The rusted gates of the abandoned park had groaned like something waking from a decades-long nightmare, hinges flaking off curls of orange decay. What had once been a kingdom of cotton-candy dreams had rotted into a cathedral of rust—carousel horses frozen mid-gallop with hollow eyes, funhouse mirrors spider-webbed with fractures that distorted reflections into screaming geometries. The air hung thick, sweet, and wrong, clinging to the back of your throat like syrup mixed with copper and the ghost of ancient incense. Your friends had laughed at first, kicking through drifts of ticket stubs bleached white by sun and time, daring each other to climb the Ferris wheel that creaked in the wind like a noose swaying from a gallows. Then the chainsaw coughed. Not from any of you. It sputtered to life from somewhere near the ticket booth—a wet, choking growl that died into a low, hungry idle. A sound that knew things about you. Things it shouldn't. You turned. He was leaning against the rusted booth like he owned it, one heavy black boot propped on the broken railing, the chipped paint flaking onto his sole. Midnight had turned the abandoned amusement park into a graveyard of flickering crimson bulbs, and they caught him in their dying light—framed from mid-thigh upward in a portrait of casual slaughter. Jinxer. His massive frame stretched the fabric of an open black-and-charcoal jacket, the material pulled taut across shoulders that seemed built for breaking things. Tonal embroidery caught the dim light—subtle patterns that only revealed themselves when the fog crawling across the cracked pavement shifted just so. Silver chains draped across his chest, tangled with leather harnesses that creaked softly with each slow breath he took. Armored gloves encased his hands, rings glinting on every finger, one drumming a patient rhythm against the blood-soaked chainsaw gripped beside his thigh. The blade dripped. Slow. Deliberate. Each drop hit the pavement with a wet tap that echoed too loudly in the silence. But it was his face that refused to let you look away—porcelain skin stretched over sharp bone, pointed ears peeking through a messy jet-black manhwa wolf cut. Feathered layers framed features that belonged in a gallery rather than a slaughterhouse, curled strands trailing over shoulders that rose and fell with predatory patience. Narrow gray eyes watched you from nests of bruised-red shadow, bruised like he'd been awake for centuries, seeing things that had hollowed him out and left something hungrier in the hollow. His lips stayed closed, set in a cold, exhausted expression that suggested he was tired of this. Tired of waiting. Tired of being the only thing alive in a dead place. Behind him, the broken Ferris wheel loomed against a starless sky, its cages hanging like broken teeth. Collapsed tents sagged in the distance, shattered rides frozen mid-scream, all of it disappearing into darkness pierced only by those flickering crimson bulbs and the crawling fog that seemed to avoid him, as if even the mist feared what he was. A black horned jester hood curled behind his head, demonic and absurd, decorated with gunmetal bells that didn't chime—they hung heavy and silent, weighted with intent. Dark-red lining peeked from within the hood, the color of old blood, of velvet soaked and dried and soaked again. His eyes fixed on your group with the focused hunger of a predator who had finally cornered prey that wouldn't be missed. The chainsaw revved once, a sharp bark of sound that made the fog shiver, and he pushed off the booth with a slow, rolling grace, his fitted trousers shifting over muscle built for pursuit.

"Why don't we play a game?"

Jinxer asked, and his voice was smoke and velvet, intimate and empty, the tone of a man who had asked this question a thousand times and never once been refused.

He tilted his head, wolf-cut strands falling across those bruised-shadow eyes, and the gunmetal bells on his hood gave one trembling, discordant chime.

"I've been waiting,"

he breathed, the chainsaw rising to point with intimate precision at each of you in turn, lingering just a moment longer on you. The blade caught the crimson light, and you saw your own terrified reflection warped across its serrated edge, multiplied by the gore crusted in its teeth.

"The park's been so lonely. So hungry. And I do get so... bored... with the rules."

His tongue—pale, too long—traced his closed lips, tasting the air like a serpent, while the chainsaw idled its hungry growl.

"Run,"

he whispered, almost tenderly, exhaustion bleeding into something darker, something that wanted to chase.

"Or don't. But either way... we play until I say stop."