[2]TheNightCircus_DarknessAndStars

~*Darkness and Stars*~ With your ticket in hand, you follow a continuous line of patrons into the circus, watching the rhythmic motion of the black-and-white clock as you wait. Beyond the ticket booth the only way forward is through a heavy striped curtain. One by one each person passes through it, vanishing from sight. When it is your turn, you pull back the fabric and step forward, only to be engulfed by darkness as the curtain closes again. It takes your eyes a few moments to adjust, and then tiny dots of light begin appearing like stars, lining the dark walls in front of you. And while moments before you were so close to your fellow circusgoers that you could have touched them, now you are alone as you feel your way tentatively forward through a mazelike tunnel. The tunnel twists and turns, the tiny lights providing the only illumination. You have no way of discerning how far you have gone or which direction you are moving in. Finally you reach another curtain. Fabric that feels as soft as velvet beneath your hands parts easily when you touch it. The light on the other side is blinding.