Chapter Text
— 1st person POV
I took a breath through my teeth, the air was cold and my lungs stung from the sharp breath.
My eyes hurt, and I could feel sore indents planted in my face.
I blink a couple times, try to process my surroundings while my eyes refocused to the neutral colored area.
The pale yellow walls and white office room dividers come into focus. I look down at the itchy office floor that lays under my body. I sit up, my hands quivering and cold, almost desperately clinging onto the headset that threw me into a prison. I don’t know how long I was there anymore, or if time in there was different from here. All I remember was the mirror, my jester outfit lost to the black crystals and eyes. I didn’t have control of myself.
I stand up, the sun was setting. The room dark with small streams of orange casted against the desk. I put the headset on the desk. I’m shaking. It wasn’t from the cold anymore. I escaped, alone, in fear, I escaped but only because I had given up. A sense of disgust and dread sets deep in my heart, I can feel my face distort into anger as if me giving up was the most insulting thing of it all; like I could never forgive myself for leaving them because I couldn’t handle it. My hands braced the desk, my eyesight a bit blurrier from the tears that swelled in my eyes.
I’m alive, even though I succumbed to despair.
And they’re all still in there.
— Switching to 3rd person POV
The now known Lizzie shook in fear, taking in her situation. She had just abstracted, believing that was losing the last of her humanity. Finding that she was now back out of the..game? Simulation?? She had no idea. In her break down was a small dawning of realization, other than the old rundown company C&A being some how related to this whole thing; Lizzie had no idea what any of this even was or meant. Did every abstracted person get booted out? Was it just her? What was the digital circus supposed to be before it became that prison for Caines sick games.
Lizzie sighed in the revelation, along with the understanding that she’d had to go back to her old life, contact her family and friends, what would be her backstory for being missing all this time? She wasn’t the ‘spiritual retreat’ type nor the ‘goes completely missing for months’ type either. She’d have to think of something on her way to.. her house she hasn’t payed rent for in months. Damnit.
Lizzie brushed the dust off her windbreaker. Her phone broken lay next to her. She must had been lying in this abandoned building for months. Did no one search for her? No one found her? This was a pretty popular place to break into at the time so it was pretty surprising she wouldn’t have been found. It’s almost unbelievable, the building was only a mile away from her home, she had walked here on a whim. And yet no one was able to find her? Did her parents even know she’d been missing? It didn’t matter, at least not in the moment. Lizzie ran her hands through her hair, cold, black, and greasy. Desperately in need of a shower. She grabbed her non usable phone and started to leave the building, shoving the headset and any useful looking pieces of a equipment she could look at more closely later, including files, thumb drives, metal with the indented “C&A” label on it, etc. she shoved it all in her messenger bag, which she usually brought with her when she would be making YouTube videos.
Lizzie started to head home, finding it odd how she still subconsciously remembered how to get home after all this time. It didn’t sit right with her that she had escaped, been out in the real world now while everyone was still in there. Lizzie couldn’t go back, she,, she couldn’t. But something in the back of her head screamed at her to go back. To help them. To inform them of this discovery. She couldn’t in her right mind allow herself to leave them to continued suffering. Her lips flattened at the thought of going back. She didn’t even know that if she did it would send her back to where she was before, didn’t know if she’d be in the same server or some other nerd game terminology that escaped her at the moment. “I can’t leave.” She said, a low uncertain whisper. Speaking hurt her throat, not being used for so long must do that to people. She ran a hands over her arm, no sign of lost fat or injury, all her muscles while a bit sore from inactivity moved just fine. She wasn’t even hungry. She just felt a little empty inside. Her emotional turmoil hadn’t hit as hard as she expected it too just yet. Maybe her situation hadn’t fully set in. Her hand subconsciously holding the top of her messenger bag as she thought about everything. A scramble of emotions and theories that weren’t fully formed was all her brain had been filled with.
It took about 15 minutes for Lizzie to get back to her home, at least what used to be her home. A large red and white sign posted out of the small home reading ‘FOR SALE’. She sighed, “awe fuck.” She had a small pause, hearing an actual curse word come out of her mouth was jarring. She decided she didn’t like it and moved on from the topic. “Hm.. there’s that public cell phone down at the mail station.” she clicked her tongue and looked down at her feet* “gonna have to call mom.”
The idea made her heart clench, her mom, along with all the rest of her family. She’s missed them a bunch. Lizzie dragged her feet to the mail station, still not use to the body she was born in. She had a strange feeling of body dysphoria, even though she had barely experienced it when first entering the circus. It made her feel as if her circus body was more made for her than her original body. She shook her head, wanting to focus on finding a place to stay first. She turned a couple corners and made a couple small stops to look around her, surrounded by a feeling of Deja vu. She picked up coins scattered on the side walk in hopes getting enough would be able to pay for the phone. She was able to scrounge up about 2 dollars worth of quarters and penny’s. Opening the red phone box, she let her back hit the glass wall. The door closed beside her, she looked at the old phone. “Hope it’s still functional.” Lizzie recalls a time an old lady punched the phone box in anger after it wouldn’t work and her hopes dampened. Lizzie shoved the multitude of coins into the machine, it only required a dollar.
The phone rung in her ear, it was dark by now, but as cold as winter as Lizzie could see the small patches of snow still in the grass so it couldn’t be that late. Her train of thought is obstructed at the sound of the phone picked up. An old distorted, ‘hello?’, came from the other end. Lizzie’s breath hitched, “hey mom. It’s uh.. it’s Pom-. M..”. she cleared her throat. “It’s me, Lizzie.”.