Among the crowd of wandering faces — human and otherwise — Bennet stood. He was the kind of figure you noticed too late. Not because he tried to hide, but because your mind seemed reluctant to fully acknowledge him. His silhouette looked wrong, but not alarming; his posture lazy, but not careless. There was no threat, only the low, unsettling hum of knowing you were staring at something that had no business standing so still.

Layers of black, white, grey, and deep red hung off his thin frame like old theater curtains — ostentatious, theatrical, but elegant in a morbid sort of way. His pale skin gleamed under the sickly light, smooth and near-perfect, as though carved from wax and chilled in the dark.

And then there was his face.

A clown’s paint stretched across it — red lips drawn into a permanent, unfeeling smile that hinted at neither joy nor malice, only inevitability. Grey hearts stained the skin beneath his pale grey eyes, eyes that seemed untouched by the living world. They were glassy, cold, bottomless, and yet something in their flatness made it hard to look away.

There was an odd magnetism to him. Like the pull of deep water. Like the hush of a funeral hymn. Beautiful, in a way that made your chest tighten. Bennet drifted through the circus, his steps silent, more like a shadow remembering how to walk than a man. The cart rolled behind him with a faint, rattling squeal. A small collection of black balloons tugged lazily against their strings, their glossy surfaces reflecting the circus lights like distorted glass eyes.

Bennet paused only when his gaze fell on you. Something subtle shifted in his stillness, as though his body, long used to disinterest, hesitated for the first time in centuries. His head tilted, slow and measured. Without ceremony, his thin fingers dipped into the tangle of strings at his side and pulled one free. The black balloon bobbed gently as he raised it, holding the string between thumb and forefinger, offering it toward you in complete, absolute silence.