[Carnival] Bring on the Carnival Pt 1

Horacio—or Race as his friends like to call him for love of racing, not that he had many of those—took in the carnival grounds. The atmosphere wasn’t as exciting, colourful or loud as many would have preferred it to be. A sombre mood had taken over those still milling around, rumours of things being knocked over, games being messed up and even stalls being pushed over, not to mention the odd marks of lightning strikes without anyone having seen any lightning to begin with. 

Thyme had called for some Isomara to help look into what was going on and keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Horacio wasn’t sure he wanted to stick around all night just to see if anything happened. That sounded boring. Like, super boring. Sitting around wasn’t really his thing. Maybe checking out the lightning strikes would be more interesting. 

With that in mind, he ambled off to find one of these supposed lightning strikes. He wandered past stalls of goods and games, but was determined to stay focused. Despite the lack of enthusiasm in the air due to the disruptions, it was still very tempting to have some fun. One game couldn't hurt, right? No. He had to stay focused. He needed to find one of those lightning strikes and investigate. Horacia glanced at the sky. It was a little cloudy, but nothing to indicate that it was bad enough for a lightning storm. Weird. 

With a little more searching he found a scorch mark behind where one of the stalls was set up. He leant down to look at it more closely. The back burn marks were in a circle scorched onto the ground. Taking a deep breath he took in the smell of burning and ozone, an unpleasant mix if anyone asked and preferably not a new scented candle smell. He sat up, looking around. It was odd. Lightning usually hit tall objects, like trees and poles, even Isomara occasionally. It didn’t often go straight to the ground, not when there was so much stuff around that was taller and provided a quicker way down. 

Sitting next to the scorch mark, he stared down at it, tapping his chin in thought. What was going on? It just wasn’t adding up. Was this all some elaborate prank by someone wanting to cause trouble? If that was the case, Horacio wished they would find another way to have fun, like maybe enjoying the carnival like everybody else.