Shawn didn't hesitate as he moved towards Bradford, but he did slow down a little. He glanced up at the puppet, watching for him to try and defend Bradford or something. "Fix Eddy like you said. And then I want your power, all of it. Right now." His tone was completely flat, affectless.

Bradford stumbled around on his knees, one hand over his eye, other hand scratching the floor, nails leaving long streaks on the wood. Blood splattered out from in between his fingers. Turning in a half circle, his knee slipped and he lurched forward, screaming as his head hit the ground.



Mr. Clayton didn't seem to acknowledge Bradford. He just sat on top of the curtain rack with a wide smile on his puppet face. "I'll fix Eddie." He said to Shawn.



"I will. A deal is a deal. But you've got to finish what you came here to do Shawn. You've got to go all the way. A deal is a deal. Bradford destroyed your life. He took one of your best friends. He took Bobby."

Mr. Clayton looked down at Bradford with a frown and a look of pity.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:57, Fri 02 Aug 2019.

Bradford hacked a cough and stumbled back up to a sitting position. He's butt scooted backwards, legs splayed and spread open as he leaned his back against the wall.

He screamed a loud wail of pain. "ARRRRRRGHHHHH!" Then he covered his bleeding eye with both hands. Shawn could see that Bradford's glasses lay on the floor. Both lenses were shattered. There was blood everywhere. Smeared all over Bradford's pale, blue flannel pajamas.

With his hands covering one eye, Shawn say Bradford's other eye dart across between Mr. Clayton and Shawn.

"Mr. Cl..Cl..Clayton! Help! Hel..Help me!"

"Shhhhhhhhhh.....I did help you." Mr. Clayton said in a soothing voice. Even though Bradford did look soothed.

"I gave you what you wanted. You wanted to face Shawn. You wanted to kill Bobby. I helped you with all of that. All of it Bradford. All of it was yours. It still is."

"There's still time!" Mr. Clayton announced, still looking at Bradford. "Still time!" he said, voice registering a high, joyful, if not malicious note.

"Don't give up now Bradford old buddy! There's still time to kill Shawn. I mean, obviously if you ask me I'd say that the odds are stacked. Reeeeeeeeallllly stacked! Reallllly-Reaaaallly stack against you!!! Yucka Yucka!"

Shawn reached the struggling Bradford, and while he was still wary that Mr. Clayton might betray him, he knew he wasn't going to get a better chance than this. With Bradford's hands over his eye, and his legs spread, his chest was wide open. Shawn prepared to thrust right for the centre of mass, determined to end Bradford as quickly and painlessly as possible.

He didn't taunt Bradford as he moved in. Detached as he was, he wasn't enjoying the pain he had already inflicted here, and he wasn't angry or righteous enough to torture the other boy on purpose. It was just a simple, objective fact; Bradford had to die, and this was the most effective way Shawn had to make it happen. Maybe he'd be able to feel something about this when it was done...or maybe the part of him that could feel anything at all had died with Bobby. He didn't know, but he wasn't thinking about it anyway.

OOC: Shawn's not actually making a called shot to the chest here, just a bit of description. Do I need to roll, or is he sufficiently vulnerable that it's just a coup de grace?

"Do it! Do it!" Feddler urged Shawn on. "We have to do this. He killed. And He'll kill again."

"Mr, Clayton...he...hell..help!" Bradford croaked. Blood was now streaming down the front of his pajama shirt

Mr. Clayton looked down upon Bradford with a hard frown.

"You disgust me." He said

OOC: No need to roll

Shawn lined up the knife, and with a quick thrust to the heart, ended Bradford's life.

For a moment, his emotions threatened to all crash back in at once - anger at Mr. Clayton, guilt and grief for letting Bobby down, even a little bit of pity for Bradford. But Shawn immediately pushed them aside. There was still too much to deal with right now, including whether or not Mr. Clayton would betray him. He looked up at the dummy. "Well?"

The knife went in with a sickening almost silent 'whic' sound. Bradford's hands dropped to his sides, blood pouring out of that one eye. The other eye looked at him with a mix of confusion and fear. He opened his mouth to say something and then his eye rolled back into his head and he slumped to one side.

Shawn felt Feddler's emotions welling inside of him. The Imp was filled with a pleasurable sense of bloodlust. But, just then, Shawn also felt a trickle of fear push out of Feddler, followed by a sliver of shame.

"We did it." Feddler remarked, unable to hide that small sliver of fear and shame from Shawn.

"Congratulations!" Mr. Clayton rejoiced. He was still sitting on the curtain rack above looking down upon Shawn with an ear to ear grin. "You did it! You won the big prize! You killed Bradford!"

"And the prize is......MEEEEEEE!" Mr. Clayton elated.

"All you have to do now, is be the new ventriloquist! You can replace Bradford. You and I can finally be together, the way it was supposed to be when this whole circus thing started! Well, before the Circus was destroyed at least.....Yucka Yucka!!"

"Don't trust him." Feddler warned Shawn. "He destroyed the Circus. He destroyed Delilah. It's his fault that Bobby is gone. He convinced Bradford to take his anger and revenge out on you. He even destroyed Bradford in the end. If you become the ventriloquist he will be the end of us both!"

Shawn stepped back from Bradford's corpse, trying to avoid getting more blood on him than he had to. I don't trust him, but if he was powerful enough to destroy the Circus, we need him on our side. He knows stuff we need. Together we can use him - we just need to make sure we don't trust him like Bradford did.

He looked up at Mr. Clayton coolly. "First, you need to keep your word and fix Eddy. And before I even think about becoming your ventriloquist, you have to pay me back. You said you'd stay out of our fight, but you helped Bradford kill that other me. So I want a favour. Once that's done, then we can talk about the future."

"Hahahahaha!" Mr. Clayton gave a mirthless chuckle.

There was a 'clickety-clack' sound as he unhinged himself from the sitting position and then jumped onto the floor, wooden limbs jangling.

"You did a good job killing Bradford. I never liked that boy. He was a real cry-baby. Anywho, I'd love to help ya' out there Shawn. But you know what they say, a dummy is just a dumb-dumb without his ventriloquist.  Yucka!! Yucka!!"

"That's the problem. I actually can't help you out. Not until you become my ventriloquist. Until that happens, I'm just a dummy. Just a wooden dummy."

"He wants you to take him over. And then, he'll probably take us over." Feddler exclaimed with a sense of foreboding. "He's...a parasite. Like one of those ticks in the forest. Or a vampire."

I know he'll try to do that, but we're not Bradford. We know it's coming. We can take him over, use him, then get rid of him if he ever tries anything. Shawn was trying to send his mindset in Feddler's direction, hoping the imp would see where he was coming from.

Shawn looked Mr. Clayton up and down. "So what would I have to do? To become your ventriloquist? I need your power to fix things." Right now, he was stalling with questions - he wanted to make sure he had Feddler on board before he went any further with Mr. Clayton.

But Feddler wouldn't agree.

"Don't do it!" He warned. "He'll be the end of us both. He'll be the end of everything! Can't you see it's a trick? He wants you to be the new Bradford. And you'll end up just like the old Bradford!"

"All you have to do is put your hand up my back" Mr. Clayton said innocently. "That's it. It's not a trick. It's not complicated. Once you do that, you're the new ventriloquist. Then we can get to start fixing things around here. We'll fix Eddie. We'll fix your family. We'll fix everything."

"Everything will be just like it always was supposed to be. Only better."

I know it's a trick! But look at him - he's still moving and talking, and I don't know if we can kill him. If I don't do this, he'll find another Bradford and the whole thing will start over again. This way we can figure out his weakness. Shawn tried to keep his inner argument from his face he looked up at Mr. Clayton.

Shawn moved forward and slightly sideways, trying to see where he was supposed to put his hand. "That's all it takes? What about all those tapes and stuff Bradford used?"

"That's all part of it. That's part of perfecting the act. Your act" Mr. Clayton also moved closer to Shawn. Or rather, glided closer to him.

"But becoming the Ventriloquist. That's something you have to decide to do. Only you can make that decision. But you won't make it alone." Mr. Clayton clarified.

"I'll be there. Together we can become the best act ever. Together we can make sure that all of the bad things that happened when the Circus came about are put right."

Shawn wasn't sure if Feddler's silence was approval or just giving up on the argument, but Shawn had made his case and now he had to commit. "All right. We need to fix things." He stepped forward and put his hand up Mr. Clayton's back...

Shawn approached Mr. Clayton and their eyes met, a look of anticipation passing between them, as if Shawn's decision was something that would affect them both forever. A faucet somewhere in the house was dripping into a sink, each drop reverberating around the room like a cymbal, yet neither Shawn nor Mr. Clayton blinked or acknowledged the sound. Outside there was no traffic or cricket song, and by all accounts it must have been midnight - the time in which today becomes tomorrow.

The Puppet's back was cool and wooden, as Shawn slipped his hand under the fabric of Mr. Clayton's outfit. Up close, he could see the clothing was cheap and poorly made. The black overcoat had several moth or insect holes and the seams were frayed and falling apart, the stitching loose and sloppy.

Shawn's hand traveled up into the hole that would lead to the Puppet's mouth. He felt the inner grooves of Mr. Clayton's interior lined with patchy, well-worn fabric.

Then there was an audible 'CLICK' sound. Shawn's hand was suddenly firmly gripped by the interior of the Puppet, near Mr. Clayton's mouth, the way handcuffs might click on a prisoner. Suddenly, Shawn couldn't move his hand. It was firmly stuck inside the puppet, unable to move or to bend at the wrist.

Mr. Clayton said nothing. The Puppet's mouth slowly opened and Shawn felt his hand involuntarily move as the Mr. Clayton's mouth opened to a gaping maw.

Shawn took a deep breath, assuming he'd be fighting back panic, but it seemed at least part of him had anticipated something at least a little like this. He sat himself down on a non-bloodstained part of Bradford's bed, and sat Mr. Clayton down on his lap like one of those old ventriloquist shows. "I'm your ventriloquist now, so now you have to fix Eddy."

As soon as Shawn spoke the words "I'm your ventriloquist now", he felt a deep, radiating warmth coming from the center of his chest and then pushing down into the abdomen of his stomach.

Somehow he knew that things were about to change, probably forever.

OOC: Shawn joins thread

Shawn's Childhood Act II: Passage of time