“As you can see, the rubber bands can’t pass through each other. But, if I blow on them just a little, and poof! They are separated once again.”

The group of college kids stared at me in utter disbelief. The simple trick I had just performed could be learned in thirty seconds from a YouTube video, but somehow these morons just couldn’t wrap their heads around it. Even after I handed them the rubber bands, they still thought there was some trick to them. After they left my little impromptu magic stand, one of them was decent enough to slide me a five dollar bill.

As the group left, I figured it was time for me to head out as well. Normally I’d stay out later to see if I could get some more donations from the drunks. It was cold out, though, and apparently it would be snowing soon. The whole street magician side gig wasn’t that great during winter anyway. I packed up all my items into my briefcase and folded up the table one of the local bars had let me use. Then, I started walking back to my apartment.

As I made my way home, snow began to fall from the sky and the wind picked up. I pulled my scarf up to cover my face and shield from the wind, quickening my pace. I’d have to start taking shortcuts if I wanted to make it home before the weather got too bad.

I ducked into a nearby alleyway on the way back to my apartment. Normally I would never consider this route because homeless people would sit here and beg for money, but I’d do pretty much anything to get out of this weather. As I hastily walked through the alleyway, I was reminded of the possibility that somebody might jump me and take the meager amount of money I’d made tonight. It hadn’t happened to me before, but the thought usually deterred me from taking this route.

Just as I was about to leave the alleyway, I felt someone pulling my shoulder. A sense of dread came over me. The pulling got stronger, taking hold of my entire arm. Was this really how my day was going to end? As I was slowly dragged further and further into the depths of the alleyway, I turned around. Instead of seeing the face of my attacker, I was instead confronted with an otherworldly light. Then, everything faded to darkness.

Circus Freaks

Recommended Music:
Snowpeak Ambiance

I slowly awakened to find myself covered by a layer of snow. It felt like I’d been out for a long time, and I was extremely cold. I sat up and looked around. Instead of seeing the alleyway, I saw bushes and trees.

”What on earth? Have I been kidnapped?” I thought to myself.

A snow-covered briefcase, nearly identical to my own, lay on the ground nearby. It was far too big to be mine. In fact, everything in this forest was big. It felt like I was looking through the eyes of a child.

I fully stood up, feeling more snow fall off my body. I didn’t see anyone standing nearby. There were no people, no cars parked nearby, not even tracks in the snow. How did I get here? With no other leads, the only thing I could think to do was open the massive briefcase lying on the ground in front of me. I trudged through the thick snow, the cold only getting worse. When I reached the briefcase, I placed my hands on the locks of the briefcase.

Now that I had placed my hands within my vision, I could see that something was horribly wrong. My palms had been replaced with yellow stubs, three claw-like fingers at the ends. Looking down at my chest, I saw some kind of brown chest plate, my scarf sitting on top of it. Talon-like feet were planted in the snow where I was standing, and a long tail swished behind me.

“This can’t be,'' I thought to myself. “This is all a… trick. Someone's messing with me. This is some kind of costume. It has to be.”

I tugged on the bulky stub covering my left forearm, trying to pull apart the costume. As the tugging didn’t work, I started clawing at my arm, leaving scratches that stung badly. Still unconvinced, I patted my whole body down, grabbed my tail, felt my misshapen head. Everything felt unbelievably real.

With the horror of the situation quickly settling in, there was still one thing left for me to do. The briefcase was still in front of me. I snapped the locks on the sides open and pushed the case open. Sitting inside the briefcase was my deck of cards, my rubber bands, a set of metal cups and rubber balls, my interlocking rings, goddamn EVERYTHING I used for my performances!

My panic had fully set in. There was no doubt about my situation anymore. I had been made into some unrecognizable creature and ditched in the woods. The only things here with me were my scarf and my briefcase.

As much as I wanted to just fall to my knees and mope around, the wind was only getting stronger and the snow heavier. I couldn't stay there, wherever there was. I shut my briefcase, snapped the locks back down, and dragged it with me as I tried to make my way through the woods.

My briefcase and scarf had to be the least useful things that could've been left with me. No jacket, no boots, no gloves. It wasn't like they’d fit me in this alien body, but the sentiment would’ve been nice.

I did start to regret taking the briefcase with me after a while. The briefcase was well over half my size, and this new body wasn't very strong. The briefcase was all I had, though. I couldn’t leave it behind.

The harsh wind just made everything worse. The snow I was buried in had made me wet, too. I had to find somewhere to warm myself, to get out of the snow. I couldn’t stay there much longer. Unfortunately, I had no idea where to go.

After what felt like an hour of hopelessly marching through the snow, I could feel my body giving in to the icy weather. I didn’t get far at all, and I was already drained. I collapsed to the ground, clutching my oversized briefcase for some sense of safety. My legs went completely numb as the snow continued to pile on.

My vision started getting blurry and everything began fading. I knew this was it, and there was nothing I could do about it. Through the howling of the wind and the swaying of the trees, I heard something. I could hear the distant sound of voices coming my way.

The voices got closer, but I couldn’t understand anything they were saying. Everything was muffled so nothing made sense to me. I tried to respond, but all I could do was mumble incoherently as everything slowly faded away.

Recommended Music
Untitled - Warmth Remix

I slipped back into unconsciousness. During that time, I had very odd dreams. I never really dreamt that often, and when I did my dreams were usually pretty grounded. For some reason now, though, my dreams were incredibly abstract and I was strangely lucid. I could see colorless forms surrounding me, and they appeared to be moving.

One of these formless energies was suspending me in the air, and it was burning hot. My frozen body was still numb, but feeling slowly returned to me thanks to this strange energy. Eventually, the energy dropped me to the ground and the cold returned once more.

While I was on the ground in my dream, I realized I was unable to move. I was shivering uncontrollably. Things started to get foggy from there. The energies I saw before danced around me. Some of them left my short field of vision and disappeared, and the few that remained grew less detailed.

For a while I just laid there and observed these energies. The cold started to dissipate more as one of the energies produced some glowing structure beside me. I couldn't tell what it was, but it was warm.

The warmth from that structure sank deeper and deeper into my body. As it did so, the energies I’d observed started to take clearer shapes. All the shapes were totally different from each other. One looked like a horse, another like an egg with a bigger, humanoid shape behind it. Their forms were still hazy, though.

Hours as I slowly continued to build up warmth. I was lucid for every second, and I was slowly building up the strength to wake myself up. Once I finally had that strength, I forced my eyes open and slowly took in my surroundings.

I was covered in and laying atop a mess of blankets. I was still in the strange yellow body I’d found myself in earlier. There was a large campfire nearby with a cooking spit and pot above it. None of these things were enough to stop me from feeling cold, but they helped nonetheless. I then looked around the makeshift camp, and what I saw horrified me.

The shapes I’d seen in my dreams were still there, but now they looked real. The horse I’d seen was lying down beside me. Its mane was made of pure fire instead of hair, however. It seemed to be looking at something, and I could hear someone talking to it.

“A burning… horse,” I muttered.

The horse suddenly turned to face me, seemingly surprised. “Hey, you’re finally awake,” it said.

It fucking spoke to me. The horse spoke perfect English, and it sounded like a woman.

“That’s funny. I’ve never seen an Abra before. Even when you're awake, your eyes still make it look like you're sleeping.”

“How are you… speaking?” I asked weakly.

She gave me a weird look, like I was crazy. “With my mouth? Are you feeling okay?”

I was so confused. Did I actually wake up? Was I still dreaming?

“A common symptom of hypothermia, I’m afraid,” another voice explained. “Sometimes poker-on get confused because blood can't flow to their brain properly. It ought to wear off in a few minutes, I’m sure.”

The sudden mention of poker didn't make any sense to me, but the thing saying it made even less sense. It was a gray pig that was bouncing on a spring. It didn't have any legs. In fact, the spring seemed to be functioning as its legs. It was also wearing a giant top hat on its head with holes poked through it to allow its ears to pas through.

“How are you holding up, boy? You feeling any better?” It asked me, seemingly moving its mouth. Its voice just projected into the air around it. At least the horse’s explanation made physical sense.

I was still very cold and shivering. It could’ve been a lot worse though. “I guess I’m alive,” I answered.

“Now that’s the optimism I was hoping to hear!” The pig joked. “I go by the name Master Spoink. Do you use any names?”

“Uh… Kenneth Boyle. Most people just call me Kenny, though.”

“Quite a name you’ve got. Did you come up with it yourself?”

“No? My parents gave it to me when I was born.”

“Your family named you? That’s pretty unique. Don't know many families who do that. Usually not so elaborate, either,” Master Spoink said as he bounced over to the campfire. A ladle started floating in the air in front of him and started pouring liquid into two cups. “Would you like a drink?”

“Sure,” I replied. One of the cups floated over to me. I sat up, doing my best to keep the blankets from falling off, and picked up the cup with my strange, new hands. The liquid inside was hot, and it had a sweet smell.

“It’s just tea, although there is some pecker berry juice in there for added flavor,” Master Spoink explained.

“Um… sounds good?” I had no idea what a pecker berry berry was. I just drank what was in the cup without question. There was no reason to distrust these creatures considering they saved my life. The tea was definitely sweet, but the added warmth was more important.

“If we knew it’d be snowing out here, we would've brought spear berries and made stew.”

I wasn't really paying attention to anything the Spoink guy said. None of the foreign things he was talking about were registering in my head. Nothing was making sense to me. All these weird creatures, the strange words, my own body.

“So, Kenny, what were you doing out here? You're clearly not a wild poker on.”

“I’m sorry, but I have no clue what a ‘poker on’ is,” I told him.

“Are you having trouble hearing me?” Master Spoink asked. “Pokemon. Po-kay-mon. You know, like us?”

”Pokemon? Like that stupid kid game my brother used to play?” I thought to myself.

“So you still haven’t told me what you were doing out here,” Master Spoink pointed out.

“Oh, uh… I don’t really know how else to put this, but I don’t really know how I got here myself,” I explained. “I just kind of woke up out here with my briefcase.”

“Really? I must say, that’s almost as strange as the very weather we find ourselves in.”

“What, the snow? It’s the middle of winter, what’s weird about that?” I asked.

The flaming horse from earlier burst out laughing. “Yeah, maybe up in the Air Continent.”

“The Air Continent?”

“Did you bang your head somewhere?” The horse asked sarcastically. “It’s just north of the Grass Continent. Where we are, right now.”

“I don’t… what?” At this point, I was so unbelievably confused. Was I even on the same planet anymore?

“Hold up, Rapidash, I think I know what’s going on here,” Master Spoink said. “We got an Abra who woke up in the middle of nowhere, has no idea how he got there, is completely unaware of the continent he’s on, and he’s got a human name. We’ve all heard enough of Octillery’s stories to understand what’s going on here.”

I started to panic. ”There are stories about us? What do these things think about humans? Will they see me as some kind of monster now?”

“You're not suggesting Octillery’s stories are real, are you?” The horse, Rapidash, asked. “They're just fairy tales he tells to little kids to get a few hundred poke from their parents.”

“Well real or fake, our friend here at least believes himself to be human,” Master Spoink said.

”Wait, if humans are just fictional stories around here, why is he so willing to jump to such a wild conclusion?” I wondered.

“Of course, there's always the chance he’s making this all up or is just delusional. That wouldn't explain the decades of memories he’s got bouncing around in his head. All so detailed, and alien too. How do humans build cities like that?”

”Wait, memories? Has he been reading my mind!?”

“My lord, Monferno puts up better defenses than you, Kenny.”

“Wha- how can you do that?” I asked.

Master Spoink let out a long fit of laughter. “It's one of the first things psychic types learn next to guarding their own thoughts. You're worse than a freshly hatched psyduck.”

“Wait, can I do that too?”

“Well of course. You're a psychic type yourself. Most of us pick that up when we're children.”

“Well it's not like I’ve had much time to practice.”

“Clearly. You’re talking with your mouth rather than your mind. Most psychics figure that part out first.”

“Hold up, Spoink, are you being serious right now?” Rapidash asked. “You're saying we found some mythical hero freezing to death in the middle of the woods?”

“Wait, hero? I’m a fucking street magician, not a warrior.”

“So that’s what all the trinkets in your briefcase were for!” Master Spoink exclaimed.

“Hey, did you search through my stuff?”

Rapidash answered. “Well when we found you clutching a briefcase way too big to be yours, Cacturne guessed it was full of stolen goods.”

“You know, the human thing also explains why he didn't just use telekinesis on the briefcase,” Master Spoink pointed out. “Still wondering why you didn't just ditch it, though.”

“Well I figured if I was gonna die in the middle of a blizzard after being transformed into a yellow monster and dropped on an alien planet, I’d like to die with my stuff.”

“I suppose I understand,” Master Spoink said. “You are very lucky we found you out here. We almost turned around entirely because of the snow.”

“So what made you decide to go through it?” I asked.

“Excellent question! We’re traveling to a place out west called Anchor Town. You see, we are all performers in the Great Grass Circus. We travel all around the continent and put on shows for the fair people of this land, and the mayor of Anchor Town is expecting us next week.”

It was all so ridiculous to me. My day had taken such a wild turn. First I was transformed into a creature from a kids game. Then I nearly froze to death, and the only reason I survived was because a circus crew found me.

“So, Kenny,” Master Spoink said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “You said you practice magic, right?”

“Oh, not real magic. We call it ‘magic’ in the human world because it looks like it should be impossible, but in reality there's usually some kind of trick behind it. It's mostly done as a form of entertainment, and it’s done through a variety of methods. Sleight of hand’s what I specialize in. ”

“Interesting. Do you think you could show some of your ‘magic’ by chance?” Master Spoink asked.

I was not expecting him to put me on the spot like that. I really wasn’t feeling up to performing a magic trick since I was still pretty cold. Would it be rude to tell him no though? After all this hospitality, I didn’t see why I couldn’t do a simple card trick or something.

“I… guess I could show a simple card trick,” I offered.

“Splendid!” Master Spoink said before suddenly turning around toward the rest of the camp. “HEY EVERYONE! OUR FRIEND HERE HAS SOMETHING TO SHOW US!”

And at that moment a whole crowd of magical animals walked over to me. A big black fox looking thing, a mud covered rabbit, a monkey with a flaming tail and so many more just surrounded me. I’d performed for some large groups in the past, but they'd never been so… diverse.

“Now folks, I don't want any of you to panic, but sitting before you now is a genuine human!” Master Spoink told the group.

I wasn’t expecting him to out me just like that. The group immediately erupted into a mess of questions and doubts among each other. Master Spoink reassured everyone that he’d verified it himself and that I could be trusted. The full process of calming everyone down took several minutes. They all seemed to trust him, though, even when he was spouting what must've been the most bizarre claim they’d ever heard in their lives.

“Now, back to the original topic,” Master Spoink said. “Mr. Kenny here is something of a performer himself. The briefcase is full of tools he uses in his performances. Cacturne, would you bring him that briefcase?”

“Whatever you say, boss,” a big cactus person said mockingly before walking away from the group. He returned holding my briefcase and tossed it on the ground in front of me.

Now I had to come up with a good trick. I didn't think I’d really be able to perform any sleight of hand considering I didn't have any practice with my current hands. “Maybe a simple math trick will work,” I thought. ”The suit gods trick should be easy enough.”

I took a deep breath and opened my briefcase. A few of my things were clearly misplaced, but I found my deck of cards relatively quickly along with a purple tablecloth I used for some of my tricks. My briefcase didn't have a very smooth surface, but the tablecloth would help. It would also soak up some of the moisture and keep my cards in better condition.

“Alright, you’re all familiar with a standard deck of cards, right?” I asked the group.

“Of course,” a tall, female black fox answered. “56 cards with two sets of numbers on each end of the card. None of the cards are identical, and they come in two colors. People play all sorts of games with them.”

Of course their cards were alien. Great.

I spread out my deck of cards in front of them and proceeded to explain the 13 ranks and four suits. They seemed confused at first, but they grasped the basics relatively quickly. There was an octopus in the group that seemed very fascinated by the cards, particularly the Jacks, Queens, and Kings.

“Bloody fascinating,” he muttered in a strange Australian accent. “Is that what humans look like?”

“Uh… an artist’s depiction of human royalty, so not entirely accurate but close enough,” I explained. “Anyways, it's good that you pointed them out because this trick involves them.”

I picked out the Jacks, Queens, and Kings from every suit except for Spades, leaving me with the face cards from the Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds. I placed them into three spread out groups sorted by suits.
“Now, as you can see, we have the royalty sorted by their suits here. Now, I’m going to shuffle these so that I don't know how these cards are arranged.”

I then proceeded to set up the trick. I shuffled the individual decks face down and set them down on the table in three separate groups one card at a time at a time.
Once the decks were sorted, I let my “audience” tell me the order to place my decks on top of each other. Once my full, 9 card deck was made, I split the deck a couple of times to make sure it looked random. Finally, I placed the cards into two separate piles one at a time and placed one pile on top of the other.

“Now you can all agree that there's no way for me to know how these cards are sorted, right?”

The group nodded.

“Excellent. Now, there's a reason why humans have their card decks sorted into four suits,” I explained in an ominous voice. “You see, there is power in each suit, and we can call upon them to make certain things happen. So now, I will sort the royalty back into their original piles with the powers of the suit.”

Now I had my audience’s full attention. This trick was the perfect choice for a group that knew next to nothing about human beings.

“Alright, now it's time for me to call upon the power of the suits. We’ll start with the clubs.”

I then proceeded to spell out the word “club”, moving cards from the top of the deck to the bottom with each letter I spelled out. When I reached the letter B, I placed a card down.

I repeated the process for the word heart and the word diamond, placing them down into two more decks, giving me three separate decks in total.

“Now, just to make sure you guys don't think there's any trickery here, I’m going to place these down backwards.”

I then spelled out each word again, going from diamond to club this time around. That part was essential to the trick as it wouldn't work without it.

With the last three cards in my hand, I told the audience, “I’m just gonna speed this last part up.” I then placed the last three cards on each deck in the same reverse order as I’d done last time. “Now, if the powers of the suits have answered me, these face cards should be once again organized under their proper suits.”

That was always the part that made me nervous more than anything. I had to trust I remembered all the steps correctly. I proceeded to flip the decks over and spread the cards out, showing that the face cards had indeed been reunited under their proper suits.

The group before me was surprised, and a short applause followed my trick. They whispered among each other about how I’d done it. If these human cards actually were magical in some way. The Cacturne guy seemed very skeptical of the trick’s magical elements and he got into a back and forth with a fiery monkey while a bipedal cat creature tried to mediate the argument.

“There’s no other way you can explain something like that!” The monkey argued.

“You’ve gotta be the most gullible idiot in this camp if you really believe any of that was ‘magic’,” Cacturne said.

“Now, now. Neither of you have the knowledge to prove or disprove your beliefs,” the cat thing said.

“If Monferno had any capacity for knowledge, you two would still be in a rescue team.”

“Are you asking for a fight? As a rescue team, we dealt with dirtbags like you on a near daily basis. I could bury you in the ground without breaking a sweat!” the monkey, Monferno, threatened with a raised fist.

The fight between the two started to really get out of hand. The threats from both sides got more and more detailed. Monferno’s fist suddenly ignited with flame.

At that point, Master Spoink spoke up. “Kenny, I believe it would be best if you explained your trick to the audience.”

I nodded and proceeded to set the trick back up. I ran through all the motions again, but this time with the cards face up. I explained that all the “shuffling” I did was just to get the cards into the position I needed them to be in. I explained that splitting the deck didn't really change the order of the cards in any substantial way. By the end of my explanation, the group was a little lost on the details, but they all understood it wasn't real magic.

“Well now I feel stupid…” Monferno mumbled.

“You are,” Cacturne said before looking over at me. “That is an interesting trick though. How do you figure something like that out?”

“Well my friends and I practiced for years and we, uh…” I trailed off as I tried to think of how to explain a YouTube video to the clearly primitive group.

“Well if you’re so talented, what would you say about joining us?” Master Spoink suddenly offered.

“Woah, I don't know about that. I'm not really a performer, I can't do circus work.”

“Don't be modest,” the black fox woman said. “I’m sure we could fit your magic tricks in somewhere.”

“Besides, it’s not like you have anywhere else to go,” Master Spoink pointed out.

He had a solid point. I didn’t really know where I was, I didn’t really know any of these creatures, and I didn’t really have any other skills. I still wasn’t too sure how much trust I could put into these things. They hadn’t betrayed my trust, though. On the contrary, they’d saved my life, treated me with hospitality, and were nothing but polite to me. ”Maybe this wouldn’t be a bad idea…” I thought.

“Alright, I can stick with you guys for now.”

“Excellent!” Master Spoink cheered. “Everybody, welcome Kenny to the circus!”

The whole group raised whatever appendages they had and let out a loud cheer. I figured I made the right choice for the time being. Just a few hours prior, I’d believed I was about to die. Now, it seemed I had a whole new life ahead of me.