Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Well, I believe this is goodbye, Pomni.” Kinger said, a floating hand touching her shoulders. His eyes squeezed shut, similar to a smile– if he had a mouth. “Good luck out there.” 

There was an aching feeling in her chest, she would miss everyone in the circus. She watched them walk through one by one, hopefully waking up in the real world. Pomni told herself she wasn’t going to cry. (She had already cried, twice, but now the witnesses weren’t there to see it so it didn’t count.)

Turns out Caine’s comment about an ‘Escape the Circus’ adventure from one of her first days wasn’t just a joke, but more of a last hurrah. The game was going to break anyway, and something in his AI must’ve cracked. Something was keeping him from downright letting everyone out but turning it into a game seemed to be the loophole. Nobody really understood it, but it seemed to align with what they already knew.  She recalled Zooble saying that Caine did actually like them, and that seemed to prove it.

Pomni was the second to last to step through the ‘portal to the real world’. She wanted to go last, as she had been in the circus for the least amount of time, but Kinger had insisted on going last ‘just in case’. She wasn’t winning that argument either.

Stepping through the portal didn’t feel like walking through anything. It was just a light that was bright enough to make her nose sting, and she didn’t even have a nose yet. She squeezed her eyes shut until the light dimmed. Her ears were ringing.

When she opened her eyes she was at her desk. 

Ambient typing and machine whirrs swirled around the room. The dull colors almost made it difficult to latch onto anything. This definitely wasn’t the circus or any of its’ adventure worlds anymore, but being at work was the last place she expected to wake up. 

Oh, she was awake. Like, really awake.

What?

The dizziness hit right as she connected the dots and her hands collided with the desk to steady herself. It must've been louder than she intended because she could feel people staring. Was she hyperventilating? When’s the last time she could actually feel air going in and out of her lungs? Somehow this was more overstimulating than the digital world she had grown used to. All the sensations of her body were so much more of an assault on the senses than bright colors and adventures.

She almost drowned once, when she was a kid. The air she just breathed in felt so much heavier than water. She could remember something from when she was a kid. 

She was real. This was real.

Two sets of memories flowed into her head at once, catching her body up with everything that happened in the circus, and catching her mind up with everything her body was doing in the real world. It made her throat start to close up, piecing together how much time had passed while her own body was just living without her. How much time had passed anyway? What was her name again? It certainly wasn’t Pomni.

She must’ve said something, she could feel it in her throat. 

Maybe it was when she was gasping for air, maybe something primal called for help.

“Are you alright?” A voice from across from her, a coworker presumably, asks. She can’t remember his name, or if she’s ever actually seen him before. 

“‘M fine.” She mumbles in response. Her voice betrays her, shaking and breathy. She’s obviously far from fine, but there’s no easy way to tell an acquaintance that you just gained consciousness in your own body after an extended period of time.  

Her brain catches up to her, supplying the name Paul, he’s kind of new here. She tries not to wonder just how new he is, since that would mean confronting how much time might’ve passed. She’s crying.

C’mon, grounding techniques. Five things you can see. Her vision is blurry as it darts around the room. She lists the laptop in front of her, concerned faces, a clock on the wall– 3:26pm, her hair in her eyes, and her hands. Her hands? She lifts one in front of her face, inspecting it, then to wipe away the tears that were stinging her cheeks. Five fingers. No gloves, either. 

Four things you can touch; The desk, her jeans– she closes her laptop and pulls herself to a stand against her desk– that counts, the laptop, her hair. Though she hasn’t seen her reflection, she can feel that it’s longer than she normally keeps it, which instills another fresh sense of dread to join all the other dreads she’s been feeling since she woke up. Like how she’s just been awake the entire time anyway. She can actually feel the things she touches, further overstimulating her senses. 

Touch in the circus was more intuitive than anything. It was hard to describe the feeling, or lack of it, other than that touching real life things all of the sudden felt way too real.

She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, she needs to get the fuck out of here. 

Huh, no cartoonish censorship over swear words either. She had always wondered how they ended up censored even in her internal monologue when she was in the circus. The circus is all she can think about, even though she’s getting nothing out of it. She can only remember bits and pieces and none of them are adding up.

Stop. This is real life. You can think about the circus when you’re away from everyone else, she thinks.

She’s at work and she’s freaking out, in front of people no less.  The idea of anyone being concerned enough to take her to a doctor briefly flashes in her head and she drags herself to the bathroom. If her life is anything like how it's been before, she can’t afford to go to the emergency room.

She lets autopilot take her body where she needs to go. No, she knows this building, she’s here forty hours a week! She knows where the bathroom is. 

Three things you can hear; her own footsteps, her name badge and keys jingling, the employee bathroom swinging open. The oppressive public bathroom smell overwhelms her– generic cleaner with a hint of wet, and then the slightly cherry scented soap. That’s two things you can smell, an unhelpful voice in her head says. 

The grounding techniques aren’t as helpful when it's the first time you’ve been in this body in awhile, or at least that’s what she’s beginning to realize.

Locking herself in a stall, she’s finally able to try and get a hold of herself. Fumbling with the name badge around her neck, it catches the glare of the fluorescent lights above her before revealing a slightly old picture of herself, and her name. Penny.

She laughs, the irony of it being so close to the name that was chosen for her in the circus but she never once was able to remember the name Penny.  A simple slipup from Pomni could easily lead to Penny, right? And then she laughs again at the picture, remembering how much she hated that it was the one used for her work badge. It was at least three years old now, depending on how much time has passed. 

Penny fumbles for her phone in her pocket, holding her breath as she reads the date. Friday January 5, 2024. A sigh escapes her, and she’s conflicted at whether it's one of relief or not. Three months had passed since she had absentmindedly put on a headset in an abandoned building, three months of adventures, three months that her body had just been living without her even inside it. At least it’s a weekend. She just needs to make it through a few more hours and then she has two whole days to recoup.

If it has truly been three months, she decides that the circus must’ve been real. There’s no way that three months can just disappear like that and her life will still be completely normal, right? 

She wasn’t even sure if time passed the same as it did in the circus, it certainly didn’t feel like it. Her first few days she had tried to count them, but she must’ve forgotten. There were a lot of things the circus made you forget, but there were often moments of clarity. When her mind was clear enough, she could remember things from her real life while in the circus that she was sure she had forgotten on her first day there. She could recall sharing details of her life with the rest of the cast, and the others sharing things with her  in return. It kept her sane, and reminded her that it was real.

Fuck, everyone else is probably awake too now, right? There were people there who had been stuck for years, and she couldn’t fathom how they could be doing right now. 

“Good luck out there!” She can hear Kinger say to her. She once again tells herself that she’s not going to cry. He had been there the longest out of everyone, watched everyone make it into the circus, and then watch everyone get out one way or another (she can’t wrap her head around the people who abstracted. When she tries to think about it her brain starts skipping steps).

She wanted to find everyone else, or at least someone who knew about the circus. Selfishly to confirm that it was real, but also to make sure they were okay. She had no idea how she’d go about doing it. 

If she had it her way, she’d hop in her car right now, go home, and immediately start digging. Where would she even start? Home, huh. Her body slept in her own bed every night, but it had been three months since she consciously slept in her own bed.

Really it had been three months since she truly slept, “sleeping” in the circus hardly counted. She didn’t get tired or hungry digitally, so sleeping and eating were more of formalities to feel a bit more of a structured routine. At least nighttime in the circus meant you were guaranteed some time alone (most of the time). Caine was often bad with social formalities, but he understood that nighttime was “off limits” to people, so to speak. 

Penny checked the time on her phone again, 3:32 pm, meaning she only had about an hour left of work. If she was lucky, the show she made when she ‘woke up’ would be enough for her to go home for the day, but she wasn’t about to gamble with a point to her attendance. How caught up on work was she, anyway? Her body couldn’t have been knocking it out of the park without her, she didn’t knock it out of the park when she was in her body anyway. 

She took another deep breath. Acting as if nothing mattered and that everything was fine had come natural to her over the years, the circus only helped further that skill. She was sure she could swallow the panic for a few hours until the drive home.

The stall door clicks open, and Penny stares at her reflection. Her actual reflection. She looks uncomfortably normal aside from how long her hair has gotten. Her hair is tied back, except for her bangs and the strands of hair around them that frame her face. They look just about long enough that they probably would fit into the ponytail she keeps her hair in everyday by now. She briefly understands why she was so bug-eyed as Pomni as she meets the gaze of her own big brown eyes. 

Her mind once again wanders to how similar the others may have looked to their characters, or how that would even work for some of them. Trying to piece some of those designs to a real person makes her choke out the smallest laugh.

She just had to make it through the work day, get home and then she could freak out and fall into an obsessive deep dive of the circus.

And that’s exactly what she did, for about a week straight.

Anything that she could remember and deemed somewhat important as an identifying factor, she had written down, all the way down to things said to her in passing. 

It was almost funny. She and everyone else had spent so much time wanting to get out while they were in the circus, but now that she’s back in the real world the circus is all she can think about. She hopes that the others aren’t tearing themselves up about it as much as she is.

As far as her real life went, she also had to do a lot of catching up on what her body was doing without her. Penny found herself scrolling through messages and emails, the highlights of the news, and making sure that it added up with what her body instinctively ‘remembered’. She wasn't sure she would ever get used to the feeling of remembering something that she wasn't even there for, especially when they overlap. The memories from the circus are much more pronounced, since that was her. Her body remembered all the things that it had experienced, and she was left to pick up the pieces.

There were pictures on Facebook of her at family dinners that she could half remember, Thanksgiving and Christmas, an invite to a New Year's party at work. One of her friends was engaged, and there’s a comment that “Penny” left congratulating her. She could “remember” these things happening, similar to the way you’d remember a book that you’re rereading for the first time in several years. It also reminded her of the first time she ever really got hungover–she swore up and down that she’d never drink again after that (She did not keep that promise). Her mind wanders over to the other circus members again and how they might be adjusting at this rate, then she remembers how inconclusive her search had been thus far.

It was easy to retrace her own steps, almost too easy. After digging through her search history from around October 2023, Penny hit a decent lead. There was an abandoned office building for a long defunct tech start up under the name C&A (digging up anything about the company proved to be a near impossible task, but she was happy that their properties seemed to still exist on Google), and she most certainly recalled some of their company imagery in the circus. 

There was even video footage on her phone still from the very day she had entered the circus. From what she had remembered of filming, most of it should be uneventful. Penny can remember what the building looks like and didn’t have much interest in listening to herself ramble for several minutes. She hits play anyway.

“So, I used to drive past this office building all the time,” She begins to explain in the video as she walks. The camera is shaky, and the flash occasionally catches specs of dust that cause a bright white glare. “Some sort of tech company or something back in the 90’s, obviously.” She pans to a wall displaying the big C&A logo on it, and then across the room of cubicles. It’s hard to make them out as her phone camera adjusts to the change in lighting.

“I guess they’ve been defunct for a while, but for some reason nobody will repurpose the building? Or even demolish it.” Video-Penny continues. “I dunno, it’s weird. I was trying to do some research on it to make sure I wouldn’t get shot or arrested for poking around in here but there was like, nothing. One of the owners randomly went quiet and the whole company went under or something. It’s weird. It looks like everyone just got up and left one day, kinda like a time capsule.” She was right, it really had looked like everyone just got up in the middle of the day and never came back. Despite the lack of any life, the building had hardly succumbed to the elements over the years.

“This was their only real building, I guess. Probably couldn’t afford to keep it or something, the only other address listed with the company is someone’s house now.” Video-Penny says, opening a door leading to a long hallway.

She continues fumbling around the offices; showing off the old computer equipment, papers covered in dust, and tags from other people who had visited before her. She cracks a few jokes about the dust and why she thinks the company may have gone under, and then she shows the headset in frame.  Penny takes a sharp breath in as she sees it just staring back at her. 

That’s definitely it, she thinks. It’s completely inconspicuous, just a headset hooked up to a computer, covered in a thick blanket of dust. There were absolutely no signs of life.

Back in the video she puts her phone down on the desk and makes a comment about how ancient the equipment must be. The camera faces up at the dusty ceiling and her body is just out of view as she fumbles around with the headset.

“I’m gonna put it on, it’s really gross and I’m gonna regret it but it’s whatever.” She says, and more dust glares against the camera’s flash as she attempts to wipe some off. Video-Penny then puts the headset on out of frame, one of her arms just visible enough to clue the viewer in that she had done it. Something in the background whirrs awake and she just barely gasps. If Penny wasn’t there and didn’t know what happened at that moment, that gasp wouldn’t have meant anything to her. It was barely there.

She’s still out of frame, but Penny can hear in the video as she fumbles with the headset and sets it back on the desk, still not saying anything. The last thing in the video is the glare of her hand as she grabs her phone to end the video. 

Instinctively, Penny wanted to delete it. Her stomach tightened as she watched it the first time, and then again, and again. That same, head-spinny feeling from when she "woke up" washed over her.

She could feel in her head the exact moment that she switched from in her own body to the circus. She replayed the video more times than she’d like to admit, especially those last few seconds, taking in every little detail that she could, writing things down, cross referencing. There was a lot more helpful information than she thought. She didn’t remember the thing about someone’s house, and now she was sure that those offices were the same as the ones she saw on her first day in the circus when she found that “exit door.”

It has also proved the theory she had in her head correct, seemingly. That when she put the headset on her consciousness got transported, and her body took the thing off like it was nothing and continued without her. Presumably, that’s what everyone else must have done too. 

Penny smiled to herself as she connected the dots. If this was truly the only building that the company owned, assuming no one’s body decided to move across the country on its own, that gives her a pretty small radius to work with. Finding the others could actually be a lot easier than she initially thought, so she better get moving with something.

Before she could change her mind, she uploaded the video to her YouTube channel. 

No real editing, since she never was in frame the entire video. That was how most of her channel was. The videos had minimal editing, if any, just in case she said anything that made her cringe or showed her face. Titles were always kind of vague, and she had a bad habit of rambling in the description. It wasn’t like she was looking for any sort of audience, it was just nice to have a specific place for the things she did and thoughts she had on them. It was sort of like a public journal.

Uploading the video seemed like the best way Penny could scream “come find me” to anyone that may have been looking, and god did she hope someone was looking. She had told the others exactly where to look. Not to mention that it felt like a much safer option than just going back there herself. Sure, the game was broken now or whatever, but she wasn’t eager to take her chances. There was no guarantee that the next AI she would be trapped with would be nice enough to give her a way out if she did end up trapped in another digital world. There was also hardly a chance that anyone that would know what happened would be dumb enough to go look for her.

If anyone had decided to look into the digital circus they would have to start with C&A, and that would lead them to the video, and that would lead them to her. Easy enough.

Chapter Text

Jax was pretty sure that the “Escape the Circus” adventure was nothing to write home about. Raised stakes, multiple stages, and the game shattering at the seams? There was no way for him to be fully convinced it wasn’t just the AI messing around with new assets, despite all the signs glaring at him in the face telling him otherwise. The glitches were impossible to ignore, really. Something was wearing Caine down, probably the cast themselves, but he was ultimately programmed to be hospitable to humans. That was probably what led to him “letting them out.”

It had been years since he ended up in the circus, at least he was pretty sure it had been years. The days all blended together in the circus, probably intentionally, and he wasn’t the type of person to try and keep count of the time passing. He knew what that did to a person.

“What are you thinking about?” A voice behind him piped up. Pomni was walking beside him, slightly trailing behind because of her little legs.

Jax hummed in response to let her know he wasn’t ignoring her, but let the silence fill between them for a few moments longer. They had ended up separated from the rest of the group in some sort of maze that rearranged itself after an unspecified amount of time. Of course, they had gotten separated because they were bickering (but it was more of Jax being difficult on purpose). 

The idea of it being the last adventure together they would ever go on made Jax pull out all the stops towards everyone, and the jester saw right through him, apparently.

Something had shifted between him and Pomni that he didn’t really have a name for. If the jester was anything, it was persistent. She made it her personal mission to get in between all of the carefully constructed masks and walls that Jax had put up, and at some point he had just let her in. He still continued to be difficult about it, but it felt nice to have someone that he could be himself around again, or at least as close to “himself” that he allowed himself to be.

“Do you really think this is actually it?” Jax finally said, answering her question with a different question. 

“I guess I don’t know,” Pomni said. Her voice was calm, soft and melodic as she mused out loud. “If it is, and I wake up in the real world, I think I would be bored.” Her tone spikes up at the end as if it were a question.

“Yeah, because these adventures are just the pinnacle of fun.” Jax said, hands folding behind his head as he walked. Classic deflection, because that’s never failed with Pomni before. 

“You know what I mean.” 

“Gonna miss me or somethin, Poms?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Pomni said, laughing a bit as she spoke. His spine and ears straightened up in response, arms dropping to his sides and making him even more cartoonishly lanky looking. She must’ve noticed because she let out a quick “sorry” as they continued turning through the maze they were stuck in.

Pomni really did have an affinity for knocking Jax on his ass with her straightforwardness. That’s probably how she ended up getting so close, and how he ended up being so powerless to stop it. 

Now that he was, presumably, reaching the end of things, he was restless. This was a much worse sense of losing control than the concept of abstraction, and the idea of anyone missing him or anyone else in the circus made his stomach turn. The idea of him missing anyone in the circus, or the circus in general was even worse. Jax had essentially accepted that this was his life now, and that he was probably dead in the real world, the possibility of that not being the case was suffocating him.

He huffed, wanting to escape from the tension that has been growing in the silence between them. 

“I suppose it would be a bit boring.” He said, shoving his hands into his pockets. Once again finding himself pathetically backpedaling on his usual antics when it came to Pomni. He’d tell himself it was only because they were alone together, or maybe because they would probably never see each other again after today, but he knew that it was just the effect she had on him. "Besides, it’ll be a shame to have to get rid of all the cartoon logic. A day job doesn’t have nearly enough violence and bloodshed.” He added, turning around to wink at Pomni, who visibly relaxed.

“Oh, I’m sure.” She said, laughing. Jax really liked the sound of her laugh, often finding himself seeking it out in stupid ways. He usually wasn’t a sappy person, but he was pretty sure that he could drown in her melodic laughter.

Down one of the turning hallways, he could hear Ragatha calling for the two of them. Jax loosened his posture in response, letting his mask slip back on.

“There’s the rest of them, we should probably swing back so we can uh, get out of here or whatever.” He said, shrugging. He didn’t look at Pomni, but he could feel her scrutinizing him.

“Before we do that, can I ask you something?” She said quietly. 

Jax wanted to tell her no, to deflect, or to just keep walking. If this is it, he was already going to lose her, what else is there to lose if he just goes off the rails for this last adventure? They won't ever see each other again, more than likely.

“Shoot.” Is all he said in response. They both stood in place, Pomni a few feet behind Jax, and he couldn’t bring himself to turn and look at her.

“Would you look for anyone in the circus when you got out?” She asked.

He stiffened, then opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. A voice in the back of his head was screaming at him, begging and pleading to deflect. Behind that, another voice that he liked to ignore whenever he got the chance to spare his own feelings. Calm and controlled, but direct, saying “don’t say [CAR HORN] you don’t mean.” 

Really, the fact that swearing was censored even in internal monologues was ridiculous. So much for Caine saying “the only thing I don’t have control over is your minds.” Good one.

Jax wasn’t sure how to answer. He didn’t like to think about what he would do if he ever escaped the circus because of how much of a pipedream it felt like, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t think about it at all. He would be even more of a liar if he said that he wouldn’t at least go looking for answers, maybe find the headset that trapped him in the first place and destroy it, burn the place down.

“I’ve thought about it,” He finally said, looking at his nonexistent fingernails, anything to not feel Pomni’s gaze on him. “Not sure it would be as fun to mess with you guys in the real world though.” He added, the closest he’d get to saying what he really meant.

“I guess I’ll take it.” Pomni said, walking towards, then ahead of Jax. He watched her for a moment, before following her to the others that were just out of earshot by now.

He had been a lot more honest than he preferred to be, which seemed to be an ongoing theme when he was alone with Pomni. More often than not, the things he said spilled out of him before he got a chance to think about what he was giving away. And he was always giving stuff away, telling her things he was afraid of, random stories about things that happened before she showed up, the secret he could hardly even admit to himself.

Jax couldn’t actually remember much of anything about his old life before the circus. Not just the basics of “I can’t remember my name or what I used to look like,” but anything. He wasn’t even sure he remembered how old he was, or what his life was like. There were bits and pieces, a show he watched or a hobby he maybe had, but he could hardly remember any feelings he had attached to it. He had spent so much time running from his humanity, assuming he was probably dead or worse in the real world and that it didn’t matter, that there was no memory to hold onto at all.

The Noir Bar adventure wasn’t anywhere close to the first time Jax had heard details about the other people’s lives, but it was one of the first times he realized just how little he actually remembered. Ragatha had been around longer than him and she could remember so much of her life, it only twisted the blade in his mild resentment towards her. He had told Pomni that.

“Oh! There you guys are!” Speak of the devil, Ragatha’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. Everyone was standing in front of a large set of doors, looking at Jax and Pomni expectantly.

“Sorry about that-” Pomni began to speak, getting cut off by Jax resting his arm atop her hat and opening his mouth.

“Went on a little sidequest because Pomni was gonna miss me. Had to get my last character arc of a heart-to-heart before the adventure ends.” He said, once again not thinking in the slightest before he spoke. He watched everyone’s eyes dart between the two of them as he realized how much of himself he was giving away.

“I’m going to miss all of you guys.” Pomni said, carefully picking Jax’s arm off the top of her head.

“Well, you’re in luck because we’re going to miss you too.” Zooble said, an uncharacteristically soft tone in their voice. “That’s why we waited for you guys, anyway. Pretty sure that this is the door to the exit.”

Beyond the oversized set of doors was a dimly lit room adorned with party decorations. There was a large banner that said “celebrate!” that was hanging by nothing from the ceiling, and balloons littering the floor and ceiling. In the center of the room sat a wooden dining table with a tape player and directly in front of it, and being the primary light source, there was a large white portal that could have led anywhere.

“Well, this isn’t unsettling at all.” Jax quipped, trying to lighten the somber mood that had come over the group as they gathered into the room. He couldn’t deny how much it did freak him out though.

The rest of the group slowly devolved into a conversation of “what now?” that Jax had decided to tune out, mostly just watching everyone, drinking it in. He didn’t make much of an effort to uphold any semblance of friendship with anyone in the circus these days except for Pomni, and he was only ‘friendly’ with Kinger. He watched the other three that he had consciously made an effort to make their lives worse, and didn’t ignore the feeling that welled up in his chest about how much he did appreciate them in some messed up way.

That wasn’t anyone’s business, and this was supposedly the last time he would see any of them ever again. He was going to allow himself to be a little sensitive while they weren’t paying attention to him.

The group had made their way towards the table in the center of the room, Ragatha picking up the tape player in the middle and pressing play. A monologue from Caine, great. A bunch of confetti materialized out of nowhere after the ringmaster said the word “congratulations,” and Jax had once again tuned the festivities out.

Pomni had turned to look at him at some point, he didn’t even notice that he didn’t move ahead with the rest of the group. Her bright pinwheel eyes were all big and sad looking, silently asking if he was okay. When did he learn to read her so well, anyway? He shrugged his shoulders and made his way up to join the others, tuning back into the last of Caine’s pre-recorded speech.

“So that’s really it then?” Gangle asked, sounding more teary than usual. Conversation picked up again around him, allowing Jax to pick up the gist of what he missed. The circus quite literally did not exist anymore, and they were in the last functional map in the game. Stepping through the portal should allow them all to wake up back in the real world “most likely alive in the year 2024.”

Huh.

The room they were all in felt a lot smaller, and the space around it felt infinite. All the voices in the room picked up again, but they were all underwater sounding. Jax could feel himself slipping again, a hazy and thick sense of unknown that spat from the portal illuminating the room.

“So who’s going first?” Jax asked, cutting through the conversation and teary goodbyes that had once again been stirred up. He would never say it out loud, but he really didn’t want to be the first one to walk through there, and he didn’t want to be the last either. 

“I think I should go last,” Pomni said, her tone careful. “I’ve been here the least amount of time, it feels like it’s only fair.”

“Going from first to last doesn’t sound too bad!” Ragatha exclaimed, clapping her plush hands together and turning towards Kinger.

“If it’s alright with you, Pomni, I think I would like to stay behind to make sure all of you get out safe.” Kinger said, a certain conviction in his eyes that wasn’t often seen. Everyone turned back to Ragatha.

“Oh! I guess that’s me then,” She said, crumpling in on herself. “Does anyone have any objections?” The room fell silent, making Jax chuckle a bit. At least he wasn’t the only one seemingly a bit afraid to go through that portal.

“I uh, I guess this is goodbye then? It feels really weird to say that um. I’m glad I got to meet you guys, even if it was in here.” The ends of all of her sentences quirked up as she spoke, rambling and flinging her hands around before taking a deep breath and stepping through.

The remaining four looked expectantly at Jax, who definitely did not flinch at the sudden amount of eyes on him. God, he still wasn’t ready.

“Oh right, guess it’s my turn,” He said, his voice and body seemed to move on their own as he lazily made his way to the portal. “I’m not gonna give a speech though, sorry to disappoint.” He made one last quip before closing his eyes and slinking through the portal. 

When he opened his eyes again he was on his back in bed.

The memory clicked into place instinctively, this was his childhood bedroom. Or maybe it was still his bedroom, he had no idea.

“How the fuck did I get here?” Was the only coherent thought in his head as he shot upright, which proved to be a terrible idea. Pain shot through his entire head, sharp between his eyes, and then like running water on the sides of his head. The pain made him squeeze his eyes shut so hard his ears rang. A pair of hands met his face, his own hands, they were too dry and his face was too clammy, he let out a groan. 

Nausea overtook his body, and his hands hit his bed, gripping his sheets like his life depended on it. He was absolutely not leaving this room, even if it meant throwing up all over a bed that he hasn’t slept in in god knows how long. Memories that he had spent too long repressing rushed through his head, being in his body made him remember all the reasons he had tried so hard to forget everything about his real life. 

He sighed, his whole body shaking as he let out the breath, and then let out another groan. The nausea was only better enough for him to move his head, scanning the room around him. It was almost like he left it, if he remembered correctly (which he wasn’t sure he was). The blinds were shut, letting the afternoon light illuminate the otherwise dark room, which was still too bright. There were clothes on the floor and posters on the wall, a desk littered with papers, and just what he was looking for. His laptop was sitting there, lid open with the screen off, practically waiting for him to wake it up.

Hobbling out of bed, he dragged himself to the screen, tensing as he let his fingers brush against the trackpad. The machine whirred awake, and the date stared him back in the face. Sure enough, Caine wasn’t lying. There he was, “most likely alive in 2024.”

The login screen saying “Hello Felix!” only seemed to mock him even further. His own name staring back at him turned into a cruel, aching feeling that demanded his attention. It screamed “this is real, and everything you just experienced was real.” 

He had a name, and was in his childhood bedroom, and he was going to turn 23 this year. Which meant he had just spent the last two years of his life in the circus.

Chapter Text

One of the perks about being in a digital world was that there was so much less noise to account for. 

Despite the harsh lighting in the circus, she couldn’t hear the constant hum that big fluorescents gave off. She couldn’t really feel her clothes on her skin as a little cartoon jester, either.  There was still the feeling of being touched, and some sort of phantom “texture” for objects, but it was typically much more muted. The only time that touch really felt real in the circus was when the characters physically interacted with each other, and as Pomni she made an effort to avoid that physical contact as much as possible (with exceptions).

It had been about three weeks since Penny had returned to the real world, falling into a rhythm of just going through the motions. It was easy enough, and a strategy that she utilized often. She would just keep her head down, go to work, go back home and continue digging for information. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The two accounting offices were typically quiet, but they weren’t silent. She liked that they were quiet, so that her mind could wander, and that the clock on the wall was one where the second hand was in constant motion. The clock in the break room was one that ticked, which was one of the many reasons Penny avoided it like the plague.

Accounting was next to the HR department for their region, which spanned an entire hallway of offices, and you could always hear the chatter from the people in HR because of how quiet everyone in accounting was. They were also one of the farthest from the warehouse connected to their building.

There was so much turnover in the accounting offices because a quarter of their already small department were interns, meaning every few months there were at least two new faces.

Penny knew the names of the two other permanent people in open cubicles in her office, as well as the three in the next room over (the open-concept cubicles were an idea that someone in corporate proposed to “encourage a friendly and familiar work environment” but was probably just so it was easier to look over people’s shoulders to make sure they were actually doing their work). Her eyes darted to the empty desk across from her, the guy who asked her if she was okay when she had woken up in the real world’s last day was last Friday, meaning someone new was starting this week.

There was always something happening.

At least Penny did have a life to return to– literally and figuratively. She had a body to return back to, and it wasn’t wasted away or hooked up to machines. She was lucky to have a good relationship with her parents, and was friendly with her coworkers. There were also the friends she had  online and from school, and had hobbies outside of work. The hobbies in question may have been trespassing and staying up too late online, but they were hobbies nonetheless. There were restaurants she had gone too long without eating at and things that she had gone too long without seeing.

Really it was nice to return to all of those things. In the circus she could “miss” them, but the memories were always a bit jumbled.  As Pomni, she used to have conversations with Ragatha about food and recipes they missed. She could vaguely remember the dish and the flavor, and that it was at a “cool restaurant back at home,” but not much else beyond that.

Food in the circus wasn’t exactly the best in the world, but it also wasn’t terrible as far as fake food went. Somehow Ragatha had figured out how to cook and bake in the circus during her free time, saying that “if they ever got out she’d love to actually make these dishes for everyone” on more than one occasion. Penny wanted to take her up on that, if she could ever find her.

She knew Ragatha was in real estate around the time she ended up in the circus, and there was a real estate company that was still supposedly connected to the C&A office building. Narrowing down people in the company to find her, however, proved to be a big task. The amount of women that are thirty or near their thirties in real estate is actually a pretty high number, apparently, and this is the Midwest, so many of their profiles have something about humble farm-adjacent upbringings.

Penny considered herself to be quite a direct person, but she wasn’t about to message a random person, “hey, did you happen to be trapped in a video game for several years, this is Pomni btw,” unless she was sure she had the right person. 

It wasn’t like there was a therapist that she could talk to about her situation, at least not honestly. Searching for the others that were trapped in the circus probably wasn’t helping her clumsy readjustment period to her old life either. 

It was her real life, she would often have to remind herself. The one she spent months missing, no less.

Penny missed her friends from the circus more than she ever expected to in such a short period of time. She didn’t just miss them because of how abruptly everything ended, or the forced proximity and absurd situations she found herself in with them. She missed learning about their lives.

She thought about her last moment in the circus again as Pomni. She thought about Kinger, and his insistence on staying last so everyone could have a chance to get out first. How he always looked out for everyone else in the circus, and how you didn’t have to look very hard to see it. He was forgetful, skittish, and erratic, but was also so kind. Kinger was also full of stories, if he was caught at the right time. 

She missed seeing Gangle’s art, and bonding over working in customer service with her and Zooble (though it had been a few years since Penny had directly worked in customer service, her years in retail are burned into her memory). She enjoyed watching the other two get closer, too, Zooble brought out a confident side to Gangle, who brought out a softer and more comfortable side to them in return. Gangle was also unintentionally hilarious, and it had nothing to do with the comedy mask (she was funnier without it anyway, when she was actually herself). She was only second to Jax as far as people who could make her laugh over just about anything.

Jax. 

Penny couldn’t even bother denying how much she missed Jax, even when he was insufferable, and childish, and antagonistic. Even when he was trying too hard to be something he wasn’t, and danced around the topic at hand every time the conversation about their friendship ever came up.

Jax was complicated, and he made a big show about being as closed off as he could possibly be. As Pomni, she had managed to break through some of those walls little by little. He told her about random ins and outs of the circus that she otherwise would’ve never known, and little snippets of himself once in a while. She felt like she really knew him, even though he couldn’t remember much of anything about his life before the circus. 

They all kept her going. That was how she knew that it was real.

Penny opened her email for what seemed to be the millionth time in one day, totally not regularly checking if anyone had bit on her YouTube video. Not that she really expected anything groundbreaking, but there was still that persistent tug and hope that made her almost constantly have the video’s comment section open.

There was one in particular that caught her eye, reading “If i didn’t know any better i’d think this was the start to an arg or something lol. Cool instagram btw.”

Oh yeah, that. 

Penny had gone back and made some edits. Realizing that she had totally forgotten about an avenue to actually speak back and forth on the off chance someone from the circus did find her, she decided to link an Instagram account in the description of the video. The page was similar to her youtube in a lot of ways, in the sense that there wasn’t much revealing of her actual life. It consisted mostly of photography of places she’d visited; cool architecture, naturescapes, and art pieces, mixed with the occasional dilapidated property.

She opened her phone, thinking to herself how convenient it was that someone would bite on her video while she was at work. Sure enough, waiting for her on her phone was a message request.

Before reading the message, she opened the account to get an idea of who she was looking at. The page was full of bright colors; bold art pieces and vintage fashion adorning their feed. A sarcastic bio read “alleged artist,” and was full of story highlights from concerts and nights out, as well as one labeled “tattoos.” 

Their most recent post, however, was the first in about a year. A photo dump featuring sketchbook pages, one of those sets of jaws that you see at a dentist office, and the inside of a very familiar building. 

No way.

After scrolling for what was slightly longer than appropriate, Penny scrambled back to the message request. Not wanting to waste any more time, nor caring that she was at her job. A mix of pride and hope welled up in her chest that posting online was actually successful in finding someone else from the circus.

[g1azz4rt_]: hey so this is probably a bit of a longshot but i’m pretty sure i’ve got the right person. is this pomni??

[g1azz4rt_]: it’s zooble btw, but i would literally pay you not to call me that.

Chapter Text

It took about a week for Felix to "adjust" to the real world, and then it was business as usual. 

If business as usual consisted of flinching at his reflection, at least. Then February rolled around, and the cold, dry air made his skin crack. As the scrapes on his knuckles drew blood it only reminded him of how alive he was. It was a sensation that the circus made him forget.

It should have been relieving to be back in his body. Despite all of his jokes, being a purple cartoon rabbit wasn’t exactly Felix’s dream appearance, but he got used to it. He had accepted his fate, and then that fate that he worked so hard to accept washed away. 

It should have been empowering to finally have control over what he looked like. That was something that he always fought about when he was a teenager. Instead, though, he was showering with the lights off and the water too hot. When his skin was raw and buzzing it reminded him of what touch felt like in the circus.

He hated how correct it felt. He wasn’t even gone for that long.

Needing to eat and sleep again was the worst part about returning to the real world. The first meal Felix ate, he had immediately thrown back up in the kitchen sink. Not that cold leftover pizza counted for much of a meal. His parents didn’t even flinch from the living room, but he could feel his oldest sister staring at him as if he had grown a second head. 

She didn’t ask him about it, and he wasn’t going to tell her.

Felix made a point to not eat in front of anybody for about a week after that, once he could keep his meals down. On the rare occasion that his family did eat together he insisted he wasn’t hungry. He took his lunch breaks in his car, praying to whatever higher power may listen that an energy drink and shitty vape would be enough to tide him over for the rest of his shift.

The days blended together, much like they always had. Once he started to remember his old life, he almost couldn’t believe the circus was real because of how little had changed in two and a half years. There was still a pile of untouched coursework from before he had dropped out of college, sitting right next to his trash can “just in case,” and a pile of journals and sketchbooks sat in a similar fashion. There were a handful that were unfinished, as well as a small collection that were completely untouched. Those had been birthday gifts during his time in the circus. Figures that his burnout from the time translated in his body not touching anything creative the entire time it was piloting itself.

He still stocked shelves at a superstore in the city from 4-12, five nights a week. Felix much preferred the night shift because of how much trouble he had sleeping. The lack of customers in the later hours of the evening was a plus too, he preferred the minimal social interaction. 

He found himself working a lot more after returning to the real world. Or maybe it was that he wasn’t doing anything else. All of his time was dedicated to work or thinking about the circus.

Much to his own dismay, he had dedicated one of those previously untouched journals to dumping every single thought and memory he had about the circus inside. Most of which consisted of “how did this even work?” and vain justifications as to why he won’t go looking for anyone. 

As his memory got clearer, he was pretty sure he actually knew who someone in the cast was. A lapse in judgement almost made him reach out, before the doubt kicked in. He didn’t want to be wrong, especially if it meant that he was reaching out to an old high school friend for nothing. Friend was a strong word anyway.

If Pomni was around, he was pretty sure she’d call him a stubborn pussy. And he would deserve it. If he could tell his sister about everything, she’d probably ask him if he was too embarrassed to go look for Pomni, and he wouldn’t answer her.

Felix didn’t want to have to talk to anyone about the circus. Writing it down was supposed to be helpful.

Nothing was helping.  No amount of sleep would help, no amount of physical pain, and no amount of work.

“Excuse me, sir?” A woman’s voice from his left interrupted his train of thought. The voice was so oddly familiar that when he turned to look at her, his head snapped in her direction. He nearly flinched at how normal she looked. The woman stood, wringing her hands before straightening her posture as she noticed she caught Felix’s attention.

She continued, talking with her hands as she spoke, “I am so sorry, but could I sneak right where you’re standing to grab something?” 

Maybe it was how much time he spent thinking about the circus while he was at work, or maybe his brain really, truly was completely fried from being trapped in a digital world for years. Either way, something in that moment completely overtook any logic and reason that may have been left in Felix’s brain. His mouth seemed to have moved on its own as the mask that he had spent years curating had flipped awake as if it were instinct.

A flippant, sing-song tone crept up in his throat as he asked, “Are you gonna say please, Rags?”

What the fuck? Why did he say that?

As soon as the words left his mouth, he snapped back into reality of what he had said and the damage control kicked in. Felix turned to the woman, his free hand pinching his brow so he didn’t have to look at her as his customer-facing voice kicked in.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry I thought you were someone else that–”

“Jax?” The woman interrupted him. His panicked, long-winded apology grinded to a sharp halt. The lights above him were way too bright, and he was sure that at this rate someone had to be staring. He could feel the woman's teary eyes beating down on him. 

Oh, so he was right.

That felt so much worse than it being an awkward and unprofessional interaction with a stranger that he’ll never have to see again. This was much more permanent. Even if it was Ragatha of all people and they were absolutely, under no circumstances, ever friends. Meeting her now, even as accidental as it could possibly be, had to be permanent. 

It had to be some sick joke. The last month that Felix spent thinking about everyone in the circus, obsessing over looking for answers, and his selfish justifications as to why he wouldn’t look for anyone. All of that was staring him in the face in the form of running into Ragatha at work. In public!

She was real, her cart full of groceries was real. Felix knew that already, just like he knew that the last two and a half years he spent in the circus were real, even if there was no way to prove it. All of the things he was too stubborn to outwardly admit pressed into him. Concrete proof.

It was definitely her, too. Voice aside, the way the woman in front of him carried herself was textbook Ragatha. The way she held her hands close to her chest and she looked at him, two different colored eyes darting up and down. Her broad shoulders curled in on herself, making her auburn curls fall against her jean jacket, it frizzed up at the top from product losing its hold at the end of the night. She was looking at him the way she used to the first time someone in the circus had abstracted in front of him. Desperately trying to look inside his head. 

It was never as successful as Pomni was at looking directly in his head. Felix pushed away that thought as soon as it appeared. He wasn’t going to think about Pomni.

The grocery aisles were closing in on him, and the random box of generic brand crackers that he was still holding felt hot to the touch. How long had he been holding that? The cardboard crackled lightly under his grip, but he couldn’t let it go. His hands were shaking too hard to move. Felix’s uneven breath was too loud in his ears as he thought to himself, at least, by some messed up turn of events, he was actually correct in who he was speaking to. 

“Are you okay?” The woman–Ragatha, he was sure of it– asked, tilting her head to the side. Felix couldn’t seem to identify a single feature of her face, or anything around him. She seemed to curl in on herself as it was her turn to backpedal, “I’m sorry, definitely my turn to apologize. I also totally thought you were someone else. I guess we’re even then! No harm no foul?” 

“No, no, you were right.” Felix muttered. His voice seemed to come from somewhere else, or perhaps he still wasn’t the one who was in control of his own body. He was sure he looked pathetic.

He was pulled into a tight hug, and he dropped the box of generic brand crackers he was holding.She rambled on, something about not thinking any of the last few years were real that went in one ear and out the other. He interrupted her rambling stream of “oh my god it’s you”s, to wriggle out of her grasp.

“Not while I’m at work, please.” Felix pleaded, inwardly cringing at how much more broken his voice came out. He was still shaking, and the physical contact burned through his hoodie. He wanted to wipe that stupid, teary, relieved look off of her face. There was no reason for her to look so happy to see him, but she did. 

Felix couldn’t remember the last time a real human person looked happy to see him. Much less Ragatha of all people. Hell, he didn’t remember the last time that he was happy to see her either, and yet some part of him was. More than he would ever dare to admit out loud, especially to her.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” The woman said, taking a step back. “Can we start over? Is that okay?” She asked. That familiar optimism that lived in her voice made him feel warm and grounded, despite all of the time he had spent growing to hate it.

“Okay, yeah,” Felix mumbled, shaking his head. He couldn't pay attention, and he really wanted her to stop looking at him. He needed an out, or at the very least something for him to take control over the conversation. “As much as I’d love to keep slacking off, if my shift lead sees me standing around and talking, I might get burned at the stake.”

“Oh yeah, totally! I’ll just,” She trailed off, furrowing her brows. She sighed, turning away from him and back to her shopping cart. It only lasted a moment before she turned right back to him, hands close to her chest. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Stop apologizing, Raggy.” 

“That nickname isn’t going anywhere, is it?” She asked, laughing as she shrunk inward on herself slightly.

“Well, you haven’t introduced yourself.” Felix answered, crossing his arms. The woman in front of him blinked a few times. A satisfied smirk spread across his lips as he was able to catch her off guard. So much for ending the conversation.

“Oh! I have just the thing, actually.” She exclaimed, rifling through her purse. She muttered to herself as she dug around in the bag, eyebrows knotted in determination. Felix tried his hardest not to laugh at just how in character she was. 

“Found it!” She said, pulling a bundle of business cards out from her bag and handing him one. “My name is Emily. That um, has my personal number on it. No pressure or anything, but if you did want to reach out and maybe talk about things? I’ve been, well, trying to look for answers but I don’t even know where to start and if it's okay maybe we could put our heads together? I know that running into you like this doesn’t, like, make us friends again or anything, but I’d like to try. If it’s okay?” She, Emily, rambled.

Felix stared at the business card, turning it around between his fingers. Sure enough, it did have all of the most convenient avenues of contact for Emily Miller, the face behind Ragatha, as well as the logo of a real-estate company from the city plastered on either side of the paper. He was pretty sure he had seen it before, but couldn’t put his finger on it.

“You sure I’m gonna be any help?” He asked after another beat of silence, laughing bitterly. Still, he pocketed the card. He probably would reach out, against his better judgement. If anything because she did first, and that gave her way too much power that he didn’t want. Totally.

The look on Emily’s face was one that he couldn’t name, but told him that he had said way too much. 

“Yeah, I think you would,” She told him, her posture relaxing a bit. “I’m not gonna push it, and don’t think this means either of us are off the hook for how we treated each other in the circus. But I’m not going to corner you with that conversation right now.” She added, taking a deep breath and turning back to her shopping cart.

“I didn’t think it would be that easy.” Felix said, raising his eyebrows. He wanted to laugh, or maybe argue with her for the hell of it if he wasn’t at work, but he didn’t. There was a time where he would never have been okay with being this civil with Ragatha, let alone her be this civil and patient with him. Maybe he was still separating her from her real world counterpart, who knows. The change of scenery wasn’t the only thing that changed, but he didn’t let his mind go there. 

“Listen, I’m gonna get going and let you work now, at least consider reaching out.” Emily said, giving Felix one last glance. “Goodbye, uh, shoot. I never asked you for your real name. I figure you don’t want me calling you Jax.” She added, nervously laughing.

Felix laughed as well, although it was closer to a scoff, and turned the nametag on his vest over to reveal his name. It still felt weird to say it was anything but Jax. Probably because the circus was the most social interaction he had gotten in a long time.

“Felix, huh,” She parroted, tilting her head in thought. “That suits you, funny enough. Anyway, goodbye, Felix.”

“See you later, Rags.” He responded, letting his shoulders drop as she turned away from him. His breath sped up as he watched her disappear down the aisle, replaying the conversation in his head.

What the fuck?

Felix waited until he was sure that the other woman was gone before dragging the pallet he was working on in the back room. He didn’t care in the slightest that he wasn’t even close to finishing what he was working on. He needed to get out. Or at the very least take his lunch break and spend the entire time outside until his fingers went numb. 

He needed something. 

Every single passing glance in his direction burned, sticking to his skin long after they had looked away. He opted for locking himself into the single-stall bathroom that always reeks of weed. Still, Felix looks away from his reflection. The second taunting voice that lived in his head made their fateful appearance, the one that never got to see any of the growth that Felix swears up and down he didn’t do, but everyone else insisted he did. They’re telling him to get his shit together, and the cartoon censor effects still play in his head with each sentence. 

God, he wanted to scream, or have somewhere to direct whatever was clawing at the inside of his chest. Beg them to stop and get out of his head, because it's over. It's so much more than just over. They aren’t just gone, the whole fucking game is. What business do they have still living in the back of his head whenever his persona slips?

He wanted to kill that persona, the idea that was Jax. Pretend he never was that stupid now that he wasn’t stuck. And then the most in his face reminder that it was real had to show up, and he lapped it up like a starving, desperate animal. Just like he always had.

Felix wondered if he ever really changed.