Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ragatha had felt that something was off ever since that ill-fated adventure with the weapon.

Too calm, Pomni.
And suspiciously quiet, Jax.

"Not at all like during the adventure. Maybe that’s for the best," she noted to herself and let out a heavy sigh, adjusting the cumbersome hem of her dress. Shifting slightly, she crossed one leg over the other and scanned the hall, adorned with half-light, red velvet, and occasional golden glints that flickered across Pomni’s snow-white face. She sat frozen, like a marble sculpture, and something tightened in Ragatha at the strange premonition.

On the stage, Caine fussed about, preparing for an event that was probably important—at least in his digital life. His nervous movements seemed simultaneously comical and unsettling.

"Welcome to the award ceremony!" Caine’s enthusiastic voice finally rang out. Barely managing a bow to the audience, he began to entertain the pixelated figures in the front rows.

"How absurd," Ragatha sighed, and, seeing no point in continuing to watch this act of self-indulgence, looked back. Jax sat at the very end of the hall, keeping his distance from the others. Ragatha’s heart tightened slightly: in any other circumstance, his isolation might have been a relief, but today, every tense signal from her body screamed danger—calm was never a good sign.

"By the way, Pomni," she whispered, tilting her head slightly toward her friend while continuing to examine the velvet decorations on the stage. "I wanted to apologize."

At that moment, a strange emptiness seemed to pierce her from within; a current ran through her arms, leaving a chill on her skin.

Gone.

A second ago, Pomni had been sitting in the neighboring chair, and now—she seemed to have vanished into thin air. This isn’t a lag, right? She hasn’t disappeared forever? Ragatha’s mind raced. A burning sense of unease filled her chest, and her fingers unconsciously clenched the hem of her dress. She had no idea what other dangers this virtual—and still unfamiliar—world might throw at her. A feeling swept over her as if she were losing control, while simultaneously sensing the relentless approach of a threat. Over the years, Ragatha had learned to distinguish her own anxiety from real danger. And now, the signal was screaming “SOS.”

"Get up, Zooble," Ragatha said, barely reaching her friend’s leg to nudge her and get her attention.

She only bleated something incoherent, slumping further into the chair, and Ragatha felt a mixture of irritation and mild fatigue mingled with anxiety.

"You need to wash up," Ragatha said almost in a whisper, pointing to the oily purple streaks of dull sauce that covered Zooble from head to toe.

I need to find Pomni, Ragatha thought, helping Zooble rise and somehow hoist her onto her back. The lump of tangled matter mixed with plastic didn’t promise to be light, but it was the only way she could step away from Caine’s celebration and the hundreds of nameless human figures.

Gritting her teeth, Ragatha carefully made her way to the exit, trying not to disturb Caine’s fragile pride—this had never ended well before. The hall door closed behind her with a muted creak, and she exhaled in relief as some of the tension eased.

"Lie down here, Zooble," Ragatha said, placing her on the small malachite couch, and dashed toward the women’s restroom. Doubts swirled inside her: what if she was overreacting? What if Pomni had just gone for a walk? But every premonition told her otherwise.

The moment she paused for a second to catch her breath, a loud crack resounded from ahead. Ragatha flinched and, gathering her strength and a fraction of her breath, ran toward the source of the sound. Stopping in front of the dark wooden restroom door, she froze, barely breathing, listening intently.

"Let me go," it was clearly Jax’s voice, unfamiliar in its rasp but unmistakably his. Had he been shouting? Or crying? Ragatha couldn’t remember the last time she had heard such a tone. The dim candlelight hinted that she had come to a place where she wasn’t supposed to be, where outsiders would not be welcome. "Got nothing better to do, damn it?" the voice continued.

"You’re the one holding me, Jax," Ragatha tried to catch a response, but the voice sounded too quiet and strangely familiar. She cautiously stepped closer to the door, clutching her dress, and froze. Embarrassing—if anyone saw her—but she had to know.

"You’re the one gripping my hand, dragging me here, so why demand I let go?" the voice calmly clarified, as if this were routine. "You’ve already noticed that it’s not just my wrist that bears bruises, so why hesitate?"

Ragatha shuddered from head to toe, as if those icy words were meant for her personally. Her startled common sense, registering someone collapsing to the floor, screamed: run.

"Scared?" Jax sneered, and then a dull thud echoed. The door shook, and Ragatha recoiled. A barely audible rasp was followed by a heavy, empty cough.

"‘Let go’ means stop thinking you’re above me. If somewhere in that distant world you’re older, that doesn’t mean I need help. It doesn’t mean you know anything about me. Every word, every smile, every gesture, I crafted specifically for you—just to temporarily earn your trust."

Suddenly, a sound resembling a sob broke out. Loud, coarse—it was far too much like Jax himself.

"I hate everything about this circus. Including you."

Chapter Text

Cheap tile had a dreadful quality—it was unbearably cold.

Pomni, slowly regaining her senses, grimaced as the squeak of the door hinges struck her eardrums like a bell. She tried to open her eyes, but even the dim light felt intolerable, sharpened by the adrenaline coursing through her veins.

She had to admit it: that guy was insane. Or at least dreamed of appearing that way. Unfortunately—relying on cheap tricks. Yet in one thing, he was entirely right: she had to accept the fact that this was no kindergarten, and Pomni was no caretaker, expected to fix what had broken.

She carefully lifted herself onto her elbows, trying to focus her vision, blurred and spinning from temporary asphyxiation. Her throat ached, and every breath felt as though she were drawing it through an iron veil.

"Pomni!" came a horrid shout, slamming into her eardrums harder than a confession of weakness would batter Jax’s fragile ego.

Damn Caine.

"Are you alright?" he began jabbering, clearly feigning concern and dramatics that were entirely excessive.

"Don’t worry. I just felt a little strange, that’s all. My head spun," Pomni said. Her words revealed the truth easily enough, yet Caine responded with calm, as if granting her the space to handle it herself. "I’ll go."

If the mirror were a living witness, it would have watched Pomni leave with disgust tinged with worry—just as Caine did. Too clearly on her pale skin were the crimson streaks around her neck and wrists.

From that day onward, Ragatha had been unable to speak to Pomni. She appeared and vanished faster than the fragmented words of conversation could reach Ragatha’s ears.

She’s not hiding, and she’s not ill, Ragatha thought, watching Pomni disappear down the corridor.

2nd, 7th, and 12th day.

Ragatha, still leaning her shoulder against the cold wall, observed her attempts at communication crumble into dust.

"If this continues, we’ll find her in the same state as Kaufmo once was," Ragatha flinched at the sudden voice behind her. Gangle had approached silently, like a trained operative, not a sound betraying her presence. Across the bright scarlet ribbons ran faint ripples, betraying that she too was tense.

"Looks like I really betrayed her. I didn’t want to stay in the team with Jax and practically pushed her into that idiot," Ragatha clicked her tongue in frustration, muttering a curse.

Her anxious gaze had been haunting Gangle for several days, yet she had hesitated to voice the obvious.

"I don’t think she’s weak," Gangle said quietly, lightly tapping Ragatha’s taut shoulder. One touch seemed enough—and she might shatter more catastrophically than an anti-tank mine. "But I still don’t think leaving things as they are is a good idea."

Ragatha offered a faint, almost ghostly smile.

"What? Did someone say… adventure!?" At that moment, Caine popped up, as if a devil from a snuffbox, making Ragatha and Gangle flinch in shock. "I smell the icy breath of the next adventure."

Caine’s jaw seemed to twist into a broad, perhaps joyful (?) grin. His sweeping gestures could have been painted by a schizophrenic impressionist.

"It’s almost night already," Ragatha objected. Her previously confused and worried expression had given way to surprise.

"More like, my lady," Caine chattered, stretching his arms as if to embrace her and Gangle. Goosebumps raced down her spine at the sound of his voice, penetrating directly into her mind.

"Your dear friends are due for an adventure."

Chapter Text

"Sleep through your luck, sleepyhead."

The irritatingly sweet voice persistently tried to drag Jax out of his nap—the first he’d had in two weeks. Was this mockery or some kind of joke? The voice grew more insistent, and Jax grimaced, pulling the blanket higher over his head so that only his tucked ears were barely visible, curling into a cozy ball and trying to turn away from the source of noise.

"Wake up!" Caine sang out melodiously, illuminating Jax’s dim room with his smile. "Rise and shine!"

On the scale of irritating sounds—from a sudden nighttime mosquito trill in the ear to metal scraping glass—Caine’s voice undoubtedly occupied the top spot.

"I’m co-o-oming," Jax muttered, pulling his knees even closer to his already disproportionately long body, still hoping to sink back into sleep. In response, Caine merely frowned, observing the “performance” of the half-asleep actor, and stepped back a pace.

"Hold your blanket tighter, bunny," Caine whispered, just as a snap of fingers echoed sharply.

"Isn’t this a bit early for nap time, little one?"

Zooble laughed sarcastically, watching Jax try to hide from the bright light, tossing the terry violet blanket atop his head—a few shades darker than his own fur. Needless to say, the sudden assembly called by Caine in the middle of the night pleased no one.

"Trying not to see your sleepy face, by the way," Jax twisted his mouth in disgust, rolling his eyes, then deftly wrapped the blanket around his shoulders like a makeshift cocoon and sat on the floor in protest.

Startled by the sudden movement, Ragatha grabbed Gangle’s hand, fearing she might get lost in the flow, and kept squeezing tighter, prompting an unexpected squeak from Gangle.

"Sorry," Ragatha lowered her gaze in guilt, withdrawing her hand. A bell rang in her head, reminding her that she continued to inadvertently cause pain to others, even if minor.

"I’m nervous too," Gangle said with an embarrassed smile, as if trying to soothe them both. She hesitated for a moment, then, scanning the room where every circus participant looked confused, added, "There hasn’t been an adventure yet that we shouldn’t worry about, right?"

Pomni stood apart, observing the participants’ confusion. She had been “assigned” only one spot in the room—about four meters around Jax. It was her thoughtless folly to keep pushing forward when she had been firmly told not to. She seemed old enough to understand a simple truth—uninvited heroes are never welcomed.

Jax’s “concert” could and should remain his own. After all, it was a simple act of respect, and perhaps a touch of inner strength—to let the wild creature, desperately struggling to break free, have its moment.

And at the same time—to stay nearby.

No matter how much effort it cost her.

"I figured you haven’t been having enough fun lately, my dears," Caine drawled saccharinely, theatrically adjusting his imaginary glasses like a primary school teacher. "And it’s time we fix that."

An indescribable mix of disdainful expressions greeted him each time he suggested an idea. Again—unruly children in revolt. Remind me, why hasn’t he gone insane yet?

"Caine," Jax raised his hand theatrically, "is there any way to avoid this, or is the ‘fun’ adventure inevitable?"

"I’ll join if it’s terrible," Zooble stepped slightly forward, laughing, "for Jax."

Ragatha cautiously glanced at Gangle, as if she were translating Zooble’s words into human.

"I don’t know what this will bring us either," Gangle whispered, shrugging. "But it’s better if we stick together."

"True comrades fear no misfortune… even a climb up a snow-covered mountain," Caine began enticingly, frantically trying to reach Bubble to help with the final preparations for the adventure. The round laundry-powder creature either wasn’t ready for a colleague’s nighttime call or hadn’t yet grasped the concept of a mobile phone. After another failed attempt, Caine ground his teeth in irritation and gave up.

"Let’s go, my little icebergs!" he paused for a second. "You’ll survive anyway. Just don’t hurt each other, and sing a few songs by the campfire. Ciao!"

Suddenly, everything around Caine flooded with a bright pearlescent glow, overwhelming in its light: a few disgruntled participants, two frightened ones clenching their wrists until they cracked, and two—calmly indifferent—bathed in the same light.

Chapter Text

Jax’s head throbbed unbearably, as if a hundred irritated elves were hammering it with steel mallets. Anything could happen while sliding mercilessly toward the abyss over ice-capped cliffs.

The express to the abyss.

He had bought the ticket himself.

Sinking deeper among icy rocks, Jax acknowledged his own stupidity, his complete defeat, the impossibility of resisting emotional impulses—and, perhaps, Pomni, charging headfirst into trouble like a T-34 tank in the middle of World War II.

A strong gust of cold wind spun Caine around several times. The digital space, wrapped in blizzards, was harsh even toward its creator. Dark and sprinkled with threads of dim stars, the sky pressed down on the shoulders of tall, atlas-like, snow-covered mountains.

“Remind me, what are we doing here, Caine?” Ragatha barely had time to steady Kinger, who stared at the tectonic scenery with such fascination that he almost stepped toward the bottomless cliff.

Zooble immediately grimaced, realizing that this next adventure would likely turn into a disaster.

“Perfect that you asked, little bird,” Caine said, conjuring the last unrendered pixels. Suddenly, along the path to the top of one mountain, small guiding lights began to flicker.

“Since you lack team spirit, you must unite and reach the summit together. By the way,”—he pointed to a strange fire burning at the very top of a mountain almost hidden by heavy clouds—“here is your landmark.”

The cold night wrapped the mountains in a soft, almost unreal glow. Snow sparkled in the moonlight, seeming alive—it flickered as if countless stars had fallen onto the slopes and frozen forever in the silent white.

Each member of the peculiar expedition flinched at sudden gusts of bone-chilling wind. Breath instantly turned into clouds of vapor, dissolving into the icy darkness. Far away, disappearing into the depths of the night sky, majestic peaks rose, seeming like indifferent guardians of this endless whiteness.

“Does Google Maps work here?” Jax suddenly asked, shaking the smartphone he had stealthily taken from Caine’s pocket. But it was useless.

“Don’t think it’ll be that easy,” Caine smirked, spinning theatrically. “Especially you,” he muttered quietly so Jax wouldn’t hear.

Pomni shivered from the cold and the piercing, whistling wind that cut through her whole body, down to each strand of hair. She cautiously, arms out like an acrobat, stepped to the right, peering over the edge of the plateau. At the starting location, apart from the deadly cold, it was relatively friendly: a small fire offered warmth and rest; some wooden blocks lay scattered around to keep the flame alive.

“By the way,” Caine looked satisfied, intrigued by the start of this adventure, “here’s your winter clothing. Distribute it.”

Death by freezing is one of the most dreadful and painful fates, so why should frostbite take second place? For Ragatha, the absurd threat of cold was the least of her concerns.

“Listen,” she exclaimed sharply, with the confidence of a seasoned polar explorer, “sort the warm clothes and line up. We’ll reach the summit safely.”

“Come on, are you our expedition leader now or what?” Jax snapped, pushing Gangle aside, who was trying to pick out a warm jacket of the right size. “I’d wait till morning before moving. We don’t even know the terrain.”

Jax dove headfirst into the gray plastic chest, fishing for the best gear. Chaotically scattered boots, hats, gloves—Caine seemed to have thrown in anything that vaguely matched his idea of “warm.”

“We don’t have many supplies,” Ragatha pointed to the backpacks that Caine had carefully arranged, trying to soften the complex challenge. “We need to hurry.”

Wrapped in a garish dark jacket with turquoise neon inserts and two gray wool scarves wound around his ears, Jax plopped down by the fire, stretching his legs as if he were a Columbia ad model.

“I’m staying,” he muttered, pulling the purple blanket higher—the same one he had since his unpleasant awakening.

“Oh God, Jax,” Zooble raised her hands, as if praying to a digital deity would help her cope with this unbearable teammate. Her patchwork fur coat was no less suitable. “Nobody ordered your ego. Even if it’s on sale, can we somehow get a refund?”

“Get your own refund,” Jax snapped, muttering. “There’s the cliff. Jump.”

After fastening a light, full-length fur coat on Gangle, which surprisingly suited her, Ragatha scanned Kinger from a distance. His fur mantle didn’t need replacement, and she exhaled with relief: even in this nursery group, everyone was gathered. Suddenly, another icy gust sneaked under her collarbones and elbows, making her shiver.

“Take this,” she felt someone lightly touch her hand. “I think it will fit you.”

Blushing, Pomni stood behind, extending a heavy pale-pink down coat and matching gloves, hat, and two blankets. Awkward laughter was one of Pomni’s trademarks, which she tried to hide today. Ragatha, understanding without words, merely smiled warmly, watching her shift from foot to foot, repeatedly rolling up the overly long sleeves of her navy jacket. Could Caine really not have made something less cumbersome for the petite?

Jax continued staring mesmerized at the red tongues of flame rising from the fire. He avoided meeting Pomni’s eyes—she looked as if she had borrowed her father’s outerwear. Pomni, lacking wool tights to cover her thin, pale legs, with only a hat and scarf… Jax caught himself staring too much, and she looked back with what seemed like disdain.

His pupils shrank to pinpoints, and he looked away, blushing at being caught. His floundering was interrupted.

“Ahem,” Caine coughed into his hand, drawing attention. “Seems I was too kind.” His eyes flickered as if skipping from frame to frame. He glanced one last time at the bewildered participants before disappearing into the bright, glitchy digital portal.

“You have just a week to survive this icy hell.”

Jax had to admit that Ragatha, without even realizing it, was right. Being scattered wasn’t as big a problem as surviving among glacier masses with no fertile soil or water—except what fell as snow. They’d barely make it here, even without needing food or water, and going insane without ever finding a way out was a very real danger.

For over three hours, the group had moved in single file along the narrow snow pass, carefully stepping in each other’s footprints.

At night, the only light came from the moon hanging above the mountains, pale and distant, while absolute, terrifying silence echoed from the abyss. The wind howled through the crevices, sometimes suddenly intensifying, then fading, as if the mountains themselves were breathing.

Snow crunched beneath their boots, the sound the only proof they were still moving. Faces wrapped in scarves, breaths ragged, shoulders tight—no one spoke, yet everyone felt both their own fear and the fragility of those around them. Peaks flickered in the distance, and ahead stretched only the narrow path into the cold darkness.

“Stop!”

Ragatha finally spotted a small ledge sheltered by an overhanging rock. Snow lay softer and thicker there, and the wind barely reached them; even the occasional gust was muffled by the stone’s shadow. The air felt warmer, as if the mountain itself had granted them a tiny refuge.

“Here. We’ll rest until morning,” she commanded, spotting the secluded spot through the haze. Morning was still hours away, and she couldn’t risk pushing her exhausted companions further. The cold still bit at their bones, but here at least they could gather and wait out the night instead of battling the wind on an exposed slope.

“Did you feel that too?”

Gangle glanced around nervously, standing almost at the back. The line of participants stiffened in unison, fists clenched.

It felt as if something beneath the ground had drawn a deep breath, making the already fragile path shiver. Empty darkness and silent crevices seemed to peer up at them, tempting them to let their guard down.

The second jolt from below wasn’t gentle. The ground beneath their feet was clearly unstable. They pressed on in single file. Ragatha, leading the expedition, held Kinger’s hand for protection; he held Zooble, who took responsibility for the less combative Gangle. Pomni brought up the rear, struggling to keep up with the procession.

Only Jax, stubborn and impatient, pushed forward, snorting at the idea of holding hands. He shoved his frozen hands into his jacket pockets, nudged Ragatha with his hip, and marched at the front, eyes fixed on the starry sky.

Suddenly, the night was shattered by a loud crack followed by impact. A huge stone slab behind them broke free, turning the path they had just traveled into a ravine, tumbling down with a deafening roar. The stone shattered into fragments as it descended.

“Adiós,” Jax whistled, sizing up the situation, and dashed forward along the pass. He knew that if he didn’t reach the sheltered ledge within three seconds, he and the others would be nothing more than falling boulders.

Ragatha’s eyelids fluttered as she shouted as loudly as she could:

“Avalanche! Run!”

First, small chunks of snow fell from the upper slope, followed by loose layers, and then the whole mass surged downward. Cracks and muffled rumbles came from above, like distant thunder. The flow gained strength rapidly, carrying stones, branches, even trees. The air filled with snow dust, forming a swirling white cloud.

They ran with all their might, clinging to rocks and ledges, their eyes locked on the narrow, secluded ledge—barely a cave entrance. There they pressed against cold stone, catching their breath, patting each other’s shoulders as if sealing their survival.

Then, everything went silent. The avalanche’s roar ceased so abruptly that it felt as if it had never happened.

“Pomni?”

Ragatha’s eyes widened in terror, and she bit her lip until it bled.

Pomni, moving as if in slow motion, lowered her head, shocked as the stone beneath her crumbled into snow, then into emptiness. The ground gave way beneath her, and for a moment, her head hovered just above what looked like the first sprout of spring. She slipped downward before anyone could reach her.

“Grab her!” Gangle shouted, grimacing from the strain. Her red ribbons fluttered like flags in a hurricane.

“Damn it!”

The jerk was too sudden. Only Gangle’s hands kept Pomni from falling. Her metallic limbs clutched Gangle so tightly she nearly screamed. The mask on her face cracked with a dull crunch, slicing through the tense silence.

Pomni, still in shock, looked down. Below her stretched the endless void, the cold emptiness where snow boulders fell and vanished, probably forever.

Jax wanted to complain that the others were dawdling, wasting his time—but Ragatha’s piercing scream snapped him back to reality. It separated the hum of his thoughts from the deafening noise outside, like a dozen supersonic jets flying overhead.

He instinctively stepped toward the group. At that exact moment, he glanced up—just for a second—and met the uncertain, hardly heroic gaze of the one he desperately tried not to see.

His upper lip twitched from tension, his chest burned as if hell had already started roasting his soul in a cauldron of oil.

“Fuck.”

In a split second, he saw Ragatha clamp her mouth to keep from screaming again, Zooble pulling Gangle upward harder, knowing the next jolt might be their last, and Pomni, glancing from Gangle’s trembling hands to his confused face, pursing her lips in a mock smile—nothing like a normal reaction to falling into the void.

Jax fell to his knees, covering his ears.

“Hold on, Gangle!” he shouted, slamming his hands into the snow, leaving trenches, lunging forward to grab at least Gangle. Pomni hesitated for a moment, seeming to accept that only one could make it out.

Shivering, Pomni released her grip one finger at a time.

She vanished under the snowcap, and Jax dove after her, clutching his backpack and blanket—the last act of goodwill he could muster—for her sake.

“God, please let this work.”

His chest burned from the cold, his breathing ragged. Jax no longer scoffed at prayer—it was his last chance. He saw that even Zooble, holding Gangle, had a changed expression.

Maybe not—most likely—he was a complete idiot.

Jax clutched his blanket and backpack, diving headfirst into the gray mist, a blissful expression on his face like Pomni’s, figuratively saluting his companions behind him.

He was ready to bet they had both gone insane.

Damn generosity is contagious.

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer…” Pomni’s vague fragments of consciousness stuck together like viscous wax. Caine had promised they would survive, whatever happened, but hadn’t mentioned the bonus of heavy, leaden eyelids and sticky heat gnawing at the bones.

She had heard this awful, annoying melody day after day. Was it really so hard to come to her senses and turn the radio off?

“Pomni?” a voice, quiet and breathy, called her. It was Jax.

Impressively, paradise had its own quirks.

“Pomni,” it seemed an impulse passed over her shoulders, as if something warm had touched her cheek, descended to her collarbones, and gently squeezed her hands. Too tender a drowse to believe. Only the damp smell of earth hit her nose.

“Open your eyes,” the voice became more insistent. Someone barely touched her forehead—perhaps measuring temperature. In any case, it was much warmer this way.

Pomni grimaced and tried to raise herself on her elbows but immediately fell back. She only heard someone snicker and exhale quietly.

“Awake,” he whispered softly, running his warm hand over her forehead one last time.

With great effort, Pomni managed to open one eye.

Her head throbbed, and the air around her seemed even colder. Grimacing at the wind slipping into their shelter, she reflexively pulled the blanket higher.

She lay deep in the cave. The brown-gray walls, rough with clay streaks, looked wet and cold. The uneven stone made it feel as if the shelter had been carved by the elements themselves. A narrow entrance ahead was covered by fabric, loosely hung on a rope, yet the howl of the hurricane and occasional snow sparks still came through. Deep in the cave it was slightly warmer, though water droplets monotonously fell from the ceiling, reminding her that ice still ruled above.

By the fire, muffling its crackle, sat Jax, his back wrapped in a scarf. He was cross-legged, almost with his back to Pomni. Their backpacks lay in a corner—sorted, each pocket turned inside out. Strangely, food that had seemed disgusting before now smelled pleasantly savory as soup.

“Want to try?” Jax lazily stirred the pot.

“You won’t interrogate me?” Pomni asked cautiously, looking at him, tensing slightly as if expecting a verbal assault.

“Why?” he calmly replied, scooping the first ladle of soup. “I already agreed to be trapped with you for eternity in this ice. What’s the point?”

Jax was suspiciously calmer than usual. Pomni propped herself on her elbows, then leaned against the wall, hugging her knees.

He didn’t meet her eyes but continued nudging pieces of bread and ladlefuls of soup toward her. Was he squandering the precious rations too thoughtlessly? Pomni inhaled deeply, trying to banish useless thoughts. Her head spun as if another second and she would vanish.

“Thank you… and for the soup too,” she whispered cautiously. She awkwardly tried to hide her gaze under nearly lowered, trembling eyelids. “How did we end up here?” she asked, slowly getting used to the field cooking.

Jax suddenly turned to her and, for the first time in a long while, looked into her eyes. Pomni was embarrassed and paused her breathing slightly. He looked long, with a hint of guilt and bitterness, as if had he been there at that moment, none of this would have happened. Without a smile, mask, or grimace, he tossed more logs into the fire and, approaching the backpack, pulled out a blanket similar to the one he had wrapped around himself earlier.

“Are you cold?”

Pomni briefly pondered, when a piercing, unnatural squeal reached her eardrums. She clutched her head. The last thing she remembered was Jax’s unnaturally frightened, utterly grim expression, as if he had just lost everyone he loved at once.

“Hurry up,” Jax said with annoyance and fatigue.

He approached closer and threw a warm, dark-purple blanket over her shoulders. Sitting beside her, he realized that her latest flicker of consciousness had been brief.

Jax swore under his breath and moved closer, sharing the blanket. No one should freeze like this. He quietly laughed at his own weakness and pity: he couldn’t allow Pomni to disappear again.

Her hand pressed limply against the cold floor, fingers trembling as if ice ran through them. Jax barely restrained the lump in his throat.

He wasn’t imagining it—every time Pomni slipped into sleep, her pinky seemed to get lost in the glitches, flickering in and out like a texture that couldn’t fully render.

Almost forgotten feelings surged over Jax. A slight shiver ran from his ears to the deepest part of his heart.

“You know, if this is our last day, let it end like this,” he whispered.

Clutching her hand tighter, Jax didn’t notice falling asleep. Let his precautions cross the line—it was the last thing he knew to try to save her. Every day, every flicker of her consciousness.

By the second lunar day, around four in the afternoon, Jax finally tired of battling himself. He noticed he was giving in to gravity. Pomni smelled like someone close—warm, sweet, vaguely reminiscent of freshly baked goods. Occasionally coming to consciousness and then lapsing again, she settled carelessly next to him, pressing against his shoulder as if it were meant to be.

Jax shivered slightly, realizing that what had seemed an obvious suicide had turned out to be a perfectly legitimate way to be closer.

His breath caught, and he involuntarily ran a hand over her cheek. At the last moment, he snapped himself back, realizing he was erasing boundaries between them. Still, it was too much. Jax was created to break rules; would his purgatory allow no excuse for weakness?

He carefully pressed the back of his hand to Pomni’s forehead, as if trying to measure temperature. And from that ridiculous action, obviously nothing became clear. Not hiding his disgust with himself, Jax grimaced at how pathetic it seemed, trying to fit rhymes into lines.

Time seemed frozen.

He didn’t notice their fingers intertwining more tightly.

Jax was dissatisfied as Pomni frowned, and he involuntarily drew her closer, as if protecting her. Hesitating, he cautiously—so as not to wake her—touched his lips to her warm, slightly damp forehead.

He didn’t notice the faint smile forming under her pale, fevered face.

And no one noticed that the burning pain Pomni felt as her pinky flickered in pixels, sometimes appearing, sometimes disappearing, had vanished.

As if something still held her here, belonging to this world.

Something far warmer and gentler than it seemed at first glance.

Chapter Text

"Ragatha!" Kinger snapped upright, his asymmetrical eyes spinning wildly in their sockets from sheer panic. She let her arms dangle and edged closer to the cliff.

Half leaning forward, she barely moved even when inhaling, her gaze fixed on the bottomless, snow-choked ravine below, legs swinging idly.

"Get up, quickly…" Kinger fumbled awkwardly in his flared purple mantle, grasping Ragatha’s heavy boot, trying to pull her closer—and farther from the edge.

"What’s happening…" Zooble’s voice drifted lazily from the garish lemon-colored tent. Who actually chooses colors like this?! Her expression shifted instantly as she realized another eccentric had joined the company.

"Damn it, Ragatha…" Zooble tripped over the half-unzipped tent flap, rousing a confused Gangle. Tugging her long underwear on the run, she darted toward Kinger.

Despite Ragatha’s confusion, she was swiftly pulled deeper into the shelter, away from yet another kamikaze stunt.

"There has to be a way down…" Ragatha mused, sprawling on her back, arms wide, as if the frozen ground beneath her were a king-size bed in a luxury hotel.

Gangle peeked out from the tent, anxiety clear in every gesture, her fur coat wrapped tighter, while Zooble hovered in that emotional spectrum: strike Ragatha until she came to her senses, or control the panicked surge at her back and take the lead herself.

"We cannot risk this right now," Zooble said, attempting to breathe steadily, embracing the inevitable. Her detachment from Pomni and Jax seemed to work in everyone’s favor.

"Do you suggest leaving them here forever?" Ragatha continued, staring at the ceiling while Kinger cautiously tried to slip one of his colorful pillows under her head. Her voice was calm, methodical, as if she were simply evaluating options.

"Not sure…" Zooble admitted, a slight blush on her cheeks as she sat cross-legged on the floor. "We only have a few days left. Do you really want to stay here? I can’t promise centipedes, but the event where hungry wolves come for our soft parts isn’t far off."

The moral dilemma, tempered by fleeting glimpses of common sense, could have amused Caine. Zooble rubbed her nape and cursed quietly. In her paradigm, that fool didn’t deserve even the tiniest satisfaction.

"Sometimes, gold isn’t always what it seems," Kinger remarked expansively.

Carefully tucking Ragatha under a blanket, her eyes burning into the sky through a portal, he didn’t look as carefree as usual. His aura, especially in danger, sometimes shifted, pulling him from his own astral space to voice something unusual.

"And sometimes, you shouldn’t dig for ingots in manure," Zooble muttered, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. Gangle simply crouched beside her, seemingly enjoying a rare moment of relative safety.

"Honestly, I don’t know what to think," Ragatha sighed loudly, turning onto her side and resting her head on Kinger’s knees. He didn’t move more than half a meter from her. She sniffled involuntarily, and he looked at her with quiet regret, exhaling sharply.

"What I didn’t expect," Zooble said, exhaling with frustration and averting her gaze, "is that we’d have to figure out how to save Jax." She hesitated. "I just thought he was one of those who always survive."

For some reason, Kinger’s aura today felt unusually comforting, as if every glance carried compassion and unconditional understanding for those trapped with him in this digital reality.

"You’re right, Zooble," he said calmly, gently stroking Ragatha’s tousled hair. "The one with a plan really does survive."

Kinger continued smoothing her hair, calming her, while Zooble and Gangle tensed slightly, doubt flickering in each shoulder twitch.

"Trust him."

Day shifted into night, the starry sky was swept by harsh blizzards, and icy, piercing wind cut through the makeshift shelter from time to time.

In a relatively cozy niche, trying to buffer the cold stone with blankets tucked under their backs, two of them dozed like butterflies in a cocoon, knees drawn to their chests.

For some reason, Pomni felt lighter the moment she and Jax had decided to stop keeping distance, if only for practical reasons. Being unable to die from frostbite didn’t change the fact that numb limbs were still painfully uncomfortable. The quiet nighttime truce was comforting—no one watched them, judged them. They could fall asleep carelessly, pressing closer together, even holding hands, and doze peacefully until morning.

Tonight, Pomni couldn’t sleep. Listening to the monotone sound of his breathing, almost to make sure she wouldn’t wake him, she carefully slipped from under Jax’s arms, which had pressed against her in sleep. Sometimes it seemed he was the type who couldn’t sleep without hugging a pillow.

Her theory shattered when she realized he wasn’t some untouchable dreamer but an ordinary fool, and the pillow (or lately, its substitute—Pomni) couldn’t run away.

She cautiously got up and, tucking the blanket around Jax, who shivered at the sudden chill, moved closer to the exit of the mountain cave where they had temporarily settled.

They were on a rocky ledge, surrounded on all sides by sharp tree branches and cliffs. Tall firs enclosed a small mountain plateau. This place seemed familiar with unlucky travelers—bright remnants, like parachute scraps, tangled in the needle-leaves. Torn strips of fabric and cords wound around a tree trunk, turning what had once been a light canopy into a ragged, lifeless silhouette swaying among the dark green branches.

Suddenly, her breath faltered, became ragged, too fast, as if her lungs refused to obey. The abyss was too close—one more step and she would fall again.

And if cats have multiple lives, Pomni had just spent her last one.

The ground under her feet was solid, yet she still felt as if standing on the edge, where the slightest movement would mean a fall. One more step—and the fragile boundary between “here” and “there” would collapse completely.

Then, a warm, firm hand grabbed her by the waist and yanked her away from the cliff’s edge.

She could admit that over the past few days, she had gotten used to seeing Jax frightened. He breathed heavily, clutching either her or the illusory parts of her body. His fingers trembled faintly, but he gripped her too tightly to let her slip even an inch away.

It felt as if, had it been possible to be inside his skin, he would have locked her beneath his ribs.

“You’re out of your mind,” his pupils pinched down to the size of grains of sand, and she was ready to bet she could hear his heart pounding behind all the loud, frequent exhalations.

“Pomni!” Jax shouted, bringing her back to herself. His voice cut sharply. He clumsily tried to grab her, but his fingers barely obeyed. She smirked for a second—a strange source of pride. She had actually managed to drive him crazy. His face was again mere centimeters away, and Pomni involuntarily recoiled.

Too close.

Unsafe.

Another second—and he would notice her heartbeat was just as erratic.

“Want to die again? Are you kidding me?” Jax’s shout sounded more like a scream. His vocal cords cracked and strained, trying to contain the rising hysteria. He struck himself hard on the thigh, attempting to regain control and not harm Pomni. Scenarios of what could happen flashed before his eyes, and he saw not a single good one. He continued holding her in midair with one hand, as if releasing her would dissolve this phantom into nothing.

A phantom that had nearly disappeared before his eyes twice.

Suddenly, Pomni laughed. A perfect chance to speak, though he had misunderstood it. The stage of suicidal thoughts had passed long ago, back in school. Or rather, it had never truly arrived—Pomni had merely kept it as an option, a meaningless possibility. It amused her. Even the tired flames of the fire seemed to freeze, observing how this once-innocent sound struck Jax like a lightning bolt.

Exhale, inhale, laugh?

He slowly traced each scratch on Pomni’s neck with his eyes, circled her neat nose and cheekbones, where a bright graze from a recent fall stood out, pausing at her cold smirk, which seemed to gather all traces of venom if one were to touch it with the tongue.

He stared Pomni in the eyes. This time, it was a duel.

“You think this is funny,” he rasped, cautiously raising his hand to touch the back of her neck. A shiver ran over her skin, as if he nearly gripped her spine, her soft hair falling chaotically over his wrist—burning like hot coals. Her mind lit warning signs: “Unsafe.” Completely, utterly unsafe. But the thrill burned like never before.

In their careful fire, framed neatly with bricks like at a campsite, kerosene was missing—to burn this world to the ground.

“Yes, yes, Mr. ‘I don’t care about you.’”

Jax tensed every muscle, trying not to lose control. Pomni sounded more terrifying than her “dark” version.

“You back on your game?” he ground out through clenched teeth, smiling wider.

“If you want to play…” Pomni smirked and cut him off, pressing her index finger to his lips.

By twenty-five, she had eaten a big spoonful of the dreary corporate life, which delicately informed her that she was, at best, nobody—but now she felt playful. Was it wrong to enjoy not stopping?

For the first time, she pulled her lips into a frighteningly wide smile, staring directly at Jax, slowly shaking her head while examining the features of his forced, yet twitching, smile, his black infinite eyes widening by the second.

Maybe they shouldn’t play by the rules, Pomni thought.

Jax flinched, noticing something strange in her—as if the mask slipped. Since entering the circus, one thing haunted him: to disrupt the theatrical performance that Ragatha dragged everyone into. This was exactly what he had wanted—to see the collapse of Ragatha’s idealized empire, destruction made by his hands. He seemed close—the pristine, nearly glowing neutrality mask of Pomni cracked—but the feeling of victory didn’t come.

As if he hadn’t understood her.

Now Pomni didn’t even try to seem cold, calm, detached, as on the first day he met her, when she had unknowingly kicked him without a trace of guilt. That day, he had counted her as a newcomer. Jax couldn’t keep up with the changes, it confused him, but sparked his interest. Perhaps her jester costume could be far more cunning than Gangle’s masks—Pomni knew who she was and played freely with her personas.

“I still think you’re shamefully deceiving,” Pomni said calmly, teasingly, moving slightly to loosen Jax’s firm grip on the back of her neck. “Maybe try harder?”

He smiled in surprise. The ball returned to his court with provocation.

“Oh, and here we are again,” he exhaled loudly, almost theatrically, stepping back on his heels, raising his hands—still holding Pomni. She frowned, nearly losing balance.

He behaved just like before on the adventure—predictable. Jax seemed to shout with every move that this was a terribly bad time for quarrels, yet Pomni almost didn’t fall for it a second time.

“You’ve already risked too much.”

“Yeah, as if…” Pomni interrupted Jax’s tirade, suddenly laughing. First, she giggled, hugging herself as if about to lose balance, then, after watching the confused Jax, wiped a tear and lowered her gaze.

The situation had truly gone beyond reason.

“How did we get here, Jax?” Pomni suddenly changed expression, pointing back at the fragile boundary of the curtain fluttering at the cave entrance. When the wind tore it aside, like a monument to what had happened, a brightly colored parachute sprawled among snow-covered fir branches. Pomni cut off verbal escape routes one by one without hesitation.

“We jumped,” Jax replied calmly, seemingly resigned, sighing loudly and raising his hands.

“Once more,” Pomni stepped closer, nearly bumping her head against his torso—height difference was significant. Today, it was her turn to ignore boundaries. She grabbed Jax’s clothing, pulling him closer, and unexpectedly, he leaned in, reciprocating.

“You jumped,” Pomni hissed irritably, tugging on a strap of his jumpsuit, trying to make this careless scoundrel take her seriously.

“You really want me to stop denying it?”

Jax froze, seemingly gathering each inner demon for a secret council, deciding to go on the offensive. His ears straightened unnaturally, lips stretched into a devilish smile. Pomni’s triumphant expression shifted to confusion.

“Cold,” Jax whispered softly, stepping back, leaving an unexpected kiss on Pomni’s lips. Her eyes widened to the limit. “You wanted to know everything!” He paused, licking his lips, smiling predatorily.

Pomni seemed partly scared… or pleasantly surprised—he preferred to believe the latter. The effect was achieved, and he generally preferred to stop, but when a faint blush appeared on her face, the dam broke. The world narrowed to a point, vision to a pixel. Jax literally clung, holding Pomni’s fragile body. Dirty, uncontrollable greed, shallow, ragged breathing, impulsive reactions—he was her ultimate manipulation, causing countless problems. Without stopping, he kissed her in short, torn motions on lips, neck, wrists, as if completely losing control. An act of unprecedented adoration. From Jax’s dilated pupils, it seemed almost a panacea.

Pomni grabbed his wrists, carefully wrapping them around herself, more to prevent him from hurting himself. He continued bending over her, convulsively touching cheeks or embracing her, as if letting go for even a moment would make his Madonna* vanish.

Pomni gently stroked his head, trying not to touch his ears. The pressure felt like a hundred atmospheres inside, a heated steel sphere expanding, compressing her insides. From emotional hunger—and it had to hurt, right?

Destructive and mesmerizing inner conflict, barely concealed tenderness, and Pomni’s unexpected desire to leave a matching mark on his lips—or even a dozen scratches. Stress or horror movie phenomenon—but his hands gripped her neck tighter.

Only the crackling fire sounded monotonously against the sudden madness.

If ugly love couldn’t be avoided, at least let beautiful butterflies dance in the stomach.

Chapter Text

“You’re a witch,” Jax suddenly cursed under his breath, sharply pulling away from Pomni. Ragged, short breaths; skin hotter than molten metal; legs trembling in chaotic panic. It was as if the world spun around him and the ground no longer mattered, as if there were only one point in the entire digital world—and he already held it in his hands. “I didn’t realize at first.”

He still gripped her shoulders almost painfully, as if afraid that if he let go, they would both fall apart. But a flash of aggression, mixed with panic, appeared sharply in Jax’s eyes.

“Sentiments didn’t work—you decided to go to extremes by…”

A slap.

The loud ringing echo of the slap bounced off the cold walls and settled, deafening him. Jax lowered his gaze to the floor, feeling as if his head had just been shoved into a massive iron bell and struck from the outside.

Pomni’s gaze burned into the crown of his head—for the first time fierce and sobering.

“Did you think you became the center of the universe?” Pomni crouched abruptly, destabilizing Jax, pushing him so he grimaced and fell onto his tailbone below. She leaned in, squatting to look directly into his eyes.

“I asked a simple question: how did we end up here, Jax? Where did you get the parachute and, more importantly…” She inhaled deeply, as if preparing to sprint. “…Could you do it again?”

Pomni’s eyelids twitched, revealing sharp resentment and anxiety, her throat burning like acid.

“You already knew?” Jax asked, watching the faint blush fade from her cheeks. He wanted so badly to believe it was genuine.

“The room keys, the little pot, the unnatural amount of canned food—a dozen in the corner. The torn parachute. A cave in the middle of a chasm…” Pomni squinted and leaned closer. “You made all of it.”

He shrugged as if to dismiss it but realized there was no escape. Normally, he would have veered off-topic, joked, or stayed silent. But now, cornered, there was nowhere to retreat. Jax hesitated, swallowed, averted his gaze, and quietly, almost to himself, said:

“Not exactly, Pomni.”

A strange mixture of irritation and awkwardness—the blend of rage and confusion. Pomni’s anger didn’t yield to his own, but she remained calm, as if holding the world in her hands. He… seemed completely undone. One image spun in his mind—her lips, still marked by his bite.

“We can get out,” Pomni suddenly said, sinking to the ground as if all the adrenaline had been drained from her veins. “You have to try.”

Jax paused, startled by her reaction.

“That’s all you care about?” He grew angry again, trapped in his own chess game. “How did I make the parachute and supplies?” Jax’s temper flared like fuel in an engine. “I wanted to, Pomni. I just wanted to…”

“…save you.”

A shout burst out, and Jax froze, feeling too drained to sew his damn mouth shut.

Zugzwang—no moves left.

He had been outplayed.

Anything he said now would be a pitiful denial, doomed to fail.

Pomni exhaled heavily, falling onto her elbows.

“By the way, that still doesn’t explain anything, Jax,” her voice softened.

Too long a battle. A lone wild hare. No need for words: behind his blocks, she already knew how to read him.

“Your choice—push me away or speak,” Pomni sat down, hugging her knees as if trying to ground herself. “But let’s be reasonable…” She giggled nervously, a corner of her mouth twitching. “We can even fight again when we get out.”

For a moment, Jax was stunned by an unusual feeling—as if a thin string were tied to his heart, and the other end trembled. He felt, for a second, the bitterness Pomni was carefully hiding.

He sighed, thinking to himself. Not funny at all—besides Pomni, his own image blurred.

“Let’s go to sleep,” he said, rising and moving toward the shelter, straightening the blankets and showing her a spot next to him. She carefully gathered her remaining strength and lay down beside him. The light had nearly faded—only the embers cast a warm, flickering glow. They both stared at the moss-speckled ceiling, and the stone shelter, like a roller coaster reaching its peak and plummeting downward, held their breath.

Pomni remained silent: she had no strength to speak. Jax—was adjusting to his own vulnerability.

“Listen, Pomni,” he suddenly turned to her, lying on his side, propping himself on an elbow. “Do we really need to get out?”

His words embarrassed him, but the thought of returning to the circus walls no longer seemed appealing.

She continued staring upward.

“I don’t know. We won’t stay here forever,” Pomni paused, reflecting. “I think when the adventure ends… this world will vanish.” She gave an awkward smile, hiding a shiver. “Along with us.”

Seeing a tear slide down her temple, Jax couldn’t resist and gently ran his hand through her hair. Reflex. He was too used to touching her.

Suddenly, amid the icy night darkness, a bright, glowing butterfly landed on Pomni’s hand, as if distracting her from heavy thoughts.

She stared in wonder at the light source, then turned her head, looking at Jax with curiosity. He merely smiled his own way and shrugged.

At that same moment, not fearing being caught in his mischief, he released a second butterfly from his hand—apparently so the first wouldn’t be lonely. Carefully, so as not to startle it, he moved closer to Pomni, making her flinch slightly, and whispered in her ear:

“Nothing, Pom-Pom. Just magic.”

Chapter Text

In the real world, Pomni’s dreary, gray, faceless days were punctuated by the whistle of cold drafts seeping through poorly plastered windowsills. Winter followed, with the first snowflakes she watched in awe, while passersby, eyes lowered, barely noticed them, carelessly stamping them into the slushy brown mess of the streets.

A disturbingly familiar fatalism—the feeling of being a crumpled scrap of paper thrown into the dirt; like a nomad, barely existing in a world where for everyone else the birds sang on silver platters and fields lay carpeted with flowers. For Pomni, there was only the bleak, withered spring and, more rarely than ever, a rainy summer.

Pomni, living within the walls of the digital circus, increasingly forgot the existence of the real Pomni—trapped in a rented apartment with plain white walls, paid for with the last of her money, confined by herself and capitalist locks.

When Ragata, sitting in a bar and sipping a cosmopolitan, casually mentioned she was tired of social chatter and tea parties, Pomni couldn’t help but wince. It seemed her hands would crush the glass at that moment—realizing how differently they existed in their respective realities. Thoughts, like a pendulum, immediately sobered her: she couldn’t—she would have to wash the spilled Negroni right away.

A careless gust of icy wind prevented her from sinking too deeply under the quilt of dreams. At least, Pomni. She was the kind of person who, on New Year’s morning after another college binge, ran through the kitchen early to clean up; the type who always looked after everyone else—and never herself. In that, she understood Ragata: once again, unsure where to escape her useless shell, how to close her eyes and pretend she didn’t exist for nothing.

Pomni carefully propped herself on her elbows, inspecting the blackened walls of the stone shelter. The fire had died, and the cold was starting to bite. Her nose, cold and slightly damp like a dog’s, tingled. Turning her head to check on Jax, she couldn’t help but smirk—this one didn’t really need her care.

Stretched out on the frozen ground, he snorted lazily, arms sprawled to the sides. Pomni found it amusing, understanding that Jax was, after all, a rabbit. And if biology textbooks are correct, domesticated animals only fall asleep when they feel secure in a warm, safe environment.

Pomni, at her age, knew a lot: how to start a fire, handle weapons, lift a multi-ton gummy truck with a makeshift jack. She just couldn’t hold her breath long or… sleep properly. She had been sitting for about an hour on a hastily made chair of scrap wood, watching the dawn through a small gap in the curtain.

So many events and thoughts had accumulated recently. And while being distracted by these “adventures” helped, it wasn’t enough to shake out the unpleasantness—the complete loss of herself and the confusion with Jax.

“What are we going to do?”—the embers in the fire crackled, giving a little more of that magical time when neither nature nor life had yet swallowed you whole.

Pouring a ladle of boiling water into a bowl, Pomni fumbled with a packet of strange herbal tea that had long been buried in her backpack.

The last thing she remembered before falling was Gangl’s trembling grip. During the fall, it felt like a vibration from beneath the earth and a state of weightlessness, impossible to prepare for. It should have swallowed her, but something grabbed her tightly by hands and feet.

Pomni smiled strangely. Memories kept flashing: the careful, teasing “damn it, three times, damn it” from Jax at her neck; the frantic attempt to wrap ropes around her torso—ropes that didn’t cooperate, carabiners that couldn’t handle two people, the sudden jolt.

First—air, unable to slow the fall easily, then—endless, boundless snow. White. And so pure.

“What are you doing here?”—a frozen hand landed on Pomni’s shoulder as she sat on the chair.

“Isn’t it a bit early for your reflections?”—Jax frowned, pulling the blanket tighter over his jacket. He looked like a self-assembled wigwam, and Pomni, quietly, couldn’t help but laugh.

You can’t stay mad at a mischievous rabbit.

Jax, grimacing and raising an eyebrow, didn’t quite understand such friendliness.

“I was thinking about what you said, Pomni.”

He brusquely grabbed her drink. The hot tea spilled over her body like a pleasant current, as if human happiness had touched her from within for the first time in a long while. For a moment, it restored the sensation of simple, lost joys—the morning when the world still seemed bearable.

“We have about two days left, I think,” he said, finishing the bowl in one gulp and refilling it. “If we want to get back.”

Pomni tensed slightly, as if each word pushed her closer to the edge of a cliff. She felt she didn’t want to return—she wanted to escape.

“You know, if there’s no real difference in how or where you die, I’d prefer to try.”

There was no secret: if a problem had no solution, either you were an idiot, or the input data was wrong. This feeling haunted Pomni her whole life. As if a giant chalkboard had outlined her problem, and she didn’t dare solve it as she wished. Like divine mockery dealt a joker an unlucky hand before a survival game. Cards that even in the hands of a master could produce nothing but a shameful loss.

“You’re desperate,” Jax settled behind Pomni, sitting on the floor closer to the warmth and extending his hands. “I still think it was an accident.”

“About what?”—Pomni asked suddenly.

“I don’t really know how to use what you saw,” Jax barely pressed his lips together and muttered: “When I tried to catch you, I just knew it would work.”

Pomni suddenly turned and studied him closely, almost fearfully. Jax got nervous, feeling obliged to confess a crime against his pride, but continued:

“And I didn’t create any caves either,” he lowered his gaze, voice hoarse. “We just fell. Like meat in an alligator enclosure. Hit the snow with all our damn might and tumbled down.”

Jax slumped further.

“I didn’t just fail to save you, Pomni,” he nervously clenched his fingers. “I almost killed you.”

Before Jax’s eyes, memories froze like glass photographs: amidst broken branches, torn cloth, and the wind’s howl, he frantically dug down, realizing that somewhere beneath the endless snow layers, Pomni’s glitched consciousness was surfacing.

“You didn’t see what happened to you,” he swallowed, trying to sound steady. “Joints twisted, lag with every breath, even the heat…” Unable to contain himself, he shouted: “Human heat, Pomni. Where did you even get heat from?”

Suddenly, a warm hand rested on his shoulder. Pomni sat behind him, soothingly stroking him. Goosebumps ran along his hand, each cell trembling and passing the wave of tension.

“You made it.”

Jax tensed, not understanding his own emotions.

Pomni caught herself realizing she was giving in again. Through another promise to be tougher with him, through trying to think about herself—if Jax showed even a fraction of emotion, the last cell of reason would switch off.

And Pomni would become herself.

The poor real Pomni she once knew.

“I’d probably be scared,” she began cautiously, moving away. “Without you.”
Her last words drowned in Jax’s noisy exhale. His throat tightened, and with burning lungs, he felt helpless.

Pomni stared at his hand, not understanding how her touch triggered this chain reaction.

One algorithm glitch she already felt, and if she continued, she would get completely entangled in this connection—never letting Jax pour pesticides at the root.

Even if she could, the illusory monstrous vines would still strangle—they had already crept too close to the arteries.

“Get ready,” she said quietly, rising. Jax seemed to stare at one point, unresponsive. “The embers are hypnotized, partner.”

She needed to bring him back to his senses—and somehow name her own feelings.

Preferably in a way Cain wouldn’t censor.

Outside, the sun shone suspiciously bright—rising over the gorge, illuminating the path for the first time in days. The blizzard that had blocked the air for so long seemed to have stopped.

“Jax,” Pomni pushed aside a thin piece of cloth that had shielded their entrance, giving them some protection against the hostile environment. A sharp, frosty wind immediately hit her cheeks. “Looks like the sun is up.”

Chapter Text

The sunlight lazily filtered down almost to the very bottom of the gorge, painting the gray rocks in pale gold. The trail wound along the rocky ledges, scattered here and there with fine crumbles of stone and the occasional frozen tree root.

They had been on the move for hours. The sun climbed higher, and the white caps of snow on the slopes gleamed almost blindingly, as if dusted with glass. The trail rose upward, giving the impression of climbing an endless staircase hidden among the cliffs and snowdrifts.

Pomni walked slowly ahead: the backpack weighed heavily on her shoulders, her legs threatening to sink into the knee-deep snow. The cold nipped her cheeks and nose, and each step was a struggle. Jax, meanwhile, moved effortlessly, as if treading on a perfectly flat path.

“Must be nice, being as tall as Everest,” she muttered, almost waist-deep in another snowdrift.

“No,” Jax smirked, gently tugging her by the collar of her warm jacket. The bundle of irritation that had been building on the trail gradually began to tire. “It’s just that longer legs mean you don’t get stuck as much.”

He shrugged and chuckled, glancing sideways at her reaction. Even if it wasn’t fair, teasing Pomni was part of his entertainment schedule, and with almost unlimited access to her attention, he would be a fool not to use it.

“Thanks for clarifying, Jax,” Pomni rolled her eyes, hastily tossing a snowball at the self-proclaimed “Nobel laureate.” “I thought I just walked badly.”

“Who knew you loved snowdrifts so much,” Jax sneered, prompting Pomni to frown and roll her eyes again, anticipating another silly jab.

“Snowdrift-phile, snowdrift-lover, snowdrift-fanatic…” Jax nearly shone in his Oscar-worthy performance as a goofball.

“Okay, that’s enough.”

With each passing minute, walking grew harder: the snow clung to their backpacks and boots, and a creeping fatigue sank into her back and legs. Pomni blushed with embarrassment—it felt like every step exposed her weakness. Jax, smiling, occasionally stopped to extend a hand, pulling her out of another snowy trap.

“Thanks, Mr. Rescuer,” she muttered, brushing snowflakes from her face. “I don’t know what I’d do without your long legs.”

Sometimes Pomni cursed her tiny, awkward body. Seriously—why did she have to feel like a Pomeranian next to some lanky, cartoonish rabbit?

“No problem, little thief,” Jax smiled, pausing for a moment to take in the surrounding landscape.

It felt like they were completely alone in the world. Shout into the void, and the echo, like a drunken sailor, would bounce off the rocks, tussle with the trees, and, exhausted, dissolve somewhere in the sunlight. An empty world—live, get used to it, stay—and maybe someday the cold crypt would become your home.

Jax had never had a “home.” Spaces he inhabited were replaced one after another, as if falling through textures, forcing him to lose everything that had taken root there. Loved ones expired and died, things wore out, memories dissolved, friends’ smiles twisted into grimaces.

Here, in the digital world, it was the same—like sand slipping through fingers and disappearing. Life was a cruel comedian, and Jax knew better than anyone: every exposed weakness brought a blow to bones and psyche. Survival wasn’t about being the strongest, but the most adaptable—and he lived by that rule.

“Are you thinking about something?” Pomni asked cautiously, noticing the shift in his smile.

“Huh?” Jax jolted, as if snapped out of some distant reality. “Just… I wish none of this existed.” Seeing the change on Pomni’s face, he flustered and quickly tried to change the topic: “Five-minute break? I’m starving—I could eat an elephant.”

They reached a relatively flat plateau—white, dazzling, with a slope stretching into unreachable blue. Their backpacks landed with dull thuds in the snow, and they finally allowed themselves to sit, stretching their legs and brushing snow from their boots.

“I’m not sure we’ll reach the final camp in two days,” Pomni said, realizing she had prompted this risky endeavor.

Jax nodded, opening a water flask, eyes following the winding trail. Strength was fading faster than expected, and the summit was still outrageously far away.

“Don’t be discouraged. When we get out, I’ll personally write you an adventure—where everything is the opposite.”

Pomni raised a questioning brow, turning to him.

He was troubled not so much by the distance but by Pomni’s determination to succeed. She had longed for a calm, enjoyable adventure for far too long, but nearly all her past attempts had ended in failure.

“Come on,” Jax said with a self-satisfied grin, “warm sand, sea, no snow. Kane will have to check the suggestion box around the clock so he doesn’t miss this plan. I promise, I’ll make sure of it.”

Beneath her sudden burst of enthusiasm lurked fear of the unknown, loss of control. No guarantees remained of how much time they had left. Any day could result in dispersion.

Pomni smiled quietly, noticing the faint sadness in his gaze:

“Even if we don’t make it… I’m still glad I spent this time here.”

Jax barely flinched—her words sounded like an indulgence she couldn’t afford, and he didn’t deserve. Suddenly, Pomni leapt up, as if shaking off fatigue, and laughed loudly and recklessly:

“If it doesn’t work out—fine! We’ll raise buffalo!” She eagerly ran through possibilities like a child inventing a game, eyes searching for any idea.

Jax couldn’t resist laughing too, though grimacing slightly: in her mad lightness there was honesty, as if she understood the horror of their situation and tried to color it at least for him.

“Or…” Pomni mockingly narrowed her eyes, comically baring her fangs. “We’ll roast a native from the local tribe for lunch! Don’t forget—I can be the evil Pomni too.”

As if on cue, snow and air around them trembled. From the white folds of the gorge, figures emerged—heavy, wrapped in enormous gray furs. They moved almost silently, forming a tight circle around them, spears glinting in their hands.

Jax barely had time to rise, reflexively grabbing Pomni’s hand to avoid losing her. The rope tightened around their shoulders, painfully pressing them together. Jax felt his body grow heavy, legs betray him, arms weaken. All he could do was resist under the unnatural pressure, trying to stay conscious. He saw only vague shapes of warm-furred silhouettes, heard the creak and rustle of snow, felt the pain and icy pressure of the rope—and then—everything went dark.

When the plateau emptied again, only the two backpacks lay there, lonely on the snow, while the sunset, oblivious, painted the peaks in rose-gold.

Chapter Text

“It’s wrong,” Ragatha burst out of the pixel portal, flushed—whether from the temperature drop or sheer frustration—and tried to reach Caine, who was impassively studying a blank wall.

“Pointless,” Zooble drawled, offering a hand to Gangle, who followed after her. Ragatha’s eye twitched at the sight of their calm, almost domestic harmony. A honeymoon, honestly.

She had watched this absurd picture for an entire week. To her surprise, the only one still anchored in reason was the ever-confident Kinger. Even though the team had noticed—and heavily felt—the loss of their comrades, thanks to him at least part of the group managed to reach the summit and finish the adventure.

Yet Ragatha couldn’t rest easy.

“Caine!”

She stepped closer and shouted at the ringmaster, desperate to break his trance. He suddenly shivered like a leaf, and faint static flickered across his red suit.

“Seven fifty-three,” he declared sharply, raising a wrist that displayed glowing digital numbers. “We’re closing.”

Ragatha grabbed his arm before he could vanish into another glitch.

“There’s still time!” she nearly cried, voice trembling as she tightened her grip. “Pomni and Jax are still out there,” she pleaded, forcing the words past a lump in her throat. “We can’t just leave them!”

“What are you talking about?” Caine tilted his head to the side with exaggerated curiosity. Then, with a serene smile, added,
“You already did.”

A hammering pain tore through Jax’s skull, as if his own brain had decided to stage a revolt. He was the first to wake and quickly realized—his arms and legs were bound. Worse, he and Pomni were tied back to back, her small frame pressed rigidly against his shoulder blades.

Darkness surrounded them—thick, heavy, suffocating. Through the pounding in his head, fragments of memory floated back: being dragged down narrow tunnels, the wet stone walls glistening, the air growing colder and heavier with each step. The shivering ground beneath them told him enough—they were deep underground, buried beneath layers of rock, completely cut off.

“Hey…” His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. Silence answered.

It was the worst possible time to be hostages. Whether the locals were at war, or just primitive and paranoid, he and Pomni were working against the clock—the adventure timer would expire in half a day at most.

Carefully, feeling his way through the dirt, he reached backward until his fingers brushed hers. He squeezed. A small movement answered—reflex, or half-conscious awareness—but it was enough. The contact steadied him. Somewhere deep inside, tension eased. They were still together.

For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, Jax felt responsible. The same Jax who usually laughed off the consequences of his own chaos now caught himself thinking: this time, he was the one who had to protect.

A sudden, blinding flash split the dark. Jax winced, eyes seared by light. Behind him, Pomni stirred as if waking from a deep dream. The light sharpened the world into focus, revealing what had been hidden by the void.

Rows of figures filled the space—silent spectators, whispering among themselves, impatient for the show to begin. The beings he’d mistaken for mountain tribesmen were something else entirely. Tall—taller than him—covered in thick white fur, with broad shoulders and sharp, angular limbs. And their eyes… black, gleaming like polished onyx.

Caine really outdid himself this time. The place resembled a colossal underground coliseum. The stone walls shimmered with cold blue light, and tiered steps spiraled upward, carved directly into the mountain’s heart. The glow flickered across the rough surfaces, casting torn shadows that danced and merged. The ceiling vanished into darkness. No sky, no air—only weight.

And Jax suddenly realized: he and Pomni were today’s main act.

The murmurs fell silent. He squinted toward movement above the arena—an elevated platform, carved like a throne, overlooking the center. A figure stepped forward. The chieftain, unmistakable. His eyes weren’t black like the others—they shone turquoise, glowing in the gloom. He held a massive carved staff wrapped with ribbons, which he struck against the ground.

The earth shuddered. Jax recognized that vibration—the same tremor that had once triggered Pomni’s fall. If this world was built by Caine, nothing in it was random.

The leader began to speak, voice rumbling through the cavern like thunder from the mountain’s core. The language was heavy, guttural, resonating through bone rather than air. Jax gritted his teeth; the sound gnawed at his nerves worse than the cold.

Each phrase drew a low, synchronized reply from the crowd—a chorus of identical voices. Word, pause, response. Word, pause, response.

“Excuse me!” Jax shouted suddenly, more out of panic than plan. “Sorry to interrupt!”

The echo bounced off the walls—and then, silence. Hundreds of bead-like eyes turned toward him. For a moment, he felt less like a prisoner and more like a strange animal loose on stage. The audience exchanged glances. Were they angry? Amused? Curious? It was impossible to tell.

“Jax, are you sure?” Pomni’s trembling voice came from behind. “These NPCs don’t exactly look friendly.”

Another tremor. The chieftain moved—his turquoise eyes brightening as he descended, gliding almost weightlessly from the high platform. The stone cracked slightly when he landed before them.

Jax held his breath. This was his chance. Charm, humor, negotiation—something had to work. Straightening as best he could in his bonds, he leaned casually against Pomni’s shoulder like it was the backrest of an office chair.

The chieftain leaned closer, murmuring in that same foreign hum—half wind, half echo, impossible to decipher. The sounds themselves felt wrong, refusing to form meaning. Jax shivered, not from fear, but from sheer incomprehension.

So Caine didn’t add a language patch this time?

“Honored chief…” Jax began, his voice dipping into exaggerated politeness. “Or maybe king? Someone important, surely. My companion and I would very much appreciate if you could, well, let us go.”

The chieftain frowned, studying this strange, bright creature before him.

“Perhaps you have… an elevator?” Jax added hopefully, smiling.

Pomni hissed through her teeth. He could practically feel her eye roll.

“Would be a real time-saver,” he muttered—then stopped.

The chieftain tilted his head, observing them like curiosities that didn’t belong to his world. Their colors, their movement—it all looked absurd against the ancient stone. He murmured something, as if tasting the sound of their language, but meaning still eluded him. To him, they were intruders—wild, colorful beings who had violated the stillness of his domain.

And then, he roared.
It wasn’t speech—it was thunder, raw and primal. The sound hit like a physical force, shaking the ground beneath their feet. The whole arena vibrated with the noise, a storm of voices and wind. Any hope of diplomacy was gone.

The chieftain examined them closely—their torn jackets, scratched faces, exhausted eyes. Then, circling like a shadow, he stopped before Pomni, studying the way they clung to each other.

A burning pressure struck Jax’s chest. Magic. He clenched his fists, teeth grinding. Whatever this was, they’d survive it—and only later would he allow himself to untangle everything else.

The chieftain crouched, watching their linked hands. Then the weight eased. Air rushed back into their lungs. Both gasped, coughing.
Above them, glowing symbols appeared—crude, floating in blue light, twisting like figures drawn by a child.

Pomni stared at them, trembling. “Do you… understand what it says?”

Jax’s voice was quiet, almost reverent.

“Just one word.”

Truth.

The crowd answered at once—a single, booming chant that filled the cavern. The blue stones flared, light reflecting in the chieftain’s eyes and rippling from wall to wall, forming a tightening ring of fire around them.

The earth trembled. Cracks split the arena floor. A rush of freezing air burst from the depths, stealing their breath.

They didn’t even have time to scream properly before they fell into darkness.

Negotiations were officially over.

He probably should have insisted on the right to call a lawyer.

Chapter Text

“Damn it!”

With a loud thud echoing off the stone walls, Pomni crashed straight onto Jax’s leg, making him yelp in pain. It felt as though they’d been falling through yet another endless abyss—only this time, it ended in something quite tangible and, unfortunately, as hard as concrete.

Jax’s entire body felt steamrolled. His ears rang, as if someone had twisted metal wires inside his skull, and the leg Pomni had landed on throbbed with bruised protest. As though safety measures were no longer required, the ropes binding their torsos had vanished, leaving them alone with the freezing, mind-crushing stone walls pressing in on their awareness.

Pomni sat on her knees, staring absently at her scraped, stinging palms. Where the hell are we? The thought had circled her mind for the thousandth time in the past week—and it never became less irritating.

Why couldn’t life—real or virtual—just be a little kinder? Her pupils, unsteady and trembling, looked as though they’d been drawn by a toddler still unfamiliar with the concept of a perfect circle.

She wasn’t even looking at the textures anymore, only through them, shivering not from fear but from anger—anger that her restless soul was denied even a second of rest. Just horror, tension, and the constant threat of loss. Ironic, she thought: even if she ended up in heaven after death, luck would surely prepare a special cauldron for her somewhere among the shining clouds.

She caught herself. The moment she started feeling sorry for herself, she’d pave the road to weakness.

“Pom.”
A sudden touch to her cheek drew her out of her trance.
“Pomni!” Jax, still coming to his senses, lightly tapped her face to bring her back. “You’re scaring me.”

Her sudden changes in behavior had long unsettled him—he couldn’t tell whether they were real or just calculated. Careful, steady, sometimes uncertain, rational, interesting, and far too… normal. A subject worth studying for hidden danger.

Back in the bar, when he’d first tested the waters, he couldn’t resist getting close. She’d either become an amusing prop for his performances or, at the very least, provoke a reaction out of detached Ragatha. Either outcome suited him fine—as long as it served his favorite purpose: hiding behind other people’s reactions.

He froze for a second.
Endless searching for meaning—sign of weakness.

Suddenly, a deafening silence swallowed them whole. The kind that comes before a tsunami or a catastrophe—a suffocating stillness that shuts down every internal system. The room was tiny, barely a few meters across, and its claustrophobic closeness felt sharper than any chain.

The walls seemed to lean inward; breathing grew difficult—whether from the weight of the stone pressing down on the mind or simply from being forced into such narrow proximity. Smooth gray, almost concrete-like walls were covered with strange symbols—traces of ancient writing—casting a faint glow into the suffocating dark.

“That one,” Jax said quietly, nodding toward the wall.

“सत्य”

He extended a hand to help Pomni stand. The word appeared several times, written in bold script. He smirked to himself—it looked like two monkeys carrying sticks. Or maybe a very drunk Zooble. Depends on the angle.

“Feels like I’ve seen it before,” he muttered. In the cluttered corners of a memory wrecked by Kain’s countless interventions, half-forgotten images flickered—a child sitting in a dim room before a flickering TV, watching a documentary camera slide over weathered stone slabs carved with elephants and chariots. Among the symbols, one had shone brighter than the rest.
“I’m almost sure it means truth.”

Suddenly, the symbols flared with a cold blue light, and the entire space shuddered. The floor trembled under their feet as if some massive engine had come to life below. The smooth walls groaned and began slowly moving inward.

“What’s happening?” Jax spun around, knees bent, ready to run—except there was nowhere to run.

The stone slabs crept closer, barely perceptible at first, but enough to make breathing shallow—as though the air itself was shrinking along with the walls. The symbols pulsed brighter and brighter, flickering in rhythm with the rumble, savoring their silent panic.

One more moment, and the walls would crush everything inside. Jax darted from corner to corner, patting the walls, even trying to dig into the floor with his hands.

“What a pathetic way to go,” he muttered, raising his hands in exasperation. The attempt was useless—they were completely trapped. “Any plans for your final minutes, Pomni?”

She blinked. Impressive moral support.

“Smash your watch if you think this is a good time for jokes,” she snapped, frantically scanning the walls for a lever, a trigger—anything.

A loud crack filled the air, as if the ground beyond the walls were crumbling into the void. Jax braced himself against the stone, trying in vain to stop the movement—but his stats were no match for ancient slabs of rock.

“For God’s sake, Pomni—” he grabbed her under the arms and lifted her aside with ridiculous ease, like a kitten. “Stop flailing.”

He seemed far too calm. Almost detached. It was as though he’d accepted the situation—and was now just trying to keep her panic in check.

“Escape rooms,” she muttered stubbornly. “There’s always a way out.”

“Impressive devotion to utterly useless nonsense.” Jax leaned back against the wall and crouched.

It wasn’t clear whether he meant the search for escape—or himself. Pomni caught the thought and froze. The truth was simple: they had no idea what rules governed this world, and the walls were closing in.

“You cling to life as if it means something.” His crooked smile didn’t fade. “But we’re not even human anymore. Just illusions. A fever dream of some sick imagination. So why fight it?”

Pomni didn’t understand where he was going with this. She tried to keep panic at bay—let it in, and reason would begin to dissolve.

“Then why are we here?” she countered. “The emotions we feel, even this conversation—it all seems real.”

“Exactly,” Jax laughed, but it sounded cracked, unhinged. “Why are we still here, Pomni? Isn’t it strange that no one’s looking for us? No one who cares? You know as well as I do—if anyone did, our minds would’ve been pulled back to the real world long ago. By now, my body’s probably half-eaten by rats.”

He laughed again, sharply, almost manically, raising his gaze to meet hers. It was painful to look at—he knew exactly where to strike, and when. His words burned his tongue, yet he couldn’t stop them; they spilled out like demons he couldn’t cage.

“Aren’t you more afraid of being forgotten… than of dying?”

The grinding of the walls cut through the air again. Pomni stopped and drew a long, steady breath, feeling exhaustion settle across her face.

“More than death,” she said quietly, clenching her wrists until pain brought clarity—as she always did. “I’m afraid of what you’re trying to do to me.”

Faint red marks began to bloom across her pale skin.

Among the monotonous days where her only company had been numbers, despair, false smiles that fit the corporate code, and a relative normality she never quite matched—only this familiar pain, this reminder that her body was still here, that discomfort was still a language—helped her claw her way out of the sticky blackness of grief.

Pomni gave a short, bitter laugh to herself. She’d seen worse. Worse than Jax. Worse than this absurd situation. Worse than what any twenty-something should have to carry. And even then—clinging like a buoy in the storm near Point Nemo—she didn’t sink. Why would she start now?

Suddenly, the chain of symbols flared again, shifting color from turquoise to a muted green. Pomni jerked her head up, looking around. The walls—once crushing inward—stopped.

Jax’s face changed instantly. He frowned, confused, eyes darting.

“Did you press something?”

“Um, no?” She didn’t sound convinced herself.

Her brows twitched, strained, as if she were trying to solve one of Hilbert’s problems without a calculator.

“Your hair’s blonde,” Jax noted suddenly, getting to his feet and glancing warily at the walls.

The symbols lit up again—this time a dirty red.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Pomni asked, watching him carefully.

He gave her a patronizing pat on the shoulder and sank to one knee before her. His ears stood upright, trembling slightly, and his eyes—gleaming with reckless light—betrayed a dangerous excitement.

“Truth,” Jax murmured, almost in awe, staring at the blush rising on her cheeks. “That’s what this place wants.”

The walls began to move again, pressing her closer. Too close. Pomni instinctively pushed him away, palms against his shoulders, reclaiming her breath and her distance.
Jax remained—contradictory, volatile—too clearly a man who’d lost control of his own weaknesses. A walking hazard label.

And Pomni—she’d risk it. Maybe out of curiosity.
Or maybe because their wounds, somehow, harmonized.

Like two fractured mirrors reflecting the same broken light.

But not trust.

“Pomni has dark hair!” Jax declared triumphantly, breathing hard from the stale air, just as the walls resumed their slow, inexorable movement. “What’s wrong?” He looked around in confusion, wincing at the muffled rumble.

“Which of our team of evil doubles do you feel most comfortable with?” Pomni asked, squinting as if tasting a new hypothesis.

Jax froze, eyebrows lifted in silent What? But he decided to play along.

“With evil Pomni,” he spread his hands. “Sorry, she’s more fun than you.”

Suddenly, the room seemed to hold its breath. Dirty green light, like digital moss, crept along the walls. Disbelieving that such a ridiculous guess had worked, they giggled and exchanged glances like mischievous children who’d pulled off a perfect prank.

“When we get out, I swear I’ll shoot you in the forehead instead of congratulating you,” Pomni said, grimacing to stop herself from laughing.

She tried to hug him, to make things feel simple again. Not a chance. Enough. Her desires were locked away, the key devoured, and they remained forever trapped in this distant, dark closet.

“Say the worst thing you can think of,” Jax called mischievously, closing the distance in one swift move toward the slightly stunned Pomni, who was still scrambling for a reply.

She bit her lip, eyes darting away as if calculating.

“F#cking hell, sh#t, d#mn it, b#stard!” A spark flashed in her eyes. “Id#ot, c#nt, f#cker…”

Pomni laughed, dangerously close to madness, as though ready to leap into infinity.

“F#cking d#mn it!”

Jax’s eyes went wide—he hadn’t expected that. His brazen face lit up with a blissful grin. He hadn’t been this thrilled even when Zooble suggested discussing sex.

“F#cker, this is bullsh#t, d#mn it, hell, h#ll of a sh#t…”

“Stop, stop, Pomni,” Jax grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard, trying to halt the torrent of “truth” she had just unleashed—truth that even Bubbler would have puffed at in stunned silence.

She gasped, as though expelling all the tension accumulated over the last few days. He gently stroked her head, attempting to calm both her and the chuckle threatening to escape him.

Their hands reached out, closing the gap, until Jax stopped himself. One step too far, and he would make it obvious—he’d lost the fight, the fortress surrendered.

Sitting on opposite sides of the room, backs braced against the walls just in case, they began tossing questions back and forth. Over time, it became almost amusing—discovering the strange perspectives and viewpoints each held.

“How did you end up as a supermarket accountant? You’re only twenty-five,” Jax said, shivering theatrically. “I thought only old people worked there.”

She had lost count of how many times she’d been asked this “brilliant, conceptually novel, totally unheard-of” question.

“College, certification, and voilà—welcome to the dull routine of office life,” she said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Not bad for a start. I wanted to save money for further study, and then, who knows—maybe in ten years open my own business and live comfortably.”

“Your turn,” Jax yawned slightly, feeling his body relax from the stress and fragile, conditional safety. Pomni’s expression darkened briefly, and she looked away, a touch guilty.

“Did you have friends here, in the digital world?”

In an instant, his face changed: eyes wide, pupils pinpoints, wild and painful light flashing in them. His mouth tightened, corners of his lips clenched as though trying to hold back the burn.

“Never mind, let’s not—” Pomni said awkwardly, averting her gaze. “I’ll ask something else.”

“No,” he interrupted sharply. “They were never my friends.”

Jax’s voice was icy, like frozen water under a winter lake, cold to the bone, no hint of softness. Suddenly, the room glowed red, and he cursed: “Damn Mesozoic lie detector. Goddamn it.”

The expected sanction made the space shrink further, forcing them to brush ankles.

“You do realize this can’t go on forever, right?” Pomni unzipped her jacket; warmth seeped in. “The air will run out soon. We need to stop the mechanism itself.”

Jax didn’t respond; he stared into the unknown above, still shaken.

“I mean, if we actually get out—” Pomni asked cautiously, as if walking through a minefield. “I mean, leave the circus for good.”

“I’d buy a motorcycle and probably leave wherever I lived,” he said, thinking. A faint light flickered behind his eyes. “An electric stool like the Honda Rebel would do fine.”

“You can ride?” Pomni asked, calculating a hundred reasons why this chaotic hazard shouldn’t hit the road.

“No,” Jax laughed confidently. “But why not try?”

If time had stopped, they might have felt no regret. But the gray walls, seemingly immovable, crept ever closer, slowly compressing the space around them. Each breath grew heavier, almost tangible, forcing them to feel it with increasing intensity.

“I don’t know what to think,” Jax muttered, sensing Pomni’s breath against his chest. Leaning closer, he pressed his palms to the walls, trying to create a small space between them. “Give up?”

Pomni avoided looking directly at him, eyes darting sideways, hands clenched or gripping clothing edges to hold back tension. Her breathing grew louder; the proximity pressed like the walls themselves.

“Think calling Kain would help?” she asked tentatively.

It didn’t. Any attempts at shouting or calling for help dissolved into the oppressive darkness.

“Listen,” Pomni’s voice softened, breath leveling, and she tilted her head as if to look Jax in the eyes. “You said back then, when we fell, that you wanted to save me, right?”

Jax’s gaze flitted nervously, sensing the inevitable awkwardness. If he could fuse his skin with the wall, he would have fled in shame.

“No,” he sang melodically, feeling the need to patch up holes not even opened yet. “Don’t even think it.”

Her stubborn persistence impressed him.

“You a stalker now?” he muttered. “Will you haunt me after death if I don’t confess?”

A crack resounded. Pomni recoiled, then reflexively stomped hard on the irritating idiot’s foot. Strange, alien excitement surged through her body—a mix of shock, anger, and instinctive self-defense. He yelped, trying to free himself. Is this some bugged version of Pomni?

“Jax, one more word about confessions,” she said, serious now, drawing him closer by the strap of his jumpsuit. He felt uncomfortable, almost dissolving into the kaleidoscope of her eyes. “And I swear I’ll fulfill every latent desire you have.”

She lifted her foot, letting him wince and flush with forbidden embarrassment.

“Desire—that’s the trigger,” she added.

Jax struggled to unclench her tiny, icy fists gripping him. With a thunderous groan, the walls pressed in even more.

“You won’t believe this,” he said sarcastically. “I’d rather not become peanut butter smeared on toast right now. But nope—nothing happens, no exit appears. Theory’s wrong.”

“Make something—shovel, knife, anything to dig the ground!” Pomni almost screamed.

Jax grimaced at her, arms crossed, trying to suspend disbelief and surprise simultaneously.

“What am I, IKEA?”

“Do it,” Pomni insisted. Time was short.

Muttering to himself, Jax straightened, frantically recalling every image of shovels he’d ever seen in the “Garden & Landscaping” section of a hypermarket.

Suddenly, a faint, warm tingle ran through their palms, like electrodes in an electrophoresis experiment.

With a dull thump, a small shovel appeared on the floor, glowing a soft golden light.

“No way,” Jax gawked like a child receiving a New Year’s present with no candy inside.

“Dig!”

Pomni picked up the rope they’d been bound with and began tying it around Jax’s torso. He shouted in disbelief:

“This is madness! What are you doing?”

She simply looked back at him with unwavering focus.

“Trust me and dig, now.”

Jax’s patterns shattered, collapsing one by one with a crash. This strange woman, commanding with absolute certainty, seemed like a God personally dictating every next step. It was frightening, infuriating, and oddly inspiring. He wasn’t used to seeing her like this. And this was not the Pomni he’d initially tried to get close to, testing the limits of his new “toy.”

Absurd to recognize his own insignificance in contrast. He wanted to erase his face and redraw it to believe he could act the same. A nearly tiny, foolishly dressed clown, anxious and wary—but unlike him, apparently steel.

“You’re the rabbit, Jax,” Pomni said, tying the rope around herself so she stayed just an arm’s length away. He tried to hit the stone in surprise, but it barely budged.

“That doesn’t mean I can dig through solid rock,” he said sarcastically, hammering at the base with the shovel. “Would’ve needed a drilling rig!”

Suddenly, blinding light filled the room. Red symbols on the walls, once flickering like living things, were engulfed in alien radiance, vanishing in a shining wave.

Beneath their feet, every strike scattered a chaotic rain of tiny pixels, reflecting light like miniature sparks.

Through the cracks, bright light poured in, along with cool gusts of wind—fresh, sharp, invigorating, like a second breath filling the cramped space with sudden freedom and motion.

“You’re the White Rabbit, Jax,” Pomni said calmly, watching the portal open under their feet. “Not literally, and not Wonderland either.” She smiled. “By creating what you need, you reach the place you want—outside time and space, slipping between worlds.”

Jax just stared, helpless, as the desperate situation in human resolve turned into escape.

Acknowledging defeat and sheer folly, he smirked, carefully taking Pomni’s hand.

Another familiar touch, in which he no longer denied his own Ambrosia*.

“You not scared?” he asked softly. “If we’re wrong…”

“Then together we’ll get out of any mess,” Pomni said, stepping into the unknown.

A moment later, they vanished into golden mist. The once-threatening stone crumbled behind them, consuming itself from within.

“One last thing,” Jax murmured, just before disappearing into the light—a faint smile, tinged with pain and something distant, almost warm.

“I forgot what together means.”

Chapter Text

Over the past week, Jax had grown suspiciously used to falling. In, out, onto, under… as if someone had forgotten to pull him out of his jeans pocket and tossed him into a washing machine, flailing across every conceivable dimension and space.

From one pitch-black void to another, now in yet another undefined place, they could barely make out each other’s outlines.

“You’re sitting on my foot, by the way,” Jax said, sarcasm sharp as a knife. Inside, he groaned for the umpteenth time at the intrusive closeness. His heart skipped beats, refusing to cooperate, and he ground his teeth, exhaling: “You’re crushing me.”

A referee would have called it a low blow—mocking like this was definitely against the rules.

“One moment.”

Pomni wasn’t entirely sure how she’d reacted. With painstaking care before the jump, she had tied them together so they wouldn’t get lost during the transfer. Now, she struggled to figure out which end to pull to undo the Gordian knot.

For the first time, the darkness didn’t frighten her—it felt almost familiar.

“Can you help?” she asked, offering him one end of the rope so he could pull with both hands. But Jax, true to form, defied all logic and bit the rope instead, brushing her palm only lightly with his teeth.

“Jax,” she hissed in his ear, losing control. His favorite reaction—exasperation—would remain unclaimed. In the pitch-dark, her blush was invisible, and that only made it worse.

Pomni was certain of one thing: her guess had worked, for better or worse. Understanding how bonds and forces function in this digital field gave her hope. If every hero had innate abilities, they needed to explore them fully.

“Funny,” Jax chuckled, feeling Pomni’s determined panting as she worked to untangle them. Her efforts were successful, though slightly irritating.

His inner compass pressed insistently against his skull, reminding him he was one step away from losing both: her, and the chance. Shamefully, he admitted it—this was as good a moment as any to confess. His inner dialogue whispered like children at summer camp during quiet hours, teasing, urging acknowledgment of what he’d been thinking. He shook himself. What a pair: a cartoon clown and two meters of magnificent rabbit.

“Enough,” he finally hissed. With a snap of his fingers, his hands loosened the ropes, and he nearly dropped Pomni as he rolled aside.

“Really?” she muttered, rubbing her wrist, bruised from the fall. “After all that, you still avoid me?”

A trace of sarcasm and hypocrisy lingered—the inevitable consequence of his influence.

“Jax, I’ve seen a lot,” Pomni admitted. Acknowledging their closeness felt radical. Was it just to prove she hadn’t misjudged? Or…

Or was there an “or”?

“Please,” his voice dropped, low and heavy. “Please, Pomni. I can’t fall any lower in your eyes.”

She couldn’t see his face, but she would have bet everything that nothing between them had ever been so vulnerable, so exposed.

Suddenly, a warm hand touched her cheek. Cool fingers traced her cheekbones, sliding to her chin. Her thoughts short-circuited.

“You wouldn’t say so,” Pomni added cautiously, instinctively tilting her head and pressing her cheek against his palm. “But I don’t like losing.”

A private moment, shielded from the world outside. If only they could linger here and decide later how to proceed. Silence was broken only by faint, uneven breaths.

“Let’s leave things as they are,” Pomni said for the first time, finally at peace: all cards on the table, and Jax busy with trivialities while pretending to distance himself.

Polarities always find a way to attract.

“Now, I don’t think we’ll manage this,” Jax breathed, leaning so close it seemed he was exhaling onto her lips. If there were electricity nearby, it would have shorted.

Rationalization—his usual method of weighing pros and cons—failed. The cons: complete upheaval of habits and consciousness, inability to resist attraction, and admitting someone could breach his ancient, cobwebbed fortress, reorganize it, and laugh devilishly at his outrage.

He reached toward Pomni. Time seemed to freeze, leaving only the soundtrack of rustling fabric and pounding hearts.

She froze, leaning slightly forward in response.

An impossible scenario: his first victory over himself.

Suddenly, an outside noise caught their attention.

“Did I interrupt?”

In the flashlight beam, Kinger appeared, peering between the startled Jax and Pomni.

The silence was shattered with a shrill scream.

They jumped apart, nervously smiling, trying to hide their flushed faces in the darkest corners.

“What are you doing here?” Jax barked. Pomni closed her eyes, wishing she could vanish into the flames of shame.

“Well…” Kinger began, as if pondering his response. He waved the flashlight near his chin, casting bizarre shadows. Then he brightened: “Oh, I know! I live here.”

Jax surveyed the room. The flashlight cut through the darkness, revealing only fragments. Disorder reigned: books scattered across the floor and table, many open as if tossed aside. Aquariums crowded shelves and floor, wriggling with insects. As the light passed, their chitinous backs shimmered, appearing and vanishing.

“Damn,” Jax muttered. He didn’t want to admit it, but Kinger had a solid point.

“I think I know how he could help us,” Pomni interrupted, eyes flashing that explosively playful light he had come to love.

For the past month, Ragatha had been haunted by nightmares. She would have called them bad premonitions. The same dream broke into her consciousness whenever she closed her eyes:

Caine was dying.

He didn’t turn off, didn’t fade—he lay on a hospital cot, lifeless as a violet at the bedside. Ragatha, an amateur in psychology, still feared interpreting her visions.

Speak too soon—and disaster followed.

“Caine!” Her uncertain shout cut through the empty corridor.

She had repeatedly tried to coax him to find the missing friends. Each time, she hesitated, questioning herself. Jax clearly didn’t consider her a friend—but would Pomni at least continue to?

“How strange,” she muttered. Alone, with no one to judge, her emotions spilled freely. “Endless excuses: he can’t find them, or disappears all day.”

Suddenly, the clatter of footsteps froze. Kinger’s usually silent room now echoed with unaccustomed sounds. Ragatha had visited before, but never noticed anything capable of producing metallic scraping.

“Scalpel, assistant Pomni!”

Ragatha froze, pupils trembling. Hallucinations from sleep deprivation?

“Yes,” Pomni’s cheerful, tangible voice confirmed.

Like fate, Ragatha’s knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time struck again. Flashing lights broke through the door. She stepped closer and froze, realizing Kinger’s lights had never been on before.

Trembling, she yanked the handle, nearly tripping over the threshold.

Inside, faces of Jax and Pomni greeted her like assistants at an operating table. Kinger, in white gloves and a medical suit, looked like a surgeon, completely absorbed in his craft.

Eyes sparkled beneath masks; a dozen lamps flickered, catching Ragatha’s fluttering eyelids. On the table lay Caine, unconscious, like a carefully arranged experimental mannequin.

A faint golden glow shimmered from Jax’s and Kinger’s hands holding scalpels—strange, almost magical, playful under the lamps, leaving Ragatha lightly bewildered.

“You could’ve at least said something,” her voice trembled.

But Jax, with an elbow, swept Pomni into his arms, pulling her close, nose wrinkled in almost comical irritation. Another interruption? He wouldn’t tolerate it.

“We don’t disclose patient information,” his voice cut through, sardonic and sharp.

Pomni smirked, and that alone confirmed to Ragatha that something had truly changed after the weapon incident.

She didn’t fully understand the chaos, but she saw the essential part: everyone was safe. Even Kinger, gently handling Caine’s motherboard, seemed to be dismantling a toy, careful yet slightly unnerving in pale gloves.

Later, Ragatha would understand why dissecting Caine was necessary—to reveal hidden mechanics. She would see that dispersals could have been avoided, that this was a chance for a fresh start.

For now, watching Jax’s ridiculous, over-jealous grimace, Ragatha realized one thing: she wanted above all else to avoid melodrama involving these two.

Especially this coordinated, disgustingly saccharine duo.

What could you do?

Covering her face, Ragatha smirked—her control had no chance.

Despite everything, opposites had still found a way to stick together.