• The laughter coursed its way through his veins, burning away all his sanity. That is to say, whatever sanity he had retained. All other emotions burned with it. His sorrow, his rage, his love, all burned to ashes in the heat of his insanity. Tears rolled down his disfigured face, dipping in and out of the cuts, burns, and pains of hours past.

    He could not stop laughing. Why couldn't he stop LAUGHING?! It was frightening, even terrifying. That is, until those too were swept into the fire. Much like the rest of his life, or what he thought COULD have been his life. He didn't really remember all that much. In fact, he was starting to forget why he'd been sad at all.

    He sat at the edge of that river for hours, laugh after laugh after laugh ripping through his shredded trachea, his blood starting to fly out with the spittle, staining the pristine snow he lay in a blood red. His face couldn't hold the strain of his inhuman smile any longer, so it too split his face, ripping the edges of his mouth open harder and far worse than any knife ever could. He continued laughing, until he passed out from blood loss.

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    He awoke to the sounds of a hospital, its sterile walls mocking the death of his wife and his unborn daughter. They hadn't been spared, so why had he? Oh yes, that's right, it's because he'd been chosen. By what? He couldn't remember. In fact, it was as if he couldn't really remember the facts of his life before he awoke, now. All he knew was that this room was far too pure, far too pristine. Far too...Orderly. He wanted to mess with it, make it scream in delight, in farce, in total Chaos. In fact, he could have sworn he heard the room telling him to. It was wailing at its forced ways, desperately wanting to be set free from the toils of conformity. So who was he to ignore the room's desperate cries for help?

    He crept out of his bed, and immediately noticed a boy in the bed next to him. The boy was obviously terminally ill, and barely had any time left. He felt so bad for the boy that he just had to make him smile. In fact, he suddenly realized, he wanted to make EVERYONE smile like him. That way, no one would ever be sad again! With this new belief, he immediately forgot whatever it was that had made him feel so down earlier.

    And so died the first victim of the insane one.

    He quietly crept over to the boy, who was playing solitaire. He had just lifted up a a card from the deck when there was a large, imposing shadow over him. He looked up to find a man in a hospital gown, his face horribly disfigured. He had large, blood redps that just seemed to stand out more against his extremely pale face. He was smiling at the young boy, and the boy immediately noticed his yellowed teeth, He was slightly put off by the man's strange presence. It seemed almost...well, evil. However, he had always been told to not judge a book by his mother (who, for some reason, never came to visit him anymore.). He tried to put on a happy face for this stranger, who obviously was a visitor for him! It was such a rare treat!

    "Hello, sir! Who are you? My name is Jonathan. Why are you here?"

    The strange man just replied to him, that slighly creepy smile never leaving his face for a moment.

    "I am a traveling clown. I stopped by today to just help you out, Johnny, my boy! Hey, do you want to see me make a balloon animal?"

    Jonathan could help himself! A real-life clown, here just for him! Someone was wishing him well! Oh, did he feel grand! THat is, until he felt the largest pain he'd ever felt in his life at his belly. He looked down, ant there was the 'clown', a large scalpel in his hand, dragging it forcefully down his stomach. Jonathan was now officially in shock, fear, and outright terror. Oh, and he mustn't forget pain. Lots and lots of mind-numbing pain. He screamed bloody murder, hoping for someone, ANYONE to help him, get him away from this MONSTER, for no other word could be applied to him. He barely registered the creature saying something to him over his cries of pain.

    "Look, Johnny, me boyo! I made a dog!"

    And a dog he had made. Out of Jonathan's lower intestines.

    Jonathan died seconds later, netting the man a second victim.

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    Half an hour later, a nurse walked through the door, and could only stare in utter horror. The John Doe who had come in last night was up and walking about, giggling like a schoolgirl. HOwever, what had her transfixed in true terror was WHY he was laughing. He was painting on the walls with red paint, making crude signs and bad puns on the walls. However, there was no red paint in the room. There was, however, a body next to the man, its chest wide open and various organs hanging out. Every so often, the giggling man would lean down, run his hands through the (very mcuh dead) young boy's chest cavity, and grab an organ, and use it as a paint tube, slathering his lifeblood over the wall. He leaned back after a moment, and clapped his hands together comically (or rather terrifyingly), taking in his "masterpiece". It was a large smiley face, grinning madly.

    He finally turned around, and noticed the horrified nurse. He slowly made his way towards her, a menacing mix of both insane comedy and promised tragedy slowly slinking its way out of his voice.

    "Why, hello there...How do you like my first piece of artwork? I do indeed think it's quite good for an amateur. However, there's always room for improvement, don't you agree? In fact, the silly goose forgot to sign a signature! That's quite the bad form, don't you agree?"

    He moved ever closer to the shocked girl, his eyes full of synthesized good cheer. In truth, they looked much more demonic, true madness and insanity coursing throughout them. He produced a bloodstained scalpel from behind his hospital gown, still warm life clinging to its blade. He spoke once more, barely a few feet from her now.

    "Would you like to help the artist finish his little piece, little lady? I hear you might make it into the news if you do! How's that sound? Up for a little fifteen minutes of fame, girlie?"

    He was standing in front of her, her breathing rapid, her heart pounding. She so wanted to run, but she couldn't escape those horrible, terrible, demented yellow eyes. They rooted her to the spot, their dark and abyssmal depths baying for her soul. And who was she, to escape? The crazed man asked her one final question, before her eyes would shut forever in neverending sleep.

    "You look so uptight. In fact, I say you should try helping me out. You might never feel sad again. Or anything else, really. I just find it necessary to ask you one thing: Why are you so serious?"

    The girl was the man's third victim. He made sure that all were sleeping soundly, a large smile upon there wide-eyed faces. He put that smile there, and he felt so...HAPPY...that he just had to laugh.

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    As he rose to leave the room, he noticed the card that was held in Johnny-Boy's little bloodstained hand. Curious, he pulled it roughly from his cold, dead hands. It was a playing card, that of a Joker.

    "Hmm...sounds about right...Hee hee~!"