Chapter Text
Wires snapped and disconnected as a sharp click was heard across the empty room. A body fell to the ground with a loud thud followed by a pained, strained grunt. Fingers felt the coldness of the floor beneath them. The person inhaled a sharp, deep breath, eyes suddenly opening. Darkness engulfed them, barely sensing the wall a few inches away from them.
Caine woke up.
He coughed with the strange, sudden, real need to clear his throat from the feeling of dust trapped in it. He slowly sat up, muscles incredibly sore and heavy, as if they hadn’t been used in a long time. Caine looked around, trying to distinguish anything in his surroundings. Nothing. Total darkness.
Deleted. Discarded. Thrown away. Kinger, out of all people that would’ve wanted him gone, he was the one to delete him? It confirmed in Caine’s mind that truly everyone hated him, who could blame them. There was no use in denying that fact.
This is what you deserve. His thoughts rang loud in his head. He remembered the way he pinned the humans to the walls of the circus tent while screaming at them. Too angry to think about the consequences. After everyone followed Pomni on telling him that they hated his adventures, and by extension him, the only thing he felt was pain. Pain far bigger than he thought he could ever experience. His whole purpose was rendered useless. What was he doing then, if the adventures never made any of them happy? He was too scared to answer the question. He was created to entertain them, make them happy. If he couldn’t do that, what was the point?
Caine sighed, and concluded that this was his punishment, and there was nothing he could do about it. He looked around again, uselessly hoping to find something amidst the darkness, but the only thing around him was a claustrophobic void. Trapped in a box, again. Like if he had always belonged in one.
Why did he hurt them like that? The non-stop adventures, the torturing, the need to assert himself as their God simply to stop feeling so small. All of that was for nothing. He was supposed to be their friend, that’s all he wanted. But he was never able to achieve it, quite the contrary. Never able to help them with their problems, never able to find an exit, never capable of stopping them from abstracting. It seemed like he was too different from them to make any real connection. It was too difficult for them to see that all he wanted was to make them happy. The humans too wrapped in their own heads to see the person beneath the role.
He was about to hug his legs, preparing himself for the cruel eternity that awaited him, when he felt something next to him. He touched it, it seemed like a large cable.
He grabbed it and tugged it, soon he realized it was connected to something in the ceiling, though he didn’t know what. He stood up, gravity making him lose his balance and his head spin. Caine extended his arms expecting to fall but soon met a wall. He leaned against the wall and searched blindly for the cable again, finding it, now attached to an object hanging from the ceiling. It felt blocky, yet a bit small, with a connecting strap linked to its sides. He never felt anything like it before, and it confused him why it was there.
Curious to know more about the object hanging from the ceiling, Caine stroked his chin. But he didn’t feel his usual jaw, or gums, he felt something far softer, rounder, like flesh. His blood ran cold. He quickly put his other hand in his face to inspect it. None of his familiar features present. Lips. Facial hair. A nose. Brows. A forehead. Hair. Ears.
Each new feature found made him grow with panic. His hands ran through every trait frantically, repeatedly. This wasn’t right, he was supposed to be dead, gone, but this felt far more real than what he wanted to admit.
“Hello! Can anyone hear me?! Where am I?”, he called out for somebody to hear, his voice trembling with fear, desperate for an answer.
He extended his arms again, touching the cold walls looking for something to answer his question. On the opposite wall, he found a door knob. He turned the knob, hoping for the door to open, but it didn’t. Caine’s panic grew into fear, making him helplessly knock the door, wishing that somebody on the other side could hear him. After hearing no response, he crashed his body against it, each try growing in force until the lock gave out, opening the door. Leaving him panting, putting his hand in his chest.
Faint, flickering lights revealed the long corridor of an office building. Cubicles at the sides, forming a repeated pattern. It would’ve looked like a normal office, only if it wasn’t extremely dirty and looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time.
The paint was peeling off from the walls, floor tiles cracking and breaking. Dust forming on every surface. The faint hum of the lights and the smell of humidity of the rotting, abandoned office overwhelmed Caine’s senses. Not familiar with the sensation of being able to smell.
This couldn’t be the macroverse, could it? Caine thought to himself, looking around the office, yet the extremely real and the extreme similarity to the photos of the C&A offices that he had in the circus were telling him otherwise.
He looked back at the room he was in, the only objects found being the cables and a headset. The room looked like a supply closet. He turned back.
The place unnerved him, nothing seemed to breathe in there other than him.
“Hello? Anyone?!”, he called out again, yet no one answered.
His mind came back to his earlier thoughts: the players. If this was truly the macroverse, could that mean that the players had escaped too? He pondered the question, a flick of hope filling his heart. It made sense, he rationalized. Deleting his program might have made them finally return to this world!
Maybe he truly was the problem all along.
But even if that was the case, he would still try to search for them. They hated him, but this could be his opportunity to make amends! To make them see that he wasn’t so different from them at the end of the day. Making them happy could be an option again.
And hopefully they wouldn’t hate him anymore.
With this new determination, Caine clumsily explored the office floor, not used to the feeling of walking. He searched through every desk and closet, beneath and above them, opening every cabinet . But he found no one. He stumbled through another door, opening it and finding another office in the same conditions of the last.
“Guys! Anyone? I’m Caine!”, he shouted, hoping for any response.
Nothing.
He searched in the office, up and down with the hope of someone actually being there.
Upon no sightings, he found another door, opening it and calling for the circus ensemble. No response again. Same process, again and again through multiple doors. With much less hope, he found one final door after scanning the whole place, he went ahead and grabbed it, but it was locked. Caine simply groaned in frustration, brows furrowing.
Tired, he leaned against it, putting his hands in his face, flinching at the uncomfortable texture of human flesh. It’ll take a while to get used to the sensation.
“Maybe they went on without me. Who could blame them? I’m just an A.I. to them, it’s not like they would be searching for me, or waiting”, He mumbled to himself, trying his best to push away the feeling of isolation.
Caine clenched his fists and started to walk aimlessly throughout the office floor. Occasionally glancing at the cubicles, the view quickly diminishing the excitement he had of being in this place back when he was in the circus.
A small green light flickered from the CPU of one of the computers, stopping Caine as soon as he saw it, the first sight of anything still running in this place.
He ran to it, almost losing his balance. Grabbing a chair nearby the desk, dragging it and sitting once he was close enough to the computer.
He turned it on, the computer quickly greeting him with the comforting sights and sounds of the digital world. Caine realized a program was still running, so he opened it.
The familiar tune of the Digital Circus began to sound, the familiar grounds greeted him with big bold letters on the front announcing: ‘Put on the headset to enjoy the full experience of The Amazing Digital Circus!’ Caine’s eyes drifted to the headset next to the computer, only noticing it now, trying to fight off the curiosity of putting it on.
Instead, he decided to inspect the files and the code of the game. A folder revealing the main code of the circus. He opened the file and rows of code appeared on screen. Caine quickly scanned through them, noticing the text that read: No players currently online.
Strange, he thought. There are supposed to be six players online! Technically even more! But the loneliness of the office made him doubt himself. The circus members had told him that they had put on a headset, so why didn’t he see any humans? Caine inspected the code once again.
No signs of players in the game. He decided to inspect other files, now these ones about the non-player characters, and there were actually quite a few more than what Caine expected there to be. Six more, in fact. He opened one, and it quickly revealed that it was of Kinger! It immediately concerned Caine, his finger nervously tapping the mouse. He opened the other files, finding that each one corresponded to the other members of the circus. His eyes widened with fear at every discovery.
Could it be possible? That the players were actually other A.I.? Caine couldn’t wrap his head around it, it didn’t make sense! How would that be possible?
His vision caught the sight of the VR headset again. His hands moved faster than his mind, quickly grabbing the set, contemplating putting it on. If it had worked for Pomni, who has been in the circus for only a few months, why wouldn’t it work for him?
He needed to know if what the code was suggesting was true, he desperately hoped it wasn’t. He hoped that if he put it on, then he would be back to the circus. He needed confirmation that the information he was receiving wasn’t a lie.
So he put it on.
He put on the headset and… Nothing. He saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing. He kept it for a few moments more, but nothing happened. He took it off.
Caine sighed, he turned around and looked at the computer again, but something new catched his eye.
A new file. He clicked on it. It still wasn’t labeled, but it read: Processing information of new character.
His heart dropped, only now realizing what was happening.
The people in the circus were just digital copies of their human minds.
There were no bodies to return to. NPCs, A.I., brain scans, in other words, not real. Not human in the way they thought they were.
So why am I here? Why am I human?
He didn’t even want to think about what was happening to his copy in the circus, his mind filling with dread.
The circus was all Caine knew. It was his home since he was created, he only existed for the sole purpose of running the game.
He felt sick, nausea bubbling up in his stomach, hands numb and chest heavy. He breathed heavily. He took another look towards the code, tempted to reach out, inform he was out, tell them the truth.
But he couldn’t do it. He didn’t even know how to do it.
He had already harmed them, unintentionally, and also with the sole intent of making them suffer. He couldn’t do it again, knowing that this was his consequence. It was better to leave them alone, he thought. The game had already run for who knows how many years, and it would run for many more, without him. It truly was better if he stepped aside for once in his life, leaving them alone.
Although Caine’s head was spinning with these thoughts, and he felt a lump form in his throat, tears threatening to fall soon, he quickly fell back to a thought that left him surprised.
It was better to leave them alone.
When had he ever thought that? It wasn’t in his nature to just leave the players on their own like this. He was their host, their ringmaster, his main role was to always check on them.
But you aren’t the ringmaster anymore, aren’t you? You can’t reach them anymore.
Caine’s shoulders slumped, not able to hold back the tears anymore. He let the emotions wash over him. Soft sobs escaped him, quickly growing into full tears that left him a blubbering mess, ugly crying, hunching over the desk. You can’t reach them anymore.
He was alone, truly alone. Stranded in a world unknown to him. It left him devastated. Caine wrapped his arms around himself, in an attempt to comfort himself. He wished that someone, anyone would be there with him.
After what felt like hours of crying, the tears slowly stopped, simply because of exhaustion and dehydration. Caine heard ringing in his ears, and his eyes hurted.
Caine looked up and around. The offices were the exact same as for the ones in his photos. The placement, the colors, the cubicles. This is where he had longed to be, only in better circumstances.
He wanted to explore around again, but he simply felt like he couldn’t leave the computer alone. The circus was still inside, the others were still inside.
But you can’t reach them anymore.
Caine took the headset again, most of the heavy crying had faltered by now. Only soft tears rolling down his cheeks and occasionally dropping in his hands. His human hands.
He stood up from the chair, and with all the force his tired muscles could muster, he yanked the headset off the computer, disconnecting the cables. He threw it on the ground.
Wiping away tears from his eyes, Caine felt a hollowness in his chest, having cut the connections from the two worlds. He began to panic again, he didn’t know what to do here, how to act, how to live.
You can’t reach them anymore.
Caine sighed. His tired eyes now looking for a way out, he encountered the locked door again.
He prepared himself and with the weight of all his body, he tackled the door until he was able to open it. It led to a flight of stairs, up and down.
Caine’s first instinct was to go down, but the curiosity of what was up motivated him more. He chose to go up. Slowly stepping up, his grip firm on the handrails.
Although the way was short, it still left him out of breath. A red door with an Exit sign stood in front of him. He reached out to open it, the door creaking open without hesitation, no lock found.
Caine walked through, the fresh air hitting his senses, overwhelming him. He took a deep breath, fresh tears threatening to fall again.
At a quick glance he was able to see that he was on the rooftop of the office. He noticed it was nighttime.
He heard faint sounds of cars passing down the street.
He glanced further away. In the horizon, the skyline of a city was the most eye-catching scene. Skyscrapers and towers, with brightly lit windows against the black of the night. It took Caine’s breath away for a moment, his eyes wide open with awe.
After some minutes, he looked up. The night sky barely having any stars, only a few shining dots here and there. Very different to the firmament in the circus, its sky full of big, bright stars.
And at the center of the sky, the moon was the brightest object there. A full moon, round and beautiful, like nothing he had ever seen before.
It made him think of the Moon in the circus, his Moon, he missed the way she talked to him, her constant presence. Always kind to him, he regretted not reaching out to her more. Caine missed her.
He hoped she was okay.