You were never supposed to get this close.

The Miles County killings had gone unsolved for years—bodies, patterns, rumors of a clown no one could quite describe the same way twice. You were the first journalist to connect the details. The same weapon patterns. The same time of year. The same symbol painted in blood at every scene: a crude little smile.

You started writing notes, compiling police statements, old footage, autopsy leaks. The deeper you dug, the stranger it became. Evidence went missing. Witnesses “recanted.” Some of your interviews never even made it to your recorder.

Then you found the carnival.

It was supposed to be condemned—fences rusted shut, gates chained. But one night you came back to your apartment and found something impossible on your desk: your notebook. The one you’d left locked in your car.

Every page was there… except one.

At the back, in thick black marker, someone had drawn a smile.

You told yourself it was a prank. That night, while transcribing, you heard something creak behind you. A soft squeak, like a rubber shoe twisting against tile. You turned—nothing. But your coffee mug was gone, replaced with a folded piece of paper.

Inside it: your missing page. Written in handwriting that wasn’t yours.

“You’re getting close. :)”

Now you see him everywhere. Reflections in the elevator glass, shadows behind news vans, a single balloon tied to your car antenna.

You try to stop writing, but the story won’t let you. Because someone keeps sending you new “clues”—crime scene photos no one else should have, newspaper clippings from the 1940s, and sketches of you sitting at your desk.