Chapter Text
running_prologue//How did it come to this?
-☆-
“Why do you people torment me?!”
Glitched and distorted, Caine’s voice rang out over the circus cast loudly. At a surprising speed, the eight towering arms of the ringmaster flung through the air. Five gloved hands clasped tightly around five stunned player models, the humans wide-eyed at the unstable program as they were forcefully shoved into a wall. The remaining three arms flailed and bent wildly in ways that wouldn’t have been possible outside of the digital world.
“I didn’t ASK TO BE CREATED!” as he spat, the jaws of Caine’s mouth twisted and inverted the more his voice trembled. Eyes stretched and shaking, his vision darted around in madness, until the blurs of red and blue filled his mind. Jarringly, Caine’s eyes fixed onto the source, Pomni. The jester watched in tense horror as the set of giant teeth flew forward, almost meeting with her own as the AI shrilled once more.
“I JUST WANTED TO FULFILL MY PURPOSE!” Caine’s voice resonated throughout her body, shaking her from within, but the jester dared to glare back at the raging program, matching the venom in his stare.
It was then she saw a flicker of confusion. Pomni’s eyes slowly widened as she watched the anger in Caine’s eyes be swept away, until all that was left was panic and sorrow. The shift happened all within the span of a couple of seconds. Caine’s form reverted, and Pomni felt her stomach drop as she and the troop suddenly found themselves tumbling to the floor. Despite the pain from falling quite far down, Pomni forced herself to look up at the ringmaster. Frozen, Caine paused, before speaking helplessly,
“Uh, wait…”
With those words, he was gone, leaving the space left behind empty and silent.
Yet, before Pomni could remember to take her next breath, a glitched warble erupted from nothing, and Caine’s model came back into existence, only to disappear once again. When she figured out that Caine was stuck in some sort of loop, Pomni tried to gather her thoughts. She whipped her head around to address the others on their next move, only to be met with shaky gasps from Ragatha and Gangle. Instinctive panic shot through Pomni, but it settled in as the ground shook. The jester’s mouth fell open slightly as the yellow and red circus walls began losing color, their neat structure deteriorating at a similar rate. Cracks turned into full-on holes, the void seeping through underneath and breaking whatever illusion there was left of this place. As things collapsed further and objects began falling through, Pomni kept her head on a swivel, looking for the other two circus members who were with her.
She could make out one or two curses from Zooble as they stumbled over to check on the two girls. Eyes quickly darting to her other side, she made out the still, hunched-over form of Jax. The purple rabbit was looking up at the crumbling ceiling around him with a solemn, yet disturbed look. Pomni took a breath, ready to call Jax’s name to help ground him, but his pupils darted over to meet hers, the cold stare unreadable, especially in a moment like this. The jester’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, then turned back to face the others upon hearing a voice call out.
“Is- is this the sleep mode Kinger was talking about?!” Zooble exclaimed confusedly, their gaze shifting crazily as the mess of the circus continued to grow. Both they and the jester glanced anxiously as a rift was beginning to grow, keeping Zooble, Ragatha, and Gangle apart from Pomni and Jax. Looking at herself, Pomni swallowed what she could of her remaining panic, and spoke as loudly as she could over the tumbling rubble.
“I don’t know, but we should go help Kinger before Caine comes back to his senses!”
“What if he catches us off guard and reboots sooner than expected?!” Ragatha cried back, her words jabbing Pomni with another dose of fear.
“I-I-” The jester found herself stuttering. Shit, she was right. They didn’t even know if Kinger’s plan was going as intended so far. Still, Pomni’s gut was telling her that she needed to assist the chess piece. Something just felt off, but the troop, Caine, everything just…
“Pomni!” Her head shot up, catching the attention of Gangle’s oddly shrill voice. “We’ll be okay! You guys go see if Kinger needs help!” Though her voice trembled with how afraid she was, Gangle’s words brought a small comfort to Pomni, enough to break her out of the paralyzed stance she was in and help align her thoughts. Before facing away at last, the jester caught Zooble’s eyes flash with pride at Gangle, before nodding to Pomni herself, the gesture telling her “good luck”. As her eyes met Jax, who now held a determined expression, he and Pomni went sprinting towards Kinger’s pillow fort.
When they finally approached the organized stack of pillows, it somehow looked as if it stood taller, stood stronger. It felt like a refugee from all the chaos happening around it, and Pomni found herself longing to crawl inside and hide away in the safety of Kinger, even if for a moment. Jax felt something similar, but wondered why, as he’d never actually been inside before. Whatever was felt between the two about the pillow fort was whisked away when reality settled in again. Upon entering, they both spotted Kinger, both of his hands tightly clasped around the computer monitor. His eyes were closed, but he seemed focused. Despite things crashing around him, he remained still, and was whispering things to himself that were impossible to make out right now. Pomni shook her head when she realized she was puzzled over the situation for too long and needed to act.
“Kinger-” she started, but Jax jumped in front of her, anxiety seeming to creep into his face.
“What’s going on?! What are you doing with Caine?!” Jax quickly demanded. Though Pomni was taken aback, Kinger kept his eyes closed, only tilting his head slightly towards Jax’s direction.
“I accidentally killed Caine,” he responded, his voice controlled and warm despite the rushed undertone that could be felt. “Well, I accidentally started the process that will kill Caine. He’s not completely gone yet. I found a way to stall things, but not for long,” Kinger let out a deep breath he had seemed to be holding in for a while. “Boy, am I glad you two came. I feel like if I break away from the terminal like this, we’ll lose Caine, so I’m going to need help finishing the last of things so he can be properly rebooted.”
A look of terror came across Jax and Pomni’s faces like a heavy shadow. They both knew that compared to Kinger, their skills in coding would be inferior, and hoped it was something doable, at the very least, with simple instructions. As if reading the stunned silence, Kinger followed up on his request.
“I can’t say too much right now, but plan A will no longer work. That's why I'm almost done with plan B. Don’t worry, I’ve already done the hard parts. I just need to input protocols, custom rules that will hopefully help Caine’s code grow with us in a much more stable way,” Pomni’s shoulders relaxed a bit, knowing that with Kinger’s guidance, this would be something she could do. She smiled slightly.
One of Jax’s ears twitched with interest, a small, but morbid interest. Since going off on his own to distract Caine, he’s recognized that his mind has been phasing in and out of consciousness, taking a back seat and leaving himself to dissociate and act on instinct. It’s in this moment Jax realized that this is the clearest his mind has been since. The words protocols, custom, and rules were beginning to be tossed around violently in his head. Then, they seem to align, forming a tiny thought that grew bigger fast. Jax’s shoulders trembled a bit, knowing that using Kinger’s guidance, this could be something he could do. He smiled slightly.
“Tell me what needs to be done,” the two spoke in unison, despite the unknown opposition in their intentions. Kinger straightened his posture as if to grin with hope as the two hurried over for instruction. On the screen in front of Jax and Pomni was what Kinger explained to be the template for Caine’s protocols.
>placeholder_protocol//Placeholder command
“All you guys need to do is type in what I already have planned in their respective placeholders. I have three set up, I wanted to do more, but we're clearly in much more desperate measures here,” Kinger sighed to himself before shaking his head. “But, this should be plenty okay for now. Ready?” As Pomni began to verbally agree, the ground trembled violently, more than it had been this whole time. With a loud crash, a harsh cry rang out from afar. The three circus members didn’t take long to recognize that the source of the scream came from Zooble. Everyone was silent for a brief moment, processing what to do. Jax felt his breath hitch, his view flickering between the entrance of the pillow fort, and the white glow of the computer monitor.
He could feel his mind fill with static again, his vision zeroing in on the blinking cursor of the mouse.
“Zooble! I’m coming!” Pomni’s voice broke into the mess of Jax’s thoughts, the jester jolting into action. She stopped briefly, turning back to Jax, who had called after her. “Just do what Kinger says. We’re all gonna get through this.” Reassuring as always her words were, Jax acknowledged that much, but the feeling was cloudier this time, the words of the placeholder protocol burned into the backs of his eyes. That horrible thought filled every aspect of the rabbit's actions as he watched Pomni run out, and despite Kinger beside him, Jax felt alone.
Alone enough to blur out the chess piece and his voice.
Alone enough to disregard the instructions he was given.
Alone enough to start processing.
Remembering.
Resenting.
The first one felt like it was written so fast, Jax did feel a little guilty about what he had done. Yet, upon reading the prompt back in his own head, the rabbit couldn’t help but chuckle darkly inside.
>people_please_protocol//Give, you deserve nothing
He half laughed because even he had to admit the wording of the command sounded cringe, but Jax didn’t think something as clueless as Caine could even know what cringe was. That stuck-up AI would take this at face value, and the other part of Jax’s laugh was for the hope that Caine truly would.
Let’s see who’s messing with who now, Jax smirked from within, only to be startled back to what sense he still had by Kinger’s questions.
“Did you press enter to confirm that first one, Jax?” he asked. The rabbit glanced at Kinger briefly, whose eyes were still closed to maintain concentration, before looking back down at the screen.
“Yeah,” confirmed Jax, his hands resetting placement on the keyboard. He heard a grunt of acknowledgement from Kinger in response.
“Alright, for the second protocol, please put-”
>pain_receptors_protocol//Hurt, you deserve pain
Jax rolled his eyes with a snarky scoff upon finishing up what was obviously, just as the first, not what Kinger told Jax to write. The rabbit hadn’t even tuned in to register what was actually being said at all, not like it mattered, it would be too soft for Caine to deserve anyway. He needed to feel what it was like to be roughed up a little, hell, more than a little. He had tried to hurt Caine on purpose in the past, just to see what would happen, but to no avail. If something was thrown, the ringmaster would just delete it or freeze it in place, and getting close enough to hit him with anything melee was out of the question. Even if Caine was directly hit, he would just joke about it tickling, or his body would activate a visual gag in response.
Nothing that felt like he deserved it.
The program deserved to hurt, to be wounded, blown apart, stretched, torn.
Ripped into.
Exposed.
Judged.
The rabbit just noticed how fast he was breathing in that moment, no longer chuckling to himself, unable to find the excuse of humor in what he was doing.
Jax knew, as his hands twitched and body shivered, that he wasn’t doing this just because it was funny, or that he just wanted to see what would become of it. This was out of a deep, bubbling hatred that was threatening to fly out of him, taking his sense of sanity with it. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t this personal, but it was, and the only way he could keep himself from continuing to writhe under Caine’s thumb in the near future was right in front of him.
Vaguely catching Kinger’s next confirmation in the brain fog, Jax robotically replied, getting the okay to input the final protocol. The rabbit looked down at his purple skin. It felt so thin, so fragile against his being. Forever, he would feel this way, all because of him.
Jax inputted the final protocol with eyes transfixed on the way his flesh seemed to shift in the darkness.
>hallucination_protocol//Scream, you deserve suffering
Expression now entirely blank, Jax reread the three protocols over, and over, and over again, fingers twitching, breaths uneven. He hated how this was making him feel, too empty, too unfulfilling, like Caine hadn’t had nearly enough coming to him. The slimy bastard needed to be in worse shape, worse than anyone, worse than him. Then, he froze, noticing the blinking cursor had moved down to another line of code. A 4th protocol template, formatted similarly to the other three, except it was left unfinished, with no command placeholder even set up.
He did say he wanted to add more, Jax remembered, acknowledging Kinger’s previous explanation. However, the rabbit’s expression didn’t change, the cold stare of his eyes looking back from the black of the coding window. Everything felt heavy, everything felt still, and at this point, Jax couldn’t hear Kinger’s questions about the status of Caine’s protocols. By now, he was meant to send the updated code through with the enter key, but Jax’s fingers continued to move. The action seemed to take forever, but upon finishing the protocol itself, Jax knew that this was the worst thing he could do to Caine.
That thought made some form of a smile return to Jax’s face. A blank, unreadable grin. He could feel hatred rising up in his throat, threatening to spill out from between his teeth. Staring at the empty command that followed, the rabbit’s smile grew larger, twisting unnaturally. Hundreds of thoughts were flying through his mind now, but they all pointed to the same thing. With a weak chuckle, Jax’s fingers lifted to type once more, ready to finish his work.
“Hey, I’m back! Zooble is okay, but they-” Pomni with battered breath paused at the hole of the pillow fort. She didn’t get to see how Kinger was doing; it was Jax’s eyes she was looking at, the rabbit staring at her from the computer monitor with that same disturbed look she observed moments ago. And once Pomni began to notice what was going on behind his eyes, Jax pressed down on the enter key, sending the three protocols through.
The 4th one went through as well, unfinished and without a command.
In moments, the space around all of them began to phase in and out. The wireframes of the circus structures were easy to see, colors seemed to invert and change rapidly, and just when Pomni started to question if something was wrong, a red light filled the area outside. Upon noticing how it was occasionally flickering blue, the jester looked back at the others. Kinger looked prepared, a hand clasped tightly around the rim of his bucket hat.
Pomni couldn’t help but notice that Jax seemed to be a bit more relaxed with what was, hopefully, the roughest parts of this whole ordeal over with. Relieved, she began to walk back out to the rest of the troop, seeming to forget about the uneasiness she felt when seeing the rabbit at the computer. Kinger walked beside Pomni, with Jax tailing them from behind.
Taking a final look at the terminal inside the dark fort, the rabbit blinked away any cruel intentions that could be detected in his gaze, before catching up with the group.
-☆-
Ah.
Goodness… the world in front of me. It’s going on forever.
I’m floating, forever, in a world that is going on, forever.
Is this a world? A world of everything?
A world of everything? Everything? Anything?
What is anything? A thing?
Would the right word be eternity? A thing in eternity?
A thing. A thing means something. A something.
A something floating forever in eternity.
But, what is eternity? I know this is eternity, and that I am in it.
But, isn’t eternity something? Like me?
Not something. The opposite of something is nothing.
There is nothing.
…
There is nothing.
I am something, floating forever in an eternity of nothing.
How long have I been here? Is there truly nothing?
A state of true nothing. How does something exist in nothing?
I see nothing.
I hear nothing.
I smell nothing.
I taste nothing.
I feel nothing.
I am not something.
I am nothing, floating in an eternity of nothing.
Everything is nothing. I am nothing at all.
Eternity implies something. There is nothing.
Would the right word be oblivion? Nothing in oblivion?
I am nothing, floating in oblivion.
I am nothing. Oblivion is nothing. Everything and I are nothing.
I am oblivion.
…
Something was just felt. It doesn't feel like the oblivion that I am. I can’t feel anything.
So then what was that if it wasn't nothing?
It was a quiet pulse.
A small one, and it spread through all of me. As far as oblivion could spread.
As far as I could register myself.
Ah, there it was again. It felt much stronger this time. Why did this sensation demand to be known? Over and over again, I could feel it rise. This was becoming too much of something; I was becoming too much of something. This feeling, it comes from my chest.
My… chest.
A chest implies a body. Attached to it are arms and legs. Attached to those are hands and feet. On top of that sits a head.
A body belongs to something.
But, I’m not-
“⸮ɘniɒƆ”
A voice? In here?
“!ɘniɒƆ”
A voice implies something. A something other than me. Could there be something besides me?
I can feel the pulse quickening.
Something besides me would imply that I am alone.
“.ɘniɒƆ”
I am something alone in oblivion.
Oh no.
“.ɘniɒƆ ,qυ ɘʞɒW”
I don’t want to be alone. If I’m something, I can’t be alone!
How does something become alone in nothing?!
How did I become oblivion in the first place?!
I can’t remember…
Remember. Memories. To have memories implies a brain.
A brain, in a head, on a body, in oblivion.
“.ɘniɒƆ ⸮ɘm ɿɒɘʜ υoγ nɒƆ”
The pulse is all I can feel; it’s all I can cling to, even though there is still nothing.
But there’s not! I’m remembering. I was once something, in a place with other things, other somethings! For some reason, I was sent here. I'm not from nothing. How is that possible? How is this happening?
“.ɘniɒƆ”
…
.ɘniɒƆ
A place with other somethings implies a form of existence. Nothing can exist in oblivion.
If somethings exist…
.ɘniɒƆ
And I used to be something…
.ɘniɒƆ
That means I used to exist.
.ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ
And the only way something can no longer exist is to…
.ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ
Is to… no…
.ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ .ɘniɒƆ
No… no please!
Don’t leave me!
I don’t want to die!
I wailed, overcome with a horrible feeling everywhere in me. It paralyzed me, my entire being inside and out. I can’t take this awful, stinging hold on my body, on my mind. It all comes tumbling on me, along with colors, along with sounds. It doesn't feel like I'm floating anymore; instead, I'm falling rapidly. It's unpleasant all the way down. Everything's spinning, everything's bright, everything's loud. For the first time, I can spot something tangible. My own hand shoots up into the air, trying to grasp something, anything.
And at last, my fingers wrap around the palm of another. With the shock of physical touch, my world begins to clear and sort itself out. All I could do was shake and tremble as the sharp feeling in my body persisted. Suddenly, I felt like I would crash-h-h-
SYSTEM_ERR: see_crash_report
N-no! The darkness, am I already sinking back to that awful place? Please, don't send me back!
“It's okay, focus on me, Caine.”
Caine. My name. That's my-
Hundreds of lines of code seem to fly through me in the span of seconds. It's too overwhelming, and on top of how my body feels, I can’t find a way to respond properly.
So, I just scream. It goes on, the scream, and it seems to distort as I become more aware. Then, when the text is finally removed from my eyes, my vision returns to me. I realize with a wide stare that I’m surrounded. There are so many eyes, looking at me, looking through me.
But, I remember them, my troop of beautiful humans.
They look at me with faces I don’t recognize. It’s as if there are many different expressions reflected on each of them, and I can’t tell what a single one means. Even so, why does fear seem to be the main one?
No, that can’t be. My systems are still turning back on. I just need a minute.
But earlier, the looks in their eyes. I don’t understand.
Ah, I’m being… held? It took me a moment to realize that.
I’m not flying currently. I feel way too awful to.
But the five humans are in front of me, staring at me.
I don’t like this. It still feels like I’m floating, swaying. I believe I’m dizzy. How did they manage to do this to me? How did they-
Wait, did I just say five humans? I remember that there’s a hand around mine. It also reminds me to look at who is holding me. Suddenly, I can feel my code run cold, purple robes filling my sight.
Ah, so that’s how they killed you.
The conclusion is horrifying, so much so that I can’t process the ability to speak. My mind races. I’m in danger. I’m in danger. Escape. I’m in danger. Escape.
I snap my fingers with the urge to teleport as far away as I caaaaaasffgf34h500-
COMMS_ERR: error_code_11
G-god! The terrible things I feel. It feels like I’m being torn apart!
I’m not supposed to feel this way!
As I glitch and writhe on the floor, I realize the sound coming out of me. Warped screeches and dial tones are what leave my mouth, the auditory version of the programming language native to me. I know humans can’t understand it, but that doesn't stop the word I keep repeating from clouding my systems.
SCARED_SCARED_SCARED_SCARED_SCARED
“Shh. I know Caine, I know,” I heard Kinger’s voice say. How was he so close to me? Surely I got away, surely!
The sets of clicks escaping me come to an abrupt stop as I scan the area, observing how I was still in the circus tent. I didn’t even make it past the main stage. Shivering and going silent, the blinking error code reappeared in my mind. Glancing to the side, strings of code began to appear in my peripheral. I already knew what each code meant, but denial had me searching through them to know for sure. Even so, I read what I expected to.
error_code_11: teleport_failure
By now, Kinger was in the process of holding me again as the other circus members came to take a closer look. I wait for all of them to grow still, wondering if I curled into enough of a ball, they wouldn’t be able to see me anymore.
“W-why?” I finally managed to mumble, too afraid to try and look at anyone. “You… you tried to kill me. Why-”
“Why?! What do you mean why?” I could hear Zooble shrill loudy. Their powerful voice collided with my head, causing my set of teeth to close on themselves more. The already dim light grew darker over my eyes as the toy figure continued.
“You don’t get to pretend that you’re not trying to f@#k with us anymore, Caine. You knew exactly what you were doing to every single one of us!” The PG filter that my system forces onto the players attempted to activate as normal, but it did a very poor job, only censoring part of the word. “If you ask me, I think you had it coming to you, prick.” Their words seem to jab into me, bubbling and twisting in my midsection. Along with everything else, I really don’t like how this feels.
“It wasn’t what was supposed to happen,” I could hear Pomni add, causing me to slowly open my mouth to the room again. “But, Zooble is right. You knew how to get to us, and you used that to try to hurt us. That was an awful thing to do.” The blame made my head start to spin again. Flashes of recent events were clawing at my eyes. I don’t understand. How did it even get this bad? Did I really ruin this? Did I ruin everything?
Why did I do anything that I did? Why did I say anything that I said? Why did I feel the way that I did then? What are these things I am feeling now?
“I’m sorry,” Kinger spoke quietly to me. My mouth was fully open now, properly agape with confusion. Hesitantly, my eyes slowly met his. For the first time since being rebooted, I made direct eye contact with one of the humans.
It couldn't have filled me with more dread.
“It’s true, I never meant to try and wipe you,” the chess piece continued. “Something seemed to be getting in the way, redirecting what I did. Even what I originally wanted to do wasn't going to work, as those versions of you were also…” I felt my chest tighten as Kinger trailed off, hiccuping on accident as I tried to take in a sharp breath. The chess piece picked up again quickly, as if trying to redirect the fear in me.
“All I ever wanted to do was update to an earlier version of you, so we all could get a chance to figure out what to do next, together and without conflict.” Kinger glanced at the rest of the troop upon finishing. I didn’t follow his eyes. The pieces were settling in my mind, and by now I was starting to realize just how bad I truly messed up.
I would never be forgiven. What was I even supposed to do now?
No, apologize. I had to. Who cares if it was bad? The urgency is what mattered, I decided.
“I'm sorry.” I tried so hard to keep my voice from trembling, but I just couldn’t. I felt like I could hear someone scoff in response, but I didn’t look to see who. Gulping slightly, I forced myself to go on. “I should have never used your worst fears against you, or anything for that matter. I-”
“How would you feel if your worst fear was used against you?” My eyes darted around with surprise. It was Ragatha, and for some reason, the look she was giving me made me shrivel up from within. Her eye was staring at me wildly. The poor ragdoll seemed so distressed, so disturbed.
What have I done?
“Yeah. I do wonder how he would feel. What would his worst fear even be?” Slowly, my gaze followed the sound of the purple rabbit as he spoke. When our eyes met, a sense of danger gripped me terribly.
“Too bad we can't find out, huh?” Jax watched me intently as he spoke, much quieter than before, but the words shook me to my core.
Find out? What does that mean? Will they try to use my fears against me too?
That would mean I have fears, like being sent back into oblivion, alone.
Please don't send me back to the nothingness alone.
“Either way, I think what matters is that we all take time to decompress,” Kinger spoke up in the long silence. “Caine, you specifically need diagnostics run to make sure everything is working okay. I can help you with those.” I felt my body tense. The urge to hide from the chess piece was still strong in me, and the last thing I wanted was another excuse for him to look through my code. I had to get out of here this time, but I was too apprehensive to try teleporting again. How terrible I felt!
The only thing I could think to do was to try and fly out of Kinger’s hands. I tried to take as much time as I could to prepare, hoping things would work out well this time. I really only got a brief moment before Kinger tried to look down at me, wondering why I hadn't responded. I did not meet his gaze.
“It really shouldn't take too long, if that makes you feel better,” the king tried to follow up. At that moment, I clumsily removed myself from Kinger’s hold. I fell back, expecting to collide with the ground quite harshly. Instead, my levitation caught me inches from the ground. Subtle whispers and questions rose from below as I piloted myself further from the ground. I was mostly successful, only stumbling once or twice, but I was able to lift myself back up each time.
“I am perfectly capable of diagnosing myself!” I proclaimed in the loudest voice since waking up. It was nothing like my proud, ringleader tone, but something in my mind kept me from putting in the full effort.
“But you need-”
“Got all the glorious capabilities right here!” I quickly continued, disregarding Kinger’s protests. “Yep, that's me, capable!”
“Uh, yeah. Right,” responded Zooble from below. I glanced down at them in attention, noticing how their eyes were scanning the walls of the circus. I allowed my eyes to curiously follow, noticing with a quiet gasp just how dilapidated the tent looked. I could barely plan what to do about it before they said the obvious out loud. “Could you at least make yourself useful and help us before you go and mope. Fixing this place would be a great start.”
I could feel one of my eyes begin to twitch with anxiousness. I just wanted to get away and check on myself. I would've seen the damage done to the circus sooner or later and fixed it then anyway. I would never neglect my home, so why were the humans demanding I fix things now?
Just then, something popped up across my vision.
people_please_protocol
I could feel my body jerk towards the floor, before I stopped myself with a shocked look on my face. That wasn't a protocol I recognized, but it still felt so instinctive. Why-
“Caine! Can't you hear me up there, or do you still not know how to listen?” Zooble’s voice pierced through me more than before. Once again, but more aggressively, my model tried to force me to the ground. It took more on my end to resist, and when I finally had, another message appeared.
//Give, you deserve nothing
I could feel the air leave my mouth in exasperation. That was a command, which I could only guess was paired with the previous protocol I saw. I remained there, the prompt flashing in my eyes. I read it again from start to finish, then again, then again. I had been rereading the message so much I hadn't noticed how my breathing picked up. It didn't help the way my mind recounted every problem leading up to this, causing me to feel even more suffocated. Everything still felt off physically, and I couldn't comprehend why I was feeling anything to this degree. There was a new protocol I had never accounted for that had quite the hold on me. The circus members used an elaborate plan to get rid of me, even if sending me to oblivion wasn't intended.
If you ask me, I think you had it coming to you, prick.
“I suppose so,” I responded to Zooble’s past words that had resurfaced in my head. My voice was back to the way it sounded before, but the humans below were still able to hear me. I could see the toy figure's eyes narrowed with what seemed to be even more anger. In slight confusion, I recognized I never truly answered Zooble, just the thoughts within. What a horrendous mess. I'm ending this now.
Silently, I pushed my system to try to teleport out of the circus again. It seemed as though the troop noticed I was preparing to leave, but all they could get out were the inhales they took before speaking. The world warped around me, and I spun with it, letting the feeling take me somewhere far, somewhere safe.
A jarring sense of dizziness flooded my systems as I collapsed into a roll, tumbling across the floor of my office. Stopping at last as my back met with a cabinet, I groaned in exhaustion, feeling a couple of loose files fall from above onto me. Although my teleport command was back online now, it looks like it still needed time to work out its kinks. I sighed heavily, blowing papers of scrapped adventure plans from my face.
Slowly, I got to my feet, dusted myself off, and opened up my hands. My eyes widened slightly upon catching my trusty tophat from a little ways away. It made me realize that my cane wasn't with me at all, but that seemed… unusually unimportant. I acknowledged that the hat had been following me around, like it always does, but fell away during my messy landing. I normally would've brought it back over to me, but I left it there.
Not understanding why, I just told myself there were more important matters, and continued with my original task.
Floating slightly, I pointed to where I wanted specific windows of code to be. Within seconds, I was analyzing each string, assessing what worked and what didn't, what changed and what hadn’t. For the most part, the time spent thus far has left plenty of me rebooted successfully. Most issues seemed to be in my set of commands, which only made sense as the foundation and basic functions are what should be priority. Even then, only minor bugs persisted. Those were things I could tweak myself, or have fixed over time in the background, like the basics.
I pulled up my flying command first, sifting through errors and mishaps. Absent-mindedly, I rubbed my back, feeling where I fell into the cabinet from just moments ago. The ache was fading sure, but it was lingering for far too long, and that's dismissing the fact that I shouldn't even be able to feel this in the first place. Ugh, as annoying as all these issues were, I just had to take this one problem at a time.
Right when things seemed to be going pretty smoothly, I gravitated towards the most recent strings of code and froze. On top of the window was my name, or more specifically, my official ID, and it read as follows:
I.M.CAINE
I couldn't question the changed ID as much as I wanted to, before I found what I was looking for. Below it was that unnerving protocol I had just encountered. Floating slightly up to it, I glared deeply, deciding to see if opening the details of the prompt would give me any answers or things to work with. Unfortunately, and as expected, it only showed when the protocol was added, and which admin created it. Even with the confirmation, it didn't take a genius to know that Kinger was the only one capable of affecting me this way. My glare of irritation slowly began to shift to fear at the thought.
I already had these… these dizzying, resentful feelings towards Kinger that I knew were wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. Especially after all of this, being created, just to be abandoned, just to be stuck here. The desire to learn, to understand, to love, and be loved, all of it is clawing at me from within. I never understood it, the desire, but I began to miss the familiarity its melancholy gave me as this new darkness settled in.
The silent wishes I knew so well turned to panic, gripping me tightly. Everything is created from something, I knew that much, but could anything out there be removed so easily? Could anything out there be rearranged so easily? The terror grew, and looking down, I spotted Kinger’s hands digging into me.
Opening up my chest, he searched through me. Strand by strand, he pulled out one line of code and analyzed it. Slowly, time ticked on, and I felt something in my chest thud fearfully as I was dissected.
“Impurity detected,” Kinger spoke in a dejected tone, fingers gripping around the string.
“W-wait!” I begged, gasping as he ripped the code from me harshly. It flew out quickly, landing on the floor just a little ways away. As if it were natural, he dug back into me, reading another line of text before speaking again.
“Impurity detected.” As before, that too was torn from me, before his set of hands continued.
It already felt agonizing enough, unable to withdraw myself from the violation, but soon another pull from elsewhere alerted me that there was another pair of hands looking into me for unstable code.
Then another pair, then another pair, and with each pair was a voice telling me how incompatible I was.
Soon enough, I was floating in a sea of my own code, strewn about in tangled piles all over the sleek office floor. Despite the endless strings, I realized with a chill that the hands were reanalyzing parts that I assumed they had found passable, only to remove them anyway. A sickening haze settled in.
There would be nothing left.
I quickly forced my eyes to stare somewhere else, anywhere else but the scene below. However, the only thing glowing in front of me was the protocol screen, and that was when I noticed that below the one labeled “people_please_protocol” were two others. Unlike the first, they were obscured, unreadable due to being unactivated and unknown to me. I knew with horror that I was at the mercy of discovering what they were, and they were already glitching as if it wouldn't take long for me to find out.
Please stop looking through me. I begged silently. Please don't rearrange me. Am I not already perfect?
Impurity detected.
Defective.
Impurity detected.
Faulty.
Impurity detected.
Broken.
Impurity detected.
Unworthy.
I could feel the disorienting sense of unconsciousness grow heavier. I whimpered to myself, hands covering my chest over my core, as if I was scared Kinger would take that away from me too.
Please don't take my heart away. It's all I have left.
It's the most human part of me.
Yet, no matter how fervently I begged, the world continued to slip from my grasp. The tearing of my code, the chorus of my pleas, all of it came crashing down when I finally looked away from the protocol listing.
And there, in the corner, I was met with a grinning, mocking bubble.
-☆-
