Chapter Text
Pomni groaned, ears ringing as bits of rubble slid off her limbs. Limbs that hurt far more than was normal. Everything ached in a way that made it hard to tell where one pain ended and another began. Her vision swam, fading in and out as her heartbeat thudded too loudly in her head.
Her body didn’t feel like her own.
It hadn’t, really, ever since she’d arrived at the circus, but this was different. This didn’t even feel like her jester form anymore.
She pushed herself upright, one hand pressed to her pounding head as her sight slowly steadied. Memories came back in fragments. Jax running up out of nowhere. His hand slamming down on the red button. A timer flashing on the big screen. A sudden, overwhelming light.
Then nothing.
Pomni blinked and looked down at herself.
Small eyes dotted her arm, blinking slowly, unevenly. She gasped and recoiled, scrambling backward on instinct, as if distance alone could fix what she was seeing. Her shape was still mostly the same. but stretched, mismatched. The ends of her jester hat dragged along the floor behind her, far longer than they should’ve been. The red and blue of her outfit no longer met cleanly, bleeding together into dull shades of purple.
Something moved in the darkness nearby.
Pomni froze, breath catching as she finally took in how dark it was. The circus around her had collapsed into broken shapes and silhouettes. Familiar structures reduced to quiet ruins.
She swallowed and tried to stand.
The moment she put weight on her left foot, a sharp wave of pain forced her back down with a cry. Her leg refused to cooperate, Her foot was now spikey. The spikes going into her foot in way that made standing impossible. Panic flared in her chest as she tried again, only to fail once more.
Tears blurred her vision and burned the back of her throat.
Slowly, carefully, Pomni lowered herself to the floor.
“If I can’t walk…” she whispered, voice shaking as she realized how weird it felt to talk. As if her face was wrong.
She began to crawl instead, dragging herself forward across the debris-covered ground.
The sound of her movement echoed too loudly in the silence. Every scrape of her limbs against the floor felt amplified, like the circus itself was listening.
As she crawled, the eyes along her arm shifted. Not toward her, but outward, all facing the same direction.
Pomni stopped.
The darkness ahead seemed deeper than the rest, swallowing what little light remained. Something unseen stirred, just enough to make the shadows ripple.
Pomni hugged herself tightly, heart racing.
Whatever the red button had done…
whatever had happened to the circus…
It had locked them in here alright. In a hell that was way worse than they could've imagined.