Chapter Text
Welcome, folks! To the Amazing Digital Circus!
Gangle and Zooble, and Kinger too!
Ragatha, Jax and there’s Kaufmo, Woo-Hoo!
Day after day after day- after day- after day we fly!
Past the moon and the sun and we don’t know whyyyy!-
Crash!
The lively instrumental comes to a sudden, screeching halt as three figures crash-lands straight onto the stage of the Circus in a calamity of sounds, knocking over a purple rabbit, causing a domino effect with the rest of the colourful characters.
“Oof! Caine, are these more of your dumb NPCs or are these some new suckers? Cause if they’re new characters, we’re gonna have to redo this WHOLE theme song!” groans the knocked over rabbit, getting himself up. “But also, it better not be your dumb NPCs because I swear to god, you did not need to have them crash into us-,”
“Oh, my! It appears that not one, not two, but three new humans have stumbled upon my digital realm!”
Caine watches in awe at the three, one a cuddly light pink cat, paired with cute whiskers and a fuzzy tail, the next a translucent green ghost and the third, a greyscale marionette who was currently clawing at its head.
“How do I take… this headset off!?”
The ghost, who was still lumped on the floor, messily got up, shaking the visible stars floating around its head from the crash off. Eyes still shut in a daze, it grabs at its own head, mumbling, “One sec, I'll help you once I've got mine off…”
“What the [BOING!]!? I can't take mine off!?” shouts the cat. It wildly claws at its face and then looks down at its huge, furry paws, face laden with horror. “And why the [BOING!] am I a [BOING!] cat!?”
Caine rushes down, pointing his gloves hand sternly. “Now, now, now, my dear. We can't have any of that foul language here! The Amazing Digital Circus is a place to be enjoyed by all ages-”
“I-I can't take mine off either! It… won't budge,” interjects the ghost, squeezing at its head, panic growing. “It's… stuck!”
“Just keep grabbing at it. That worked for all of us,” Jax sarcastically reassures.
The marionette throws its hands off its face and unsteadily stands up, heart racing. Eyes darting from each of the absurd characters, she stammers out, “W-whats's going on? I-I-I, no, we put on some weird headset and now I'm… here.”
“And us!” choruses the other two indignantly, standing up as well and examining each other's appearances in bewilderment. The pink cat glances at her too and then screams.
“WHAT!?” The ghost and marionette chorus. The ghost follows her pointed finger and staggers back aswell, sharing the same wild expression albeit more awed.
“D-don't just look at me!?” she exclaims, getting more terrified by the second.
Jax grins, as if this was the best entertainment he'd had in years. “Oh, they’re probably freaking out at your lack of mouth.”
“MY LACK OF WHAT!?”
She grasps at where her mouth should be, only to be met with nothing, not even a crease or crevice or indent of some sort. Nothing. She felt suffocated from a mouth she didn't even have anymore. She terrifiedly looks back to the circle of people, noting a few without mouths too.
“Who are you people!?!” the marionette cries.
“Where are we!?!” the ghost adds.
“And why the [BOING!] can't I swear!?” the cat shouts.
A ragdoll moves towards the three, attempting a comforting smile. “Let's just try to calm down. Everything's gonna be okay, we've all been through this. You just need to get your head to-,”
“What the [BOING!] is going on!?”
“That's enough of that foul language!” Caine repeated, brandishing his cane. “As I was trying to explain to you before I got ever so rudely interrupted, you, yes all three of you, my friends, have stumbled into an incredible world of wonders where anything can happen! E-except for swearing.”
The cat blanches.
“No [BOING!] way.”
“Er, yes way-!”
“[HONK!] [SQUEAK!] [BING!] [BONG!]”
The other two tense as a series of schloofs, blinks and splats proceeds, their friend becoming more and more exasperated by the second.
“Oh my God,” she exclaims finally, grabbing at her throat but then wincing. “Eugh. Cat fluff.”
“W-well!” stutters the marionette, nervously clearing her throat. “H-how do we, you know… leave?”
The ragdoll that had tried to comfort them earlier tenses.
“Well, uh, don't freak out about it or anything but, uhm, we don't exactly…”
“You can't,” the rabbit smiles, an insufferable amount of smugness plastered across his face.
“Shut up, Jax,” apprehends a blocky, colourful character. “But, yeah, he's right. Welcome to your home. And your new bodies.”
“N-n-new home?” the marionette asked, completely confused. “What do you mean?”
“Guys, don't be mean.”
“We've been stuck here for years! Old Kinger over there's supposedly been here the longest,” Jax explains, gesturing to an odd lump of pastel pillows. A chess piece pokes out.
“Huh, did somebody say something about my insect collection?” Kinger asked, eyes widening with excitement.
“That's why he's craaaazy.”
Huff.
Huff.
Huff.
“Oh, okay, now I get it!” giggles the marionette, somewhat manically. “This is a dream! And I should just play along until I wake up, right? …right?”
“Uh, guys, I don't actually think this is a-,” the ghost starts, getting cut off by the pink cat, who wore the same manic smile as the marionette, slinging an arm around her.
“Right! This is just a dream! Good observation!”
A few beats passes in the circus, silence stowing.
“...whatever you say, kid.”
In the background, a red ribboned character sobs over a cracked piece of porcelain.
“They broke my Comedy mask…”
“So, Caine, we havin’ a new adventure today for the newbie or what?” asks Jax, stepping over the masks to snap it further.
“Oh yes! I'd like to give our brand-new members a tour of the circus grounds first.”
“What-,” the three exclaims before getting slung from their stead, teleported quicker than their words and minds could keep up with.
“Off we go!”
“I'm gonna throw up,” mutters the marionette, clutching her stomach, queasy from the rapid tour of the circus.
More like a rapid rollercoaster of my elementary school playground.
“Ugh, I doubt you even could in this…” the cat winced. “Place.”
She vomits black liquid on the floor.
“Or maybe you can…”
“How did you do that without a mouth?” the ghost asks curiously.
“Woah, clean up on aisle you!”
A bubble floats from Caine's hat.
“I'm on it, Boss!”
The ghost giggles at this but then stops when glancing back at her friend's solemn expressions. She pauses herself and thinks back to the 2 minute montage of a tour they just got zapped through.
“...Why are you like this…?”
“Wait, wait. Was that an exit door I saw out there? Is that a way to leave?”
Jax raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “What exit?” He takes off Zooble's arm and uses it as a back-scratcher. “If there was a way to leave, I'm pretty sure we'd have all left by now.” The arm then contorts and chokes Jax, forcing him to drop to the floor in struggle.
“Yeah, what are you talking about?” she asks as well, equally as unimpressed albeit slightly curious.
“Uh-uh-I- ahem! 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.”
“But, I-I swear I saw-,”
“DIGITAL HALLUCINATIONS!!!”
The three squint up at him, exchanging wary looks between each other, all thinking the same thing.
Suspicous.
“...How about we talk about something else? Like your name!”
“My name?” the marionette repeated, blinking out of the stare, the others following in footstep. “My name is uhh... AAHH! OH, GOD! WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER MY NAME!?”
“What do you mean you can't remember you're name its…” The cat paused, words failing her. “WHAT'S YOUR NAME, I CAN'T REMEMBER!? [BOING!], I CAN'T REMEMBER MY NAME EITHER?”
“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!”
The marionette's eyes zoom in, shaking aggressively, turning into squiggles.
“Ugh...what's my name...?”
“Don't you worry your little heads. Your new name can be anything!...”
“HerebyacknowledgingthatyourchosennameornamesmaynotbreachtheDigitalCircusUserLicenseAgreementstatingthatyournamemaynotincludeobjectionablecontent.Objectionablecontentincludes-butisnotlimitedto-sexuallyexplicitmaterial,obscene,defamatory,libelous,slanderous,violent,and/orunlawfulcontentorprofanity.”
He blinks. The trio blinks. “What are you thinkin'?”
“Huh? I... don't care. Just pick anything,” she replies dejectedly. Ragatha looks at her with pity.
“Speak for yourself!” the ghost perks, slightly hovering higher with excitement. “I’ll be Phantom!”
Jax snorts. “Nerd.”
“It’s awesome, isn't it?” Phantom eagerly insists, ignoring his insult.
“...sure, ghostie.”
“How about you…?” she asks, turning to her pink friend, the missing space clear for her new name.
She thinks for a moment and then announces with confidence.
“Cali. Call me Cali.”
“Nice!” compliments Phantom high fiving her, to which Cali chuckles fondly.
“Right! Phantom and Cali- good choices! Now all we have to pick for is our bow-tied marionette!” He plucks at his bow-tie, the action being mirrored on the marionette's huge one, the girl looking down at her neck in puzzlement. “Let's roll!”
Suddenly a massive slot machine of letters falls from the above and rolls.
Ding!
“What do you think of "XDCC"?” he reads out.
“I don't-” hesitates XDCC.
The other two snicker.
“You're right — terrible. Let's try that again!
The slot machine of letters rolls again, the letters falling into a proper name this time.
“What do you think of MARY?”
“Mary?” she blinks, testing the name out on her tongue. “Uhh-,”
“You’re right, horrible name! Basic, generic- so uncircus-y!”
A black screen covers everything, reading a disclaimer in bold: Not to be taken to heart by any Mary’s watching. Mary is a lovely name. The black screen disappears.
“Uh- what was that? Actually, nevermind- I actually didn't mind that name…”
“Oh, you don't?” Cali asks confusedly.
“Yeah… I figure that's the most normal name I'm gonna get outta that thing anyway so… haha…” Mary awkwardly explains, scratching her head.
Cali shrugs, “Fair point. I can't even remember why I was confused- maybe I thought it wasn't like you.”
“Like… me?” she repeats, looking up at her.
She dismisses it with a wave of her paw. “I don't know, it was more of a feeling than anything. Ignore me.”
Like. Me.
It… isn’t like me.
“Uh, I like it Mary!” Phantom quickly says, sensing the tension. “Rhymes with Cali!”
“...yeah.”
“Uh! You there- Caine, right? Didn't you mention something about an adventure?” she asks, trying to distract Mary from whatever was bothering her. And, admittedly, indulging in her own pit of curiosity.
“Gadzooks, you're right, Phantom! We should have a brand new adventure for our new members, Cali, Phantom and Mary!
“I said that, like, 5 minutes ago,” Jax deadpans.
Caine points to the three.
“You! And you! And you! Do you like adventure? Activity? Wonder? Danger? Horror?Pain?Suffering?Agony?Death?Disease?Death?Angel food cake?”
The bubble reappears and, revealing comically large teeth, chomps the angel cake Caine had summoned upon saying.
“YOU PARASITE!!!”
He furiously pops it.
“Uh- I don't really-,” Mary begins.
“Since you're new around here, we're gonna make it a simple, in-house, adventure to warm you up to how things work around here.”
“Yay…!” Cali sarcastically drawls.
“What? No, god! I don't want an in-house adventure!” grumbles Zooble.
“Don't worry, Zooble. I'll make it something unobtrusive that you can still choose to not get involved with!” He dramatically pauses, presenting an even more dramatic title. “Today's adventure is... Gather the Gloinks!
He and Bubble explain the adventure, well try to explain, before popping out of existence with an enthusiastic, “Good luck and have fun, my little superstars!”
Mary’s left eye twitches. She stiffly turns to the others.
“...What did any of that mean?”
Ragatha hurries to explain, “Oh, that's just one of Caine's little adventures. They're just... something fun to do to, you know, prevent us from going insane.” She chuckles nervously.
Zooble turns her back and began to walk away. “Speak for yourself. If anyone needs me, then [BOING!] off.” She pulls the middle finger- that too censored.
“That’s censored too!?” Cali exclaims, trying it herself to no avail. “[BOING!]”
“Gosh, you absolute potty mouth,” Jax fake gasps.
“Oh go suck on a carrot, bunny wabbit.”
“Whatever you say, whiskers,” he smirks infuriatingly.
“HAH? SAY THAT AGAIN-,”
She’s cut off Zooble’s screams and cry for help, Gangle’s gasp of fear following.
“Th-th-they killed Zooble,” Gangle stammered out, ribbons over her mouth in horror.
“Oh no,” Jax monotones. “Anyway, you guys wanna go get something to eat?
“...Oh wait, we should go check on Kaufmo! I'm pretty sure he'd like to meet Cali, Phantom and Mary!” Ragatha says, ignoring Jax.
The Gloinks suddenly steal Kinger's "Impenetrable Fortress" too (which was his aforementioned pillow fort), earning a wild scream from him.
“MY IMPENETRABLE FORTRESS!”
Everyone pauses as they watch the weird shapes steal it, not sure what to do, if to do anything.
Ragatha's the first to unfreeze. “...You wanna come with us to check on Kaufmo?”
He shakes his head. “No, not really. I think Kaufmo's gone insane. Last time I spoke with him, he was rambling endlessly about some exit. Kind of like you, Mary! You might be going insane too….”
“BUT WAIT! Wouldn't that more likely mean the exit DOES exist?”
“Mary…” Phantom begins, tentatively.
“Could also mean that you just have a jumpstart on losing your mind?” Jax suggests, as if that was the best possible scenario ever.
Phantom looks uncomfortable. “Ok, lets just forget about all this and do what we’re going to do today… what are we doing again?”
Gangle speaks from afar, making her voice softer.
“Wait! What about Zooble!?”
“Well, I think I'd like to ask him about it, IF this was real, which it isn't, because it's a dream.”
“Of course Mary, we’ll wake up soon enough.” Cali quickly reassures. “Want me to come with?”
“Heh, they still think this is a dream.”
“Uh, yeah guys, I don't think this is actually a dream…” Phantom gently breaks. “I know it's weird but… this might be our new reality.”
“Hmph, at least someone's has their head,” shrugs Jax. He grins widens.“Even if it's see-through. Hey- idea. Do you reckon I can put my hand through your head?”
“What.”
“C'mere, ghostie ghostie, I won't bite-,”
“HISSSS!” Cali grabs Phantoms's arm protectively, hair standing on end.
Jax pauses from his attack, cocking his head. “...well that's interesting.” He zones out, staring forward, seemingly at Cali and Phantom, stilled with his permanent grin.
“Uhh… why are you looking at me like that?” asks Phantom, weirded out.
“I'm fine with doing whatever, as long as I get to see funny things happen to people,” he says, turning creepily to Ragatha.
A gloink smacks Jax right in the cheek, knocking him back slightly.
“Ow! Okay, I've already had enough of these things.” he sighs in exasperation, “You, me, Mary and Phantom will go check on Kaufmo, which leaves crybaby, hoo-ha, and hothead together to go handle the Zooble situation.”
Cali shouts, dropping Phantom’s arm and stomping forward. “WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?”
“Haha, do you think pairing them up together is a good idea?” Ragatha questions, clearly doubtful.
“Of course I do. They're the three most mentally stable and capable characters to be put together.”
As Jax is saying this, Kinger starts to shake violently, as Gangle shrinks into herself with fear as Cali looks increasingly more furious, huffing in anger, scaring Gangle further.
“Come on, ladies, let's go harass the clown.” Jax leads.
“Uh, sure,” Mary agrees, following. She looks back and stops, noticing the lack of Phantom’s following footsteps, before they collide, both of them crashing to the floor. Stars swirl around both of their heads.
“Why’d you stop?” Phantom asks, swiping the stars away and helping Mary up.
“Ah, I- I forget you don't make footsteps anymore,” she admits, glancing down at her levitating lower half.
“Cool, right?!”
“...yeah, I guess.”
“Honestly, this whole place is cool! I'll admit if you didn't bash into me like that, I probably would have wandered away anyway!” she babbles enthusiastically. “But you noticed the void right? And that weird exit door? And Caine's suspicious reaction? All weird right?”
Mary’s eyes widen at the mention, slightly nodding as she thought back to it. “...yeah! I tried to tell everyo-”
“It's definitely worth checking out right? You'll come with? It looks totally interesting, to say the least, I'm intrigued!” Phantom cuts off, eagerly.
“...not just that though, right? It's interesting because it could be our only way home.”
Phantom pauses for a second. “Oh yeah and that too, of course.” She waves her hand dismissively to which Mary frowns at. “Let's go meet this Kaufmo guy or whatever, they've probably already made it to his door because of all your babbling.”
She grabs her striped hand and runs forward, trying to catch up with the rest of the group. “Hey, wait up, guys, we're coming!”
Jax huffs. “Snooze you lose, loser.”
“I am no loser!” she exclaims, dropping Mary's hand as she wasn't matching her speed. She speeds up and meets the rest, leaving Mary trailing dejectedly behind. “I can literally hover. That’s winner behaviour, if I've ever seen it.”
“Winner, schwinner. Only losers call themselves winners.”
“And my, what does that make you then?” Phantom asks in fake politeness.
Jax pauses and looks down at her. “Abundantly better than you, of course.”
Phantom snorts. “Yeah, okay pal. I'm sure Cali would beg to differ…”
Their voices fade out in the distance, the lag between Mary and them too far. She continues walking at her own pace, sighing slightly. Her surrounding slowly change, a dormitory like corridor running beneath her, doors opposite and adjacent standing stamped with each of the circus characters aboard. A stuttering cloud of footsteps sudden tap towards her, a nervous chuckle following.
“Haha, sorry about that! I didn't notice you had trailed so far behind!” the ragdoll chirped, scratching apologetically at her head. At the lack of Mary's response, she attempted a different route of conversation, nervously explaining the layout of the place they were in now. Her stuttering sentences and unlaced lexis went in one ear and out the ear for Mary until they paused in front of a door, which she internally winced at. At the heading, was a circular profile of Mary's new ‘avatar’, the dull, greyscale marionette with a ridiculously large bow staring at her, like a foreign mockery of herself.
“Oh, look you already have one!
She stares back at it, impassively.
“I... still don't understand.. about the adventures. Why even go on them at all? Why not try to find a way to leave?”
This causes Ragatha to sigh. “Well, we usually do, when we first arrive, but after a while, you start to realize that you really can't leave and constantly chasing an unattainable goal will start driving you a bit crazy.”
“Uh-”
“And eventually you get to asking what the point of anything is and you completely lose sight of who you are and why you're even alive and when you reach your breaking point, something really terrible can happen-”
“Ragatha, was it?” she cuts off, pulling the ragdoll from her reeling thoughts.
She turns to face her, squiggles in her eyes, before she takes a deep breath.
Mary takes a mental note.
“Ah, but that's not something we need to deal with today. Above anything else, the adventures give us something to do that keeps our minds healthy and stimulated!”
“Ya done going crazy, dollface?” Jax asks, bored. Phantom’s waiting next to him, basically buzzing on the spot. “We've been waiting for you two slowpokes.”
“Oh shut up Jax,” she mutters bitterly. She moves forward to ring Kaufmo's doorbell.
Ring!
Jax's eyes slide towards Mary.
“Thank goodness this is all a dream, right, stripy?”
“Oh shut up Jax,” Mary parrots, looking away from him uncomfortably. She felt an ebb of her sanity- which she fixed with a deep breath, mirroring Ragatha's earlier motion.
“Mmh. See you've managed to take someone under your wing, Rags, let's see how long until it abstracts, shall we?”
“Abstracts?” Phantom pips in a puzzled voice. “What's that?”
Her own question gets ignored, by Ragatha's concerned one.
“Huh, maybe he's not in his room? I hope he's alright…”
“Awh, you worried, dollface? Don't worry, I've got the key to his key,” he teased, swinging a comically large golden key from his quantum space. “This should do it.”
“Wha, wait, wh-why?! You-you-you shouldn't have keys to anyone's room!” Ragatha stammers out, mortified.
“Nah, I've got keys everywhere, and you've all been fine,” he reassures, fiddling the key into the lock. “By the way, I may have left something in your room today, so let me know if you find it. You're not afraid of centipedes, are ya?”
“JAX! That's literally my only fear, why would you do this?!”
“Whaaat? It could be a completely unrelated question. You'll never know until it's too late.”
He swings Kaufmo’s door open and instead of meeting the clown character, they're met with dark room, littered with insane lettings all over the walls, scratched black pictures tarnishing the floors and a huge amass of glitchy darkness taken form in front of them. It was distorted and garbled into what seemed an assortment of glitches, towering over them in dominant procession, yet, this wasn't the most unnerving thing about it. Bright, neon, realistic eyes glared manically from each curvature and crease of the mangled body, darting everywhere and nothing all at once. Jax, at the foot of the door, glances inside, adorned with his permanent smile, and steps in.
“Jax, what are you doing-,”
He crouches down and picks up a ball from the floor and says quite casually, “Oh, I've been looking for this. Thanks for keeping an eye on it, Kaufy. I'm gonna head out, see ya.”
“W-what!?” Mary stutters out with shock, her body frozen in fear, her mind still processing what she was looking at.
Dashing out, leaving a comedic dust cloud in the shape of him behind, Jax disappears, the mini action alone unfitting for the seriousness of the situation.
“Oh, Kaufmo's.. been abstracted! That-- that's okay.”
“So that's abstraction…” Phantom whispers, under her breath. Mary overhears her murmur and prays to herself that her friend had just said that in shock and not ill-timed awe. The ghost clears her throat, “Ragatha, is that really Kaufmo? How did… he get abstracted?”
Ragatha meets her eyes nervously, glancing back from her and to the discombobulated abstraction. “Uh, it's hard to explain-,”
“Is it that really bad thing you were talking about earlier?” Mary interjects, helping her out.
She smiles weakly. “Yes, to put it simply.”
Phantom looks back up to the creature, taking in the complexity of its eyes yet the incomplexity of its form, the being a complete juxtaposition of digital and delirium. “It looks everything but simple.”
“Okay, wait! Maybe there's still time to fix him before we get Caine!”
“...fix him? Are you implying-,”
Phantom never gets to finish her question, an edge cutting scream shattering through the atmosphere. The beast had rammed through its former room and grabbed Ragatha in its clutches, glitching and contorting in all places it touched. Phantom peers closer to the glitching parts- fascinated. Mary screams.
“Ph-ph-phantom! Get up, I think that's our cue to run!”
“Run? Silly, I don’t even have legs- YELP!”
Mary hastily grabs the ghost's translucent arm and drags her away, towing at quick as her legs could carry her. “H-how are you so casual about this!?” she shouts.
BANG!
The ragdoll slams into the wall, going limp, true to her character. And again. And again.
CRASH!
Mary trips over herself, unaccustomed to her new gangly legs, toppling Phantom in tow over her. They crumble onto the ground into a shaking mess, messily helping one another up, and unsteadily rise back to their feet. The noise arouses Kaufmo's attention, the blocky beast dropping Ragatha with disinterest as its head cocks towards its new one. It grinds its legs into gallop- readying a straightforward charge. Stealing Mary’s sweating attention, despite her terrified state, the drop of Ragatha's body suddenly resounds, successfully splitting it. Taking a breath, she looks between Kaufmo and Ragatha and exhales.
“Mary cmon- MARY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Phantom screeches in panic, attempting to grip at her arm to no avail. “WE DON'T HAVE TIME!”
The sprinting marionette is deaf to her frenzied cries, running to Ragatha in ragged rescue, the ragdoll helplessly glitched on the ground. She frantically seizes her hand, only for her to snap it back in a shock of pain.
“Ow!” She grips at her hand, a searing burning sensation spreading through her senses, glitches dancing through her palm.
“S-s-sorry,” Ragatha hackles out. “I totally get if you leave me…”
Mary grits her teeth and clenches her fist back up in determination. She grasps at the other's hand, ignoring the rapid glitches running back up her right side, and legs it.
“Come…on!” she says, through gritted teeth, heaving Ragatha up and away. “Phantom’s distracting it!”
To their side, Phantom stares up at the towering creature, seemingly transfixed.
“Phantom! Focus!” Mary calls out.
The ghost snaps out of her trance, meeting Mary’s eyes and processing the earth shaking stomps charging towards her. She nods.
“Got it.”
And with that, Mary and Ragatha run and run and run, scenery swiftly transforming around them; until they can't run any more, crashing to the ground in exhaustion.
A scream echoes up a dark hole, strangely Zooble like.
“I don't know what I'm looking at here,” Kinger states matter-of-factly.
“We saw a Gloink carry one of Zooble's pieces down there, remember?” reminds Gangle.
“Oh, yeah. Thank you for the recap.”
The two fall into silence, listening to Zooble's screams.
“Boy, we're not very good at this, are we?”
“Maybe… we should ask her,” Gangle nervously suggests, falling into a whisper. ‘Her’ being the pink cat standing distantly behind them, still physically fuming. Gangle looks back at her, whipping her head back frightened. “Or maybe not…”
“I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU KNOW!”
Gangle screams.
“Ugh, overreaction final boss,” scoffs Cali, walking over and analysing the hole herself. Gangle had jumped back in so much unbridled fright she had knocked into Kinger, the two now pathetically limp on the floor. “You guys aren't very good at this, are you?”
Kinger pops back up. “I just said that!”
Footsteps suddenly flood the floor, a panting purple bunny making presence, stopping to lean over and rest his hands in his knees, out of breath.
“Ugh… sup, fellas?”
“Sup fellas?” Cali repeated incredulously. “Where the [SPLAT!] is Phan-”
“JAX! We found the Zooble hole.”
“...Cool,” Jax replies, regaining his composure and conveniently turning his rare attention to Gangle. “And you, ribbons?”
“We were just about to try to save them… but how's Kaufmo doing? I hope he's not still mad at me for not laughing at his jokes…”
Jax swishes his hand. “Oh, he's doing great. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen him this happy before.”
“Well, it's good to know he hasn't completely lost his mind.”
“Excuse me!? Who even are you to just airball me like that!?” Cali bursts. She pauses, hearing a growl in the distance, to which she notices Jax hastily glance at. “Jax-”
“He actually asked me to give you this.”
He tosses the ball he'd picked from the clown's rook, knocking Kinger down the hole, followed by Gangle. Jax himself is about to jump in as well before a pink paw from behind stops him.
“Jax.” Cali asserts. “Just… tell me if the others are safe.”
Jax looks back at her, brows furrowed. “Duh, of course they are. They can't die.”
Yanking himself away from her, he tumbles too into the hole, dragging the cat in tow. They topple through a long,
loopy slide, passing a sign with Caine in the centre reading ‘RADICAL!”, an invisible crowd cheering ‘WOW!’. Kinger and Gangle, swirled into compacted balls of themselves, become bowling balls to the bowling game of gloinks below, shooting out the end of the funnel, scoring strikes except for a select one. Jax coughs out, smoothly unfurling himself, before Cali spits out in finale out of the tube. He kicks the last gloink pin at Cali, earning a shout from her, and scuttles away, wearing his same shit eating grin. The four proceed forward, the walls a lit up pastel purple, with glowing carvatures of crystal, revealing homes of disfigured gloinks and most impressive of all, the gloink queen. She burps.
“An insect collection?”
“I think it's a nest,” Gangle corrects.
Gangle and Kinger look at each other.
Kinger shrieks.
“SHUT UP!”
“C-c-come again?” Mary glitches, her words coughing out splintered, her ears ringing, her arm burning. “I can’t u-u-understand you…”
She crouched next to a glitching Ragatha; half her own body distorting itself.
“G-g-get Caine. He can f-fix this,” she instructed. She smiled, her voice croaky but her sincerity clear. “And thanks. I really appreciate this.”
“...it's…cool,” Mary replied, trying to fight off the pain of her own atoms attacking her. “And how exactly do I find Caine?”
“Uh, I don't r-r-really know. Just look around and call for him, I suppose.”
Mary winced.
“Roger that.”
“Also, Mary.” Ragatha paused, trying at a pained smile. “I'm sorry your first day here had to be so terrible.”
“Uhhhh… yeah,” Mary awkwardly replies, the idea of today being her first day of forever to come not seeming real. She matches the glitched girl's smile, reassuring this time. “Well, don't worry about it. I'm just gonna go get Caine now.”
She turns around and limps off, glitches ravaging through from her wrists to her shoulder. Half-intelligently surveying the area, she steps forward from the sleeping quarters and calls out anxiously, “Hello?! C-Caine?! We…have a bit of an issue here!”
“Caine!”
…
“Caine?”
Sighing, she commits to her own search, the silence serving unsatisfactory, exploring the empty circus minus her right limbs. She flings open an assortment of normal looking doors, sharing a unique oddity each- the first, in fact, a boxing glove which immediately punches her right in the face. Another, was the door to an ocean of swimming fishes and another, a darkness adorned with a swirling carousel stacked from toe.
“How…,” thinks Mary.
A crowd of laughing kids could be heard, giggling and chortling. She shuts the door.
“...weird.”
Continuing on, she accidentally stumbles upon a bathing mannequin, a red mask jumpscare and yet another boxing glove- until she hears a noise- a crash. Peering around the wall, she moves to investigate,
“Caaaiiine?”
Suddenly, she locks eyes with darkness; Kaufmo had found her. It charges and she staggers away, screaming.
“What form of non-Gloinkinian mass dares presume presence in the nest of the Gloink Queen?!” gurgles a spotty clasp of gloink, presumably the esteemed Gloink Queen. Jax examines his nonexistent nails, unimpressed and replies,
“Oh, is that who you are? You know, you could have asked for my consent before forcing me to see something so completely and utterly disgusting.”
“Literally what I've been thinking since my eyes have been cursed with you,” Cali mutters under her breath.
“HAH!? What was that?” he catches, whipping his hand away and giving her a stink eye.
The Gloink Queen makes move to sound out again, registered in an offended tone, regaining both their attention. “How despicable, a rabbitoid and catoid runs its mouths in the presence of my royal figure!”
“IT WASN'T ME!” the two chorus.
Jax smirks at her while Cali refrains from strangling him. The other two, background from their silent battle, kneel (as much as they could in their capacity, at least) before the Queen.
“Well, as a royal myself, firstly, I would like to apologise for our newest arrival.”
“Excuse me-!?”
“-and would like to kindly ask if-oh, look there's Zooble! Hi, Zooble!”
He waves at Zooble, or rather Zooble's head, which was getting carried away by a conveyor belt of Gloinks.
“AUGH! HELP ME, YOU IDIOTS!”
“Kinda rude of you, Zooble. Suddenly, I feel all my motivation to help you just drain right out of me.”
Cali scoffs. “As if you had any to begin with.”
“Catch on quick, huh whiskers?”
“Oh cmon, you two, someone has to do it,” Gangle interrupts, looking worriedly at ZoobIe. "A-and quick!”
The three exchange looks, Gangle's concerned one being outweighed by Cali and Jax's deadpans. Kinger blinks. He quickly plays a game of rock, paper, scissors with a disheartened Gangle, who becomes even more disheartened by the victor.
“Oh, I always lose…” she mopes, flopping her ribbons uselessly and covering her tragedy mask. She needn't had been so sullen for her defeat though, for Kinger's rescue attempt resulted in the same manner, even if the mission was to simply snatch Zooble's head. He grasps it confidently, before his hands dances away along with her head, which then promptly is thrown into the air for the Gloink Queen to gulp down. Gangle screams.
Jax shrugs, uncaring, “Eh, they'll be fine.”
“H-huh!? What do you mean, they just got eaten-” Cali starts, frozen in shock.
“Oh yeah, I totally forgot you were new,” the bunny cuts off, ignoring her grossed expression and trembling body “This is your new normal, by the way. Congratulations!”
A glitched gloink flickers to his side, faltering his grin.
The glitched beast charges straight at Mary. She runs. Rapidly speeding off, she twists round corners and circus caricature, her light feet hammering harshly against the ground. Her chest pants in protest to her legs, her eyes darting around desperately for solace.
“Gotta hide, gotta hide, gotta hide…”
She spots a yellow barrel and pops it open to hide inside. Red wild toy monkey suddenly spring out alongside a manically grinning Phantom.
“Phantom?” she asks dumbfounded at finding her there.
“Hey!” She gives Mary another grin, further confusing her, before hopping onto one of the leaping monkeys- tried to, at least. She falls flat onto her face before bashfully getting herself up and saddled another. Kaufmo, distracted from Mary, begins to gallop towards her and her supposed hoard of monkeys, the loud chittering of the monkeys attractive. “Welp, gotta go! Catch you in a bit!”
Kaufmo bounds past her, following the jungle of red monkeys led by Phantom, leaving Mary standing there, mind boggled at what she just had witnessed.
“At least she’s alright…” she thought, mentally ticking her off her list. Her buzzing arm glitches again, sewing agonising lines of nettles up it. “Oh, right Ragatha!”
She looks around, muttering evilly of what she'd do to Caine when he actually showed his goofy face after of course he'd fixed Ragatha. And her. The pain that scorched her right side was intrusive, impossible to ignore or forget despite her best efforts, a foraging path of pain dislocating and distorting from her shoulder to her elbow to her mere fingers. It buzzed with an aggressive energy of debiliation- disease, as if her body was in a constant conflict with herself and all around. Still, she limps on.
“God, Where is Caine-”
She thumps into something- something red. She tilted her head up, her eyes meeting large white letters.
“Exit…”
The word fell accidentally off her tongue through her lips, barely audible, barely there at all.
She opens it and enters.
Heart hammering, her mind tears at her for what she's just done, her impulsivity winning over any other logic. Back against the door, she examines the room she'd just entered. Grey walls streaked the sides, matching greys carpeted the floor, a neat plotted plant sat in the corner. It looked… ordinary. She looks around confusedly. Until her eyes lands on yet another exit door. The likeness is uncanny- it's definitely the one she'd just passed through. Or maybe this was the real one?
Without hesitation, she slams herself through it.
Only to find another one.
“Huh!?”
More desperately this time, her body drags her through the next one and the next one and then the next one, her body moving faster than her mind, her mind spiralling.
Is this the exit door? Or this? Or this?
There has to be one, there has to be one- there HAS to be one!
She continues to smash herself recklessly through the next and the next and the next, panting, panting and panting, as her legs fight, fight and fight to give out. She carries on.
“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…” the Gloink Queen warbles impressively, throwing her head back in anguish, only to be swiftly ignored by her audience.
“This is dumb and weird,” Jax states.
“Ditto, not to mention the fact she just ate someone and burped them out…” Cali disgustedly agrees, still looking a bit queasy. “As much as I hate to agree with you.”
“Hmph. Don't remember asking you anyway, newbie. Did the Gloink queen make your tum tum feel bum bum?” he teases, mocking her in a baby voice.
She clenches her fists and gives her own hurrumph. She turns her attention back to the rambling queen, whistling rudely.
“Yohoo!”
“WHAT!? YOU DARE DISTURB THE-”
“Blah blah, yes the [SQUEAK!] I do. You look weird, you act weird, your stench is genuinely unreal- wait, you're probably not even real. My point is shut your trap and stop your yammering, it's annoying!”
“Well, B- uh-. Y- Yet you're still watching it!”
“Well, I'm not here for the adventure or anything,” Jax drawls. “I'm just here to hide from the-”
CRASH!
The ceiling caves in, Kaufmo crashing through, causing a massive collision of gloink and glitch. He lands on top of the Gloink Queen and ravages her, crazily yet comedically, leaving her remnants a spotty splodge.
“What's happening!?” Gangle cries out, terrified.
Jax looks sideways at her, partnered with a casual expression. “It's just Kaufmo. Don't worry about it,” he reassures, as if he was comforting her about a dropped ice cream, not a dead circus member.
"Kaufmo abstracted!?”
“Nah, he's fine.”
“...abstracted?” Cali repeats, her eyes glued to the wild mass of black. “What is that-”
“YOU'RE RIGHT! HOW ARE WE GONNA GET OUT OF HERE!?” Kinger suddenly shouts, his hands returned to him, Zooble in them.
“Guys, over there,” she points out with her eyes. A very out of place escalator hums to the side, peacefully and fully functional, a gateway to the above.
“Huh.”
They all walk to the escalator, Cali lagging behind, deeply unsettled. Jax tucks beside her and graciously gestures forwards the steps. Cali pauses, momentarily snapping out her zoned out state, confused.
“Ladies first.”
Gangle, a girl herself, happily trods ahead while Cali still processes his words. She trips pathetically to the ground, snapping her mask as Jax pushes her aside and smugly walks over her.
“No wait, why would I say that?”
She doesn't bother a reaction to his childish behaviour, tiredly lugging up the escalator herself after Gangle disheartenedly recovers herself. Her mind wanders back to what had just occured- Kaufmo, who's now supposedly abstracted, crashing through and brutally beating up what has to be a form of NPC. The glitches that rammed in repercussion of his hits resembled true game glitches, turning her mind in motion.
“Is this all truly real?” she thought.
Jax's words echoed back into her mind.
This is your new norm, by the way. Congratulations!
The absurdity of the Gloink Queen, the concept of even the circus, the change of her very body, is truly her new norm?
She wanted to believe Mary’s bluff of it all being a dream, she tried to believe it but it's impossible now. The video game clicks and the realistic roars of Kaufmo echoes from below, the direct conflict of his digital being a harsh reality for her, a terrifying reality. This is real.
“Wait… the new three aren't even here!?” Zooble exclaims frustratedly from Kinger's gloves hands, eyes darting around incredulously, missing Cali’s slumped silhouette in the back. “Wasn't this whole thing for them!?”
“Be quiet. I can't hear the escalator…”
The whirl of the machinery fills Cali’s mind, her mind whirling of corroding mechanics itself, the peaceful hum unheard under the inevitable crash of her cogs.
This is real.
“THIS HAS TO BE REAL!” her insides scream as she ravages through exit door to exit door. Mary halts, her lungs burning, gasping for air that refused to come. She forces herself forward, not even registering the door, only the click of the next and the next and the next. Her surroundings change around her, unnoticed and repetitive, as if in some kind of maze, going round and round and round. The thought crosses her illusioned mind.
“...am I going in circles?”
She falls through yet another door, stumbling into a larger room this time. She allows a sigh of relief cast through her, a new room surely meant she was getting closer to the exit?
It has to be real.
She quickly examines the room with the same hope as she examined the first, until her eyes lock onto a table to the side. A lonesome computer sits there with a discarded headset next to it. Her eyes fixate onto them. Her breaths become shallow as her eyes grow wider, her chest bumping harder than before, more erratically than before.
“...hah….HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!”
She aggressively grasps at her unfamiliar head, clutching at an unfamiliarly insane mind, and runs again, her legs carrying her cackling self. She crashes through another door, heaving through a lengthy corridor, the walls narrow, the path narrower. A single red exit door glows at the end, a sanctuary, a haven.
It has to be real. It has to be real. It has to be real. It has to be real. IT HAS TO BE REAL. IT HAS TO BE REAL. IT HAS TO BE REAL.ITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREAL.ITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALISITREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREALITHASTOBEREAL.
Time seems to slow as her body phlegmatically panics, running desperately to the end, as if running to regain her breath, her heart, her soul. Her hand lands onto the metal handle and she flings it open, the world around her suddenly glitching away to white.
Simply white.
She sees disorienting stars before her sight refocuses on the amass of white.
Except it's not just white. It's everything.
Flashes of refractions blind her spelled eyes, reflections and rays racing up and around her. There was nothing above her, there was nothing beneath her, yet there was everything around her. She floated further into the Void, subject and vulnerable to the omnipotence thrust upon her, her body and mind in a crush of near transcendence.
Pop!
Hands grab her and suddenly she's back in the circus, the lively colours a contrast to the infinity her eyes still retained.
“There you go!”
She suddenly registers the ground beneath her feet, the harassment of cheery colours and the perk of Caine's positive voice. She snaps out of her spell with a slow blink.
“Now, what the heck happened around here?” Caine asks, almost curiously concerned, floating around the forts the Gloinks had laid havoc to. “Oh yeah- my doing!”
Kinger runs up to him, still clinging to Zooble's head, with the others in his pursuit. Cali, notedly more absentminded and aloof, is led by a cheery Phantom, who excitedly waves at the marionette. Mary can't even force a smile.
Kinger frantically blurts, “Caine! Kaufmo went through a sort of Kaufmosis and abstracted!”
“Kaufmo abstracted? Why didn't ANYBODY TELL ME?”
A goofy cartoon sound plays while he pulls an even more goofy face, tongue and eyes rolling out. Mary's eyes slim slightly in irritation. The ringleader snaps his gloved hands and summons the abstraction, resulting in furious growls and grumbles from the beast. From Kaufmo.
“And into the cellar you go.”
He opens a gaping hole in the floor and drops him down into an abyss of eyes and darting darkness, Phantom quickly dropping Cali’s hand to get a good look, recklessly peeking her head at the mouth.
“No, no, no, my dear!” apprehends Caine, gently moving her away with his cane. He zips up the hole, much to Phantom's disappointment and shakes his head at her. “The Cellar is for the abstracted and you CERTAINLY aren't that. And won't EVER be- I think- I hope,- if you stick to my AWESOME adventures!”
“But what actually is the Cellar? Is it similar to the The Void? What about the E-”
“SPEAKING OF AWESOME ADVENTURES! How did you get along on your FIRST adventure Phantom?”
Phantom pauses, nervously glancing back at her two friends, clearly taken back by the question. Both were looking at her with the same imploring expressions, body numbed with something she couldn't name but eyes deep with something even more intangible. Unable to bear it, she whips her eyes away, avoiding them and stutters out her response.
“W-well! I met Kaufmo so…”
“I guess that sucks for you,” Zooble comments, twisting her head back to her body. Phantom tries to hold back her imploding questions. “Man, I can't believe Kaufmo just gave up like that. I mean, no offense Kinger, but I always thought you would be next.”
Kinger bows, “Thank you.”
Jax sighs, “Guess it just goes to show you can't rely on Kinger for anything.”
A glitched ragdoll crawls towards them, rapidly contorting and distorting painfully. Mary sights her and her blood turns to ice, the rushing of her guilt immobilising, her own glitched side painless compared to the maces inside her mind.
“I am… IN SO- m-much pai…n!
“Oop!”
Caine snaps his fingers again, restoring Ragatha and Mary back to their original state. Mary flexes her arm as if she'd forgotten she had one and then guiltily glances at Ragatha. The girl shakily stands herself up and walks to stand next to Mary, catching her look and looking down to the circus ground with downcast eyes. Mary does the same, but instead of the checkered floor, sees the littered fragments of herself- her broken promises, will, sanity.
Was it… even worth it?
“Of course not,” she mentally scoffs at herself. “Who am I if not unreliable, a mess and a total idiot.”
“I do have to apologize for lying about the exit,” Caine begins, turning his attention to her, as if reading her mind. “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 and ended…up…never…quite…finishing…it. And you know how I never like letting people see my unfinished work-”
Mary’s eyes widen again at his words, turning them over erratically in her mind as if trying to find another meaning that meant the opposite. She couldn't.
“...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!”
Bubble pops up, donning a chef hat, spatula and knife, and reveals a long table dotted with dishes and deserts of the million. Bubble smiles, showing their set of sharp teeth. “Made with all the love I'm legally allowed to give…”
Jax breezily brushes past this and begins to walk forward.
“You know, I am pretty hungry.”
“You didn't even do anything!” Gangle protests, joining him.
“So what? I can still be hungry.”
Kinger interrupts, popping between them. “Well not really, 'cause we don't need to eat, drink or sleep in this digital world. So the digital food here only gives off the virtual sensation of eating without any of the nutritional benefits.”
“Wait, that makes sense! That also explains the lack of amygdala given high danger situations!" Phantom pips. She moves to join the conversation, but then glances back at Mary and Cali, about to drag them along too before registering their dissociated looks. She gulps down her words and leaves them.
“Sheesh, lay off it, Kinger. Since when are you an expert on the digital world?”
“Expert on the what?”
Jax rolls his eyes and turns to Phantom. “And you, floats, how have you already managed to be in a high danger situation already? I expected better of you…”
Cali perks up at the mention of Phantom, looking around as if only now realising she was fully there. The last thing she remembered was Phantom letting go of her hand- not something she particularly wanted to remember. She listened to what said ghost replied with.
“Hey! I wasn't referring to Kaufmo- he wasn't scary, if anything he was awesome! And also, my name is Phantom!”
“Psht, I refuse to call you that cringe name,”
“It's not cringe! And says the bunny!”
“Says the one who's awfully close friends with the cat,” Jax teases, looking back to her. Cali, her eyebrows already furrowed at Phantom's response- what other high danger situation had she been in if not with Kaufmo? -clenched her paws.
“Hey! You know I'm still here!” she shouts, running up to sucker punch the bastard, for him to swiftly dodge. “I didn't choose this!”
“I-I think your avatar is pretty cool…” Gangle nervously compliments.
“CAN IT, RIBBONS!” they both chorus.
She whimpers in fear, much to Jax’s amusement and Zooble's concern, and they all head towards the table, trading jokes/punches. Mary absentmindedly follows the herd, finding herself central in the rowdy table, cut from conservation. Angry shouts from Cali evade her, concerned looks from Phantom blink past, pointless banter goes unheard. The static in her head grows louder and louder, the hammering she had felt so harshly in Caine's fictional exit distant but there, always there, the abuzz of insanity within her louder than any of their chatter. She looks down at her food, horrifically similar to plastic play food, and she strangles her face into a positive expression. Each twitch at her strained eyes, each crook in her expression, each tremble of her body ushered in waves of each slight ebb at her sanity. She could not smile so she stared. She could not speak so she stared. She could not escape so she stared.