Archive of Our Own

C&A was an innovative company ahead of its time.

What started off as a small, unnamed software company founded in a shabby garage that primarily developed artificial intelligence quickly garnered widespread acclaim following the release of its prototype chatbot, Scratch. A responsive and self-aware AI created through the referencing of the human brain.

This innovative breakthrough in the history of AI was made possible through the small studio's first and only major technological achievement: the brain scanning headsets.

The headsets, still an early prototype, had been able to accurately scan and break down the digital scans of the human brain into digestible data for the chatbot to study and develop with. It could easily follow conversations without the expected AI stutters or looping gibberish standard of the time. It remembered the people it was talking to, including previous conversations.

Each conversation it had even saw major improvement; the AI's sentence structures became cleaner and more concise each time. Its own databases seemed to be expanding, storing more and more data that it would use to better understand, to better communicate on a human level. It even began expressing wants and desires, feelings too.

It was learning. Developing. Growing.

It even began asking about the world outside of its little digital space, asking about its 'donor', Mike Dobby.

This wasn't just an AI mimicking the human mind. The headsets allowed for the creation of simulated humans.

The software company's mainstream breakthrough brought about the attention of a lot of intersted backers, specifically many big-name healthcare research organizations.

Though it was the Async Research Institute, a relatively small MRI production company, that managed to land a deal in the end, leading to a company merger and thus the establishment of the C&A we now know today.

Though C&A had made early statements claiming it remained adamant about continuing work on artificial intelligence, the subject of human preservation became a very popular recurring topic of discussion in the following C&A-exclusive interview tabloids.

Having successfully simulated the human mind through technologically impressive brain scans, it brought forth the question: with just a little more money and research, could the preservation of the actual human mind be a lot sooner rather than later?

In other words, was there a way for a person to survive outside of their body? To cheat death?

Mike Dobby, once just a lowly intern, now one of the leading figures of C&A, seemed thoroughly invested in this hypothesis. And thus, the goals of the original company shifted into just that. With their newly developed AI technology, incorporating Asynch's reliable knowledge regarding the human mind, and reaching out to other healthcare organizations for additional assistance, C&A was steadfast in their new objective.

And just as quickly as work began to pick up, it all suddenly just stopped.

There was nothing but dead air from C&A for the longest time. There was the occasional flyer here and there asking for volunteers to test out some side projects the company had, some offering rather generous pay. But ultimately, nothing - that is, besides the curt declaration of bankruptcy before C&A unexpectedly closed its doors sometime in the late 2000s.

It didn't take long for the intrigue and confusion about C&A's sudden closure to just… die out. It was like the world just forgot about the once innovative, self-made software company.

Well, everything except for the unexplained disappearances associated with the company.

Seven of C&A's leading programmers for the new unnamed project were all declared missing on October 15, 1999. Of the seven, only Mike Dobby's body was ever discovered.

Mike Dobby had been diagnosed with a brain tumor sometime before the merge. Online forums heavily speculated that the diagnosis played a large role in C&A's final, unfinished project. A desperate struggle for what limited time he had left? It surely did explain his reported erratic behaviors in the weeks leading to his initial disappearance.

A shame that he never got to see his project through.

Though it didn't explain what happened to his remaining six coworkers, his employers.

The answers to their whereabouts, if Mike Dobby even had them, died with him. There was nothing law enforcement could do but check his residency, which looked rather abandoned - though it only made sense, given the state of the body when the anonymous wellness check came in - but ultimately, nothing turned up.

There were rumors that, due to the sheer secrecy of the final project - the initial silence from the company before it self-imploded, having been chalked up to Mike Dobby not wanting any of their work to be stolen or plagiarized from competing companies - the C&A employees working on the project had to sign some kind of NDA of sorts.

But that did little to explain their disappearances. Who voluntarily makes themselves a missing person for their dying job?

Or maybe no one wanted to be associated with a company behind the strangest disappearance in the recorded history of Eureka, Missouri?

Jonah Best. Officially declared missing on October 15, 1996. He was just nine years old.

The kid was last seen within the C&A building, being brought there by Mike Dobby, who was watching over the boy for his coworkers and college friends, Grant and Destiny Best - two of the six still missing programmers.

According to Mike Dobby and the other C&A employees present at the time, Jonah Best had slipped from their supervision during a weekly floor meeting and had wandered out of the building.

Security cameras weren't as common as they are today. There were no witnesses within the area who noticed the unsuspected nine-year-old wandering the streets on his own.

Of course, there was speculation of foul play from a C&A employee, including the Bests. However, there was no evidence of the young boy to be found; all testimonies from hours worth of interrogations matched up, and any searches came out empty.

Jonah Best's missing posters still litter the town of Eureka today. You'll find a black and while photo of a little boy with curly red hair and a sloppy smile looking up at you from the old, weathered utility pole he'd been pinned up on for nearly two decades now. Looking at you, silently pleading at you with his discolored eyes that you might chalk up as a printing error, for any answers. Mostly just some sort of closure. Anything.

The disappearance of the remaining Bests three years later reignited even more speculations regarding the initial unsolved case. Conspiracy theories - a whole new online community was even created, dedicated purely to unraveling C&A and its bizarre, short-lived history.

But given how C&A was barely standing at this point and nothing could be tracked down to them, the 1999 cold case soon joined Jonah Best on the evidence room's dusty shelves.

In a morbid sense, the missing Bests were reunited.

Abigail's dry, tired eyes blinked wearily against her laptop's bright screen. Leaning back in her swivel chair, groaned under her shifting weight. She ran a hand down her face, letting out a long groan.

This whole topic - the discussion behind C&A as a company and all its unexplained bullshit was… frustrating.

Whether that be the time period or the incompetence of the police, it's just so frustrating that it all led up to… this.

No, not even this, nothing - it led to absolutely nothing!

It's just a tragedy. A tragedy with no ending.

Abigail is certain that if C&A were still around today, it surely would've become a corporate behemoth, out of reach to the general public, and exclusive to the few elite who could afford their services that were an affront to the natural order.

And like every corporate overlord, they all had their share of dirty secrets.

Though C&A seemed to die alongside its mysteries, the once prospective company just rotting away in obscurity, along with the many, many skeletons it no doubt had in the closet.

And that… sucks. It really sucks.

Maybe tapping into the true crime scene was a mistake. It's just… too depressing for her.

Sure, urban exploration was creepy, and maybe some of the places probably had their own share of disturbing history associated with it, but…

Abigail shakes her head, eyeing the recording files with a glare. She'd already sunk this much energy into this project; she might as well commit.

Plus, the discussion of C&A was almost exclusive to online forums; there was almost no discussion of it on YouTube. Hell, news on the initial disappearances associated with the company barely even left past the town of Eureka, simply becoming some crude local mystery that few seemed to remember today.

It was about time someone brought this back to the public's attention.

Maybe talking about it might help solve some of these mysteries. She should add the local police's number to the description just in case…

Straining her arm out, but too lazy to sit upright, Abigail snatches the energy drink off her desk, chugging the rest of the caffeinated nectar before dumping it into her overflowing trash can. How many has she gone through for the recordings today alone?

Whatever, doesn't matter. What mattered now that all the research was over and done with - and the recording files finally saved without crashing her laptop for the twelfth time - she could finally get to the fun part.

Exploring.

Abigail squints at her laptop's internal clock; the numbers blur together before her eyes can properly deduce the seemingly merging numbers.

3:57 AM

…and she'll do all that after she goes to sleep. She still has work in the morning, unfortunately for her.

She probably shouldn't have finished the rest of that Red Bull, though. Shit.

. ₊˚⊹｡. 🎪 . ｡⊹˚₊ .

Driving up to the empty C&A parking lot, Abigail… wasn't exactly sure what she was expecting.

Sure, she'd seen pictures of the place. Her thorough deep dive into the C&A rabbit hole has shown her countless photographs of the place from articles flaunting the company's successes back in its heyday. Google Maps offered her a newer perspective of the place, showing her the building since its closure - at least as of the latest Google Street View capture.

Looking at it now, it didn't look… too bad for an abandoned building.

Sure, the windows looked to have been blocked out with what looked like old newspaper - God, Abigail hoped there wasn't a homeless person taking refuge inside or something. But other than what looked like naturally built-up grime and exterior damage to the building's front, it was still intact for the most part.

Weeds ruthlessly overgrew what once looked to have been a simple little garden set up under the now decrepit company's sign, set by the front entrance. A rather impressive spiderweb had covered most of the letters.

Crawling out of her car, Abigail throws her backpack over her shoulder as she grabs for the camcorder resting on the passenger seat. She turns it on, waiting for the soft whir of the recording device to set itself up before pressing play.

Abigail pans the shot over the front of the building, narrowing in on the blocked-out windows before slowly zooming out to the obscured sign.

"So this is the C&A," she starts, clearing her voice, "what's left of it, that is. Honestly, not too bad - at least it's still standing."

The camcorder buzzes as she zooms out fully, silently recording the last of the full shot before pressing end.

A fly buzzes right by her face, straying far too close for comfort as it practically bounces between her eyes by less than an inch. Abigail flinches back, swatting half-hazardously in the air. Thankfully, the fly fucks off… for now.

Ugh, the one thing she can't stand about urban exploration is the onslaught of bugs and pests that usually take over the now-abandoned area. Best to just get inside for now.

She just hopes she doesn't walk into a room full of fly larvae again or something…

Or rats.

God, please don't let there be any rats here…

Crossing the overgrown path - the concrete walkway is nearly all cracked at this point, weeds burrowing their way out from the eroded slivers - Abigail makes for the front door.

The chances of the front entrances of abandoned places being left unlocked are usually five times out of ten - the buildings' previous owners either forgetting to close up after themselves or in too much of a hurry to bother properly locking up. You'd be surprised by just how common it is for owners to up and abandon such a huge life-investment in a heartbeat, the usual suspects being inexperienced first-time business owners that end up running their small business to the ground due to their own gross incompetence.

The times that they are locked, however, Abigail usually just has to check the back entrances, which are often just left open, being emergency exits and all that. On rarer occasions, when both entrances are unavailable, she'd have to climb in through windows - something she'd prefer not doing; it makes her feel like some prepubescent rebel.

Once, she even had to climb up the side of a building to pull herself up through a propped-up window on the second story. A fun little fact she likes to share from time to time, though she always omits having nearly shit her pants when seeing a rat chewing away at a still squirming cockroach while still dangling from the roof.

Shaking her head, Abigail tries the front handle. It gives easily.

Nice.

Stepping through the squeaking door, Abigail has to pull out the flashlight from her bag and hit play again on the camcorder before proceeding. The dark front lobby lights up for the first time in what must be years, providing her with a decent layout of the main area.

A heavy, thick layer of dust has accumulated over all the foyer's furnishings. The reception desk is the most egregious victim of this; even the large, janky monitor is coated in it. The couch pushed off to the left side of the room is heavily damaged; some major tearing in the cushions, alluding to the presence of some kind of vermin residing somewhere in the building.

Abigail shudders. Please, anything but rats.

There are a few retro-looking chairs shoved into the corner of what Abigail deduces used to be a waiting room for the dilapidated lobby. A lonely flowerpot filled with nothing but dirt sits beside the pile of discarded chairs.

Abigail points both her camera and flashlight toward the opened narrow doorway past the reception desk. Overhead, an old sign plaque reads: MAIN OFFICE.

Bingo.

"Alright," Abigail straightens herself up, fixing her clammy hold on the flashlight, "let's see what we got."

Stepping through into the new room, Abigail aims the camcorder toward the sea of countless abandoned work desks.

"Huh. Well, I guess it makes sense they left most of this stuff here. Probably couldn't even afford a U-Haul in the end." She adds, forcing a laugh as she walks down the stretching room.

Most of the desks were completely barren, left drowning in a dense carpet of dust. But some still had monitors and papers left over. Curiously, she wipes off some of the grime clinging to a stained notepad. Numbers and equations that Abigail couldn't for the life of her hope to decipher on her own filled the pages.

"Any computer wizards watching this, think you can make any sense of this?" She asked aloud, angling the shot closer to the notepad, making sure the frame was clear and steady.

Some random notes being left behind made sense, not like whoever wrote them would need them now.

As for the monitors… maybe the ones left behind were just broken? Or maybe whoever was left to pick up the pieces here just grabbed what they could and ditched the rest.

Abigail carries on, her interest piquing when she notices a door to her left. It has a simple label: ROOM 1.

Opening the door is a bit of a struggle; she pauses recording for now and grapples with turning the handle as she precariously balances it on her flashlight-holding hand. Quickly angling her light source into the now-opened room, she peers inside, only to freeze in place.

The room, much smaller than the main open office floor, was only packed with just seven work desks - this room was probably designed for a small, select team. A mobile whiteboard stood front and center next to an emptied-out water dispenser. On it was the expected programming jargon, but at the center of it, a name was circled.

C.A.I.N.E

Must have been a project they were working on, looked like some kind of anagram. Programmers were suckers for anagrams.

Abigail turned her attention back to the desks. Unlike the other barren workspaces that were cleaned out in the main office, this room still had stuff instead - personal belongings remaining.

Photo frames, thick binders lined up, pinned-up calendars with deadlines and birthdays circled in. It was all just… here.

Why was all of this just left here?

And who brings a chessboard to work?

Abigail trails the flashlight along the abandoned desk, stopping at the dusty name plate positioned beside the hulky monitor.

…Grant Best?

Abigail swallows, suddenly finding her throat dry. She looks at the corresponding workspace.

Destiny Best.

Abigail can feel her heart pounding against her ear. She shines the light to the next desk over.

Mike Dobby.

This… this was…

The missing team's office.

…did they seriously just leave this shit here? Was this like some memorial or something?

Or did C&A just forget about them like everyone else?!

…fuck.

She looks back at the whiteboard.

Was this… the secret project they were working on before they all…

Abigail turns back to Destiny Best's untouched work desk. The faint edge of the flashlight's glow brings her attention to a dusty mug with barely legible chicken scratch writing scrawled along it.

She has to squint to even read the words.

HAPY MOM DAY

An array of crudely scribbled butterflies litter the mug.

The flashlight pans up slightly, and Abigail's eyes follow. Just above the mug, taped onto the bottom right corner of the monitor, a colorized Polaroid picture sat.

Jonah Best smiles up at Abigail.

He's sitting somewhere outside, leaning on a colorfully painted bench. Judging by the oversaturated row of game booths that stretches across the backdrop and the glowing Ferris wheel illuminating the evening sky overhead, it looks to be a carnival.

Jonah Best's smile is wide, eyes shut tight from the sheer infectious giddiness captured within the precious moment in time. The cause for such delight is at the very epicenter of the photo, squeezed tight in the boy's arms. Jonah Best isn't shy about showing off an obnoxiously large stuffed bee to whoever was behind the camera.

Abigail slips out of the room, closing the door back shut.

She decides not to record this room. It felt disrespectful.

Instead, she goes deeper.

Abigail avoids the rest of the numbered rooms, instead following the infinitely stretching office until it narrows into a small hallway. From across the gendered bathroom doors on her right, she's greeted with a large double door to her left labeled: STAIRS.

Pushing through, she finds your standard fire exit opposite the stairs.

Her eyes linger on the exit door for a bit before she proceeds up the visibly worn steps.

Abigail fumbles with the play button as she pushes through the second floor's heavy doors - and God, why were these doors so heavy? These had to be violating some fire safety guidelines or something.

Catching her breath after squeaking through the doors, she finds herself in a long, stretching hallway. Immediately in front of her is a break room of sorts, judging by the elongated table and chairs scattered about.

Peeking in, she sees a coffee machine missing its pot and a cracked microwave resting on the neglected marble countertops. A bag of paper cups looks to have been knocked over at some point, as they're now scattered on the ground.

And there definitely used to be a fridge in here, if that obvious mess of cable in the wall was anything to go by.

Ignoring the bathrooms directly positioned by the break room, Abigail goes the only other available way.

The hallway to her right opens up to another wide space, though much smaller than the first floor's main office. There are noticeably fewer desks, more empty spaces; these seemed to have actually been removed from the building, judging by the scuff marks on the carpeted flooring.

But why start clearing out the second floor instead of the first? Wouldn't that have been easier?

There are more doors on the second floor, though Abigail doesn't bother checking all of them. She doesn't think checking the storage or maintenance closet would be all that interesting for her small viewer count to gawk at.

Though eventually, she reaches the end of the second floor's empty office space, coming face to face with a linear passage with a single, desolate door.

There's one of those built-in office windows to the left of it, though the broken blind makes it impossible to get a good look inside. Though squinting through the minute gaps from her crouched position, Abigail is pretty sure there's some kind of… light coming from inside.

Was this an executive's room or something? There didn't seem to be any plaques or anything.

Slipping on through the thankfully unlocked door, Abigail steadies her camcorder, taking in the room with a bewildered grimace.

It wasn't a large space, maybe about twenty feet in both width and length. But despite that, the absolute vacancy of the room made it feel that much larger, and it really was, unnervingly so.

It was an empty room, simple as that. Empty, save for the monitor and a grimy-looking headset sitting on a desk pushed up against the barren, windowless walls.

The monitor was on.

If her hands were free, Abigail would be rubbing her eyes right now.

"…okay." Abigail laughs uncomfortably, shuffling to the side of the room. "That, that can't be right. Uh, wait," she spots the web-covered light switch beside her, "let me just."

She toys with the light switch, expecting nothing to happen, but also expecting to turn around and see the monitor off, like it always was.

Maybe she was just seeing things? Maybe there was carbon monoxide or something in the building. Abandonded buildings were the go-to place to use illegal drugs - maybe she indirectly got a good whiff of something fucked on her way in,

But to Abigail's dreaded surprise, the room lights up.

That… that was impossible.

This place was shut down in 2003.

Why the fuck was there still power here?

Who the fuck was paying for the power? Because someone sure was? And why? It's not like you just, forget you're paying the bills or an entire fucking building! Was it some old senile shareholder who couldn't wrap his head around why the power bill was so high?

Or maybe just a madman? Or someone who had too much money to notice an extra charge at the end of each month.

Abigail turns off her camcorder, dropping her backpack from her shoulders and letting it plop to the ground. She shoves her flashlight inside, not like she was going to need it now, and quickly pulls out her phone.

No reception.

…okay, figures there'd be no reception here. She was in the middle of nowhere.

Abigail coughs, hiding it in the crook of her arm.

She should probably invest in face masks or something next time; these older buildings probably had toxic shit like exposed asbestos or mercury out in the open.

She needed a break.

Slipping her phone back in, Abigail pulls out her water bottle, taking a few sips to wash out the taste of dust and must clinging to her tongue. She always had granola bars on her, a light snack just in case to satiate any mid-exploration cravings, but she wasn't feeling too hungry right now.

From her crouched spot on the floor - she was not touching decades-old, unwashed carpet flooring, thank you - it gave Abigail a moment to take in a better view of the spotly-lit room.

To her left was a large push door. It was different from the rest she'd seen so far - it looked like those swinging doors you'd see in hospitals.

The expected label wasn't there; instead sat a discolored spot on the wall. A quick scan of the floor failed to find it lying around anywhere.

Weird. Maybe some bored teens snatched it as a souvenir or something.

Though even weirder was the other door in the room, a lone door tucked far off in the corner, just beside the active monitor. This one did have a plaque, several, actually.

SERVER ROOM

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

And under that looked to be a keypad of sorts.

The numbers were worn down in a distinctive pattern - probably wouldn't be too hard to figure out if you played with it a little bit.

Abigail supposes it made sense for the server rooms to be the most secure thing in here. If anyone could just go in there willy-nilly and fuck around with the ancient servers inside, C&A probably wouldn't even be able to boot up their archaic computer systems.

From the corner of her eye, the lone monitor's incessantly bright glow finally draws Abigail from her internal musings. Even now in the light, she still has to squint against the nauseatingly vibrant colors being displayed on the grimy screen.

It looks to be some sort of menu screen for what looked like… a video game?

It was… incredibly retro, to put it nicely. You can tell just how outdated it was at just a glance. What looked to be a very choppy circus tent bobbed atop a round grassy hill with an overly saturated, bright blue sky in the overlay.

Oh wait, no. The low-rendered tent was just clipping through the map.

In the center of the monitor, a grainy, bubbly line of text pulses against the screen.

INSERT HEADSET

Ah, so it was a video game. A circus-themed one at that.

Boy, C&A must have been desperate if they had to make the switch from attempting to upload the human consciousness on a hard drive to making a sensory overload nightmare aimed at kids.

And they couldn't even push this out and on shelves before they inevitably kicked the bucket. Truly tragic.

Humerously, Abigail settles herself down on the ancient office chair. She tosses her backpack as she sets her camcorder up on the desk. She makes sure it's positioned correctly on herself this time around, she is not making that mistake again, and presses record.

"So, interesting development," Abigail waves her hands, emphasizing the newly lit room. She can't help the smug smile that stretches along her face as she leans back on the creaking swivel chair. "There's still power here, despite this place being reportedly closed by 2003."

She motions at the monitor. "And they still have stuff just running here! Looks like a playtest for a VR game?"

The grossly oversaturated low-poly menu was an eyesore for sure… though an increasingly intriguing eyesore.

Abigail reaches for the headset.

"Why not test it out?" She asks her nonexistent audience.

It's only her in here.

She examines the old strap at the back of the headset, cringing at the muck staining her hands. Should she really be putting this on her head?

…it'll be just for a few seconds. Just to see what exactly C&A decided to work on during their final moments.

Then she can take her sweet time taking a gander at the server room, then making her way to the next door over.

Relaxing herself on the old swivel chair, Abigail takes in a breath as she slips on the headset.

And everything goes—

She jerks up with a startled yelp, tumbling over herself and hitting the ground. Hard.

A light ringing of bells reverberates in the unnatural silence.

With a weary groan, she pushes herself on her knees, only to balk at the scene before her.

While the game's title screen would have you thinking you'd be subjecting yourself to an eyesore of a low-poly nightmare with blindingly bright colors, instead, she found herself in a dark, liminal remnant of what looked to be some incomplete sandbox.

It was a complete one-eighty from what the title screen advertised.

Sure, there were some circus motifs, if some red curtains and a bunch of haphazardly idle balloons were enough to fill the benchmark.

But there were other things scattered here, too. Completely illogical things. She could make out a handful of miscellaneous items scattered within the dimly lit radius around her that had no place for a supposedly carnival-themed map. An upside-down car tucked under an untextured tree, randomly sized shapes that were majorly desaturated, and a lot of incomplete twirling slides that seemed to merge with the ground.

It was all… disjointed, completely fucking incoherent! It was like someone was asked to describe a circus without ever having seen it.

It was also dark. Way too dark to actually get her bearings. The only light source in here seemed to be the occasional bulbs dangling down. Looking up, she doesn't see any of these bulbs. Instead, she's met with an unending ceiling of the circus tent.

That infinite feeling also seemed to be the case with the checkered flooring, which stretched past the unilluminated portions of the dreary circus.

She finds herself stumbling back, overwhelmed by the state of this video game. Her attention lands on the elevated platform she'd been standing on, which she quickly deduces to be a stage of sorts.

She turns around. A large red curtain drapes over the backstage area, so big in fact that it piles over itself, creating a heavy heap on the floor. Nothing worth investigating over there then.

Turning back, she's met with a floating bubble just inches away from her face. It blinks at her, all bug-eyed, barring a pair of razor-sharp fangs.

"Hiya!" It snaps, its voice shrill and laced heavily with a mocking tone.

"Ah!" She jumps back, her startled jerk followed by that soft yet incessant jingle of bells that's starting to really get on her nerves. Hands fly up in a preemptive measure to shield herself from this seemingly sentient talking bubble.

But it's not her hands that are stretched out in front of her.

Stubby, mismatched pairs of red and blue clown gloves slowly flip around, back and forth. Fingers rub against thumbs, but instead of flesh on flesh, she can only feel a weird, rubbery texture. Her hands weren't inside the gloves; they—

They were the gloves.

…okay, cool. Pretty impressive work, C&A. Who knew they had the technology back then to stimulate touch and shit. Well, maybe they should've pushed this out into the market instead of letting the company burn into the ground.

Welp, she had her fun. Time to get out of this… this.

"Huh." She balks, slapping her cartoonish gloves against her face.

Her face… wasn't her face. It was smooth, wide. She was missing her nose. Whatever stupid avatar this game put her in wasn't a human model, that's for sure.

But the most damning observation was the lack of a headset that should be on her face.

"…what the fuck?"

Why, why couldn't she find it? This didn't make sense; why couldn't she feel anything, why couldn't she feel anything outside of this stupid game? This, this isn't how VR headsets work. There's no way C&A was this technological.

M-Maybe she was looking in the wrong spot? She was probably just disoriented - the game must just be fucking up her perception, is all. She just had to look higher, haha!

Her hands trail from her face to her head, where something sits. Ah, there it is! Panic over nothing, haha!

She reaches for it, but it's not the headset. It's large, sagging outward. Pressing on it seems to set off the bells.

She finally notices the bells dangling from the corner of her eyes. She can feel her eye twitching.

Was she wearing a fucking jester hat?!

She grabs at the ends, pulling down on them hard. Fuck, was it connected to her head or something? Why did this hurt?

The dangling ends of the obnoxiously large hat slip out from her hold; the bells jingle violently.

Wait. She hitches, her body freezing up in a dreaded realization. Wait, no. Fuck, God no.

No matter how much she prodded and reached, she couldn't interact with anything outside of this game. Which meant…

She tries to swallow, but her throat suddenly feels clogged. Her trembling lips are pinched into an ugly pout; a steady pressure builds up behind her eyes.

She couldn't take off the headset.

She… she…

Wait.

What… what was her name?

Her hands curl up tightly as her shoulders stiffen, gloved fingers somehow digging into her palms.

She, she can't remember. She chokes, a surprised cough causing her stiff body to shudder.

She can't remember her—

The smiling bubble suddenly invades her space, leering down at her with a sadistically satisfied grin.

She lurches back with a frustrated hiss, blinking away the stinging in her eyes. She's about ready to give the stupid bubble a piece of her mind when she notices a second one floating off to the side. It's tilted over at some point, staring off into the backstage.

Since when were there two of them?

She turns to the closer bubble, who simply smiles wider. Its eyes squint dangerously tight against the straining grin.

"Lookie, lookie! Another one!"

A similarly shrill voice screams into her ear. She twirls around with a shriek. Another one appears to her right, wearing a cheeky smile that puffs up its bubbly cheeks.

"Ooo, this is gonna be good!"

One lowers down from overhead; an elongated tongue slithers from between its teeth as it leers at her with a predatory grin.

"Fresh fish, fresh fish!"

A new one shoves through the other, encroaching around her, jutting in her face despite the other's protest. They pull back, forced to fight among the rest to catch a quick peek at her.

"Wowie, a new one?"

There's an eager holler as a new bubble spins above, its simple model too restraining to convey its excitement properly.

"It's still possible?!"

She stumbles back, eyes falling onto the stage as the surrounding voices grow louder, mushing together in a gross garble. She heaves, trying to steady herself against the nauseatingly disorienting racking of her body. But all that comes out from her is a sad, hoarse wheeze. Her chest feels way too tight, way too constricting.

Her vision blurs as less and less air fills her lungs - God, does she even have those anymore? What's happening to her, the real her?!

"Oh dear," she hears an exaggerated sigh followed by a disappointed tsk, "there goes another one. How fast."

Oh my God, shut up! Just shut up!

Something presses against her trembling hands. Something small and smooth curls up against it, somehow easing the tension seizing her strained hands.

She sniffs; a wet cough rattles through her as she finally manages to swallow a steady stream of air. The taughtness in her shoulders eases as she sags forward, exhaustion lowering her defensive stance. She'd surely have fallen onto the floor if the easing presence hadn't flown up to steady her on her feet.

She rubs at her blurry, wet eyes to look at the little thing still resting under her hand.

It's another one of those bubbles, though considerably smaller, tiny. It doesn't look to have a mouth, or maybe it just refuses to show off its unnervingly sharp teeth at her.

Sensing her gaze, it slips out from under her hand and quietly flutters up to her eye level. The other bubbles wordlessly watch, still surrounding the two, though no longer encroaching upon the distressed human.

They just watch, silently.

The small bubble floats for a bit, blinking at her with its small, beady eyes.

There's something off about its eyes, the way they warble at her. They look at her with an urgency of fear.

"Hide." Is all it says, before it, along with the rest, disappears in a flurry of pops.

…great. Totally prepared for that not-at-all ominous warning. Awesome.

Hide? Where the hell was she supposed to hide?

She stares off into the empty circus' unwaveringly heavy darkness. If talking sadistic bubbles were a thing here, then who knows what else might be idling out there?

So yeah, that wasn't an option.

Maybe she could find an exit or something backstage? That made sense, right? That must be something the programmers coded in; it's not like they made a game with no exit, hahaha!

…ha.

With a sound goal in mind, she swiftly turns around, only to feel her soul leave her now-digital body.

The heavy red curtains were pulled back, just slightly. Within the small gap, a pair of strained, suspended eyes stared at her.

Unlike the rest of this cartoonish digital nightmare, the eyes were rendered differently - jarringly so. A rare style of realism infringing in a supposedly child-themed world. Green and blue. They were even detailed with subtle red vessels.

The eyes remained locked on her, intensely so. She can't find it in herself to move, not even an inch. She doesn't know how the hell this thing will react.

They're stuck in a deadlock like that for who knows how long. It must have been minutes, but for all she knew, it could have been hours - who knows how time worked here?

Eventually, to her relief, the curtains close, finally cutting off those terrible eyes.

She wants to feel relief, wants to let her body relax and make a run for it while she still can.

But she doesn't even get the chance to react when the curtains are violently thrown open, and a large hand flies out, seizing around her with a suffocating squeeze.

She screams. It's a pathetic, breathless, choked thing. Her lungs are being crushed, her body screaming against the pain that doesn't make any fucking sense.

Why does this hurt? Why can she feel this? What the fuck is this?!

The hand's grip only tightens. As she brokenly wheezes, her vision starts to blur - chopping up into messily strung, blurry freezeframes as her brain fails to keep up with the uncomprehending pain.

A loud snap reverberates through her head. It's deafening against the dead circus; it leaves her head spinning.

Suddenly, the suffocating pressure disappears. She feels almost weightless. It takes her mind an impossibly long time to realize that she's falling headfirst to the ground.

Ah, that makes sense.

But instead of eating shit against the hard ground, she collides against something soft yet tangible. Felt-like arms wrap around her, gently lowering her spinning head against something solid, sturdy.

Something so familiarly human.

Blinking up, she's greeted with a frowning doll.

She looks like one of those creepy dolls. Anabelle?

No, no. A Raggedy Ann.

"A-Are you okay?" The doll stutters, her singular eye darting around as she bites her lips. "Oh my God, it's really…"

She tries to move, to push herself up. A hand quickly rests on her chest, keeping her down. She feels another wrap around her own limp hand.

"You're going to be okay, just… just lay down for a second longer, okay? We've got you, new stuff."

She gurgles, unable to force out any words thanks to her lagging brain. Instead, she squeezes the comforting hand. Tries to at least. It's… grounding.

Hopefully she'll wake up from this fucking dream soon.

"Holy shit." She hears someone mutter. From the corner of her eyes, she can see a weird-looking triangle thing made up of a bunch of random parts hunched over itself. "They… those fuckers really sent another person in here?" The words come out sharp, oozing with growing anger.

A walking mask settles beside it, wrapping a ribbon-looking arm around its bizarre-shaped shoulder.

Were… were these other people? Actual people? Humans? Were they stuck like her?

She wasn't alone in here.

She smiles, but that brief moment of relief quickly turns into dread. Her breath hitches, her eyes frantically darting around at the others circled.

The doll was trying to smile back at her reassuringly, but the horror was evident in her eyes.

The talking mask was whispering hushed words of comfort to the seething clustered toybox parts.

A robbed chess piece was standing beside the doll, staring off vacantly at the stage with similarly jarring real eyes. These, though, were piercing baby blue.

And a purple rabbit stood off to the side, hands dug into its overalls' deep pockets.

If they were still in here, does that mean that there's no…

C&A officially closed in 2003. It was 2017 now.

Fourteen years…

Why were there people still in here?

She doesn't like the multitude of horrifying theories brewing in her head.

"Wait," the mask speaks up, darting around with growing worry, "where's Kaufmo?"

Another person? Kaufmo.

What kind of name is Kaufmo?

A loud bang against the stage snaps the now jester out of her spiraling thoughts. Craning her head, she observes the large hands that have secured themselves along the edge of the stage, slowly hoisting out whatever was sitting behind the stage.

The other humans scuttle back accordingly. Still resting against the doll's lap, the two can only crane their heads up and helplessly watch.

The red curtains part, and an elongated body donning a red suit of sorts crawls along the stage - though any other tangible references to humanity end right there. Six pairs of arms grow out along the torso, double-jointed limbs that move and twist in ways so grossly inhumane. The enormous being is haunched over as it crawls off the stage with the confidence and scrutiny of a wild animal.

A floating set of stretched teeth, gums and all, allots itself atop the headless shoulders; the diemboided eyes fly up from the stage and lodge themselves within its maw. They roll around within the jaw, reorientating themselves, before fixating on the gawking humans below.

Another familiar pair of beady eyes join in on the silent observation.

A large maniacally grinning bubble clings to the side of the gummy pair of dentures, latched along it like a stubborn barnacle. Atop its 'head' rests a lopsided tophat.

The bubble's manic eyes latch onto the little jester; its already impossibly wide smile somehow grows sharper.

"Oh goodie, what a surprise!" It cackles. The jaw it's attached to twitches and jerks along with the volatile bubble's confined movements. "And the timing, wowie! Looks like we managed to even things out, how lucky for us, huh?"

The odd-looking human steps forward, its mismatched eyes narrowed in frustration. "What are you on about— Caine!" They yell out. The floating pair of dentures tilts its head like a quizzical dog. The bubble snickers, fixing a teasing smile.

They throw out a spring-shaped arm; the pointed hand at the end bounces at the sudden motion. "What did you do? Where the hell is Kaufmo?"

The six-armed abomination settles itself as the bubble giggles maddeningly.

"Ah, poor old Kaufmo. He's been in a rather sour mood lately, wouldn't you all agree?" It prompts, failing to hide its slipping snickers. The doll winces, averting her eyes in what looked like shame.

"So, as the benevolent host that I am," it continues, beady eyes growing bigger, growing more eager in restless anticipation, "I decided to cheer him up by making him the star of today's adventure! Doesn't that sound fun?" It teeters, its restrained laughter finally devolving into a lengthy wheeze.

One of the twisted arms rises and snaps its gloved fingers, click!

Like before, it's deafeningly loud - booming through the dark circus.

Above the abominable 'host', an amalgamated mass of distorted shapes and multi-coloured eyes suddenly appears, squirming in the air. It shrieks, its vocals distorted as it flails against the invisible force keeping it afloat.

The jester seizes up, gripping the doll's hand tightly.

The rest of the humans are equally stunned, mortified. All they can do is stare.

"Kaufy…" The mask wails, cowering behind their gaping mismatched companion.

The doll chokes back an anguished sob.

Shrill cackling merges with Kaufmo's anguished shriek in a gross cacophony.

"Today's adventure is: Escape the Abstraction! Try your best not to get caught within the next hour!"

The host's malformed jaws creak open, eyes casting down on the cowering humans.

Another snap. Kaufmo starts to plummet.

Falling right down to them.

"Go0d LuCK!"