Chapter Text
Whether they chose to admit it or not, everyone wanted a new player to join the circus. Sure, no one would wish that kind of misery on another human being, but neither would they deny the silver linings, if pressed. A new friend and confidant to wait out the rest of eternity with, perhaps? A mewling, miserable creature to coddle, to satisfy a savior complex, to distract for just a moment from the ennui? Time was the poison and novelty the antidote. The world, their world in particular, was full of hypocrites. At least, that was how Jax saw it.
Where the rest of his fellow inmates looked on in shock and concern, the rabbit was smiling ear to ear. Granted, that was his default expression, but he knew a show was about to begin and he was gifted to a front row seat. The new girl was some kind of jester, pasty skin decked in blue and red. He shook off the resemblance to Kaufmo, if only in theme. On second thought, he decided to table the idea; he could probably wring a few good jokes out of it.
The jester took one unimpressed glance around the tent and the figures staring back at her. “This place looks like the toilet bowl of a clown with IBS,” she decided. “I’m not surprised the developers went under.”
Caine, their mandibular mascot, frowned. The rest of the cast exchanged nervous glances.
“Heh, I like her already,” Jax snorted. Sure, positivity quite literally kept them sane, but it was also dreadfully boring.
Determined to make a better first impression, Caine twirled his cane and pointed it directly at the newcomer. “Welcome to the Amazing Digital Circus! Hold onto your heinie, because we’ve got a show for you tonight!” He boomed. More quietly, he wondered aloud if it actually was night. The ringmaster rolled up his sleeve, but found his Wacky Watch wasn’t of much help. “Sometimes, this darn thing is too wacky, even for me! Anyway, where was I?” He turned around only to find that the girl had wandered off. Caine snapped his fingers, resetting the new player’s position.
“Great, it’s one of those unskippable tutorials,” the jester groused. “You know what? Forget this.” She lifted a gloved hand up, accidentally poking herself in the eye. “Hey, how do I take this thing off?” She demanded.
“Take what off, your face? Ask Gangle. For once, she might actually be useful,” Jax quipped, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. Behind him, a porcelain drama mask sobbed over the shattered remains of its comedy mask. Scarlet ribbons twisted and flowed into the vague suggestion of a humanoid form beneath it.
“Jax!” A figure resembling a ragdoll snapped. Her button eye narrowed his way before softening into a portrait of care and concern. “There’s no easy way to say this, but you can’t. Once you put on that headset, you’re stuck,” she explained, wringing her hands.
For a moment, the jester stared blankly ahead. “Oh, I get it,” she giggled. “That ancient thing must have fried my cerebral cortex. This is all just the last gasp of a drooling vegetable internally reckoning with its own demise.”
“Wow, she’s already lost it,” Jax remarked. “That’s got to be a new record, right?”
Frustrated, Caine took another look at his watch and rolled up his sleeve. “Look, it doesn’t actually tell time, okay?” He griped. “Now, as I was saying…” Pyrotechnics erupted behind him as he zipped around a large, cartoonish logo. In his exuberance, he accidentally tipped a launcher onto its side, where it discharged a firework directly into the ragdoll. He continued, oblivious to her panicked screams and attempts to extinguish herself. “The Amazing Digital Circus is home to a cast of colorful characters, now including yourself, who regularly embark on colorful adventures in colorful settings. However, abso-tively no colorful language is permitted,” he emphasized. “The viewers would be scandalized!”
“We have viewers?” The jester asked, eyes shifting around the tent.
“Viewers, readers, listeners,” Caine enumerated, “and Bubble.”
A dingy bulb hung over a distant corner of the stage. There, a bubble with a dull expression floated above a leather chair. “I like to watch,” it whispered.
Caine gestured over to the bubble, as if to prove his point.
“What, so I can’t say @%#$?” The new player scoffed. A silly sound effect played and a graphic appeared over her mouth to obscure the offensive language. “Come on, seriously!?” She gave another try to the same end. A veritable mountain of discarded censor bars littered the floor by the time she gave up.
The ringmaster gawped, the eyes in his mouth threatening to roll out of his head. “I didn’t even know people still used that word. Boy, am I glad that none of our viewers are from that specific geographical region!” He gasped, miming wiping sweat from his brow.
“My fragile innocence,” the bubble intoned from his corner.
“Well, once we clean out that potty-mouth of yours,” Caine began, snapping his fingers. A mop shoved itself down the jester’s throat, muffling her shouts of protest. “Let’s move on to the tour! As the name suggests, the circus is both amazing and digital. The tent is the heart of the circus.” As he said so, the maze of tubes that stretched infinitely skyward began to throb. “By the distributive property, that means the tent is also amazing and digital. You’ll be staying here for the rest of all eternity.” He yanked the girl up by the collar and whisked her around the tent. A few times, the mop pole whacked into sections of the hanging jungle gym, snapping her neck back.
“Outside, we have the grounds! Now made with one hundred percent authentic ground,” Caine directed, angling the girl’s head down. True to his word, there was a ground. Given the low rendering distance, scraggly grass was only visible in a fifteen foot radius. Beyond that, everything was rather more polygonal and lower in resolution. “There’s also a lake and a carnival that you may or may not ever see in the future,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Up above, the sun smiled down at them. “I know what you are!” It sang in a high, feminine voice.
Without another word, Caine dragged them out beyond the boundaries of the world. Nothing stood between them and the unfathomable abyss. “This is the void. There’s not really much to say about it, but we’ve got to pad out the word count somehow.”
The tour over, they blinked back into the tent and onto the main stage. “The Amazing Digital Circus isn’t just a place, though,” Caine concluded. “I mean, it is a place, and it’s where we are right now, but the thing that makes it amazing is all the wonderful performers that call it home. It’s digital and a circus for unrelated reasons. With all that being said, I think introductions are in order!” He swept his arm out towards the assembled crowd.
“Uh, hey, I’m–“ A geometric figure with a variety of mismatched body parts raised an arm and began to speak, but was suddenly interrupted.
“Great! My name is Caine, your host and go-to guide for everything under the sun.” Caine declared. “Only under the sun, though. I try to avoid the moon for… personal reasons,” he admitted. “This is my assistant, Bubble!”
Bubble drifted over to his master’s side. “I’m a special character!” He chirped.
“You sure are,” Caine deadpanned.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Jax sighed. The lanky lagomorph stretched to his full height from where he was leaning against the stage. “The name’s Jax. The figurative punching bag is Gangle and the literal one is Ragatha,” he explained, pointing to the grieving mask and the lightly smoldering ragdoll in turn. “Zooble is… whatever Zooble’s supposed to be, I guess.” The mismatched figure only rolled their eyes. “Kinger might be even crazier than you are, but that’s just because he had a head start,” Jax assured, sarcastically.
A chess piece wearing a regal robe poked his head out from a nearby pillow fortress. “Did somebody say Ragatha’s name?” He asked. Kinger blinked his crooked eyes up at the newcomer. “Oh, there you are. You’ve really lost some weight!” Jax silently mocked him, swirling a finger around his ear.
“Aren’t we forgetting someone?” Ragatha reminded them.
“Of course!” Caine interjected. “Why, dear Kaufmo would be absolutely devastated to hear that we completely forgot… our manners! And just what is your name, hot stuff?” Caine asked. A spotlight beamed down, blinding the jester.
Squinting against the light, the girl tugged one final time at the mop obstructing her throat. By that time, she had already gone blue in the face, then green, cycling through the entire visible spectrum and back to blue. The cleaning implement dislodged with a wet pop, clattering to the floor. She desperately gulped down a lungful of air. “What the %$#@’s your deal!?” The jester snarled.
Caine began to count on his fingers, new ones sprouting from the end of his hand as he went. Struck by inspiration, the new player attempted to imitate the gesture. She grinned savagely once she had a fifth digit to work with, which quickly fell as she discovered flipping the bird only produced another censor bar.
Caine finished his tabulation. “What a unique name! Unfortunately, it violates the character limit. And the moratorium on profanity. Also, it uses special characters, which isn’t against any particular rule, I just don’t like them.” Beside him, Bubble slowly deflated. “Pick another name!”
“My name?” Horror dawned on the jester’s already pale face. “I can’t remember my name,” she gasped.
“Just take a deep breath,” Ragatha soothed. “Nobody can remember their name when they get here. No pressure, though, but we do need something to call you.”
“I don’t really care. I was never all that attached to my name, anyway,” the jester mumbled bitterly.
Before Jax could even finish taking a breath, Ragatha had already cut in. “Absolutely not, Jax,” she ruled.
“What, you don’t even know what I was going to say!” Jax asserted, more to provoke Ragatha than to defend himself.
Unexpectedly, it was Kinger that chimed in next. “How about Pomni?” He suggested.
“It’s… as good as anything else, I suppose,” the newly christened Pomni agreed. “What’s it mean?”
“What does what mean?” Kinger replied.
“Great!” The ringmaster concluded with a clap of his hands. “I couldn’t agree more, Jax. What Pomni here needs to get herself settled in is an Adventure!” The capitalization of the word adventure was evident to all present, somehow.
“I literally said nothing like that,” Jax refuted, to no avail.
“Ugh, come on!” Zooble groaned. “Can’t we just chill for one day while the newbie gets a feel for things?”
“Are you just saying that because you don’t want to get roped into an adventure?” Caine prodded.
“Well…” Zooble glanced away. “Not entirely,” they deflected.
“Hmmm…” Caine considered for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “Too bad. Woe, Gloinks be upon ye. Toodles!” With that, he vanished.
A tremor heralded the arrival of the swarm. The horde of spritely creatures represented every hue and shape. They swept across the plush floors and over Zooble, who screamed as they disassembled them part by part and carried them off into the distance. The rest of the party stood idly by and watched it happen.
Ragatha broke the silence. “We should really go get Kaufmo. He’ll want to know that Pomni will be staying with us from now on,” she phrased rather diplomatically. “Why don’t you come with me and introduce yourself?” She almost repeated the offer before Pomni responded.
“Sorry, I kind of zoned out for a second. What exactly was that all about? Should we be worried?” Pomni questioned, tentatively.
“Oh, right,” Ragatha chuckled. “Caine likes to send us off on little adventures. They help to pass the time and keep our minds off of… things we’re better off not thinking about. Sometimes, they can even be kind of fun!” The forced optimism rang hollow, even to a complete stranger.
“You would really abandon poor Zooble to their fate like that? When did you get so cold, Rags?” Jax cajoled.
“Don’t act like you’re worried about them,” Ragatha growled.
“No, not in the slightest,” Jax agreed, easily. “I just think it would be more entertaining to watch new girl do literally anything other than bother a clown.”
Ragatha dug her heels in. “I don’t trust you alone with her. You could… well, I’m not sure what you could do, which is reason enough!” She argued.
Jax rolled his eyes. “Alone? Don’t worry, if there’s anyone you can trust to keep me in line, it’s Cry Fawkes and Bongcloud over there,” he assuaged, insincerely. In the distance, a cylindrical Gloink rolled past, snagging the broken halves of Gangle’s comedy mask as it went. She began to sob even harder, while Kinger absently followed the retreating creature.
Frowning, the ragdoll turned to Pomni. “No one would blame you if you wanted to take it easy until the shock wears off.” Jax’s leering grin suggested that he might have felt otherwise.
In the end, Pomni made her decision. “I… I think I should help out with the adventure. Better to dive into it feet first, right?” She justified to herself. Her eye twitched.
Ragatha tried, and visibly failed, not to take that too personally. “If that’s how you feel,” she reluctantly accepted. “I’ll be right back.”
“What’s her deal?” Pomni asked once Ragatha rounded a corner.
“Who, Rags? Total mother hen,” Jax scoffed. As someone who made a habit of insulting people to their faces, he had no qualms about gossiping. He so rarely had anyone to talk to that didn’t already know everything worth knowing, so he savored the opportunity to poison the well a little bit. “She’s always trying to shove herself down people’s throats, and not in the fun way, either. But enough about her.”
The pair rejoined the others at the stage. Jax leaned down and drew an arm around Pomni’s shoulder, pulling her closer. “Now, you probably don’t need me to tell you this, but those two are just about useless,” he stage-whispered.
“We can hear you,” Gangle whimpered.
Ignoring her, Jax continued. “So you’re going to have to pull your weight around here, ‘kay? Go wrangle us up some Grinks,” he dismissed, waving the girl off.
“Gloinks,” Gangle corrected.
“Gesundheit,” Kinger responded.
“What even is a Gloink?” Pomni asked.
“Beats me,” Jax shrugged. “As long as they can feel pain, that’s good enough for me. Watch and learn.”
The rabbit drew a golf club from his overall pocket that definitely should not have fit and sauntered up behind an unsuspecting Gloink. While he was lining up his backswing, another critter fell from above and bounced off his head. Stars flew around his noggin as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. The offending Gloink took the opportunity to snatch up the club and hop away. He tamped down the burning humiliation of being shown up on the newbie’s very first adventure.
“I was borrowing that from Kaufmo, anyway,” Jax muttered in a weak attempt to save face.
Pomni made no comment. She did try to wrangle a Gloink with her bare hands, but she was too uncoordinated. It took time for players to adjust to their new bodies and the impossible physics of the circus. For the time being, Jax comforted himself with the sight of the girl falling over her own feet repeatedly.
“Hey, you guys! Over here!” Kinger called from a distance. When the rest of the party caught up, he and Gangle were standing around the entrance to a deep pit. “I tracked a Gloink all the way across the tent and I think I found their Gloink hole,” he explained.
“First of all, don’t call it that,” Jax grimaced, then brightened. “Second, look at you! I guess even a stupid clock is right once a day. What are we all standing around here for? Ladies first.” He obligingly shoved Pomni and Gangle down into the pit. Once their screams faded into the distance, he and Kinger were left staring at each other.
“Um, should I…?” Kinger offered, pointing down into the hole.
“Get in the Gloink hole, Kinger,” Jax groaned.
“Right,” the chess piece agreed, toppling face-first into the abyss.
“Jax!” Ragatha shouted, jogging towards him. “Where is everyone?”
The malcontent rabbit’s smile widened. “I’d be happy to show you,” he offered.
–□–
Down below, Pomni was struggling to disentangle herself from Gangle’s ribbons.
“How scandalous,” Jax leered. “Save that for the bedroom, you two. Here, let me lend you a hand.” He grabbed the end of one of Gangle’s ribbons, then yanked it back like a ripcord.
Pomni was spun about violently. Miraculously, she managed to remain upright and keep her lunch down, though it was far from a sure thing. Gangle collapsed into a heap where Jax dropped her, whimpering and blushing furiously. Kinger was fortunate enough not to contribute to the pileup, but his head was embedded firmly into the soil beneath.
Further afield, the ragdoll lay face-down in the dirt. She groaned, rolling onto her back and rubbing the grit from her eyes. She surveyed the damage everyone had sustained. As soon as she noticed Jax, she glared at him. “How did you get down here?” She demanded.
“Escalator,” Jax answered, off-handedly. “Boy, the harvest is looking good this year.” He plucked Kinger from the ground like a root vegetable. “Oh, Kinger. I was wondering when you’d… turnip. Ah, that’s a lie; I didn’t carrot all!” he snickered.
“Fools! Who dares disturb the lair of the Gloink Queen!?” A resonant voice boomed. Occupying the bulk of the subterranean chamber lay a massive, vermicular beast. Heads dotted with myriad eyes and filled with rows of jagged teeth capped both ends of its colorful mass.
“If anyone here is being disturbed, it’s me,” Jax countered. “I mean, gross.”
“You dare disrespect me, puny not-Gloink!? You should be honored to kneel in my presence!” The Gloink Queen raged.
“I-If it means we don’t have to look at your f-face, then gladly!” Pomni shot back, despite her nerves. Jax offered his hand for a high-five, which she awkwardly returned.
“Insolent mortals! You will pay for your transgressions with your lives!” The queen’s declaration was accompanied by the shifting of the ground beneath them. Countless Gloinks swarmed the players, latching onto them from all angles. Despite their struggles, the undulating waves of bodies shepherded them up to her gaping maw.
“If this truly is the end, you guys, then I guess there’s no point in holding on to all this blackmail material I’ve been saving this entire time,” Jax lamented. “Anyway, who wants to hear about that time Gangle–“
“Don’t say that, Jax!” Ragatha chastised. “I mean, literally, stop talking. We’re going to be just fine, Pomni. Kaufmo is… well, his door was locked when I looked for him, but I’m sure he’s on his way to save us.” Even then, she managed a weak smile.
To Pomni, buried up to her neck in Gloinks, this did not come across as reassuring.
“Huh? Oh, wait.” Jax fished around in his pocket. With a sustained effort, he managed to wrench an arm up to the surface, pinching a golden key. Naturally, a Gloink immediately broke from the flood to swallow it up. “Whoops.”
“Why did you even have that!?” Ragatha accused.
Jax attempted to shrug. “Y’know, you’ve got a weird set of priorities, Rags,” he observed. The tides continued to funnel them to their dooms. One by one, their screams cut off into silence until only two remained. It seemed that their host had saved the most troublesome trespassers for last.
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening,” Pomni chanted. Her mantra failed to stand up to material reality. A harsh giggle escaped her, all of her disbelief bubbling up and out as piercing, delirious laughter. “I was wrong!” She cackled. “I’m not dying! I’m already dead, and this is my own personal hell!”
As entertaining as the breakdown was, it was more of a consolation prize to Jax, who was not looking forward to being worm food. “Well, kid, it’s up to you now,” he sighed, firing off a lazy salute as he fell to his demise.
In the gleaming fangs of her captor, Pomni finally saw her reflection for the first time. Before, she had only caught glimpses of her arms and legs. She was shorter, she knew, and paler too. What stood out to her most wasn’t the silly outfit or the exaggerated proportions; it was the expression of unbridled terror, a weakness that she swore would never again mar her image.
“It doesn’t matter. None of this matters,” Pomni realized. Her pupils jittered madly and her grin threatened to split her face. If she had to spend the rest of eternity in hell, she swore to herself that she would teach the devils to fear her. Sourceless lightning flashed through the cavern, projecting a shadow on the wall that seemed to twist her cap and bells into a crown of curved horns. Thunder growled ominously across clear skies.
Even the Gloink Queen appeared distinctly discomfited by the outburst, though she quickly regained herself. “Uh, any last words?” She had the good grace to ask.
Pomni took a deep breath. “Yeah, actually,” she called out, surprising herself with her confidence. “Eat $#@%!” With that declaration, she raised both hands to pry the censor bar off her face, then whipped it at one of the behemoth’s many eyes.
The monarch roared in agony, her thrashing bulk sweeping waves of her own kin aside. Pomni landed gracefully in a three-point pose, then performed indescribable acts of brutality against her disabled foe. There weren’t even names for some of the things she did, owing to the fact that witnesses rarely survived to speak of them.
Throughout it all, gleeful laughter rang out.
–□–
The cast sat along a wide table, draped in cloths and decked with platters of plastic play-food. Pomni tore voraciously into her plate, leaving Jax beside her to flinch away from projectile corn kernels.
“Would someone mind explaining what happened back there?” Ragatha questioned. The dainty bites taken from her meal contrasted heavily with the veritable massacre in front of her.
Above the gulping, crunching, and slurping, Kinger stepped in. “After the adventure, Caine brought us up here to celebrate with a feast,” he replied. Distracted by the conversation, his hand drifted over to spear a candle with his fork, which he began to slice into.
“I know, Kinger. I was there for that part,” Ragatha reminded him, patiently. “It’s everything before that I missed.”
“Caine never even told us what the mission was. For all we know, we were supposed to feed Queen Ugly,” Jax reasoned. “Still, you should have seen the look on PomPom’s face! I may have forgotten to mention that we can’t be killed in here. Whoops.”
“I guess you can say that I had something of an epiphany,” Pomni revealed through a mouthful of food. A rough swallow briefly bulged down her throat. “Censorship only applies to the things we can see and hear. Anything can happen, just out of frame,” she elaborated, snapping a clean drumstick bone with one hand.
“I’m not sure I really get it, but I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better.” Ragatha smiled crookedly. “I feel like we’re still missing something, though.”
As if summoned by the observation, Caine appeared above the table. “Oh, by the way, Kaufmo abstracted,” he announced. With a twirl of his cape, he vanished just as suddenly.
Stunned silence settled over the tent, broken only by Pomni’s gluttony. Jax’s silverware clattered to the table. The jester waved a hand in front of his eyes, but he was unresponsive. Shrugging, she slammed a fist down onto the edge of his platter, catapulting an entire chicken into the air. She dislocated her jaw with a sharp tug on each end, then angled her head back to catch the roasted bird and swallow it whole.
“You know, I think I could get used to this place,” Pomni belched.