Chapter Text
1: Circular Logic
I stood under the awning of a tiny café just across the street from The Magician’s arcade. It was one of those days when the perpetually gray sky would periodically sprinkle the streets with drops of rain, then let up as soon as it started. My puffer jacket kept the chill at bay, but my fingers and toes were a little numb.
A few cups of coffee and an overpriced slice of apple pie had given me the time I needed to brave the walk across the street to meet with The Magician. He and I didn’t get along for various reasons, but we did have a decent working relationship. In a case like this I, unfortunately, had to put my reluctance aside. The image of his scraggly hair and beady eyes brought an involuntary frown to my face.
I yanked my phone from my pocket for what felt like the hundredth time to confirm what I had seen early in the morning. Sure enough, it was still there staring back at me. A message board thread with at least thirty pictures with alternate versions of The Circle.
One came from the back of a university library’s copy of House of Leaves. Another spray-painted in the long abandoned food court of a dead mall. Yet another incorporated into a set of clues for an internet ARG with less than 100 followers. A variety of sources, all reporting different versions of The Circle. The community had been driven into a frenzy.
Obviously, to your average Rabbits player, this was beyond strange. Generally, The Circle and the phrase, “The door is open”, were the two most reliable and immutable aspects of the game. The versions of the circle posted weren’t different in the fact that there was a blank indicating the start of a new iteration of the game, instead the previous winners had changed. That was completely unheard of. Here is an example:
- Lewis’s Alice
- SalvoBrite
- TheWeather
- Listener at Large
- Einsteinium 99
- Californiac
- Ara Li on TV
- -
- Parker Carlson
As you could see, this was not the “standard” version of The Circle that most were used to. Hence, a very active thread on a message board that usually counted its response time in weeks. Between different image postings of different versions of the circle, accusations of forgery and trolling, and claims that some of these aberrant versions were real, the thread had descended into chaos.
I didn’t consider myself a real player of the game. I was just as obsessed as anyone else, but I did my absolute best to stem it in favor of a more normal and boring life. Instead, I forced myself to remain an armchair observer of the events that took place. Like the Magician, I set myself up as a sort of informant for players, more of a set piece for the game than a full participant.
I wrote what could be equated to walkthrough guides for burgeoning players of the game. I tried to give them the rules and tools needed to navigate the twisted and sometimes nonsensical world that they happily tossed themselves into. Usually these new players were just as naive as they were brave, and the game was the type to grind them up and spit them out without a care. Many found themselves facing real world consequences of their actions. Some lost their jobs, others ended up charged for breaking and entering. Broken limbs and near-death experiences weren’t entirely uncommon, either.
There were many reasons that some who first learned about the game quickly decided that no, actually they didn’t.
There was nothing worse than being an uninformed informant, so again, I reminded myself that I needed to swallow my pride and see if The Magician had any idea what was going on. Usually he did. While I focused on making sure green players didn’t get themselves killed, he was a generalist who knew just about anything you could about the game. I pulled out my umbrella and waited at the crosswalk for a chance to cross.
The inside of the arcade was just as I remembered it. Musty and gloomy, the air punctuated by sounds and flashing lights meant to grab your attention as you walked by the various cabinets. The sounds of raised voices piqued my interest and diverted my direct path to The Magician’s office. I exited an aisle of cabinets to a more central meeting area to find a woman surrounded by a small group of people. Her hands were up in a placating gesture while they all tried to get her attention at once.
Another character that I wasn’t the biggest fan of, K. K gave her rehearsed speeches to tourists and new players of the game, hyping them up for extra cash. Apparently, her business idea became much more fruitful after a podcast host documented her winning of Nine. I wasn’t too thrilled with K’s business venture, given that her paid performance, gave out a lot of the material that I gave out for free without the warnings attached. Still, I had to admit, she put on a good show.
Today seemed to be different. She was being bowled over by a barrage of questions from an excited and agitated crowd. I made my decision quick enough, and pushed my way through the people crowding the woman. Once I got to the front, I had the gist of what had the crowd so worked up. It was the same exact reason that I was there. The alternate versions of the circle.
K’s slightly nasally voice broke through the crowd as she tried to regain control of the situation. The rapid fire questions fell to a murmur of disquiet as K spoke.
“People listen! The Magician isn’t here right now, and we don’t know what is going on. If you want clues or answers, go find them yourselves!”
With that, she extracted herself from the crowd and promptly hid herself away in The Magician’s office. The Magician was gone?
The murmuring turned into disappointed grumbles, but the crowd dispersed over the next 10 minutes. I decided to play a few rounds of pinball as I waited for them to clear out. I made sure that I had a clear view of the Magician’s office in case K tried to slip out before I had a chance to talk to her.
Once the coast seemed clear, I pulled myself away from my mediocre round and approached the door to the office. With a quick set of knocks, there was of course no response. I called out, hoping that K would recognize my voice.
“K, I know you are in there! We need to talk about what’s going on!”
I could almost feel the reluctance radiating from behind the door. Still, I heard a small click before the door opened a crack. K’s eyes stared back at mine for a moment, before I was yanked through the door, and it was closed and locked with another click.
We stood across from each other in silence. K with her hands shoved in her hoodie pockets and me with my arms crossed. Seeing that she wasn’t going to talk first, I decided to take the plunge.
“Where’s The Magician?”
She blew out a breath she seemed to have been holding.
“He left earlier this morning when he saw what was going on with The Circle. He said, and I quote, ‘I am going to check on some things. Do not contact me’ when he left.”, she said in an annoyed tone.
That sounded like him, alright. Still, that didn’t help at all.
“So, The Circle is all sorts of fucked and people are already hounding you. Must be a bad day in the nefarious tour guide business”, I remarked.
Her brows knit together in displeasure.
“Oh, go fuck yourself, Clara. As I’ve told you before, I’m not anyone’s babysitter. These people are adults. Besides, it's not like you know what's going on either”
Yea, I was being an asshole, which tended to happen when I felt like I was on my back foot. I tried to reign it in a little before responding.
“No, you’re right, I don’t. Why would all these versions of the circle pop up now? Isn’t the game on hiatus?”, I ventured.
K tilted her head side to side. Without another snide comment from me, she seemed less willing to shove me back out the office door.
“Maybe. That's what I’ve been telling folks for the past couple years, but activity like this indicates otherwise. Still, according to The Magician, there haven’t been any sightings of The Phrase or The Moonrise. That’s probably why he left, to go check if anything changed”
The more I mulled it over, the more sense it made. I was sure that The Magician was none too pleased to not be in the know for once. He was probably shaking down his myriad of sources as we spoke.
“Alright, well this was a bust. Still, it isn’t too bad to be the only one freaking out over this. I guess I'll head home and try to figure out what is going on”
“I thought you didn’t play”, K said, seemingly surprised.
“I don’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what is going on. Besides, as far as we know, we are between iterations. I’ll be operating under that assumption until proven otherwise”
It was only natural that I try to seek out my own answers, with The Magician unavailable and K as clueless as I was. I made a mental note to pick up a couple energy drinks from the corner store on the way back to my apartment.
“Hm, alright”, she said in a tone implying she didn’t believe me.
Deciding that our conversation was over, I started to open the door. Halfway out, K stopped me.
“The arcade is going to be closed until The Magician comes back”
She handed me a slip of paper.
“That's my phone number. Let me know if you find out anything”
I pocketed the paper and nodded.
With that, I was back in the rain and still just as in the dark as when I entered the arcade.
******
I spent my evening combing over the thread that kicked off my trip to the arcade and The Magician’s abrupt departure. Thankfully, the messages on the board slowed to a crawl, but the number of pictures had definitely increased. I counted at least 50 different versions of The Circle saved to my computer by the time I hit the bottom of the thread.
Comparing them, I noticed what could be a pattern hidden within. Just to be sure, I pulled out a notebook to keep a tally. Some names appeared much more often than others throughout the different versions of The Circle. With the 57th and last image, I had my final tally. It went as follows:
10: -
9: Mickey Mouth
8: The Condor
7: Alison Cat
6: Radio Knife
5: Carbon Thing
4: Californiac
3: Nova Trail
2: Hazel
1: Parker Carlson
There were no names that appeared more than the blank, which usually stood in for the winner of the eighth iteration of the game. As far anyone knew, there was no winner to Eight, but if I was right, then the clue used the blank to indicate that a new game had begun. According to this version of The Circle, which at the moment seemed the most definitive, given it was hidden in all the other versions, Hazel had won Eight.
I wasn’t sure whether to include Parker Carlson, considering how many names appeared just once. Still, it was part of the circle I was familiar with, so it stayed for now.
I sat back and stared at my finding. The version of The Circle I was used to, my version of The Circle, wasn’t the one hidden within the others. Sure, it was similar enough, but it wasn’t the same, and that drew a chill up my spine. I was so used to sitting down with some Newby and explaining my version of The Circle to them. Now I couldn’t even be sure of this most basic piece of information.
My fingers twitched, as if ready to type my findings out and post them to the thread, but I hesitated. I couldn’t be sure of my findings just yet, without the phrase “The door is open”, it was up in the air whether the next iteration of the game had truly begun. I didn’t want to fan the flames further without certainty.
Still, this was... compelling.
With no other outlet to vent my discovery, I pulled K’s crumpled number out of my pocket and entered it into my phone. It went straight to voicemail. I tried a couple more times, but didn’t leave a message.
I decided I didn’t want to talk to K anyway, and tossed the piece of paper onto my coffee table. After curling up on the couch, I closed my eyes and promptly fell asleep.
******
My eyes snapped open at the sound of my phone vibrating on the coffee table. I sat up and groggily reached for it. A number was displayed instead of a name, so I assumed it was K giving me a call back. It wasn’t.
A lower and huskier woman’s voice came through the other end of the line.
“This Clara Davis?”, the voice asked.
Thinking it was a scam call, I moved my phone away from my ear and just about hit the end call button.
“Or I guess some people call you The Historian”, It continued.
At that name, I froze. Only The Magician’s circle or the Newbies from the arcade called me that. It wasn’t a name I ever used to refer to myself, but you put yourself on the game’s periphery long enough, and someone decides you need a fancy title.
“Yea, that's me, I guess. What do you want? Need me to post bail after you went poking around somewhere you weren’t supposed to”
The voice on the other end barked out a laugh.
“Is that usually why people call you?”
“That and other equally annoying circumstances. Again, what do you want?”
“Ah, well. I’m a friend of The Magician. He said you weren’t completely useless when it came to digging up stuff related to The Game. He said that if anyone figured anything out that wasn’t him, it would be you”
Well, those were some words of praise from The Magician, if I’ve ever heard them. He was right, as per usual.
“Yea, I might have something. But I am going to need more than that before I tell you shit”, I responded.
“More? That's fine with me, I’m coming over. This will probably be better face to face anyway”
I didn’t even know if this woman was actually friends with The Magician. Though, it wasn’t like it would vouch much for her moral character.
“What? I am not giving you my address!”
“Oh! Don’t worry, I already got it. See you in 15”
With that, the line went dead. It looked like, whether I liked it or not, I had just sunk a bit deeper down a rabbit hole.