Chapter Text
Jax kept his distance after the gun adventure. Pomni didn’t ignore him, but she kept her distance. She spent more time with Ragatha and the others. Good, it was better this way, or at least that’s what he told himself during the day. Until the nightmares started.
Scenes of Pomni’s funeral flashed before him. The other cast members grieved for their loss and yelled at him, blaming him for her abstraction along with Ribbit’s and Kaufmo’s. They never said those words during waking hours, but they might as well have with their glares, or how they avoided him, and berated him for his insensitive jokes. He kept his distance so it wouldn’t hurt when someone inevitably abstracted. They were nothing more than characters meant to entertain an invisible audience, so what did it matter?
So was his routine since the gun adventure; by day he would ignore everyone except to make a joke or pull a prank and at night he was plagued by nightmares. It wasn’t always Pomni’s funeral that haunted his mind. Sometimes he would dream about the days leading up to Ribbit’s abstraction or the very event itself. He would dream about Kaufmo and how he’d try to make the room laugh only to be met with silence. There were also the particularly heated arguments he had with the others and how he would sometimes stare at the doors with Xs on them as if whispering ‘you’re next’ to him.
One day Caine announced a beach adventure which everyone seemed to enjoy. Jax laid on a beach bed under an umbrella while the others played. If they had looked closely, they would have seen how tired he was, but they didn’t. Pomni was the only one who would occasionally glance at him, as if making sure he was still there before returning to the fun. She would look at him with those stubborn, optimistic eyes as if waiting for him to crack and walk over to ask for forgiveness, but she would have another thing coming before that happened.
Once the adventure was over, Jax excused himself and went to his room to sleep. He didn’t expect to get much rest, but it was better than spending time with the others. The rabbit’s head hit the pillow with a thud and within minutes he was out like a light. This would be his worst nightmare to date.
—
Pomni was falling into the hole of the cellar, partially abstracted, while she looked at him with a face like he had just shot her with a gun. Ribbit rested their arm on his shoulder. Half of them looked normal while the other half was a jagged, abstracted outline of their former self.
“Hey, buddy! Nice of you to give us a new friend. It’s been boring down there,” they said casually.
Kaufmo rested his arm on Jax’s other shoulder. He had spots of abstraction sticking out of him like icicles jetting out of his body. “Yeah, I’ve been dying to tell her my jokes. Bet she would laugh at them.”
Jax heard sobbing behind him and dared to turn around. Ragatha and the others were in tears as they stared angrily at him.
“How could you do this, Jax?!” Ragatha accused. “She was the best of us! She could have made things better! Why did you do it? Why did you make her abstract?!”
No, that’s not true! He had seen her smiling and laughing at the beach. People close to abstraction don’t do that. They lock themselves away, they pick fights over the tiniest things, they obsess over the exit or treat Cain like he’s the literal devil.
“It should have been you, Jax!” Ragatha yelled as she stormed up to him. “It should have been YOU!” The rag doll pushed him into the hole of the cellar as he felt adrenaline surge through his body from the fall. His eyes turned to the abstracted creatures below as they stared hungrily at him like beasts about to devour their next meal. He looked back up again as the darkness began to swallow him while the others looked down at him with disgust and relief before Caine snapped his fingers and closed the opening.
—
Pomni woke up from a weird dream and decided to get a glass of water hoping the walk to and from the kitchen would be enough to shake off the nerves. She hopped off her bed and opened her door to the hallway. As she made her way past Jax’s door, she heard a noise that caused her to freeze in her tracks. Hesitantly she approached the door and listened closely. She could hear ragged breathing and crying on the other side as panic started to spread through her body.
The jester tried the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked. She hesitantly walked into the room and scanned her surroundings. Her eyes landed on Jax laying on his bed and her eyes went wide. He was starting to abstract as the crackle of static filled the air, sweat dripped down his brow, his eyes shut tight, and he whimpered and twitched in pain as jagged shards of inky black and luminescent eyes protruded from his body. Pomni shut the door and ran to the bed before she climbed into it, hovering over him.
“No! No, no, no! Jax, don’t do this! Don’t you f[BLOINK]ing do this!” Pomni exclaimed as she examined him, trying to figure out what to do. She held him around the waist where he hadn’t abstracted yet and forced herself to speak calmly and softly to him. “Come on, Jax, you can beat this! I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
“P-p-p-Pomni,” he gasped, stuttering from the glitching of his body.
“I’m here! I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I-i-it hurts,” he groaned.
“I know, I’m sorry,” she said as she started to brush his face soothingly.
Tears streamed down his face. “I d-don’t wanna go! I don’t wanna goooo!”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Pomni insisted. “I’m staying right here.”
“Don’t let him t-take me!” he pleaded. He looked so scared, so vulnerable.
“I won’t let him,” she promised. Pomni didn’t have to ask whom Jax was referring to. In the pit of her stomach, she knew. “He’ll have to pry you from my cold, dead hands,” she managed to joke.
“I’m sorry, Ribbit! I’m sorry!” Jax whimpered as he curled into a ball, shivering.
Pomni froze for a second when she heard the name. She could only suspect he was talking about someone who had abstracted, but decided not to question him about it. All she could focus on was keeping him grounded, soothing him, and keeping the abstraction from getting worse. She lost herself in the softness of his fur and the twitching of his ears as the jagged edges started to smooth out and his breathing became slow and even.
She continued to stroke his fur long after the abstraction subsided. Eventually she heard him speak again. “Why?” His voice sounded raspy and defeated.
“Why what?”
“Why are you here? Why did you bother staying with me?” He didn’t look at her. His eyes darted everywhere except her face.
“I heard you last night.” He looked angry at that. “I couldn’t just let you abstract. Yeah you’re a menace, but you’re still human.” Jax scoffed at her answer. “I can understand why you keep people at arm’s length, even if I disagree with you.” He dared to glance at her before he looked away again. “You might not believe we’re friends or want to be friends, and I’ll respect that. I’m sorry for fighting you before.” Jax glanced at her in confusion. “But I can’t stop thinking about something. When Kinger and I were in the haunted mansion, he told me something that stuck with me.”
“Really? What sage advice did the nut job give you?” Jax huffed a laugh.
“He said ‘in this world the worst thing you can do is make someone think they’re not wanted or loved’,” Jax froze at the words, “I guess I didn’t want you to feel that way. We don’t have to be friends, if that’s what you want, but I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care if something happened to you.” Pomni bit back tears at the painful memory of their fight from before. She knew somewhere in her mind that he didn’t mean those words, but they still stung. “Even if you don’t care about what happens to me.” Jax froze again at her words. “I promise not to tell Caine what happened.” She started to get up from the bed to leave the room. “I’m going to go get some more sleep. Knock if you need anything.” The jester spared him one last glance before she shut the door.
Jax lay in the uncomfortable stillness of everything that had just happened as he tried to quiet his mind enough to sleep.
Pomni returned to her room, abandoning the idea of the glass of water as she was too tired to do anything other than sleep. She crawled into bed as her mind raced over what happened. Jax had nearly abstracted, but she helped prevent it. She remembered Kinger’s story about his wife and could see it in her mind’s eye as if she experienced it herself.
Kinger had managed to have one calm moment with his wife before she was sent to the basement. Was she still in there at that moment? Had she not lost herself so completely that she was able to say “goodbye” in her own way? How long had they stayed in the darkness before Caine found them? What if Caine hadn’t sent her to the basement immediately? Could she have been saved? These thoughts swam through her head as she slowly drifted to sleep.
What if you could bring someone back from abstraction?
To be continued