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“I’m not sure I’m doing this right,” said Pomni. She tilted the sketch pad in her hands at an angle, holding it up. Her sketch looked like a hasty scribble of blocks.
“Aww, it’s ok Pomni,” Gangle said at her side. “Everyone starts somewhere.”
Pomni lowered the pad, bringing back into view Zooble, who lounged across a chaise as the group's drawing model.
“I think yours looks great, Pomni,” chimed Ragatha.
Pomni smiled halfheartedly. Ragatha was sweet, but really her work resembled a brick and triangle with squiggly noodles coming out of it more than it did Zooble. Drawing was never her strong suit.
Then again, maybe having the most abstract circus member as their first anatomy model wasn’t the best idea they’ve had. Pomni looked over to Ragatha’s easel. “How’s yours coming along?”
“Mm..” Ragatha made a face, then sheepishly turned her sketch pad to face them both. It wasn’t too bad, but was kind of what you’d expect from a beginner. “There’s definitely some room for improvement.”
“I get what you mean, Ragatha,” said Kinger, leaning over from his station. “I can’t quite get the crosshatching right on mine either.”
He then turned his easel over to the two, displaying a sketch of Zooble with enough graphite rendering to appease the masters of the Renaissance.
Ragatha and Pomni stared at it wide eyed. He’d even gotten the chaise drawn and shaded too?? It had all the folds of the fabric??
Ragatha gestured to his Zooble sketch, around the rendering of the face.
“Kinger where.. where’d you learn to do that?” she asked.
Kinger blinked. “Do what?”
Pomni then shook her head and returned to her own canvas as Kinger resumed his work, scratching at his temple with the end of his pencil. Ragatha resumed work on her canvas as well.
Pomni hummed. She couldn’t figure out Zooble’s head. Drawing a 3D triangle was strangely harder than a cube.
When Pomni glanced over at Gangle’s work, it resembled the sketches she’d seen before in her notebook. Zooble’s eyes looked the same as they did in that one twenty-second anime adventure. There were a lot more doodled sparkles on the page than in reality.
“Wow, Zoobie,” rang a voice from the hall. Pomni’s body instinctively flinched.
Jax strolled in, a hand resting on his waist, seemingly amused by their art study session. “I knew you were interested in [#%@&!] but never took you to be an exhibitionist too.”
Zooble rolled their eyes, not breaking from their pose except to give Jax a middle finger.
“Not my fault people want to draw me more than you, dumb[@&$%].”
“You know,” Pomni mused, tapping her chin with her pencil, “this probably is the first time I’ve ever drawn someone in their birthday suit before.”
As soon as Pomni had said it, she regretted it, as Gangle, Ragatha, and Zooble all immediately straightened and scrambled to shush her.
Pomni shrank into herself slightly, looking around confused. “What?” she whispered hastily, “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, they’re just worried because you said the B-word,” grinned Jax.
Pomni’s brow raised. “The B… word?”
“You know.. the uh.. the day when someone’s born,” Ragatha replied quietly.
Gangle nodded. “Caine’s kind of sensitive to that word.”
“Sensitive?” Pomni thought to herself for a moment. Had the word really not been mentioned since she arrived? “We can’t really tell time here, so why would that matter?”
“Well.. uh,” Ragatha mulled over the words. “He’s..”
“How close was your next one when you put the headset on?” asked Jax, making no effort to lower his voice.
“I was twenty-five,” Pomni stated, “but if over two months have passed then I might now be twenty-six.”
Jax’s grin widened. He threw his arms out in a flourish. “Well, in that case, HAP—“
THWAP!
Zooble’s hand clapped itself over Jax’s mouth before he could finish. The rest of their limbs held him in place. Gangle and Ragatha gave a sigh of relief.
“I hadn’t realized you already turned twenty-six!” Kinger said warmly. “In that case, happy birthday Pomni.”
“NO!”
Ragatha and Gangle shouted as Jax’s expression grew smug behind Zooble’s hand, before swiftly biting them and slipping himself free.
Seconds later, Caine’s body dropped from above and hovered just a few feet from the ground. Then his lower jaw dropped, then his eyes, rolling, then his upper set of teeth, until he was fully present. Bubble floated down to join him.
“Gooood morning, my crinkling croutons!” said Caine, “Did I hear correctly there’s a birthday in the circus?”
“Oh, no,” Ragatha began politely, “it wasn’t that. It was just—“
“Pomni’s birthday!” exclaimed Jax, “And would you believe it? We never got to celebrate it!”
“By golly you’re right, Jax!” Caine said, boggling at a calendar that poofed into his hand. He snapped it away. “Well, don’t you worry, Pomni! I’ll make sure we have the most splendiferous, sensational—“
“Don’t forget sssensual—” added Bubble, before swiftly being popped.
“—Celebrational celebration like ever before!”
With a snap of his fingers, a large chest appeared and hit the ground with a thud. At first, Pomni thought it came from the Candy Chaos adventure. It was as though someone had made the chest out of dark chocolate cherry cake, then locked it shut with carved peppermints.
Gangle and Ragatha shuddered and quickly stepped back from it. Even Kinger looked a little on edge at the sight of it.
“Oh! Uh, Caine th-that’s alright,” said Pomni, following suit and putting distance between her and the chest, which now bounced and growled. “We don’t have to celebrate my birthday, I really don’t mind—“
“Nonsense, Pomni!” said Caine, giving a circling wave of his staff. “I’m determined to make sure every performer here feels special on their very special day! And even if it wasn’t for your birthday, we’re long overdue for a celebration nonetheless. So you can consider this a birthday for everybody!”
“That’s not really.. how birthdays work..” murmured Gangle.
“Anyway, most of you know the rules—Blow out the candle, make a wish, don’t get killed, and most of all ✨have fun!✨”
Pomni’s heart quickened. “What was that second to last bit?”
Without further warning, Caine popped the lock. The chest unleashed a flurry of chocolate and white frosting that coated the circus, and out from its depths sprung a gangly, shrieking, birthday-cake-looking demon. At full height, it towered a foot above Kinger. Its head took the shape of a cake slice, flaming candle included. The layers of its head opened onto a toothy maw, and it gave a monstrous, gutteral roar.
Pomni stood petrified. Everyone around scattered. The eyeless cake thing then turned its attention to her, and she did the same.
The skittering of the lanky creature’s claws echoed across the checkered floors as it scrambled in chase behind her. Pomni shouted, asking for someone—anyone—to help. Her mind raced with the same adrenaline as the day she met Kaufmo.
She turned a corner, sprinted down the bedroom hallway, and slipped inside her room before quickly locking the door.
Another beat later, the roaring drew closer before the door shuddered with a massive thud. The thing hissed and snarled, claws scraping under the doorway. Pomni panted, terrified at the thought of it pounding the door down. Her eyes darted around the room, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do.
On instinct, she slammed her foot down on the demon’s claws and there came a pained snarl from behind the door. The claws slipped back under the gap and judging by the sliding, clicking noise that followed, the demon skittered its way further down the hall, searching for another victim.
Pomni stood with her back to the door a minute more, panting. Her senses began to return. She clutched a hand over her chest.
It was uneasy to think there wasn’t really a heart under there. Only some racing, digital facsimile of one. Still, real or not, something pounded within her chest that drove her to pant, even if she didn’t need to breathe. Every fiber of her being said that demon wanted to steal it.
When the hall grew silent, and the roaring grew distant, Pomni ventured to poke her head out again.
“The [$%@#] was that thing…?” she muttered.
Whatever Caine said was already nearly forgotten to her now. Something about blowing out a candle? A wish?
She hesitated before stepping out. The hallway hadn’t escaped the birthday cake-ening treatment. Now it resembled the dark inner caverns of a chocolatey and sprinkled mountainside. Frosting stalactites jutted from the ceiling overhead. The faintest echo of Gangle’s screaming could be heard somewhere far, far away.
“Pomni!”
Pomni started at Ragatha’s voice, before looking down the opposite end of the hall. Looks like Ragatha had the same idea, she was just a few feet from her own bedroom door.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” said Ragatha, stepping forward to meet her. “It didn’t hurt you, did it?”
Pomni shook her head, finally stepping out to meet her.
“What was that thing!? Why is it chasing us?”
“Yeah, that’s…” Ragatha rubbed her arm. “That’s a fair question. That monster is something we call the Birthday Demon.”
“Birthday Demon?”
Ragatha nodded. “Because we can’t tell time here, at some point someone brought up the thought of missed birthdays. So, Caine decided to make his own, well, ‘birthday adventure’ to give everyone a chance for a wish while also recreating the impending sense of doom that people have around birthdays.”
“That’s.. yeah that tracks,” Pomni sighed. “So what do we do? Hide out in our rooms until the day’s over?”
“I wish it were that easy,” lamented Ragatha. “But the adventure doesn’t end until someone blows out that thing’s candle and makes a wish. That’s kinda the whole point.”
“And by wish you mean..?”
“Whatever you want, so long as it’s within reason and isn’t an exit door.”
A sense of dread began to build in Pomni’s stomach. “And it’s up for grabs to anyone in the circus..?”
Ragatha reluctantly nodded again. What was weighing on both their minds needn’t be said. Pomni feared the thought of what Jax would attempt with that kind of power.
They hadn’t spoken since the favorite character awards, and now her skin bristled every time he was in the same room. For the past few days, he seemed to only show himself when they were all in a group, too often to be just a coincidence. He didn’t even pick on her as much anymore during adventures. His attention now seemed to just.. completely gloss over her.
If he still held resentment, or a desire to prove everything he claimed, the whole circus could suffer for it.
“Are you going to try and catch it?” asked Pomni.
“Well, I would rather that wish didn't fall into the wrong hands, so yeah. I’m going to try, even if it hurts.” She then looked back down to see Pomni’s uneasy expression. “But if you don’t want to, Pomni, that’s completely understandable. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to stay inside during all this.”
Pomni thought for a moment, then shook her head. She was determined to keep that wish from the wrong hands too.
“I’ll help you.”
Ragatha’s expression lifted in surprise. “Really?”
Pomni nodded. “Yeah. You seem to know this thing better than I do, so I’ll follow your lead here.”
Ragatha smiled. “Okay,” she said, before her expression grew more determined too, “Okay, yeah! We can do this.”