Chapter Text
Caine stubbornly avoided her eyes, staring mutely at the ground.
“I’ll go first,” Pomni stared at the side of his teeth. She had a million different questions, and thought it would be really hard to start, but the most pressing one came to her first, “Is there an exit?”
“Are…are you sure that’s what you want to know?” Caine looked off to the side, shoulders tensing, “Wouldn’t you much rather learn the wondrous secrets of my Wacky WatchTM ?” He lifted his wrist, then realized he didn’t have his watch on. But Caine was nothing if not committed to the bit, so he still acted as if he did.
“Caine. You know what I asked. Answer me,” she narrowed her eyes.
“I…but,”
“Caine,” she cut him off through gritted teeth, “I’m giving you a chance here. Answer me honestly. Are we stuck here forever, or are you keeping us here?”
“I’m not keeping you here,” he responded, “I swear I’m not.”
For a second she was relieved, before she caught on to what he was doing, “But are we stuck here?”
Logically she knew, god damn it she knew, what the answer was. That he would only evade her like this if it were true. But it still felt as if the floor fell out from under her when he said yes. A frail hope she didn’t even know she had shattered now that it was confirmed. She was stuck here, in a computer, never allowed to be a real person ever again. Any family or friends she used to know were dead to her. Her job, as monotonous as it was, would never be hers again. She was still Pomni—not who she was before—and she always would be.
“No, don’t cry! This is why I didn’t want to tell you!” she flinched when Caine grabbed her hand. He reeled back and immediately apologized as she rubbed tears from her eyes.
“Please don’t abstract,” she barely heard him whisper.
“Wait, back up,” she turned to face him, “What?”
“Uhhhhh NOTHING.”
“No, explain that too,” Pomni ordered, then thought it through. Caine said he didn’t understand people. This was a chance to make him understand, “Please Caine. Being stuck here is hell but, personally, not knowing what’s going on makes it so much worse. I want to know what’s happened to me, and you don’t have the right to keep me clueless.”
Talking more with his hands than his mouth, he rambled, “I’m sorry, I just don’t want to tell you—not just you, anyone—because the first person who found out was…Scratch,” Kinger’s old boss…and the first person to abstract. She forced a dry swallow.
“After he found out, he changed. Stopped leaving his room, stopped talking to others, stopped doing much of anything at all. I didn’t mean for him to abstract, I swear! I didn’t know what would happen. I just wanted to fix him. It—,” saying the words seemed to physically hurt him, “It didn’t work.”
“Huh,” After his borderline fear when Kinger brought Scatch up, Pomni assumed he made the other man abstract, “It’s that bad?”
“Apparently,” Caine muttered under his breath, “I don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“Why any of you would want to leave,” he exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air, “The circus is designed to be a pixelated paradise! A coded utopia! An artificial Eden! Why leave for the dumb macroverse, where everything seems so dull and—and boring!”
“Because we had lives Caine,” her voice cracked, “I had a job, hobbies, favorite foods, pets, and friends and family and so did everybody else. But here, we don’t have any of that. Our real selves are dead, basically, and we’re stuck here in a, a,” snappy wordplay was never her strong-suit, “Digital hell. We don’t even get to keep our names. No adventure will ever make up for that.”
As soon as she finished talking, he desperately said, “But what if it could!! Just give me more, more time and I’ll come up with something that—”
Pomni grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him back and forth.
“NO!” she yelled, “No adventure will EVER replace our real lives. So stop trying, Caine.”
She watched his eyes moisten, pupils slowly dilating. She could feel him shuttering under her palms. But he held his tears back, “So what will replace them? What can I do? What can I change? What will make you happy?” he asked, and the naivety in his voice punched her in the chest.
He didn’t get it. All this time she’d thought he just didn't care, but no. He didn’t get it, “Nothing will. It’s not a problem you can fix. It’s just a fact of life, here in the circus. We’ll all live with this aching hole in our souls until the day we can’t take it anymore. You can’t fix it. I really, really wish you could.”
He was crying again, a faint glitching sound emitting from him that she took for stifled sobs. It took her another minute to realize she was crying too.
“But it’s not your fault. Not really” she told him, because now she could see why he was so desperate to make them happy. And she felt like a jackass for not seeing it before, “You were never the reason we wanted to leave.”
“I’m your ringmaster!” he had repeated, time and time again.
“The amazing digital circus is to be enjoyed by ALL ages,” enjoyed, huh.
"̷̯̍̕Ḯ̶̤͔̊̀̆͂͝ ̷̫͚̞̩̫̽̏J̸̖̞̟̬̃̆̋̂͆̈̅͝͠U̸̟̘̻͔̲̭͙̹͍̾͆̓̋͌̊̐̕͠Ș̶̩͓̈́̈́͌T̶̻̬͓̘͖̺̻̫̻̎̒̒ ̶̛̣̖͙͕̿̃͛̊̅W̴̥̬̭̙̰̘͈̦̐̓̂͒̒͠͝A̷͎̲̰̱̘͖͛̓͒N̸̳̝͖̝̻̮̓̑͗̌̐͆͛͘T̶͕̜̞̰̯͕͇͎̠̍̆Ĕ̴̜̈́̓̈́̃̌̎Ḋ̴̢̗͙̗̘̙̏̊́́̈́͗̊ ̸̧̺͎̥̺̣́̂͘ͅT̴̡͚̥̹͓̞̺̈́̓̾̓ͅO̸͇̲̤̯̳̫̗͈̓͗ ̵̧̥͍͔͔̫̦̑̄͛͒̕͘̕͘͠F̸̱̟̞͈̯̂̄U̸̡̝͗́́̽F̵̧̟̆͑̋̆̾̓I̶̥͍̤̥͆L̶̞̥̝̖̎̽̔̋̄̑̕͠ͅL̶̦̽̉̎͂̇̚ ̸̢͔̈́M̴̼̫̆͋̈́͐̋Y̵̨̮̼͇̮͙̫̺͛̎́͂̑͘͝ ̴͈͈̒̽̕͠P̶̦͔̭̫͘U̴̺̥̱͗̉͌͛͂̕R̷̻̱̳͇̅̚P̴̠̍͋̉̒̊̅͆̂͘Ơ̷̝̩̜͕̮̟̤͍̑̾̒̚Ș̸̨̰͇̟̍̏̃̽͑̄E̴͓̦̞̘͉̠̭̘͂͑͠
Quickly, his hands flew up to his head and he clamped his jaw shut. Pomni could hear crying—loud, ugly, real crying—coming from behind his teeth. She stared a second, and then wrapped her arms around his wide shoulders, pulling him to her. Without a second thought, his arms wrapped around her in return and clung tight, teetering on the edge of uncomfortably tight. She could hear him bawling behind her, could feel his tears running down her back, and kept on holding him. Soon enough she was crying too, mourning herself. Caine, she could hear him trying to comfort her once he realized, but his voice was too choked with tears to get a word out. So they stayed there, together, until Caine took a deep breath and pulled himself away.
“Oh, chin up Pomni, my fast-thinking frito,” he chuckled wetly, “And chin up me too. It’s not all bad. I—I really appreciate you doing this for me. And…and don’t be too sad, because technically, the real you didn’t die when you came to the circus,” Caine smiled so wide she couldn’t help but giggle at the abrupt change in tone.
“Because I’m still me, even if I’m stuck in this weird cartoon body?”
“No, my silly-billy goat, because you’re still walking around in the macroverse too! The you that’s here, it’s only a duplicate of the flesh and bones that make up Pomni! You still go to your boring day job on the weekdays and explore abandoned buildings on weekends. Your friends and family don't even know you’re missing, because you’re not! Isn’t that great, not having to worry them!”
….
“Pomni? POMNI?!?”