Chapter Text
It started out as any other normal day at the circus. Or, well, as far as normal got in a place like this. They started their day with a breakfast of digital food that tasted like nothing much. Yet everyone was there, sitting side by side at the comically long table.
Pomni had once asked why they didn't just, you know, sit across from each other. Jax had simply laughed at the idea, saying something along the lines of ‘and having to look at your ugly face first thing in the morning? No thanks’. Ragatha had simply shrugged and told her it was part of the aesthetic.
That was back in her first week here. She’s been here for months now- She thought it had been months. It was hard to keep track of time in the circus, what with all the crazy stuff that goes around in this place. The table arrangements stayed the same, though. And everyone always sat in roughly the same spots whenever they ate together. Not that they needed to. Sometimes they didn’t even really eat anything at all. But gathering at the dining table was part of their routine, part of something that held a vague semblance of normal, and so none of them commented on it.
“So, what do you think today’s adventure is going to be?”
Ah, that was a safe way to start a conversation. Pomni looked at Ragatha, hearing Zooble complain about Caine’s adventures from the other side of the table. Gangle said something in turn, but Pomni didn’t quite catch it.
“Well, we had an in house adventure yesterday, so probably not that,” she shrugged. Caine liked to switch things up, she noticed. Unless he got lazy. Or busy. Or both. She didn’t understand how he could, since he was nothing but a computer program, but there were so many things she didn’t understand about this place. Trying to figure everything out would only serve to drive her mad. Or to abstraction.
“Right,” Ragatha nodded, holding a hand under her chin as if in thought. “I hope this one is a little less…violent, then the last one.”
Violent was one way to put it. Pomni had liked their gun adventure, though. She’d enjoyed being an evil little menace with Jax-
Jax.
Her eyes trailed over to the purple rabbit subconsciously, watching him sit laid back in his chair, feet swung up on the table, not even pretending to be into the food. He looked…normal enough. Not like yesterday, when he’d gotten so angry at her that he snapped and then- then he’d looked so tired. So done with things. And she couldn’t help but worry.
Now his mask was back on and it was as if nothing had happened at all, which was concerning in its own right. Pomni definitely needed to talk to him today.
“Yeah,” Pomni nodded slowly as she realized she hadn't given Ragatha a real answer yet. “Maybe it will be, like, a chill adventure? You know, since he didn't have a lot of time yesterday-”
“Ugh, knowing Caine, that will just make him double down on this one,” Zooble grunted. “Look, yesterday was…sorta fun, I guess? But I’m not signing up for another guaranteed death.”
“Awe, come on Zoobs! Don’t be such a party pooper!” Jax teased. “Just because you’re a sore loser doesn’t mean-”
Before he could finish whatever he was about to say- something demeaning, surely- the ground shook and their surroundings glitched out. Ragatha yelped back as the food in front of her started glitching, and Gangle screamed as the table itself distorted. Pomni was quick enough to jump back, but it seemed like her ribboned friend hadn’t gotten so lucky. Part of the red thread was glitching out now, and Pomni shot a quick look down at her hand, making sure it wasn’t glitching, too.
“My comedy mask…”
Oh, that had broken too, huh? Gangle really got unlucky.
“What the [BEEP]?!” Zooble shouted.
“Yo Caine!” Jax yelled, throwing his head back as he did, his face losing its third dimension as he did so. “What is this?! Get down here and fix your mess!”
As if by magic, the world around them suddenly stopped glitching. All the colorful shapes and blocks just…popped back in place as if nothing happened. Just as suddenly as it had come on. Which was…unsettling. Gangle was still glitching, though, even if the circus itself no longer was.
“Where is that guy?!” Jax continued, glaring at the sky as if Caine could pop out any moment. He should, shouldn’t he? If not to whisk them away on an adventure, then at least to explain what the [BEEP] just happened.
“Uhm, guys..,” Ragatha called out, her voice going up a little too high at the end of her sentence as she stared ahead of her with a wide eye. “What’s that?”
Pomni’s eyes drifted from the ceiling to where Ragatha was looking, and her heart froze. Well, whatever they had instead of hearts- Her whole digital being simply tensed up as if there were actual muscles inside, and all she could do was stare at the vast black hole that had appeared in the middle of the floor.
“Is this…the adventure?” Pomni asked, unsure. She hoped not, because this was looking very horror themed so far and Pomni absolutely did not want another scary adventure.
“...It’s not really Caine’s style, though,” Zooble frowned, eying the hole with suspicion. “Then again, he does like to switch things up…”
“I don’t think I like this adventure,” Gangle sobbed, her breath hitching as her ribbons twitched in an unnatural way.
“Something is definitely wrong,” Ragatha said, shooting Pomni one last glance before turning to help Gangle with her broken mask. No kidding. First the circus assets freak out, now there’s a giant hole in the ground, and none of them had heard any explanation from Caine yet.
“What do you thi-”
She cut herself off when she looked at Jax. His eyes wide, taking up pretty much all of his face. But his pupils were small, center stage, letting the yellow take up almost all space. His mouth seemed nothing but a dot.
It was in that look that Pomni knew that the world was ending.
“That’s…” Jax forced out, his voice croaking a little, sounding fragile in a way he never showed. “The cellar.”
The cellar? But that’s where-
“What are you talking about?” Zooble asked, eying the hole again. “That can’t be-”
Jax looked convinced, though. And now Ragatha was looking twice, and Pomni didn’t like the way her face morphed into one of horror. Pomni’s eyes widened, quickly darting around to take stock of all the cast members. Everyone was accounted for, right? Everyone was here-
“Where is Kinger?”
Her question was followed by a moment of pure terror.
“Where’s who?”
“Kinger!” Ragatha yelled, both surprised and relieved as he popped up from underneath the table. Pomni was too relieved to ask why he had been down there in the first place. Part of her wondered whether he knew himself.
“Me!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Were we playing hide and seek? Am I winning? Oh, I know! I can be the seeker this time and you can all go hide!”
“Ha. We’re about to,” Jax said, trying to force a laugh from his mouth as it locked into an unnaturally wide grin. When Pomni looked back at the hole in the ground, she could see what got him so tense. A tendril of sorts, covered in dozens of colorful ever changing eyes, slowly slithering out.
“[BEEP]”
“Run,” Ragatha forced out as the tentacle grew larger. Then, the rest of the body appeared, and Pomni could hear someone scream. “Run!”
They all sprang into action as the abstracted being lunged from the hole, crashing into the table only moments after everyone evacuated. It shattered on impact, its pieces glitching and clipping through the terrain before some blipped out of existence all together. Pomni didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it, too busy getting the [BEEP] out of there.
She skidded to a halt when a second massive black hole appeared in front of her. Eyes wide as the void stared back at her with a million unblinking rainbow colored eyes. Then someone bumped into her back, red ribbons flapping by her head, making her stumble forward, and Pomni couldn’t stop the scream that escaped her throat. She was yanked back before she could fall in, a familiar yellow glove on her shoulder before quickly disappearing.
“Why is there a SECOND HOLE TO THE CELLAR?!” Gangle screamed, grabbing onto Pomni and shaking her as she freaked out.
“No time to question it, just avoid it,” Zooble stated, trying to stay calm but sounding freaked out, too.
“Rooms! They won’t be able to get us in our rooms!” Ragatha called out, and Pomni could feel her arm being yanked in the right direction. If it wasn’t for the emergency at hand, she would be snapping at people to stop touching her!
She didn’t have the privilege right now, though. Not when the ground started shaking and the walls started glitching again. The textures freaked out, shifting in place and changing colours as they ran past, cracks spreading through the floor as dozens of eyes peaked through. It sent shivers up her spine and panic coursing through her veins.
“[BEEP]! Everything is so messed up!” Jax yelled, jumping up as the rift cracked underneath his feet. Pomni was surprised to hear him curse. Then again, they were all thrown off by what was happening. “What is Caine thinking?!”
“I don't think it’s intentional!” Pomni called out, yelping as she rounded the corner. It couldn’t be, could it? Not unless Caine had finally snapped and decided their happiness no longer mattered and he was going to start torturing-
She let out a grunt as she ran into Ragatha’s back, twisting around her and seeing an abstracted cast member blocking their path.
[BEEP]
The corruption had already spread to the dormitories.
[BEEP]!
The monster wasn’t attacking them though. Pomni didn’t think it had noticed them yet. Instead it was staring at a door- one of the older ones. One with a red X marked down the middle. The thing rubbed down the door with their hand? Paw? Claws? And it glitched out for a moment.
“That’s-” Ragatha choked out, cutting herself off when the abstraction turned towards them. The roar it let out seemed to distort the hallway around them as the sound rippled through. Pomni covered her ears to try and get away from it, but it was like the sound was being broadcasted directly into her mind.
“Come on, quickly,” Zooble said, pulling Pomni back into their room. She hadn’t even realized they had been standing in front of it. When she stumbled back into the doorframe, everyone had already left the hallway. Everyone except for Jax, who remained frozen, staring at the monster as it charged at him. “Oh for [BEEP]- GET IN HERE!”
Some sort of grappling hook shot over her head. A rope with weird hands on the other end- like a combination of two, but with way too many fingers. It grabbed onto the straps of Jax’s overalls and reeled him back, like a fish being pulled out of water. It made the monster miss its mark, but Jax’s body didn’t slow down as he came crashing into Zooble’s room, taking them and Pomni with him as they crashed into the opposite wall.
Pomni let out a grunt as the breath was knocked out of her. She was pretty sure Zooble shattered to pieces on impact.
The door was slammed shut and something was shoved in front of it as it budged under the force of the abstracted.
Jax shook his head before springing up from the ground, dusting off his clothes and flinching as another bang resonated from behind the door. When Pomni looked back, she saw Zooble had indeed fallen apart, grumbling as they started putting themselves together again.
“This isn’t gonna hold forever,” Gangle said, panicking, still partly glitching. “We have to do something!”
“Like what? What can we possibly do about that?!” Ragatha exclaimed, waving frantically at the door. It glitched briefly, making all of them freeze for a second.
“Alright, let’s just calm down and-” Pomni tried, carefully putting Zooble’s arm back on their body. “And come up with a plan! We obviously can’t beat it, but maybe we can hide from it! There- There have to be, like, safe spaces in the circus, right? Somewhere abstracted people can’t get in.”
“They’re not supposed to get out of the cellar,” Ragatha pointed out. “And our rooms are supposed to be safe-”
“Ha! There are no safe spaces in the circus!” Jax laughed. “In case you haven’t noticed, Caine is the circus! If he hasn’t got his [BEEP] under control then we’re all [BEEP]ed!”
Okay. Not reassuring at all.
“There’s got to be something,” she said, looking around at the others, who all looked similarly crestfallen. Was there really no place to go..? No way to escape whatever this madness was until Caine got things under control again- if Caine got things under control again. And there was no telling how long that would take.
“What you’re looking for is a room without doors!” Kinger pointed out. Everyone turned to look at him with a skeptical look. “What?”
“Kinger, that’s… How do we even find a room if it has no doors?” Ragatha asked. “How would we even get inside?”
“Ugh, we don’t have time for this. No offense, but Kinger isn’t exactly lucid enough to know what he’s talking about. Ignore him,” Zooble said. “But Pomni is right, we need to get somewhere they can’t get us, and our rooms are compromised- That door isn’t gonna hold much longer.”
“So what do we do?” Gangle asked, and Pomni knew that if she had actual hands and an actual mouth, she’d be biting her nails right now.
“Well, there’s only one exit, and it’s being blocked,” Zooble frowned. “So we have to make a stand. Get past the abstracted in the hallway and-”
“What if there are more?” Ragatha asked. “You saw it yourself, there are multiple openings to the cellar- Multiple ways for them to get out- to get to us-”
“Maybe if we ask nicely-”
“SHUT UP KINGER!”
Pomni slowly stepped back, her eyes darting between everyone as things got loud and tense. She slowly backed to the wall, allowing herself to slide down onto her butt and just…stare out in front of her, wondering if there was even a point to it all. None of it was real, right? They were all just a bunch of pixels mashed together. It would feel real, if they started glitching and stuff- That would hurt. But it wouldn’t be real.
She glanced aside at Jax, hoping he’d ease her nerves with a joke- hoping he’d break up whatever fight was happening between the others, if only to make fun of them for it. But he was in a state similar to her own, his smile small as he stared at the ground. Almost pensive.
“...a room without doors,” he mumbled, letting out a forced laugh. “Kinger, you genius. Of course. Of course- I’m so gonna regret this.”
“Jax?”
He blinked, his smile widening and his eyes growing a bit bigger again as he looked at her.
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, more than okay! I just figured a way outta here,” he grinned, roughly grabbing her by the arm and setting her up on her feet.
There was a loud crash by the door again, and a piece of the wood went flying, crashing into the wall between them. Everyone stilled as the eyes peaked inside before retreating all together.
“Alright! Everyone link hands!” Jax called out, already grabbing Pomni’s and forcing it to Ragatha.
“What? Jax, what are you-?”
“No time for questions, dollface,” Jax said, simply taking a hold of Gangle, only to be forced to let go by Zooble.
“Jax, we don’t have time for-”
Another bang. More wood splintered. And an arm of sorts burst through, lashing out at anyone and anything in the room.
“Hands!” Jax yelled again, sounding a bit more panicked now. And this time, no one tried to stop him.
It all happened fast after that. Well, fast, and then slow. Pomni wasn’t sure what happened at all. Because at one point, she’d taken Jax' hand, and the monster had come barging through the door. And then the next she was…drifting? In a void but not a void. It was hard to explain. She felt dizzy though. And there was this dull throbbing. She didn’t know whether it was in her head or whether it simply was this place, pulsing around her.
“Pomni?”
She blinked, looking aside to find Ragatha.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, uhm, I think so?” she answered, wanting to get up- why did she feel like she was laying down? Only to swerve forward, falling into, well, nothing.
“Whoa there! Watch out,” Ragatha said, quickly holding her back.
“Why…are we floating?” Pomni asked, confused. When she looked around, none of the space around them felt familiar. It didn’t look like the circus at all. No, it was…darker. But not completely dark, even if there was no visible lightsource. And it seemed to go on forever, but the void wasn’t black or white but a weird dusty pink- Why was that colour so familiar? “Where are we?”
“I’m not sure…”
“Everyone okay?”
Pomni looked behind Ragatha, seeing the others were here too. Gangle was flailing into the open space, making small panicked noises as Kinger tried to help her stay upright. Zooble had lost a limb, but seemed fine overall. And Jax- Wait.
“Where is Jax?”
Everyone looked around, but there wasn’t exactly space to hide in the vast expense of…whatever this was. There were other things floating around, sure, but nothing big enough to obscure the lanky purple rabbit.
Jax wasn’t here.
“What the- Didn’t he bring us here?” Zooble's questioned out loud. “What the [BEEP] was the [BEEP] handholding for then?!”
“And what’s with this stuff,” Gangle muttered. Yeah what was the deal with that? Pomni would be more curious about it if it weren’t for the fact that Jax was still missing.
“I don’t think that’s important right now,” Pomni said. “We need to figure out where Jax-”
“[BEEP]!”
They all tensed up at the censored curse echoing through the space. It sounded far away, and yet so close, and it was definitely-
“Jax?!” Pomni called out, cupping her hands over her mouth as she did, hoping he would hear it. If he did, he didn’t answer. Instead, the pulsing sound got louder, like a heartbeat.
“Where did Jax take us..?” Ragatha wondered, frowning.
“This place is…weird, and being in the digital circus, that’s saying something,” Zooble added.
“A room without doors!” Kinger exclaimed, his hands waving around until they got caught on something- a jar. “Oh! I’ve been looking for this!”
“Is that…a centipede?” Pomni asked, making Ragatha yell and flail back.
“A part of my insect collection,” Kinger nodded. “I thought I’d misplaced this little guy…”
“Jax must’ve taken it to torment me,” Ragatha whined.
“Wait… Is this all Jax’ stuff, then?” Gangle asked, looking around again. That would make sense… Jax did bring them here, after all. He didn’t come himself, but they had all heard him just now, which meant he must be okay, wherever he was. That thought allowed Pomni to relax, if only a little.
“Ha! So this is where he keeps all the keys to our rooms!” Zooble exclaimed, and Pomni blinked, quickly looking over. Zooble had already gotten a little away from them, but they were right. There were a bunch of keys just floating around, each one with a tag bound to them. “I’m taking mine back- Do you all want yours, too?”
“Yes please!” Ragatha yelled, making some swimming motions as she moved over to Zooble. Gangle also took her key, and Pomni supposed it was a good time to reclaim something she didn’t even know was missing. Well, she knew Jax had a lot of keys, but just hadn’t really…thought about the implications of him having access to her room like that. There were more than just room keys here, though.
“Morning Meadow,” she read aloud as she looked at another key. “What’s that?”
“Oh, that was the set of an adventure, I think,” Ragatha said. “It was a field of flowers with an everlasting sunrise on the horizon.”
“That sounds really pretty,” Pomni hummed.
“It was, but…”
“The plants tried to eat us,” Gangle pointed out. “Even if I’m made of ribbons- that can’t taste good!”
Pomni vividly remembered how Jax tried to eat her in that one half baked hunting adventure, but decided not to mention it.
“I don’t understand why he’s got a key for that place, though,” Ragatha said. “I didn’t even know that place had a key…”
So that means they didn't know it had been an in house adventure? It made her wonder how many adventures took place in weird rooms scattered about the circus… Or maybe Caine just linked them up afterwards? As a way to keep the assets close by, like a storage room?
Kind of like this place, actually, because keys definitely weren’t the only things floating about here. There were pictures, candid ones half of the cast didn’t remember being taken. Some of them had been pranks, but not all of them. There were drawings, too, most of them stolen from Gangle. Other trinkets floated about as well. Parts of past adventures.
At one point Ragatha stumbled upon a bunch of crocheted animals, and she admitted to it being some of her first work. That she did it to take her mind off things, that they were modeled after the people here.
Pomni had looked at a plush smiling purple rabbit longer than she liked to admit, only being pulled out of thought when a loud bang echoed through the space, like a door being slammed shut.
“Not now- I can’t- not now, not now, not now-”
It was Jax’s voice again, sounding far away and yet all around them at once. It was followed by the sound of breathing- very loud and erratic breathing, and a shaky laugh.
“Not now- [BEEP]! Why- The others- The others are counting on you, [BEEP]hole, so keep it together.”
There was another forced laugh, sounding a bit more deranged than the last one. That was worrying…
“And now I’m talking to myself! Great! Definitely not gonna abstract now!”
Pomni’s eyes widened, quickly exchanging looks with the others, wanting to make sure they were hearing this too.
“Jax?” Ragatha asked aloud, but he didn’t respond. Instead the pinkish void around them grew fuzzy, a faint buzz hanging around them, and the thumbing heartbeat increasing in speed and intensity.
“Jax!” Pomni called out, but the only reaction was the sound of his breathing. Then there was a censored swear, and he mumbled something about having to find Caine. His voice faded and the staticky feeling went with it. “Jax! Where are you?!”
No answer.
“He must still be out there,” Gangle whimpered. “With…them.”
Jax alone in the circus. Surrounded by the abstracted.
“We have to get out of here,” Pomni stated, quickly making swimming motions towards the first object floating around. “Everyone, start looking for a way out! That or something that can help us leave!”
“Pomni, we don't even know where-”
“CAINE!”
Everything suddenly shifted.