Chapter Text
“Aah!” She flinched away. “Where am I?!” She bumped into somebody behind her, and a crack sound was heard shortly after. She whipped around, facing the person she bumped.
He resembled a red, wooden block, with white gloves and purple rabbit ears on his head. Another person, who he'd bumped when he fell, resembled a bubble. A large red ribbon hung from her back. She flinched from them again.
The block stood. “Is this one of your NPCs, or is this a new character? Because if it's a character, we're going to have to redo this whole theme song.”
A lollipop, with mismatched body parts and a scribble on her face, sighed “I'm not doing that again.”
“Oh boy! A new human has entered the circus!” A blue four-shaped ringmaster cheered.
“I-I put on a weird headset, and now I'm...here! S-somewhere! Who ARE you people?!”
A ragdoll-like leaf waved her hands in a manner that meant she wanted her to calm down. “Hang on, just calm down! You can't think when you're stressed. We've all been here, you just need to-”
“AAAAAH! What the-” Her words were cut short by a cartoonish sound affect, and a strange black box covered her mouth. “...What?”
The ringmaster spoke again. “Welcome to Amazing Digital Island! A world of wonder where ANYTHING can happen!” He tossed his hands in the air. “Uh, except swearing. That's a no-no.”
She stared at them a moment. “Well...how do I leave?”
“You can!” The block laughed. “You just need to jump into the Digital Lake and-”
“Blocky!” The mismatched lollipop stamped a foot. “Now's not the time for one of your pranks! You can't leave, despite what he says. Welcome to your new home, and your new body.” She motioned a hand.
“New home?” She stuttered. “You mean I'm actually stuck here?”
“Yep,” the leaf said. “Sorry to disappoint you. Woody's been here the longest of all of us.”
Woody, who resembled a piece of wood, poked his head out from a box. He mumbled something she couldn't understand, then hid back in his box. She noticed a crown on his head.
The bubble sniffled. “Moi mask...”
Blocky stepped on the broken ceramic mask whilst he approached the ringmaster. “Are we going to have a 'contest' for the noob or...”
The ringmaster stopped staring into space, blinking and staring at Blocky with a blank smile. They looked to her afterwards, then suddenly animated. “Actually, I wanted to give her a tour of the grounds first! You can't have a contest if you don't know your way around the place!” He motioned his hands at her, then grabbed her by the arm.
“Wha-”
“Away we go! Yippee!”
They appeared outside a large circus tent. She looked at it, confused, then to the ringmaster. “What are you?”
“I'm Four! I'm the ringmaster here. And this is the tent! This is where you'll sleep, eat, drink water, and do fun contests! Those contests include...”
He suddenly froze, a blank stare on their face. She gave him a confused stare as he sat in utter silence. He suddenly began speaking again, caring little about his strange stop.
“-Ball pits, mini golf, and more!” He grabbed her again and pulled her out farther from the tent. “These are the grounds. You can drown yourself in the Digital Lake, or engage in ridery in the Digital Carnival. Night or day, it doesn't matter! It's all yours, it's a cosmic buffet!”
“I-is that it?” She hoped they were done.
“Nope!” He grabbed her again and pulled her into a blank void. “This is the void! We...don't go into the void. There's nothing there. Nothing I know of, anyway.” He grabbed her a final time and pulled her back in front of the tent. “But you can stay right here, where I can keep my HUNDREDS OF ALL-SEEING EYES on you!” He wriggled his fingers as if trying to be scary. “Ooooo...!”
She stared at him strangely.
“Let's just go back to the tent...”
She looked and saw a blue door, labeled clearly with EXIT printed across its front in black text. Before she could do anything else, Four took her back to the tent. She didn't feel great after all the teleporting, and ended up vomiting. Four flinched from her slightly.
“Woah! X, fix this!”
She watched as a short, x-shaped, creature ran over to her with a mop. He quickly cleaned up her vomit and hurried off again, tripping at some point as they left.
“Thanks, X!”
“Did I just see an exit door?” She asked herself.
“An exit?” Blocky asked. “Nah, if there was one,” he took off one of the lollipop's arms and scratched his back with it, “we would've left by now.”
The arm smacked him in the face.
“There's no exit, silly!” Four pat her head quite hard. “It must've just been some digital hallucinations. Those happen sometimes.”
“But why say that so casually,” she asked.
Four looked panicked for just a moment before suddenly snapping back to their show host personality. “Uh....ANYWAY! We should talk about something else; like your name!”
She blinked. “I...oh for petals' sake, I can't remember my name!”
“That happens all the time somebody comes in here. I don't have control of your minds, I can't help you. But I can give you a fun, new one!” He suddenly started speaking very fast, and she couldn't hear a word they said. “Did you get that?”
“Uh...No.”
“So, what do you want your name to be?”
“Uh I-I don't care. You pick something.”
“Good idea!”
He snapped, and an oversized slot machine fell from somewhere above them. It landed next to him with a loud thud and the slots rolled. Instead of numbers, however, they were letters; as she found out when they stopped on something utterly random. Four squinted at the word a bit, then smiled again.
“How about XDDCC?” The name sounded as if he were attempting to beatbox.
“I don't-”
“You're right, it's horrible!” He flicked the handle, and it landed on another name. “'Pomni?' What's a Pomni? You know what, I'll choose for you! Your name is Flower!”
“I'm fine with that, I guess...” Flower rubbed her wrist. It was nice having a name, at least.
Four blinked, slapping his hands against his head. “You're right, Blocky! We should have an in-house contest for our new friend, Flower!”
Blocky looked utterly lost. “What? I said that five minutes ago.”
Four pointed at Flower. “You! Do you like adventure? Activity? Wonder? Danger? Horror?” He began to speak faster, overwhelming Flower. “Pain? Suffering? Agony? Death? Disease? Death? Angel food cake?” He held up an entire cake, white with pink frosting.
X, who had come from nowhere, grabbed the cake from Four's hand and ate it. “Mmm!”
“X. That was for Flower. How dare you!”
“I'm sorry!” X started crying, running off.
“That was a little uncalled for,” Flower said, feeling bad for X.
“I don't want an in-house contest,” the lollipop said.
“Why not, Lollipop?”
“Because, your contests are weird...”
“Don't worry, I'll make it so it can help warm up Flower to how things work here,” he extended his arm over his head to point down at Flower, “and so you can choose to not play if you don't want to!” He pointed at Lollipop with his other hand.
Lollipop sighed.
Four turned around to face Flower. “Today's contest to Gather the Gloinks!”
“The...the what?” Flower asked.
“The Gloinks! The entire tent is infested with them, so you have to capture them all!”
X was back, and fine, and decided to finally play along with Four's ramblings. “But what are they?”
Four beamed. “Good question, X! They are-”
“And what do they do?”
Four gave him a look before continuing. “They-”
“And how do they-”
“Stop interrupting me!” He fired some sort of energy beam at X, sending him flying.
X screamed, although his soft voice made his scream a little pathetic.
“These humanoid hash browns steal everything their weird little eyes see! Why do they do this, and what do they do with the stuff they steal? Nobody knows! That's for you to find out. Go!” He pumped a fist, then vanished.