Chapter Text
You always had wanted to explore abandoned buildings.
Naturally, when one day your friends had suggested doing so in your city, you decided to give it a shot! You all went out as a group together and decided to explore an abandoned office building, having talked it over as a group and deciding something smaller like that would be better the first time rather than something like an abandoned hospital.
The day arrives, and it's like any other outing, you might be a little nervous but moreso you're just excited! The group arrives an hour or so before it gets dark, to scope the place out from the outside and avoid anybody like security or someone who might have no other place to stay besides somewhere like this. Many thoughts cross your mind, and this is all suddenly very real.
You're standing at the entrance, maybe joking with your friends, but also all of you are incredibly locked in, focused on the task at hand. You get in the building just as the sun is setting and its getting darker, just enough cover of darkness. Your friends pull out their flashlights, maybe one of them starts recording, and maybe you cling to one or two out of the group you're closest with, or maybe you're the type to crack a joke. Either way, you and the group delve further into the abandoned office building, some people splitting off (which, you decidedly think is not the smartest idea, but its not a huge office building, anyway, so what's the harm?)
Now that you're in the building, it's kind of...boring. It's a little spooky, but you feel safe enough that cubicles and papers scattered everywhere just...isn't what you expected. Maaaybe the youtube videos you watched sensationalized this experience just a bit too much. Anyway, you starts picking up papers, listening to the background noise of your friends goofing around, and reading what's on them. Most of them are pretty lengthy, not what you were guessing this office was used for. They talk about AI a lot on some of these papers. Most of the words you can't particularly understand, but with it being nearly 2018 and all, you understand what AI is, but you were thinking of it as like...cleverbot, not as advanced as some of these papers seemed to be pointing towards. This was extremely interesting, the more you read.
You spend a good bit, nearly an hour, just reading papers about the types of AIthis 'C&A' company was working on, even talking your friends over at one point. Eventually, one of your friends calls everyone to the other room and exclaims that they found a 'VR Headset'. You and the rest of your friends run to go check it out excitedly. You inspect it first, and it seems really modern, surprisingly so because this technology really only got popular relatively recently. You wonder what this is doing in an office space, but some of the papers you read kind of give you an idea, this has to be somw kind of interactive AI VR headset. At least, that's what you tell your friends right before you put it on jokingly, not thinking it's going to work.
It does. The computer connected to it turns on by itself, your friends scream, and you...go slack. Atleast, your body does.
It feels incredibly painful. You put the headset on one second, and the next second, you're seeing visuals you can only assume are reminiscent of some kind of bender or drug trip episode or SOMETHING. You try to reach for your head, screaming for your friends to help you, and suddenly you're transported to a dark grey void.
"W-wait-" Most of what you see in front of you is grey, a stark contrast to the office building you were just in. You look down at your hands and legs and they are NOT the same. They....look humanoid, but also....glitchy? "What...." is all you can really manage. You dont know what your face looks like, but your body is now a lighter shade of grey in a humanoid form with glitches going through your body almost like you're not stable. It hurts.
You look around the "room" trying to come up with ANY explanation as to what is happening. You can't really. A bad dream maybe? But this is....incredibly real. You look behind you when you see a giant almost cartoon trash can, with a bunch of random, some colorful items in the trash bin. You also see a....man? In a red suit but...his face is replaced with teeth? You can really only manage to give a 'deer-in-headlights' look towards the...man? Thing? Before he approaches you. You consider running quickly but...to where, exactly? This place doesn't look like it ends.
"A new human?" The man says quietly
You scream. "YOU'RE REAL? YOU CAN SPEAK? WHAT- WHO ARE YOU?!" you say, jumping back.
The man shoots you a look, and just sighs.
"Listen, human, this is confusing for both of us. I didn't think it'd be possible for ME to be DELETED, let alone another HUMAN to somehow wind up here of all places." He looks confused, like he's thinking.
You...don't really know what to do. None of this makes sense. You're so confused, so your brain takes over and you start running off into the endless...grey? The man, if you can call him that, just...sighs...as he watches you.
This goes on for a while. He eventually decides to make his fist big, grabbing you, and bringing you closer to him, holding you so you can't run and basically you're forced to look at him. At the same time, he jumps up, or rather floats, out of the trashbin and comes down to the grey void floor with you.
"M'kay, I'M gonna level with you here-" he starts off slightling unhinged, ignoring the screaming you're doing after being grabbed. "Normally I'd be a lot kinder, but i've been in this STUPID trash in because of these UNGREATFUL humans like you-" he says, giving you a pointed look, gripping harder. It hurts, but not as bad as the glitches on your body every once in a while.
"They DELETED me, their ringmaster, and i've been alone in here for a while. And I don't really feel like watching you lose your mind and abstracting, so I need you to suck it up and listen to what i'm about to say-!" He says very matter of factly, like its an order. It actually oddly gets your attention. You stop screaming...for now. This is scary.
"Okay, first things first, my name is- or I guess used to be, Caine. What's yours?"
You stare at him, blinking, literally just hoping this somehow ends.
"Oh- HAH! Right. You humans forget your name when you transition to the digital plane. Okay, what would you like to be called?"
"Um..." you say "I-I- don't know? The only thing I understand is that...that's a trash bin-" you say, pointing towards the giant cartoon trash nearby.
"Okay, trash bin it is!" Caine says, floating both of you in the air briefly, also, by now he's shrunk just a bit, but he still has a grip on you.
"Well, trashbin, normally I would explain that you've stumbled upon a world of wacky adventures led by me, Caine, your ringmaster!" He says, beaming. You can tell he's excited to talk to someone.
"But I was deleted, as previously mentioned. And you somehow got into the world of the circus, but got directly deleted too. Hmmm-" he says, putting his free hand to his chin in a thinking gesture.
"I...put a headset on?" You say, recalling it.
"Yes, yes, trashbin..." he says, clearly lost in thought.
This guy Caine isn't much help.
Also...it's just now fully catching up to you now that you've calmed down a bit and had the situation somewhat explained to you that he thinks your name...is trash bin.