Chapter Text
There was a scream. Ze’s scream, to be precise. It started just in the middle of the theme song and ruined everything.
Regect looked like he wanted to punch something, “Sure, sure. This is fine. Everything’s fine. Let’s just. Do another take. Not like it took me six fucking months to convince you all to do this one!”
There was a honk that Ze couldn’t translate yet, but a murmur of agreement sounded out from Regect.
Ze didn’t react to the words, mostly because he was too busy spending his time doing more important things. Like panicking.
“Where - where am I? What is this? Who are you?”
He was staring out at a... Big room? That was as far as Ze’s descriptive capabilities went, so someone else would have to take over. Moe thought the circus looked pretty enough. It was colourful, at least, and reminded her of the inside of a hamster’s cage (she thinks she might have had a hamster, at some point, a small one named something beginning with a t but she couldn’t remember much more than that) with all the blocks and slides and toys. Moe would also handedly give the names of the people standing before Ze (though she herself was not aware that Ze was called Ze, and neither was Ze aware of his own name just yet). They were, in order of their closeness to her: Micha, edging ever closer to his pillow fort; Captain Dice, a pirate looking fellow with the mouth of a sailor; Wakafante, a coward of a man who Moe liked getting tea with; and Regect, who was technically closer to her than Wakafante but Moe found it hard to accurately judge distance in the air.
Back to Ze, who was still panicking and trying to pull at his face, to no success.
“Who are you people? Why can’t I leave!?”
“Oh! A new human arrival has entered the realm!”
“How do I take this... Headset off!”
Ze’s attempts only ended in his pulling out an eye that popped right back in after a moment.
“What’s going on? I put on some weird headset and now I’m... here. Who are you people? Why can’t I take it off!?”
Moe honked. Ze just blinked back.
“What?”
“Oh, right,” Regect said, then dived down to boop Ze on the nose, flying back up when Ze got a little (violently) handsy.
“What did you just do!?”
“Just a little something so you can understand each other. Or Moe, at least.”
There was another honk, and in its place Ze still heard a honk, but it was different somehow. There were also words that no reasonable honk could make and an understanding of what they meant. Ze’s head had begun to hurt.
“Let’s calm down! Everything going to be okay! We’ve all been there before, and we all turned out fine!”
Everyone else did their best job of looking like they turned out fine. Micha, staring off blankly into the air, was the most successful.
“What the BLEEP is going on!”
Regect swooped down again, this time outside of arm’s reach, “Now, now! We can’t have any of that shitty language here! The Amazing Digital Circus is a place to be enjoyed by all ages! No bad language allowed!”
“But you just-”
“It’s alright! The circus isn’t that bad once you get used to it!” Moe honked.
Ze didn’t look convinced, “Right... Uh, how exactly do I... Leave?”
No one looked at each other. Except for Regect, who stared at everyone.
“Well, don’t freak out or anything,” Moe said, “But... You can’t?”
“What?”
“Yeah,” Captain Dice said, “Welcome to your new home!”
“New... New home?” Ze asked. “Right, sure, but I want to get back to the old one?”
“Why ever would you want to do that?” Regect asked, “Here you can have everything your heart desires!” A long tirade of limitations followed afterwards, “This place is great, right everyone!”
Deathly silence. Then a few half-enthusiastic honks from Moe. Micha sneezed.
“See, everyone loves it!”
“...This is just a dream,” Ze said, “Just a very silly, incredibly dream-like dream.”
“Sure,” said Captain Dice
“...Well,” said Ze, “Let’s give you a tour of the amazing grounds!”
He tried to get close to grab Ze, but Ze was a little less than willing, so he decided to just float him outside instead. Ze was still very unwilling.
“This is the tent! This is where your living quarters are as well as all sorts of other activities! This activities may include,” a long bleep followed, “torture, cannibalism, tea parties and more!”
“Wait, what-”
“And here we have the grounds! Drown yourself in the Digital Lake or you can ride in the Digital Carnival... Huh, no one goes out here much. Wonder why.”
Ze spotted the piranhas waiting in the lake and the lions in the carnival and thought he knew the answer.
“This is THE VOID!” Regect said, looking around worriedly, “We don’t venture out into the void. Not good for humans. Lots of bad things could happen.”
Regect finally managed to get close enough grab Ze and yank him back into the circus, which caused him to throw up. A black orb flew out and started licking up the puke.
“You - sure, okay. Well, that’s everything in the circus! Nothing else!”
“Are you sure there isn’t like. An exit door. Or something.”
“Sure,” Captain Dice said, “Stuck here for years and we just happened to miss an exit door. You know what the newbies right! We just needed to grow eyes and-”
“Shut up, Dice!” Moe honked, hitting him, “Sorry... Uh, what’s your name?”
“My name?” Ze asked, “Well it’s... Uh, well... Why can’t I remember my name!?”
“Oh, no one can remember their name once they come to the circus! Everyone picks new ones!”
“It... It!. I don’t - why can’t I... It was... Z! It started with a Z, why can’t I remember anything else!”
“What?” Regect asked, “You can remember what it started with?”
Ze suddenly felt the full force of everyone's eyes staring at him, and then a little more, “Uh... I think so? I could swear – but how many names start with Z?”
“Um...” Regect said, then momentarily glitched out, “It doesn’t matter! Ze is a perfectly acceptable name!”
“In what universe?”
“This one! I’m Regect. This is Moe, Wakafante, Captain Dice. And Micha.” He said, pointing to each member of the circus group. Not that Ze would remember that much.
“Right. Yes. Right.”
Moe took pity on him. “You’ll get used to it! It’s fun here. Sometimes.”
Regect frowned, “Yes! I know, we should have an adventure to welcome our new guest! Do you like adventure? Activity? Wonder? Danger? Horror? Pain? Suffering? Agony? Death? Disease? Death? Angel food cake?”
The black bubble came back into existence to eat the cake. Then snuggled up to Ze, who popped it with the force of a man who had never passed a single psychological evaluation test and still been allowed to purchase guns to his hearts content.
Turning back to Regect, Ze stuttered, “I don’t really – want to.”
“Nonsense! We’ll have a very simple in-house adventure to get you in the swing of things!”
“I don’t want no in house adventure!” Captain Dice complained.
“Don’t worry, Captain! I’ll make it something unobtrusive that you can still chose to not get involved in! Todays adventure is! Gather the Gloinks!” Thus began a series of cackles and an overly long and vague explanation that Ze didn’t pay attention to. Neither did Moe, so she could not be of any assistance either. The Captain tuned Regect out on principle, and poor Wakafante tried to keep up, he really did, but alas his attempts were in vain. Micha was listening to Regect but didn’t hear the instructions given. No help there either.
The black orb appeared again and nudged Moe, who pushed it away.
Ze really didn’t want to ask, but, well, when needs must. “What’s that?” He whispered to Moe, then wondered why on Earth he was whispering.
Still, Moe responded in kind. Well, as much as a honk could whisper. “That’s Orby! He kinda helps Regect around. Sometimes. Well, he tries.”
Ze could see the trying as Orby took a large bite out of one of the Gloinks and Regect started chasing it away. What the BLEEP was his life? Wait, what? Why was it in his head too!? BLEEP! BLEEP! FUCKING SHITBALLS BITCHES WHO SHIT DICKS! Oh, okay, that was better, at least he could think fuck.
Moe took pity on Ze again. She was very good at pity. “So... You wanna team up for the new adventure?”
The Captain rolled his eyes, “Sure, go play nice, I’m going to go BLEEP off.”
There was a valiant attempt at fucking off but then he was captured by the gloinks and put into tiny pieces. Something that seemed awfully more violent to witness happening to a pirate-shaped human. Ze’s eye begun to twitch, but no one else seemed to react. Maybe this was normal around here. Who was he to judge?
Wakafante ran after him, “I’ll save you! Don’t worry! I’m coming!” Then tripped and fell straight into a hole in the ground.
Moe sighed, “...Uh, Micha? Do you – do you mind going after them?”
Micha stared at Moe. Stared. Did some more staring that he rounded off with one last final round of stares. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I can do that.”
“Alright, Maturin – hey, wait, where’s Maturin?”
Moe turned to look at Ze expectantly, like he would just know who that was and where to find them. But he didn’t know the answer to any of those questions. Nor most questions, in all honesty. “Uh,” was all he could answer, but Moe didn’t really seem to be expecting much from him.
“Huh, I guess we’ll just have to check on him. You might like him. He has guns.”
That was enough to convince Ze. He always thought guns were a fine solution to any problem, leading to him having weekly catch-up chats with the school counsellor that he never did realise the true purpose of.
“Yes! I mean yes, sounds like a great idea!”
Moe didn’t question that. Just shrugged and walked over to the other side of the circus, “This is where we sleep. I mean, we don’t really need to sleep, but it’s good for us. I think. Regect says so, at least. Being awake all the time sounds really bad.”
Ze didn't think this was real. He didn’t want this to be real. But he was nothing if not adaptable. Or very good at repression. But really, weren’t they two in the same?
“How... How long have you been here?”
Moe missed a step. “...A while? Yes, it must have been a while, I suppose. It. Hmm. Since – well Micha has been here the longest. I arrived just after him. I can’t remember how long.”
“Oh. Uh, that’s rough. Buddy.”
Moe seemed to brighten, “It’s alright! I like it here. I mean, it’s not so bad. I mean, well, there is that whole really bad thing that can happen if things get really really bad, but that doesn’t happen often! Well, I mean, it happens sometimes, but not often often so it’s kind of like it happens not at all. So, yeah. Anyway, Maturin’s room! Yay!”
They stopped in front of a wooden door with a picture of a weird humanoid looking thing with a too wide smile.
“That’s... Maturin?”
“Yep! You’ll have a room too, of course, it must be somewhere around here, anyway! Maturin! Maturin, are you in there?”
No answer.
“Maturin? I have a new friend for you! He also likes guns!”
Still no answer.
“Huh. I thought that would work. Oh well,” Moe pulled a key out of – hey wait where did she get that from? “Don’t worry, I have a key!”
“Do we all get keys to eachothers room? That’s seems a bit-”
“Oh, no. Only me. I found it.”
“Where did you-”
“Let’s go!”
Moe opened the door. There was a mass of writhing pixels inside, a chasm of wriggling parts fit together into something abysmal. He didn’t want to look at it anymore – he wanted it to go away.
Moe slammed the door shut.
“We should probably run now,” she said, grabbing Ze’s hand. He didn’t have to be told twice.
Unfortunately, the thing could break through doors. Worse still, it was fast. Worse still, Ze, unused to his blocky body, was slower. Moe, clearly faster, didn’t let go of his hand, mostly dragging him along. Still, they (mostly Ze) weren’t fast enough, and the thing managed to get a swipe in at him. Worst of all, Moe dived in front of him and took the hit instead. Ze – Ze couldn’t do anything about it. Fuelled by adrenaline, he managed to drag the two of them into a room, the thing passing by them.
“Moe, are you – are you alright? Is – what's going on?”
Moe was writhing on the floor. She was – glitching. But that wasn’t strong enough of a word when seeing someone be made and unmade in front of him – because of him. Moe didn’t scream, despite how painful it must have been, but it had to have hurt, it must have.
“You need – you need to get Re – Regect. He – he's the only – only one who ca – can stop this.”
Maybe Ze should have listened to the words of someone who had clearly been in this much longer than he had. Maybe he should have used a brain that was not solely there for decoration. But sometimes Ze’s brain was there for decoration, and this was one of those times.
“I’ll go – I'll go fix this.”
“Get - get Re – Regect! Ze – get-”
But Ze was already running past the hallway of rooms, past all the doors with red marks in them, and the destruction the thing had caused and straight into... Maturin’s? Room. There were guns in there, and Ze had a single-minded focus sometimes. Most the times. Pretty much all of the times.
If one ignored the writing on the wall about some form of exit. (Over and over, on every surface. Ze wasn’t going to judge. He really had no solid ground to stand on.) It was a nice room. It had guns in it, after all. A revolver, then an AK, then another revolver, and a pistol, then a rifle, and another revolver, and another pistol, and – ooh – a shotgun! Ze was in heaven and had to remind himself that Moe was in the room next over probably in horrible amounts of agony.
He rushed back in, “Okay, I have a few things that could help. Just need to find it.”
“No - no. Won – won't work. Nee – need to get – get Re – Re – Regect.”
Ze thought back to the weirdly touchy man-thing from earlier. He had the rather correct assumption that he would be able to do this himself.
“Look, I can kill that thing-”
“No! That – that's Ma – Maturin!”
“It... But it... Okay, I won’t kill it, I won’t. Shit, uh, Regect! Regect, we kind of need your help here!”
Nothing happened for a moment, nothing and then – a door. An exit door?
“Is that?” He asked, but Moe was still convulsing on the floor.
“Okay, we, okay.”
He couldn’t let a kindness be unpaid, and reached over to grab Moe. It lasted all of a second until his hand pulsed and dropped her. It hurt. It hurt like Hell, so Ze did what he was raised to do. Put his gun on his back and soldiered through, grabbing Moe with one hand, and dragging them through the door.
“Z - Ze! Re – Regect!”
“It’s - it’s an exit door! We might be able to get out!”
Through the door was not an exit, but a long corridor. Ze wasn’t a quitter. Another door. Another corridor. Moe panting beside him, grabbing onto his shoulder, causing it to jut out of its socket. Another door. Corridor. Door. Corridor, turn. Door. Door. Corridor. Door. Ze wasn’t a quitter. Corridor, corridor – corridor – corridor. No door, no door, no fucking-
Ze really wished he was a quitter. Why couldn’t he be a quitter? He wanted-
A flash and then he was in the centre of the circus, the amalgamation of mass in front of him. He pulled out a gun and aimed, but then-
“I’ll deal with that!” Regect called, opening the floorboards and stuffing the thing underneath. “And where have you – Moe! Moe are you alright?”
“R - right as – ra – rain! C – could y – you – you-”
“Yes! Of course!” Regect snapped... Something? It sounded like the snap of a finger, but Regect didn’t seem to have fingers? Did he always have no fingers? “There, are you better?”
“Perfectly! Thank you, Regect!”
Ze looked to his side, and his arm was fine. It made him shiver. He didn’t like it.
“Now what the fuck were you two doing! That room is off bounds, didn’t you see the no entry sign!”
“...That’s an exit sign.”
Regect turned towards it. There was another small glitch. “Huh. That... Does say that. It’s not supposed to say that.”
“Moe? Ze?” Wakafante and the Captain entered the room, “Are you – is that an exit door!?”
“No! No! It’s a little, well, it doesn’t lead to an exit!”
“Why the BLEEP did you make it then?” The pirate demanded.
“It... I was just trying to figure out what to put behind it! All of you want one, so I thought I might make you one!”
The small black orb appeared again, huddling close to Moe.
“Hi Orby,” she said quietly.
“You’re such a BLEEP, Regect,” the Captain said, then fucked off somewhere else.
“Maturin abstracted,” Moe muttered, and the Captain stopped in his tracks.
He sighed, “Huh. I thought Micha would be next... Oh well, tell me when the funeral starts, ey?”
Moe nodded, watched the pirate leave, Wakafante following afterwards.
“Funeral?” Ze asked.
“Something we do for those who abstract. It’s nice to remember them.”
“Maturin’s gone.” A voice came, and Ze did not scream, thank you very much. Alright, maybe a little.
“Micha! Yes, yeah he did,” Moe said, Orby flying closer to Micha, “Do you want to help me with the funeral?”
Micha just looked at Ze, “Maturin’s gone.”
“Yeah, uh, I know. I was there.”
“Regect’s gone. He was here. Now he’s gone.”
Ze nodded along, “Yep. Yeah that’s what happened.”
Micha walked off.
Moe sighed, “He tries. He was better before, but – oh, he tries.”
Ze said nothing for a while.
“...Do you want some help for the funeral?”
“Oh, yes, thank you. That sounds nice. Thank you, by the way, for not leaving me behind. Even if you probably should have just gotten Regect.”
“Oh, yeah. Course.”
Moe beamed, bounding forwards to link their arms. Ze flinched, then internally shouted at himself for it.
“Thank you. For what you did with Maturin.”
“Oh, that’s alright. What are friends for?”
Ze managed a smile. He didn’t think it was a very good one.
“Well, I’m glad you’re my friend then.”
He glanced around the room, spotting the open exit door across the room. He – he just had to make do, he decided. Yes, just for a little longer. Make do.