In a squalid corner of Viremoor City, a place teeming with burglars, robbers, and killers, the air was thick with mud, fog, and a foul stench. The sounds of drunken men brawling echoed from shadowy alleys. Every breath was laden with the stench of decay and pollution.
A child named Jester was born, a boy with striking white hair and eyes that held an enchanting blend of gray and olive, as if fog had merged with an ancient forest. People stared at him as though he were the center of the world. At first, his mother and father were overjoyed. Their son laughed often, almost too often as if he found everything amusing.
He would often talk to people who weren't there, describing them in vivid detail:
a tall man with a white mask,
a girl with a balloon-shaped head and a stitched smile,
a juggler with knives for fingers.
"They're my friends," he'd say cheerfully.
"They play with me when you're sleeping."
His parents dismissed it as childish fantasy.
"It's just his imagination," his father would say.
"They'll go away as he grows."
But they didn't.
The laughter continued unseen giggles echoing in the corners of his room.
Jester would whisper jokes to the shadows and burst out laughing for no reason.
Sometimes… the toys moved on their own.
One night, his mother found the word "FUN" carved into the wall above his bed.
When she asked him who did it, he simply said:
"Velmoro."
But one day, a neighbor passing by their home witnessed something horrifying:
The child was decapitating five dogs. One of them bit his hand. Jester only smiled, then began stabbing the dog in its stomach with a knife.
Day by day, his laughter grew louder. The townsfolk began to regard him with unease suspicion twisted into fear.
Terrified of their own son, his parents took him to a tarot reader. Inside a shadowy tent, a woman sat on a worn chair and beckoned the child forward.
She asked, "Why are you smiling?"
Jester smiled. "Because my friends are always playing with me."
"How many friends do you have?" she asked.
"They're more than three," he said.
"Which one is your best friend? Can you describe his face?"
A small smile curled on Jester's lips. He looked to his side and pointed at the empty air.
His parents froze, horrified and convinced now that their child was insane.
"He's right there," Jester said.
"He wears a white mask… a man's face with haunting red eyes, pale metallic skin, and a royal red garment laced with gold. The same man with the wicked grin... the sharp crown… and eyes that see through everything."
"His name is Velmoro."
Inside the tent, silence thickened like smoke.
Jester's pale fingers hovered over the tarot deck. He didn't hesitate. His smile widened.
He chose five cards, each one sliding across the table as if guided by unseen hands.
---
🃏 The Crimson Crown
Blood smeared across royalty.
A headless king. A crown for the ruthless.
🃏 The Laughing Mirror
Shattered reflections.
A laughter that echoed across worlds.
🃏 The Thorned Heart
Pain dressed as love.
Thorns blooming from devotion.
🃏 The Hanging Marionette
Strings, strings, and applause.
He who pulls the strings becomes the god of the stage.
🃏 The Faceless King
No name. No identity.
Only a mask — and the hunger to become anyone.
—---
The woman trembled.
"You… you aren't a child," she whispered.
"They're curses… shaped like gifts."
She gasped, turning to his parents.
"Your son is cursed! You must kill him now—he must not be allowed to live!"
Before she could say another word, Velmoro stepped forward from the shadows and gripped her by the throat.
She reached for her knife, but it was too late.
She was already dead.
Jester's parents stared at him as if seeing a stranger.
His father shouted and kicked him hard in the stomach, throwing him out of the tent.
Lying on the ground, Jester looked up at Velmoro.
"Why is my dad angry?" he asked.
"Did I do something wrong?"
Velmoro handed him a knife from the tent.
"He and your mother want to play with you," he whispered.
Jester took the knife, and suddenly, hysterical laughter erupted from nowhere.
He joined in.
From inside the tent, his father screamed, "Stay away from me, monster!"
A dark energy began to swirl around Jester. His pupils shrank. His grip tightened.
Then everything went black.
Moments later, his parents lay in a pool of blood.
Jester was carving a smiling face onto their skin.
Then he turned to his friend.
"Why don't my parents speak?"
Velmoro smiled. "They had too much fun… so they died happily."
Jester grinned. "That's funny."
"I want more fun."
He left with Velmoro.
Blood dripped from the knife.
"I want more fun," Jester said again.
Velmoro nodded slowly.
"A splendid stage awaits us."
He stepped closer, his crimson cloak swirling like a living flame, regal and wild.
"This world, Jester… is but a grand theater of shadows." 🎭
"Somewhere beneath its mask, our laughter waits to be born."
HAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Velmoro and Jester burst into a cacophony of manic joy—
and far beyond the veil of sanity,
the curtains rose upon their twisted play.