Chapter Text
“Oh shit”
Pomni had no idea that she’d dread hearing that word so much. It twisted in her stomach and settled into a knot of despair, fear, and shock.
“I think I accidentally killed Caine”
There was no doubt that that’s what everyone else was thinking of too. Most of the others had been here for years longer than Pomni.. maybe decades. She couldn’t imagine how that’d feel now. The silence lasted for maybe 30 seconds? A minute? 10? Pomni didn’t know.. the extreme whiplash of what happened with Caine still had her head spinning. Ragatha was the one to break it though..
“I uh- how do we? Wh-what do we do now?” She asked, voice fraying at the end. A bright contrast from her usually cheery demeanour. Pomni could tell she was absolutely terrified.
“I.. I’m not sure” Kinger responded solemnly.
That was more terrifying than anything else she’d heard that whole day. Pomni quickly realised her breath growing shorter, startled. She looked around at the circus. It almost looked like the bar adventure; entirely grey scale. It was almost a relief for her eyes from the harsh, bright colours of the circus she’d known up until now. Large pieces of floor and random blocks glitched in and out of reality.
Kinger’s voice rang out once more. “I.. lost the computer so.. no hopes of any reprogramming.. unless..”
Pomni shifted her gaze back up to Kinger
“It’s a stretch.. a big stretch but.. I’m thinking that if we tried hard enough, we might be able to conjure some kind of way to leave. There used to be a way to leave but.. I uh.. well I can’t remember how right now but all I remember is that Caine blocked any human’s access to it after other people from C & A joined.. he changed a lot of things- uh but anywho! The circus will definitely start glitching after Caine being.. gone and all so we don’t have much time but I think I might be able to conjure access to the way we used to leave If I tried hard enough”
It was still kind of strange hearing kinger speak so lucidly but she was glad he might be able to find an actual exit.
Everyone was quiet for a second. “Well, what are we waiting for?” Zooble said, almost panicked.
“I uh- hold on” Kinger turned his back to everyone. He closed his eyes in concentration until.. something popped up out of thin air. A green, glitchy screen that looked almost like a hologram. “Aha!”. As Kinger reached out to touch it, the glitches ebbed and smoothed away.
Kinger twirled around, screen in hand, to face them again. He typed something incomprehensibly fast into a keyboard that had magically popped out. He hit enter on the code he’d just typed into the screen and suddenly, a red square popped up on the screen, making a windows error noise.
“Shoot.. looks like Caine changed the access point, we’ll have to access the actual exit through the console room”
The console room.. right. The one in Caine’s office with the buttons
“ Well how do we get up there?” Zooble’s voice rang through, snapping Pomni out of it “ last time we got up through that hot air balloon slide thingy-“
“Well, I installed more than one entrance to Caine’s office, Zooble” Without another word, Kinger turned- probably assuming they’d follow him, and went in a direction towards the rooms.
——————————————————————————————
Kinger quietly led everyone through the hallway leading to the sleeping quarters. Pomni thought it looked almost eerily empty. She cringed seeing a once brightly-coloured plant pot violently glitching into a wall that was falling to pieces. Eventually, after a little walking, Kinger abruptly stopped in front of a door. His door.
Pomni veered her head around Jax’s tall stature which was obstructing a large bit of her vision to see Kinger pull out a key from.. somewhere and unlock the door. The hinge screeched a little as the door revealed a dimly lit room with brown and white wooden checkered flooring- much like that of a chess board. There was a large king-sized bed with posts and a canopy that was the same wood texture as Kinger. It had black and white checkered sheets and many cushy pillows stacked onto it. There was a dresser just about 4 inches taller than Pomni with intricate carving and pawn handles that Pomni thought was quite useless- considering the fact that they don’t have the ability to change their clothes by their own volition. There were hundreds of origami paper butterflies littering the floor that Kinger ignored as he lead them all through and stopped in a seemingly empty corner of his room.
Jax kept his eyes on kinger, leaning his head down to Pomni. “Uh.. what is he?-“ “aha!” He was cut off by Kinger who had now opened up a secret door to a staircase that must have led to Caine’s office. “Still works”. Jax’s eyes widened, a pit forming in his stomach.
“Okay. Now all we should have to do is go up there into Caine’s office and I can access the main console and conjure the leaving access code into the computer and remove whatever blocks Caine has placed on players having leaving access”. Jax’s breath stuttered.
This is real. We-we’re actually leaving. We’re all leaving the circus..
His thoughts spiralled. He’d made a life here- a shitty one a that but certainly not as bad as his life pre-circus. He’s spent years of his life rotting in here, being an asshole to everyone- pushing them away. He created an image, a character. Told himself they were all part of the machine. They had archetypes. It felt controlled. He felt controlled. He felt like he had control. Out in the real world- there was none of that. You meet new people every day so you don’t know what shit to expect. In the circus, it was just them. It was safe- predictable even. The people were predictable and he knew how to act and how they’d react to that. He hated it in both places but at least, in the circus, he knew what was happening; he was in control and he didn’t have any responsibilities to burden himself with. He spent all those years convincing himself none of it was real- none of it mattered. The people there still managed to matter to him though- hence the pushing them away. It was easier to hurt people before they could hurt you.
By now, Zooble, Gangle, and Ragatha were all half way up the stairs- all eager to leave. Jax stood there blanking.
“I uh- I should stay here; make sure the entrance doesn’t close or the place doesn’t glitch out or..whatever” his voice wavered- sounding panicked. He stood back, breathing in short beats in a way that he was almost panting.
“I mean it’s- that makes sense I guess..” Pomni started. “I don’t think it’s a very good idea to split up or have anyone be on their own right now” gangle said timidly. “Yeah, what are you doing?” Zooble said very accusatory. Pomni looked at him with round, concerning eyes and sighed.
“ I uh- I can stay here as well. You guys can just go. I’ll holler if it seems like something Is going to collapse or.. go bad”. The others all looked skeptical but nodded and continued walking. Ragatha gave Pomni a reassuring look and turned as well. Something in Jax’s chest loosened. He was glad he wouldn’t have to be up there and deal with.. everything.
The others all walked up the stairs and jax sat down at the edge of Kinger’s large bed while Pomni watched them leave before joining him, keeping some distance between the two.
——————————————————————————————
Caine’s office had changed since last time they’d seen it. Its previous whimsical and interesting interior was now.. a bit frightening. All of the lights were either flickering or dead, the odd one simply phasing into a wall.
They continued walking, Zooble heading for the same console room they had the fake leaving the circus adventure in. Kinger headed a new direction. “Uhh Kinger?” Gangle said “the console room is over here”. Kinger kept on walking I the different direction to a shelf filled with strangely shaped Christmas ornaments. “Hm? Oh.. heh no that- that’s not the actual console room. Caine created that room for the fake leaving the circus adventure”. Kinger continued walking up to the shelf and pushed it to the side to reveal a carved-in shelf with another old computer on it- This one looking newer and having a larger screen than the other one.
“This is the console room. Uh well I suppose it’s not actually a room but- this is the main console”. He pressed one of the keys and the computer whirred to life, displaying the C & A logo on it’s screen.
“Oh uh.. why’d Caine make any of this stuff to leave the circus if he didn’t want us to?” Ragatha asked, holding her doll hands in front of her.
“Oh well.. he didn’t, I did. as you know, I programmed Caine, I made his AI but he was the one who made the circus. It was fascinating. Scratch- who I mentioned before- had an idea to try and create a way to enter the circus as humans. We both developed these headsets to convert our consciousnesses into bodies in the circus though scratch was most of the brains during that process” Kinger chuckled as he typed Into the computer and spoke. “We coded in our avatars and the avatars of any other workers who’d be entering. I also added many precautions- a way to leave when we needed to. I added this computer in and a way to enter Caine’s office. Originally, we could summon an exit door and leave whenever but then there was.. the incident. Caine blocked our ability to leave, erased our names from our memories, and we all just got.. trapped here”.
Eventually, Kinger’s sporadic typing ceased and a panel popped up on the screen.
To unblock all access to leave the circus for players, press shift, to cancel this action, press control delete
Kinger lifted his hands to the keyboard when suddenly, Ragatha screamed.