Chapter Text
"You're not supposed to miss me."
"You're not supposed to love me."
"This isn't how this is supposed to go."
"You're making this so much harder."
"I don't wanna go."
Pomni’s eyes fly open as she finds herself enveloped in the darkness of her room. Her breath is ragged and sudden, constricting her throat and leaving her gasping for air. Her colorful room feels like a crimson tomb that is slowly pushing her down into its depths. Her fingers clench around the fabric of her jester costume, digging into it almost painfully.
The darkness in the room seems almost like a soothing balm for her senses, which slowly return to normal, causing her breathing to steady as well. With a heavy sigh, she leans her back against the soft pillows, trying to make sense of the nightmare she’s just had, while silence settles inside her ears, as if it were liquid.
I should have pried more…
Pomni's gaze drifts to an undefined spot in her room, while the darkness all around seems like spilled ink. The vibrant colors of her bedroom blend into a murky, grayish haze, bringing forth a sensation from the center of the canvas, as if an invisible rope were lifting her small body toward the ceiling.
Truth is, it’s not new for her to get nightmares about her companions turning abstracted; sometimes, in her dream realm, it's Pomni herself to fall victim to that horrific fate that has befallen many people before her in the circus, including her old friend Jax. Yet, she still doesn’t even know if “friend” is the right word to describe what their messy relationship has been, but to her, anyone in that crazy place would eventually turn into one. After all, in order to survive that pixelated hell, you have to eventually look out for one another.
It had been a while since the last time Pomni’d dreamed of her old companion; she’s slowly getting used to the idea of Jax turning abstracted, even though the wound may still be raw and fresh. The last time she could recall a dream of him was months ago; very vivid and detailed scenes from the funeral they held for him, just after everything in the circus had apparently settled down. For good, for once.
How much time has passed since then? Perhaps even years, who could say, locked up in there? In the circus, time flows differently than in the real world. Every day would be the same if they didn’t try to entertain themselves with adventures or desperately seek something to keep their minds distracted. As an attempt to make sense of their existence in there, they’ve even created a pseudo-calendar identical to the one they had in the real world, which comes with holidays and anniversaries too, so they’d have special occasions to celebrate that give their lives a little more meaning than just existing and going on silly adventures. But at the end of the day, whether months or years passed made little difference in the prospect of having literally all of eternity ahead of them. After a while, you just stop counting the years. Sometimes, Pomni likes to imagine that “in the real world” Abigail managed to achieve all the long-term goals she had set for herself, but even if that could be true, she’ll never have a way of knowing for sure. Caine hasn’t been able to connect to the network since the last time he has showed
their real-world counterparts, and frankly, by now they’ve lost all hope and simply accepted that they are different people with different experiences. But the thought that maybe, somewhere out there there’s a Leroy who’s most likely moving on with his life, working through his inner struggles, and slowly healing, that’s a thought that makes Pomni smile. It’s the only glimpse hope she can cling to. Yet, sometimes she still find herself wondering what everything would be like if that strange friendship that they were somehow managing to form had never vanished into thin air. Pomni still mourn the potential of something that never was, but that could have been right there. How is even possible that a shadow can be just as painful and have the same taste as a regret cemented by experience?
After that one time she’d managed to make contact with him, after embracing his abstracted form, she never tried it again. Perhaps out of fear, or perhaps simply to avoid complicating things. She wasn’t entirely sure why. Sometimes Pomni wondered if she had even dreamed it. Yet she still remembers the vividness with which she had navigated the labyrinth of Jax’s subconscious; how she had walked through the doors, spoken with his alternate self, and finally embraced him, not in his monstrous, glitchy form but him, that silly purple rabbit with a gaze that was perhaps just a little too unsettling. But Pomni could never ever see him as unsettling after seeing his eyes overflowing with tears. She hoped that, at least in his final moments, she had managed to keep Jax from feeling completely abandoned and alone. Knowing that he probably didn’t want to leave either was enough to break her heart.
She would have liked Jax to meet the circus’s newest members. For some strange reason, people had kept showing up over all those years, a sign that, evidently, someone was still managing to sneak into the dilapidated C&A building and put on the headset. Who knows how many years had passed before another four new people had joined the circus. One of them was a funny little kid whose face looked like a horse-shaped balloon. Jax would probably have called him stupid or even horrible-looking, not to mention the ridiculous outfit he’s wearing. Despite everything, the boy, Popp, is an extremely lively and friendly person, a pleasure to have around, even though his naivety often resembles that of a child. The latest arrivals, on the other hand, are a couple: Nyx and Calx. The former is a non-binary person whose avatar is a paper doll that strongly resembles a comical trapeze artist, though with pleasant features. They’re friendly and respectful, yet never without a touch of irony and cynicism. Calx, on the other hand, is a small humanoid robot full of gears and circuits who sometimes ends up losing a few parts along the way but is extremely sharp and intelligent. Then there’s Binux, equally intelligent and shaped like a computer. Among the four, he is certainly the most mature and the oldest. Luckily enough, the small group has been able to settle in much better within the circus than the others. With Caine more now stable and the wisdom the others have gained over time, the older members have been able to guide the newcomers, helping them adapt and patiently walking them through the entire process. Now it’s safe to say that the four of them get along well with everyone and have bonded with the rest of the group.
When Pomni thinks about it, it strikes her as strange that there are four new people in the circus; the thought can’t help but make her feel like their family is slowly growing. It’s rare for new people to come in. Still, deep down, the idea of having a circus teeming with all sorts of people doesn’t really thrill her either. What’s more, the new additions always bring curious tidbits about the latest events in the real world, all the things they’d missed since their brains were scanned. Surely no one would have expected a global pandemic in 2020, and hearing this information from others initially shook up the older members, along with all the other news, both serious and ridiculous that followed. Being part of the circus meant inevitably being cut off from the world and living exclusively in the digital microcosm. Caine was no longer able to reconnect to any kind of network, or rather, he actually managed to do it twice, but the signal was too weak and lasted only a moment before cutting out. Pomni still wished she could share the new informations with Jax, including all the latest news from the circus; they’d surely laugh together about how often Zooble and Gangle could be particularly… noisy, and they’d tease them about it.
“No… Not now…”
Pomni's chest seems to grow even heavier the moment she tries to get out of bed, hoping that awful feeling of emptiness will leave her as soon as possible. Yet the floor beneath her feet doesn’t feel solid, as if she were brushing against clouds. Her legs almost freeze as that same darkness swallows her from within, along with her sense of self. Pomni forces air into her lungs in a desperate attempt not to lose her sense of self.
Inhale. Exhale. One, two, three…
A little trick she learned from seeing a therapist in the real world, which sometimes still comes in handy when she has panic attacks. As she tries to count the numbers, they seem hopelessly slippery, like water. The room seems less and less defined; the edges of the floor become jagged, oscillating between a solid shape and a set of cubes in various shades. Did Jax feel that same urge? Was he, too, aware of what was about to happen to him as he and the void stared into each other’s eyes? Did all the “abstracted” ones experience that same glimpse of madness? Did it seem to all of them as if they were losing themselves, not just their own sanity?
That pull intensifies gradually, turning from something barely gentle into something increasingly violent and gravitational. The floor beneath her ceases to exist. Pomni gasps, her eyes wide with terror, as a swirling kaleidoscope of colored shadows and indistinct images unfolds around her.
“Stop it! Just… stop it!” her voice echoes desperately into the void. As she pounds her fists on the ground, she almost feels as if her hands are passing through a viscous, static layer. The sensation seems almost inviting, almost as if it were bringing her peace, but no… something stronger than her keeps fighting until it gives her a headache.
You can’t do this. You can’t just… dissolve after everything.
Pomni's thoughts get back to Ragatha and her almost maternal concern, to Kinger and his jiggered wisdom, to Zooble’s grounding and steady presence, and to Gangle’s gentleness. She cannot let this happen. If she ever were to leave her friends, her family, inside that Purgatory built of mere codes, her memory would turn another tragedy to mourn. She might no longer be able to help any of them trough their darkest hours. They had promised one another to be there for each other, to prevent other tragedies from happening again. She cannot betray their trust.
“They need me…” she keeps repeating to herself, as she struggles to open her eyes again. “I can’t let myself be carried away.”
With a strangled scream, Pomni clings to the edge of a shimmering, indistinct texture, a fragment of the floor that, for some reason, has refused to vanish just yet. Groaning from exhaustion, she pulls herself up with a strength born of pure, unconditional terror, pulling her soul back from the edge of the abyss. As soon as she manages to steady herself and finally feel the texture beneath her fingers, the stillness that was beginning to envelop her dissipates, leaving her simply standing on the solid, colorful floor of her room, as if nothing had happened.
Pomni finds herself laying there, breathless, her heart pounding fiercely in her chest like a little bird in a cage. She still feels as if she can hear that static buzzing in her ears, almost turning into a macabre lullaby. Yet, shortly afterward, the familiarity of her bedroom brings home the horror of what she has just experienced.
"...fuck it."