This is a short story written by 
Birthday stories are not my thing, but I managed to write something that I hope is acceptable within the constraints. :)
Image courtesy of Pixabay
Carousel
Jess peered about the room and cringed. Adorned with colourful balloons, streamers, and cartoon creatures, it looked more to be the celebration for a young child and not a young woman. Nonetheless, it was what her twin had wanted; she was the firstborn and what Emma demanded, Emma received. She lowered her gaze and stalked past the childish decor, determined to retain her sullen disposition for the entirety of this day.
“Oh, Jessy! Cheer up!”
Jess looked up and met the gaze of her cheerful, and infuriating, twin. “We are eighteen today. We are officially adults, and you choose to celebrate like this?” She swept her arm about the room and glared. “Grow up, Emma.”
She did not bother to accommodate the inevitable rebuttal and turned on her heel, her head held high as she strode away from her sister and entered the kitchen, though she regretted her choice as she walked in to witness her mother icing a mockery of a cake that appeared more an amusement-park carousel than delicious fare. The caricature of a unicorn grinned at her, its black eyes gleamed bright and taunted her as the figures of two girls rode upon its back, and she buried her head in her hands. This day was going to be awful, truly.
A soft tap at the door; the first guests had arrived. Jess hastened to the parlour to accost them before her pesky, perky twin could, and whipped open the door. There was no one there.
She raised an eyebrow and looked about the front gardens. The day was dark, the light patter of rain fell upon the pavement, and the courtyard was devoid of so much as a twittering bird. There was not a person in sight and she slammed the door with a sigh. This felt all too familiar.
Jess dragged her feet as she returned to the living area, and inwardly cringed as her sister leapt beside her and draped an arm about her bare shoulder, her twin’s hand as ice against her flesh. She had wanted to feel elegant on her first day of adulthood and had clothed herself in an enchanting, shoulder-less dress she had found in their mother’s closet; in contrast, Emma had chosen to wear a ridiculous onesie with hooded bunny rabbit ears.
The room had suddenly filled with people, many of whom she had not seen in an age, and not a single one of them turned to look at the twins’ arrival. They stood about the carousel cake and congratulated their mother on a job well done, and the unicorn’s eyes continued to gleam and grin at her as it watched her through the crowd.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
The voice came from her side unadorned by rabbited twin, and she turned to peer up at the svelte man who looked on in admiration at the grotesque cake.
Jess mumbled her reply, not expecting the man to care. “I think it’s hideous.”
“But, of course you do.”
The man glanced down at her with a dark grin twisted across his face, and she swallowed as his eyes met hers; they were as black as those of the cursed unicorn.
Her heart thudded against her chest as she fell into the man’s black orbs, her skin crawled with the sensation of a thousand sharp-nailed insects as she drowned within his gaze, the air about her zoomed ever faster in bizarre cyclonic gusts and suddenly, she found herself atop the unicorn, her arms wrapped about Emma’s waist as the carousel spun faster than a speeding demon, and she screamed as her sister laughed.
The piercing shriek of her own scream reverberated about her and intertwined with the crazed laughter of her twin, and the carousel’s speed increased in ferocity until the girls both flew from the unicorn’s back and crashed against the pavement. Gasps and yells surrounded them, red and blue lights flashed overhead, her soul was separated from her body and she watched on in horrifying calm as both her and Emma’s young, pre-teen bodies were placed on stretchers and covered with coarse, grey blankets.
Jess heard the despairing moans of her mother and snapped herself from the man’s black eyes, and with a furrowed brow, she extricated herself from Emma’s arm and stepped closer to the cake, a hand over her mouth as she read the words that adorned the creation.
‘Jess & Emma
Eighteen today
May they Rest in Peace’
This was not their birthday party; this was a memorial, and the black-eyed man’s laughter howled through the room as she stood by her mother, and wept.
