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“Jax! Give that back to me right now!!”
“What, you mean this silly little thing?” Jax dangled Pomni’s room key tauntingly out of her reach, an irritating smirk stretched wide across his face. “Why, what’s so important about it, shrimp?”
Pomni clenched her hands into fists, glaring up at the annoying purple rabbit with what she hoped was a venomous expression–while simultaneously knowing full-well that her permanently painted-on blush, silly bell-bedecked hat, and generally petite stature gave her the impression of a cute little dog trying to look fierce. Curse this stupid digital body for making her so short. Not that she could remember anymore if her old body had been all that much taller, but anything had to be better than this.
“I am not playing along with this juvenile little game of keep-away, Jax,” she said through gritted teeth, maintaining her composure as best as she possibly could–because one of them had to act maturely here, and it was obviously not going to be him. “Just hand over my room key, please. I’m exhausted, and I just want to be able to get back into my room and go to bed. Also, quit calling me stupid nicknames like I’m some child, I’m older than you.”
“Pfft, what, am I really hurting your feelings calling you a shrimp and a pipsqueak all the time?” Jax teased, still holding her key aloft. “Anyway, relax, I’ll give it back to ya…when I’m done with it, that is.”
Pomni narrowed her eyes. “Done with it? What exactly are you planning to do?”
“Oh, nothing…nothing of your concern, that is.” Jax’s eyes took on a sadistic gleam that Pomni did not like at all. “Say, you don’t happen to like scorpions, do ya? Black widows? Murder hornets? Completely unrelated questions here.”
“Jax.” Pomni’s already fraying patience was wearing even thinner with every second spent in Jax’s presence, and she thrust her hand out toward him, palm-side up. “Give it to me. Now.”
“Hmm.” Jax tapped the key against his chin in a gesture of mock contemplation. “Well, you didn’t say please, so…I think I’ll make ya keep begging instead!”
“JAX!!” And that was when the last worn thread of Pomni’s patience snapped, nothing to inhibit her from lunging at the rabbit and grasping desperately for her key. “You’re such a pest! I said give it!”
“Oops! Too slow!” Jax swiftly stepped out of the way, cackling as Pomni stumbled to the floor instead, landing flat on her face. “You’ve gotta be faster than that if you want this back! Or to outrun any potentially poisonous bugs that may or may not find their way into your room!”
“There better not be!” Pomni scowled as she scrambled back to her feet. “And you better not have put anything in Ragatha’s room this time either, or I swear I’ll–!”
“Pfft, relax, after leaving a centipede in Dollface’s room a couple dozen times it starts to lose its novelty. You’re my victim this week!” A sly gleam flashed in Jax’s eyes then. “Why do you care so much about what I leave in her room, anyway? You’ve been acting awfully attached at the hip with her lately, you’re not secretly dating or something are ya–?”
Instead of validating Jax’s query with a response–specifically, blushing beet-red and sputtering out an unconvincing denial of any not-so-platonic feelings–Pomni took advantage of his momentary distraction to tackle one of his legs, knocking him to the floor. The key flew from his grasp, skidding along the hallway before stopping several feet away.
“Ow, hey!” Jax griped, shooting a sharp glare in Pomni’s direction. “Sheesh, no need to be so rough, short stuff.”
“Well, that’s what you get for playing immature games with people!” Pomni retorted, without an ounce of remorse, knowing she couldn’t have possibly hurt him that badly. He’d sort of been asking for it anyway. She huffed to herself as she traipsed over to retrieve her key. “And didn’t I just ask you to cut it out with the dumb nicknames already? We’re not in middle school anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Really, short stack? Because based on your height, it looks like your body didn’t get the memo,” Jax cracked from somewhere behind her.
“Oh, give it a rest.” Pomni rolled her eyes to herself as she plucked her key up from the carpet. “You don’t even know what I look like outside of the circus—for all you know, I’m five-foot-ten. Who knows, maybe I’m taller than you.”
“Sure, if you say so,” Jax scoffed, clearly not buying it, before inexplicably shifting gears. “Hey, Pom-Pom, you might wanna check your shoes—your laces are undone.”
“What?” Pomni darted her gaze down to her feet—not catching on quickly enough. “But my shoes don’t have laces—“
“Sike!!” With that Jax snagged Pomni by the ankle, effectively tripping her up as she flailed in surprise. “Didn’t think you were getting away from me that easily, did ya?”
“What are— oof!” Pomni had pitched forward before she could catch herself, planting face-first into the ground again with a startled grunt. Her fingers remained tightly clasped around her key. “What are you doing?”
“Chill out, I’m just gonna try something out…as long as we’re playing immature games here.”
Pomni couldn’t see Jax’s face from where she lay on the ground, but she could practically hear the mischievous smirk lilting his words as he suddenly grabbed her right wrist. She didn’t relinquish her hold on her key, and suspiciously, Jax wasn’t attempting to take it—but the way he gripped Pomni’s wrist made her squirm, a burning-hot itch creeping its way along the length of her arm.
“I wonder…” Jax drawled, in a borderline sadistic tone that Pomni didn’t appreciate, “...just how far can your arms stretch? What do ya say, wanna test it out?”
“Huh?! No! I don’t!” Pomni attempted to pull her wrist free from Jax’s vicelike grasp, but he only tightened his grip. Icy pinpricks jabbed at her flesh, crawling up her back as she yanked again, to no avail. “Get off of me!”
“What’s that? You said yes? Okay! Then let’s try this!” With that Jax hopped to his feet, still clutching Pomni’s wrist, her hand still curled into a fist around her key. “Just lay there and hold still, alright? It’ll make this a lot easier!”
“Jax, I said let me go now!” Pomni snarled, trying to push herself back to her feet, only for Jax to press a foot down on her back to keep her in place. “Quit being such a jerk!”
But her protests went ignored, and she watched in abject horror as Jax started tugging on her arm, stretching it out longer and longer–not unlike a piece of taffy. Her left arm shortened, retracting into her body as if to compensate for the increasing length of her other limb as Jax yanked it further and further. Strangely, it didn’t hurt, something she’d observed from the last time she’d had her arms nearly ripped from their sockets when she’d been clinging desperately between two trucks driving farther apart back in their candy kingdom adventure. That was one benefit to having a body composed of a seemingly elastic material, she supposed. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t uncomfortable, or that she was enjoying the way Jax smirked at her as he draped her elongated limb carelessly across his shoulder as he continued reeling it in.
“Huh, it’s kinda like a tape measure,” Jax observed, snickering. “Bet it’d hurt real bad if I let go of it now and let it smack ya in the face!”
“You better not!” Pomni thrashed desperately, flailing as best as she could from her position on the ground, Jax’s foot still digging into her back a little too hard and pinning her in place. And yet as much as she struggled, he still stubbornly refused to let her go.
Suddenly her arm snagged, her body jerking forward slightly as Jax pulled hard on it. He pulled again, harder this time, but her arm resisted, seemingly stretched out to its max. The rest of her arm lay piled on the ground in a tangled-looking heap that must’ve been at least ten feet in length, and Pomni cringed at the thought of having to untie any knots from her own arm once Jax finally let her have it back.
“Hm. Guess that’s the end of it,” Jax mused, casually swinging her arm the way one might twirl a jump rope. And then he squinted his eyes with a certain sense of determination that made Pomni’s stomach flip nervously. “Or maybe not…I bet we can keep going, make it stretch from one end of the tent all the way to the other. Shall we?”
“No!” Pomni shot back, this close to biting Jax’s leg if it would get him to free her.
But of course, Jax didn’t listen.
“Alright! If you say so!” he replied chipperly, and he yanked harder on her arm, stretching it as far as it could possibly go.
Pomni gritted her teeth, attempting to wriggle away, but it was no use. She could only watch helplessly as her arm stretched longer and longer, with Jax tugging at it harder and harder until–
POP!
Suddenly she heard a loud snap, followed by a sharp pain searing through her shoulder. Jax staggered backwards, still gripping her arm, only…something was weird. She didn’t feel him pulling on her arm anymore, only the strange pain that shot through her shoulder and that now bordered on excruciating…oh god, had Jax dislocated her shoulder? Was that even possible here?
…But judging by the stunned expression on Jax’s face, replacing his previous playful smirk, it was a lot worse than whatever she could’ve possibly been anticipating.
“….Oh,” was all he could manage to utter, after a long pause, making Pomni’s stomach grow cold.
“What do you mean, oh?” Pomni wanted to know, hissing through clenched teeth.
“Uh…hey, if I tell ya, promise not to freak out or get mad?” Jax responded, and the fact that he actually sounded what for him counted as concerned only made Pomni’s dread increase as her chest tightened.
Using her good arm for leverage, Pomni slowly pushed herself up to her knees, then clutched her aching shoulder…but her whole body froze instantly with the horrifying realization that she couldn’t feel her arm.
Not because it was numb, but because it wasn’t there.
What the—?!?
Her gaze trailed frantically back up to Jax, seeing that he was still holding her arm—her detached arm, now dangling limply from his hand. The end that had been connected to her shoulder swayed lifelessly, looking unnaturally smooth…no blood, no broken bone protruding from it, no sign that it had ever been attached to her. Her hand clamped instinctively over where the “wound” would be, but she felt no warm blood spilling from her shoulder either.
And yet she still felt like she was going to faint.
“Wh-what the f*** did you do?” Despite the terror that seized her, anxiety melding with anger as she let the expletive stumble from her lips, she could barely choke out the words in a voice above a hoarse whisper. She began shaking all over, her hand trembling as she clutched her shoulder, her breath catching in her throat and her vision doubling as she struggled to focus on Jax standing in front of her. “H-how did you do that?!”
“Uh…aheh, funny thing, I actually didn’t realize that was possible,” Jax replied, trying to regain his composure and sound nonchalant, although the fact that he’d sounded rattled at all made Pomni’s stomach lurch violently. “I mean, yeah, I’ve seen Dollface and Mix-n-Match lose parts all the time, but I figured yours would be pretty firmly, ya know, attached. Guess we learned something today, huh?”
Pomni couldn’t respond. Her tongue felt dry as she swallowed hard against a sudden surge of bile rising in her throat, still gaping in horror at her own disembodied arm clutched in Jax’s hand. Her mind reeled, struggling to process that this was actually happening. How had it popped off so…smoothly, so cleanly? Even with the bizarre cartoon physics that applied to their bodies here, it just didn’t seem like it should’ve been physically possible. And yet Jax had managed to tear it off so effortlessly, with his own brute strength alone. Pomni believed him in that he hadn’t expected that to happen, that he hadn’t set out with the intention of dismembering her–but that didn’t quell any of her rising panic, it didn’t reattach her arm to her body where it belonged. Her ears rang as her head spun, the hallway whirling around her in a blur of headache-inducing colors, and for a minute she seriously thought she was going to pass out.
“Heh, well…sorry to disarm you and run, but I forgot I got…something to do that isn’t here,” Jax quipped, and had she not been spiraling so rapidly into a panic attack she might have been tempted to throttle him with her intact arm. He waved her own hand almost mockingly at her and then tossed her arm to the floor with reckless abandon, and she could swear she actually felt it hit the ground, the way it bounced before landing in a heap in front of her–almost amusingly, the key remained locked tight in her still-clenched fingers. “So…see ya ‘round. Good luck getting a hand with that.”
Pomni didn’t have the presence of mind to catch the second poor-taste joke he’d managed to slip in and scream at him before he’d bolted down the hall, literally leaving a trail of dust in his wake.
Slowly, her fingers still twitching, she reached out and cautiously stroked her disconnected arm with the very tip of her pointer finger. It wasn’t just her imagination—she could definitely sense it, could feel her own feathery touch trailing along her milk-hued flesh. And yet something was markedly different about it…it felt fuzzy, distorted somehow. Or maybe that was the part that was all in her head?
Her stomach heaved, a knot coiling tightly in her chest as she started hyperventilating. A cold sweat prickled her clammy flesh. She wanted to scream, wanted to sob, but she felt paralyzed, numb. The high-pitched ringing in her ears scaled upward into a deafening crescendo as the world around her became slippery and muted, swaying like a boat on a turbulent sea.
No no no no god please no….
The sound of a door creaking open jerked Pomni abruptly out of her stupor, but just barely. She whipped her head up to find Zooble cracking open their door from the other side of the hall, an irritated expression etched onto their face.
“Is the stupid rabbit finally gone?” they ventured, taking one step out into the hall. “I kept hearing you two bickering out here, which I assume was because he did something idiotic…”
Evidently they hadn’t overheard the reason behind said bickering…but they stopped in their tracks the second their gaze landed on Pomni, hunched over on the floor and breathing erratically, her disembodied arm stretched out to an unfathomable length and draped across her lap.
“...Well, f***,” was the only thing they could say, piercing the silence with a censor bleep that echoed through the hallway.
Pomni didn’t speak. She couldn’t, a dense fog of panic clouding every comprehensible thought in her mind and the knot in her chest trapping any words from entering her throat. She could only whine weakly.
She barely registered the presence beside her as Zooble crouched next to her, until Zooble spoke and broke her back out of her trance.
“Let me guess. Jax did this?” Zooble asked, their tone flat and matter-of-fact, but also carrying a hint of concern for the jester.
Pomni nodded wordlessly.
“Stupid jacka**, never knows when to leave anyone the f*** alone.” Zooble huffed out an agitated sigh, their tone still remarkably calm–then again, in Pomni’s fairly short time here so far, she’d already seen Zooble dismembered and decapitated more time than she could count, so maybe this really wasn’t any big deal to them. “I’m guessing it’s your first time losing a limb here, huh?”
Pomni nodded faintly again. Unfortunately her churning stomach chose that precise moment to betray her, and she bent forward and puked, a gush of the nasty oily black substance that seemed to coat her insides pooling on the carpet in front of her.
Zooble grimaced, drawing back slightly at the unexpected expulsion of Pomni’s dinner, but to their credit they didn’t react with outright disgust. The expression in their eyes remained surprisingly sympathetic, and they reached out and gingerly patted a clawed hand against Pomni’s back once she’d finished emptying her stomach.
“You, uh…all done now?” Zooble ventured, after a beat.
Pomni could only nod once more, moaning softly in lieu of a response.
“Alright. Good. So…do you think you can walk on your own right now? Much as I hate to involve him in anything, we should probably go find Caine. He can fix you up in a matter of seconds. You’ll be fine, really.”
Fine? Pomni doubted she would ever feel “fine” here–not as long as she was inhabiting this enigma of a cartoon body that she didn’t feel like herself in, not when she felt so far removed from whoever she used to be that her own true face had become a blotted-out smudge in her memory, not when she now had to live with the knowledge that her limbs could literally be plucked off like she was some kind of bug under dissection. How could she ever be fine with any of that?
But she couldn’t bring herself to say any of that at the moment. All of a sudden she was exhausted, the adrenaline that had charged her body now seeping quickly out, leaving her feeling weak and wobbly all over. She forced herself to draw in a couple of deep breaths, coughing hoarsely with each exhale, her throat now raw and an acidic taste clinging to her tongue. The thick fog that wrapped around her brain had yet to lift, her jumbled thoughts crackling like static on a busted television screen, but somehow she managed to speak through the haze.
“…I can walk,” she croaked feebly, at last.
She straggled slowly to her feet, a wave of dizziness sweeping over her that threatened to knock her right back down. The world spun, listing severely from one side to the other…but she managed to stay upright, even as her legs quaked beneath her own weight.
“Here, just…hold on to me, okay?” Zooble thrust their arm out toward Pomni. “I’d feel bad if you keeled over just because you were being stubborn about walking on your own.”
A flash of indignation flared within Pomni, and for a second she wanted to protest that she was not stubborn…but in the end she didn’t have the energy to even form the words, and besides, she felt like that would just prove their point. So she quietly looped her arm through the one that Zooble offered to her, and allowed Zooble to wind up her detached arm so that it resembled a garden hose before slinging it over their shoulder. She had to admit, she felt a little better having someone else with her right then, especially someone as relatively chill as Zooble who would help her without making her feel smothered by too much doting or concern. She really wasn’t in the headspace to try and reassure someone else that she was okay, when she most definitely wasn’t.
But as she let Zooble lead her down the hall, her knees nearly locking with each step she took, she couldn’t shake the horrible, stomach-sinking feeling that she would never feel “right” in her body, that she was as far from feeling like herself as one could possibly be.
—-------
Pomni skipped the adventure the next day.
For one thing, even though her arm had been firmly reattached thanks to a quick repair to her code by Caine, her shoulder still hurt enough to be too cumbersome to participate in whatever ridiculous escapade Caine had cooked up for the day. But for another, she just…didn’t feel like it. Not that she enjoyed the adventures on a good day, but she at least usually managed to plaster on a stupid smile and force herself to play her role. But she knew that she’d be completely, utterly useless to everyone today—she couldn’t think straight, could barely string two coherent sentences together. She felt disconnected from her mind, from her body, like she was hovering somewhere above and watching herself from a distance. Yet she was still well aware of the pounding of her own heart, the thrum of her pulse throbbing in her ears, the staticy tingling sensation that buzzed in every single one of her digital cells. It was bizarre, feeling so detached from herself and yet overstimulated by so many sensations at once.
Pomni stayed holed up in her room for the whole morning (after faking a smile long enough to assure Ragatha that she was fine, that her arm was fine, that she was just tired and wanted to rest that day—she knew Ragatha hadn’t believed a word she’d said, but had been too polite to question her otherwise). She tried in vain to force herself into sleep mode, wishing for nothing more than to slide into the merciful embrace of a dreamless slumber, but sleep stubbornly eluded her. So she spent hours staring at the canopy hanging over her bed instead, blinking slowly, acutely aware of the tickle of her own eyelashes brushing her cheeks with each blink.
Slowly, she lifted both arms, stretching them toward the ceiling—her right shoulder twinged in protest, but she ignored it as she examined her limbs. Two slender, bendy white tubes, the flesh rubbery and smooth. No veins threaded below the surface of her eggshell-toned skin, nothing to pump blood through her body when it seemed she no longer had any. Each skinny arm ended in a permanently-gloved hand, right one red and left one blue, consisting of only four fingers each. She curled her hands into fists, then flexed her fingers, wiggling them in front of her eyes.
…They didn’t feel real. She could comprehend that they were a part of her body, but at the same time she couldn’t feel them.
She breathed in slowly, feeling her chest expand, then deflate as she let the air stream out through her lips. Wait, did she even have lungs here? Or a heart or a stomach or a brain? She could feel the things she was supposed to feel, the continual beating in her chest and the aching in her gut, but maybe it was all simulated to give her the illusion that she still had organs here. Some flimsy little thread to cling to just to make her feel like she was still at least partly human. Thinking about it suddenly made it hard to breathe…which shouldn’t have been cause for panic, since they couldn’t even die of asphyxiation here, but acknowledging the fact that they didn’t even technically need to breathe made her chest tighten and her throat close.
No. Stop. Don’t think about it. Don’t don’t don’t…
She squeezed her eyes shut, drawing in another faltering breath. She had to do something, anything, to ground herself. She fell back on one of the tactics she’d found that actually sort of helped, reciting what she still knew about herself to the empty room around her.
“My name is Pomni…”
No, it isn’t.
“I’m twenty-five years old…”
Wait, when’s my birthday? Did I already miss it? Or, oh god, do we even age here? Am I going to be twenty-five forever?
“I’m an accountant…”
Used to be is more accurate. You’re never going back are you, never going back…you’re not even a person now, you’re just some amalgamation of pixels and shattered memories, you’re not real anymore.
“I…”
Her voice trailed off, her thoughts swarming too loud, too dark, breaking her concentration.
What’s the point? Why bother remembering what you did in a life you can’t ever go back to? This is your home now, this is your life. Your horrible, terrible life. You’re Pomni, but you’re not Pomni. This is your body, but it’s not your body. You’re just a bundle of code, just a bunch of polygons designed for someone else’s amusement. If you cut yourself right now, no blood would pour out. If you sliced open your stomach, no viscera would spill to the floor. No blood, no veins, nothing inside of you! You can even yank off your own arm and feel almost nothing! So what does it even matter what you do to yourself in here…!!
Pomni sucked in a sharp gasp as she jolted upright in bed. No. No. She had to stop this thought spiral now. She had to…do something, get out of here. Maybe a walk around the circus tent would help clear her head.
…She doubted it would, but it would beat laying in her room feeling like she was losing her mind.
She left her room, locking the door behind her, and began wandering aimlessly down the hall. Without thinking about it her legs carried her all the way to the main stage, though she walked right by the stage itself. She passed by Kinger’s fort, a crooked assemblage of pillows in every size and color. She found herself walking toward the couches arranged at the other end of the room, where she’d spent time bonding with the other circus members before.
She stopped short when she spotted Zooble sitting on one of the couches, casually flipping through what looked like one of Gangle’s sketchbooks. Pomni had forgotten that they probably would’ve been hanging around the tent today as well. She contemplated turning right back around and walking in the other direction just so she wouldn’t disturb them, but Zooble noticed her before she had a chance to retreat.
“Hey, Pomni…I didn’t know if I’d see you up and about today,” Zooble quipped by way of greeting, looking up from the sketchbook.
“Hey.” Pomni offered a weak smile, though it didn’t stretch very far. At least she didn’t feel compelled to act all chipper with Zooble. “I kind of…felt like I was going stir-crazy in my room, so I thought I’d take a walk. Hope I’m not intruding.”
“Nah, I wasn’t really doing anything. You can stick around, if you want.” Zooble set the sketchbook aside and propped their elbow against the arm of the couch, resting their head in their hand as they appraised Pomni questioningly. “How’s your arm?”
“Oh, that…” Pomni hadn’t realized she’d been absentmindedly clutching her shoulder, and she quickly dropped her hand. “Um, it’s fine. A little sore, but not too bad. Not even a scar there.”
“Yeah. Guess that’s one perk of having a body made pretty much out of rubber, huh?” Zooble snorted in a way that implied they didn’t think it was much of a perk, and Pomni at least appreciated their openness.
“Yeah, I guess…” Pomni awkwardly rubbed her arm, casting her gaze down toward the floor. “Although, to be honest? I actually would’ve felt better if there had been…well, something. Blood or bone or…I don’t know. Anything to indicate that I’m not just…whatever this is. A bunch of pixels, something not even human anymore.”
…Had she really said that out loud?
Evidently she had, because Zooble was now regarding her with…not pity, as she had feared, but something closer to empathy than she was used to seeing in them.
“Yeah, I hear you.” Zooble shifted slightly on the couch, indicating the space next to them. “You feel like talking about any of it?”
Pomni hesitated, anxiously squeezing her arm. She’d gradually been getting closer to the other circus members lately, which she was grateful for, but she hadn’t really spent any one-on-one time with Zooble yet. She hadn’t expected them to be the one she could have an earnest heart-to-heart with…not because they were mean or anything, but because they were so, well, closed off. Pomni didn’t blame them for it, not when she’d spent a fair amount of time during her first few days here trying to isolate herself before she had gotten more comfortable with everyone else, but it did make it a little harder to get to know them.
Maybe now was the time to try, though.
“I…think I kind of do, yeah,” Pomni confided, after a moment. She let herself sink onto the couch beside Zooble, then paused, fidgeting nervously with her fingers. “I’m not really sure where to start though…”
“I mean, the way I see it, we’ve got all the time in the world here to waste,” Zooble replied. “So might as well take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay…” Pomni breathed in slowly, then sighed. “I guess I’ve just been feeling really, um, disturbed by yesterday’s…accident. I can’t stop thinking about it, about Jax literally ripping my arm out of its socket. I know he didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s the fact that he was able to at all that I can’t recover from. I’ve been having a hard enough time trying to adjust to this…” She yanked at her blush-adorned cheek, stretching it out, before releasing it and letting it spring back into place. “...and now I have to try and just accept the fact that my limbs are, like, detachable? Except they’re definitely not supposed to be. That’s the scary part. It just made me feel so… not human.”
“Welcome to the club.” As if to emphasize their point, Zooble casually pulled off their own arm, before snapping it easily back into place. “Or should I say welcome to hell?”
“Oh…right. I guess you would understand that personally…” Pomni felt her face suddenly warm up. “I’m really sorry, I hope I didn’t say anything insensitive.”
“You’re good.” Zooble shrugged, unperturbed. “I mean…it’s true, it’s next to impossible to feel human here, and that sucks. It sucks worse than anything else about being trapped in this insane virtual hellscape, really. And you get no say in any of it. One day you’re living your life the way you’d always known it, and the next you’re suddenly stuck here, and you look like… this. It feels like a twisted joke, or some kind of punishment.”
“It’s hard to imagine anything that any of us could have done to deserve enduring this for the rest of our lives…” Pomni’s voice trailed off forlornly. “But that’s what it feels like, a horrible punishment. Being ripped away from our old lives and stripped of our identities, being forced to act out this ridiculous circus charade for some invisible audience…and on top of that, not even remembering everything we left behind, but enough to miss it, to know that whatever we have here isn’t right. I hate not even knowing my own name, my real name, and I hate feeling sick every time I look at myself in the mirror because I know this…this isn’t me.”
There was a pause, before Zooble finally asked quietly, “You…feel sick whenever you look in the mirror, too?”
“Yes. I actually try to avoid my own reflection as much as I can…which is kind of hard to do when there are so many mirrors everywhere like this is some kind of warped funhouse. I keep the ones in my room covered half the time just so I feel like I have some control. But…yeah. It just makes me feel itchy in my own skin to look at myself for too long, because I know it isn’t my own skin. I’ve just spent most of my time here in this dissociative daze trying to process it…” Pomni stopped then, Zooble’s precise words catching up to her a few seconds later than they should have. “Wait a second…did you say your reflection makes you sick, too?”
An uneasy silence followed, during which Zooble gazed off into the distance and avoided Pomni’s gaze. At last they shrugged again.
“I mean…yeah,” they replied. “Wouldn’t you if you looked like this? At least you still sort of look like a human….not to, like, discredit what you’re feeling or anything, because I get it all too well. But come on. I look like some f***ing kids’ toy. And I…”
Pomni waited, watching them expectantly. When they didn’t finish, she asked gently, “You…what?”
“I…hate myself for it,” Zooble finally confessed, far softer and more vulnerable than Pomni had ever heard them sounding. “I really hate myself. I hate my body here. It doesn’t feel like me, no matter how many times I change out all my parts and pieces trying to find something, anything that feels good. Caine gave me this whole dumb box of Zooble Parts, and I guess that’s his way of trying to be, like… supportive or whatever, but he doesn’t understand that none of it will ever feel right. Funny that I can be so customizable in this world and still never find the parts that fit. It’s stupid, right?”
Pomni could only gaze at Zooble for a moment, sympathy mixing with sorrow in her chest. She related to what Zooble was saying, far deeper than she wished she did…but then again, she suspected there was more to what Zooble was trying to convey here than she could personally comprehend, as well. Her heart ached for them, hearing the pent-up frustration and self-resentment that underscored their words, and more than anything she didn’t want them to feel this way. She didn’t think she had the right words to erase all of their hurt and anguish, the way she couldn’t mend her own wounds either…but the least she could do was listen, and do her best to understand. After all, she appreciated that Zooble seemed to trust her enough to be so open with her, and she wanted to treat that trust with reverence.
“It’s not stupid at all,” Pomni assured them quietly. “I mean, I get that Caine’s not trying to be cruel or anything exactly, I think he does try to help where he can even if it’s not very helpful, it’s just…well, he’s not human, and never has been, the way we used to be. He’ll never really grasp what it’s like to lose that part of yourself, because he never had it to begin with. He’s just doing the job he was designed to do, and we’re just, how to put it…unwilling players in his game. We didn’t have a say in any of it, none of us would have ever chosen this.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Zooble muttered scornfully, and Pomni reasoned their disdain was directed toward Caine, not herself.
Pomni tapped her fingertips together anxiously, debating on her next words, before finally venturing to ask the question that had been resting at the tip of her tongue.
“So that’s why you wear different parts every day…?” Pomni glanced at the unicorn-like horn jutting from the side of Zooble’s head, her gaze trailing down to the arm they were currently using as a leg. “I always thought it was just for fun, but…I guess I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
“I mean, that’s not a far-reaching assumption to make. Kinda like choosing to wear different clothes every day, not like we even get that bit of freedom here. So maybe I should consider myself lucky.” Zooble flicked at the black-and-white-striped antenna-like protrusion sticking out of the other side of their head. “But…yeah. That’s why. I’m just always looking for whatever will actually fit. It’s like I think one day I’ll finally find that mythical perfect piece that’ll suddenly make everything right, but…so far, nothing. As if that’ll ever happen, anyway. I don’t feel like myself in this body, and I doubt I ever will. I’m just trying to make the most of it at this point. It’s harder some days than others… most days than others, actually. It’s why I always sit out on the stupid adventures. Because what’s the point, anyway? Everything sucks here, so why should I bother with something else that just feels like one big whopping distraction from the s***show we’re trapped in?”
“I think I share that sentiment all too well…” Pomni acquiesced, with a halfhearted little smile that faded away as quickly as she’d mustered it up.
Zooble exhaled slowly, looking lost in thought, and Pomni got the sudden impression that this wasn’t something they were used to talking about so much. They seemed to take a minute to collect their thoughts before saying anything else.
“Although, to be honest? I’m not sure I was completely happy in my old body, either,” Zooble finally said, once they’d found their voice again. “I was in the middle of figuring out some things about myself just before I ended up, you know, here. But at least it was my body, and I felt like I had more control over it than I do here…sure, I can just pluck off a limb and replace it with a new one whenever the mood strikes, but that’s not the same thing at all as getting to choose how I present myself . All I want is to feel like myself again, or at least like I’m getting there. Do you get what I mean?”
“Yes…I do.” Pomni fell silent for a moment, before clearing her throat and daring to ask the question that now burned within her. “Do you…do you remember what you used to look like, at all?”
“Not much,” Zooble responded, after a moment. “Like, maybe a few vague features, but my actual face is pretty much a big blur to me now. I remember I’d gotten piercings, tattoos, the works. I dyed my hair a lot…I’m pretty sure my hair was bright pink right before arriving here, actually. But, no, most of the details are gone now.” They cut a quick sideways glance toward Pomni then. “What about you?”
“Not much here either…I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,” Pomni confided ruefully. “I sort of remember that my hair was dark and cut short, like it is here, but maybe I’m just getting confused at this point…I’m pretty sure I was taller than I am here too, at least by a little. And I wore glasses sometimes. I wish I could remember more though…like my eye color, or if I had birthmarks, silly things like that. Just anything to remember myself by. But maybe it would just hurt more to know that’s not who I am anymore…”
“Maybe you’re right.” Zooble leaned their head against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling, before forcing out a hollow-sounding laugh. “Wow, it’s all just a load of crap, isn’t it?”
Pomni rested her head against the back of the couch too, gazing blankly at the brightly-colored ceiling high above her head. It did feel like a load of crap, there wasn’t really any other way to succinctly describe just how screwed they were here. She didn’t feel any happier now than she had when she’d first stumbled into this nauseatingly color-soaked, so-called “whimsical” world. It still made her heart ache when she let herself think too long about the life she couldn’t return to, the people she’d left behind and the threads she’d left unresolved, all inadvertently abandoned for endless adventures that tested her sanity and circus acts that made her feel like a fool. It still made her stomach twist to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror and find a pinwheel-eyed clown blinking back at her, so sad behind the permanently painted-on makeup, a reflection that she recognized in her heart didn’t belong to her even though she could no longer distinctly recall the reflection that had been her own. And she didn’t think she would ever feel completely comfortable in her new body, this strange cartoonish form where her face rapidly switched through all the colors of the rainbow whenever she held her breath and her arms could stretch on for miles and miles–before popping clean out of their sockets, that is. She was never going to feel normal here, and that was a difficult thing to accept.
But…at least she felt like she’d gained something out of this melancholic day.
“It pretty much is,” Pomni finally agreed, after a beat, then glanced toward Zooble with a more genuine half-smile curling up the corner of her mouth. This time, it stayed. “But at least it’s good to have people you can commiserate with in this miserable place. I mean…maybe it’s not exactly the same, how you feel and how I feel. But at least we know we aren’t entirely alone in feeling like this and that we can talk about it without pretending that it’s anything less awful than it is.”
“Yeah…” Zooble didn’t have a visible mouth with which to crack a smile, but Pomni thought she heard their voice lighten ever so slightly as they spoke again. “I don’t really…talk about this much to anyone, in case that wasn’t obvious. I’ve tried, but it never really seemed to go anywhere, at least the way I needed it to. It was nice talking to someone who actually understood and listened, instead of, you know, switching the therapy session around to himself and drawing bees while I lamented about how much I hate being here.”
Pomni blinked, lost. “Bees?”
“Trust me–you don’t want to know.” Zooble gave a dismissive wave of their hand, but their tone became a little more sincere as they added, “But…thanks, for being there. For at least trying to comprehend what I was saying. Just, do me a favor and don’t tell anyone else that I was spilling my guts here, okay? I don’t need anyone getting any ideas…”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Pomni promised. “And thank you too…it’s good to feel that somebody else, you know, gets it.” She paused thoughtfully, then added with a lighthearted air, “And hey, if you ever need a hand choosing new Zooble Parts for the day, you know where to find me.”
Zooble chuckled. “You know, maybe I’ll take you up on that sometime. Could be a nice change. And if I ever find a way to do tattoos again here, you can be my first customer. Let me guess, you’re an inspirational quotes kind of girl?”
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here entirely…I could barely handle getting my ears pierced without crying, and that was when I was already, like, sixteen. If you go anywhere near me with any kind of needle I’ll probably just run screaming,” Pomni remarked, with a little laugh. “So you used to be a tattoo artist…? I didn’t know that.”
“I think there’s a lot of things we still don’t know about each other.” Zooble rose from their seat and stretched lazily. “Want to talk more over some video games? We’ve got a game room that’s mostly stocked full of board games, but there’s a couple old-school consoles in there too. The selection kinda sucks because we’re not really allowed to have anything copyrighted in here, but it’s still good for passing time.”
“That sounds like fun,” Pomni agreed readily, standing up from the couch as well and letting Zooble lead the way. “Although I’m not sure how well I’ll play, because of my shoulder…”
“Coming up with excuses for your crappy playing already?” Zooble cracked, quirking an eyebrow at Pomni in amusement, as they began to walk down the hallway.
“Hey! I’m good at video games!” Pomni protested immediately. “I’ll show you, let’s find a racing game and I’ll prove to you I’m good at something other than math and getting my limbs pulled off.”
“Yeah, sure, if you say so.”
As they bantered back and forth on their way to the game room, Pomni realized that the tight knot that had tangled itself in her chest had loosened, that she was breathing much more easily now and her pulse no longer thundered in her ears. It seemed like her lungs and heart had decided to behave themselves…well, if she even had an actual heart and lungs here anymore…but she decided to try and not think about it right now, what parts of her digital body still functioned as it did back when she was human and which parts were entirely synthetic. And for the first time that day, she was actually able to stop thinking about it, rather than slip into a dissociative spiral questioning every last confounding aspect of her clownish new physique. She knew she couldn’t count on retaining this blissful sense of mental clarity for long…but for now, it was a start. That was a whole lot better than nothing.
And much as she wished they didn’t have to commiserate with each other on the experience, she was at least grateful to know someone else here understood how she felt about it, and didn’t mince words when it came to describing how much it absolutely sucked. She was still adjusting, still getting to know everyone, and she hoped that connecting with Zooble this afternoon had established a sort of bond between them, now that she didn’t feel intimidated by them.
Because as much as she’d resisted everything about her new home at first, much as she’d tried to lock herself away from everyone else here…she couldn’t get through this without people to rally around her, without friends who knew just what she was going through. And she only hoped she could give back as much as she received, now that she was finding just how much she cared for her new family in return.