The Curtain Closes

He felt himself in a chair, soft and luxurious. He stretched his arms and legs and yawned, shaking the tiredness from him. All around was the idle chatter of a crowd, some cheering, some giggling to themselves in between whispers. Robbie turned to see them, only to look upon empty seats. Rows and rows of them, exactly as red, soft and luxurious as his was in the front row.

"Quiet now, please," said a voice as smooth as caramel. "I believe we've found our volunteer."

A thin, gloved hand reached out from the stage, gesturing for Robbie to take it.

There he was. In all his pale, orange, peacock-feathered glory. His smile held the same kindness it always had, though this time Robbie could see the thinly veiled malice beneath. He could see Mr. Wonder for everything that he was, as if the truth had been unveiled in one swift motion. In seeing him like this, Robbie wished he'd never clicked on that first video. He realised now how utterly he'd been deceived.

With one arm Wonder yanked Robbie from his seat, throwing him onto the floor of the stage roughly.

"Let's give him a round of applause ladies and gents."

Robbie turned as he heard thunderous clapping and cheering. Now he saw them. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of faces. They were formed like human faces, though their open, laughing mouths were black and toothless. Their eyes were similar dark pits, wider than the human eye, with no eyeball, or pupil to fill the open holes in their skulls. Skin yellowed and dead, it looked almost as if each of them had a sack wrapped tightly around their heads. Some wore suits, others dresses, every item of clothing looked at least a hundred years old, filled with all the age that came with it. A tear here, a moth-eaten hole there. Except for their clothes, each audience member looked exactly the same. They were horrible creatures. Not quite people, but also so far from them. Despite his want to look away, Robbie couldn't help but stare right back at them.

"Alright, alright," Mr. Wonder said, noticing Robbie's unease.

The cheers quietened but did not stop. The mocking cacophony wracked Robbie's ears. He felt naked on that stage, exposed for all he was, forced to relive every embarrassing moment he had ever been through.

"That's enough!" Wonder ordered. The crowd silenced themselves immediately, turning the mad, reckless orchestra of noise into a unnerving quiet.

"Oh," Mr. Wonder chuckled, turning to Robbie. "Someone seems a bit stunned. Like a rabbit caught in headlights. Not to worry friend, you'll get used to it. What's your name?"

"R-Robbie."

This isn't real, Robbie told himself. This isn't real.

"Wonderful. I'll only need you for but a moment. Although," he wagged a finger. "Thinking about it, I believe I'll need more than just the one person for this trick. I think I'll call upon my lovely assistant too."

She appeared in a flash of light and smoke. The audience cheered again, their sounds distorted, low. It was as if in its death throes, an animal had learned to speak. Wonder welcomed the cheering this time, egging it on with raised arms and a terrible grin.

Jess was bound to a pole by her hands and feet. She wore a red, glittering dress, befitting a magician's assistant. Her body slumped where she was. Softly asleep, entirely unaware of where she was, what surrounded her.

Mr. Wonder glided over to her, snapping his fingers an inch from her face. "Wake up my dear. We've a show."

Jess woke with a start. She looked around frantically, her breaths short and quick. Pulling desperately at her bonds, she locked eyes with Robbie.

"Rob," she whimpered. "What is this? What's happening?"

Mr. Wonder ignored her. He stepped back towards Robbie, facing the crowd. "This one, I simply call The Bargain."

The crowd roared in glee, its warbled dissonance echoing louder and louder in the theater.

Wonder turned to Robbie, planting a fake-looking, long blade into his palm.

"Here's the deal, Robbie. Stab your friend, and you walk away."

"What?"

"That's all I need from you. You did something wrong; you left me all alone. Now you need to put it right. This little thing, it'll make things like they were between us. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"I can't kill someone," Robbie said. His hands were beginning to shake now. Even if this wasn't real, it felt real enough to scare the living shit out of him.

"Oh," Wonder chuckled. "It's not a killing, just a stabbing. What do you take me for? Just cut enough to draw blood, and you can take your seat. Besides, I think you're lying there. You can kill. You killed Reuben, did you not?"

"N-no."

"Ah, liar!" Wonder hissed. He arched his back, leering over Robbie. "You knew how he felt about that girl, you knew all the possibilities."

Robbie looked at the knife. He jabbed it to his thumb. Blood oozed out without him feeling the slightest imitation of pain. Red droplets thumped on the floor below.

It would be easy. Just a small jab, like he'd done now, then it would be over. He looked to Jess. She wouldn't even feel any pain, just as he hadn't.

Mr. Wonder wrapped a hand around the back of Robbie's head, bringing Robbie's face within inches of his. Robbie watched, transfixed as the eyes of Mr. Wonder changed from pretty blue crystals to empty black pits, wider and deeper than those of his audience. His jaw unhinged, becoming loose and gaunt, as if flesh had detached from bone. His mouth became a long, open pit of dark blue, within which Robbie heard distant cheering, laughing, wailing.

"Enough of that," Mr. Wonder said. The words came not from his mouth, but instead echoed in Robbie's mind. They were harsh, causing stabbing pain in his head. "Choose now, Robbie. Or else, I'll give her the knife, and do you really think she'll hesitate when I tell her about us? About what I've given you?"

Mr. Wonder released his grip, leaving Robbie to shamble towards Jess. She tried to wriggle away, screaming as Robbie pointed the knife towards her.

Come on, Robbie told himself. Come on, now's the time. Turn around and stab this bastard, for fuck's sake. End this all right now.

Though Robbie's mind willed him to become the hero of this story, his body made sure he did anything but. Even the thought of stabbing Wonder made his knees tremble. He stepped further towards Jess, repeatedly apologising to her as he did so.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

He didn't believe it, it just seemed like the only thing he could say.

Jess squealed as the knife pricked her arm. It was a quick thing, in and out, like an injection. Blood spilled from the wound, much more than Robbie had expected. Red gushed like water from a broken dam. The crowd cheered at the sight of it.

"Brilliant, brilliant," Mr. Wonder said, ushering Robbie back to his seat and removing the knife from his shaking grip. The blood was still flowing. "Everyone, another round of applause for our wonderful volunteer!"

The crowd cheered. Robbie could make out words within the cheers now though, things he had heard when he'd first gripped Mr. Wonder's hand. It was the overload of information come again, trying to pierce his mind.

"Now," Wonder continued. "Please watch as we continue the show."

There was nothing to prepare you for watching somebody die. Not the worst horror film, not even from watching the most gruesome deaths found in the depths of the dark web. No, hearing the screams, seeing the blood, the smell, it was more than Robbie could take. Despite his wants to, he could not close his eyes or turn away.

Wonder started with Jess' eyes. His knife glided through them with such ease he could've just as easily been cutting air. From there, Mr. Wonder's knife did as it pleased, in some cuts, it was as sharp as ever, with others, it left serrated marks like shark's teeth across the body. The worst cuts were when the knife appeared blunt, rusted. That was when the blood ran thickest, and the screams were their loudest.

That was the worst of it. The screams, the noise, it was unlike anything Robbie had ever heard nor was it anything his worst nightmares could have conjured. The sound of a person dying, the unbelievable fear robbed them of any coherent humanity. Jess' cries were little more than animalistic shrieks Robbie never would have thought the girl capable of.

After the screams, after the blood ran to the point Jess was little more than a pale husk, a heavy, shaking sob wracked through her. Then, all she could let out was a low, rumbling moan. A signal she was still alive, just without any life.

Tears formed in Robbie's eyes as he watched Jess' head hang limply by her neck. He felt sick.

As much as he still wished for this to be a dream, reality was setting in for Robbie now. He opened his mouth to scream, only to be drowned out by the cheering crowd, his voice only adding to the horrible cacophony, lost among thousands of others, screaming nonsensical babble as loud as they could.

Mr. Wonder turned away from his work, a beaming smile on his face. He took a bow in front of the cheering crowd. A thin veil of sweat lingered on his forehead. He wiped it with a glove, only to leave a smear of crimson in its place. Complimenting the white of his skin, the blood on Mr. Wonder's forehead suited him perfectly.

"Thank you, thank you," he cried. "What a wonderful show we've had."

With a movement quicker than Robbie's eyes could keep up with, Mr. Wonder's neck snapped to look at him his crystal blue eyes piercing through Robbie. There was no smile on his face.

"You can go now."

Robbie awoke with a jolt, sweating through his clothes.

He threw off his quilt, wiping what seemed like tears from his eyes. The lights were off. Strange, Robbie didn't remember turning them off, though the lamp was on.

It took Robbie a moment to realise that someone was standing at the edge of his bed, and a moment more to realise who that someone was. A smile wider than usual sat across his face, so wide the edge of his cheeks appeared to crack like marble. His eyes though, were not their usual crystal blue. Instead, they were hollow, empty sockets, showing nothing but a black, endless void beneath.

Robbie tried to scream again. Mr. Wonder drew a line with his finger and Robbie's scream became little more than a muffled whine.

"Nothing too loud please, I've just finished a performance and my ears have had enough of whooping, cheering and the like."

Robbie nodded.

"You're awfully calm," Mr. Wonder commented. I can see you're shaking, probably going to piss yourself, but not as bad as that squealing pig we just gutted, eh?"

Robbie tried to speak only to again produce a muffled groan. With a quick gesture Wonder returned Robbie's speech to him. He then paused, as if waiting for applause.

"What are you?" Robbie squeaked. He didn't mean for the question to sound offensive, he couldn't afford to offend this man, this thing. Stay on the good side, stay alive.

Mr. Wonder's face soured. His smile turned into a disgusted grimace, as insulted as if someone had just shat in his breakfast. Robbie's heart sank.

With a sigh, Mr. Wonder stretched out his arms. "I am death, I am god. I am life, I am light, I am you. I am everything that ever could be, everything that has already been, everything that is."

With each word Mr. Wonder made himself something else, his face twisting in malformed, unspeakable ways. In the way he spoke, his tone duller, less enthusiastic, he sounded as if he'd said this line a thousand times.

"None of that matters," Mr. Wonder continued. "I am real. You are dead."

Though Mr. Wonder's voice had most of its usual smoothness, there was something else within. A hollowness, informing Robbie that the performance was over, that there would be no more false sincerity their conversations.

"What?" Robbie said again. He didn't feel dead. He grabbed his wrist. There was still a pulse.

"Idiot. You're going to die," Wonder whispered. He reached a hand slowly under Robbie's quilt and tugged at his toe. By the strength of the grip, he could've pulled it off without even trying.

"Do you know what's funny? Not once did you want for anything that wasn't for yourself. No world peace, no end to hunger, nothing."

Robbie opened his mouth to protest, to scream, to plead. He would've tried anything, but it was too late. Grabbed by his ankles he was swung from his bed like a ragdoll, his head colliding with his wall of posters, the impact enough to knock most of them from the wall.

He barely felt anything after that, though he saw most of it. Grabbed now by his head, in icy palms he was brought close to the hollow, sunken eyes. Once again, Wonder's jaw unhinged.

At first there was a sinking feeling, like Robbie had plunged into the deep end of a swimming pool with weights around his ankles. He cried out, though his mouth was soon filled. It felt like thick air, pouring down his throat, suffocating his lungs, even deafening his ears to the outside. His smell, taste and touch disappeared soon after, leaving only Robbie's sight to endure the endless mass of madness that stretched out before him.

It was the colour of space, and just as vast. Empty in some places, filled with odd amorphous, humanish beings in others. As Robbie, or what was left of him floated by, their mouths opened in wails and screams that he could not hear. Their torsos – the only fully visible part of their body – stretched up and around Robbie as he approached. He wanted to recoil, to scream, though he could do neither. A passenger in this nightmare, Robbie was left mercilessly to these creatures, abandoned in their realm as they tore at his flesh like ravenous hyenas.

There was a search, only a small one, sparked by a neighbour who'd heard what could only be described as a high-pitched, animalistic screeching in the early hours. The investigation had begun as a noise complaint, but once the blood was found, the scratches on the walls, a darkness loomed over the case. Jess' body was found as the police searched for leads on Robbie. Her eyes carved out, her body left in ribbons, most of the police needed therapy after seeing her. Eventually, they linked her death to Robbie's disappearance. There wasn't much evidence for this; they never even found Robbie's body, nor any indication as to where he might've gone. Without other options, and with friends and family demanding answers, the police concluded the loss of a friend had sent Robbie into a frenzy, one in which he'd killed Jess. Then, he'd either killed himself or disappeared from the face of the earth. It wasn't a solid solution, a clear stretch of imagination to most, but there weren't many other options. They couldn't search Robbie's laptop, his phone. When they tried, all they saw was a looped video of an empty, blood-soaked stage.