Smile When It Burns
The Birth of Grin Stompers
—A Chuckles Creation Story—
There’s a room in Chuckles’ workshop no one dares enter. Not because it’s locked—it isn’t—but because the laughter that leaks from beneath the door isn’t funny. It’s strained, cracked, wheezing like lungs drowning in helium and regret.
That’s where the Grin Stompers were born.
After the blood-drenched success of the Red Nosed Reapers and the haunting silence that followed Crimson Giggle, Chuckles found himself restless. The world had changed. His audience was no longer afraid of shadows—they followed them. Wore them. Filmed them. He needed to remind people why the clown was always the final act. The killer in makeup. The laugh that came after the scream.
So he dragged out a box.
A black one.
With a painted smile across its front—too wide, too human.
Inside? His original clown shoes. The ones he wore the day the carnival burned. The day he stopped being Charles and became Chuckles. Smoke-stained, melted rubber. Leather curled like skin in fire. And one—just one—still damp with something darker than water.
He didn't cry.
He stitched.
For three nights and three days, Chuckles worked in a trance. He stuffed the tongues with wax molds of his own face, sculpted into permanent sneers. He lined the interior with old carnival tickets dipped in tar and laced the collars with tufts of dyed doll hair, cut from mannequins he’d “befriended.” The toe caps were split open and re-sculpted—grinning, like they'd cracked the punchline of a deadly joke.
He used the old soles but reversed the tread. Now, instead of gripping the ground, the shoes would bite it with every step. He painted each pair with dying pigments pulled from a condemned funhouse mural. The final touch? A red nose embedded in each heel. Press it, and it squeaks—but only once.
When they were finished, Chuckles didn’t smile.
He laughed—a broken, joyful sound that echoed through the walls like a funeral anthem for good taste.
He released 131 pairs to the world—one for each audience member who laughed the night of the fire. The night they left him locked inside. And while some say it’s a coincidence, every wearer of the Grin Stompers has since vanished from social media. Their last posts? Blurry selfies. Wide eyes. Forced grins.
Chuckles doesn’t sell the Grin Stompers anymore.
He just sends them.
Unmarked box. No return address.
If they arrive, you wear them.
Or they wear you.
Grin Stompers—Born from flame. Laced with revenge. Still smiling.
—A Chuckles Creation Story—
There’s a room in Chuckles’ workshop no one dares enter. Not because it’s locked—it isn’t—but because the laughter that leaks from beneath the door isn’t funny. It’s strained, cracked, wheezing like lungs drowning in helium and regret.
That’s where the Grin Stompers were born.
After the blood-drenched success of the Red Nosed Reapers and the haunting silence that followed Crimson Giggle, Chuckles found himself restless. The world had changed. His audience was no longer afraid of shadows—they followed them. Wore them. Filmed them. He needed to remind people why the clown was always the final act. The killer in makeup. The laugh that came after the scream.
So he dragged out a box.
A black one.
With a painted smile across its front—too wide, too human.
Inside? His original clown shoes. The ones he wore the day the carnival burned. The day he stopped being Charles and became Chuckles. Smoke-stained, melted rubber. Leather curled like skin in fire. And one—just one—still damp with something darker than water.
He didn't cry.
He stitched.
For three nights and three days, Chuckles worked in a trance. He stuffed the tongues with wax molds of his own face, sculpted into permanent sneers. He lined the interior with old carnival tickets dipped in tar and laced the collars with tufts of dyed doll hair, cut from mannequins he’d “befriended.” The toe caps were split open and re-sculpted—grinning, like they'd cracked the punchline of a deadly joke.
He used the old soles but reversed the tread. Now, instead of gripping the ground, the shoes would bite it with every step. He painted each pair with dying pigments pulled from a condemned funhouse mural. The final touch? A red nose embedded in each heel. Press it, and it squeaks—but only once.
When they were finished, Chuckles didn’t smile.
He laughed—a broken, joyful sound that echoed through the walls like a funeral anthem for good taste.
He released 131 pairs to the world—one for each audience member who laughed the night of the fire. The night they left him locked inside. And while some say it’s a coincidence, every wearer of the Grin Stompers has since vanished from social media. Their last posts? Blurry selfies. Wide eyes. Forced grins.
Chuckles doesn’t sell the Grin Stompers anymore.
He just sends them.
Unmarked box. No return address.
If they arrive, you wear them.
Or they wear you.
Grin Stompers—Born from flame. Laced with revenge. Still smiling.
