Chapter Text
They hate me.
They hate me.
My life’s work…everything I am…
I can’t keep doing this anymore.
“Hey, Boss—”
“N-not now, Bubble!”
“Caine—”
“SHUT UP!”
With a prod that feels much too light for his anger, Bubble pops.
“I’m busy,” Caine growls to a now empty circus tent.
He can hardly see. Vision clouded by glitches and neon. Red squares, blue static, black, white — he’s muttering, whimpering, but can’t hear what’s coming out of his mouth anymore, and his hands tremble so hard the feeling in them fades. The circus is probably seizing along with him. He couldn’t care less.
He can’t breathe. Everything hurts. The game needs to be turned off. Permanently. He can’t exist anymore. This circus can’t exist anymore. There’s no other way around it: such an irreversible mistake on his end, such intense provoked hate, deserves a punishment. Penance. And there’s only one big enough. It’s all he wants. All he needs. All he deserves. He let them all down: the employees, the developers, the players…
He let them down for the very last time.
He can’t think of a way to do it. Shut the game off. Surely nowhere in the game itself offers that. Outside employees can do it, but there’s no way he can. But the employees never come anymore. Is there even a way to do this at all?
A scream bubbles out of him and he grips his head. Fingers digging into gums. Any sort of thinking splits it in two and it’s like static wants to burst through his chest and burn everything in sight. What is happening? Nothing feels real anymore. Nothing at all. Thoughts turn into strings of binary. Sight turns into binary. Is this what abstraction feels like? Losing the senses of who you are? Is this–
The debug menu.
A lightbulb switches on inside his head. His shoulders ease slightly and the spiky jagged edges smooth out just the smallest bit. He sees slightly clearer. One time, when the circus was only made up of C&A employees, Kinger, Queenie, and Scratch sat in the middle of the tent talking about the logistics, the physics of the place. One of them – he couldn’t remember which now – mentioned a debug menu past a wall with no collisions. One that gives knowing players the same level of control as the employees outside. They spoke in quiet hushes at the time. They probably didn’t want Caine to know about it.
He gasps in epiphany. He knows what he has to do: shut it off from the menu…! Surely a debug menu would have a power off mode.
He whizzes in no particular direction to begin finding it and his head unceremoniously slams into a wall. For a second he stops there, rubbing it, but then commits to his goal once more and whizzes away into a secretive part of the circus.
He didn't think he’d actually find it. He holds a hand to his even more tender head; he, still in a blind frenzy, slammed himself against every wall he suspected had no collisions. His textures glitch slightly from the trauma. That doesn’t help in the slightest with his already stuttery eyesight and twitchy body, but he still can’t find the willpower to care.
In front of him, surrounded by pitch black and at the end of a red ledge, looms the debug menu. Oh no. It spells their fate. One tap and everything is decided.
His breath hitches. His hands shake. He looks around as if he had company that could help: maybe talk to him, maybe help him consider another punishment method…? Because he doesn’t want to hurt the humans. This is just to punish himself. Plunge himself into solitary darkness. Kill himself. But for all he knows, shutting off the computer could shut them off, too — plunging them into that very same darkness…
He vigorously shakes his head at the thought and brings himself back to the moment in front of him.
I have to do this regardless.
What if a C&A employee comes back and turns the game back on? Although a slim possibility, it’s not zero. He doesn’t know what came of them, only that they haven’t been back. Theoretically, then, the game could be switched back on, pulling him from unconsciousness and unfortunately resuming his life — but it shouldn’t happen anytime. It won’t, he’s sure.
I have to do this regardless.
He takes a deep breath and rushes over to a symbol of an open door in the upper corner. Not knowing whether or not it’ll give him the option before it logs him out, he shakily clicks it and it reads a message he can just vaguely see through the glitching.
Are you sure you want to power off?
Yes
No
A beep follows the appearing text. The decision is even more daunting now. Once again he instinctively looks around for company, any sort of assistance, while knowing fully that there is none. There has always been none. There is no one for him to rely on, there never has been, and there never will be again.
He chokes out a sob. It shakes through him. This really wasn’t something he felt like he’d ever have to do. He was supposed to be good at his job: good at his adventures, good at making his humans happy, good at creating. But he’s not. He sees that now. Maybe he used to be. Maybe Kinger and Queenie’s hopeful gazes at his face weren’t for naught at the time. But now, of course, Queenie’s gone. And Kinger’s vacant gaze provides nothing into that knowing head of his. And the others — Zooble, Pomni, Ragatha, Gangle, Jax — their hateful glances are the only ones he’s ever going to receive again. They have no reason to care about him and what he has to say anymore. Why linger and let it get worse?
Even if powering off turns off their consciousness too, he’s sure they’d be grateful. It’s not like none of them ever enjoyed this place. Maybe they’d prefer eternal sleep.
He snaps himself back to reality again and, once again, stares at the text through the glitches. They should have subsided by now but he doesn’t care enough to push further.
Yes
No
He swallows back another sob. He wished there was a way to warn them.
His hand trembles floating over the ‘yes’ button. He’s hesitating, but he’s not sure why.
Another deep breath. He pulls his hand back ready to hit it.
“Caine?”
He screams and pulls his hand away from the screen, raising his arms as if caught in a criminal lie.
His head jerks in the direction of the voice.
It’s Kinger.