cannibalism, and the kleptomaniac tendencies come from. Her mental state is not like a human’s. There are deformities that I can’t identify, deep in her brain, likely caused by the high voltage that keeps her existing.

Her limbs still fall off occasionally, and it keeps her reliant on me, keeps her coming back.

And as for whether she can die…

I have no idea.

The last one couldn’t. Splitting them apart and trapping them in a chained box was the only way to certify that kind of monstrosity wasn’t brought back again. Until I recreated them. Until Karma.

I’m either studying her natural demise or conducting a series of tests to see what kills her first. Both will make for extraordinary research.

Karma is trainable, and she does listen to me. No one else.

I put bells in her hair so I can hear her coming. I do not trust she won’t attack me one day, despite the invisible leash I have around her neck.

She may be my favourite creation and the star of my show, but Karma is nothing but Project Human 2.0. And just like Project Human 1.0, there will come a time where she won’t see the light of day anymore.

She is the karma for Chaos.

I stare at the open book in my palm.

It starts vibrating, shaking with my hand, but there’s no fear.

There is anger. Pure anger. Not the desperate hunger I feel when I hunt, or the annoyance that Spiral once brought out of me, but pure, unfiltered anger. It mixes with the sadness, the betrayal, and my whole body whirrs to life.

Teeth bared, I throw the book to the floor, grabbing the second one. More studies about me. More tests performed on me. More reactions examined on me.

I throw it to the floor and grab the third.

More words. More betrayal. More hurt.

It skitters across the floor as I pull apart the bookcase one by one. My throat burns with the need to scream and shout, and my fingers itch to pull skin apart.