Chapter Text
“My head is killing me…”
Pomni stares at the ceiling while laying in bed. She feels nauseous.
“Pomni, are you awake?” says a voice.
Pomni listens to the voice coming from her door. The voice is a bit shrill, but sounds strangely familiar. She slowly sits up on her bed and looks around, still trying to get a grip on reality.
She stares at her hands and notices the mirror in her room. She hobbles toward it.
“This can’t be happening right now.” She says in a sarcastic tone, feeling at her face.
“Um…are you by any chance…not really Pomni?” The voice whines, still speaking from behind her door.
“Why would that be the first thing you say!?” someone else says in an annoyed tone.
“I think you may be right,” Pomni replies, squinting in the mirror and massaging her digital forehead.
A rag-doll, a rabbit, a ribbon, a jester, and a Zooble crowd around a set of sofas.
“So you're telling me, we're in a TV Show?” Jax says while feigning a sense of surprise.
“More specifically, in the Amazing Digital Circus? An animated TV show…” he pauses for dramatic effect. “-on Youtube?”
“Seriously?” Zooble retorted. “You don’t have to act like him too, y’know.” She says while nudging Jax.
“Oh come on, I’m just having a little fun.” Jax remarks.
“Can someone else do the exposition?.” Gangle says.
Zooble starts pacing around the couch.
“So, all of us here went to sleep in the real world and woke up in the Digital Circus, correct?” she says, scratching their triangular head.
“I woke up first, then Jax, then Ragatha, then Gangle, then Pomni.” Zooble explains, gesturing at each character with their claw-hand.
“We’re all from the outside world, with knowledge of the 21st century and the fact that we're inside of a TV show we’re all presumably familiar with.” They explain further.
“But the issue is” Gangle chimes in, “our memories are screwed up, so none of us remember our names or any details about how we could have ended up here.”
Pomni groans. Ragatha looks away from everyone and speaks in a hushed tone.
“Do you think Caine did this to punish us?” she asks.
“No clue.” Jax replies.
“So let me get this straight,” Zooble interrupts. Jax holds in a laugh.
“At the end of the last episode, Caine gets erased and the world goes to [bloink]. Do you think there was some sort of…I don’t know…failsafe that fixed the world and implanted new people into these avatars?”
Gangle shudders. “Are you implying that we're here to…continue the story?
“Can we save the existential crisis talk until later, pretty please?” Pomni says unenthused.
Gangle apologizes about bringing it up.
A tall, dark figure steps out from behind a wall
“Hey, don’t be alarmed!” they say, standing awkwardly with their hands behind their back.
“Queenie?” Jax says.
They look over at the chess piece wearing a robe. She has eyes, but no noticeable mouth.
“You know who I am?” she questions.
Jax nods.
“That’s quite surprising,” she says.
Queenie looks around at the new circus members.
“Is this everybody?” Queenie asks.
“I think so.” Zooble replies.
“I see.” Queenie says.
“I need all of you to follow me to my office so I can run a diagnostics check on your avatars. The walk is a little tedious, but things will be much easier if we have the important conversations there.” Despite not having a mouth, Queenie's eyes smiled as if she was breaking some bad news.
“You all must be confused, maybe a bit disoriented, but I’ll explain things as soon as I can.” She says in a gentle, but slightly exasperated voice.
“What do you say? Are you all ready to go?”
The circus members looked around at each other, waiting for someone else to speak up.
“Do we really have another choice?” Pomni chimes in, getting off the sofa and walking toward the chess piece.
Gangle gets up and stands near Pomni. Zooble follows suit.
Jax gets up and pauses for a moment, looking at Ragatha who looks like she’s still processing everything. He reaches out his hand. Ragatha looks up. She seems terrified. She slowly moves her hand toward Jax’s, but she stops just before she grazes his yellow glove. Jax stares deeply into Ragatha’s eyes and takes her hand. Everyone else stands almost frozen, holding their breath as they watch the purple rabbit help Ragatha stand up. She continues to stare back at Jax. Jax lets go of her hand and awkwardly pats her shoulder.
Queenie breaks the tension. “Shall we get going?”
The circus members follow.
Zooble and Gangle look around the circus. It’s familiar to them, but they’ve never seen it up close, or from these angles. Pomni is still pretty grumpy. Jax catches up with Ragatha.
“It sucks, huh,” Jax confides. “I never thought I’d end up here, let alone with all of you. I certainly daydreamed about it, once or twice, but not like this.”
He looks at the ground as he continues speaking.
“I’m surprised Gangle is taking this so well. I guess if she’s like the real Gangle, she'd be pretty psyched to be in her favorite show.”
“Uh…yeah…” Ragatha says absentmindedly.
“I was wondering…if I’d be Jax.” he continued. “I was kinda expecting…I’d be you.” he laughed when he said it, just a little.
Ragatha turned her head and looked at him. She looked somewhat frightened by what the purple rabbit said.
“That was a bit TMI…my bad!” Jax said, and they continued to walk in silence.
Queenie barely spoke as they walked through a labyrinth of corridors. They arrive at a long hallway flanked with doors on either side.
“Is this where everyone else’s rooms are?” Zooble says. Gangle puts her arm on Zooble's shoulder and shakes her head.
Queenie slows her pace.
“Yes. This is where we all used to stay.” she sighs. “They used to have pictures on the doors, but I eventually took them off.”
The hallway gets real quiet.
“I was hoping I’d see someone else when you all…arrived,” she continued.
“Kinger, as you called him, is someone I was hoping to meet. I wanted to see if-”
Queenie stops walking and turns to face the group. “Was he…a chess piece like me?” she asks.
Pomni looks at the others in the group and nods back at Queenie.
“In our circus, or at least the one I’m familiar with, Kinger was the one who helped us. I’m pretty sure he was the only one of the original developers that-”
“Pomni, I’m not so sure if she wants to hear that right now.” Gangle says in the whiney voice she’s known for.
“I’m glad he kept strong in your circus” Queenie replies solemnly. “I’m the only one left this time.”
Queenie turns around and the group continues their journey in silence.
Queenie walks through the false wall at the end of the hallway. Pomni speaks up.
“Zooble, Gangle, this was the room that Abel got the Admin Passes from, the one with the floating eyes and stuff.”
“Pomni, we watched the show.” Zooble says, somewhat confused.
“Oh, right.” Pomni replies.
The Admin Room was a dark expanse with giant columns in the distance and water surrounding the entire area. After walking on a stone bridge, they arrived at a funnel-like structure with a hole at the bottom. Jax winced.
“Are we going in there?” Gangle asked, seemingly just as concerned as Jax.
“It’s safe,” Queenie replied. “My office is just after this. Once we get there, everyone’ll get admin passes and we won’t have to take this route anymore.”
Pomni chimes in, “I’ll go first. I’ll yell when I get to the bottom so you guys can get a feel of how long it’ll take”. She gives a thumbs up to Jax and takes a deep breath. She jumps down the hole.
“Iitss aa slliiiiddddeee~~” Pomni’s voice echoes through the hole. “Oh, it’s only like ten feet long. It’s nothing. You’ll be alright.”
Zooble and Gangle glance at Ragatha. Ragatha glances back and shakes her head.
“I’ll go,” Jax says, sliding down what amounts to a slide you’d find at a children’s playground.
“We’re both fine,” he says.
Ragatha gets the courage to slide down. Gangles slides down after. Zooble puts their feet on the ledge but hesitates for a moment. Queenie stands beside them.
“I should go first” Queenie admits, “I’m guessing you don’t want the stranger you just met to trap you in a hole”. She jumps in the hole head first.
Zooble finally jumps in. Jax is cracking up at the bottom of the slide.
“Bwahahaha! Are you okay?” He asks.
Queenie chuckles. “I thought I’d lighted up the mood, but my head really does hurt now”
A tiny giggle escapes Ragatha’s mouth. She acts like nothing happened. Nobody acknowledges it.
The group found themselves in front of a blue and red door.
“Isn’t this, Caine’s office?” Zooble questioned.
“Um…technically.” Queenie replies, shifting her eyes away from the group.
Queenie opens the door to Caine’s office.
One by one, the cast files into the room. Zooble and Gangle look around at the various doodads littering the shelves of the office. Even Pomni is starting to admire the decor, seemingly less grumpy than she was when she first woke up.
Queenie walks to the back of the office and waves her hand near a tall bookshelf. The bookshelf splits apart, revealing another door with a sun adorning the top of it.
“The console room?” Jax whispers under his breath.
“Maybe her office is in there.” Pomni whispers back.
Queenie makes her way to the front of the group and pauses before she opens the door.
“There’s someone else who would like to meet you.” she says.