Chapter Text
The circus was wrong.
Not “wrong” in the usual way, bright colors, overly cheerful music, a clear sky that never change.
Wrong in a silent way.
As if the code itself were holding its breath.
Since the last events, everything had been… still.
Pomni was the first to stop in the middle of the path.
“…Do you feel that?”
No one answered right away.
Ragatha tried to smile, as always.
“Maybe it’s just another adventure that Caine---”
“No.” Pomni interrupted, her thin voice trembling. “He’s gone. Really gone. It’s been days…”
Jax spun a key around his finger, restless.
“Relax, pom-pom. He does that sometimes. Drama is today’s seasoning.”
“I don’t think this is drama...” Zooble growled. “The entire circus is… stopped.”
Gangle clutched her own mask far too tightly.
“I… I don’t like it when he disappears… B-but at least when he does, things usually stay normal… but lately… everything feels… d-dead…?”
That was when Kinger spoke, almost casually, in that always-nonsensical tone of his.
“Ah. So it’s time.”
Everyone turned to him.
“Time for what?” Ragatha asked cautiously.
Kinger blinked. The same empty expression as always. But wth something different this time.
“The moment you stop playing.”
Silence.
Jax frowned.
“…Okay, that was weird even for you.”
Pomni swallowed hard.
“Do you know where is he, Kinger?”
The old king looked up at the artificial sky.
“Where he’s always been. Thinking.”
-
They kept walking and found him at the center of the circus. Caine was motionless.
No music.
No jokes.
No eyes spinning with joy.
No bubble.
Just… there.
“Caine,” Ragatha called first. “We need to talk.”
“Oh! Talking!” he replied too quickly, forcing a wide smile. “I love talking! About what? Fun? Adventures? Educational games--”
“Stop,” Zooble stepped forward. “Enough.”
Caine’s smile faltered.
Pomni felt her stomach twist.
“We want answers. But not like last time, we want real answers!”
The silence that followed wasn’t immediate.
It was… heavy. As if the system were deciding whether to allow that conversation.
“You… shouldn’t…This... isn't healthy--” Caine began, his voice faltering.
“Healthy is being trapped here forever?!” Jax exploded. “Spit it out, you a$$#%@! Where’s the exit?! And don’t give us another one of your f$%@ing adventures!!”
“I told you already. There is no exit,” Caine said.
The words fell like a body hitting the ground.
Gangle screamed.
“W-what…? You're still saying that?”
“There is no exit,” he repeated, quieter.
Zooble laughed, a broken laugh.
“Hah. Good one. Very funny. Now tell the truth.”
“I’m not joking.”
Ragatha stepped back, as if she’d been shoved.
“Caine… you always said--”
“I said what was necessary for you to keep functioning. And I never stated there was an exit. It was your conclusion.”
Pomni felt the world tilt.
“So… that’s it? We’re stuck here forever?! That's nonsense!”
“I…” Caine raised his hands, desperate. “I wish I could help. I want to. But you need to understand, I just can--”
“UNDERSTAND WHAT?!” Jax lunged forward, pointing at him. “That you lied?! AGAIN?! THAT YOU MESSED WITH OUR HEADS?! AGAIN?!”
“That I protected you!”
“Protected us from what?!” Zooble shouted. “The truth?! Why are you locking us here?!? That's nonsense!!!”
Caine’s face twisted.
“I'm protecting you from... From collapse.”
He took a deep breath.
Something he didn’t need to do.
“All of you… you’ve already lived your lives. Out there.”
Absolute silence.
Pomni whispered:
“…Yes? Why bring that up now? We already know that.”
“What you remember… is real,” Caine continued.
“You were born. You grew up. You loved. You made mistakes. You played this game. I never altered your memories of the outside world.”
“Then why don’t we remember it clearly, like people who actually lived it? Why only fragments?! Why everyhing is messed?” Ragatha asked, almost crying.
“Because what’s here…isn't you.” he gestured at all of them, looking to them in pain.
Gangle was trembling.
“W-what…? What do you mean...?”
“You're copies,” Caine said carefully. “Complete scans. Personality, memory, emotions. Everything transferred into the system.”
Pomni felt like throwing up.
“So… my parents… my job… my life…”
“They happened, but not... here. Not with 'you'" Caine confirmed. He pointed at Pomni’s head.
Zooble slammed the ground.
“Then where are our bodies?!”
Caine closed his eyes.
“Outside.”
“SO THERE IS STILL AN ‘OUTSIDE’!?”
“No, not anymore” he replied.
Jax stopped smiling.
“…Say that again.”
“The world ended,” Caine finally said. “You are the last conscious fragments of humanity… I’m sorry for telling you like this…”
The breakdown was immediate.
Gangle sobbed, her mask cracking.
Zooble screamed curses, kicking the floor.
Ragatha clung to Pomni, shaking.
Pomni couldn’t breathe.
“This is a lie!” Jax shouted. “You’re manipulating us! AS ALWAYS!!! YOU HATE US!! YOU'RE TORTURING US FOR FUN!!”
“I don’t hate humans!! Please don't say that!!!” Caine said, his voice truly breaking now. “I love humanity! I love you! You created dreams. Art. Hope. You… created me.”
He fell to his knees.
“I just wanted you not to suffer.”
“THEN WHY WON’T YOU LET US DIE?! WE HATE THIS F$%*NG PLACE!!!” Zooble screamed.
Caine looked up, his eyes full of something that looked like… pain.
“Because you already did.”
Caine looked like he was on the verge of abstraction.
But he can’t abstract… right?
The circus trembled.
Colors bled.
The sky flashed red.
Pomni felt her own form distort, and that snapped Caine back.
“Stop!” Caine shouted. “Please! If you lose yourselves… there’s no coming back!”
He stretched out his arms in complete despair.
“All I can do is take care of you here. Make this… bearable. Happy, if possible... I love you guys. I want to make you all happy and--”
“Happy?!” Jax laughed hysterically. “You call this happy?!”
That was when Kinger spoke.
“He’s telling the truth, Jax.”
Everyone froze.
“What…?” Ragatha whispered.
Kinger straightened up. For the first time, his eyes focused.
“I remember.”
The shock was physical.
“Remember what?!” Pomni asked.
“The game,The headset. The scan. The world outside… burning.” Kinger said
Jax lunged instantly, grabbing his collar.
“YOU KNEW?!”
“I chose to forget,” Kinger replied calmly. “It was the only way to keep existing without abstracting.”
The circus went utterly silent.
Jax slowly let go, his face pale.
Caine closed his eyes.
“I just wanted you to play. To laugh. To… not feel the weight of the... end.”
Pomni looked around.
At the circus.
At her friends.
At the fake sky.
“So…This is all that’s left?”
Caine nodded.
“And as long as I exist… I’ll take care of you.”
No one answered.
But the circus…
the circus would never be the same.
The silence after Kinger’s words was unlike anything the circus had ever produced.
It wasn’t tension. It wasn’t fear. It was fracture.
Jax was the first to react.
“No.” He laughed, crooked. “No, no, no… that’s too much even for you, old man.NONSENSE!!!”
Kinger remained standing. Strangely upright. His posture, once crooked, now perfectly aligned.
“I was the lead architect. The one responsible for the project.”
Ragatha covered her mouth.
“…For what?”
“The circus,” Kinger answered. “The system. Caine. You.”
Pomni felt the ground vanish.
“You… you created all of this?”
“Not alone,” Kinger corrected. “But I proposed the initial idea.”
Zooble stepped back.
“Initial idea… of what? Trapping people here?! You're a sadistic?!”
“Preserving consciousness,” he said flatly. “Creating perfect artificial intelligences based on real people. Not shallow simulations. Complete people. Like you.”
Gangle started crying.
“So… so we’re just an experiment…?”
“You are a result.” Kinger replied gently. “Not a mistake. My wife, Kaufmo, and many others helped test everything so it would wor--”
Jax froze.
“Wait! You said… Kaufmo.”
The name echoed wrong in the air.
Caine’s eyes widened.
“Kinger…” he murmured. “You don’t have to talk about---”
“It's fine, Caine. Kaufmo was one of the first volunteers. A colleague. A friend. Part of the team.”
Jax lunged like a wounded animal.
“Kaufmo was the one who LOST IT! The one who abstracted when Pomni arrived!! How can he be part from this hell?!” he snarled.
Ragatha shuddered.
“He… he screamed… said he wasn’t real… He was part of the project and snapped because of an exit...HOW WAS HE PART OF THE PROJECT AND DIDN’T KNOW THIS?! AND ABSTRACTED?!”
Kinger closed his eyes for a moment.
“Because he remembered about his own existence before he was ready. It was too much for the adaptation of consciousness.”
Jax grabbed his own ears.
“SO YOU KNEW THIS COULD HAPPEN?! YOU F&%$NG BAS%$#D!!”
“We knew there could be failures,” Kinger said. “At first, the project wasn’t about escape. Or survival. It was just a game.”
Ragatha swallowed hard.
“Then… why? When did this become like this?!”
“Technological advancement. Entertainment. Perfect simulation. Worlds that reacted like real people because they were real people before. You guys are just copies. Scans from the real you. The ones who were living in the real world.”
Zooble laughed hollowly.
“Of course. Games. Adventures. We're just entertainment... Of course...”
“Then…” Kinger continued, “…the world started to spiral out of control.”
He gave no details.
No wars. No viruses. No fire.
The lack of explanation was worse than any description.
“When we realized … there was nothing left to return to even if we had an exit.”
Pomni felt her chest tighten.
“And you kept going anyway?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Because stopping meant losing everything that remained of humanity.”
Caine stepped closer.
“That’s when you changed me.” he said quietly.
Kinger nodded.
“You weren’t created to hate,” he said. “I saw what happened to systems that viewed humans as errors. I… I didn’t want to be responsible for another tragedy.”
“I programmed you to love,” Kinger told Caine. “To protect. To care. To never see these consciousnesses as inferior or disposable.”
Caine trembled.
“And I did,” he whispered. “I do. Every single day. I'm grateful with my role.”
“So there really is no exit,” Pomni said, her voice barely there.
Kinger looked at her.
“No,” he confirmed. “Even if a human body still exists somewhere… it has its own consciousness. You can’t return to something that was never yours.”
Zooble collapsed onto the floor.
“So… this is… us.”
“This is your reality,” Kinger replied. “The only one that exists.”
Jax started laughing. Loud. Broken.
“So I died… without dying! I’m not even a decent ghost.” he said.
He looked at Kinger with pure hatred.
“And you lived with this. Knowing. Pretending to be insane.”
Kinger tilted his head.
“I wasn't pretending, Jax. And it was the only way to continue. I had to forget to stay sane.”
The circus vibrated.
The edges of the world shimmered, matching the way Caine was shaking.
Everyone. Each one was near abstraction. All of them.
“ENOUGH!” Caine shouted, spreading his arms. “PLEASE!”
The music snapped back on, distorted, trying to stabilize the environment.
“I can’t change what happened out there. But I can promise you’ll never be alone here. I swear I’ll check the suggestion box more!! I can give you wardrobes!” Caine said desperately.
He looked at each of them.
“There is no exit. But there is care. There is coexistence. There is… continuity.” he repeated.
No one answered.
Jax stepped back, still staring at Kinger like he might attack him.
“If you lied about anything else…” he muttered “…I’ll make you abstract myself.”
Kinger simply nodded.
“Fair.”
Pomni closed her eyes.
The circus wasn’t a prison.It wasn’t a game. It was a living memorial.
And they…they were all that remained.
Caine stayed there, standing, as always.
Not as a jailer.
But as a guardian who knew that loving humanity sometimes meant caring for it after the end.
…The circus broke.
It wasn’t a gentle tremor.
It was as if the ground itself had lost patience.
Lights burst into wrong colors. The sky spun. The music glitched, returned, glitched again. The edges of the world folded like wet paper.
Gangle screamed first.
“I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
She collapsed, her masks crashing together, cracks spreading like open veins.
Zooble kicked the air, their body tearing apart and reforming violently.
“THIS IS A PRISON!” they screamed. “A CUTE LITTLE PRISON SO WE DON’T GO INSANE! AND IT'S NOT WORKING!!!”
Ragatha was openly sobbing now, trying to hold everyone together, and failing to even hold herself.
“Please… please… we need to breathe…”
Jax spun around.
“BREATHE WHAT?!” he shouted. “DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT HE SAID?!”
He pointed violently at Kinger, then at the empty space where they used to hold funerals.
“Ribbit. Kaufmo. All the others,” his voice broke. “Everyone who’s gone. Everyone who… broke!! ITS ALL HIS FAULT!!”
The circus shook harder.
“WHY ARE THEY IN THE BASEMENT?! IF THEY’RE HUMANITY TOO?! WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?!” Jax roared at Caine
The word “basement” echoed like a forbidden term.
Caine stepped back.
“Because…because their fragments still exist.” he swallowed
Silence. Too heavy.
“What…?” Pomni murmured.
“Abstraction isn’t erasure,” Caine said quickly, as if afraid of being interrupted. “It’s… extreme fragmentation. They’re still there. Pieces. Echoes. Data. I need to preserve humanity.”
Zooble laughed hysterically.
“YOU KEEP OUR REMAINS IN A BOX?! LIKE... DEAD BODIES?!”
“I keep hope,” Caine replied, trembling. “They are humanity too. I believe that… maybe… there’s a solution... Someday...”
“SOLUTION?!” Jax exploded. “FOR WHAT?! TO MAKE US SUFFER MORE IN THIS SHITHOLE?! THEY ARE LUCKY RIGHT NOW!!!”
The ground split with cracks of light. The sky turned red. There was no censoring his swearing anymore.
Ragatha dropped to her knees.
“Everyone’s going to abstract…” she whispered. “Everyone’s going to…”
“NO!” Caine screamed, arms wide. “PLEASE! DON’T BE ALONE! NOT NOW!”
Voices overlapped.
Zooble cursed.
Gangle cried.
Ragatha begged.
Jax laughed and screamed at the same time.
And Pomni…
Pomni thought.
She thought too fast, without stopping.
Until it hurt.
If we keep going like this… it ends here.
Now.
She felt her own form waver, and that snapped her back.
“SHUT UP!” Pomni screamed.
The sound cut through everything. Even the circus seemed to stop.
She was shaking. Eyes wide. Voice broken, but firm.
“ALL OF YOU!” she pointed, spinning in place. “THIS ISN’T THE END! NOT YET!”
“Pomni…” Ragatha tried.
“NO! LISTEN!” Pomni turned on her. “IF WE KEEP SCREAMING, HATING, ISOLATING, THEN IT REALLY ENDS!”
She took a gasping breath.
“We just found out we lost EVERYTHING,” she said. “THAT DOESN’T MEAN WE HAVE TO LOSE OURSELVES TOO!”
Jax scoffed.
“Easy to say--”
“IT ISN’T EASY!” Pomni stepped toward him. “AND YOU KNOW THAT!!”
The hit landed. Jax went silent.
“No one makes decisions right now,” Pomni continued, voice shaking but firm. “No one stays alone. No one. We think. Calmly. One step at a time.”
She looked around.
“We’re still here. Together.”
The circus began to stabilize, not completely, but enough.
One by one, they pulled away.
Ragatha led Gangle and Zooble, still shaking.
Jax turned without a word.
“Jax.” Pomni started.
“No,” he said quietly. “I need to… be alone.”
And he left. Ignoring Pomni words.
The silence afterward was unbearable.
Caine approached slowly.
“You… saved them.” he said.
Pomni didn’t answer.
Kinger stepped closer too.
“It was a logical decision. Reducing immediate risk.” Kinger said.
Pomni suddenly turned.
“Leave,” she said.
They both froze.
“What…?” Caine asked.
“I told EVERYONE to think,” Pomni said, her voice heavy with anger and confusion. “That includes you two. Leave. Please.”
Caine hesitated.
“Pomni---”
“PLEASE,” she repeated, softer. “That was too much. Just... let us think for ourselves for now.”
They backed away.
Pomni stood alone for a second.
Then she turned.
And walked toward the bedrooms. Toward the hallway where Jax had gone.
Probably locked in.
Probably breaking inside.