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Pomni’s eyes fluttered open, another day in the circus. After two months, a sense of normalness had come to displace dread and uncertainty. It came from getting to know the others; they all acted a certain way and added structure to the otherwise chaos of it all. She got up and made her way to the common area. They stood around awaiting Caine and his instructions. Ragatha waved at her. Jax looked annoyed, Kinger stood doing nothing, and Gangle and Zooble were giggling with one another.
Then he appeared,
“ HELLO, MY JUMPING JACALOPES, TODAY WILL BE A FREE DAY! JUST DO WHAT YOU WANT, FOR TOMORROW'S ADVENTURE WILL BE A DOOZY.”
And with that, he was gone. Nice, a free day, maybe Ragatha could teach her to bake, or maybe they could play cards, or maybe… Her thoughts were interrupted by a voting box pop-up. She couldn’t read what it said, but she voted yes anyway. That would probably end well, right? The vote tended with 2 no’s and 4 yes’s. Suddenly, Jax let out a loud groan and doubled over.
“F$#@!” He yelled out, they turned around, and saw a red stain spreading on the back of his overalls.
‘Huh, how is this possible?!’ A frightened thought came to mind.
She thought they couldn’t experience these things here. Until she thought back to the voting box, the one she voted yes on, and didn’t read. Oh Nooooooooo! Jax sat hunched over on the floor, groaning in pain, and Gangle and Zooble were laughing as Ragatha started to scold them. That solved the mystery of who suggested the modifier. Welp, since no one was helping him, guess she had to. She really didn’t want to do this. Like, really didn’t want to do this. He had been a real $#@hole to everyone, but he was human and deserved kindness. She slowly approached the agonized man who was now curled on the floor and kneeled down.
“Hey, how about I help you up and-” she was interrupted. “I don’t want your f$#@ing help, leave me *augh!*” He gripped his stomach tighter.
She put her arm around his back and attempted to lift him. Slowly, he stood up, averting his gaze from her, arm still clenched around his stomach. Together, they trekked up the stairs.
She spoke softly to him. “Okay, so the plan is to get you new overalls and into the bathroom. Then I will call Caine and get him to fix this. How does that sound?” She heard a sniffle, and he nodded.
Man, he must really be in pain, she’d never seen him cry except during fits of laughter. They then started to walk to his room, a couple of times he let out a hissing sound from between his teeth, and they had to stop. Eventually, they got there, and Jax disappeared into his room. She hated to admit she was worried about him. What if he cramped too much and couldn’t move or passed out? He despised her, yet she couldn’t help but care about him. After some time, the door opened, and an exhausted, pitiful-looking Jax emerged, a clean pair of overalls tucked under his armpit. Her arm returned around him, and the walk to the bathroom at the end of the hall started. Why there was a bathroom and why it was at the end of the d$#n hall was a mystery. They arrived, and he slipped inside. Now to call Caine! Hopefully, he would appear; sometimes, the ringmaster wouldn’t show up even after screaming for him ten times.
“Caine! Caine!! I need you!”She bellowed out.
“YES?” He startled her by appearing right behind her. “Jax has a modifier on him, and he needs it off.” She told him.
“BUT WHY MY BABY BALUGA? THE MODIFIERS ARE FUN?” He questioned in surprise. “Well, Jax is currently in agony and not having fun at all!” She normally put up with Caine’s naïveness, but now wasn’t the time.
“WELL, THAT’S NO GOOD! CONSIDER IT GONE.” He spoke, then he snapped his fingers. “ANYTHING ELSE?” He asked.
“Nope, that was all, thanks.” And with that, he disappeared again.
Now to see if Caine actually made good on his promise. She knocked on the door,
“Jax, has the um.. bleeding and cramping stopped?” God, this was awkward. There was palpable silence until a voice spoke.
“ Uh, well, the bleeding has, but I still feel like s#@t I might stay here for a bit.” There was a pause. “Oh, and if you tell anyone about this, I will put 5 snakes in your room. Now leave me alone!”
Good to hear he was feeling better, he was back to being an $#!hole. She made her way back down to the common lounge, hoping to recover from the ordeal. Kinger must have gone back to his pillow fort, and the two girls and Zooble were sitting on the couches. Gangle sat drawing while Zooble and Ragatha, the furthest from each other, on different couches, averting their gazes, looking angry. She figured the conversation that started when she took Jax didn’t end well. When she reached the area with the couches, Ragatha perked up and plastered on a sense of cheeriness.
“Hi, Pomni!” She chirped out.
“So, Ragtha, do you know what the whole Jax situation was about? It was pretty strange.” She asked.
Ragatha’s face fell to one of annoyance again.
“Ask Zooble.” She stated bluntly.
Okay, looks like I was right about the whole conversation being s@!t.
“So, Zooble, what do you know about the Jax thing?” Zooble glared at Ragtha, their antennae twitching. Gangle sat focused intensely on her drawing, paying no mind, it seemed.
“Well, Jax said that period pain was a joke, and that girls were just exaggerating. So Gangle and I decided to make him eat his words.” Gangle snickered at this.
“It was all in good fun, but Ragatha felt butthurt and thought it was too cruel. Like, give me a f$#@ing brake, will all the s#@t he’s pulled! This is nothing!” Zooble continued their annoyance, growing with each word.
“Well, two wrongs don’t make a right, you're old enough to know that!” Ragtha retorted.
“Oh, please! I know you’ve been wanting to take retribution, you've just been too weak to do it!” Zooble had stood up and walked towards her.
“You have no right to put-” Ragatha had started to yell before she got in front of them and said, “Enough! You and Gangle did act immaturely, but Ragatha, you are acting no better now. Fighting isn’t going to reverse what happened! Besides, Jax doesn't even have the modifier on anymore! So pipe down!!”
The three just stared at each other, and even Gangle stopped to look at them.
“ Gosh, you're right, it’s just Jax has just been relentless lately. I just couldn’t take him being punished or guilty for it. I’m sorry for fighting you.” Zooble said, looking ashamed.
“No, I’m sorry. I should have said something. I hope you’ll forgive me.” Ragtha responded; she appeared even guiltier than Zooble.
They hugged, and Pomni took her seat beside Ragatha.
Man, what a crazy start to a day.