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The first time she wakes up, she’s alone.
Everything is blurry most of the time. There’s the gentle rhythm of a rocking floor, warm and soft colors, peace. Sometimes there’s flashes of light, and then there’s fear, and anger, and screaming. Nothing really serious. Sometimes parts of memories leak in. A laughing frog under the stars, and contentment. A shaking clown, gripping tight to a gun, and sadness. A blurry, static body on the ground, and too many emotions to recognize. Sometimes these memories last for hours, days, and sometimes for only seconds. Sometimes there’s more memory than color, sometimes more color than memory. Sometimes she even forgets they’re her own memories, watches them like a passerby. Sometimes it’s not a memory, she doesn’t think this one is real, it feels wrong, it feels like it never happened, but she’s watching it anyway, and then she’s drifting again. Sometimes she remembers being under a pink light, grief not for herself but for the one running to her, the one who was going to miss her, the one clinging to her legs and breaking. And then fear, and a pounding heart, and a flash of light. And then, after just a few moments of terror, something wrapped around her shoulders, and pulling her to safety, to the darkness, to the soft colors that lulled her to peace again.
It’s like that for a long while. She doesn’t know how long. A few months? A few years? A couple seconds? Time doesn’t matter here, it never did. That kind of thinking was probably what was keeping her in sleep for so long, not that she thought it consciously. Everything was jumbled, and music sounded in her ears. On occasion, she recognized a soothing voice or careful pat from somewhere else, somewhere far away and right next to her. The weight of a body falling asleep against her side, soft reassurances as someone led her back to the dark. She couldn’t really see them, though, could only wonder what they might be before falling back into the color and the music. It wasn’t real music, it was only in her head, but she heard it all the same.
She stood under the pink light again, but before she could feel anything but resignation, she opened her eyes, and there was no stream of color, no music at all. It was far too quiet, and that’s why she would slip back into sleep again. The silence nearly broke her ears. But she could see a pale blue ceiling. It might’ve been striped. She wasn’t sure. It looked soft, that ceiling. Cozy. She was somewhere cozy, curling up into a hole made just for her. She glanced to the side and saw pillows, far too many pillows than she would ever know what to do with, and wondered which memory this was. She heard the hum of that mysterious music again, and she closed her eyes, and went back to sleep.
Then it’s back to how it was. Colors and shapes and peace. But this moment felt different, and while most of these memories just fly through her mind, appearing and disappearing like a gentle breeze, this one stays. When she’s floating in darkness, she finds herself distracted from the tune and thinking back to the pillows. When she’s watching the frog wring her hands, saying something about a café, she wonders about the blue ceiling. She wasn’t used to this. Thinking about something that wasn’t right in front of her– thinking at all– wasn’t what she was supposed to do. She was supposed to stay midair, and stay in one place. But her mind drifted, and she couldn’t help it. To the blue and the pillows and the quiet.
The second time, she’s still alone. She was under the pink light, and she was making noise at someone behind her. (Sometimes she understands language. Sometimes she can’t. Right now, she can only think about the light that rests on her shoulders.) Then she’s seeing the blue again, and this time she lasts a bit longer, feeling her arm and wondering why it’s so long and skinny. She tries to sit up and fails, and her arm is black, which is right and wrong at the same time. She’s still staring at the ceiling. Something weighs heavily on her chest. She looks, and sees something pink, above a swirl of purple and black, but that’s about it. She lays on the pillows, and sleeps again.
She thinks about that purple and black. It felt new. Not a lot of things felt new, and not a lot of new things felt good. She thinks the pink had been there before. She’s not entirely sure. She wonders, if she goes to this memory again, if she can lift her arm this time. She can lift her arm in memories, but it’s not really her arm, it’s the arm of someone from long ago, someone that she might’ve been but she’s not quite sure, someone whose eyes she sees out of but whose mind is a puzzle she could never hope to solve. She fades back into the color and the music, and sometimes the light and the panic, but not back to that blue ceiling for a long time.
And then she’s under the pink light again. She’s been to this memory more times than she could ever count, and yet hardly at all. She’s speaking, and she can’t understand the words, and someone is behind her. There’s arms around her, and she hears a light voice, and then that voice speaks again, but it’s saying something unfamiliar. Something strange.
She squints open her eyes, and she feels like she doesn’t have enough eyes, and there’s the pillows again. She can see beneath them, though, beneath a pile and a slope, and on the ground is the clown, sitting with her back to her, reciting some story that sounded interesting if only she could separate the words in her mind. She watches the clown for a while, and then feels tired, and closes her eyes again, and she has too many eyes, and she hears a soft, gentle gasp as she slips back into sleep.
Then there’s more gentle touches, cautious voices, that slip through the cracks. Through the times when everything’s too loud and too much and too bright, there’s more hands on her, telling her she’s not alone, than there ever were before. In the times when she’s at peace, when she’s in a daze and her mind is buzzing, she should only hear the music, that music she could never describe, but the music is now joined by those voices. Sometimes they sing to a different tune. Sometimes the same one. Sometimes they are just speaking; calmly, carefully.
She thinks she can remember words sometimes. “Safe.” “Miss you.” “Long time.” “Please.” “Home.”
She remembers being afraid, and running down the street with nothing but the clothes on her back. She remembers being hungry, and cold, and telling herself that if she doesn’t think about it, it will go away. She remembers watching colors dance on the television and wanting to draw. She remembers a hug that makes her feel safe. She remembers a hug that makes her feel trapped. She remembers a hug that she feels like she doesn’t deserve. Deserving is such a strange concept, it only comes up just then after so long. The idea that she should have something, that something should be allowed to her for pure reason of being. She doesn’t have anything in this state, she only has pieces of herself that tell her if she is safe or not. Does she even deserve that? She thinks she may have been a bad person. She thinks she may have been a scared person. She thinks that neither cancel out the other, and that thought almost wakes her up again. She’s watching the shifting colors and shapes, and they turn into pillows, and she reaches for them, but then they’re gone again. She hears a voice, though. Distant. Echoing. “Did you see…?”
Something grows in her chest, and it takes her a long time to realize it’s not her own feeling spreading in there. It’s something she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Not since she was a child, she thinks, though she barely remembers what a child is. She remembers being small and afraid but trusting, and then that trust was gone, and she was just small and afraid. But then that feeling spreads, through the colors and the flashes and the dreams, and when she can think in words for a few seconds, she places a name to it. Hope. It’s not her hope, though. It’s someone’s. And maybe it would become hers. Maybe in time.
There are still dreams, and memories, and not-memories, and music. But the music gets quieter sometimes, and the voices get louder. Saying new things, things she wants to remember. She’s shouting at the frog in the snow, but her mind is on a quiet, shaking voice saying something about a game. She’s running an enemy off a cliff, but she’s remembering the shape of the clown beneath the pile of pillows. She’s floating in mid-air, surrounded by color, but all she can think about is a dark, blanketed fort, where someone is trying to speak to her.
She dreams for another long time, or maybe it’s all over immediately. She’s under the pink light again, and it’s warm, and she doesn’t think it felt warm before. Someone’s behind her, and hugging her, and she recognizes the words. And she’s kneeling down and hugging the shape back, embracing this figure back. There’s a name to that figure. It’s so close, she can feel it. And suddenly she wants to feel it. She hasn’t wanted in a long while. Suddenly the passivity, the peace, feels wrong. She’s hugging the figure close and there’s water in her eyes. And she says something, and she knows the words.
“I don’t want to go.”
And she doesn’t.
There’s a flash of light, and a fear, and a gentle arm around her, and peace. And then she opens her eyes.
The blue ceiling. The pillows. But she can sit up now. It takes effort, yes, and it’s hard when the pillows keep slipping under her shaking fingers, but she’s got herself upright, and the blue ceiling is now a blue wall, and she can see an enclosed space. Lots of pillows, a few rolled-up bags. Nightlights shaped like stars and moons, turned off. She knows what nightlights are. She remembers having one as a child, before she was told she was too old for it. She remembers being a child. She remembers being too old for things, except that wasn’t quite true. She didn’t think anyone could be too old for anything.
She loses her balance and topples down the pillows, and lands on the floor. The floor is hard, but the pillows are soft, so only part of her aches. She breathes in, and she can suddenly breathe, and how long as it been since she breathed? Her arm is numb, and it feels like that static and that peace, and she almost slips away again. But she sits up again, and her foot taps on the ground, and she can feel toes. She looks at her hand and it’s yellow. There’s still black on her arm, but there’s more purple than she remembers. Wait, no, there’s less purple than she remembers… she used to be all purple. She used to be… here. She used to be here. She’s here again.
This shouldn’t be possible, she thinks, though she’s too shaken to even really know what should be impossible at the moment. But feeling grows, that this isn’t something that’s supposed to happen, and she lays down and curls against the pillows and begins to slip away.
She starts to hear the music. She starts to see the shifting colors. But then she’s not looking at them. She’s looking at a mirror. She’s not purple anymore. She’s got brown skin, and black hair, and it’s long, longer than she thinks she’d ever let it be before now. She reaches up with brown fingers, and pulls back her bangs with a red bow. She looks in the mirror and considers. She smiles. It hurts to smile, and it hurts that she wasn’t smiling before. A familiar voice, from an unfamiliar face behind her, says that she looks good. Then they ask if she’s ready to go to the triangle. It doesn’t sound right, going to a shape, though the shapes are all that make up her world most of the time. It doesn’t sound right, but she’s nodding, and smiling, and the familiar voice calls her a name she’s never heard before, and one that sounds so, entirely, utterly right.
And she’s back. Her eyes are open, though heavy, and her breath is quick, but slowing to a steady, regular tempo. Something large must have kicked pillows away from her, but there’s still one underneath her right shoulder, her head half-resting on it and half-spilling onto the floor. An ear is on the floor. She has long ears, and they’re purple, and they’re hers.
She pushes herself up again. This time, she tries standing. Her legs ache, and they haven’t been used in a while, but she remembers how to stand. She has her arms out, to keep her balance, and she’s standing, and she hears something.
One of the voices, outside. It’s talking, and she recognizes the words, though they’re not meant for her. Talking about some kind of performance, some sheet music she’s having trouble with. She’s stumbling towards the words before she can even process who they belong to, and there’s a light on the floor. There’s a hole in the blue walls, sheets fluttering before her, and there’s light beyond it. Her eyes blink rapidly. The light is scary, the light is hot, the light is too much.
But Pomni is in the light.
She remembers her name. She remembers singing beside her. She remembers being bitten by her. She remembers the last hug. So many memories suddenly break into her at once, and she crashes to the ground with a thud that crushes her ears.
She remembers them. All of them. She remembers stepping on Gangle’s mask. She remembers Ragatha’s shaky, grief-filled voice as she makes an unfair promise. She remembers pushing Kinger back, demanding to know why he gets forgiven. She remembers throwing Zooble into fire, and she remembers pushing her mother away, and pushing her best friend away, and pushing Pomni away. She remembers everything all at once and it’s almost too much. Time slows. She thinks she hears something outside the tent, someone make a noise of surprise, but for a moment, all she can hear is… no, it’s not blood rushing to her ears. Because she doesn’t have blood. She’s not real. She’s not even her real self. At that thought, the static comes back, and that’s all she can hear, and she almost falls again.
I don’t deserve this.
But people didn’t always get what they deserved. There’s suddenly more light, and she looks up with one eye that still works as static fills her body, and she can see the lower half of Pomni, and the skirt of Ragatha. And then they’re running to her, and shouting her name– or a name she once had. It’s an alright name. She might keep it. She might not. But they’re speaking to her, and she can hear them, and there’s those familiar, comforting hands on her. Ragatha has hands on her shoulders, and Pomni has hands on her arm. Her arm is static, and it hurts, and she can feel pain again. She glances down and sees something black and sharp that glitches and hurts her eyes. But Pomni has both hands clamped above the glitch, and she’s screaming.
“No, don’t you dare! You stay right here! You stay right here!”
Ragatha’s voice is behind her, close to her ears. She can hear them both at once, but she can only process one at a time. “Please, Jax. Please, please. You’re gonna be okay. Just stay with us. Come back to us. You’re so close.”
Then she can only hear her own heart beating, her own non-existent heart, and her chest hurts as she gasps for air that she doesn’t need. Then her arm still hurts, but it’s a different kind of pain. It’s a squeeze. It’s Pomni’s hands squeezing her. She can feel Pomni’s hands and not any glitch. She can hear Pomni’s cries and can’t hear the music.
She’s awake. Her mind, which has been shaking and dancing for what feels like an eternity, is still. She can feel tears racing down her face, and the doll pressed against her back, holding her up, shaking and crying. She can feel the squeezing hands and the soft push of her overalls pressing onto her, no longer too heavy, and she blinks unusual colors out of her eyes, and all she can see is the hard floor, the projection of light, and half of Pomni.
Like coming up from under the water, she gasps, and she falls back onto Ragatha. Something is gone from her, escaping with her stunned breath, and Pomni is in front of her, hands on her cheeks, and she can feel it the whole time. Pomni’s face is in hers, at a slight distance, trying and failing to give her enough space, and she’s crying, too.
“Jax? Oh my God. Jax, please. Is it you? Is it actually you?”
She can’t remember how to speak for a moment. She looks to the side, and sees part of Ragatha’s cheek, and her red yarn hair, and she’s just as distraught. But they both have that feeling again, that hope.
She looks back to Pomni, and breathes, “Hi.”
Pomni sobs. There’s a smile that takes up half her face, and she barely manages to let out a laugh. “Holy shit.” she says. “Holy shit. It’s you.”
She tries to sit herself up. After a second, Ragatha places her back against another pile of pillows, and it’s not gonna hold her up forever, but enough to help her figure things out. She’s looking at both of them now, and they both are crying, and they shouldn’t be crying, though she thinks she might be crying, too.
“Hey, girls.” she tries to smile. It hurts. She needs to smile, though. Her head hurts and she puts a hand to it. As she does, she still sees black on her arm. She holds it out, and looks at the thick black stripe that zig-zags across her fur. “Huh. Th-that’s new.”
Ragatha laugh-cries at that. Pomni reaches forwards, petting back something above her eye. “You’ve got a couple marks,” she says. “You… God, you’ve been gone a long time.”
One more memory comes to her. “Forget it,” words she’d said ringing in her own head. She was in her room, and she’d closed her eyes, and let herself slip away. And then everything was scary and bright and things were shattering above her, and then she was under a pink lamp, and nobody would let her out. Nobody until her. That hug had not been real, had not been with real arms, but it felt real, so real, and that was what her mind had held onto for so long. It hadn’t brought her out of it. But it had kept her wondering. And then that wondering grew to a longing, which grew to a dangerous hope, which led to her clawing her way here. She had wanted to hug someone again. She had wanted to run again, to feel clothes against her, to look at stars, even if they were fake. She had wanted to live. And now she was living.
“Shit.” she said, and the word wasn’t censored. It felt nice to swear without a bar popping up in front of her mouth. “Sorry to keep ya waiting.”
Ragatha’s hugging her again. It takes her a second to register– one second, she’s looking at both women, and then suddenly she can only see her hair and feel her arms, and she almost knocks the pillows behind them down.
A deep instinct inside of her insists that she push Ragatha off of her. That she open her mouth and make some kind of stupid joke, get her as far away from her as possible. But she fights it, and she fights the static, and she’s hugging her back, and she finds herself admitting, “Ah. I missed you too, Raggy.”
She hadn’t realized she’d missed them. Hadn’t had the time, the mental space. She’d only been thinking in the present, until those memories that wouldn’t leave finally took hold. But she thinks it was because of their voices, their touches, their presence before her. She thinks the fact they stayed might be what leaked their hope through her skin and into her soul.
When Ragatha pulls away, she’s smiling. She reaches out with a heavy hand and ruffles Pomni’s hat. Pomni is laugh-crying again, and she suddenly wants them all to stop crying. She remembers saying sorry to keep you waiting. She carefully speaks another sentence, her voice dropping a little. “I think I’m sorry about a lot of things.”
“There’s plenty of time for that later.” Pomni assures her. She runs fingers over the back of her hand. It feels good. It feels real. Then, as if doubting herself, as if she should ever doubt herself, Pomni looks back up at her with fear in her eyes. “How… how long do you think you’re going to last like this? Do you think you’ll abstract again?”
She stares at Pomni for a long time, and then Ragatha, and then Pomni again, and then the light beside them. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe. But I think I’m here now. I think… I think I’m awake enough.”
Pomni beams, and wipes her eyes, and says, “That’s all we really need from you.”
She has questions, then. How long has it really been? Can they even tell, in this timeless void? When did they get color back? How’d they get a pillow fort this big? But she just ends up leaning on Ragatha as the doll lifts her to her feet, and she’s got her other arm on Pomni’s shoulder, and they’re helping her step out into the light.
The Circus looks like she remembered, and nothing like her memories at all. The same bright colors, the same large blocks and decorative blots of sky. But there’s a lift in the air, and lights of all shades staining the floor like Church glass. She follows one of the puddles of green light and sees an open portal, but nobody’s being forced in or scrambling out. There’s a round table, food half-eaten atop, each looking like a completely different kind of meal. She hears what sounds like a cartoon bounce, and swivels her head to see a Gloink, shaped like a star, rolling across the ground. It seems happy.
She feels happy.
“Redecorated?” she manages to say, and Pomni and Ragatha are laughing again.
She has strength in her legs, and she lets go of them and takes a few steps of her own. Her legs are really long, how had she never noticed that? She’s turning, looking at her girls, and at the giant pillow fort behind them. A giant fort, for a giant abstraction. One they’ve kept up all this time. And it has been a long time, she can feel it now, and she didn’t deserve that. But it’s not a question of what she deserves, is it?
There’s a lot she wants to do. She wants to tell them about her parents, and how she really feels in dresses and hairbows, and the new name she heard before she fully awoke. She wants to apologize to Gangle and actually sit down and draw with her, and bicker with Zooble until their eyes crinkled in a smile, and actually listen to Kinger now that he’s sane. Now they’re both sane. She wants to ask if she’s the first abstraction to wake up, if they can wake the others. There’s someone she needs to take stargazing.
“Wow-ee! Is that… Jax? Back from the Abstracted?”
Then all that goodwill is gone. She hears warning sirens from a film she watched a long time ago, and whips around to see a floating, red shape, bright and excited eyes inbetween rows of teeth.
“This is incredible! This is amazing! This is un-precedented! We must–”
Before Caine can finish speaking, she has already tackled him to the ground.
“Jax, no!” come the screams from Pomni and Ragatha. “Holy shit!”
“Oh my God, oh my God, let him go!”
“Jax, he’s on our side now, he’s fine!”
“He’s not crazy anymore!”
“Don’t bite him, Jax, Jesus fuck!”