The Gift That Bleeds

Saint Nicco was supposed to be clean. The Carnival of the Damned gave him a second chance-sobriety in exchange for obedience, knives on cue, and silence where the screams used to be. But he never stopped craving the sugar. That warm, peppermint-laced poison that once dulled the shakes, quieted the ghosts, and helped him forget what his hands had done. On Christmas Eve, beneath flickering lights and snow made of ash, Nicco relapses. One hit. One high. One blade thrown wrong, and when the blood belongs to someone the Carnival has marked as its own, the punishment is brutal. No forgiveness. No escape. Only the stage. He was meant to dazzle. Instead, he becomes the finale. A holiday horror steeped in addiction, grief, and crimson snow. There are no miracles here. Only applause.