The Carnival

“Hurry up, the fair’s going to be closing soon!” I shout over to my best friend Lucy, as I run ahead towards the huge roller-coaster that the owners of the fair like to call ‘Death Plunge’.

“I’m coming!” Lucy replies, practically screaming the words so that I could hear her over the shouting of the other teenagers here.

I slow my run to a jog, as I’m waiting for her to catch up. Not so long after she had replied, I see her appear next to me, her short ponytail bouncing up and down as she runs.

“Oh my god. Look at the size of it!” I say, as we start to get closer and closer to the huge, exhilarating ride.

“Are you sure you want to go on it? I mean, it looks quite scary…” Lucy says nervously, as she spots a few of the rides passengers, screeching their heads of as they go around the daunting track, set high in the air.

“Yeah, now come on!” I say, grabbing her arm and dragging her to the back of the line of people waiting to ride.

Were not queueing for long, before we get to the front of the line. We take of any insecure belongings and move towards the roller-coaster’s cart that will take us through the ride. I take a seat at the very front, with Lucy sitting next to me. We strap our seat belts tightly, just in case.

Everyone else climbs aboard, and before I know it, we have already set off.

“What about them checking our seat belts are secure though?!” Lucy says in a scared tone. This was exactly what I was thinking too.

“Yeah, I know, but oh we-” I say, before getting cut off as we go down a huge slope. Me and Lucy, along with most other passengers, scream our heads of and close our eyes, our bodies bumping around in our seats.

I’m really enjoying the ride, until I notice my seat belt has come out of the socket it is meant to be locked in. I fumble with the two objects, trying to fit the belt back into the socket, but it just wouldn’t fit.

I am starting to panic now, as I look forward and notice that we are heading towards a huge, 360 degree loop.

“Lucy, my seat belts undone, and it wont fit back in again!” I shout, a quiver in my voice.

Lucy takes a break for a minute from screaming excitedly, and looks down. A look of horror spreads across her face, and all the colour is draining from it too. She looks terrified, just like I probably too.

Then I notice something.

Her seat belt is undone too.

“Look, your’s is undone too!” I shout, the wind blowing in my hair, making it hard for me to talk without ending up with locks of it in my mouth.

I wait for a reply, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s in shock.

Were nearing the loop now. I pray to God that he will save us, yet I think it’s too late for anything to save us now.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and wait for the worst to happen…

——–

“Prim, what’s up?! We need to get on the ride now!” I hear Lucy say, her voice sounding faint and far away.

My eyes come into focus, and I realise that in fact I am not on that disastrous roller-coaster.

“No, were not going on! NO!” I scream, like a mad woman, my voice all high-pitched, my eyes wide.

“What’s wrong?” Lucy says, grabbing me by the shoulders in an effort to calm me down.

I pull her away from the line, apologising on the way to the guard for wasting his time, and explain what had happened. She tells me it must have been a ‘vision’, whatever that is.

“Not like that will ever happen though!” Lucy laughs, as we walk towards the coffee stand to buy a drink to calm my nerves.

“Yeah, but you never know. Ever seen Final Destination?” I say. I’m still serious about the whole thing, even though Lucy’s making a joke of it.

We buy our drinks, a cup of strong, black coffee for me and hot chocolate for Lucy, and sit on a bench very close to that roller-coaster, so that we can watch it whilst we finish our drinks.

We see the people go up and up in the cart, screaming like mad as they go down the slope at full speed. Their going towards the loop now. For some reason, my whole body goes tense.

I have a bad feeling about this.

But I’m not going to stick around to see if my bad feeling comes true.