Chapter Text
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"WHY DO YOU PEOPLE TORMENT ME!?!!?"
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"I think...I accidentally killed Caine..."
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"Are-are you sure?"
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"Now, we have nothing!"
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“We’re all in this together..”
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They were trapped.
Not because Caine said so. Not because this ‘exit door’ was just that agonizingly impossible to find. But because you can’t escape somewhere when you physically can’t go anywhere else.
The weird part was that Jax was somehow more terrified of the fact he was still out there. The only reason he’d been able to cope living in this overly saturated clown show was that his problems would have been left out there. Now that that light has flickered out, what is there to keep him sane? To keep him from ending up like...them. The whole thing made his spine tingle and his head feel light.
But of course. Life was in a constant fencing match with him, that always ended in that flimsy, stubby little sword jabbing him right between the ribs.
He’d wandered to the biggest clearing in the circus, just behind the bright coloured (oh. Right) couches where everyone usually resided outside of adventures. Taking note of the fact he couldn’t hear the whimpers and soft sobs coming from the others, he took a second to swiftly swipe the tears threatening to roll down his rubbery skin.
If you ignored the obvious greyscale that had been applied to the tent walls, which he supposed wasn't pretty challenging when you’d been blinded by the normal reds and yellows everyday for the last few years of your life, the only things wrong with the place were the glitchy holes in the walls and floors that lead to… well he couldn’t quite say, the void? It certainly wasn’t the hyper realistic sky that was normally seen outside the tent, but on the other hand the only one of them that actually knew what the void looked like was Pomni…
Pomni.
She just had to take charge and ruin everything. This place wasn’t exactly a perfect paradise before she’d arrived, but everyone had their place. Their archetype. But then annoying little Pompom showed up and made that all go belly up.
He wanted to march right back over there and strangle the little jester half to death (so what if they couldn’t die here, he’d find a way). Instead, as he shot an infuriated glance at the air beside him, he caught sight of a cube, each face a different shade of grey and no bigger than a basketball. Well, Jax would rather inflict pain and suffering on something that won’t scold him for it than go screech at Pomni and have Zooby and Rags screech right back. So that’s what he settled on. Sprinting over to the cube and booting it to nowhere in particular like he was some kind of soccer all-star.
To Jax’s surprise, he was able to track the cube as it spun (rather neatly, surprisingly) through the air. He watched as it bounced a couple times and began smoothly sliding along the chequered floor before meeting one of the many holes littering the tent. It swayed a little on the edge of the hole, trying to make up it's mind as to whether it should stay or go, until it eventually let gravity take it.
“Hole in one.” he muttered, at a volume that made whispers sound like shouts.
Mindlessly Jax started trudging towards the space where the cube fell, maybe he could catch a glimpse of it before it was lost to the void forever. However the closer he got, the more he began to question if the cube truly resided in the void now.
It’s just that…wasn’t the void supposed to be white? Instead of black?
He couldn’t explain it, but Jax had the urge to stop dead in his tracks. He took another moment to fully absorb the new appearance of the tent, brows furrowed slightly with confusion (and a pinch of fear). Yep, the rest of the tears in this reality definitely led to places that were white, and kind of peaceful looking now that he thought about it. So why was this one-
Thump.
Somehow, the cube was back, but it wasn’t the same as when Jax saw it; as a matter a fact it hardly resembled a black and white cube at all, and now was more of a shifting array of pastel, pixelated colours that made it look like it’d been touched by…a…
As if fate was too impatient for him to finish his thoughts, a spine chilling sound that sounded both like bubbling and humming grabbed Jax’s face and forced him to look at the eerie hole once more.
What he saw turned his pupils into tiny specks of black sand.
A black, flowing geometric mess was clawing its way out of the gap, more of it materialising each moment. More and more glowing, hue shifting eyes appearing as the hellish spawns that haunted every circus goer's nightmares made their way securely onto the tent floor. Jax knew that quite a few humans had lived in the circus before him, having only experienced two abstractions himself, but seeing all of them - every soul that had lost themselves here, looking around the tent like a new born baby - made Jax want to run, freeze and scream all at the same time.
Although irritatingly, his rabbit body had voted for the third option, the most useless one right now, in Jax’s opinion.
After a little bit of taking in its new domain, the first abstraction to leave the cellar locked at least four of its eyes onto Jax. Already irregular edges becoming sharp enough to slice vegetables. Just looking at it made Jax feel like every paper cut he’d ever acquired had returned to torture him. Okay, this seemed like a pretty good time to start running for his life.
Thank goodness that this time his cartoon body obeyed his desire and he ran in whatever direction was away from what might as well have been the devil. He didn’t know or care where he was going, not like there were many options in fairness, all he knew was that without Caine to keep the abstractions in check: they were all, quite literally, screwed.
Jax collided with something before his brain could continue to spiral about how doomed he was. The fact it felt like he’d been blocked by air, told him that he was currently lying in front of Gangle. Perfect.
“Hey! Maybe watch it next time, ribbons.” He tried to sound accusatory, sadly for him it came out as breathless heaves.
Normally Gangle would have some kind of response to this, though it normally came out as something along the lines of a ‘sad, hopeless puppy’, but getting nothing out of her was basically unheard of. She had a reaction, but not one that brought Jax that dull satisfaction like usual. Because it was the same face he’d made mere moments ago - face portraying nothing, if not for her eyes shrinking to what would be considered pinpricks by Gangle’s standards.
Despite being a rabbit, Jax did not possess the infamous speed that came with the creatures. While he’d been spending more time than he’d admit studying Gangle’s face, he hadn’t noticed the growing hum from behind him; Ragatha and Zooble had. Even from a good distance away he could identify the same terrified expression that was pretty much being passed around the circus at this point. Turning around while simultaneously lying on the floor, Jax felt his already small pupils shrivel up even more (god, his eyes must be orbs of pure yellow at the moment). Before they were just standing around looking menacing, now they were running at him - all be it, it would look goofy if you had zero knowledge on abstraction. They were running like a pack of wolves who hadn’t eaten in a millennium, and could hardly pass up the chance to feast on a small, wounded piece of prey.
“JAX! What are you doing!? We need to go!” He hadn’t noticed he was being pulled along the chequered floor. Glancing over his shoulder he saw a flash of blue and red, combined with a voice that was riddled with anxiety and annoyance, he knew it was his favourite jester.
His embarrassment beat whatever fear it was he was feeling, giving Jax his ability to run back. His height and sudden cooperation caused Pomni to stumble over her feet a bit, but she regained her balance pretty quickly and even managed to overtake him; although not so much that it looked like she was leaving him for dead.
Despite his hatred for the cartoon clown, he found himself following her every move, ultimately turning out to be the best option as they found themselves now up on the first floor of the tent. Ragatha, Kinger, Gangle and Zooble standing a few feet away. They were all standing by the edge of the balcony, their gazes all pointed towards the bottom of the circus. Jax didn’t need to question what they were doing, the whole reason they were up here explained it clearly.
His gloved hand found the railing, despite not being (technically) human, he felt like he was going to pass out from all the running at full speed he'd done over the last ten minutes. Pomni must have felt the same, due to the quiet pants exiting her mouth. He risked a glance at the girl. Shouldn’t have risked it. Pomni was already gazing up at him, worry written all over her face. The worry wasn't for their situation though, he knew that it was aimed exclusively at him.
He couldn’t handle that feeling (of what, sympathy? Pity?), and with a quick, harsh scoff, he joined the others in watching the circus floor.
The abstracted players - should he even call them players anymore? - hadn’t seemed to have noticed that they were up here. Good. That meant they were safe for now. Still, Jax couldn’t look at any part of the ground without one of those shadowy figures sneaking into his peripheral vision.
“So…What do we do now?” Ragatha mumbled, it sounded so soft, yet so broken and hollow at the same time.
No one could answer. He knew they wanted to, but couldn’t. What did you even say to this? He tried to tell them; without Caine, they had nothing.
Besides, he highly doubted abstracting themselves would go down as a good suggestion.