Chapter Text
They took two steps down the hallway when they noticed the tram. What had been a long, unbroken hall flanked by pillars holding up simple 3D shapes like a computer wizard’s tower, now had a gaudy neon sign pointing down to a perpendicular hallway with a tram station. Pomni nearly spat when she read the sign: EXIT.
The Digital Circus Cast all shuffled into the tram benches like wind up toys on rails. Pomni, Ragatha, Zooble, Gangle, Kinger, and Jax all took a seat, no one consciously choosing who they sat next to on the 4 polo green leather benches. The leather did not sink under their weights. Perhaps Caine, their Ringmaster, had not added proper collision to the train seats. He had managed to add a train whistle though. It chirped with a delightful blast. Neither too loud nor too soft. Like they were setting off on a trip to a children’s carnival.
Pomni lurched in her seat as the tram pulled forward into the dark tunnel ahead. The car clanged and rumbled like it was a real train car riding along a real track when in actuality the ride was as smooth as a block moving from point A to point B on a horizontal grid. Above them zipped by orange lamps that illuminated the inside of the tram briefly before the shadows covered their bodies again. Letting the cast all sit in silence together. Only then did Pomni notice the seating arrangement. Zooble and Gangle sat diagonal from her, together, as they so often were these past few weeks. They sat facing forward into the dark. On the bench ahead of Pomni was Ragatha and Kinger. The latter of whom was carrying a blue gift basket full to burst with soaps and lotions. Their grand prize after completing their latest… adventure.
Which meant the arm beside Pomni—she looked over and saw Jax, the troublesome bunny boy, staring at a spot of bare back bench. His square pupils were small, like pin pricks. His mouth, unbelievably, looked even smaller. Perhaps because Pomni couldn’t picture Jax without seeing that Cheshire Cat yellow grin splitting his face. Now she couldn’t even see the line of his lips from this side of him. He looked wrong, but then he looked like they all felt. Defeated.
Caine’s latest adventure had been cruel. Rather than the usual pointless game, Kingdom rescue, or zero gravity square dance; he had instead tricked them all into thinking they were finally escaping the Digital Circus. Out of nowhere a savior had appeared with all the answers and a plan of exodus. He never truly explained his reasonings, but the gang had bought it. Hook line and sinker. Well, everyone except Jax… at least a first. That savior had turned out to be another NPC controlled by Caine. His whole story made up by Caine. Their best hope in years, dashed by Caine.
Caine.
Caine.
Caine. Went the rattling of the tram down the tunnel.
Pomni winced at the pain in her hands. She looked down and realized she was squeezing her own fists so much that they hurt. She had never been so angry in her life. Months after finally making peace with her prison, after finally forgetting to think about an exit door, after finding some happiness in this Circus, for one whole hour she had hope again that there was a way out. She had started to think about her old life again in the real world. Of tasting food and feeling it sit in her stomach instead of just vanishing down her throat. Of going to bed because she was sleepy and not just to keep a routine. To feel her body stretch like a human instead of a Stretch Armstrong Doll.
Someone sniffled to cry, and everyone thought it was Gangle. The sniffles turned into deep sobs, and everyone had to look over to believe it. Gangle reached over to place a comforting ribbon on Zooble’s shoulder as she cried for the first time in Pomni’s memory. It ashamed her to see Zooble, usually such the strong, resilient person finally break down. She always gave such a convincing I-don’t-give-a-(boink) attitude. Usually, she avoided Caine’s adventures no matter how much the Ringmaster pleaded. While at the same time constantly sticking up for Gangle against Jax’s bullying. Now the tables had turned, and it was Gangle trying to comfort them. Even as she was fighting back her own tears.
Pomni looked over at Ragatha, her own defender, for some kind of reassurance, but Ragatha appeared to be looking at her knees. While Kinger, despite the dark, was watching the light from the overhead lamps reflect off the cellophane wrapping of the gift basket.
The tunnel finally ended, opening up to the very middle of the brightly lit Circus Tent with its 4 brightly colored couches. Without saying a word, Jax stood up and walked right past Pomni and departed the tram, followed by Kinger and Ragatha. Gangle managed to coax Zooble into standing up and departing, leaving Pomni to reluctantly follow after them. The very moment she stepped clear of the tram, it zoomed forward, taking its tracks with it and disappearing into a featureless wall. Leaving the Circus looking exactly as it always did.
How long had Pomni been in the Circus that she found a vanishing tram to be so completely mundane?
Jax just flopped right onto the red couch without even bothering to twist his body around and face planted into the cushions. His lanky body taking up an entire couch all to himself. Ragatha and Kinger took a seat on the yellow couch next to Jax. Ragatha looking remarkably prim and proper as she sat down. She subconsciously adjusted her dress and sat with her hands in her lap like she was expecting a scolding from her Mother. Kinger meanwhile took out one of the shampoo bottles from the basket and started reading the back of the label.
Zooble then marched past Pomni and stood right over Kinger. She snatched the gift basket from his hands and slammed it into the floor, splattering the bottled soaps and lotions all over their living room. Some of the cellophane had torn off in their hands and Zooble threw them down too.
“Oooh…” Kinger cried in surprise.
“Hey!” Ragatha spoke up, looking ready to stand, but was kept in their seat by a look from Zooble.
“Shut up!” The toybox avatar snapped. Their breathing heaved before they stomped on the gift basket with their peg leg, spattering more soothingly scented lotion across the floor.
“Zooble!” Gangle whimpered, trying to reach them, but they were in a furor.
“Geez, Zooby, got your hopes up, did you?”
They stopped their assault on the gift basket. All eyes turned on the purple bunny man lying on the couch. His lips once again split wide open with that yellow cheshire cat grin of his. His pupils almost as large as his eyes and as black as the tram tunnel.
“Shut your mouth, Jax,” Zooble said like a slur, “You shut it right the (boink) now!”
“Oh ho!” Jax yipped in glee. He threw himself up back on his two feet and got right in Zooble’s triangle shaped face. “Someone is in a mood today? Is it that time of the month already?”
“One word,” Zooble hissed like a lit stick of dynamite. “One more (boink)ing word and I swear to God—”
“Come on, let’s all calm down—” Pomni said, trying to cut in before things got ugly.
“Zip it, Pick Me Girl! This is as much your fault as his!” Zooble yelled, startling Pomni.
“Zooble, please…” Gangle pleaded, the tears on her mask doubling in size.
“We were nearly free!” Zooble shouted. “We could have pressed the button and we’d be free! And then you—and you!” They pointed their blocky finger at Jax and Pomni as if she could poison them with a jab. “Why did you stop us, Pomni?!”
“Zooble, please!” Gangle cried, trying to get her best friend to look at her. “It wasn’t real. The button wouldn’t have worked.”
“He didn’t know that!” Zooble spat at Jax, whose grin never faultered,but his pupils shrunk to pin size.
“You mad that I was right?” Jax smirked.
Zooble punched him. Right in his teeth, faster than anyone could see. Jax went falling back with an all-mighty smack and Zooble’s arm went falling with him. They had thrown all their weight behind that punch and it had popped off their arm.
Ragatha and Gangle gasped. Pomni cried out for Jax. Kinger stared down at the splattered remains of sea salt conditioner. Zooble just stared down at Jax’s limp body with murder in their eyes. Pomni stepped in between Zooble and Jax, but before Zooble could react they looked down at their bare shoulder socket. Their unique avatar gimmick, having removable limbs like a Mr. Potato Head. In an instant their anger shattered. Zooble sobbed a deep guttural sob like a dam that had been clogged up for years. Like any dam it was terrifying to the Cast to watch it burst.
Gangle was on them at once, wrapping her ribbon arms around Zooble’s shoulders and leading them away from the couches and back towards the dorm rooms. Then a yellow tooth bounced off the back of Zooble’s head.
Jax was standing back up. His crazy grin missing one of his bottom teeth.
Zooble looked incensed. “Did you just—”
Jax leapt at Zooble with an apoplectic yell. He swung his fist and clocked Zooble right in their largest eye. They swung back and Jax kicked back. The two of them tearing at each other like Gloinks after their Mother’s teet. Ragatha gasped, frozen to the spot and Kinger just grew bored and wandered over to his pillow fortress.
“Jax, stop!” Pomni cried in horror. She threw her arms around his waist and tried to yank him away from Zooble while Gangle did the same. They each pulled with all their strength, but nothing could stop their furor.
Jax’s arms just flailed madly until he elbowed the short Jester in the face. She cried in pain and Jax finally hesitated, only to get kicked between the legs by Zooble.
“Hey, hey, hey! Time out!” Caine commanded, his voice appearing out of nowhere above them. Before anyone could react, the Ringmaster snapped his fingers and every human player’s avatar went rigid. “Everyone, get over here.” He commanded with another snap. Like they were dolls on an assembly line, every player moved in a perfectly straight line through the air until they were all lined up in front of their infamous Ringmaster.
Pomni floated next to Jax who stood rigid behind Zooble with Gangle beside her and Ragatha floating next to Pomni. The mood once again shifted completely at the sudden arrival of everyone mouthy nightmare.
“Now, now, everyone. I know we’ve had a challenging day.” He said, his mouth opening and closing with every word, covering his eyes. It had been awhile since Pomni had thought just how creepy Caine looked whenever he talked.
“Things didn’t go as we all expected. But we can’t just go at each other like a bunch of wildabeasts. We are a family here.”
“(Bonk) you.” Jax spat. His arms twitched like he was fighting the invisible hands holding him in midair. All for a chance to wring Caine’s nonexistent neck.
Caine’s green and blue eyes just focused on Jax. Caine always reacted to everyone like he was a hamster on coffee. Always reacting to what anyone said with immediate enthusiasm. Now ten seconds went by without him saying a thing.
“Bad.” Caine said.
With a flick of his hand, straps came up behind Jax’s head and clamped themselves over his mouth. He tried to scream, but he was muzzled. The rest of the cast only could watch as Jax thrashed his head back and forth in a desperate plea for defiance. Chains then appeared behind Jax’s back and tied him up from shoulder to ankle. Caine then swiped his finger and sent Jax flying into a corner of the Circus. A jail cell came crashing down to trap him there, the bars and walls as cheerfully colorful as the rest of the Circus. Like Jax had been sent to the Daycare Pokey. It even had letters above it that read: Gay Baby Jail. And Jax was even wearing a pointed Dunce cap.
All eyes flicked back to their Ringmaster as Caine flew above them. His posture straight and his right hand tapping against his thigh like he was deciding if the rabbit character had been punished enough for his rudeness. There was an audible ding like an oven and Caine twisted his whole back into facing the rest of the helpless Cast.
“Well, my Mini-mouthed Munchkins. I hope we have all calmed ourselves down. You guys know I don’t like to punish any of you, but I can’t have any fighting in the All-Ages Circus. That wouldn’t be Amazing or Digital now, would it?”
Nobody said anything. Pomni tried to look away at Kinger’s sealed pillow fort, but Caine’s eyes and teeth just grew bigger until he was filling her peripheral vision.
“Would it?”
“No. No, no, no.” The cast all agreed in unison.
“Great!” Caine snatched his floating cane out of the air and smiled at them like all was resolved between them. They all dropped to the floor like puppets with their strings cut.
“Well, I am going to retire for the night. Sweet dreams my Curious Kumquats.”
And then he vanished. His body zoomed away faster than any human eyes could track and he left the Cast all kneeling on all fours. Their minds all racing round and round like marbles in a sealed plastic bowl. No matter what they did, no matter how fast they spun or how hard they bounced off the walls or how loud the noise they made when they plinked off each other they would never escape the bowl. All they could ever do was wait for their momentum to run out and gravity would take them right back here.
Until someone gave them another shake.
Gangle got up first. She helped Zooble stand up and then led the both of them back to their dorm rooms. Making sure to grab Zooble’s arm on their way.
Pomni looked over at Ragatha, but her attention was facing Kinger who was emerging from his pillow fort. The living chess piece asked something Pomni couldn’t hear and she turned away from him. That’s when her eyes fell on Gay Baby Jail. Her knees were finally compelled to move. Ever so carefully, with her hands close to her chest, she walked across the Tent towards the Time Out Corner. There she found Jax, still tied up and gagged, having crawled over to the corner of his cell to be as far away from the bars as possible.
“Jax?”
His purple rabbit ear twitched, even as his body remained curled up in the corner.
“Are you okay?”
His head snapped around and he looked at the short Jester with his black, rectangular pupils. They were so large they almost obscured all the yellow of his eyes. From his look alone she could tell exactly what he wanted to say, “Are you serious?”
Pomni didn’t think she was. How could she ask such a stupid question? None of them were okay. Not after today. Their last hopes dashed, Zooble on a sobbing warpath, Jax in Gay Baby Jail, and by noon tomorrow Caine would have them on some new adventure against their will.
What was there to be okay about?
Pomni looked away ashamed, her red and blue gloved hands still gripping the bars. She felt stupid. What was she even trying to accomplish by checking up on Jax? To cheer him up? She needed cheering up too. And he hadn’t been much for making anyone feel better. Not since… the Gun adventure anyway.
Remembering that day still hurt. All those horrible things Jax said to her. Their working together. The duet they sang. The twirl…
A knock on the bars made Pomni jump. Jax had kicked the bars to get her attention. He had rolled on his belly over to her side of his cell and started nodding at her.
“Hmmmhmm…” Jax muffled through his gag. Pomni raised an eyebrow at him before realizing that he wasn’t nodding, he was pointing with his chin. Right at the front pocket of his pink overalls.
“Oh.” Pomni said. “You want me to…okay.” She reached into the cell and slipped her hand through his chains. She reached his pocket and started to dig around. Jax had explained to Pomni the concept of Hammer Space after the first few weeks of her arrival in the Circus. After he stole her room key and staged a little show of all the mountains of random junk he could store in the tiny pockets of his outfit. Which, he then explained to Pomni how this Toon Logic worked. Something that greatly annoyed Pomni at the time but had proven a handy trick to know. She never lost her key after that day after all.
“Ah ha!” Pomni cried as soon as she pulled out the key she bet Jax was hoping for. Sure enough she fit it in the cell lock, and it clicked open with ease. The jail door flew open and Pomni hopped inside to yank off Jax’s gag.
“Took you long enough.” Jax, the ever grateful, said. “Can you hurry up with these chains? My arms are falling asleep.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Pomni said as she immediately looked for a way to undo the chains hog tying the lanky rabbit man. As soon as they fell away, Jax sat up and started rubbing feeling back into his wrists.
“You… have been in jail before?” Pomni asked, wondering what was more surprising. That she even had to ask this or that she hadn’t seen Jax get thrown in Jail sooner.
“Tsh, yeah…” Jax said as he crawled out of his cell, tossed aside his dunce cap, and stretched his back. Now standing upright, Jax towered over Pomni. The very top of her head only reached his waist. “I used to be a bit of a troublemaker when I first came to the Circus.”
Pomni had to snort. This coming from the guy who threw her out of a moving truck on her second day and shot Ragatha in the face during a Trust Exercise. Only today had she ever seen him being thrown into prison. She shuddered to think what Jax could have done to call himself a troublemaker.
“So why is it called…?” Pomni asked, looking up at the sign that hung overhead with bright rainbow text and a Kindergarten acceptable font. Caine always did call the Circus family friendly.
“Ribbit thought it would be funny.” Jax said, sounding a bit lost. Like he forgot what he got up for.
“Who’s…?”
“She told Caine it would mean Happy Baby Jail.” Jax continued, his eyes looking over at the couches. Pomni followed his eyes, but no one was sitting there.
They stood together. Staring at nothing, letting the moment hang.
“Was Ribbit your friend?” Pomni guessed, wondering how far she could push Jax today before he receded.
“Doesn’t matter anymore.” Jax said. He turned on his heels and started walking for the dorms.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to my room, where else?”
“After everything you just want to go back to bed?”
“Yes.” Jax said. “It’s over, okay? Just another one of Caine’s adventures. I called it. We’re done.”
You also pressed the red button. Pomni thought.
“You did it, Pomni. We’re finally free.”
“Free? Free from what?”
“Hope.” Jax said with all the force of an ice dagger to the throat.
“You’re lucky. Most of us had to live with hope for years. Hope of escape, hope for a rescue, hope that someone might come shut this Circus down for good. That’s gone though. You figured it after only a couple of months. It won’t weigh you down now. We’re trapped here forever. No one is coming to save us. So why wait?”
Jax was standing over Pomni now. Without either of them noticing he had come right up to her toe to toe and was bending over just to smile right in her face. His tooth magically returned and his eyes like two black plates. Her eyes stared back at him, those blue and red circus tent eyes as tiny as buttons, and Jax turned away from her with a suck of his teeth.
Pomni watched as he walked away. His fluffy bunny tail drooping like a wet puffball. And Jax stopped.
“Hey Pomni. Can you do me a favor?” He asked, not turning back to look at her. Yet he knew she was listening. She always seemed to be listening to him.
“Can you stop waking me up from my naps? It’s really annoying.”
He didn’t wait for a response and Pomni didn’t have one. Just like the end of their Gun Adventure, she let him walk away. Once again his words had silenced her. Except this time she did not know he was lying.
Pomni went back to her room and lay in her bed. For what felt like hours she stared up at the red canopy curtain that hung high over her bed. Like everything in her bedroom, the canopy was oversized compared to her, like she was a child, not a 25-year-old woman with a 401k. Her dresser was twice as tall as she was. Not that she had a variety of outfits to store inside them. Only Caine could change her out of her poofy Jester outfit. She had pushed the building blocks to the far corner of her room to keep them out of sight and so that Pomni couldn’t accidentally collide with them and get thrown into the ceiling.
This felt eerily similar to Pomni’s first few days at the Circus. When she would stare up at the ceiling instead of sleeping. Only to be roused by Ragatha knocking at her door to let her know the next adventure would start soon.
Knock, knock, knock.
Speak of the devil…
“Pomni? Are you awake? Can I come in?”
Pomni opened the door and wordlessly let her ragdoll friend in. Ragatha gave a sad smile, but gracefully came in and sat down on Pomni’s bed. The two ladies had grown more casual with each other ever since the Gun Adventure. Finally, reaching an understanding that what they had was a real friendship. Not just some overly chipper camp counselor and the shy new girl.
“I think we should try talking to Kinger more.” Ragatha said.
This surprised Pomni. She expected Ragatha to open with asking the Jester how she was doing and get the same awkward exchange Pomni had with Jax. Followed by Ragatha nervously putting her hands in her lap. But not this Ragatha. She looked like she had a fire behind her eye.
“What about?” Pomni asked.
“Anything.” Ragatha said. “We both know he knows far more than he lets on. He gives amazing advice. And you pointed out how he gets like that whenever he is in the dark. So, I tried to speak to him while he was in his pillow fort. At first, he was his usual self, but after a while he started to get more coherent. I did not learn anything new, but I thought maybe if the two of us together tried to question him we could learn more things.”
Pomni’s eyes grew wider as Ragatha continued to speak. She followed her train of logic, until she veered left at the thought of Kinger in his pillow fort. One of the first memories she ever had of Kinger was watching him crawl into his hand built igloo of colorful cushions. She remembered noticing him leaving the group to enter his fort when Jax and Zooble had their fight. And then Caine did his snap summon. And then Kinger crawled out of his pillow fort.
“Why wasn’t he summoned?” Pomni asked herself.
“I’m sorry?” Ragatha asked.
Pomni met her eyes with a matching fire. “Why couldn’t Caine summon Kinger from his pillow fort?”