Chapter Text
Pomni rubs her eyes, a wave of exhaustion hitting her from the long day as everyone continues to talk to each other.
"Oh Zooble, what hilarious ideas you have! Always a kneeslapper!" Caine smacks his knee in emphasis and floats higher into the air, perched above Ragatha like a cat.
Zooble sighs, "But- that wasn't a- ugh never mind, forget it."
"Will do!" The Ringmaster's tongue lolls out of his head, staff disappearing behind him with a pop.
Pomni sways a little on her feet, grimacing about the idea of entering a conversation, "Ah, don't worry, Zooble, I think I got what you were saying..." She wraps a hand around the opposite elbow and gives a small smile before looking away awkwardly. Maybe she should go to bed early...
Zooble turns away from everyone, making an effort to look anywhere but Caine. It's a bit challenging as he zips around in the air, bringing a hand up to grasp his lower jaw, "What were we understanding? Hmm, oh my! Look at that, it's almost double past five! Bubble? Why didn't you remind me? I have a tight schedule to keep!"
"You were talking about mouths! I was hoping next you would talk about-"
Caine makes a startled noise and pops Bubble with a swift flick, clicking his jaws together and humming with annoyance.
"Aww, that was so rude Caine! I'm sure Bubble had something very appropriate to say!" Jax strolls in and leans forward to smile at Caine, "Like about se-"
"SHH!" Caine shoots forward and grabs Jax's face, "the Censors! We mustn't upset them, they've been really on my tail for allowing so many mentions of crude language!"
Specks of darkness start to bleed into Pomni's vision as Caine rants. They dance around, undeterred when she tries to blink them away.
"Pomni?" A sudden commotion interrupts any conversation, Ragatha's gasp drawing everyone's attention.
A sickening crack and a wet cough echo follow the movement, everyone's eyes snapping over to Pomni to watch her double over, her lungs heaving and spasming with pain. Wet drops fall to the floor, echoing through the now silent hall. It's so... red against the black and white tile.
Red...
Oh god, is that- is that blood?
Metal against her tongue, so real against her digital lungs. Her vision pinches suddenly, swaying and pitching at the sight of the blood. This is the most real thing that has happened to Pomni since she got here. Is it real? How can she tell? Is she actually tasting this, or is it all made up? Is she abstracting? Ragatha's soft hand is against her back, the shriek from Gangle, the utter surprise on Jax's face... it all fades away behind the wave of darkness.
The cold of the tile is nice. Something soft is petting through Pomni's hair. Blurry movement is passing around her, but everything is so far away, so distant.
"You alive there, Little Miss Throw Up?"
"Jax! Shush!"
"Aw c'moooon, look! She responded to my angelic voice. You're welcome!"
Ragatha is the one petting her hair, her worried eye looking down at her, even as she sends a quick glare at Jax.
"Ugh... what just happened?" God, her head was killing her. Her mouth was dry, and her lungs were raspy and pained. "How long was I out?"
"It's been years, Pom! We thought you were gone forever!"
"Shut up Jax!" Ragatha's voice is quivering a bit but she reigns it in, "It's only been a few seconds, Pomni. Everything is okay!" The petting doesn't stop.
Kinger leans over Pomni, scratching his chin and narrowing his eyes in deep thought, "I didn't realize we could all do that! What a funny way to express thoughts!" Kinger studies her face for a moment, then paces away when his eyes grow bright with distraction.
"Are you ok, Pomni?" Gangle sounds close to tears as she takes Kinger's place by Pomni.
"I- I think so, I barely even know what happened-" She shakes her head, slowly sitting up and rubbing her eyes. Ragatha's hand stays on her shoulder, the touch burning but not unbearable enough to push it away. Pomni's eyes flick across the trail of blood leading from the small puddle on the floor a few feet away to Ragatha's lap. Her stomach lurches at the sight of blood staining the usually comforting blue fabric, so she forces herself to look away again. Looking around at the group for an answer, she is only met with weariness, "C-Caine? What's wrong with me?"
She expects a response while rubbing her eyes, but never gets one.
"Caine?" Ragatha's attention has gone from Pomni to the Ringmaster, "umm, is he? Buffering?"
Zooble finally snaps out of their stupor and turns to Caine, "You loading?"
No response.
"You in there, buddy?" Jax slinks over to him now as well, leaning down to inspect Caine's still model. "Hellooooo, knock knock?"
Nothing.
Jax has a bored look on his face when he turns back to Pomni, "Your barf broke him."
"W-what? How?" Broke him? No, no... that can't be true. He was fine just a moment ago. Pomni searches for any sign of life in the normally energetic AI, but finds nothing. She looks around to everyone else, their confusion turned from Pomni to the completely still Caine.
"This is freaky, right?" Zooble carefully stands next to Jax to look at Caine. His eyes were the same as they usually were, his feet were floating a few inches from the ground, his jaw open in a concerned expression and a hand brought up to his upper jaw in worry. "Uh, Caine?"
Jax reached down and poked a tooth, allowing a moment before investigating further. When there was no response, he waved a hand in front of Caine's eyes, then poked the green eye and grimaced with immediate regret. Jax's ears fall back and he looks back over at everyone else, "This was fun for a bit, but then I poked his eye and I don't like it anymore. I'm gonna go sneak around while he's outta commission."
Ragatha stands, "What? Seriously, you're just going to leave?"
A large smile quickly grows across his face, "Uhh, yea? I'm sure he'll fix himself eventually. I'm not just gonna sit here and wait for him to figure out how to boot up again. Booooring." The last word is stretched out as he saunters away. Right before he turns into the hallway, he yells back, "Call me if Pomni starts bleeding again." He disappears with a cheesy smirk, leaving the rest of them to glance between the blood and Caine.
Pomni's mind is reeling, her throat burns, and her eyes are welling up with tears from the last few minutes' events. Her fingers find her throat, working their way up to swipe some blood from the corner of her mouth. Everyone's words are flying past her, the feeling of blood pouring from her throat burned into her mind. Does this mean she has organs? She has thrown up before, right? But that was just cartoonish bile, this is... this is real. This hurts like it's real. If something is wrong with her lungs, will she just... die? It can't be fixed. She's just gonna die. Here. Soon. From something so real.
Kinger bumps into her, dropping the pillow he was carrying into her lap, "Oh, oops! Sorry Pomni!"
Her mouth opens but nothing comes out, she just silently feels her throat and watches as Kinger scoops up the pillow, pats her on the head, and sets a pillow on top of Caine like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Hmm, I really thought that would work." Kinger spends a moment pondering as he adjusts the pillow before wandering away again.
"Umm, should we... do something?" Gangle has ended up by Zooble when Pomni wasn't looking, and they share a look.
"I... hate to say it, but Jax is right. Caine will probably fix himself in a bit." Zooble looks back toward Pomni now, "He's probably just writing notes... for an adventure? With... blood..." Zooble spaces out for a second before shaking their head, "Uh, Pomni, do you think you can get up?"
"Uhh..."
"Wait, Pomni-" Ragatha jumps up, "Maybe you should stay there for a bit? Or we could bring you to a couch? The rooms are pretty far away."
"Well..." Her bed calls to her... oh, it would be so nice to go to sleep right now... Ugh, she is too worked up to be tired, "Maybe you're right, I guess I want to talk to Caine about... that... when he comes back anyway..."
Kinger has placed another pillow on the AI's head, trying to stack another one on top of the tower but giving up and shoving it between the arm Caine brought up to grasp his jaw and the side of his face. Did Caine really break because of her? Or maybe... she broke because of him? Did she barf at the same time he froze?
C'mon Caine, wake up already...
A whirring sound starts up from somewhere in the circus and breaks her out of her thoughts. Everyone lifts their eyes to try to find where it is coming from, but it echoes against the colorful walls unhelpfully.
Gangle wraps a ribbon around Zooble's arm and ducks down. "W-what is that?"
The circus begins to tremble, the walls shifting and buzzing with squirming static. A series of yells leaves everyone's mouths and Kinger dives under a pile of pillows. The sound is raucous and loud, plastic tubes around the circus cracking and falling, the spiral staircase shuttering and warping. Pomni grabs at her face, fear sharp and pungent as she scrambles across the floor closer to everyone else. She grabs onto one of Caine's legs and uses it as a support to stand and grab his arms. The sounds of the circus drown out her shouts as she tries to shake the static AI.
With a high-pitched pop, everything goes silent as all the lights in the circus tent shut off. Staticky blackness engulfs everyone, shadows bending and sputtering as Pomni's eyes adjust to the faint moonlight.
Her heart is beating out of her chest, wheezing breath pushing out of her. She needs to calm down, oh no she needs to not hurl again, "Ok, ok, breathe, Pomni." A moment of silence follows her whisper as everyone waits for something that may never come.
"W-what the [BLOINK] was THAT?" Zooble voice betrays their anxiousness and it makes Pomni's stomach do a flip. Her eyes sweep along the back part of the circus, searching for any movement or... well... anything really. Ragatha's faint voice is the only noise, but the words never quite reach Pomni's ears as her eyes lock onto a flash of color.
A visual glitch is spreading on the back wall, the texture flickering in and out of existence. The wall around it expands and contracts like breathing. Pomni opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. All she can manage to do is grasp onto Caine's frozen arm more tightly and watch the glitch travel downward to distort some of the floor. Footsteps echo through the room now, more frantic breathing from afar joining with the group's already panicked breaths. Pomni can barely make out a figure alone in the dark. It's running... toward them...
"W-what! Oh god!" Pomni's panic makes everyone else look at what she sees.
"What the- hah- happened!" Was that Jax's voice? Oh wow, that IS Jax, he's sprinting so fast!
A mechanical voice suddenly speaks, "Error. Error. Waiting for program to respond- Unsuccessful. Quarantining participants. Running in Safe Mode."
Pomni squints to look behind Jax, a wall of darkness is swallowing up the space behind him as he runs, "No, no, NO!" He sprints faster when he looks back at the wave of black flowing in behind him. White particles start filtering in from seemingly nowhere, surrounding the area Pomni and the others are still frozen within.
"JAX! C'mon!" Zooble suddenly rushes into action, yelling over at Jax and jogging over to scoop up some of Kinger's pillows and drag him by the front of his robe to be within the confines of the white particles.
"Im- ha- ha- TRYING!" Jax practically dives into Gangle as he attempts to slow down, making her screech when she doesn't manage to dodge the fast-moving rabbit. The crack of her comedy mask barely audible over the buzzing darkness that quickly envelopes the space Jax was just running across.
The white particles form a wall on all sides, weaving into a pattern not unlike bricks before becoming less staticky and fading as they hold back the darkness pushing up against them.
Everyone just breathes for a moment, looking around them at the endless black being barely kept at bay. Numbers pour in from all sides, a series of checkboxes appearing, turning green and disappearing. Silence once again falls across the group as they are left in the dark.
"Jax..." Zooble is the first to speak, "What the [DING] did you do?"
"Me?? You think that was ME?" Jax is panting on the floor, hunched over as he tries to catch his breath.
"Who else??" Zooble dumps whatever amount of Kinger's pillow fort they managed to grab into Kinger's hands before crossing their arms, "You left. The circus freaked. You came back. It stopped."
"Oh, well- ha- by your logic- ha- maybe I FIXED it." He stands up, his pupils two pinpoints in his eyes, his normal smile reduced to a grimace.
"Alright... let's- let's not argue. We don't know why this happened-" Ragatha gives Jax a pointed look, but she quickly sweeps her eyes around the room. "Let's just... think about this for a second."
Gangle sniffles and picks herself up. Pomni finally pries her hands out of the iron grip she had on Caine's unmoving arm. She gives him a quick glance before going to stand over my Ragatha, "I- I think I already know the answer, but... this has never happened before... right?"
Everyone looks around at each other. Awkward silence engulfs them. Pomni looks away, out toward the black inkiness that surrounds them. She can barely make out the faint outlines of the large circus room that was just there, but she can't tell if it is actually there... or if her mind is just filling in the gaps. The ceiling is completely gone, a small patch of stars shaped perfectly in a square above them is the only thing among the darkness.
Pomni sighs, wiping away a tear that is threatening to fall down her cheek.
"Ugh, this sucks. What the [SPLAT], Caine?"
Gangle makes an unsure noise as Jax goes over and shakes the Ringmaster. When he doesn't respond, Jax groans and deals a swift kick to one of Caine's knees. "WAKE UP! UGH! I wanna go to bed, this is stupid." Everyone watches Jax sink down against Caine, leaning against one of his legs still floating in the air and sitting down with a pathetic pout.
"Here ya go, Jax!" Kinger politely sets one of his pillows down on Jax's crossed arms, patting his head meaningfully before sinking down to lean on Caine's other leg and pile all of his pillows around him.
Jax scoffs while Kinger continues, "My, this is quite the series of events! But I think we are safe for now. What an odd situation to require a sleepover."
Gangle perks up a little bit, "A... sleepover?"
"Yea! Looks like we can't go back to our rooms quite yet, so we're gonna have to sleep here! Oh Zooble, thank you for grabbing some of my pillows, you really saved the day with that one!"
"Uhh... you're welcome? I... don't really know why I did that." Zooble sits down next to Gangle, eyeing a pillow by Kinger for a moment before dragging it over to them, "Should we... really just go to sleep? It seems kinda, I don't know, dangerous. Or something."
"Now that the Tooth Fairy is broken, we really don't got a whole lot else to do. I'm goin to bed. If we all glitch out of existence and die a painful death, don't wake me." Jax curls up around a pillow in the corner, facing his back toward the rest of the group. His breathing doesn't change and he doesn't even try relax the tense line of his shoulders, it was a really bad imitation of sleeping. He was probably just interested in whatever the rest of them were going to talk about... but she didn't blame him for wanting to be left alone. Her throat still burned from the... previous situation and everyone's voices felt like lava against her aching head. At least she didn't have to make the effort of going all the way back to her room. This situation was considerably worse then a quick walk back. But still. Less walking at the cost of being confined to a box surrounded by infinite darkness. At least the vast majority of the blood she coughed up earlier wasn't trapped in here with them. She sends a weak smile over at a totally not freaking out Ragatha and slouches down next to Kinger, just to have a place to sit upright for a while.
"Hey, Kinger?"
"Yes Pomni?"
"Do you think..." Pomni looks up at his concerned face. She can't really tell how... here he is, but it's dark... and... She sighs and thinks about Mildenhall Manor, "Do you think I actually broke Caine?"
The look that Kinger gives her makes her ache. She really wishes he could smile.
"Of course not, Pomni. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm sure he'll be fixed after he looks at his bug collection- or something?"
"Right..." Her eyebrows scrunch in thought and she glances up at Caine. At least if she falls asleep here, she'll notice if he moves and maybe he'll tell her what happened. Is she really gonna sleep right now? I mean, shouldn't she at least try to stay awake- in case something happens to her. No, no, no, don't freak out. She's not gonna die in her sleep... the coughing up blood was probably a one-time thing- You won't die you won't die you w-
"Pomni?"
"Huh?" Kinger is looking at her again, this time with worry. At least he can't frown at her. "Sorry, I'm just- nervous... about sleeping. I think."
"We are all right here, Pomni. Nothing bad will happen. I promise." Kinger holds out a pinky and looks at her expectantly. Pomni looks between him and the gesture for a moment, then wraps her finger around his with a quiet chuckle. She isn't a child.
But... maybe she could sleep for a little bit...