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“So, why do we have to wear these exactly?” Jax asks, looking down at the wristband put onto him by a mannequin acting as a carnival worker. Despite having no opposable thumbs—or any visible fingers, for that matter—it manipulates the item uncannily well as it clips the wristband into place. Its partner, wielding scissors that seem to just be floating at the nubs of its hands, cuts off the excess tail of the wristband and tosses it to Bubble, who swallows it whole.
“For the effect!” Caine answers. “To make it really FEEL like you’re at a real carnival!”
“Mine’s a little tight…” Pomni mumbles, twisting her wristband around her wrist uncomfortably. It’s gold, with little stars printed across it, and made of plastic. The edges keep biting into her skin.
“Come now! Come now!” Caine urges, trying to shepherd them all through the grand, glowing archway of the carnival. “This evening is going to be filled with FUN!”
Caine has taken the group on a sort of “field trip.” He wanted to replicate what a real family trip is like, so that’s probably why he woke them all up at the “a[@#] crack of dawn,” as Zooble had stated that morning, to get started on all the fun activities he had planned.
And, truthfully, it did feel like an actual family trip. There was nothing more realistic than standing, half-asleep and dazed, in your living room (or the main stage, in their case), dressed in the first, comfortable-enough pair of clothes you were able to paw for in your drowsy state (at the very least, they got to wear something other than their usual attire), squinting in the overly-bright light to keep yourself from going blind because your eyes are still sore from just waking up. Nobody’s hair (or fur, for Jax) is brushed, someone is horrifically nauseous and suffering from heat flashes from not eating enough the day before and is worried about getting yelled at for this (Pomni), someone else is sleeping standing up (Zooble), and everyone looks like a zombie. Meanwhile, Caine is zipping around with way too much energy and getting into arguments with Bubble, stressed out about “being late.”
Caine put them all through various simulations that were fun, admittedly, but didn’t warrant dragging them out of bed before the sun was even fully up. They watched a musical about Canadian kids who died on a rollercoaster, performed entirely by mannequins (Ragatha cried); went on a nature hike through a fake version of Yellow Stone National Park (Old Faithful wouldn’t go off when it was supposed to until Caine physically went inside of it to fix it, which caused him to explode out of it and through the ceiling of the simulation, leaving a ringmaster-shaped hole in his wake); and toured a history museum (Kinger was deeply interested in this). Finally, as the sun begins to kiss the sky goodnight, they’re ending their day at the carnival.
Rows upon rows of various games and food stands can be found under brightly colored tents, but the main highlight of the carnival is, of course, the rides. A giant ferris wheel, several rollercoasters (some of which look more like tangled knots of metal tracks than something tangible), a carousel, a large slide, and many other rides.
Aside from themselves and the mannequins acting as ride operators and game attendants, the carnival is eerily empty of any other people. There’s noise from the various booths and music from the speakers strung around the area, but no din of chatter or laughter or even wailing little kids, which is usually found at places like this. It’s just…vacant, an ever-present reminder that this is not reality.
But nobody besides Pomni seems to care about this, and she tries to hold the same sentiment, too, even if this borderline liminal space makes something uneasy prickle at the back of her neck.
The first thing they do is go on the biggest rollercoaster there is, at Jax’s request (read as: Jax’s demand). Pomni is shaking in her boots the whole time and nearly shreds her vocal cords by screaming in fear. Meanwhile, Jax and Zooble are whooping and hollering in excitement, and Kinger just seems to be enthralled by the twisting, turning ride.
After that, they each take turns deciding what to go on (with some occasional judgment from Jax if he thinks the decision is lame and/or boring). Pomni chooses the swings (she felt nauseous after her own pick), Ragatha chooses the ferris wheel (the only one where Pomni doesn’t scream bloody murder), Kinger chooses the tea cups (Jax makes it his personal mission to spin as fast as he can and nearly sends Pomni flying off because she got stuck in the same cup as him), Gangle chooses the drop tower (much to everyone’s surprise—and Pomni’s dismay), Zooble chooses the zipper (Pomni doesn’t even step foot on this one)—so on and so forth.
They sometimes stop to try out the various games spaced out around the carnival (and let poor Pomni’s stomach settle so she won’t vomit on herself or someone else). Jax spends at least fifteen minutes attempting to win a shooting game, and then Ragatha swoops in and wins her first try. Zooble keeps muttering in anger about how rigged the game is. Kinger is enjoying himself immensely.
It’s during a stop at one of the game booths that Pomni decides she’s had enough of sitting on a bench and strays away from the group. She strolls through the fairgrounds, and she has to admit that although it’s still creepy to be the only real people there, it’s also quite pretty. Mixed with the dusky orange-purple sky, the neon fluorescence and colorful light bulbs interspersed throughout the carnival make it shimmer in various shades of blue and yellow and green and pink. The emptiness around her seems to amplify the creaks and groans of the deserted attractions. It’s an odd mixture of beauty and desolation, a place frozen in time, waiting for the pulse of life to return. Pomni finds herself captivated by this melancholic allure.
She passes by a haunted house, which she doesn’t even make eye contact with; a pirate ship ride that looks like it would make her stomach flip upside down; a music express that is blasting some random song, which is slightly too loud and peaking the speakers; until something catches her attention.
The carousel.
Nestled beneath a grand, ornate canopy, the carousel is like a beacon in the growing darkness of twilight, radiating golden light in a halo. Its ostentatious parade of animals are galloping on and on in an eternal circle, painted in a riot of colors. The calliope music playing from the ride is like a siren’s song, luring her in.
“It’s so pretty…”
The sudden voice causes Pomni to jump. She looks to the side to see Gangle there.
“Oh,” Pomni says. “Yeah. Where are the others?”
“Trying to win a ring toss,” Gangle tells her. “I gave up and came to find you.” She looks back at the carousel, which is still marching around and around. “Do you wanna, I don’t know, ride?”
“Sure.”
They both go up to the carousel, and Pomni shyly asks the mannequin working the control booth, “Excuse me? Is it alright if we get on?”
The mannequin nods and pulls a lever on the control panel, causing the carousel to grind to a halt. Pomni and Gangle exchange smiles before clambering on.
There are several animals to act as steeds—a rhino, a lion, a polar bear, a seal, a tiger, a frog, a giraffe—and Pomni has a hard time picking which one she wants, whereas Gangle has already clambered onto the back of an elephant donned in extravagant red-and-gold silk with golden bands on its tusks. Finally, after feeling like she’s annoying the poor mannequin worker, she decides on an old reliable- a horse.
It’s a black horse with an even blacker mane and tail that is caught in an everlasting dance with the wind. Its blue saddle is heavily embellished with golden designs that are so intricate that they look like they belong in an art museum and not a digital carnival in a digital world, and its blue-and-gold bridle glistens under the canopy of lights that dance upon the carousel’s perimeter. Its pointy ears stand upright, and its mouth is open in a neigh.
It takes Pomni more tries than she would like to admit to get onto the back of the horse, but she eventually hauls herself onto the saddle. She grabs the pole sticking out of the horse and gives the mannequin worker a sheepish, apologetic smile and a thumbs up. She isn’t sure if she likes that it doesn’t have facial expressions or not because now she has no idea if she’s being judged.
Her worried thoughts about being criticized by a simple NPC are cut off by the carousel suddenly jolting into motion. Her body lurches forward, and she smacks her forehead on the pole she’s holding onto, causing her to hiss in pain. She raises one hand to rub her head, but as the carousel fully begins its movement again, and the calliope music resumes, her attention is drawn to how…nice this actually is.
At first, she had been worried that riding a carousel, something attended mostly by children and cheesy couples trying to make a real life romcom montage, would be a bit childish and embarrassing, but those thoughts quickly disappear. It’s actually quite soothing, she has to admit.
Pomni’s horse rises and falls with a mechanical rhythm, its movements uncannily lifelike despite the artificial setting. Gangle, atop the majestic elephant a few animals in front of Pomni, waves and grins at Pomni, a mix of excitement and playfulness in her eyes. Pomni shyly waves back.
The carousel’s music, a blend of cheerful melodies, weaves through the air, infusing the atmosphere with a sense of wonder and magic. It’s like all the animals around them have come to life and began marching in an elegant, graceful dance.
A sense of nostalgia suddenly comes over Pomni- nostalgia for a life she cannot entirely remember. Memories, or perhaps fragments of dreams, flood her mind. She envisions herself as a child, riding a similar carousel with a loving figure beside her, laughter filling the air. The scent of popcorn and cotton candy wafts through her senses, and the joyful cries of other children surround her.
When she looks at the figure, their face is as blank as the mannequin operating the carousel, but their hands on her waist, holding her steady on the saddle so she won’t slip and fall off, feels real. A parent, perhaps? Or maybe a grandparent? Maybe even an aunt or uncle?
She can’t remember.
“You ladies having fun?”
For the second time that day, Pomni is startled by a voice, though this one is fainter and slightly covered up by the carousel’s music. Her eyes snap open (she didn’t even realize she closed them), and the image of the figure and other children dissolve into nothingness. When she looks to the side, she briefly sees the purple flash of Jax’s fur before the carousel rotates around.
“Yeah!” Gangle replies to Jax, grinning widely.
When the carousel brings Pomni to the front again, she sees that Jax has a worrying smirk on his face, one that undoubtedly means he has mischief on the mind. She sees him start to stroll over to the side, and after the next rotation, he’s at the carousel’s control panel. The mannequin worker has been batted out of the way, and now he stands front and center. One of his hands is gripping a lever.
“Jax…” Pomni says uneasily, but she knows he can’t hear her.
“Don’t you guys think this is going a little too slow?” Jax asks before shoving the lever upward.
“Jax—!!” Pomni hears Gangle squawk before she cuts herself off with a yelp.
The carousel stutters for just a second before spurring into much faster motion than before, faster than Pomni thought a merry-go-round could go. It’s so sudden that Pomni jolts forward and is shoved into the pole by the unexpected acceleration, and she feels herself slip on the slick saddle beneath her. She wobbles unsteadily, and the up and down locomotion of her horse does not help her regain her balance in the slightest. In fact, she loses it even more, and oh how she longs for that hand on her waist from her memory to keep her in place.
Pomni’s arms flail outward instinctively in a desperate attempt to steady herself, but it doesn’t do anything to save her. Her fingers slide uselessly over the horse’s mane, unable to find a good hold to ground her, and she feels her wristband catch on one of its pointy ears, giving her hand a good yank as she tumbles off of its back. There’s this sharp tug that goes through her entire arm before her wristband snaps, freeing her from being snagged like a fish on a fishhook, and she thumps down onto the metal floor of the carousel.
She fell to the left, not the right, so she’s laying in between her horse and a deer adorned in a floral saddle, both of which are still going up and down. She’s dizzy, and the fact that the carousel is still spinning certainly doesn’t help with that. Faintly, she can hear Jax chortling as Gangle shouts at him to slow the ride down.
Woozily, Pomni reaches up with her right hand to grab at one of the horse’s back legs for support. With her left hand, she presses it firmly against the ground to boost herself up, and when she does, something white-hot and ballistic rockets its way up through her arm and into the rest of her body.
It takes Pomni a moment to realize she’s blacked out for a few seconds, and it takes her even longer to realize that sensation she felt was pain. But it’s a pain unlike anything she’s ever experienced before. Pain she didn’t even know was possible.
She looks down at her left hand and—
And—
And—
Pomni’s brain is stuttering. Buffering.
And—
What the fuck?
And—
Her mind struggles to comprehend what she’s seeing. It’s a sight that’s far beyond the realm of normalcy.
And—
Gone—
And—
Blood—
And there is blood.
And there is blood.
And there is blood.
But there is no skin.
Her hand looks like it’s been turned inside out.
It resembles that of an anatomical model, all pink and white and red, but the flesh inexplicably absent. What lies beneath is an organic, circuitry-like pattern, a bizarre mesh of interconnected lines of muscle and sinew.
Pomni then notices something laying on the ground just beside her. It’s shriveled up like a used latex glove.
It’s her skin.
The wristband is still around the piece of flesh, completely intact. It seems like when her arm got snagged on the horse’s ear, the wristband managed to drag all of her skin off with it due to the momentum of her fall. It never broke off.
Pomni slowly lifts her peeled left hand up to her face, and her mouth splits open to scream, but no sound comes out.
It’s the most horrific, grotesque thing she has ever seen before. Her hand has been completely shucked raw; even her fingernails were pulled off. Well, all except the thumbnail, which is bent backward and hanging on by only a few threads to what was once her nail bed. The entirety of the hand is smeared in a chunky red paste that is no doubt blood, but underneath it, she can see the pale pink and white of her muscle system. Tendons bunch and pull like springs, and exposed muscles vibrate with panicked tremors. Her pinky finger looks to be the most shredded out of all her fingers, most of the underlying tissue ripped off, reducing it to a dagger of bone.
The carousel is still spinning, a chaotic vortex of sounds and colors that enhance the dissociative state Pomni feels herself drifting off into. It’s like her brain is shutting down to try and save her sanity from such a mind-breaking sight, but it’s too late. She sees. And she feels.
Despite her distinct lack of skin, physical sensations are not lost on Pomni. In fact, they seem to be more intense.
There’s some kind of thin white threads spasming wildly in Pomni’s hand, and she realizes those are her nerves. And they’re aflame with excruciating sensitivity.
No skin acting as a cushion means that a light brush of the air or the slightest touch of an accidental bump from one of the carousel’s rising and falling animals is a flash-bang grenade of torture. It’s a full army assault on her pain receptors, like someone is shaving down her nerve endings on a nail file. It’s a physical sensation of nails on a chalkboard, teeth dragging over a metal fork, and it alights her entire nervous system with pain she didn’t even know could exist within the realm of possibility.
Her rational thoughts are muted by pain, and the only thing she can think about is covering up her hand. Or, rather, her nerves. So, she brings up her intact right hand to try and shield the injured one, but the minute a single fingertip brushes the exposed muscle, Pomni’s entire body is ambushed by the rawest, most incredible form of human suffering imaginable.
Every single one of her joints is being pulled and twisted violently by an invisible pair of hot tongs. Her nerves writhe like they’re trying to escape her hand. The muscles in her neck and shoulders tighten in sympathy, the ache in her chest from her frantic breathing growing more erratic.
And then, she begins to seize.
She throws her head back and slams it against the black horse, but she can’t even feel the pain over the sensory nightmare bombarding her left hand. Her body is consumed in convulsions, her legs kicking out, teeth gnashing, eyes rolling back in her head, and it’s only then that she’s able to scream, and it’s a raw, primal scream that destroys her vocal cords.
Oh god. Oh god.
The carousel spins. She wants to rip her hand off to escape these terrifying sensations.
The carousel spins. Another scream.
The carousel spins. This is the worst kind of torture. Her eyes are screwed shut.
The carousel spins. She’s gonna puke.
The carousel spins. The burn of bile rising into her throat makes everything even worse.
The carousel spins. She’s being driven half-crazed by the pain.
The carousel stops.
Pomni’s body goes completely stiff, her bones rattling and her muscles trembling. She can still feel her brain misfiring in all the wrong ways, and she slumps over onto the carousel’s metal floor, her breathing strained, and her eyes slowly focusing again.
Yet, her left hand still spasms with a mind of its own, her nerves trying to retreat into the exposed bones of her fingers to escape whatever fresh hell they’ve been sentenced to.
Gangle’s voice reaches her, but it sounds distant, as though filtered through water. “Pomni! Are you okay?”
“What the hell happened?” That’s Jax, but his voice is also muffled by adrenaline. “Is she good?”
Footsteps romp over the metal floor of the carousel, heading toward her. And then, there’s a scream. It’s from Gangle, a scream of pure and utter horror.
Gangle and Jax are both standing before her, staring down at Pomni’s degloved hand in all its horrible, brutal glory.
It’s still moving, Pomni notices. Her nerves are still contracting. The exposed muscle and the veins threading through it are pulsing along in a macabre dance, too. And when those muscles pulsate, little tendrils of tissue start moving and stretching and pulling at the tendons beneath them like taffy.
Gangle fully recoils back, her hands pressed to the mouth of her mask in terror. Jax streaks to the side and vomits off of the carousel. Neither of them know what to do in this situation, and it’s Gangle who yells, “I’m— I’m going to go get the others!!” before sprinting off to find the rest of the group.
Pomni’s body convulses again with another bout of seizures. Her left hand twitches even more violently than normal, the fingers of her right hand grasping at her throat, as if trying to throttle herself to put herself out of her misery. It’s a sickening display of the agony that is occurring within her body, and it fills her with a panic so profound and so primal that it almost feels like a form of insanity. An insanity of pain, of suffering at the whims of forces she has no means to combat.
Though, she’s not even sure if these feelings can be categorized as ‘pain’ anymore. It’s so much more than that, almost a state of being outside her control.
There are signals still shooting, even more forcefully now, creating an awful storm of sparks in her head as her mind tries to comprehend this sheer amount of mutilation. It cannot, and so the neural activity is cranked up to try harder and harder, creating nothing but pain. Unending torture.
Her brain is no longer her own, and instead, it’s firing on all cylinders to generate the most intense, unbearable sensation possible, with every single atom in her body acting as a receptor for pure, unbridled torment. And her nerves, all of the billions of them, are constantly being pulled, stretched, torn, twisted, and shredded into more and more strings that serve as both the messenger for all of this pain and the medium for which it is delivered.
She’s being sent into a cycle of unstoppable convulsions. Her body is forced into a state of constant, undulating motion, while her mind is only able to act as a witness as the sensory overload slowly erupts into a seizure that would make any human being burn up into a pile of ash.
It’s like her body is trying to eat itself from the inside out.
And all while a single thought repeats over and over in her mind.
Why?
Why is she still alive?
There’s not a single part of her that feels normal anymore, her body reduced to nothing more than a quivering mass of muscle and bone and meat and nerves. No sentient mind is ever meant to experience this.
Her left hand continues to spasm on the floor, acting for all intents and purposes like an autonomous lifeform that exists purely to torment her. She can’t think straight, she can’t act, and her brain is so overwhelmed that she doesn’t know if she’s even conscious anymore.
Time is meaningless, as is space, and there is no escape from this agony that has consumed her.
With some greater degree of awareness, Pomni just barely registers something. A voice. It’s Jax. And he sounds scared. Like this wasn’t part of the plan at all.
“F[@#$]…! S[@#$], what do I— Pomni? Hey, can you hear me?”
He sounds different. Usually, he sounds so calm and laid back, so carefree, but right now, his voice is shaking with a very real and palpable sense of fear. Or is that panic? It’s hard to tell. Maybe it’s both.
Pomni can’t respond to Jax’s question, as that would require muscle control and the ability to think, neither of which she has. Besides, her mouth is very quickly occupied when her stomach heaves, and her damaged throat forces vomit up through it. But due to her lying position, she is unable to throw up properly, causing it to pool in her mouth, and she begins to choke.
“Oh f[@#$]— Pomni!!”
Pomni has never heard so much alarm in Jax’s voice before. And before she can process that, there are furry fingers jamming into her mouth and scooping the vomit out so she won’t drown in it.
Pomni’s body is tilted to the side, and she retches, dispelling a flood of vile black fluid out onto the floor of the carousel.
“S[@#$], s[@#$], s[@#$]…” Jax is muttering. “Just— just get it out…”
It’s honestly rather touching. For everything Jax does, in spite of his many vices, he’s still showing genuine concern for Pomni’s survival right now.
Or maybe that’s just guilt because this is entirely his fault to begin with.
There’s another voice just then- “We’re here! I got them!” Gangle?
And then, Pomni is surrounded by more people, and they all cycle through the same horrific reactions as Jax and Gangle had. They begin to scream and shout, and their panicked voices grate on Pomni’s sensitive ears.
Ragatha is the first to move. She takes Pomni from Jax and props her up against her. She lifts Pomni’s left arm to get her mangled hand off of the ground, which it had been pressing against this entire time, and when she does, the pain diminishes ever so slightly. Enough for Pomni to stop seizing, at the very least.
“Pomni? Pomni, sweetie, I need you to breathe,” Ragatha murmurs. The warmth and softness of her fingertips acts as both a comfort and a contrast to the horror of Pomni’s skinless hand. “Breathe…”
Pomni tries to do as she says, but her eyes keep going back to her hand. Back to the bloody muscles and the exposed veins and the way her tendons flex. The way they twist like worms under a microscope. And each time she gazes upon the gruesome sight, it sends her into a tailspin of panic all over again.
There’s this weird, fleshy webbing still attached between her pointer and middle finger. And there’s her veins that keep spitting out blood, to the point where they resemble little hoses snaked out of her wrist. And there’s how everything beneath her wrist looks so normal. And there’s oh dear god—
“Pomni—”
The more she stares at it, the more it seems to warp and distort, becoming both more gruesome and even less like a hand. It’s as if her brain is trying to trick her into thinking that she’s looking at a completely different body part. Or maybe Pomni’s brain is simply attempting to render her own reality in a way that her mind can comprehend, rather than being reduced to a quivering, incoherent mess by the image of what happened to her.
“Honey, look at me.” Ragatha pulls Pomni’s head from her hand and forces her to make eye contact. “Look at me. Don’t— don’t look at that. Look at me. Okay? Good, good… Good girl…”
Pomni can’t believe how calm Ragatha is, although she’s sure there are probably so many thoughts and worries racing through her mind right now. Ragatha is just forcing herself to not react to the sight because someone needs to have their head on straight.
The next person to snap out of their horrified trance is Zooble, who barks, “Caine, do something!”
Caine then comes to his senses, lifting up his jaw which had literally dropped to the floor when he saw Pomni’s hand. He sputters for a moment, genuinely and utterly shocked, then manages to say, “I— I can— I can— Don’t worry! I can fix this! I can repair the code for her hand, and the skin will regrow itself until it’s brand new!”
“No!” It’s the first thing Pomni has said since this happened, and it comes out hoarse and sharp, like a serrated knife dragging over her torn vocal cords. “N-no— don’t wanna wait for that— g-get rid of it—”
She knows how healing works in this world. It’s not instantaneous- it takes time for the “code” that makes up their body to be repaired, and it’s a painful, aching process.
The sheer horror of having one hand would never be able to compare to the horror of what Pomni’s hand has become. And she doesn’t want to live with such a mangled limb for however many weeks it may take for the skin to mend itself.
Caine stares at her, bewildered. “You— you want me to…removes it? My dear, I don’t think—”
Pomni cuts him off, each word and syllable and letter like a fork gouging out her throat. “I— DO— NOT— WANT THIS!”
Everyone else is silent. Stunned, unable to reply to the vehemence of this statement.
Because, in truth, no one could blame her for it. In fact, each of them has thought the exact same thing, even the motherly Ragatha. They just know better than to say it.
Except for Pomni. Pomni has no filter, and right now, she is not thinking clearly. Right now, she just wants this horror to end.
Caine stares at her, wide-eyed. Then, realizing he won’t be winning this argument, he says, “Alright, my dear. If that’s what you really want.” And then, he opens one hand, and a hatchet materializes in it.
Ragatha gasps softly, instinctively pulling Pomni closer, more securely in her arms, like a mother bird trying to hood its chick with its wing to protect it from danger. “Caine!” she says. “Don’t you think that’s a little crude?”
Caine looks at her. “Yes,” he says somberly.
It’s extremely primitive, especially for a digital world like this, but Pomni doesn’t care. She just wants the pain to stop.
Caine’s gaze shifts over to Pomni. “I should be able to create you a new hand. Usually with the, uh, loss of limbs here, I can just reattach them, but…there isn’t much to salvage from…that. Making a new one will take some time…and I don’t know if it’ll be the same as your original one…but you’ll get a replacement.” Pomni has never heard him so frightened and worried before. “You will be alright, my dear.”
Pomni manages to give a small nod in response.
Her hand is then laid flat on the floor of the carousel, and the cold metal bites into her exposed muscles and tendons and nerves. But before another sensory overload can send her into a seizure, Caine brings the hatchet’s blade down on her wrist.
It cleaves through the skin, the muscle, the tendon, and then the bone.
And Pomni’s mangled, degloved hand is cut off.
A new, fresh pain swarms Pomni, and she almost sobs in relief because the pain of her hand getting cut off without any anesthetics is so much better than the wild assault on her nerves from before. She stares down her wrist, which is gushing out hot gouts of blood, and tears fill her eyes.
She only has one thing to say: “Thank you.”
And then, her eyes roll to the back of her head, and she finally blacks out.
After everything, it’s nice to not feel.