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"-Now let's get right into the show!"
"Gangle, and Zooble, and Kinger too!
Pom-ni, Rags, and there's Kaufmo, boo-hoo!
Day after day after day after day after day we fly,
Past the moon and the sun and we don't know why!"
The strange song ran through his head as he opened his eyes to his bizarre surroundings, barely managing to dodge the objects he realised were flying around him. In his panic, he managed to notice an exit door, making a mad dash for it before it dissolved in front of him. He backed away from it out of shock, falling directly into- something.
"Ow..." He heard a woman's voice mutter as he turned his head to see what exactly he'd bumped into. A line of... video game characters? NPCs, maybe? Or well, they had been a line. They were all sprawled on the ground now. One of the characters, a drama mask attached to a ribbon body with even more ribbons decorating it (strange design choice, but hey, its not like he knew shit about character design, maybe there was some genius... thing he was missing here), clutched a few pieces of ceramic in her... hands? Her ribbon things.
"Oh dear, they broke my comedy mask... I was hoping it would last past the theme song, at least..." Tears hung from her mask, yet they never fell. She was frowning for a moment there, but she suddenly began to smile again as she looked back up at the others. Weirdo. Maybe she's bugged.
"Ugh, Caine, is this one of your NPCs, or is this a new sucker? Because if it's a new character, we're gonna have to redo this whole theme song." The one who spoke this time was some kind of doll, her yarn-like hair tied up with bows in pigtails and her outfit a button up under some overalls, both decorated with frills and the latter featuring some patches. Her expression was an annoyed and grated grin, clearly quite frustrated by the idea of having to redo... whatever the hell they were doing.
"... I'm not doing that again..." A quiet voice spoke, belonging to a person with a strange triangle head and antennas who was mostly cloaked in black. Literally. The cloak itself reached down to the floor, covering everything but their neck and above. It felt out of place compared to everything else he'd seen so far. Maybe that was the point? Nothing about their head seemed particularly ‘in place’ either.
"My my, it seems a new human has entered this realm!" His attention snapped up towards the new voice, belonging to a... talking pair of teeth in a suit? Damn did this game have some weird characters. This one seemed especially important though, with the floating and all. God, he was already getting sick of this. As he stared up at the teeth man, he mulled over its words again.
"Wait- new human? What the hell does that mean? What the f**k is going...on..." His voice trailed off as he spoke. What? Why the hell couldn't he swear? "F**k! S**t! B**ch! C**t! P***k! Oh come on, that's not even a f**king swear word! *Augh!*"
"Now, now, young man! We can't have any of that foul language around here. The Amazing Digital Circus is a place to be enjoyed by all ages-"
"Youre joking." He interrupted in a deadpan.
"I-I'm really not-"
"Screw this, this game is lame." He went to pull the headset off, but as he went to grab at it... there was nothing. A twinge of panic struck him as he desperately felt around his eyes, but there was nothing there. "Wh-what- where did it- the headset, it-"
"There's nothing there, dumba**. Did it really take you this long to realise? That might be a new record. Maybe you should get a medal for being the most oblivious new sucker we've ever had." The ragdoll from before spoke up.
"Rags, don't be mean!" The ribbon girl scolded before turning to face him with an apologetic expression. "Don't worry, she's like that with everyone."
"That doesn't make me feel any better- and anyway, that isn't the point- where the hell did the headset go? What's going on? One of you weirdos better explain now or I swear-"
"As I was trying to tell you before, you, my friend, stumbled into an incredible world of wonders, where anything can happen! Well, e-except for swearing. But otherwise, anything!" The teeth man exclaimed, twirling around in the air. He grimaced as he watched. Some explanation that was.
"...right. And how do I, y'know, leave? I don't really have any interest in whatever the hell this is supposed to be." He vaguely gestured around the room and god he just noticed how big it was. Why the hell did they need all this space?
"Uh..." The teeth man paused, shifting his gaze to the side.
"Oh, well, um, don't freak out about it or anything, but, well... oh gosh, how do I say this..."
"You can't." The ragdoll interrupted the ribbon girl with a smirk on her face.
He stood there for a second, before letting out a nervous laugh. "Okay, that was a joke, right? You're all just- screwing with me? Not very funny, but I'll give you a C for effort-"
"Its... not a joke." A new voice spoke up, belonging to a chess piece in a purple robe with two blue eyes at different heights on his face. "I'm sorry you were told so… ineloquently..." The chess piece narrowed his eyes at the ragdoll, who rolled her singular one in return, "but no, you really cannot leave this place. Welcome to your new home. As strange as it may be, I hope you're able to come to terms with your new existence."
"And your new body." Piped up the cloaked triangle-head. If he wasn't too busy freaking out over this whole situation, he'd wish he'd bothered to remember their names.
At their gesture towards him and strange words, he looked down to see his body had completely changed, now reflecting their weird designs instead of his old human body. His hands were gloved in yellow, and he was wearing a stripy blue and white shirt with matching tight-fitting leg warmers, under salmon overalls with a lighter pink pocket and rolled up shorts... and were those... purple rabbits feet? Oh god, did this place turn him into a fucking furry?
"W-what the- theres no- why-" His face felt hot as he took in his 'new body'. "A-are you really sure theres no way to leave? I-I don't, I can’t-"
"Pretty damn certain, bunny boy." And oh god, there was his confirmation. "We've been stuck here for years. Or at least we think so. The old hag over there has supposedly been here the longest. Thats why shes out of her damn-"
"Please, Ragatha, you're pulling out a few too many of those d-words to keep our e-for-everyone rating!" The teeth man panicked.
"How many times do I have to remind you that my name is Rags?" The ragd- Rags glared. "As I was trying to say before Caine rudely interupted me, thats why shes out of her damn mind. Hey Pomni, you got anything to say to the new meat?"
He turned to face the person Rags was talking about, needing to shift his gaze down a little when he realised she was shorter than he expected. The girl in question had long brown hair, big red and blue pinwheel eyes, a permanent blush on her cheeks, and a massive blue and red jesters hat that reached down to the floor and was covered in stars. Her stripey pajama pants were also covered in them and shared the blue and red theming, as did the long sleeves of her shirt, although there were no stars there. Disappoiting, really. Where was the consistency? The only other one was on the front of the collar of her half-blue half-red shirt, which was adorned with frills. Her outfit was very frilly, actually. He wondered if that was a feature jesters had or if that was just something all the girls had here. She also had a couple of pom-poms on her shirt and her hat. Maybe that was why her name was Pomni? If that was the connection his brain was making then it had to be correct.
The girl turned to him when she noticed his gaze, staring back for a while before turning away to look at Rags. "Just cause hes a rabbit doesnt mean hes meat, Ragatha!" Pomni stated matter of factly, as if she genuinely thought she was helping the ragdoll out, whose cloth face flushed red.
"My name is Rags! Stop embarrassing me in front of the new guy, god! Its like you two planned this or something... probably did given shes the only one stupid enough to like Caine... jerks..." Rags muttered, crossing her arms and averting her gaze to the floor as she pouted.
As he watched all these... NPCs? People? Whatever they were, as he watched them have their nonsensical conversations, it suddenly dawned on him what was happening. "Ohhhhh, I'm dreaming! God, that makes so much more sense! No wonder my brain is coming up with something weird after all that... maybe that was a dream too... god, I hope so... so, any of you circus freaks got any tips on how to wake myself up?"
"Wh- circus freaks...?" The ribbon girl frowned once more. "That's a bit mean..."
Rags walked up to him, stopping herself at his side. "I mean, he's right, isn't he? About the circus freaks part, at least. The dream part though... How stupid are you, really? I'm curious~" She threw an arm over his shoulder and smirked in his face before he pushed her away with a sneer.
"I- I dont care how much you try to trick me. I know I'm right. You're all just annoyed I figured it out and don’t wanna get erased by my br-brain or whatever...."
"Pffft, sure, whatever you say, bunny boy. Maybe an adventure will get your brain up and running again. Hey Caine, we gonna have an adventure for the newbie?" She called up to the teeth man.
"I'd like to give our brand-new member a tour of the circus grounds first!" Caine exclaimed before rushing down towards him and wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
"Wait, wh-"
Before he could finish his sentence, they'd been rushed out of the environment they'd occupied before, now being outside of a circus tent. Oh. That made a lot of sense, actually. Which was strange given how little sense this dream had been making so far.
"Here we have THE TENT! This is where your living quarters are, as well as other sorts of activities! These activities may include-"
Caine's eyes began to glitch out as a strangely familiar sound began playing, although he couldn't place where exactly he'd heard it before. He raised an eyebrow as the AI's eyes remained blue screened for a while and almost went to ask him if he was okay before-
"-ball pits, mini golf, and more!" Ah. There he was. Hooray.
The were suddenly wooshed further out. He noticed that they were in some kinda outside area on a small island, the sky being both sunny and dark. Freaky.
"And here we have THE GROUNDS! Drown yourself in the digital lake, or engage in ridery at the digital carnival! Night, day, it's all okay! The choice is yours, a cosmic buffet!" Despite how cheery Caine's words sounded, he was feeling anything but.
"Is that really all there is? For a place where anything can happen it sure sounds like there's nothing here." His brain wasn't bothered to be anymore creative than this, it seemed. Thanks a lot, brain.
"Of course not!" They suddenly rushed to another new area. God he was starting to feel queasy... "This is THE VOID! We... don't venture out into the void... not even I know whats out there." Caine lowered his voice to a soft, somewhat spooky tone for the last part. Was he trying to freak him out or something?
"What are-"
He was interrupted once more as they rushed back to where they were before. "C-could you stop doing that-"
"Oh, well I was going to show you my hundreds of all seeing eyes, but if you want the tour to be over then I guess it can't be helped!"
"Your what?" He raised an eyebrow, before shifting his gaze to the area below, trying to see if he could seek out whatever Caine was talking about. However, his gaze met something else instead. A little red door marked 'EXIT' in white paint. "Wait, whats that-"
Because Caine's favourite hobby apparently appeared to be interrupting people, they were suddenly wooshed back to the inside of the tent. His guts apparently decided they couldn't take it anymore as he spilled them out on the floor, leaving some kind of black sludge behind that had an oil-spill-like shine to it. Gross. The world was still spinning and he curled into himself a little as he tried not to hurl again at the sight of it.
"Woah, clean up on aisle you!" God was he starting to get sick of Caine's bullshit already... he better wake up soon.
"I'm on it, Boss!" Exclaimed a voice he hadnt heard yet, and whilst he couldnt see what was happening, he heard... licking? By the time he was back to his senses, the black sludge was gone and there was only a little bubble thing with sharp teeth near the ground. He didn't even want to know what has happened there.
"...Why are you like this...?" Caine questioned. Okay, yeah, he definitely didn't want to know what happened there. But what he did want to know was...
"Hey, teeth... guy... Caine... whatever- Back there- There was an exit door. I thought you said we couldn't leave? Whats up with that?"
"What exit?" Rags raised an eye brow as she snatched one of the antennas off of the triangle head's... head, holding it up high and fake-admiring it as they glared at her and hissed her name. "If there was an exit Im pretty sure we all would've left by now." She shrugged as she stuck the piece on the side of their head instead of the top, causing them to rip it back out and put it back in its rightful place, still looking at Rags with frustration.
"Yes, what are you talking about? There isnt a way to leave the circus." The chess piece spoke as if it were an undeniable fact but, he saw it, he knows he did. Why were they all so adament it didnt exist? Did the exit door represent a metaphorical exit from his dream? Were they protecting their existence again? Augh, this dream shit was starting to piss him off. Why couldnt he just wake up already?!
"Uh-uh-I- I assure you there is no 'magical exit door'. You're probably just experiencing DIGITAL HALLUCINATIONS from your mind's transition to the digital plane...." Caine explained, yet it didnt feel right at all.
"Im telling you, I saw-"
"*DIGITAL HALLUCINATIONS!*” He exclaimed once more, in a much more stressed tone this time. He glared up at the teeth man as he averted his gaze before flying up higher above everyone. "How about we talk about something else? Like your name!"
"My- my name...? Its, uh... my name is..." Out of nowhere, it hit him that he couldnt remember his name, no matter how hard he wracked his brain for it. "Holy- my- what- why the f**k can't I remember my name?! What kind of bulls**t is this?! My brain shouldn't just- why would it- what?!"
"Nobody can remember their name once they enter the Digital Circus! One of the few things I don't have control over are your minds... So all I can help you with is coming up with a new one!"
As he listened to Caine's explanation, he stood there staring at the floor, the world around him just feeling like a faint buzz. "M-my name, I..."
Out of nowhere, he felt himself getting pet on the head. What the fuck? Looking up, he realised it was the teeth man. "Don't you worry your little head. Your new name can be anything!"
Caine froze up in a stock explanitory position before speaking in a comparatively robotic tone: "HerebyacknowledgingthatyourchosennameornamesmaynotbreachtheDigitalCircusUserLicenseAgreementstatingthatyournamemaynotincludeobjectionablecontent.Objectionablecontentincludes-butisnotlimitedto-sexuallyexplicitmaterial,obscene,defamatory,libelous,slanderous,violent,and/orunlawfulcontentorprofanity."
He did a little spin before putting the end of his cane up to his mouth like a microphone. "What're ya thinkin?!"
"I-I mean, this is just a stupid dream, so I guess it doesnt really matter. Pick anything. Just- not something stupid." Even if it was just an incosequential dream, he would still prefer to go by something decent for however many hours he was stuck here.
"Lets see..." At Caine's words, a giant slot machine appeared from the ceiling before beginning to spin, landing on the letters 'XDDCC'.
"Whadya think of XDDCC?!" *How the fuck did he even pronounce that?*
"Genuinely the worst name I've ever heard, and people name their kids some weird s**t."
"You're right! It's terrible! Lets try that again!" The slot machine spun again, this time landing on the letters 'JAXXX'. Huh, that would probably be some kind of jackpot on a real slot machine. "Whadya think of Jaxxx?"
"Are the three X's really necessary...?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Why wouldnt they be?" Genuine curiosity laced Caine's tone and he couldnt tell if the living chatterbox was fucking with him or not.
"I think I'll just go with the one x." Jax didn't particularly care for the name, but he wasn't exactly willing to keep spinning these slots forever for the tiniest chance of getting something better.
"Suit yourself, but everyone knows the more X's you have in your name, the cooler you are!"
"Hes not a bottle of moonshine, Caine." Rags joked. Whilst she was a bit of a jerk, at least she was a funny jerk. She was probably his favourite of the weirdos his brain had come up with. Not that that was an impressive feat.
"Gadzooks, you're right, Rags! We should have a brand new adventure for our new member, Jaxxx!"
"What- That wasnt even- I said that like, five minutes ago!"
"You!" Caine shouted, pointing a finger towards him. "Do you like adventure? Activity? Wonder? Danger? Horror? Pain? Suffering? Agony? Death? Disease? Death? Angel food cake?" As he contuined to list things, his words got faster and faster, before, at the final item, he summoned an angel food cake... which lasted all of two seconds before the bubble from before ate it.
"You parasite!" Caine shouted before popping the bubble with his cane. A bit of an overreaction if you asked him. Couldnt he just summon another one?
"Wait, d-did you say death twice?" He wasnt exactly a fan of how the items listed got progressively worse, but the double mention of death was definitely the worst part. If he died in the dream would he die in real life? No, right? Would that wake him up? Maybe he shouldve tried jumping off the map earlier...
"Since you're new, we're gonna make it a simple, in-house, adventure to warm you up to how things work around here!" And of course Caine ignored his question. Great. He was starting to think this teeth guy didn't give two shits about what he had to say. He was easily becoming Jax's least favorite part of this dream.
The chess piece sighed. "An in-house adventure? Caine, I'm not really interested in-"
"Don't worry, Kinger! I'll make it something unobtrusive that you can still choose to not get involved with!" Ah okay, that was another name he had then. Kinger wasn't a particularly creative name for a king chess piece. His brain really was giving up, huh? Maybe that means he's gonna wake up soon. God he hoped so. You'd think from all the bright colours and interesting characters this would be a great dream, but Jax was just feeling sick and honestly was starting to get a little bored. Maybe this adventure would be when it actually started to get fun.
"Today's adventure is... Gather the Gloinks!" Caine began to laugh manically, Jax grimacing at the sight. Why the hell did his brain create this guy of all things? He'd never understand, which is strange, since he uses his brain to understand things.
"That's right! The entire circus tent will be infested with Gloinks, and you gotta catch 'em all!"
"But what are they?" The bubble inquired.
"I'm glad you asked, Bubble! They're small-"
"And what do they do?"
"They-"
"And how do they-"
After the third interruption, Caine just ended up popping Bubble again. Rude. Jax was actually kinda enjoying watching him rile Caine up.
"Gloinks are small mischievous critters that steal anything and everything they run into! Why do these humanoid hash-browns do this? How do you stop them? That's for you to find out. Now, good luck, and have fun, my little superstars!" And with that, Caine disappeared off to who knows where.
Jax turned his attention back to the others. "So uh... what the f**k did any of that mean?" They seemed to know since none of them had a confused expression on their face. Not even Pomni, despite Rags calling her nuts. She'd had the exact same stupid smile on her face this whole time. It was kinda creepy, honestly.
“Oh, that's just one of Caine's little adventures! They're just... something to do to, you know, prevent us from going insane.” The ribbon girl laughed nervously. Oh. Great. So they're just glorified distractions. “But they're quite fun! I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself.” He was sure he was going to be bored to death, and Jax was also pretty sure he knew himself better than she did. Guess they'll just have to wait and see.
“Well, now the mandatory part of our day is done, I'll see myself out. Good luck with the- Oh god, oh wait, no-” Kinger was interrupted by a bunch of little shape things (the gloinks?) grabbing his floating hands one by one before knocking him over and picking his body up like a bunch of ants, carrying him away to who knows where. Oh. Okay. Why did the dream bother giving him a name if it was gonna kill him off so fast?
“Oh no, they took Kinger… eh, he'll be fine. You guys wanna ditch the adventure and do something actually fun?” Rags threw her arms behind her head as she turned her gaze towards him. Why the hell was she looking at Jax? He didn't know shit about this place. Look at the triangle headed person! Whatever their name is.
“But Rags, you're the one who suggested we go on an adventure. Why would you do that if you didn't wanna go on it?” The ribbon girl questioned, annoyance present in her tone.
“Well I thought Caine was gonna do something actually tolerable for the newbie, but I guess not. Come on, there's gotta be something more interesting we can do.”
“Hmmmm… oh we should go check on Kaufmo! I'm pretty sure he'd like to meet Jax!” Another weird as hell name on the books for this dream. Where was his brain coming up with this stuff? He couldn't even begin to imagine what the hell a kaufmo was supposed to be.
“That’s your idea of fun?” Rags scoffed. “Fine, whatever, I'll come, but only because I wanna see Jax cringe at his terrible jokes.”
“Hey, Pomni? You wanna come with us to check on Kaufmo?” The ribbon girl gently called out to the jester in question, who quickly turned her head with a wide-eyed expression before walking over.
“No, not really. I think Kaufmo's gone insane. Last time I saw him, he was rambling endlessly about some exit. Kinda like you, Jax! You might be going insane, too.” Pffft. Like she could talk. Pomni was the crazy one here, not him. Although he couldn't exactly speak for this Kaufmo dude, he was certain it wasn't the case with him, either.
“Come on, if this guy is talking about the exit too, then wouldn't it make more sense if it actually did exist? That can't just be a coincidence, right? Or am I the only sane one here?”
“Please for all we know, you could already be losing it. I mean, you literally keep calling reality a dream. Doesn't sound like sane behaviour to me~” He was starting to get a bit sick of seeing that smirk on Rags’ face. What, was it glued on there or something?
“Because this is a dream. But, if there's any chance that it isn't, or if it actually ends up being the way to get out of this dream, I think I wanna ask him about the exit. Not like it matters either way, right?”
“Pfft, whatever you say, bunny boy~”
“Stop calling me that, I have an actual name now.” Jax grumbled. Not that he liked it the first time she called him that, but he was too busy having an existential crisis to bring it up then.
“Okay then, Jaxy bo- augh!” Jax couldn't help but smirk as Rags got hit in face by one of the gloinks. Served her right. “Okay, I've already had enough of these things. Gangle, Jax, and I will go check on Kaufmo, which leaves crybaby and the old hag together to go handle the Kinger situation.”
“Um, do you think pairing them up together is a good idea?” Gangle glanced nervously between the two characters in question. “Zooble isn't really comfortable around-”
“Please, it’s a great idea! They're the two most mentally stable and capable characters to be paired together.” Judging by the look Zooble was giving Pomni, and the few things he knew about them both, Jax would guess that was pretty inaccurate, but he also didn't care. “Lets go harass the clown, hm?”
As he followed after Rags and Gangle, he heard Pomni scream behind him, although he had zero of the context as to why. Yeah. Clearly a great pairing, Rags. He just hoped their screams wouldn't be audible from wherever their group were going.
It didn't take particularly long before they ended up in a hallway full of doors. “So, this is where we all live! Or well, where we all sleep at night. Even though we don't really need to sleep, it’s sometimes nice to kinda take a break from everything and have a bit of routine, y'know? You get it!” He really, really didn't. Why would he want to sleep when he was already asleep? “I’m sure there will be one for... Oh, look you already have one!”
Jax turned his attention to a door that made him grimace, something this dream has been doing a lot. A smiling but somewhat nervous rabbit face adorned the door, dressed in the same clothes he was. God, was that really what he looked like? He hated this stupid dream. Why would it make him look like that in the first place?
Gangle continued to speak but he began to tune her out in favour of trying to figure out methods in which to wake himself up. He personally wasn't very fond of being a weird rabbit guy or dealing with circus freaks in a massive circus tent who seemed to have far too complex interpersonal issues for a 6-8 hour long lucid dream he would never have again. Maybe one of them would have the answer? No, no, they all seemed very determined to lie straight to his face, so even if they did know, it's not like they'd actually tell him. Maybe he could ask them a bunch of stupid questions that his brain had no way of coming up with answers for? That had to be a way to force himself awake… but if this did end up being real, that would probably be hella embarrassing… Jax wasn't particularly interested in making a fool out of himself for the smallest possibility of escape. But what other options were there? Hmmm, maybe he could-
“JAX!” He was shocked out of his thoughts by Rags yelling in his ears. “Jeez, are you deaf or something? With those big ol ears you should've been able to hear us easily. Or were you just ignoring us?”
“The second one.” He shrugged. He didn't particularly care to hide it. Sure he didn't want to embarrass himself, but getting caught in a dumb lie would be even more embarrassing than just admitting he didn't want to listen to them.
“Oh, really? I-I kinda explained a lot of really important stuff… D-don't worry about it, I'll just tell you again later! Right now, we should focus on getting Kaufmo!” Gangle pushed her ribbon onto a doorbell, causing a loud ‘ding-dong!’ to ring out, but nobody answered. “Jeez, that's the third time I've rang it and he still hasn't answered… I'm starting to get a little worried…”
“It's fine ribbons, I've got a key to his room.” Rags pulled an incredibly cartoony looking key out of nowhere, holding it up as if she were showing it off to them. Was he meant to be impressed?
“Wha, wait, wh-why?! You-you-you shouldn't have keys to anyone's room!” Gangle panicked.
“Whaaaaaat, I've got keys everywhere, and you've all been fine, right? Oh, but uh, you might wanna get a new lock for your diary, hm?”
“*Rags*! You read that?!”
“When did I say that? I could just be worried about someone else breaking into it. I wouldn't want anyone learning all your precious secrets~”
“You are unbelievable…” Gangle grumbled as Rags stuck the key in the lock.
“I know, you guys must really struggle to comprehend my greatness~”
“You know that isn't what I meant!”
“Well it should be because I just fixed our door problem!” Rags exclaimed in triumph before opening it. However, he doubted that triumphant feeling lasted long. The room was an absolute mess, and that was putting it lightly. Drawings covered every surface, each one more disturbing than the last, and all the furniture was destroyed. The worst thing was in the middle of the room, however. A strange, tall, blocky black creature covered in multicoloured eyes.
“Yeah, I'm not dealing with this right now. Nice seeing ya, Kaufy.” Rags deadpanned before leaving.
“Oh, Kaufmo's… been abstracted! That-that's okay….” Judging from Gangle's tone of voice, that was not okay.
“Uh… what in the everloving f**k am I looking at?” Even though his swearing was censored, he hoped that it still came across well. Whatever this thing was deserved every single swear word in the book. He should try that at some point, actually. Maybe he could break the swear filter if he used something real obscure…
“Well, I did try to explain it to you earlier, but I guess the cliff notes version is that Pomni may have been right about Kaufmo going insane… and that is a very bad thing for all of us. Or well, the two of us now, I guess. B-but its okay! We might still be able to reason with him! We don't know how long its been, after all! And if not, we can always get Caine!”
“Caine? What's that guy gonna do? He ignores everything we say!” He hissed out in a whisper. He did not want that… thing to hear him and attack.
However, it seemed it had heard Gangle, as it’s gaze focused on her and it began to approach. She began waving her ribbons around, laughing nervously. “Whoa! Kaufy, listen! I know things haven't been the best recently, but we're still besties, right? Y-you wouldn't hurt me... would you? Oh gosh you definitely would-” Gangle tried to back away, but the creature was faster, ramming her into the wall across from his door and beginning to slam her into the floor multiple times. Her ribbon body began to glitch out as she cried out in pain.
“H-Hey, Jax…? You think you co-could maybe… help me out he-here? I understand... if you don't... want to, though….”
He stared down at her, contemplating her words. It- it didn't matter if he helped her, right? This was all going to be over soon, why would he waste the time helping her when it wasn't going to amount to anything? But, at her pleading gaze, Jax felt himself fold. Even if it was fake pain, she was still suffering, and it would be pretty fucked up of him to ignore that. He reached out a hand to help her up, but as Gangle grabbed it, a wave of pain hit his body. He pulled away from her, staring down at his hand which was now beginning to glitch just like she was and goddamn did it hurt like hell.
Okay. Scratch the dream theory. This was completely entirely real and that thing was totally gonna kill him if he didn’t run the hell away right now. He looked at Gangle, who was looking back at him both with worry and fear. “I-I…”
He didn't finish what he was going to say, instead choosing to make a mad dash away from the creature. However, this turned out to be the absolute wrong move, as it stopped focusing on Gangle and instead began to chase him. Great, awesome, this was exactly what he wanted!
He ran as fast as he could away from the creature, yet they entire time it felt like it was right behind him. Hell, he even resorted to running on the damn walls like some kind of cartoon character, yet it still kept up just as well. It wasn't until he reached the end of the hallway and ducked around a corner that he managed to lose it, the creature ramming through a balcony wall and falling back down to the first floor of the tent. Thank god. He totally thought that thing was gonna kill him.
He slowly approached the corner and looked back at Gangle at the end of the hallway. Phew. She wasnt dead. Or at least he didn't think she was. He considered going to talk to her for a second, but quickly realised that shes probably pissed at him for leaving her behind, and his hand was already killing. He did not want her glitching out any other parts of his body as revenge. So instead, he just yelled: “IM GONNA GO FIND CAINE! TH-THATS WHAT U SAID TO DO, YEAH? I'LL UH… JUST… BYE!” before running off. It wasn't like he actually abandoned her or anything. He's just going to get help!
Yeah, no, he couldn't even lie to himself. She would totally see it as him abandoning her, even if he did get Caine now. He was gonna have to avoid Gangle for the rest of his time here, huh? Hopefully that wouldn't be too long. After all, he knew there was an exit.
—
“I don't know what I'm looking at…” Pomni muttered as she stared down into the hole in front of them.
“We saw one of the gloinks carry Kinger's hand down there, remember?” Zooble was absolutely certain Pomni didn't remember. She never really seemed to remember much. About 90% of their conversations, the few that they've had, have consisted of them having to remind her of things.
“Oh, right! Thank you for the recap!” Pomni beamed, Zooble only able to offer a thumbs up in response due to their lack of a mouth. They stood there for a moment, continuing to stare into the hole, before Pomni continued with a: “We're not very good at this, are we?”
Before Zooble could question how they were meant to be good at retrieving Kinger from a dark hole in the ground, something that they were experiencing for the first time, they heard someone appear behind them. “Not very good at what?”
They jumped, turning around and backing away from the person and just barely stopping themselves from falling to the hole. They grumbled as they were met with Rags’ stupid smug face.
“Oh, Rags! We found the Kinger hole!” Pomni smiled, something that was so in the norm it wasn't particularly worth pointing out.
“Wow, congrats. Maybe we can find your brain next.” Rags snarked.
“You think?”
“You certainly don't~”
“Rags. Weren't you meant to be checking on Kaufmo?” Whilst in any other instance Zooble would prefer not being left alone with Pomni, they also hated Rags guts and would rather her go off and do her own job instead of interfering with theirs.
“Please, it doesn't take that long to knock on a door and say a quick how-do-you-do.” Rags rolled her eye.
“So Kaufmo is fine, then? He didn't lose it?” Zooble was honestly quite surprised. They didn't really talk to the clown much but he really did seem to be going off the deep end the last few days. The news that he abstracted wouldn't have been much of a surprise.
“Ive never seen him happier, actually. He and Jax got along like a circus tent on fire~”
“Oh, well, I guess that's good then. So now we just have to worry about Kinger.” They turned their attention back to the hole, noticing Pomni was getting a little close to the edge. “Uh, hey, Pomni, maybe you should back up a little-”
“What? Nahhh, she's fine. I think she should get a little closer actually. What's that old phrase? Women and children go first? That fits you two to a t~” With that, Zooble felt a small shove on their back, having completely forgotten they were pretty damn close to the edge, too.
“RAGS YOU B***H!” Zooble screamed as they and Pomni fell. They were worried that they'd end up a pile of pieces on the ground with only Pomni and Rags to trust to put them back together, however the two of them landed on a slide all the way down to the bottom of the hole, Rags following after them. Thank fuck. They didn't even want to imagine how big of a mess that would've been. Rags loves putting their parts in the completely wrong places. It was one of the worst things about their stupid mix and match body.
As they arrived at the bottom, they met the antagonist of the adventure. A massive red worm-like thing with yellow spots and a mouth on either end, one being fed items from the circus by the gloinks and the other producing even more of the creatures. Gross. Where does Caine come up with this stuff?
“Oh, an art gallery!” Pomni exclaimed as a line of gloinks rolled past her.
“It's more like a nest.” They guessed the gloinks seemed like they could pass as an abstract sculpture of some kind, but they still had no idea how the jester had come to such a conclusion over something much more obvious.
At Zooble's correction, Pomni's attention snapped to them before she promptly screamed in surprise.
Why were they the one who had to deal with this?
At Pomni's scream, the worm-like creature finally noticed their group. Great. The creature scoffed, “What form of non-Gloinkinian mass dares presume presence in the nest of the Gloink Queen?
Rags saddled on up beside them, crossing her arms. “Queen? Please, you really expect us to believe anyone would willingly be the subject of… this?” The ragdoll gestured towards the creature as she spoke. “You know, you could have asked for my consent before forcing me to see something so completely and utterly disgusting~”
“How despicable, a doll that runs its mouth in the presence of my royal figure!”
“Oh! Speaking of royals, our friend is one of those! You wouldn't have- ah, there he is! Hi Kinger! We found the you hole!” Pomni waved her arm in the air, cupping a hand around the side of her mouth as she shouted to ensure Kinger, who was being carried off by gloinks, would hear her.
“Th-that’s great, Pomni- Would one of you guys mind helping me out at all?”
Pomni and Zooble both looked at Rags, who raised her hands up. “Yeah, no, I'm not getting near those things.” They didn't even know why they bothered. Of course she wouldn't help anyone but herself. They turned their attention back to the jester next to them, expecting her to have already left to help Kinger, but she was just standing there, looking at him. Weird.
They tapped her on the shoulder and offered a hand to play rock paper scissors, Pomni's eyes lighting up as she balled her hand into a fist and they began to play, the jester throwing out paper as they threw out rock. Darn.
They went to resign themselves to their fate, but Pomni let out an ‘aw…’ before leaving. They almost considered telling her that she'd actually won, but they just left her to it. They didn't really want to keep Kinger waiting any longer. Even if they didn't want to personally deal with the gloink Queen, they also didn't want him to have to do so either.
“Wait, Pomni-” Kinger began to speak, but she cut him off.
“Dont worry Kinger, I've got this!” She grabbed one of his hands off of a gloink, pausing for a moment before noticing Kinger was still moving fast down the line of gloinks. “Oh.”
“Why did you guys let Pomni- Oh god-”
Zooble looked away as they realised what was about to happen, only hearing the Gloink Queen swallow, still far more than they wanted to know about what was occuring. “F**king hell…”
“Dont worry your abnormally shaped head, Zoobie. He'll be fiiiiiine. We can't die, remember?” Rags threw an arm over their shoulders as she grinned at them.
“I bet he wishes he could die right about now.” And so did Zooble as they shoved the ragdoll off of them. They hoped this stupid adventure would be over soon. There wasn't even a point to it! Jax wasn't even here! They sure hoped he was enjoying himself whilst they all had to suffer down here…
—
“CAINE? HELLO? TEETH GUY? YOU AROUND AT ALL? WE'VE GOT A SITUATION HERE! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME AND YOU'RE JUST IGNORING ME AGAIN IM GONNA BE PRETTY DAMN P**SED- OH COME ON, THATS A SWEAR TOO?! GOD THIS PLACE SUCKS!”
As his calls fell on deaf ears, Jax began to resort to just opening every door in the circus he could find, which was… unhelpful, to say the least. They were all incredibly strange, ranging from rooms that only consisted of infinite parasols stacked on top of one another spinning around like a tornado to multiple different rooms that punched him in the face. What even was the point of those?! And don't get him started on that room with the mannequin in the bath- that mask was gonna give him nightmares- or it um, would. If he got those. Which he didn't.
“CAINE? Come on, this is just getting stupid! You had to have noticed what's going on by now!” He groaned in frustration as he turned a corner, continuing to call out for whatever the teeth man was meant to be. A ringmaster, maybe? His weird get up was giving off those vibes, and they were in a circus…
He couldn't continue to question Caine's role for much longer, however, as his calls for him were quickly shut up by the appearance of the creature from before. Ka… Kau… the clown guy. Jax slowly began to back away in hopes it hadn't seen him, but it seemed to be too late for that. Just his luck. As it began to charge towards him, Jax scrambled away, trying to find a place to hide from the thing again. It didn't seem particularly smart, there had to be something...
As he rounded another corner, he ripped open a yellow barrel in front of him, causing a bunch of red monkey toys to explode out of it. He planned to climb into it, but he instead ducked behind it as the creature arrived far faster than he thought it would. Luckily for him (for once in this place), the little monkey creatures seemed to distract it and all he had to do was manoeuvre around the barrel to ensure he stayed out of its sight.
As it chased after one of the monkeys, Jax emerged from behind the barrel, hissing under his breath: “*God, where the hell is Caine…?*”
But, whilst he was looking around for the supposed ringmaster, he instead found something far more interesting.
He placed a hand on the front of the exit door, laughing sarcastically as it stayed solid against his palm. “Digital hallucinations my a**...”
He looked around before throwing the door open and running inside. He wasn't wasting a single second in this place that he didn't have to.
—
“You foolish assortment of colorful characters! Do you not realize everything must be Gloinks!? I am Gloinks. You will be Gloinks! God will be Gloinks!"
“This is dumb and weird.” Zooble was shocked to find themselves agreeing with Rags, but yeah, that basically summed it up. They were getting pretty sick of listening to the Gloink Queen monologue.
“Well, B- uh- You're still watching it!” The creature shot back.
“I'm not here for the adventure or anything. I'm just here to hide from the-”
Rags was cut off by a crash from the ceiling as an abstraction fell through, landing on the Gloink Queen and crushing her, causing Kinger to fly out of her mouth and hit the wall. “Ow…” he grumbled, bringing his one remaining hand to his head.
“Kinger! You're okay!” Pomni rushed over to him, proudly presenting his other hand that she had been holding onto this whole time. “Did you happen to experience a gameshow in there?”
“A-a what?” Kinger raised an eyebrow.
Zooble tore their eyes away from the strange interaction as the repeated thuds in the other direction reminded them of how Kinger was saved in the first place. “What the f**k Rags?! I thought you said Kaufmo didn't abstract!” Or was that Jax? He did seem to be having a hard time accepting the circus as reality, but to abstract that fast…
“Oh. Guess I lied.”
“You- I'm not dealing with you right now. Where's the exit? The Gloink Queen seems pretty… dealt with.” They just wanted to get back to their room and lay down. They'd had enough social interaction for the day, especially with Rags.
“This way.” Kinger beckoned, pointing towards a pair of escalators.
They all followed his lead, and as they arrived, Rags stood to the side of the up escalator and held out an arm as if she were presenting it. “Seniors first~” She smiled towards Pomni. However, as the jester went to step onto it, her smile dropped. “Nevermind, you're too slow.” With that, she shoved Pomni to the ground before stepping onto the escalator herself
“Its an escalator, Rags. You can't be too slow on an escalator.” Kinger sighed as he helped Pomni up before following after the ragdoll.
“Agree to disagree.”
—
Jax was starting to get pretty pissed off.
He continued to throw open exit door after exit door, but every single one just led to another stupid hallway! Was this Caine's way of trying with him or something? Was it meant to deter him by putting a million false doors in between him and the real one?! As much as it frustrated him, he continued to enter each and every one, even though he knew nothing was on the other side. There had to be something eventually, and Jax was going to find it. He couldn't stand to be stuck in this damn circus any longer.
As he kept throwing open door after door, be finally entered a different kind of room. A strangely familiar room, one full of cubicles. He ran through it all the same, but near the end, something caught his eye. A desk, with an old monitor on it and a dirty old headset beside it.
As his gaze met the last sight he saw before being condemned to this hell, he laughed a little. After all, this was meant to be funny, right? There couldn't be any other reason for why Caine would be showing him this. He clearly found reminding Jax of just how doomed he was f**king hilarious given how much effort he must've gone through to create this labyrinth of misleading escapes from the digital hell Jax had found himself in. He cackled more as he threw open the next exit door, despite knowing there would be nothing behind it. It was just door after door after door after-
A long, long hallway was laid out before him, and at the very end of it, was yet another door. Whilst he knew, deep down, that it was just going to lead to another damn room, he couldn't help but hold out hope that this one, finally, would be the door to set him free. He rushed down the hallway, which felt like it just got longer and longer with every step, before finally-
As he threw himself through the door, he found that there was no longer a floor beneath him. That there was no longer anything at all. Instead, his surroundings were white and blue, blazing past him as he stayed floating in the midst of it all. He could barely comprehend what he was seeing. This- this couldn't be right. That couldn't be all there was. That couldn't be the end. This wasn't- this wasn't how it was supposed to go.
His vision wavered as he stared at his ever changing surroundings, and he just couldn't bring himself to laugh anymore. The joke wasn't funny. None of this was funny. It was just… meaningless. All of it was meaningless.
As Jax continued to float there, for who knows how long, he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder before feeling himself being rushed away like he had been during Caine's tour. He darted his eyes around, realising he was back in the tent. Still in the tent. He doubted he ever truly left.
“Now, what the heck happened around here?” Caine questioned. “Oh, yeah, my doing!”
The others rushed over at the sight of them both, all seeming panicked, excluding Rags, as Pomni spoke. “Caine! Kaufmo went through a sort of Kaufmosis and abstracted!”
“Kaufmo abstracted? Why didn't anybody tell me?” Caine's tone was exaggerated as he stuck out his tongue and slapped his hands against his jaw. Jax couldn't help but glare up at him in irritation. He had been trying to tell him, but he kept ignoring him!
With a snap of his fingers, the blocky multi-eyed creature from before appeared above them, along with a large black hole in the floor. The others just stared solemnly as the creature was lowered into it, with Caine exclaiming: “And into the cellar you go!” Before closing it up again.
“Jeez… I cant believe Kaufmo gave up like that…” Zooble's voice was so quiet he could barely hear them, a kind of sadness in their tone. “No offense, Pomni, but I kinda thought you were gonna be next…”
“Thank you!” Pomni cheered. Jax was gonna make a wild guess and assume that she had zero clue what Zooble meant by that. Otherwise even the cheery jester should be offended by such a comment, even with the ‘no offense’ tacked on the start.
“Guess it just goes to show you cant rely on Pomni for anything.” Rags commented. Not that anyone wanted her to.
“I-I am in so-o much pa-pain-” Jax almost jumped out of his skin as his gaze darted towards Gangle crawling on the ground, her body still heavily glitching out. At the sight of her, Caine snapped his fingers once again, her body reverting back to the way it was before, along with his own hand, Jax suddenly noticed as he turned it around in front of him. Gangle picked herself up off the ground, and he was suddenly a lot more interested in looking in the opposite direction rather than meeting her eyes. If you could even call them that.
“I do have to apologize for lying about the exit. I knew how much all of you have been wanting there to be one, but, you know, I was having so much trouble figuring out what to put on the other side that I ended up never quite… finishing it. And you know how I never like letting people see my unfinished work-” Caine glanced over at him. “Especially if it leads you out into the void. Anyway, it looks like you defeated the Gloink Queen, so I guess the adventure's over! Your reward is a delicious digital feast cooked by our head Bubble Chef!” The ringmaster gestured over to a long table with a bunch of blocky food made out of polygons.
Bubble was floating in front of it, holding a knife and fork and wearing a little chefs hat. “Made with all the love I'm legally allowed to give.” Oh. Jax didn't like that at all.
“You know, I am pretty hungry.” Rags remarked.
“You didn't even do anything.” Zooble glared at her, their voice still quiet as ever yet holding just as much frustration as someone speaking at a normal volume.
“So what? I can still be hungry~”
“Well not really, 'cause we don't need to eat, drink or sleep in this digital world.” Kinger corrected “So the digital food here only gives off the virtual sensation of eating without any of the nutritional benefits…”
As Kinger went on and others started to speak, Jax found their voices to start to resemble nothing but buzzing as he went over both Caine's and the chess piece's words in his mind. Before he knew it, he was sitting at that long table with the others, his gaze drifting down to the false, blocky, completely unappetising food that he didn't see a singular point in eating. After all, they didn't need to, right? He didn't need to do anything to exist here. There wasn't anything to stop him from existing here. He was stuck, trapped, with no hope of getting out.
Wasn't that funny?