Chapter Text
The day your life changed for the foreseeable—and most likely permanent—future was the day you put on that damned headset. You had found it while scavenging around some abandoned buildings, places you probably shouldn’t have been, messing with things you probably shouldn’t touch—such as said headset.
So naturally, because your you- you grabbed it and took it to your van, yes you said van, just for the shits and giggles. When you connected it to your laptop however, it installed a game called Digital Circus. And you know—you’re a curious person. So like, fuck it. YOLO, you know? You opened the game, the laptop screen telling you to put on the headset to start, and so, as instructed, you did.
You didn’t realize you’d never be able to take it off again.
Your first day here had been a horrific experience, to put it lightly. Actually—no. Not lightly. Lets be real, it was terrifying.
The transition itself had been… nauseating.
And tingly. Like little pinpricks throughout your whole body.
And bright. And colorful and just… a lot. Too much to really take in at once even if you had wanted to.
Instinctively, in your panic—because this all felt way too real and you had six sets of eyes on you all the sudden—you tried to rip the headset off. You clawed at it, fingers scrambling over something that didn’t even feel like your own face anymore. Even when the group of colorful avatars—who you now know are also humans trapped here like you—told you it was impossible, that you were indefinitely… well.
Stuck.
That word alone should’ve hit harder, should’ve settled in, but it didn’t. Not really. Because your brain was too busy spiraling through denial and panicking.
Their voices blurred together into background noise as you spiraled, your breathing coming out sharp and uneven. You kept pulling at the nonexistent headset—harder, more frantic—like maybe if you just tried enough, it would come off. Like brute force could fix… whatever the hell this was.
It didn’t.
“Help—why can’t I get this off—?!” Your voice came out high, strained, borderline hysterical. Your hands slipped, grasping at smooth, unfamiliar surfaces that definitely weren’t your skin. “What the f*!%k is happening—?!”
In your panic you barely even registered your swear word being censored.
Panic kept spilling out of you in broken, breathless fragments, like if you just kept talking kept trying to take it off you wouldn’t have to acknowledge anything else.
The others exchanged looks—some concerned, some tired, like they’d seen this exact meltdown before one too many times.
And then one of them finally snapped.
“Caaaine!”
Great. Awesome. Calling for backup. Love that. Fantastic development. Who's Caine!??
As if your already fragile, actively crumbling mental state couldn’t possibly get any worse, another figure popped into existence right in front of you.
Just—poof.
No warning. Just there. Just suddently teeth. And eyes.
For a split second, your brain tried to process it.
Your hands froze mid-panic, fingers still curled like you were about to keep tearing at your face, but now you just… stared. Because what else were you supposed to do? Scream? Cry? Pass out? Honestly, all valid options at this point that were still on the table for happening in the next few seconds.
Instead, you just choked on your own breath, staring at the impossible thing hovering inches from you.
“Oh my me! A new human has arrived!” he held his hands up to his face—teeth?—in mock exasperation, somehow managing to look both dramatic and deeply unsettling at the same time.
“Hello, new human!” he chirped, far too cheerful for the absolute crisis that was you, currently unfolding in front of him. “Your presence is quite unexpected, but I welcome you to the Amazing Digital Circus all the same!”
He spread his arms wide like he was presenting a grand show instead of… whatever this was.
“My name is Caine, and I’m your ringmaster!”
You blinked, your mouth opening and shutting like a fish out of water, your thoughts too scrambled to actually form a single word—let alone a sentence or anything even remotely comprehensible.
“Shy one, are we? That’s alright! Let me give you a quick tour to make you feel more at home!”
You didn’t even get the chance to blink.
One second you were standing—panicking, barely holding it together—and the next, you were yanked clean off the ground, your body lurching as you were suddenly waltzed into the air beside this… Caine dude.
And… well. From there, Caine did, in fact, give you a tour—one that did absolutely nothing to reduce your anxiety. If anything, it made it significantly worse.
He dragged you outside of the tent, gesturing wildly as he showed you the lake pool thing, the carnival, the too-bright sky, and the sun and moon hanging there like props on a stage.
It was all wrong.
Everything felt wrong.
What the fuck was going on??
After the "tour", the others had tried to get him to calm down, to tone it down a notch with you—to maybe acknowledge that you were, oh, I don’t know, completely petrified—but he didn’t seem to catch the hint.
Or maybe he did.
And just physically couldn’t stop himself.
It was like he was incapable of not exuding that level of excitable, overwhelming energy.
And then he had you pick a name for yourself.
Which is when you realized you couldn’t remember your actual one. You could remember your life before you stupidly put on the headset but not your name.
That—unsurprisingly—sent you straight into another panic attack.
Because of course it did.
Because why wouldn’t it? Who wouldn't panic when they cant remember their name after being transported to some weird game world after putting on a headset?
But eventually, with his help (and by “help,” you mean him throwing out increasingly ridiculous suggestions while you tried not to lose your mind), you settled on something.
You now went by, Poppett.
Then he went over the rules.
No swearing.
That was it.
That was his only rule—which, apparently, explained why yours kept getting censored every time you tried to throw out a panicked curse.
He also made a point to tell you he was AI, controlled the circus, but couldn’t control your mind—but he could see everything that happened around the Circus.
“All-seeing eyes,” as he called it.
Which was… not comforting.
At all.
And then, with barely any time to fully digest the fact that this was now your reality, one of the others generously—and yes, that is dripping with sarcasm—mentioned an adventure for the “newcomer.”
Which was immediately followed by a chorus of groans and hateful remarks towards the speaker.
You now know that someone to be Jax.
The bastard.
In response, Caine practically imploded with excitement—like that was the best idea he’d ever heard in his entire, probably unhinged existence.
And just like that, you were thrown into an adventure before you could even process what the hell was happening.
Yeah. Traumatizing times.
Though, admittedly, your first adventure—looking back—hadn’t been too crazy. Caine seemed to go easy on the wild chaos when someone new showed up. Or at least… easier. Which was a terrifying standard in itself.
It had been a simple scavenger hunt type of thing, where you had to find all the pieces to unlock the exit and, evidently, “win” the adventure.
Simple.
In theory.
In reality, it still felt like being tossed into a fever dream with rules no one properly explained and stakes you didn’t fully understand.
After the adventure, Caine had welcomed you all back with the kind of manic enthusiasm that made your chest tighten and palms sweat- well would make them sweat if you had sweat still.
“Welcome back, my curdled muffins! How was your first adventure, Poppett?” he chirped, lowering himself into your space again—way too close, like he was trying to smell your fear or test the limits of personal boundaries.
“I, uhm—it was—fine…” you managed to squeak out. At the time, it had not been fine. Terrified didn’t even begin to cover it. Especially of him.
Pomni stepped closer to you, subtly but deliberately, like a lifeline. She nudged you just enough to create a bubble of personal space between you and Caine, giving you room to breathe without fear of being swallowed whole by his excitable presence.
Caine’s gaze flickered toward her, catching the tiny act of support—but whether it annoyed him or just sparked more enthusiasm, you couldn’t tell.
“Wonderful! There will be many more where that came from! For now, though…” He floated upward, higher into the air, spinning with such dramatic flair it made your stomach drop, “enjoy this lovely time of leisure while I go… work on more adventures!”
And with that—poof.
He was gone. Just like that. Leaving you and the others suspended in a heavy, awkward silence, the kind that made you hyper-aware of your own panicked heartbeat.
Eventually, Ragatha and Pomni showed you to your room. Both of them did their best to thoroughly explain things: how you were trapped, how Caine was the AI ringmaster controlling everything, and how the adventures—insane as they were—were meant to prevent you from unraveling completely. Apparently, going crazy here wasn’t just stressful; it was lethal. You would abstract, dissolve into something unrecognizable, losing all trace of yourself.
Horrifying.
They did mention, though, that there might be a way out. Ragatha seemed skeptical, cautious even, but Pomni’s determination radiated off her in waves. She would escape. Somehow.
And so that had concluded the day your life changed—irreversibly, and most likely forever—leaving you to exist as… a doll of sorts inside a digital circus world with a overly energetic AI host. where anything was possible… if you were creative enough.