Chapter Text
Unknown Male POV
It’s been a few days since I discovered The Freak Circus visual novel on itch.io—made by Garula, or Nekoboy as they go by on Tumblr—and I’m already way too far gone.
Like, embarrassingly far gone.
I didn’t just play it. I inhaled it. Every route, every bad end, every half-finished theory thread buried in Discord.
Fanfiction until three in the morning.
Fanart saved to my phone like it was oxygen. Tumblr posts reblogged at a pace that should honestly be studied.
I knew character trivia, scrapped concepts, symbolism breakdowns—hell, I could probably write an essay on the lighting choices alone.
And now, finally, after all that waiting, all that speculation, all that collective insanity from the fandom—
The poly ending.
The promised one.
I’m standing at the crosswalk, phone in hand, refreshing the page like it might disappear if I blink.
My heart’s actually pounding, stupidly so, like I’m about to witness something life-changing. Which, in hindsight, is a bit funny.
The pedestrian light switches.
Ding.
I step off the curb, still scrolling, still reading the update notes, trying not to grin like a lunatic in public.
That’s when I hear someone scream.
It’s not distant. It’s not vague background noise.
It’s sharp—raw—panicked in a way that makes my stomach drop before my brain even catches up. I look up.
And I swear to god—
A meteor is falling from the sky.
Not a car. Not a sign. Not some freak accident with a truck.
- Meteor.
Big. Glowing. Loud. Hurtling straight toward me like the universe itself picked me out personally.
There’s no dramatic slow motion. No final thoughts about my family or regrets or unfinished dreams.
Just a very clear, very loud:
What the actual fuck—
And then nothing.
No pain. No impact. No anything.
I wake up—or… something like waking up—in a place that is very aggressively nothing.
No ground.
No sky.
No up or down. Just a vast, empty void that feels like it goes on forever, pressing in on me from all sides.
I try to breathe and realize I don’t really need to. I try to move and don’t feel my body the way I expect to.
Before I can spiral too hard, a voice speaks.
Calm. Polite. Awkwardly apologetic.
“Ah. Yes. Hello. About that.”
I turn—mentally? spiritually?—toward the sound, and there’s… something there.
Not quite a shape.
Not quite a face.
Just a presence that radiates the energy of someone who has absolutely, catastrophically messed up at work.
“I want to start by saying,” the voice continues, “this was entirely our fault.”
Silence.
I just stare.
“…You weren’t meant to be hit by that meteor,” the voice adds, like that somehow helps.
I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I don’t even panic.
I deadpan.
“Let me guess,” I say, my voice echoing weirdly in the void. “Wrong target. Wrong timeline. Wrong universe.”
A pause.
“…Yes.”
Of course.
I pinch the bridge of my nose—somehow—and exhale.
“This is an isekai fanfiction. This is actually just an isekai fanfiction.”
“We prefer the term transmigration incident,” the voice says, gently offended.
I laugh. It comes out hollow.
Disbelieving.
A little hysterical around the edges.
“I die because of a clerical error, and now I’m being talked to by an apologetic god in the void. Do I get a system next? Cheat powers? A tragic backstory montage?”
“…Potentially.”
I close my eyes.
Yeah. I’m dead. And whatever comes next?
It’s definitely not going to be normal.
The entity straightens—professional again now, like it’s switching to a rehearsed explanation it’s clearly given before.
“Yes,” it says, gesturing and causing a series of floating panels to appear, each one labeled with tidy little headers.
“Roles come with inherent narrative weight. A background character exists to stabilize the setting. A side character influences events indirectly. A main character—”
It pauses, then adds delicately, “—distorts reality around themselves.”
I nod absently, only half-listening as it continues.
“Main Characters receive enhanced survivability, increased narrative focus, emotional gravity—though that often comes with psychological strain. Side characters experience fewer direct dangers but are subject to the whims of the narrative. Background roles are safest, but also… constrained.”
“Uh-huh,” I mutter, eyes skimming through the floating text.
Perks. Debuffs. Fate probability. Trauma likelihood percentages that absolutely should not exist.
Then—
One sentence slices clean through my mental fog.
“—of course, in cases where a universe has already experienced a prior transmigration event, especially one that resulted in a full narrative divergence—”
I blink.
“…Wait,” I say slowly. “Back up.”
The panels freeze.
“What do you mean someone already chose The Freak Circus universe?”
The entity pauses.
Then, very casually, like it’s stating the weather:
“Yes. A previous soul selected that universe.”
My heart thumps once. Hard.
“And,” it continues, “they occupied the role of The Showman.”
The void feels… quieter.
“…And rewrote the entire script into a BL yandere harem,” the entity adds helpfully. “Which subsequently stabilized into its own branching timeline and multiversal offshoot.”
I stop breathing.
I stare.
My brain does that horrible buffering thing where everything lags behind reality by a few seconds.
“…That,” I say faintly, “is not something you can just drop into a sentence.”
The entity tilts its head. “Your reaction suggests familiarity.”
“Oh, I’m extremely familiar,” I whisper.
It gestures again, and a new panel appears—this one more detailed, almost like a character profile.
“Designation: Nicholas. Human male. Transmigrated approximately one year prior to first canonical monster contact. Intended isekai subject. Memory retention: partial.”
“Partial,” I repeat numbly.
“Yes,” the entity says.
“He retained memories of his death, but not the void or the selection process. Since his reincarnation was intentional, the full procedure did not require direct oversight.”
I feel cold.
That name. That timing. That description.
That—
No.
No, no, no.
A horrible, dawning realization slams into me.
“…That sounds,” I say carefully, “like a certain fanfic I read.”
The entity perks up.
“Ah! Narrative recognition is common.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. It bursts out of me, sharp and disbelieving, echoing into the void.
“You’re telling me,” I say between breaths, “that Welcome to the show… Oh Fuck No!? is a real timeline?”
The entity blinks. “That title does seem… distinctive.”
I clutch my head.
“That fic was huge,” I ramble.
“People analyzed it. Made fanart. There were theory threads longer than my college essays. I joined the Discord server. The author talked about it like it was just a passion project—”
I stop.
My laugh dies in my throat.
Something clicks.
A memory surfaces. Casual. Innocent at the time.
Didn’t they mention planning another isekai fic?
Didn’t they joke about ideas during a Q&A?
Slowly—very slowly—I look up at the entity.
It’s… sweating.
Or at least, the idea of sweating. The void around it ripples in a way that very clearly translates to nervous.
“Oh no,” I whisper.
I take a step back.
“You’re not,” I say, pointing at it, “actually the writer AshinaUzumaki, are you?”
The entity stiffens.
The silence stretches.
“Please,” I add quickly, dread pooling in my stomach, “please tell me I’m not about to become the protagonist of your next fic. Because you joked about that in the server. You literally joked about ‘what if the reader wakes up as—’”
The entity opens its mouth.
Closes it.
Then, very carefully, says:
“…In our defense, the Q&A was labeled ‘hypothetical.’”
The void feels suddenly very small.
“…I knew it,” I mutter. “I’m a fanfic. I’m in a fanfic. Or I’m about to be.”
I look down at the clipboard again—at The Freak Circus entry, at the limited slots, at the warning labels.
My voice drops.
“If Nicholas got his own branching timeline,” I say slowly, “then what happens if I choose it?”
The entity swallows.
“Well,” it says, trying for reassuring and failing spectacularly,
“That would depend on what kind of story you make.”
That is—without question—the worst possible answer.