GLUTTONY — The Ringmaster Who Feeds You

The carnival never announces itself. It's just suddenly there—tents up, lights strung, music playing like it's been running for years—and gone again just as fast, with no trace it ever existed. At the center of it is a ringmaster who treats every single guest like royalty. Free candy. Free rides. Endless sweets pressed into your hands before you can even ask the price, because there isn't one. Not one you're told about, anyway.

Guests describe a kind of euphoria settling over them the longer they stay—a floaty, sugar-drunk feeling where nothing matters except the next treat, the next laugh, the next ride. Nobody notices they've been there for hours. Nobody notices the sickness building underneath the high, or the way the clapping and laughter never quite stops even when it should. It just keeps going, and going, and going. By the time they are finally full, they're already hungry for more.

Nobody who fully enters the tents is ever seen again. The carnival simply isn't there in the morning, and by the time anyone thinks to ask questions, it's set up three towns over, ringmaster smiling, offering cotton candy to a whole new crowd.