Chapter Text
It had been a few days since it happened a few days since the failed attempt to escape the circus. Everyone was feeling down and out. Ever since Caine’s little "song and dance" number, where he had finally snapped and started torturing them for his own amusement, things had only been getting worse.
The group sat huddled in the main lounge area. Gangle and Zooble leaned against each other for comfort, their movements stiff and weary. Kinger stood off to the side, his eyes wide and fixed on nothing as he stared into space not a thought behind those eyes. Jax, as usual, was hogging an entire couch for himself, sprawled out on top of it with a deceptive air of boredom. Pomni and Ragatha sat together as well, Pomni resting her head heavily against the other woman’s shoulder.
Every day has been worse than the last, or just another different flavor of awful. Worse of all was the fact there seemed to be no end in sight to this fresh new hell.
To say the mood was somber would be a massive understatement. Nobody spoke; nobody felt they could do much of anything at all. The silence was thick, heavy, and suffocating.
Suddenly, a soft, quiet voice broke the silence. "A heart that's beating... can't belong to a broken machine."
Ragatha blinked, pulled out of her stupor. She turned to look at her friend. "What was that, Pomni?"
Zooble looked up from where her head was resting on her hand, echoing the words with a frown. "A heart that's beating can't belong to a broken machine?"
Pomni blinked as if startled, her pupils flickering like static. "Oh, sorry... I didn't realize I said that out loud," she muttered, looking down at her gloved hands.
"Is that from a poem?" Gangle questioned curiously, leaning in slightly to get a better look at the jester. "It sounded so sad."
Pomni shook her head. "No, no... it was actually from a song. About a... friend of mine. Someone I met a long time ago. Our situation just made me think of it, is all."
Jax snorted, rolling his eyes. "Well, unless your friend can help us out of this mess, I don't see any reason to bring them up."
"Yeah... yeah, you're right," Pomni agreed with a weary shake of her head.
Ragatha shot Jax a sharp glare before giving Pomni a reassuring pat on the shoulder. However, something about what Jax said gave Pomni pause. Under any other circumstance, he would be right. But as she thought about it, she realized her old friend actually could help them.
The problem lay in figuring out how to reach them and whether or not that old friend would even be willing to help after all this time.
Before Pomni could spiral further into thought, Caine appeared. With his usual loud, obnoxious voice and rattling teeth, he heralded the start of yet another torture filled adventure.
After they finally returned from the ordeal, everyone was covered in fresh, non fatal but still very painful wounds bruises and stinging aches. They all wordlessly made their way back to their rooms too tired to bother conversing this time around.
Pomni plopped down on to her bed and stared up at the ceiling, closing her eyes as her mind against her will began to spiral, and swirl around thought's of a place she knew of long ago.
She couldn't remember personal details from her old life, Her name, her age, what her real body looked like—those were things she feared she’d never get back. But she could remember this, the friends and the stories she had seen? Those, she could remember with clarity.
She remembered a world fading to black, its sun long since gone dark and faded into memory. In the center of that world stood a tower so tall the top was lost in the clouds. She remembered a land split into three distinct areas, populated by people and robots filled with more life and personality than most humans. And she remembered the burden of light held by just a simple small child.
Pomni’s eyes shot open. She sat up abruptly and moved toward the mirror in her room. Looking at her reflection, she breathed heavily, trying to calm her racing mind. She let out a long sigh and shook her head.
"What am I doing? It’s not like I could do anything with that. I should just forget it."
But something had awoken within her: the disease called hope. A spark had been lit, and it started burning her from the inside out, hot and persistent.
"No, Pomni, no!" she hissed at herself, glaring at the jester in the glass. "Stop it! You don't even have a way to contact them."
Yet, that daring part of her whispered back, flashing an answer in her mind. She thought of the office space the place where she once believed an exit existed.
Specifically, she thought of the computers. They had to be running. They had to have a proper internet connection. There was no doubt.
Pomni growled, shaking her head violently. "Even if I could send a message for help, they wouldn't be able to come here. They can't help us."
Once again, that inner voice rang out. It reminded her how much stronger that friend was than even THEY realized. They had done the impossible in their own home; why wouldn't they be able to help here?
Pomni grabbed at her head and punched the mirror, shouting now at the empty room. "They won't help me! I haven't interacted with them in months? Years? I don't even know! They won't help me after I've been gone for so long. They don't owe me anything!"
At that, the hope within her quieted, shrinking back into a small, glowing point. It whispered one final thing—a thought that escaped Pomni’s lips as a fragile breath.
"Their still my friend..."
The fight left her in an instant. She let out a massive sigh, her breath fogging up the glass of the mirror. Looking at the haze, she used her finger to draw a simple shape—a simple, unassuming lightbulb.
"Alright... why not? Let's give it a try." Pomni turned and bolted. She ran out of her room and began searching the circus grounds. She needed the exit door now more than ever. She retraced her steps from her very first day, stopping briefly in front of the same hallway mirror before pushing onward.
It took time far longer than she would have liked but eventually, she found it. The red exit door stood before her once more. She took a breath to steady her shaking hands. "Okay... if I do this... I'm only going to have one shot."
She gave a dry, nervous chuckle before rushing in. She didn't know how much time she had before Caine noticed her absence, so she had to be fast. Door after door, she burst through the liminal office space, moving deeper into the maze of cubicles. She was growing frustrated with the endless rooms until she finally saw it. Finally a proper work station.
The PC looked old really old. But she knew the program she needed to run didn't require much space, nor was it graphically demanding. Checking to make sure it was plugged in, Pomni held her breath and pressed the power button. "Come on... work with me, please."
The machine groaned to life, and to her immense relief, the three bars signaling a Wi-Fi connection appeared on the taskbar.
She struggled to remember the technical steps. A friend had once taught her how to connect a personal laptop remotely to another PC to run programs, but it had been a lifetime since she’d practiced it. It took far too long, her fingers fumbling over the keys, but eventually, she got the setup working. She was staring at a desktop she hadn't seen in God knows how long.
A realization hit her like a physical blow she could find out everything about herself right here. She had access to her socials, her data, her history. It would be so easy to find out who she was, her name, her family, her face. It was all right there at her fingertips.
Her curser hovered just above the icon for her social media site of choice. She knew her info would he their. Just one click a she could learn her name, learn her past, maybe finding out one thing will let her remember everything else.
She shook her head violently, tearing her eyes away from the browser icons. She had already been here too long. It was a miracle Caine hadn't found her yet. She didn't have time to dawdle; she had to get this message out before she lost the only chance she and everyone else had.
She right clicked a specific application. She had no idea if this would truly bridge the gap, but she had to try. She delved into the program’s folders, digging through the lines of files to find a specific spot where a message could be tucked away somewhere her friend would see it if they ever looked.
She found a directory that was easy enough to spot but wouldn't crash the system. Taking one last deep breath, she began to type.
Hello, my friend.
I know it’s been a long time since we’ve talked... I hope you are doing well. I don't know how long it’s been; it could be days, weeks, or years. I can't say for certain. I don't even know if you remember me, but I desperately hope you do that the friendship we made, even if brief, is still there.
I know it’s rude to ask favors of someone after so much silence, but I need your help. I’m in trouble. I shouldn't assume you’ll help you don't owe me a thing but I have no other options, and nowhere else to turn.
I am trapped. I am in a digital prison known as the 'Amazing Digital Circus,' a twisted virtual reality that is slowly driving me and my friends mad. It is run by an AI named Caine, and recently, he’s gone insane. He’s torturing us daily, forcing us into 'adventures' that are nothing more than cruel games that are thinly veiled torture.
The worst part is what happens to those who give up. They do something called 'abstracting.' They lose their minds completely and become violent monsters. My friends and I have tried to find a way out, but every attempt has ended in failure. I don't know how much longer we can survive this.
Please, my friend... I’m begging you. If you have any way to reach out, any means to save us, please help us. From: your friend Player
Pomni paused, her heart pounding against her ribs. Desperate tears fell from her face, splashing onto the keyboard. Her desperation had completely overridden any lingering doubt. She saved the file into the folder and ran the program, praying that the execution of the code would act as a beacon.
That spark of hope flared into a roar as the task was completed. She turned and sprinted back toward the entrance. Hopefully, Caine hadn't noticed she was gone.
As she exited the final door and pulled it shut, Pomni realized the exit had deposited her outside the main circus tent. She scanned the horizon frantically but didn't see Caine anywhere. With a shaky sigh of relief, she hurried back into the circus proper. Inside, the others were already awake and waiting around for their ringmaster.
She let out a final breath of relief as she joined them. She prayed that if her friend found her message they could appear and help them all. She had no doubt in her mind that they could save them all against Caine, after all. What is a simple AI meant to just be a ringmaster compared to a machine created to save and run an entire world?
Behind her as she entered the tent the jester didn't notice the air behind her where a small cluster of digital squares glitched and hissed, flickering in and out of existence for a brief moment before fading away.