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It had been a while since Caine was deleted. At least, that’s what Jax thought. It had felt so long ago, yet he had once poked his head out of the crumbling ruins of the Circus to see the stars literally zooming by, so he couldn’t be truly sure.
Not that it had truly mattered. Nothing was real, just as he had thought.
So why did it not make him happy?
In the corner of his eye, he could see Pomni walking away. He had gone up to her, tried to talk to her. But what good could it have done? Either she hated him, or she didn’t hate him. And if it was the latter, he didn’t want to know why.
Besides, talking to her, even for just another one of his “funny guy jokes”, made him think of being stripped away and laughed at. It wasn’t a torture he wanted to go through again.
He walked slowly to a corner, a small grey corner out of the sight of the other members of the Circus. There was… something beckoning him to the corner, ensnaring him as he sat over it. He bent his limbs, his head resting on them.
No one had bothered to follow him since the Circus had collapsed. He supposed they were busy avoiding him, after what he had told them. Probably for the best.
He wondered if Abstraction was still a thing. Wondered if Kaufmo and Ribbit were out there, their bodies and minds still twisted.
Not that it mattered that he pushed them. It wasn’t like they were real. They were all just abstracts and concepts in the end. Humanity was left at the door.
He felt his heartbeat pace. It shouldn’t. It wasn’t real. His breaths were coming in deep and his mind was filling up with static, the eyes within them glaring at him, in a reminder of all he had done. He was a murderer. Of his own mother no less. He had failed both of his parents. He had pushed everyone away and…
He had nothing anymore. Nothing but walls. Walls that were crumbling on top of him in spite of his best efforts.
He heard footsteps. He lifted his head up, half-expecting Pomni trying to locate him again.
It wasn’t her. Rather, it was something else. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was – it kept shifting in and out of reality, as if he was viewing them with a thousand blinking eyes.
“DJRWJSJVHRSEK%&se£%&!” The creature’s voice was screechy, incomprehensible. It ripped out Jax’s ears, and replaced them with a shimmering black surface. But it reminded the growing feral part of his mind of Ribbit. Not even the last days. It reminded him of their relationship.
It had to be her ghost, asking her to join him in death.
He briefly fought against the idea of joining her. He had been a horrible fool to her. To Kaufmo.
He turned his head, and once again took in the grey void that was to be his home in the future.
Then again, it was obvious that he had no future, not after everything. Nothing was real, even himself really.
With shaking, jagged hands, he took her own.
And everything plunged into a black prison.
***
“Has anyone seen Jax?” Pomni asked the others.
“Not since he ran off,” Zooble responded. Their sense of casualness was still intact, even after the Circus had collapsed, but Pomni had grown to understand Zooble more, knew that they were concerned in their own way. Even if Jax was… Jax.
The others shook their heads. “I… haven’t seen him at all,” Ragatha said, not meeting eye contact with Pomni’s own.
“Me neither,” Gangle added, not looking too bothered.
“You were saying something, Pomni?” Kinger looked up from what he was doing to the ground, something which looked like conjuring to Pomni.
“It’s… Jax. I’ve been… giving him his own space, but… I haven’t seen him in a while. I need to go look for him.” She didn’t stick around to hear what the others had to input. Her driving need was to make sure that Jax was alright. Privately, she was kicking herself. She had told Jax to stay with them. True, there was the shock of realising that she and everyone else wasn’t real. That they were nothing more but copies placed in a virtual purgatory, their real selves having gone on to live their lives. But that shouldn’t have stopped her letting him go. She was pretty sure days had passed, with no one to check up on him.
The Circus had shrunken down since the AI behind it had been destroyed, but it still had many nooks and crannies that she had to be careful of, lest she fell into the void. The worst part is that she didn’t know what would happen to them if they fell into the Void, especially without Caine to return them to the relatively safe confines of the Circus.
She hoped that Jax hadn’t already gone in. If he had, they likely had no way of truly knowing, aside from the absence of a humanoid bunny.
In the background, she heard something in the distance. Like an animal stalking its prey before it ate her.
“Hello? If it’s you, Jax, I don’t find this funny. Cut that out.”
She expected some sort of response from him. Some cutting remark about taking things too seriously. But there was nothing.
“Jax!” She shouted, again.
This time, something replied back. Only, it didn’t sound like anything sane. It sounded more like the screech of something feral. Something which had haunted her dreams for nights on end.
A black glitchy mass walked into view, its many eyes locking on to her.
It couldn’t have been him. It had to have been an Abstraction who had gotten loose from the cellar.
She ran, trying not to look back, if only because she didn’t want to know whose eyes she was looking into.
The creature moved fast, but her legs carried her faster, and it wasn’t long before the sight of the others filled her vision.
“Pomni?” Ragatha sounded concerned.
“Guys—the Abstractions—they’re…” She was interrupted by the Abstraction screeching again, legs up like a horse.
“That’s impossible…” She heard Kinger murmur, his eyes shrunken into dots.
“We have to run,” Zooble pointed out.
Zooble was right, she knew. So they made a run for it.
“We should all stick together. If we separate, they can track down and hit us.” She was not about to repeat the same mistake she did with Ragatha all that time ago. She still felt the pain of leaving Ragatha behind, that first day at the Circus. At least then, Caine was still around to reverse the damage. Now though, it was possible that even if he was still around, he would leave her in that state as a form of torture.
The Abstraction ran after them, seemingly getting faster. It reminded her of Jax’s insanely long legs. She really hoped they weren’t the same legs.
“How are we going to get away from them?” Gangle asked.
Kinger gestured to a balcony right in front of them, “There’s a patch on the surface straight ahead. It’s been corrupted, but in a way which provides whoever steps on it a little extra bounce. We step on it, we bounce to the balcony in front of us and we will be safe,” He suggested.
“Right,” she trusted him.
Everyone kept running, and Pomni noticed a strange space in front of them that had a white glow around it.
“Now!” Kinger shouted.
It was Zooble who jumped forward first, their hand grabbing Gangle’s own. With a glitch, they bounced high up, and they ended up on the balcony. Ragatha and Kinger bounded close behind.
Which left Pomni.
She ran for it. And ran. And ran. And…
Her legs gave way. With a stumble, she was lying on the floor. Prime material for the Abstraction.
The Abstraction ran towards her. Pomni tried to get to her feet, but for once, they were not cooperating. And she just wanted to be helped and for things to start getting better between all of them and…
The Abstraction’s leg clipped through her body, and she braced for the pain. Instead, she felt her world explode in eyes. It went on and on, and made her feel exposed, until finally, they stopped, depositing her in a black void.
She hoped she herself hadn’t Abstracted. But then again, with Caine absent, this might be how things happened. At least the others would remember her. This, she knew with certainty.
“Hello?” She called out.
Something glowed in the distance. Something purple. Something crouched down, sending ripples in the dark.
Jax.
Here.
But if he was here, then that meant…
No. Nononononononono.
She could barely feel herself being yanked away, the sight of Jax and the void blurred under her own tears. She found herself back in the Circus, the feeling of stuffed arms around hers, but she didn’t feel like pulling herself up. She felt frozen, unable to look away from the creature whom she now knew with certainty was Jax.
She felt herself being slowly pulled up, Jax’s angle slowly changing. She was pushed over the balcony, and she heard the sound of crunched hooves underneath her – Jax had lost sight of them, and therefore his attention.
She forced herself to look up, into the concerned eyes of her friends. “Thanks, guys,” she told them, trying not to cry.
“Not a problem,” Zooble said.
She struggled to her feet, her legs feeling like they were made of jelly, and made herself turn to where Jax was. He was running around in a circle, as if he thought the others were behind him all along.
“Guys,” Pomni turned back, and it felt like there was a lump in her throat. “It’s Jax. I… looked into his mind, and… it’s—he’s…
“But that shouldn’t be possible,” Kinger noted. “Normally, touching an Abstraction would just corrupt your form. If that were the case…”
I would have used it to speak to my Queenie.
“I think it’s the Circus. Now that its collapsing, I can…” She couldn’t say anymore. Her tears were blocking the words she wanted to say.
“There’s nothing we can do. Believe me, I wish we could have done more,” Kinger lamented, and Pomni wondered how many Abstractions he had seen in his long imprisonment. She saw Ragatha’s complicated expression, pain underneath the scarring of the emotional and physical abuse that Jax had put her through, and wondered the same for her.
“I can’t believe he’s gone. I mean, I didn’t like the guy, but after everything that fucking happened,” Zooble noted. Gangle said nothing, and Pomni noted that although her sad mask was on (although to be fair, she wasn’t even sure if the happy mask existed anymore), she was the only one not shedding any tears.
She looked back down, staring at Jax. She still remembered what Kinger had told her just days before, but it didn’t stop her from feeling responsible for this. For a moment, she wondered if she had pushed him, tried to help him beyond the breaking point.
But she couldn’t end things like this. He was an asshole, but he was showing signs of getting better. She had to save him. And that brief touch – that look into a counterpart to hell – may well be her best bet.