Chapter Text
Darkness washes over as the headset settles on.
Click.
A small, faint sound echoes through the space.
A catchy, rhythmic tune begins to trickle in.
Then a voice.
“Welcome, newcomer, to The Amazing Digital Circus! Now before we begin, a warning for flashing lights, loud sounds, bright colours, an overload for all your dear senses! Without further ado, Let’s get this show on the road!”
Click.
Bright colours.
Big Movements.
A figure flings himself into frame, twisting and turning fluidly through the air. He hops from one end to another, bar to bar, rope to rope. Landing gracefully upon the platform, he turns to face a faceless crowd. The spotlight strikes down upon him, casting his face in the shadows, silhouette glowing against the light.
Click
The lights flicker. The figure disappears.
Juggling pins cast ominous shadows as they rise and fall in quick succession. Or, at least, they were juggling pins–
An arm.
A leg.
Some toy parts while they’re at it.
The juggler bears a bored expression, undeterred by the noises and lights.
What an abstract personality.
Click.
The light flickers again.
An empty stage.
Click.
A long, red flurry of fabric flutters down from above. Twisting and bending as its ends seem to be suspended in the air, moving on their own. Among the elegant tangles, a white mask intertwines itself between it all, slipping itself through empty spaces and commanding it all in a wordless dance.
Click.
The light goes out before the mystery of the self moving bundle ever settles.
Before the sound of fabric ghosting the stage ever leaves, the light sound of the pitter pattering of soft footsteps could be heard rapidly approaching.
Click.
A spotlight came back on, this time landing off centre of the ring, landing upon the closed curtains, for whoever came next. Or that's what one would assume, anyway.
A small chyme ticked rhythmically.
One, two, three, four.
Someone cuts through the curtains in a split, the silhouette of the puffy skirt bouncing as she lands.
Click.
The lights go out. In fact, they flash on and off in succeeding sequences. Every flash of light, a new pose is displayed, teasing a hint of a story yet to be told.
Then–
Boom
The sound of the cannon goes off, eliciting a small yelp from the newcomer. She watches as a chesspiece flies across the floor of the circus. Up til now, she never noticed that the floor was checkered and marked like a chessboard—
Click.
Light streams in from all directions.
A character with what seems to be the head of a denture in a neat red suit materialises in front of the newcomer.
“Hey-yo! Enjoy the show? Before you proceed, why don’t you choose a username? Or, in better words, a Stage Name.”
“I-Uh,” It was only now that the new friend took note of her avatar. Red and blue. A hand reaches upward, towards her head, her face falls when her hand wraps around a strange, cone-like structure, rather than the cool, metal band of the headset.
The eyes of the denture shaped creature glinted at her, light shining so brightly she could see her own reflection.
A Jester. She realises. Her avatar is a Jester. She is a Jester.
“Can’t choose a name? That’s a-okay! We have a random stage name generator right here, would you like to do the honours?” With a snap of his fingers, a slot machine appears with a distinct pop.
The small Jester slowly walks towards the machine, hands shaking as she pushes on the lever. What else is there to do? Sure, it’s a little strange, but…it can't hurt, right?
The lights blink as a small jingle begins to play.
“Pomni…,” She whispers, her ‘stage name’, the movement of her lips feeling foreign as she is dragged away almost immediately after.
“So,” the Denture guy looked at her in anticipation, like an excited child on Christmas morning, “How was the show?”
Pomni chuckled nervously, “Oh, is this…the review segment of the showcase slash game? The instructions next to the headset–”
“Oh wow, a new member. What’s she doing, Caine? Perhaps a magician? Haven’t had one of those in a while,” The purple rabbit from earlier swaggers in, still wearing the leotard from earlier’s performance.
Caine stutters, “Well, of course, it is up to her, but as you know everyone is meant to learn just a bit of everything. Who knows what hidden talent we’ll find in this one.”
Caine, his name was Caine. Pomni could work with that.
“So…what are all your names?”
The stunt person mutters again, “She’s taking this way too well…does she know?”
The dancer with the puffy skirt murmurs back, in more of a hushed tone, “Hey, stop, don’t make this worse than it has to.”
“Know what, exactly?” Pomni asks, confusion lacing her voice,
Almost at the exact same time, everyone turns towards her, mixed looks of pity and amusement painted in bright, bold, letters.
Something was horribly, horribly, wrong.
“Sweetheart, try taking that headset off for us, will you?”
“Okay…?”
Pomni was leaving anyway. There was something wrong with this place. She should’ve seen that sketchy place as a warning already anyway, if she had just listened to–
The headset wasn’t there.
Her other hand slowly reaches up, searching for the cold metal and loose fabric straps she had struggled to get on less than 10 minutes before.
She couldn’t find them.
She chuckles nervously, “Well, this is obviously a dream, considering the far from normal characters you are, that piece of paper next to the thing–”
“We all went through that phase, don’t worry about it. Oh yeah, names. My name is Jax, Caine over there is actually an AI, we’re human, don’t worry though…”
Suddenly, the lighting wasn’t just special effects anymore, they were headlights crashing into a deer caught in its trap.
The accompaniment of music is a blur of sound around her.
“Okay!” Caine says, clapping his hands happily, as though Pomni wasn’t going through some crisis, “That’s enough for today, I’m sure all of you are excited about your brand new friend, tomorrow is a new day, new show, come on now! To the quarters!”
Pomni tries to slow her breathing as she watches the cartoonish ‘people’ walk away.
She doesn’t know how, or why, but the lights are a little less harsh now. Still bright, but not actively blinding her anymore.
As confused as she is, she knew one thing and one thing only: This is her only chance for an escape, and she needed to act now.
Her footsteps echo within the vast space of the tent. Out of the corner of her eye, a small opening within the walls of the tent catches her eye. Light seemingly seeping in from the other side, not the same bright white light, but a slightly dimmer, warm tone.
She cautiously began to make her way there, the opening was somewhat across from where the others had disappeared to, but curiosity gnawed at her, begging her to find out just what was on the other side.
If this was a dream, you might as well do what you can, right?
Or at least, that’s what she told herself.
As she slowly made her way there, an eerie feeling bubbles and rises and settles in her gut like an absolute truth. Someone was watching her, but no matter where she looked, she could not seem to find the culprit.
Yet, the only eyes she ever sees are her own, staring back at her from the full length mirror in shock and surprise as she takes in her new body.
“What. The. F##k,” A muted noise escaped her rather than actual words, as though her vocal cords just stopped working the moment she uttered them.
“F##k,” There it was again.
“F##k.”
As her throat closed and opened up for the third time in a row, as she watched her fearful eyes reflected in the mirror, as she eyed the dim opening carefully one last time before she reached for it.
She realised–if this was real–it meant she was trapped.
The opening in front of her might be her only escape–
“Woah woah woah there Pomni,” The Dentures, now Caine, the AI, materialised beside her, causing her to jolt.
“Gee, I forgot I put that there,” Caine muttered.
At the snap of his fingers, the opening was gone.
“Wha–that, the door–”
“Now now my dear, that is no place for anyone to be, trust me. This reminds me, you’ve yet to take a tour! Queue the montage!”
***
After Caine’s dizzy and nauseous montage of a tour, Pomni was left off at the door of her quarters. Or her showroom, or, whatever. Caine mentioned something about them being the equivalent of a trailer for an actor, so…that was that.
That aside, Pomni has more important things on her mind.
Namely, the headset.
She let out a long sigh as the door clicks shut behind her.
Before she even registered the room, she was already tugging and pulling at whatever she could reach, yet the setting before her still never changed. And her hat stubbornly remained on her head.
“This cannot be happening right now.”
Pomni drops onto her back, the sound of her heartbeat picking up in her ears.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
***
Meanwhile, outside the door, the shuffling of feet and an ever moving shadow could be seen.
Ragatha paces outside Pomni’s door. She doesn’t quite know what to say.
Pomni didn’t look so well the last time she’d seen her.
She was probably still adjusting. It always took a while.
In fact even she took a while to adjust, but given how long she’s been here, it was easy to forget sometimes, how she first started.
But then again, it was always better with a friend.
Finally making up her mind, she takes a deep breath and knocks on the door.
***
The sound of fist against wood jolts Pomni back to reality.
It takes her a while to register Ragatha’s mumbled words.
“Pomni? Sorry if I’m bothering you or anything I just–well…It takes a while to adjust to the circus, I really get it. I just wanted to check in–make sure everything is fine–”
The door opens, Ragatha’s rambling instantly clearer, she looks ready to bounce off walls with her restlessness.
Pomni is ready to close the door before she even starts talking. Or continues to. She honestly didn’t really care anymore.
“Oh, hello! I’m Ragatha, sorry I didn’t exactly get to talk to you all that much just now–”
“No, it’s, uh–cool. Just, I think I’ve had enough with the whole AI thing right now so if you will just–”
Pomni begins to slide the door closed, only for Ragatha to shove her foot through the opening.
“No, wait, I’m not an AI, I’m a human–I’m trapped here too.”
“Uh, what?”
“It’s a really long story. Caine is the only AI here though. I know it feels really overwhelming and strange right now, but trust me, this place isn’t so bad after a while, you just have to get used to it.”
“Have you…never tried escaping?” The question essentially slips out of Pomni’s mouth, with no regards to whatever she’s been feeling thus far. Surprisingly, it even kicks off the conversation, Ragatha spiralling into details about the circus, as Pomni listens, mostly out of curiosity.
Pomni’s grip on the door slowly begins to loosen as Ragatha explains what goes on in the circus. She talks about the ins and outs, what each of them did, how they would sometimes switch or do acts together to change things up. The situation based shows that Caine liked to call “adventures”, where he would essentially throw stuff and situations at them and they just had to comply.
“Caine essentially controls this world, like, able-to-conjure-up-random-things-at-will kind of control. The people here are nice though, for the most part.”
Before they knew it, they’d talked through the whole night. And, as alarming and strange the situation was, Pomni was glad to have made a friend in all the chaos.
But then–
“Rise and shine my little circus themed cupcakes! Today’s show is all about training our brand new circus member!”
Pomni flinched as Caine popped up behind Ragatha.
“Oh right, you don’t need to worry, Caine refers to everyday as a ‘show’, but we only really have an audience when we want to.”
“There’s more people?”
“The audiences are NPCs, usually. So really, you don't have to stress so much.”
“What—”
“Now on with the programme!”
And with the snap of his fingers, Ragatha and Pomni were sent to the ring.