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She got in here on Wednesday.
Was it Wednesday? She thinks back. She woke up Friday, right, and saw that she wasn’t in her bedroom. The weird room she wasn’t familiar with was painted deep blue with red crown molding in the shape of carousel horses. There was a clock tick, tick, ticking away, but aside from it, there was a bunch of random crap that looked like it belonged in a circus.
She had reeled out of the room, disoriented and afraid, into a bright and overly colorful hallway. She screamed and yowled and panicked until a living doll emerged from another door and came over to calm her down, assuring her that everything was okay and she was fine.
And then, the memories came back to her, and remembered where she was.
She was trapped.
So—that was all Friday. The clock in her new room—because she eventually came to the realization that it was her room after a while—stopped 31 hours after that, which meant it stopped Sunday morning, when she had refused to sleep and paced the circumference of the living quarter hallway 103 times until Jax came out of his room, threw a model train directly at her face, and shouted at her to shut the f[@#$] up. When she begrudgingly trundled back to her room, the clock was stuck at 3:61 AM.
And that happened on Sunday so…if the faucet dripped 12 times an hour, if her heart beat 120 times a minute, if she got up to walk the entire perimeter of the Tent when the sun went down— that’s happened 3 times since the clock stopped—
Oh.
So, no. She got here on Friday. Today is Wednesday.
She is still trapped.
It…can be worse, really. She can be somewhere much more horrific than the Digital Circus, like some realm hand-crafted into her own personal hell. She can be dead. Instead, she is just stuck inside of a sort of circus. And dad the circus been any less big and spacious, then maybe things would have been even more miserable.
But, again, it can be worse.
She had habits now, to keep herself busy. Count how many red items there were in the tent to pass the time until that became too calming—and then she might have traced the patterns in her skin like a sailor sketching out a map of the stars. Slamming her fists against the clock until it broke and tore her knuckles into bloody pieces. Percussive maintenance. Singing to her, screaming to herself. Talking to her. Begging, for anyone.
And it’s not that being alone is so bad. She quite enjoys being alone sometimes.
It’s just— when she doesn’t have the option to leave or even call out to order food— that’s when her skin starts to feel too tight, pulled against her bones, shifting and grinding against each other.
Still.
It’s okay.
For now.
…
She doesn’t feel well.
What day is it again? How long has it been? She’s already forgotten. It doesn’t matter.
Pomni doesn’t feel well.
She thinks she may be ill, and she didn’t realize that was possible in a digital realm, but here she is, aching and dizzy and nauseous. She can barely find the strength (and will) to haul herself out of bed, but she forces herself to do it because she knows if she doesn’t, Jax will barge in as loudly as possible and basically drag her out. And when she’s feeling this bad and gross, she really doesn’t want anyone putting their hands on her.
She trudges out to the main stage, and all the colors and shapes that fill the tent are an immediate sensory assault on her sore eyes. Just out of the corner of her periphery, she swears she sees a spiral-shaped slide glitching, but when she yanks her head around to check, it’s perfectly normal, and all she’s succeeded in doing is making herself even more dizzy.
The others are already gathered on the stage, and Pomni joins them, though she keeps her distance. She doesn’t really want to interact with anyone, but she finds herself getting forced into conversation anyway when Caine appears. He appears out of nowhere, throws his arm around her shoulder (she struggles not to scream), and pulls her forward as he’s chirping away, greeting everyone.
That day’s adventure is a big game of Man Hunt, and Pomni is almost baffled by how bizarre it is. She’s tempted to ask Caine if she can sit out and go back to her room, but she knows he’ll make a big deal out of it, and she’ll have to explain herself, and it just isn’t worth it.
It’s like when she would have to go to work when on her period, and her guts felt like they were tearing themselves apart inside of her, even though she really wanted to stay home and wallow in agony while holding a warm pillow to her stomach. She will have to deal with it.
…Honestly, she would rather deal with the most intense period cramps than have to be stuck in this place for the rest of her life.
“The rules are simple!” Caine is saying. “You all go find somewhere to hide in the tent, and Bubble will search for you!”
“Is he going to bite us like he did last time?” Jax asks, glancing warily at the grinning bubble.
“I have no control over what Bubble does,” Caine answers, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture. “But DON’T WORRY! It’ll be FUN!”
Fun. How can anything be fun in this horrible place?
But Pomni doesn’t have much of a choice. So, she takes a breath, turns, and—
—and she bumps into Ragatha.
She flinches. Gasps. Totters backward. Flinches again.
Then, she looks up, and Ragatha is speaking to her. Her mouth is moving, but her lips don’t wrap around the words just right.
“There is. No way. Out.”
Pomni blinks hard. Again. Harder. Nothing changes.
“What?” she rasps, throat hot and tight.
Ragatha looks at her strangely, flickers of concern in her eyes. “I said sorry for bumping into you. Are you alright?”
“I— I—” Pomni stammers, fumbles. Her tongue feels wrong in her mouth. “Y-yeah.” Before Ragatha can respond, she stumbles away to try and find a hiding spot.
It’s so hard to think. Her nerves feel flayed open and raw, and she doesn’t even know why.
It just hurts. Everything hurts.
She selects a far corner as her hiding spot for the game. She tucks herself behind a giant toy car phone that’s situated there and bunches up to make herself very small. After a few minutes, she hears Bubble’s loud voice chime, “Ready or not, HERE I COME!”
Pomni waits.
Due to Bubble’s lack of legs, it’s not like she can hear any footsteps approaching her, so she tries to keep the rest of her senses sharp. Despite this, she finds her eyes drifting shut at some point, and she almost relaxes. The corner isn’t that bad, it’s actually sort of cozy, and she likes that nobody can sneak up on her like this.
In the distance, she hears a sharp yelp that she thinks belongs to Jax. It seems like he got caught, and that resulting sound startles Pomni. Her eyes fly open, and her head pops up, allowing her to see over the edge of the phone.
There’s something there, standing between two towers of giant blocks, several yards away from her.
It’s a distorted shape. Big. Writhing limbs. Almost-human. But not quite. It raises its head and opens its eyes. Her eyes.
It has her eyes.
All of those eyes adorning its body are her eyes.
Pomni’s breath catches in her throat. Her heart starts to beat faster. Her palms grow sweaty.
Is that…her?
It looks similar to that creature she had the misfortune of bearing witness to the first day she arrived in this hell (how long ago was it? she can’t remember, she can’t remember, she can’t remember). Kaufmo was its name, wasn’t it? Or had been its name. Before the Abstraction.
But that’s what this thing resembles. Except all of its eyes are red and blue, and it has two tassel-like appendages extending from what she thinks is its head, similar to the long parts of her hat.
There’s…no way.
How is this possible?
Pomni is terrified, and yet, she finds herself slowly creeping out from her hiding spot. It’s almost like she’s in a trance. She isn’t thinking.
The thing doesn’t lunge at her like the other one did when she approaches. It stays still. Or, as still as it can manage, what with its glitching, deforming body. All of its eyes revolve around to look at her, and it just stares.
Pomni stops right in front of it. It stoops its massive head down to meet her gaze.
There’s some sort of kinship in all of its eyes. Her eyes. Maybe it doesn’t even matter anymore.
“Is this all there is?” she asks weakly.
The creature emits a low, almost mournful rumble. It almost sounds like her own voice, crying.
“FOUND YOU!”
Snap.
It’s not even the resulting pain of the sharp teeth chomping down onto her arm that startles her, but the unexpectedness of it all. One moment, she’s gazing upon what can only be described as her future, and then the next, she’s being bitten. And, like that, Pomni just…unravels.
It’s not a yelp that comes out of her mouth, but a full, ear-piercing scream. It hurts her own throat, but it won’t stop. She pitches forward, stumbling over her own feet, then falls to the floor, still shrieking.
She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home.
“Pomni?”
There are people around her, she notices, gawking. Probably attracted by her mental breakdown. It’s humiliating to be seen in such a way, but she quickly finds that she doesn’t really care.
She wants to go home.
“Pomni, hey! Shh, it’s okay…”
Pomni can’t answer, but she wants to say that it’s not okay. How can anything possibly be okay when they’re all trapped here?
She tries to breathe, but her breath comes out in thick, hot gasps, and the burn of a painful fever boils in the bottom of her throat. Her head is aching, and she feels violated in ways she can’t explain. She hopes that the stinging liquid blurring her vision is just tears, but from the way it feels like two white-hot daggers are gouging out her eyeballs, then it’s probably blood.
Someone touches her, and she flinches. There’s a person kneeling beside her, whispering to her soothingly. She’s being treated like a wild animal, but she feels more rabid than one. Something far beyond feral.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright… It was only Bubble, that’s all. It’s okay, Pomni…”
Her stomach twists. Is she upside down? She thinks she is upside down. Upside down like this place, like this prison.
(like her new home.)
Suddenly, hands are over her mouth like a vice, and she almost screams again, almost frenzies, but then she realizes those are her hands, and the pressure they place around her face are like pistons crushing her mandible to powder. There is something sour sitting on her tongue, something wet and heavy and sticking to her teeth like honey left to rot. Alive , wriggling behind her lips, forcing itself out like vomit— it wants to come out— I want to get out—
She is going to—
(purge.)
(the thing.)
(inside.)
Pomni vomits, and what spills forth from her mouth is a thick, disgusting viscera. That’s the only word she can use to describe the fluid- a viscera. Because whatever miasma is coming out of her mouth is definitely not bile.
She doesn’t think bile can be that shade of black.
Barely finishing, Pomni scoots away hastily, shaking all over. She touches something—a wall. no, a block tower—and presses against it, struggling to breathe. She can still taste it in her mouth, worse than gall. It’s like biting into roadkill, she thinks, maybe.
The room is red—hadn’t it been white?—and details are coming in huge, stinging splotches, a Rorschach test done in blood. She can see the people gathered around her, though their faces are more incomprehensible blobs than anything tangible, almost like their facial features are glitching and failing to render.
(glitch - hahahahhahahahaahahhahahahahahahhahhaa. a. a. a. a. aa)
(oh.)
Their concern is believable, even when everything else is questionable, but they’re looking at her as though she is insane.
Or is going insane. Maybe she is.
Pomni really doesn’t feel well.
“Jesus Christ, what the f[@#$] is wrong with her?!”
“Is she okay?”
“God, there’s puke everywhere…”
“Pomni, sweetie? Can you hear me? It’s Ragatha…”
How? How do they sound so calm? Calm when it comes to being here. Why are they making it seem like she’s the crazy one for acting like this? It just doesn’t make any sense, and she wants to get away from that fucking concern they’re looking at her with because shenoneofthem doesn't des e r ve this.
“Just try to breathe, honey… It’s going to be okay…”
All the emotional carnage. All the throbbing feelings. Rising up, rising up. Distorting.
Her body aches. Throbs. She tilts forward, and warm arms wrap around her, trying to support her. She whimpers, whines, and then, the sound dies.
She’s just so fucking tired.
“I want to go home.”
That’s the first thing that Pomni says when she comes to. She’s laying in her bed, and her mouth tastes rotten. Ragatha, who is in the room with her, probably to watch over her, turns to look at her.
“What?” Ragatha says.
“I want to go home,” Pomni repeats.
Ragatha gets a pitying expression on her face. “I know, Pomni,” she says. “How are you feeling?” She extends a hand and presses it against Pomni’s forehead, gently brushing back her sweaty bangs. “You’ve still got a fever. I think the stress over…everything has gotten to you and made you a little sick. But don’t worry, you’ll feel better soon!”
Pomni stares at her. “How?” she rasps. “How can you say that? We’re— we’re trapped here. We’re never getting out! How are you and everyone else so calm? I don’t… I don’t understand…”
Ragatha sighs and begins to stroke Pomni’s hair. “We’ve accepted it, honey. I, for one, don’t want to drive myself mad over escaping. Besides…this place isn’t that bad when you get used to it.” She then notices Pomni’s broken expression and frowns. “Are you going to cry?”
What remains of Pomni’s fragile composure shatters. “Yeah.”
True to her word, Pomni collapses into the bed, stuffs her face into the pillow, and yowls like a skinned cat. Then, the yowls turn into painful, shoulder-shaking sobs. And then, paradoxically, she throws a childish tantrum, beating the bed with her hands and feet.
Within two minutes, she’s fast asleep, tears still wet on her cheeks.