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Spoilers in front! This page or section contains information pertaining to newly released content or soon to be released content.
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The Performer is the primary antagonist in The Lonely Ones. He was a circus entertainer who performed at the Carnevale, having specialized in mime-like routines. After discovering a group of three children lurking behind his stage, he takes control of one of them, Mim, and makes her part of his routine.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
The Performer is a tall Resident with thin arms and oversized hands wearing white gloves. His skin is pale wrinkled and sagging all over, from his flat ears, to his ankles, arms and face. His face is a luminous white with dark mismatched shapes around his eyes that make him look both surprised and sinister. His eyes are white with pinpricks of black and red. Black paint is smeared in a sloppy, puckered smile. His clothes consist of black socks, soft black shoes, and a loose black vest over a long shirt with black and white stripes. He has a mop of curly brown hair on his head and wears a gray beret with thin black stripes atop his head, hanging low over one flat pale ear. Hidden within his vest are various props that seemingly disappear into invisible pockets. By the end of the story, the Performer retains deep slashes to his face, revealing a chilling void in his cuts
Personality[]
The Performer is described as being full of curiosity and determination. His attention to things is sharp, noticing even Ruse staring at him from the holes in the vent on the floor. The Performer dedicates himself to his acts, enjoying the attention and praise from anyone who is entertained by his show, but will grow increasingly confused and angry if any part of his show does not go accordingly. While he is good at keeping a crowd under control, figuratively and literally, so they can laugh with him during his act, he is angered at any moment when he loses that control and ends up being the one laughed at instead. Aside from the numerous props he owns to incorporate into an act, if a child proves effective in making his show more entertaining, he will include them as part of his act and even take full ownership of them, painting their faces in a similar pattern to his own and going to great lengths to retrieve them should they go missing from his stage. The Performer prefers to surround himself with complete silence, canceling out any and every sound in his presence, any unexpected loud sounds will both paralyze and infuriate him.
Powers and Abilities[]
The Performer possesses supernatural powers that are primarily used to enhance the entertainment aspect of his routines on stage. His presence will often be marked by complete silence in whatever environment he is present.
- Mind control: The Performer is capable of controlling the mind of anyone who stares at him directly. Those who fall under his spell will find their attention strictly focused on him during one of his acts and can even become part of his show should the Performer take full control of them, allowing him to force them to perform whatever action he desires, including mimic him. The Performer can extend his power by emitting it through other living beings, such as Mim, allowing him to maintain his control over others even when he is no longer present in a room. However. this power has its limitations, should another living being under his complete control manage to regain control of their own minds, they can use his own power against him and take control of his movements in return. Should he lose his focus during a routine or should anything interrupt the viewing of his show, he will lose control of his audience. Additionally, the only way to defend against his control is by simply not looking at him directly, be it under complete darkness to not see him at all, rendering his power useless, or by focusing ones attention on things around the Performer instead, this includes his reflection through mirrors.
- Sound manipulation: The Performer can control the existence of sound, canceling any and every sound in the area when he is present. Any sound that would normally be heard can instead be played through the gramophone in his room. Although the Performer primarily prefers to create a silent environment, the absent of sound quickly gives away his presence to his target. When heavily injured, his control over sound becomes sporadic, occurring at irregular intervals and scattered.
- Living art: The Performer owns a variety of back drop paintings of scenery for theatrical productions, some of which presumably resemble locations others, such as Ruse and Mim, once knew. The Performer can take anything from within the paintings he owns and manifest them in real life as near invisible, but still noticeable, objects. Of the many paintings, he favors a painted door with black and white vertical bands. If the performer brings the door painting to life, others can also make use of it to enter after him.
- Teleportation: The Performer can teleport to any location through use of his painted door, manifesting the door on a solid surface before stepping out to complete the travel.
Story[]
The Lonely Ones[]
Chapter 3[]
After Ruse, Feast, and Mim escaped the burning Hedge Maze, they end up under the vent of the Performer's room. Ruse becomes entranced by his being. The Performer is soon aware of her presence, his eye locking onto her. As they move on, they can hear the sounds of the Performer following them, doors opening near and far at surprising speeds.
After exiting the crawl space, a trunk that had caved into the floor boards offers a way out. Remembering having seen what they needed to scale it, Ruse backtracks through the crawl space back to the Performer's room. The music he had playing was now slowed, eventually coming to a halt. Suddenly, a trap door opens above Ruse as she is discovered, his hand reaching down to grab her. She uses a bent needle she found on the floor to stab his palm, causing him to recoil back in silent pain. She takes the opportunity to escape, the sound of opening and closing doors sounding in the distance.
Chapter 4[]
After escaping from under the floorboards, the children find themselves in a room littered with props and paintings. Each painting causes them to hallucinate whatever is being depicted.
Shortly after, the Performer enters the room. Ruse and Feast hide, but Mim remains in the center. They quickly realize that he has her under some sort of spell, as she appears to be mimicking all of his actions in real-time. As he picks up prop apples around the room, he places them into his hat and jacket, doing so in such a way that it makes the items look as though they disappearing into thin air. Ruse finds herself clapping involuntarily at his routine, but the clap makes no sound. He tilts his head toward her direction, but she ducks before he can see her. His hand touches the side of her shelving unit, but does not make contact. After the Performer's shadow recedes, exiting the room, taking Mim with him, the sound of a door creaking can be heard as well as a speaker overhead telling the Performer that his act is about to begin. To Ruse and Feast's surprise, the door he exited through was a painting come to life.
Chapter 5[]
The Performer enters the theater to begin his silent act, beginning with his opening act of using an invisible rope to pull himself around the stage. He does this until reaching a table in the middle. He releases his hands and falls backwards, then bounces back to his feet to turns towards the crowd and take a bow, his barrette falling off of his head. He picks up his beret up and begins walking along the stage, accidentally tripping over the invisible rope. Ruse laughs at his performance as he gets himself tangled up in the invisible rope. Feast tries to steal back Ruse's attention.
After Feast forces her attention away from the Performer, Ruse realizes that she can no longer hear any sound. She and Feast look back to the stage. The Performer, who had gotten himself free of his invisible bounds, grabs a knife from the painting located at the back of the stage. He then opens a nonexistent door, beckoning in an imaginary visitor. He raises the knife to the invisible guest, but Ruse feels compelled to let out a warning, causing the Performer to hide the knife behind his back and act like nothing was happening.
As Ruse climbs up a ladder up to the stage's catwalks, the Performer continues his act, chopping up something with an invisible knife and periodically picking it up to hang on the hooks in the ceiling as seen in the painting. Eventually, the crate is opened and the Performer lifts Mim out, who he incorporates into his act. The Performer stands her up on the stage and begins repeatedly catching her as she tips in various directions, before making her act like a windup toy. Mim mimics the Performer momentarily spotting Ruse in the catwalks before turning his attention back towards the audience. Despite her discovery, he goes on with the show. He continues his routine, but the audience seems to lose some interest after he began to focus it away from Mim. As he struggles to find the key to wind up Mim again, his frustration causes him to lose his focus and in turn lose control of the audience who all very quickly turn their attention to laugh at him amid his struggle. To regain control of the audience he starts up his production all over again and angrily finds his barrette, pulls an invisible key out from it, and winds Mim back up. He continues on with his routine, moving onto a juggling act where she copies his motions.
After Ruse gets into an altercation with some Puppets managing the stage lights, the Performer begins throwing apples at Ruse, enraged that she interrupted his performance. One of the Puppets is quickly controlled by the Performer and forced to use the spotlight he was operating to illuminate a painted door at the end of the catwalk. The Performer steps out of the door and immediately begins advancing towards Ruse, but just before he can reach her, she jumps down on the cable of the spotlight, casing the bulb to cut out. With the theater under the cover of darkness, all sound is returned, and the door that he entered through can be heard slamming as the show comes to an end.
Chapter 7[]
The Performer reappears in an Arcade Building, entering through a painted door and takes control of Mim. He begin making boxing motions which are mimicked by both Mim and a Puppet who began to battle with Feast. Shortly after the defeat of this first Puppet, the Performer and Mim exit the building in unison, tilted forward at a 45 degree angle with a hand up to shield their eyes, acting as if they are pushing against a non-existent gale.
Chapter 9[]
Ruse and Feast find Mim in the Loading Dock, her face having been painted to match the Performers. Shortly after her discovery, they spot the Performer up high standing on top of a crate dangling from a rope and pulley over the conveyer belt. With his eyes on Mim, he bows and steps backward, disappearing from view.
After Ruse broke the crate the Performer was standing on, she finds his door painted on one of the broken sides of the box, with a crack small enough to squeeze through. She finds herself back in his room of mirrored walls and ceiling, where he is performing the same act as Mim in the loading dock. He spots Ruse and attempts to catch her, but he isn't fast enough. Ruse runs under his gramophone, which suddenly emits the sound of Feast telling Mim to snap out of her trance. The Performer winces, the sound seemingly stopping him from continuing his pursuit. Realizing that she's found his weakness, Ruse exploits this by climbing up onto the table and turning up the volume. The Performer fails to catch her, so he instead turns down the volume. Ruse responds by turning it up again, higher than before, eventually reaching deafening levels. The Performer falls to his knees in the center of the room, covering his ears with his beret as the mirrors began to shatter around him from the intensity of the noise. Ruse makes her escape back in the crack from before, but the Performer crawls after her.
Mim continues to mimic the Performer's actions. Now battling against the sliding platform of the conveyer belt, the Performer begins to close in. Ruse and Feast hug Mim, causing her to stop mirroring the Performer's actions, regaining control of herself, tears stream down her face. They take her hands in theirs and face the Performer together, who is now mimicking their actions. As they near the end of the conveyer belt, Mim uses her control over the Performer and takes a bow, forcing him to copy her action before tumbling over the edge with a terrified shriek.
Trivia[]
- The Performer's appearance and style of silent entertainment is similar to that of a mime artist.
- In the final chapter, the children used his beret to parachute off of the Carnevale.
- After picking it up, the prop apples he had put into it in Chapter 3 rolled out.