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After their frankly delightful conversation with Kinger, the newcomer had figured out which room was theirs fairly easily, and had spent most of the night inspecting every corner of it. While their room didn’t feel like theirs, it was certainly themed consistently with their digital avatar. Everything in the room was geometric, from the blocky furniture, to the fractal patterned wallpaper, to the hexagonal quilt on the bed.
Speaking of the bed, they had been relieved to find that it wasn’t made of the same plastic-y material everything else seemed to be made of, and was actually quite comfortable. There were no clocks in their room, so there was no way of telling how much time had passed, but they guessed it had been at least an hour before they finally got to sleep. Then again, they could have just as easily guessed anywhere between 30 minutes and five hours, so who’s to say.
However long it really was that they’d slept, it wasn’t enough to prepare them for their first proper day in the circus. They had arrived at the end of the day, so Caine had already bid the cast farewell for the night, who had consequently failed to mention him in the short time they’d interacted.
They’d been woken from their gentle slumber by loud noises and bright lights, and the distinct feeling of suddenly not being in bed. The barrage of sensory information overwhelmed them, and they took a minute to realize that someone had been speaking to them. When they finally tuned in to the obnoxiously loud voice and their eyes adjusted, they were greeted by an enormous set of dentures with equally oversized floating eyeballs, which were thankfully not on them at the moment.
“-ANY OF YOU THINK TO TELL ME? THEY MUST HAVE BEEN SO SCARED AND CONFUSED! WHO’S TO SAY WHAT COULD’VE HA-”
“Uh, Caine?” A familiar voice, Pomni they recalled, pointed to them, redirecting the attention of the yelling teeth.
“GASP! OUR NEWEST STAR IS AWAKE! NOW THAT YOU’RE LUCID WE CAN GIVE YOU A FORMAL INTRODUCTION!” Did he just say “gasp” out loud? “I’VE BEEN INFORMED BY YOUR LOVELY COSTAR RAGATHA THAT SHE AND POMNI GAVE YOU A RUN DOWN OF THIS FANTABULOUS FESTIVAL LAST EVENING, BUT YOU DESERVE A PROPER TOUR!” With a flourish, he grabbed them by the shoulder and they were teleported to a different, but equally bright location, and then another, and another. Again, they could tell that they were being spoken to, but the sudden overload of input prevented them from parsing a word of it. All they could do was cling to this strange new person, hoping they wouldn’t fall the unfathomable distance to the ground. With each shift to a different location, they worried the jolt would shake them loose, and with each new environment they felt the white noise in their head spread further. They screwed their eyes shut, hoping that what they couldn’t see couldn’t hurt them. Their fingers burned from how they were white-knuckling their tormentor’s sleeve.
Just when they were sure their stupid thumbless hands would give out and they’d plummet into the abyss, their feet were back on solid ground. Despite now being literally grounded, they were overcome with a wave of dizziness and felt like a gentle breeze could knock them over.
Unfortunately for them, a gentle breeze was not what knocked them over.
“SO WHAT DO YOU THINK? ARE YOU READY TO JOIN IN ON A THRILLING ADVENTURE?”
Already in such a fragile state, Caine’s booming voice caught them by surprise, and activated some self preservation instinct in them.
They felt their legs give out from under them, and everything disappeared.
Suddenly finding themself somewhere pleasantly dark, they breathed deeply. They could still hear voices from outside of wherever they were, but they were muffled, almost like they were under water. The screeching static feeling that had overtaken their body moments ago began to recede, leaving them in a comfortable state of numbness. They could barely feel where any part of their body was, they didn’t feel restrained though, it was more like they were floating. It was nice.
Once they recovered from the sensory overload, they became concerned as to where they had been transported. It didn’t feel anything like when Caine had teleported them across the grounds, but they felt so distant from everything. Even though the sleepy comfort of this place begged them to stay, to ignore the world outside, they were scared what would happen if they did. Vaguely remembering a description of hypothermia, how it was a peaceful death that lulled you to sleep, one that filled you with euphoria moments before oblivion, they wondered if this was similar. Either way, they didn’t want to find out, so they tried to move.
The first thing they noticed was slivers of blinding light falling upon their face, and they had to remind themself not to retreat back into the dark. The more they moved, the more light shone on them, until there was nothing left to cast a shadow over them. The voices of their companions faded back into focus as their eyes once again adjusted to the technicolor dreamscape they found themself in, and once again, those damned dentures were right in front of them.
Getting a bearing of their surroundings revealed that the aforementioned dentures were in fact above them, and that they were lying flat on the floor.
“THAT WAS INCREDIBLE! WE MAY HAVE JUST FOUND YOUR MAIN ACT!” Caine exclaimed, sounding somehow more enthusiastic than his normal tone of voice.
“Act? What was incredible?” they asked, still unsure what had just occurred.
“WHY, YOU EXHIBITED A COMMENDABLE FEAT OF CONTORTION, MY SPHERICAL STARLET!” This man sure loved himself some flowery language.
“Yeah, I still don’t get it,” they admitted in the hopes of getting an actual explanation instead of another riddle.
“You got scared and turned into a ball.”
They looked up to see who had spoken. It was the grumpy nonbinary one that Ragatha had told them about. What was their name… Zooter?
“I… turned into a ball. I turned into a ball?”
“That’s what they said.” This time it was the rabbit speaking. “You deaf or something?” Oh they already didn’t like this guy.
“NOW, NOW, JAX. THERE’S NO NEED TO BE RUDE TO- GOODNESS GRACIOUS, YOU DON’T HAVE A NAME YET!”
“Yeah, sorry. I’m working on it,” they confessed to the exuberant ringmaster, “Can I think on it for a little longer?” In truth, they had completely forgotten about the whole name thing, and hadn’t thought about it at all since Ragatha initially brought it up.
Caine made a beard-stroking motion in front of his lower jaw while humming in contemplation.
“WELL, I DON’T SEE WHY NOT! TRY NOT TO TAKE TOO LONG THOUGH, I NEED TO ADD YOUR NAME TO THE THEME SONG!” They sighed in relief before immediately tensing again. Theme song? They were so confused and didn’t even know where to start unpacking all of this.
“GREAT! AS SOME OF YOU MAY KNOW, I’VE RECEIVED FEEDBACK ABOUT OUR DEAR FRIEND POMNI’S FIRST DAY, AND HOW IT WAS less than ideal… AND I’VE TAKEN IT TO HEART. THAT’S WHY TODAY’S ADVENTURE WILL BE REPLACED WITH A FUN OPPORTUNITY TO GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER.”
Meeting everyone else did sound appealing, but something about Caine’s pitch made them apprehensive. What exactly did he mean by “less than ideal”?
“NOW, WHY DON’T WE GET TO KNOW OUR NEW FRIEND WITH SOME ICEBREAKERS! HAHAHAHAHA!” Caine laughed maniacally at a joke that they didn’t understand. He abruptly stopped laughing, and they were all teleported into a large icy cavern. “YOU ARE A PARTY OF BRAVE EXPLORERS TREKKING ACROSS THE ARCTIC TUNDRA, BUT YOU’VE BEEN TRAPPED IN THIS CAVE! OH NO! YOU’LL HAVE TO BREAK THIS WALL OF ICE THAT’S SEALING THE EXIT IN ORDER TO ESCAPE AND RETURN TO CAMP, BUT YOU CAN ONLY DO THAT BY SHARING FUN TIDBITS ABOUT YOURSELVES! HAVE FUN AND GOOD LUCK!”
Before his words could even stop echoing through the cave, Caine vanished, leaving the seven of them to fend for themselves.
Well, at least they got the joke now.
Looking around, they noticed that the wall of ice was sectioned off into about a dozen pieces, each with a different prompt written on it.
“Let’s just answer one of the bottom ones and leave through there,” suggested a clearly disinterested Jax, “Let’s see, ‘if you could have any superpower’, ‘what do you wanna be when you grow up’, seriously? Aha! ‘Favorite color’. Should be easy enough. Purple.”
No sooner than the word had left his mouth, did the section of ice begin to crack.
“I’d have to say blue,” added Ragatha.
They faintly recognized the others speaking as they became lost in their thoughts yet again. Who were they? They didn’t know their name, their gender, not even something as trivial as their favorite color! Were they even a person at this point? Could someone even retain their personhood without memories? A sharp flick to their floating head derailed their train of thought.
“Hey newbie, you gonna answer the question, or you wanna freeze to death in here?”
“Oh, sorry, uh…” They looked down at their hands. The fingertips on their left pair of hands were purple, and their right were green. “Green, maybe?”
They must have been the last one to give an answer, because the block of ice shattered and dissipated, leaving a sizable gap in the wall.
“Alright, outta the way, block head.” Jax pushed past them and crouched down to crawl through the new opening, only to bounce back. Holding a hand to his likely bruised forehead, he groaned, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Serves you right, you !@#$head,” the mix-and-match person said disdainfully, “I bet we have to answer all of them for it to actually let us out. Ugh, at least I won’t get dismembered on this adventure.”
“Don’t worry Zooble,” Jax teased, “Day’s not over yet.” That earned him a punch to the shoulder.
“Let’s not waste any time then.” Ragatha picked a question at random. “‘What’s the most recent book you’ve read?’ Ooh, that’s an interesting one! Right now I’m reading one about historical fashion. Well, it’s really less of an actual book and more of a collection of essays and transcripts, but it’s still interesting. How about you Gangle? Has Caine let you download any more serviceable translations recently?”
“Yeah! Well, kind of,” Gangle replied.
Despite not meeting her earlier, they recognized Gangle from their long conversation with Kinger last night. Out of all the people trapped here, she seemed to be his favorite. He acted somewhat fatherly towards her, bragging about her skill in illustration, and even showing them a beautiful drawing of a moth that she’d apparently gifted him. They thought it was sweet, and it made them excited to actually meet the girl.
“I managed to dig up an okay translation of this one manga that I’ve been meaning to show Zooble. It’s translated as Mud-Mud, but I don’t think that’s very accurate.”
“Zooble, I didn’t know you read manga!”
“I don’t,” they countered, “I’m just reading the one, and I barely even started it.”
“How do you like it so far?” Gangle asked eagerly, “I hope it’s not too hard to read.”
“Eh, the dialogue’s awkward but it’s whatever. I thought the lizard guy would be a lot cooler, but he’s kind of a loser. I like his friend though, she’s rad.”
“You’re gonna like her even more when you find out- oop!” Gangle slapped a hand over her mouth. “Nevermind, I won’t spoil it for you. What about you Pomni?”
“Oh, um, I’ve just been reading whatever random literature Caine spawns in. I don’t really remember.”
They noticed the ice block crack after Pomni spoke, despite her not technically answering the question. Weird.
“Hey, Tetris.” Jax caught their attention by snapping in front of their face. “You’re spacin’ out on us again. Answer the dang question so we can leave.”
“Tetris?” they inquired, ignoring his demand. Jax looked almost offended that they hadn’t understood what they presumed was an insult.
“‘Cause you’re made a’ squares or whatever.”
They glanced down at their body to confirm.
“I’m pretty sure they’re rectangles. Or maybe irregular trapezoids?”
“Whatever, just answer the question.”
What had they read recently? They had no memories from before yesterday, so it’s not like they’ve had much time to read anything. That said, they’d noticed some interesting sounding titles on their bookshelf.
“I haven’t read it yet, but there’s a book I’ll probably read soon called ‘Worm’ in my room.”
The second block of ice shattered into crystals.
“‘Worm’? What, did ya steal that from Kinger or something?” Jax mocked.
“Wait, that’s weird,” Pomni spoke from across the room, “Neither of us had actual specific answers but they counted anyway. Maybe we just need to say something in response to the question?”
“That’s what an answer is, bozo.”
“No, I mean like, we don’t have to actually answer the question. We just have to say something.”
Jax looked skeptical but considered it for a moment. “Let’s test out your little hypothesis then. ‘Describe yourself in three words:’ I don’t know.”
Crack
“Would ya look at that? Well, you all know what to do.”
At that, the group began half-assing their way through the remaining ice-breakers, their pace only halting to occasionally remind Kinger of the situation. They all gave simple non-answers for the most part, but some of the questions surprisingly did their job as conversation starters, much to the chagrin of both Jax and Zooble, who wanted nothing more than to get this over with.
The nameless newcomer was involved in one such conversation when the final block was cleared.
“Catch you losers later,” Jax addressed the group before bounding out of the cavern.
“Finally!” Zooble groaned as the invisible barrier dissipated.
As everyone started to file out, they resumed their conversation, prompted by the question regarding favorite animals, with Kinger and Ragatha.
“So, like I was saying, it’s so hard to choose! There’s so many great animals!”
“The variety of the animal kingdom is quite a marvel,” Kinger concurred, “Although I’m partial to insects. Though even within that group there are so many to choose from.”
“Okay, so what’s your favorite order? I think mine’s hymenoptera, wasps are just so neat!”
Kinger leaned in conspiratorially and spoke softly.
“Don’t tell any of my other insects this, but coleoptera is my favorite. The diversity within the order is spectacular, and they tend to be rather clumsy fliers, which I find endearing.”
“I agree! What’s your favorite insect, Ragatha?”
Ragatha, who had barely been keeping up with the conversation, chuckled nervously.
“Oh, well, I’m not as… into insects as either of you are, so I’m not sure I really have a favorite. I’m fine with all of them except for centipedes, those really freak me out.”
“Oh! Centipedes aren’t insects, they’re actually myriapods!” “Actually, centipedes are chilopods, not insects,” Tetra and Kinger said simultaneously.
Ragatha looked between the two, more than a little confused.
“While you are correct that centipedes are myriapods,” Kinger explained, “That would be the subphylum. Since we’re making the comparison to insects, it should be at the class level, which is chilopoda.”
They stared at him in awe, a wide smile stretching across their geometric face.
“Man, you’re so cool.”
“Why, thank you.”
“ALREADY MAKING FRIENDS I SEE!”
“Aaaaah!”
“Ah!”
“Caine! Don’t sneak up on us like that!” Ragatha chastised.
“MY SINCEREST APOLOGIES, DEAR. I’M JUST SO GLAD TO SEE OUR NEWEST MEMBER GETTING ALONG WITH EVERYONE SO WELL.” Caine was surprisingly expressive for some teeth and eyes, somehow managing to pull a face that clearly read as ‘they grow up so fast’. “SPEAKING OF, HOW’S THAT NAME COMING ALONG? I CAN RANDOMLY GENERATE ONE IF YOU’D PREFER,” He eagerly offered as a giant slot machine style contraption appeared next to them.
Crap, they hadn’t really had a chance to think about it, had they? One of the nicknames Jax had used for them stuck out in their memory though. He’d called them ‘tetris’. That word had its root in the Latin – or was it Greek? – word for four. Even if they weren’t made out of squares like the old computer game, they were still made of quadrilaterals, and quad was the word for four in whichever language tetra wasn’t. They did like the number four. Something about it just seemed comforting, which was weird. How could a number be comforting? They supposed it probably had something to do with their life that they couldn’t remember. Tetra had a nice ring to it, it even kind of sounded like it could be a name.
“I think…” Were they really going to name themself after the number four? What other ideas did they have? They glanced at the slot machine, whose letters currently spelled ALGEP. “My name is going to be Tetra.”
“WELL, CONGRATULATIONS ON COMPLETING YOUR VERY FIRST ADVENTURE, TETRA! AND ON CHOOSING A NAME ALL BY YOURSELF! YOU GET A GOLD STAR!” With the flourish of a stage magician, Caine reached into his top hat and pulled out… a dripping wad of shiny paper. Aghast at this turn of events, he had to pick his jaw up from the floor where it had dropped. Depositing the paper back into his hat, he awkwardly glanced side to side. “REGRETTABLY, IT APPEARS THAT SOMEONE HAS GOTTEN INTO MY STICKERS, SO YOUR PRIZE WILL HAVE TO BE POSTPONED. AAAANYWAY, I HAVE A CERTAIN ASSISTANT I NEED TO HAVE A TALK WITH, TOODLE-OO!”
“Man, I did kinda want that sticker,” Tetra muttered to themself.
“So, Tetra, huh?” Ragatha asked, “It’s a nice name.”
“Aw, thanks Ragatha.”
“Good golly, did I never ask your name?!” Kinger exclaimed, offering his hand for Tetra to shake, “How terribly rude of me! Did I give you my name? I’m Kinger, unless I’ve already told you, in which case, I’m still Kinger.”
He hadn’t been this… ditzy, yesterday, had he? Tetra had listened to him talk for what felt like hours, and he hadn’t once seemed this scatterbrained. Ragatha had told them he was a bit odd, but they’d just assumed that was about the whole bugs thing.
“It’s alright, Kinger.” Tetra took one of his hands in two of their own. “You didn’t forget anything, I didn’t have a name until just now.”
Kinger breathed a sigh of relief.
“Phew, I was worried there. Well, I think that’s enough excitement for me today. I’ll be in my impenetrable fortress if you need me.”
Kinger gave a brief wave goodbye before shuffling away to who knows where.
“One major facet of my identity down, maybe two or three to go!”
Ragatha gave them a bemused look.
“How did you get those numbers?”
“Well, I figure that’s probably a good number of things, keeping it simple but still a list. First is my name, got that figured out. The others would be… gender I guess? And on that note s!@#$%ty. Oh come on, that’s censored? Lame. Interests maybe? Hey, I know I like bugs! That’s two out of four! I’m half way to being a person already!”
“That’s… great? Is that great?”
“Yeah, definitely. Now I just gotta figure out my gender.” Then to themself, Tetra muttered “I guess the other thing doesn’t matter much if I’m stuck with the same handful of people.”
“Oh, I almost forgot! Do you still want to talk to Zooble about gender?”
Tetra absolutely did still want to talk to Zooble about gender. They just weren’t sure that Zooble would share their enthusiasm. They had seemed tired, and Tetra thought they were cool, so they really didn’t want to annoy them and create a bad first impression. Or would it be a second impression? Third probably, now that they'd thought about it. Well, you know what they say: third time’s the charm! There’s also ‘three strikes and you’re out’, so a lot was riding on this third impression!
“They seemed kinda over it, I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”
“There’s no harm in asking.”
Tetra weighed their options. On one hand, they could risk upsetting Zooble and leaving a bad impression, and on the other they could sit alone in their room and think about it.
They very much did not want to sit alone in their room and think about it.
“Let’s do it.”
— — —
Zooble, as it turned out, was not as over it as Tetra had assumed.
Despite their irritated response to someone knocking at their door, they mellowed out considerably when they saw who was on the other side.
“Sup, Ragatha,” Zooble greeted, letting the pair in, “Hey newbie.”
“Zooble, this is Tetra,” Ragatha introduced, “They wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Shoot,” Zooble said, reclining on a very comfortable looking beanbag.
“So, uh, gender,” Tetra stammered as they fidgeted nervously with all four hands.
“What about it?”
“I don’t uh, remember mine. Ragatha told me that you’d know something about that?”
“Sure do. I don’t remember mine either. Thought it would come to me eventually, but I’ve been here for like, a year, and nothing.”
“Cool. I mean, not cool! Unless it is.”
“Hah, don’t sweat it, it’s whatever. Got any questions or…?”
“Um, no. I think that’s it for now at least. It was nice meeting you, Zooble.”
“You too… Tetra?”
“Yep!”
“Cool.”
“Cool… Okay I’m gonna go now, bye.” Tetra stiffly left their room, with Ragatha not far behind.
“Bye, Zooble.”
“See ya.”
Shutting the door behind herself, Ragatha took a few quick steps to catch up with Tetra.
“You okay?” she asked, “You seemed nervous.”
“Was it that bad?” Ragatha gave an apologetic smile. “Ugh, they just seem so cool and aloof, and I didn’t know what to say! I don’t even know what I wanted to ask. I mean, ‘hi do you know what my gender is?’ isn’t a great place to start, but I have no idea where else I could! I just- uuuugh!” Tetra trailed off into distressed noises as they slumped against the wall.
“Oh, hun, it’s okay.” Ragatha crouched down to where they’d slid to the floor and placed a reassuring hand on their shoulder. “No one’s expecting you to have it all figured out yet. Just starting that conversation and putting the idea out there is a big step, and I’m proud of you for getting that far.”
“Aw, stop it. You’re gonna make me blush.”
Ragatha laughed as she pushed herself back into a standing position.
“Come on, let’s get you up off the floor.” She offered a hand to Tetra, who gladly accepted, and hoisted them back onto their feet.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. So, now that we’ve got the rest of the day free, what were you thinking of doing? I know that you still haven’t really met everyone, we could track down Pomni or Gangle, I’m sure they’d love to get to know you. Of course, you can spend some time by yourself if you want, no pressure!”
“I was thinking we could hang out a little, if that’s okay with you?”
“Of course! We can go to my room, if that’s alright. I have a bunch of games, or we can just talk, or- You know what, we can decide when we get there.”
“Lead the way.”
Ragatha grabbed their hand and began leading them down the hall. When she dropped their hand to open her door, she noticed the bewildered look on Tetra’s face.
“Oh my gosh I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have just grabbed you like that.”
Tetra blinked a couple times.
“Oh! No, don’t apologize! I was just confused about if you have a skeleton.”
It was Ragatha’s turn to look bewildered.
“Huh?”
“Cause, you know, how can you grip stuff if you don’t have a skeleton for musculature to attach to, but it doesn’t seem like you have a skeleton. Or musculature for that matter. And I definitely don’t have either of those.”
“You might be overthinking this. Our bodies are digital, so I don’t think they need to have bones and muscles at all.”
Tetra stared wide eyed.
“I’ve been a fool,” Tetra said with much gravity, then curled in on themself snickering.
“You have a real habit of laughing at yourself.”
“Hey, that's another thing I can add to the list of facts about me! Piecing together my identity is going great so far!”
“You’re really taking this whole amnesia thing in stride.”
“You betcha! Hope it’s not just a temporary coping mechanism that’ll wear off soon and leave me a husk of a person!”
They were both silent for a moment.
“But who needs to have an existential crisis when there’s board games to play!”
“That’s what I like to hear!”