29 Jun The Crimson Requiem

Part I

I wasn’t even supposed to be there. The whole trip was for Lucas.

He’s one of those guys who seeks out the weirdest corners of the internet just to find a new place to scare himself—abandoned hospitals, haunted bridges, bootleg escape rooms run out of someone’s garage. I usually play the reluctant plus-one, but I go. Mostly because I like seeing the way his eyes light up when he’s spooked. He’s like a kid in a Halloween store.

That’s how we ended up at Luna Parke, spelled with an “e” at the end for reasons that were never explained. It wasn’t listed on any major site. No Yelp page. No Google reviews. Just a single post on a defunct thrill-seeker forum with a grainy image of a roller coaster and the words: RIDE THE CRIMSON REQUIEM — THERE’S NO ESCAPE, EMBRACE THE DARK.

Lucas was hooked. I was just… tired. We’d driven six hours into the middle of nowhere. It felt more like a fairground than a theme park—old, paint-peeling booths, cheap music echoing from bad speakers, that unmistakable smell of fried batter and something slightly rotten beneath it. But Lucas was already bouncing ahead, phone out, snapping blurry photos of everything from the papier mâché gargoyle statues to a sign that said NO REFUNDS. NO EXCEPTIONS. NO RE-ENTRIES.

He found the ride near the edge of the park, behind a row of abandoned-looking vendor stalls. The tracks were rusty. The support beams creaked in the wind. The cars were shaped like coffins—full-sized, black, each with silver handles and blood-red velvet interiors. Some carny had even added fake dirt smears and scratch marks to the lids.

“I have to,” Lucas said, grinning.

“You don’t have to,” I told him, eyeing the rickety track as it twisted upward into a skeletal spiral. “You want to. There’s a difference.”

He kissed me on the cheek, already halfway to the queue line. “Live a little, babe.”

There wasn’t even a line. A teenage ride operator in smeared eyeliner and a frilly Victorian blouse handed him a waiver on a clipboard. Lucas signed it without reading, of course. They asked for his phone—standard ride policy, no loose items. He tossed me a wink before climbing into one of the open coffins.

That was when I noticed the restraints.

They didn’t just go over the chest. They buckled around the arms, the thighs, even across the forehead. Like a padded medical gurney. Or a coffin for someone not quite dead yet.

“Is that really necessary?” I asked the operator.

She shrugged. “People thrash.”

I laughed, hoping it was a joke. Lucas gave me a thumbs-up, and the lid slowly creaked shut. Then the car hissed forward into the tunnel, vanishing with a low metallic groan.

That was the last time I saw him.

I waited at the exit platform, scrolling through my phone, half-annoyed that I hadn’t gone with him. I figured it was probably one of those hidden-gem rides that look dangerous but end up being three minutes of tame clicks and fake screams.

But five minutes passed. Then ten.

And when the cars finally returned, only three of the four were occupied.

I stood there, waiting for him to hop out. The attendants started unlatching strangers, laughing and chatting with them as if nothing was wrong.

Lucas’s coffin came back empty.

“Excuse me,” I said, waving down the girl from earlier. “There’s someone missing. My boyfriend got on. He’s not here.”

She frowned at the returning cars. “There were only three riders, ma’am.”

“No, I—he got on right in front of me. I watched you strap him in. Black hoodie, dark jeans, messy hair—Lucas. Lucas Hargrove?”

She blinked. “Sorry… are you feeling okay?”

I thought she was joking. I laughed. But my laugh died in my throat when the security guy showed up—an older man with a clipboard and a condescending smile. He walked me back to the entrance.

“Let’s just take a look,” he said calmly, like I was an irate customer asking for extra ketchup.

They pulled up the waiver sheet.

Only three names.

They showed me the video feed. It showed me walking with Lucas into the line, sure. But then there was a glitch. A second of static. And suddenly I was standing alone. The footage skipped ahead to me watching the ride roll off, smiling nervously.

No Lucas.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “There was a glitch. You cut it. He was right there. He got into the coffin in front of me—check the manifest, check the restraints!”

I was losing it. People were looking. The operator’s expression flattened.

“I think maybe you need to rest. You came alone. We have it on record.”

“No—check my phone!” I said, pulling it out. “I texted him a photo on the drive here, look—”

The text chain was gone.

So was the selfie we took in front of the blood-red arch that read: ENTER IF YOU DARE.

I checked my email. The tickets were still there, but now they only said: 1 Adult—General Admission.

I remember the exact moment my stomach flipped.

It was when the security guard said, very slowly, “Ma’am… are you sure you didn’t imagine him?”

I didn’t scream. I couldn’t. My whole body felt paralyzed. Like if I made one wrong move, they’d lock me away for being unstable. Or worse—like I’d start believing it myself.

But I know what I saw. Lucas was real. He rode that ride, and he never came back.

Part II

I sat in my car for two hours after they let me go.

I couldn’t bring myself to start the engine. I just sat there, replaying everything. Lucas getting into the coffin. The way he blew me a kiss before they closed the lid. The faint metallic scream of the coaster pulling away into that fake castle facade. And then the way everyone looked at me like I was the crazy one when I said he never got off.

There was no panic or urgency, just slow blinking and pitying smiles like I was a child who’d lost her balloon.

I didn’t drive home. I got a cheap motel five miles from the park, ordered a sandwich I didn’t eat, and sat in the tub with my phone in hand. I kept scrolling through photos, searching every folder, every deleted image. I knew I took a picture of us outside the ride. He made me take it, even though I said we looked sweaty from the drive.

It was gone. The ones from the gas station earlier that day? Gone.

I still had photos of us—hundreds from other trips, vacations, and birthdays, but they stopped six months ago. Everything after March was missing.

I didn’t sleep.

The next morning, I returned to the park as soon as it opened. The ride was still operating. The same girl was working the entrance, smiling like we hadn’t just spoken the night before.

“Hey, there! Just you today?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I walked past her and into the staff entrance—just blew past the velvet rope and the fake skull gate like I owned the place. Nobody stopped me until I reached the gate to the ride’s control booth, and even then, it was only because some acne-pocked teen grabbed my arm and said, “You can’t be back here, miss.”

I told him I’d lost something on the ride. He looked skeptical, but he didn’t press me. He waved over the manager instead.

This guy was different than the smug clipboard-holder from last night. Mid-fifties, with a thick mustache, a red vest bearing a name tag that simply read ’Calvin’. He took me aside and asked what the problem was.

“My boyfriend never came off this ride,” I told him. “His name is Lucas Hargrove. He signed a waiver. I saw you strap him in. He was in the second coffin. And when the cars came back, he was gone.”

Calvin exhaled through his nose. “I’m sorry, miss. I’ve been with the park for over fifteen years. We’ve never had anyone go missing on Requiem. I checked the manifest myself. Only three boarded yesterday during the ride in question.”

“That’s a lie.”

He looked genuinely pained.

“I understand this is upsetting—”

“You don’t. You don’t understand. He was here. He’s still missing. Something happened inside that ride.”

He looked at me for a long time, then pulled out a small clipboard from behind the booth window. “Look,” he said, turning it around. “This is the signed log for every rider yesterday. If your boyfriend had been here, his signature would be on this. We require it.”

There were only three names shown, each with a corresponding signature, all in different handwriting. All of them were on the same line as the entry times I remembered, but Lucas’s name wasn’t there. Instead, written in neat cursive was the word “VACANT.”

I asked what the hell that meant. Calvin hesitated, then said, “Sometimes guests get cold feet. If a seat’s loaded and locked but goes empty, we mark it ‘Vacant.’ It’s rare, but it happens.”

“You’re saying I imagined Lucas being there?”

“I’m not saying anything, miss. I’m just showing you what’s recorded.”

I stood there, shaking, while behind us, the ride clanked and hissed. Another set of coffin-cars launched into the darkness. I watched them vanish down the tunnel.

I knew Lucas had gone in, and I knew he never came out.

* * * * * *

That night, I called the police. They came to my motel room and asked all the standard questions. They inquired about Lucas’s age, appearance, and his last known location. I told them everything, down to the name of the ride and the time he got on. They looked at me with the same careful, sympathetic expression Calvin had worn.

The taller cop flipped through a tiny notebook. “So, no ID? No phone? No record of entry? No friends or family who saw him come with you?”

“I have photos of us—”

“From yesterday?”

I hesitated.

“From any time this week?” he clarified.

And I realized I didn’t have a single one.

They took down a report but didn’t seem in any rush. I could tell they were humoring me. One of them gave me a pamphlet about grief-induced delusions.

Before they left, I overheard one say to the other, “Another one of these ride cases. That park needs to be shut down.”

I was too stunned to follow up, but it stuck in my head like a splinter.

Another one?

* * * * * * *

I spent the next day digging.

There was no real website for Luna Parke, just a homepage with outdated clipart and a phone number that led to a voicemail saying: “You have reached the thrill line. Leave your name, and the Requiem may answer.”

Creepy, sure, but no one answered when I called.

I checked Reddit, thrill-seeking forums, and abandoned amusement park threads, but found nothing recent. Eventually, however, I managed to locate one archived page, deep in a .web backdoor, from a roller coaster enthusiast blog dated 2008. It had a grainy photo of The Crimson Requiem. Same ride. Same park. Same setup.

The caption beneath it chilled me: ”Riders lie in coffins and vanish into darkness. Urban legend says someone disappears every summer. Total myth, or is there more to the story?”

The comments were closed, and the blog hadn’t been updated in over a decade.

The next line was what hit me hardest: “If you ever find the old group photo room, check the back row.”

* * * * * *

That night, I snuck back into Luna Parke, not through the front gates—those were locked. I climbed the rear fence near the maintenance lot and crawled through an overgrown hedgerow. I don’t know what I expected to find. I had no real plan, just rage and desperation. I wanted proof. I wanted him.

The park was dark and silent. Only the Requiem still had power. The track pulsed faint red under the moonlight. The coffin cars were parked in their bay, clean and polished.

I crept along the wall, searching for the photo room. It wasn’t where guests could go. It was behind a locked metal door at the base of the exit ramp, half-covered by a tarp that read STAFF ONLY — DO NOT ENTER. I jimmied it open with a broken broom handle I found near the trash bins.

Inside, it was cold and musty, and on the wall, illuminated by a single flickering bulb, were photos. Decades’ worth of them. Every ride cycle, every group of passengers, all framed and tagged. Most were water-damaged, and some were faded beyond recognition, but one, near the end, caught my eye. It was dated the previous morning, and in it, there were four coffins, three smiling faces… and one closed lid.

I leaned in. The closed coffin, the second from the left—it was Lucas’s.

The nameplate beneath the photo just read: “VACANT.”

Part III

I took a photo of the picture on the wall.

It was a reflex—like proof would make this real. However, when I checked my phone a few seconds later, the screen displayed a black frame. Just pitch black, like the lens had been covered. I tried again and got the same result.

I don’t know why that scared me more than the photo itself, but it did.

I backed out of the hallway and nearly tripped over a bucket full of coaster restraints. Most were clean. A few had… stains. I told myself it was rust.

That hallway led deeper underground, where the air grew colder and the walls became more industrial. It was less “haunted house” and more boiler room. The smell changed, too. Less popcorn and oil, and more mildew and rot.

I passed a broken animatronic propped in the corner, a vampire bride with cracked porcelain eyes. Her mouth hung open in a permanent scream. A speaker jutted from her throat like a broken trachea. I could hear a faint hum of feedback coming from it.

And I swear, as I passed, it whispered, “Vacant…”

I didn’t look back.

At the bottom of the hallway was a steel door with a plastic badge reader next to it. Someone had tried to scratch out the lettering on the sign above it, but I could still make it out if I tilted my head: PROPERTY OF THE KEEPER.

The lock was old and weak. A few strikes from a loose metal pipe nearby cracked it open with a screech loud enough to make my ears ring.

What I saw inside made me stagger back. It was a workshop, but not the kind where you fix tracks or check ride hydraulics. This one was dedicated—ritualistic, almost—like someone had been living down there, preserving something.

The room was lined with open coffins. Not the fiberglass ones from the ride, but real ones comprised of wood and iron. Some were so old they looked more like crates. One had claw marks carved into the inside of the lid. Another was filled with what looked like scorched pages—ride manifests, I think, half-burned but still legible in places. They were covered in scribbled names, then scratched out violently in red ink.

I crept toward the far wall, where a small corkboard was covered in Polaroids of coffins, riders, and smiling guests. And in the corner of the board, pinned with a black pushpin, was Lucas. He stood between two strangers, smiling, his eyes half-shut. Something was off. His face was paler than usual, and the others in the photo were wrong. Their expressions looked… posed. Too stiff. Too perfect. It was then that I noticed that none of them cast shadows. And taped to the bottom of the Polaroid was a sticky note, scribbled in jagged handwriting: “Still warm. Keep separate.”

I stared at it for so long I forgot to breathe, but even in my stupor, I had the sense to snap a photo of the corkboard. I needed proof, and there it was, right in front of my eyes.

That’s when I heard the voice, not from the hallway or a speaker, but from one of the coffins behind me. It spoke in a soft, crackling voice, like an old radio just tuning in. But the voice didn’t come from the lid. It came from inside the box.

“Please,” it begged. “Let me out.”

I froze. The voice didn’t sound like Lucas’s. It didn’t even sound fully human. It had a mechanical edge, as if someone were speaking through a malfunctioning bullhorn. But it was trying, mimicking a voice. Pleading.

I turned and backed away from the coffin it came from—a gray one in the corner, sealed with bolts. A nameplate had been pried off, leaving only two nail holes behind.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The voice answered, more clearly now, “I’m what’s left. The others… they’re taken. Please—please don’t let them shut the lid again.”

I didn’t know what to do. If Lucas had been in that room—if he’d been in any of these boxes—he wasn’t anymore. Something had moved him, or used him.

I made a mistake then. I lifted the lid.

Inside was a body, or part of one, anyway. Its skin was grayish-pink and pulsing gently. The face looked almost human, but distorted—stretched too thin, like a wax figure left in the sun. The eyes were glassy and black. The mouth had no teeth, just a speaker embedded in the throat. One of its eyeballs twitched.

That’s when I realized the voice had been coming from the eye.

And it said, slowly, “You opened the door. Now it sees you.”

Suddenly, every coffin in the room began to shake, softly at first, and then violently. The lids banged against their hinges. One fell open, spilling out a tangled mess of restraints and a hooded sweatshirt. Lucas’s.

I ran, not once stopping to look back. I didn’t slow down when something screamed behind me, or when the lights overhead began to strobe. I bolted out of the room, down the hall, past the vampire bride, and back into the cool night air.

I didn’t stop sprinting until I was back at my car. When I finally dared to look at my phone again, the photo I’d taken of Lucas on the corkboard was gone, replaced with one of me, smiling and pale… in a coffin.

* * * * * *

I left town that night. I didn’t stop to eat, and didn’t sleep. I drove until I hit a major city, then checked into a hotel and tried to convince myself I was losing my mind. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t possible.

But two days later, I received a text from an unknown number, the kind you can’t reply to. It said, “Your reservation has been updated. One guest. One return.”

Then, in a follow-up, it continued, “Make your choice soon. The Requiem hungers.”

Part IV

I didn’t respond to the message, not that I could have anyway. There was no reply button and no metadata, just two texts that now lived rent-free in the notifications bar of my phone, permanently pinned, unremovable and untraceable. I tried factory resetting and turning off cellular. I even smashed the damn thing with a rock.

It didn’t help.

Even after replacing the phone, the text came back, with the same words: “Make your choice soon.” A chill crawled up my spine.

For two weeks, I ignored it, telling myself Lucas was gone. I told myself I should mourn him and not chase shadows. And yet grief whispered to me at 3 a.m., a splinter in my thoughts. Doubt crept in, sharp and serrated, despite my best efforts. Deep down, I knew the truth. Lucas wasn’t dead. Not exactly—not yet.

Worse still, I was the one who left him there, who stepped back at the ride’s entrance and let the lid close over him. And whatever lives beneath that park saw that moment for what it was: permission.

The guilt was nearly too much to bear.

* * * * * *

I returned to Luna Parke just before closing on a Wednesday. I picked a weekday for a reason—there were fewer people and less chance of anyone interfering. I parked behind the staff lot and waited in the shadows until I saw the last guests funneled out through the main gate.

Then I walked in like I belonged. It was too easy.

The lights dimmed as I passed the shuttered food stalls and game booths, each one draped in chain-link and caution tape. The place felt more like a mausoleum than a park, and at the center of it all stood the Crimson Requiem, glowing faint red, waiting for me.

The gate was open. The ride operator—a new one, young, pale, and dressed like a Victorian mourner—stood in silence as I approached.

“You know why I’m here,” I said.

Without a word, he handed me a waiver to sign. Imagining it was the same as the previous one, I signed it without a second thought.

It was only then that I noticed that the header was different. At the top, stamped in dark crimson ink, it now read: EXCHANGE. I gasped, realizing my mistake.

Before I could understand what I had just agreed to, however, the attendant guided me to the second coffin, the same one Lucas had entered.

I stared at the open lid. Red velvet lining. Silver buckles. A faint mechanical hum rising from the interior.

“Wait,” I said. “What did I just agree to?”

“What you needed to, in order to see him again,” the attendant said softly. “There’s no other way.”

“So Lucas is still here?” I asked. “I knew it! I knew you were lying before.1”

The operator stared at me.

“So, I’ll see him?” I asked. “You give me your word?”

“You’ll see him,” the attendant replied, “but only if he remembers you.”

I froze. “What happens if he doesn’t?”

The man’s expression didn’t change. “Then you take his place, and he goes free.”

So, that was the deal. An exchange. One could return. Not both.

I climbed in, convinced I would figure out a way to bring Lucas home safely.

The restraints tightened across my chest, legs, arms, and forehead. It was even more invasive than I remembered, like hands from inside the machine were testing me. The lid lowered slowly, and red light flooded in, then dimmed to black.

The ride began. There was no ascent, clack-clack of gears, or drop, just continuous motion. The ride was smooth, cold, and impossibly fast—like I was being pulled through something.

Images stuttered past the cracks in the coffin—flashes of things I can’t describe. Teeth that weren’t in mouths. Rooms that breathed. A black sky where something with too many eyes watched. The entire time, I held my breath, choking back the urge to scream.

And then everything went still, the ride creaked to a stop, and the lid opened. I sat up in a room that looked like the one I’d broken into before—the Coffin Room—but older and more decayed. The walls were warped, the lights flickering like dying stars. The coffins were all occupied now, their lids slightly ajar, showing glimpses of the pale, eyeless things curled inside.

And in the center of the room, standing with his back to me, was Lucas.

“Lucas?” I whispered.

He turned slowly. He looked… intact. Mostly. His skin was paler and marble-like, and his eyes were darker than I remembered, the pupils blown wide. He stared at me, unblinking, and smiled.

“You came,” he said.

I ran to him. I don’t even remember getting out of the coffin. I just remember grabbing his hands, shaking them, looking into his face for any sign of what had happened.

“I’ve been looking for you—I saw your hoodie, I saw the photos. I knew—”

He didn’t react the way I expected him to. Instead, he tilted his head.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said in a monotone.

“What are you talking about?” I blurted out. “I came to get you out!”

His smile faltered. “No. That’s not how this works.”

The lights dimmed, and the coffins around us groaned, lids rising inch by inch.

“You were supposed to forget me,” he said. “They let me go because you didn’t.”

“Let you go?”

He looked down at his hands. “I was part of it. Part of them. It changed me. They took everything. But your memory—you—you pulled me back.”

The lights flickered again, faster now. Something moved in the far corner of the room. I couldn’t see it clearly. It was just a shape, some sort of ripple. A mass.

“They’re watching,” Lucas whispered. “They’re listening through the dead.”

I grabbed his arm. “Then let’s go. Right now.”

But he didn’t move.

“They won’t let both of us leave,” he said.

And I understood. This was the trade. One in. One out. I had to choose.

“I’m not leaving without you.”

“If you stay,” he said, “you’ll forget everything. Your name. Your life. Even me.”

“Then remind me.”

He shook his head. “I won’t be here.”

“What?”

“I’m only here because you brought me. But when you stay, I go. That’s the deal.”

Tears blurred my vision. “I don’t care!” I said.

He smiled again, softer this time, then leaned forward and pressed his forehead to mine.

“Remember this, then,” he said. “Remember that I tried to stop you.”

And then the lights flared white—and I was alone.

* * * * * *

I woke up in the exit bay of the ride. My wrists were sore, my vision blurry.

A teenager in a vampire costume helped me sit up and asked if I was okay.

I looked around. Lucas wasn’t there—but something else was. An object had been tucked beside me in the coffin, folded, weathered, and familiar.

Lucas’s hoodie.

Inside the pocket was a single Polaroid. It showed the two of us at Luna Parke, smiling. And behind us—blurred, but visible—was the faint outline of the Requiem.

Part V

I didn’t leave town. I told people I did. I told my sister I drove home. I told my boss I needed another week off. Told myself I’d sleep, shower, and think. That I’d finally burn that hoodie and try to move on. But I didn’t. Instead, I rented a room above a shut-down pawn shop two miles from the park and started walking the perimeter every night at sunset. I know I can’t break in again. They’ve made sure of that. The fences are electrified now. There are new signs posted:

DO NOT APPROACH THE REQUIEM AFTER DARK
PARK CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
TRESPASSERS WILL BE REMOVED

They don’t say by whom—but it doesn’t matter.

The ride’s still running. You can hear it if you’re close enough—late at night, when the cicadas die down and the wind settles.

* * * * * *

I don’t know how long I lay there after they pulled me off the ride. The operator who helped me out didn’t speak. He only handed me the Polaroid, then gestured toward the exit like he was trying to hurry me along before something changed its mind.

I walked until I found a bench, and sat with Lucas’s hoodie in my lap. It smelled like oil, dust, and… something else. Not blood or rot, but something older. Something hungry.

That’s when the lights came on again, just one—above the Requiem’s operator booth. It flickered, then turned solid red, and a figure stepped into the light.

Calvin.

He was still wearing the same red vest and had the same thick mustache, but his eyes were darker than I remembered. Black as coal. They reflected no light.

He waved me over. I don’t know why I obeyed. Maybe I was still in shock, or perhaps I just wanted answers. Or maybe, deep down, I knew there was only one way this could end.

I walked up the ramp. He opened the gate and let me into the operator booth.

“You made your choice,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“I didn’t know what I was choosing,” I told him.

He nodded like that was expected. “No one ever does.”

“What is this place?”

Calvin leaned back against the control panel. “It used to be a real park, long ago, before the town swallowed itself. Then it found the tracks. And now it uses the ride to pull from both sides.”

“Both sides of what?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he placed a small object on the control panel. A coaster restraint buckle. It had initials etched into it. L.H.

“You pulled him out,” Calvin said. “The memory was strong enough. The tether held. He came back.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” I asked. “Why didn’t he leave with me?”

“Because the ride doesn’t give. It trades. You brought him to the surface, but there’s always a cost. He’s walking your world now—but only because you’re still tethered to this one.”

I stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

He handed me a piece of folded paper, and I recognized it immediately. It was the waiver I’d signed before the ride.

Only now, it had new writing at the bottom: BINDING — INCOMPLETE.

“Then finish it,” I said. “What do I have to do?”

Calvin gave me a long, hard look. Then, for the first time since I met him, he smiled.

“You have to go back,” he said plainly.

“No,” I objected.

“You have to ask.”

He gestured toward the park.

I looked down and realized the track had shifted.

It no longer looped. It now descended—deep into the ground, spiraling like a drill.

“The Requiem never forgets a voice,” Calvin said. “If you speak your request clearly—if it accepts—you might reach the bottom.”

“What’s at the bottom?”

“Nothing you’ll come back from.”

He paused.

“Unless he calls you back.”

* * * * * *

I waited three days before I returned.

This time, I brought nothing but the photo and the hoodie. I folded both and placed them in the seat beside mine before I lay back down inside the coffin.

I didn’t speak when the restraints locked, or flinch when the lid closed, but when the light went red and the descent began, I whispered, ”Bring me to him.”

The Requiem obeyed, only this time, it wasn’t smooth. It fought. The ride bucked like an animal in its death throes. Images tore across my vision—scenes I knew weren’t mine. A hospital corridor. A burning car. A flooded basement filled with floating eyes.

Then, there was silence once more, and the lid opened.

I found myself in a space I can’t describe. It wasn’t a room or a tunnel. It was suspended between motion and stillness, like a snapshot in mid-shudder. The air was dense. The ground rippled like water. Coffins hung in the air like lanterns, swaying and whispering.

And in the center stood Lucas, restored to his original appearance. He was no longer pale or broken, but whole, alive and smiling

He reached for me.

“You came back,” he said.

“I told you I would.”

We embraced and, for a moment, I thought that was it—that the ride had surrendered, that we’d be freed together. That we’d beaten it.

Then I heard the voice.

“Only one.”

It came from everywhere—from the coffins, the walls, the ground. From inside my skull.

Lucas pulled back, his expression changed. He looked scared. “They’re not done with you,” he said.

I clutched his face. “Then you go. Let them take me.”

“No,” he protested.

“You don’t have a choice,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied softly. “I do.”

He placed something in my hand. A crimson paper ticket, embossed with silver lettering: ADMIT ONE.

He pressed his forehead to mine again and whispered, “This is my choice now.”

Then he stepped away.

The Requiem roared. The coffins spun, the air cracked like glass, light tore through the darkness—and Lucas faded.

* * * * * *

I woke up on a bench, bathed in sunlight, in the middle of an abandoned park.

The Requiem was gone. Only the rails remained—rusted, broken, and choked by weeds. There were no cars, lights, or operators.

Calvin was gone, as was the booth.

I was alone. And in my hand, still clutched tight, was the ticket.

I don’t know what happens next. Sometimes, I think I see Lucas on the street, although not clearly, and only for a moment. Whenever I do, he’s little more than a silhouette slipping into the crowd, or a reflection in a storefront window.

Once, I saw him in a dream. He was riding a subway train that went down, down, down—past all the stops, beyond the end of the line. He didn’t look back.

But he was smiling, like he was free. Or like he’d bought me time.

I don’t know how long I have. I don’t know if they’ll come for me again. I think they will.

But when they do, I’ll be ready.

I have the ticket. I know how to ask. And I remember.

So if anyone else is reading this—if your loved one disappeared from Luna Parke, if you ever hear the sound of a ride running when no one’s there, if someone hands you a waiver that says EXCHANGE, ask yourself: Who are you willing to leave behind?

Because once you board the Crimson Requiem, it never forgets your name.