Chapter Text
Pomni's light switch isn't working.
She flicks the button just above her bedpost over and over again, hoping by some miracle the lights would burn out by sheer desperation alone. They do not. The bulbs had no issue turning off the last time she had retired to her room for sleep only a few nights ago. Nor is this Circus usually a place for mundane problems like malfunctioning light fixtures or dead wiring.
She can't sleep. Not with these lights.
She slams an angry fist into the switch again.
"Come on, please!" She begs, tugging at the socket like the action is meant to help. "Turn off!”
It moves, almost mockingly, up and down like it is supposed to, but with no moves on the sick brightness that envelops every corner. Leave it to the circus to suffer from mundane problems she thought she'd escaped—perhaps the only bright thing about the place, it came in the little things—because electrical issues certainly aren't on her list.
Groaning, she lets gravity pull her down the frame and into her pillow, pressing her face against it. All alone, dead centre of the bed, cold blankets press against sweaty skin, thin and useless enough that the lights rip through the crimson sheets without an ounce of effort.
Those spots in her vision do not go away.
How long has it been since she's been languishing in her bedroom? She can't stop doing the math in her head—just a few hours ago, they'd allowed every hope of escape to drive themselves forward. An hour later, that hope got crushed into a thousand pieces by one horrible ringmaster. And hours after that, they rot in their rooms, lingering on like nothing had happened to them at all.
They hadn't even said a word when Caine vanished into the screen. Throats closed and lips sealed, all they could have done at that moment was turn around.
Back to the circus.
Gangle had cried. Zooble had cursed. Kinger had stared. Jax fell silent. Ragatha took the complementary basket with her.
Nothing had been uttered.
She feels her fingers curl into fists beside her. Caine hasn't made even a sorry appearance, and Pomni doesn't know whether to rejoice or cry. Wishing for some semblance of an apology would be wishing thinking and nothing more.
It's a few more seconds of hopeless shut-eye before she finally accepts she's not going to.
Pomni sits up, muscles screaming and tired, rubbing her stinging eyes as she casts one look around her. That alone sends a thousand suns burning her eyes as she takes in the lazy mess of toys, blocks and other indiscernible objects scattered across the rugs she never bothered cleaning in the past.
If she's going to overthink and cry about everything, she's going to do it in the hallway. A habit from the human world, something that leaked in here and now; her first instinct. From high school nightmares to stressful shifts at work from staring at documents and papers and devices, there was many a walk could fix.
She crawls out from underneath her sheets, moving swiftly to curl her fingers around the doorknob and throws it open with one swift click.
Pomni slowly walks, each step heavier than the last.The obnoxious, multicolored lights that were sharp enough to blind now muted into a much more depressing hue, but that doesn't make them any less brighter. Like a hospital in the late hours of midnight. Or an office on its late-night shift, everyone in it silently begging to go back home.
Okay, now it's time to think.
Home. The word that Caine had dangled so mercilessly in front of their eyes, led them on just to cruelly remind them what they didn't have.
She doesn't care if this stunt of his was orchestrated by malicious intent or the unaware scheming of an artificial intelligence that simply can't process their greatest wish. She is still bubbling with rage, animosity stroking her every step, despite her growing tiredness slugging them down.
It feels like what had happened was a dream, it really did. But every feeling, every emotion she had felt lingers at the back of her mind; their journey to Caine's office, holding hands like it might be their last. The blinding light of the console, pulsating with the weight of urgency that never existed. And Jax's too wide eyes, unblinking and unfeeling, his wild laughter ringing in her ears. She tries to ignore that memory, but it is harder to ignore something when she was trying.
She briefly passes by Zooble's room, and does a double take, retracing her steps backward until she faces the door. It's open a crack.
Despite her instant urge to throw open the door, she knocks three times until the knob clicks and opens a crack, she finds Zooble.
Their eyes sink with relief, voice unnaturally low. “Oh, hey Pomni.”
The silence alone speaks the greater truth without even meaning to; a nightmarish ghoul in their eyes, bags hanging under them with a weight Pomni is only too aware of. Their posture remains slouched, arm gripped tightly on the door. Like it would be danger to release it.
Pomni offers them a smile that doesn't meet her own eyes. “Hey.”
There's a pause before Zooble clears their throat, briefly looking her up and down, fingers strumming pensively on the door. “How have you been holding up?”
“Okay, I guess,” She tells them, fidgeting with the bell loosely hung on her hat. “You?”
“Shitty.” The bluntness almost makes her laugh. “Still trying to process what the fuck happened.”
An empty chuckle. “Y-Yeah, that's a fair way to put it.”
Zooble looked fine, but there's a certain tension in their gaze that made something uncomfy build in her gut. Like they're judging her for something.
“Pomni?” A voice floats out from behind the door, and Zooble swings it open to reveal Gangle, seated atop a box, sketchbook on her lap and pen in hand.
Her voice is mild. “Hello, Pomni.”
Respectfully, she looks horrible. A pang of hurt rends out for her when she sees it; that empty smile plastered on her face, one that felt so empty and devoid of hope. Like she smiled and waits for the happiness to come after. Something reminiscent of Ragatha, but perhaps it is only done by her to make Pomni feel better. An empty piece of hope passed between them.
None of them processed this yet, have they?
“Hello,” She says back, hoping the smile that comes out looks better than the last. Gangle offers her a shaky one of her own, tears pooling from her eyes and comedy mask nowhere to be seen.
Pomni's eyes dart between them. “Same room?”
“Yeah, for the night,” Zooble says, looking at Gangle with a particular fondness the latter reciprocates. “It's better than being apart.”
Her lips press into a thin line as the tension becomes so palpable it’s like it could consume her whole. Not to mention each blink she takes drawing longer, Zooble's features blurrier by the second.
“Couldn't sleep?” They ask; her crinkled eyes only meant she must have had her weariness reflected on her face. Pomni only has the strength to nod.
“Yeah, that checks out. Would be a miracle if you did.”
“I was taking a walk.” Pomni says, shrugging the tension off her shoulders. “Thought it’d help a bit, y'know?”
“It can," Gangle chimes. "Though I don't really see how you can… manage to go out after that..."
She's not wrong. Even looking at the Circus halls could bring back the very memory of the event they don't want to relive. Perhaps that's why Gangle has chosen Zooble's room. To hide in a corner of the world unnoticed, somewhere that could barely feel like comfort.
That can be very nice to have.
Pomni's about to turn on her heel when Zooble calls her name again.
“Say, could you, uh, do us a favour?” Their eyes grow worried. “Could you check on Ragatha? We haven't heard a word from her and we just want to know if she's okay.”
“Uh, yeah, I can do that.”
They shoot her an appreciative look as they vanish from view, the door leaning shut.
Pomni waits none to quicken her pace towards Ragatha's room, worry clenching in her gut at her plight. She should have thought of it earlier; checking up on the others without them reminding her.
Her worry also lies for another castmate across her bedroom.
Pomni couldn't shake that sense of dread that clung to her when she passed by. How would he be doing now, hours after they found out the bitter truth—no escape—hours after he had laughed in unhinged voice, still stuck in the back of her mind?
Perhaps she should check on him first, just for a moment. She acts on her change of mind as Jax’s grinning portrait meets her eyes, looking on at her eagerly as she wonders if the real rabbit wore the same smile. In the words of Zooble, it would be a miracle if he did.
A scary miracle, as the counterpart could be so much worse.
She presses her palms flat against his door. “Jax? Are you in there?”
Each minute of silence feels like a punch to the gut. What was she meant to be expecting? The last time she'd knocked, she basically led him down the path of false hope, one that came so close to coming true just to not be. She has basically dragged him down this mess, and given him every reason to shut her out.
But some restless thing with beating wings in her heart wants to see him again. Smiling, grinning, mocking—anything, but not hurting.
She tries the knob.
It's locked.
“I—I just wanted to see if you are doing okay,” She whispers, that feeling and hope in her voice melting out into her words. “You don't have to open the door.”
The jester scrambles for something to say, praying he's listening. “Just give me a sign. A noise. A word. Anything to say you're here.”
She shouldn't have expected an answer so hopefully, because only silence laughs at her from behind the door. So many terrifying outcomes hiss from behind it as her imagination runs wild. Him curled up against his bedroom door; fighting abstraction with ragged, drawn out breaths. Someone hurting, scrunched up against his bed-frame, covering his ears and shaking his tears. Or maybe that is too much to wish for, too much to hope for, and maybe there are eyes boring through her behind them, praying for her demise.
But no matter any of that, he does not open his door.
“Okay,” she says.
'There's nothing more to me.'
“Okay.”
But how can she stop looking?
Despite her better judgement, her heart rends with concern for him; one desire just to see his face again.
“...good night, Jax.”
Her fingers brush against the door as she walks away, lingering a second too long.