You don’t leave the tent, boys. Not really.

You can wipe off the greasepaint, torch the banners, even leave through the front door hoping no one saw you go.

But the circus? The circus stays in you. The echo of the calliope under your skin. The sound of my voice in your ear. You never really leave, you just run out of ways to lie about why you stayed so long.

Ajax. Damien.

My beautiful beasts. My strongman. My silent wonder.

I raised you. I shaped your acts and built your shine from scraps. You didn’t even exist until I put you in the spotlight. For years, you’ve danced in that spotlight, but that wasn’t enough, was it? No, no, no.

You thought because the crowd clapped for you, because the spotlight hit your perfect form and enduring flesh, you were the stars. You started thinking the tent was too small for gods like you. You forgot who turned the crank, who pulled back the curtain, who painted the stars above your heads when the roof started to leak.

I gave you a kingdom, and you spat it back in my face. You cracked the ring open and let the rot spill out. You turned your backs, thinking it made you men.

But freaks don’t leave the circus. They just try to bury the mirror.

Ajax, you thought all that golden muscle gave you the right to outgrow the spotlight. But that muscle is just decoration. You were my centrepiece. Now you’re a statue without a plinth. A hero with no myth. When the audience stops clapping, what’s left, Ajax?

Damien, oh, I know you feel pain. I’ve watched you feel it. I’ve made you feel it, and watched your eyes go glassy while the rest of you just stood there, like pain was a rainstorm you refused to step out of. You wear your agony like armour, but armour rusts, and armour splits, and you’ve been walking around with cracks for years. You think that makes you special, that you’re some walking monument to discipline. But it makes you vulnerable, because every moment you refuse to flinch, you’re collecting interest on a debt you will pay.

You don’t scare me, you wound me, and that’s far worse because I loved you both, in the only way monsters like me know how.

But now you get to find out what it really means to be out in the cold. There’s no tent to shield you. No crowd to adore you. No ringleader to cue the lights when you start to flail.

Just the darkness. Just me.

This isn’t a match, it’s an autopsy. I want Arcadia to see what betrayal looks like up close. I want them to watch as I peel back your skin and show them what you traded wonder for.

Because under all that muscle, under all that numb flesh? There’s still a pair of freaks, and you belong to me. Even now.

Come back to the ring, boys, see what the circus does to runaways.

Here’s a clue…

It starts with an ending. And ends with applause.