Chapter Text
It’s been about half a year since you got stuck in this strange world with no way out. Slowly, you got used to the routine and became part of the daily program. It’s not like you didn’t miss your real life, but it was better than going insane from constantly thinking about the fact that there’s no way back.
You were lying on the green couch and let out a sigh. Lazily, you turned your head to the right. You caught sight of Zooble and Gangle quietly discussing something incomprehensible. They were sitting next to each other (far too close, in your opinion, to be just normal friends) but you didn’t want to deal with that. It was only a matter of time before they got together anyway. You looked away from them. Jax had disappeared somewhere with Pomni, and Kinger had forced Ragatha to help him count larvae. Again…
You stretched out and sat up. When Caine locks himself in his office to come up with adventures for the next day, you feel more and more bored. You miss having something to do. There was literally NOTHING here. You’d walked around the lake about a hundred times, tried every attraction at the carnival, and the others always managed to entertain themselves together. Sometimes you felt like an extra. Like you didn’t belong… Maybe that’s also why you’re actually glad you no longer have to deal with the problems of the ordinary world. The way everyone used to walk past you like you were a ghost, not noticing you, and how all your efforts to make at least some friends came to nothing… it really got to you. It wouldn’t have taken long before you went crazy there too. Maybe that’s also why, in this digital world, you were given the appearance of a cupid… Trying to give love, but never receiving it in return.
You just shook your head at that. Nonsense. Everyone here likes you! You’re just overthinking it! Slowly, you got up and shuffled toward your room. It was already late afternoon anyway, at least you could take a nap and make time pass faster. You were actually curious what kind of adventure awaited you tomorrow. Maybe something with lava again? Caine had been quite fond of it lately… Or maybe something new? Hopefully nothing involving climbing heights. That always spells death for you, though you try to act like it’s nothing in front of the others. If Jax found out you’re afraid of heights… A chill ran down your spine. It also doesn’t help that, as a cupid, you have wings. You’ve only used them once the entire time and you definitely don’t plan on using them again anytime soon.
You opened the door to your room, which you had already reached without even realizing it while lost in thought. You locked the door behind you and sank into the dark, soft bed. If only tomorrow would come already…
♥ ♥ ♥
“No, this isn’t it…” came an irritated voice as a flying figure darted across the room. He was holding a stack of papers, flipping through them as if trying to find something. Something that kept slipping away.
“Maybe you should go back to the basics.” Bubble’s voice sounded over his shoulder, trying to peek at the papers. Caine turned to her.
“The basics lacked life. They lacked that WOW effect!” he threw his arms out dramatically, letting all the documents full of ideas scatter.
“We don’t want our guests to get bored of the adventures, hmm?!” He raised one side of his upper jaw as if in thought.
“They are bored, Caine.” Bubble replied.
“Shush, I wasn’t asking you!” he snapped, poking her with a finger and getting rid of her.
“It just needs more story and originality!” he declared to himself, flying behind his desk where he quickly sketched a large building onto a piece of paper. “Yes! Something like this! And I also need to add…” he muttered, drawing a new NPC. A large robot with four arms. “…something that will force them to cooperate!” Caine finished excitedly, triumphantly lifting the paper above his head. A wide, almost unsettling grin spread across his face. “Team dynamics! Tension! Emotions! That’s it!”
The paper floated in the air as more sketches began swirling around him. Hallways, traps, strange rooms filled with puzzles... It all slowly started taking shape. “And what if they don’t like it again?” Bubble’s voice piped up once more, having quietly reappeared beside him.
Caine paused for a moment. “They will! I give this one hundred and ten points out of three!” He spun in the air and vanished. Now it was time to actually create it!
♥ ♥ ♥
Morning came faster than you expected. You opened your eyes and lay still for a moment. The ceiling of your room was the same as always. For a second, you wondered if anything had changed. It always felt so unreal to wake up… Slowly, you sat up and rubbed your eyes. Outside, you could already hear the muffled voices of the others. They were probably getting ready for the day’s adventure. When you stepped out of your room, you nearly ran into Ragatha, who had apparently been about to knock.
“Oh! You’re already awake! Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I just wanted to tell you the adventure’s about to start and… I wanted to wake you.” She smiled nervously. You gave a small smile. “Thanks, I’m up.” you replied, glancing past her. “Shall we go together?” She nodded.
You walked to the stage where the others were already waiting. “Well, finally! We thought Ragatha had eaten you!” Jax joked with a wide grin. “Jax!” Ragatha snapped, then fell silent. You placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile.
“GOOD MORNING, my beautiful sweet baby carrots!” Caine’s voice rang out as he appeared above you in the middle of the room with a dramatic burst of confetti. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at the greeting, amused. His humor, as absurd as it was, always managed to cheer you up. “Today’s adventure is… Dangerous Utopian Tunels!”
Zooble rolled their eyes. “That sounds awful.”
“Each of you will be a key part of the team!” Caine ignored them. “Without cooperation, you won’t get out!” You swallowed. That didn’t sound good. Caine clapped his hands. “So what are you waiting for?! Adventure awaits! Shoo, shoo!” Before you could react, you were all forcefully pulled into a portal. It swallowed you before you could say anything. That familiar sensation hit you, like your body was breaking into a thousand pieces for a moment, and then impact. You hit the ground hard.
“Ow!” you exhaled, quickly getting back to your feet. Your surroundings slowly came into focus. You were… inside some enormous building. Everything looked sterile. Unnaturally perfect. White walls, smooth floors, soft lighting with no visible source. A utopia. Too much of one.
“Wow… Caine really outdid himself, how interesting!” Jax remarked beside you, already standing and looking around with his arms crossed. “It’s like some kind of asylum, maybe he’s hinting we should already abstract.” Continued Jax and Pomni chuckled quietly next to him but stayed silent afterwards. Kinger, however, caught your attention. He was crawling beside you like a worm, circling you for what felt like the fifth time. You decided not to question it… that’s just how he is.
Your group moved deeper down the white hallway. It looked like a normal building you just had to escape from. Nothing too complicated… but that didn’t sound like Caine. He liked tension, so there had to be more to it. Your thoughts drifted to the ringmaster in red. He’s always so kind to you, even though everyone complains most of the time. Well, not you. Whenever he asked for feedback, you always praised him. Something Jax or Zooble should never find out!
“WAIT!”
You were suddenly yanked backward. Startled, you jumped slightly and turned back in confusion. Everyone was silently staring at something ahead. You followed their gaze, and your mouth fell slightly open in surprise. Just a few meters in front of you stood a massive thing that looked like a mix between a Transformer and a Lego figure. Who knows what it was supposed to be. Fortunately, it hadn’t noticed you yet. You carefully took a step back.
“Oh wow, what a beautiful robot…” Jax said loudly with a smirk. The creature’s head snapped toward the group. Everyone glared at Jax. “You [kUqw0]!” Zooble snapped at him. Then panic set in, you all started running. The robot opened its mouth, and boiling lava began pouring out as it charged after you.
“Why does Caine [fckiwx] love lava so much?!” Pomni complained while running. “Oh, come on! It’s exciting!” Jax laughed beside her. “I’m not talking to you!” she hissed back.
You ran as fast as you could, but the floor was unnaturally slippery, making it hard not to fall. The others seemed to struggle too, but not nearly as much as you. Your wings kept tangling between your legs, making it difficult to run. After a while, you started falling behind, but you kept going.
Until you felt a sudden impact on your side and were thrown down a hallway to your left, all the way to the end. You yelped in surprise. The robot was too fast, it had caught up to your group. Unfortunately, you were the one it hit, since you were at the very back. When you got back to your feet and ran to the intersection where you’d been thrown from, the group and the robot were gone. You apparently weren’t interesting enough anymore. It had followed the others.
Muttering, you brushed off your pants and walked in the direction you saw them disappear. Alone, the building felt far more frightening than before.
There was such unnatural silence. Heavy, suffocating silence that crept under your skin. You stopped in the middle of the hallway and instinctively glanced over your shoulder. No one. Just endless white walls stretching in every direction, all exactly the same. As if you hadn’t moved at all.
You swallowed dryly.
“It’s fine…” you muttered to yourself, more out of desperation than belief. “I’ll just find them and… it’ll be fine.” Your voice echoed strangely through the space before fading away.
You wrapped your arms around yourself and quickened your pace. Your footsteps slid softly across the smooth floor, and with each step, you felt more and more lost. All the hallways looked the same. No landmarks. No sounds.
You reached another intersection. “Oh, come on…” you muttered, your voice trembling slightly. You flapped your wings in frustration to calm yourself and continued down another hallway. There were no doors anywhere. Was this whole adventure really just about wandering aimlessly and maybe finding a way out? Well… at least the creature wasn’t chasing you.
You stopped again in the middle of the hallway and glanced over your shoulder, trying to shake the feeling that someone was watching you. But behind you, there was darkness as if there was no light at all. That made you pause. You turned back. The hallway in front of you seemed longer than it had been just moments ago. The lights above you flickered faintly. For a second, it felt like one of them moved.
Your eyes snapped upward.
“This isn’t real…” you whispered, forcing a nervous smile.
♥ ♥ ♥
♥ ♥ ♥
The adventure continued. You had to solve puzzles, jump across gaps between platforms, and run from that same robot several times, but something was different. You couldn’t focus. Your thoughts kept drifting back to that moment. To the way Caine had looked at you. To that silence…
“…I don’t like it.”
The sentence kept replaying in your head like an old gramophone. You frowned. In that moment, he had seemed so… vulnerable. What if he was starting to lose interest in creating adventures? No, that’s nonsense. That’s literally what he was made for. Maybe there was something more behind it...
“Hey.” You flinched. Zooble were looking at you from a distance. “You planning to join in or something?” They looked a bit annoyed, but you understood. They hated these adventures, and the sooner it was over, the better. “I’m coming!” you smiled at them and picked up your pace.
♥ ♥ ♥
Caine sat in his office chair, replaying that moment over and over again. “…I don’t like it.” He stared into nothingness. The smile was still there, but this time, it carried no feeling. Something felt… wrong. He couldn’t describe it.
“What is this…” he whispered to himself. For the first time since his creation, he couldn’t find an answer.
Bubble floated around him restlessly. She had never seen Caine like this before. She had been trying to bother him for quite a while now, but he hadn’t reacted at all which was just as strange as when he had left the group and stopped watching their progress in the adventure. “Caine?” she tried again, more cautiously this time.
Nothing.
His fingers twitched slightly, as if trying to grasp something, something slipping away from him. Screens around him flickered between scenes from the adventure. The others, the robot, the hallways… and then you again. He stopped the one directly in front of him. The image froze at the exact moment you looked over your shoulder in that empty corridor. Your face filled with unease and distress. His smile faltered slightly.
“This…” he began slowly, “this isn’t the kind of reaction I want.”
“Fear?” Bubble suggested.
“No.” he shook his head. “This isn’t fun fear. It’s not exciting, adrenaline-filled fear.” He tilted his head. “It’s…” He trailed off.
“It’s unpleasant.” Bubble finished quietly. Caine snapped his head toward her.
“…yes.” he admitted reluctantly. He looked back at the screen, at you.
“And I don’t like that it’s unpleasant for her.” The moment he said it out loud, something flickered. The room glitched for a second. Bubble froze. “Caine…”
“That doesn’t make sense,” he muttered. “I don’t have preferences between individual participants. They’re all equal. All variables in the same equation.” He began pacing through the air, back and forth. It simply didn’t make sense. He grabbed his lower jaw thoughtfully and stopped. His gaze drifted back to you on the screen.
Then he turned to Bubble. “What is this?” he asked.
She looked at him, confused. “What is what?”
Caine let out a frustrated breath. “This!” he said, touching his chest as if pointing to something inside. Bubble frowned nervously and fell silent. For a moment, there was only quiet between them until Caine looked at her again.
“Something you shouldn’t be doing.” she answered quietly.
“I’m not doing anything!” he protested quickly and then fell silent. He didn’t fully understand what she meant, but if she was suggesting a problem in his programming… that could have consequences. His gaze shifted back to the screen, where you were now trying to keep up with the group, even though you clearly weren’t feeling well. His fingers curled slightly.
“This is a problem.” he said at last.
“A big problem.” Bubble nodded.
“Yet I have absolutely no idea what it is, but you very clearly do.” he added dryly, looking back at the small blue sphere.
She let out a nervous laugh and then popped out of existence, avoiding having to answer.
see ya'll next time with new chapter!