Chapter Text
The first thing the young woman felt as soon as she put on that VR headset, was this pinching sensation behind her retinas, and her vision suddenly going black.
The second thing the young woman felt was the sudden sensation of falling. When the ground eventually met her, the force from the impact knocked the wind out of her lungs.
She laid there, groaning, her eyes screwed shut from the pain. That fall felt like it should have broken something, and yet, despite feeling like hell, her bones were perfectly fine. After a few minutes gasping for breaths, the young woman slowly decided to risk opening her eyes. It was dark, but thanks to the giant tears in the striped canvas far above her, stray moonlight gently illuminated her surrondings.
…
Well, she was… in some sort of circus? She thinks?
Honestly, the giant colourful tent she was currently in was the only thing that screamed “circus”. The rest of her surroundings were too… odd? To her right, there was a giant bubble just floating in place next to some stacks of gigantic multicolored toy blocks. To her left, was a greek column with some sort of potted plant perched on the top. It felt like she was shrunken down and tossed into some mind-bending toy room. When the young woman carefully sat up, her eyes went wide when she survayed her enviroment.
It looked like she landed in a war zone. Ruins of scattered building blocks lay everywhere around her, like some great battle took place here not long ago. Suddenly, this place didn’t seem so innocent anymore.
In the deafening silence, she heard the sound of shifting rubble as something chittered.
The young woman quickly jumped her feet to look around. She couldn’t see anything, but something was watching her from the shadows, and making the hair on the back of her neck stand.
She wasn't alone.
…Did she accidentally boot up a horror game when she put on that headset? She didn't expect it to work in the first place! She sighed. Yeah, she was done. Horror games weren't her thing, even less so in VR. She hated being jumped scared, so it was time to leave. She reached up around her head, expecting to grab the plastic of the headset, but instead, she only felt the soft fabric of a hat.
She patted the around her hair just to be sure, but didn't feel the plastic, nor the weight of the bulky machine strapped to her face at all.
What is going on here? She tried a few more times in the desperate hope she just wasn't doing it right, but the results stayed the same. Somehow, the headset wasn't on her head anymore, and she couldn't take it off. Her heart started to pound loudly in her ears, this wasn't happening.
She couldn't be trapped here, could she?
No, she needed to calm herself down. There had to be a way out, she rationalized. Maybe this game will let her leave once she beats it! She just needs to brave a few scripted jump scares then she'll be free, and then she'll never put on a random 90's VR headset she finds laying around in an abandoned building ever again.
The young woman took another glance around her before picking a random direction far from the suspicious noise and started to walk. Her steps echoed loudly on the black and white tiled floor, only giving her a hint of how massive this place truly was. Her eyes wandered up the shadowed structures around her.
The young woman failed to notice what was at her feet.
She stopped as soon as she heard a splash instead of an echo. Looking down, her foot was nearly sunken into a large black puddle. She felt it stick to the bottom of her shoe as she lifted her leg. Disgusted, the young woman quickly wiped it off by dragging her foot across the floor. She didn't know what she stepped in but it felt slimy, and, for some ungodly reason, warm. Why the hell was it warm?! What’s worse was the smell. It smelled strongly of iron, like she walked in a metal workshop, or that time she had a really bad nose blee-
She froze.
This…
This was a giant puddle of black blood.
The young woman tried her best to not hurl outloud. Nothing human size could lose that much blood and live. Who or Whatever was bleeding out left a trail of large droplets that disappeared into the gloom. This, was no doubt, part of the horror ambiance the game was trying to set up. Well, it was working. Her mouth felt terribly dry as she increasingly began to get more nervous, but without any other choice, she did what every horror movie protagonist would do, and followed the trail of blood.
After passing by what looked like a partial bloody handprint on the floor, the young woman stumbled upon the remains of a small break area. It was a surprisingly normal sight compared to everything else, three sofas surrounding an intact coffee table. If only it wasn’t covered in that black blood, staining the furniture forever. She moved closer, hoping to find a note, or some sort of clue to lead her to the next stage.
A sharp hissing noise echoed around her, making the woman nearly jump out of her skin.
She whipped her head around, looking everywhere but not finding anything. The awful sound continued, drawing closer and closer. And was accompanied by that chittering noise again as it moved around. The young woman backed up towards the nearest wall, eyes darting everywhere in desperation to find whatever was making that awful sound but not seeing anything.
Then, it stopped.
She blinked in confusion at the sudden silence. After waiting a while, she sighed in relief when something wasn’t jumping out from the darkness to attack her. But her moment of respite didn't last long. A blast of rotten smelling air tousled her hair as something breathed down above her. She hesitantly looked up, and what glared back was a single bright red eye.
Long, sharp and pointed teeth crowded the creature's mouth. The pair of sharp insect-like mandibles that jutted from its cheeks were drenched in that black blood, from the loser of its previous battle, no doubt. Its giant, centipede-like body clung to the wall, digging into it with its hundreds of legs, and large mantis-like arms were tucked to its sides like badly hidden blades.
This was something out of her nightmares.The creature pulled its thin lips back, showing its crooked yellowed fangs even more. It growled at her, low and threatening before unleashing a roar so loud, that the floor vibrated from the sound alone. The young woman didn't waste another second, and ran. The creature watched her go, giving its prey a head start. It slowly climbed down to the floor, then in a burst of sudden speed, swiftly chased after her.
She didn't like this game. She tried telling herself that it was all fake, all codes and polygons, but it felt too real. She didn't like how she felt its hot breath on her skin as it screeched at her. She didn't like how she could smell its rotten meat stench as it chased her. She didn't like how genuinely afraid it made her to the point where she felt if she stopped running, it would be extremely bad for her. She ducked in between a hallway created by giant stacked blocks, hoping it would discourage the thing chasing her, but it only growled in annoyance. It swung its massive scythe-like arms and sent the colourful cubes crashing to the ground. She was nearly crushed by the blocks as they fell, doing her best to dodge them. The creatures easily weaved in between the obstacles like a river, never losing momentum. It caught up to her in seconds, and swung an arm out like a bat, sending the young woman flying.
She hit the ground hard, rolling a few times and landing on her back. She gasped for air for a few seconds, but was then pinned to the ground by the creature before she could get up. The blunt side of its praying mantis arms pressed against her wind pipe. The creature hissed at her, and the young woman watched in horror as it grinned in sadistic glee as it moved its other arm, pointing the tip of its blade right at her forehead. She screwed her eyes shut, not wanting to see what was going to happen next.
A deep guttural roar echoed around the level, attracted by the sounds of chaos. The young woman snapped her eyes open at the noise, and before she could even blink, something big and red had rammed the centipede monster into the ground.
When the pressure holding her down disappeared, she scrambled to her feet, running to a nearby block to hide behind. Her heart was jumping out of her throat at the near brush with death. Behind her, a vicious battle was starting. Not wanting to be caught in the middle of it, she peered around the corner of her cover.
The new monster, the one that unintentionally saved her life, looked extremely different from the centipede creature. This one was humanoid in shape, but it was at least three stories tall with six arms to fight with, using its sharp clawed hands effectively. In one of its hands, it held a giant cane tipped with a golden orb, swinging it like a bat at the creature when it was out of reach of its claws. The flashy red tuxedo was ripped in places, and covered in dark stains. A top hat floated above its strangely shaped head, and it wasn't until the fight stumbled closer that the woman could finally make out why it looked so strange.
Its head was a floating pair of dentures.
They looked uncannily real. Large human teeth gnashed threateningly, and even seemed to warp and move like lips in a snarl. The teeth-headed monster gripped its cane, and managed to bludgeon the creature on its head. The centipede hissed in pain as it stumbled backwards, dazed. It recovered quickly however, dodging the next blow. It kept evading until it found an opening, taking the opportunity to climb the monster's body and wrapping itself around it like a snake, using its hundreds of legs to hook at the monster's flesh. The denture-headed monster roared in pain as sharp mandibles dug into its torso, causing black inky blood to gush out from the wounds and spill onto the floor.
The young woman realized that this was the same black blood she had stepped in earlier, and the same black blood that was staining the mandibles of the creature when it was chasing her. The two must have been fighting just before she showed up.
The monster struggled to free its arms, and once it did, it used its multiple hands to pry off the insect creature's sharp mandibles. It was a struggle for power, one that the centipede creature eventually lost as the monster forced its left mandible backwards until it snapped off. The creature reared back in pain, a mistake that it would soon come to regret. The denture-headed monster didn't waste a second to retaliate, and bit into the creature’s head. It screeched, and the young woman could only watch in horrified shock as the denture-headed monster sunk its teeth deeper in its armor until she heard a sickening crack. The centipede struggled fruitlessly, using its sharp mantis-like arms and pointy feet to scratch at the monster's already heavily scarred gums to try and free itself.
But the giant pair of floating teeth did not let go.
The monster then used its arms to grab the wiggling insect monster's body, and pulled it taught. It pulled until the young woman could hear the sounds of flesh slowly ripping apart. The centipede gave one final agonizing screech as the monster tore its head off from its body. The denture-headed monster stood still, panting in the silence as greenish blood spilled from the twitching corpse. Finally, it spat out the creature's head, landing on the floor with a sickening wet thud. The victor slowly crouched down as the adrenaline slowly dissipated from its body. It stayed still for a few minutes, until the young woman noticed its shoulders were starting to shake.
The monster suddenly roared in rage, then proceeded to viciously devour the body of the dead creature in an uncontrollable feeding frenzy. She didn’t know how it was able to swallow without a neck, whatever it ate just disappeared as it did. She felt sick to her stomach. She knew this was a horror game, and she wasn't a fan of the genre, but this was too much.
“What the [@#$%]?” she muttered, before slapping a hand over her mouth at the loud cartoon noise that escaped her lips.
What the hell was that?!?
Was… was swearing censored here???
And why was the sound effect so damn loud? It's going to alert the-
The monster had stopped eating, and the young woman froze in fear. It looked up from its meal, admitting a low growl from its shut jaw. It dropped the half-eaten insect creature, and the corpse hit the ground lifelessly. It turned towards the source of the noise, moving like a mutated spider on all of its limbs. The denture-headed monster was facing the block she was hiding behind, and the young woman had to stifle a scream when it opened its mouth.
Eyes.
Lots of eyes
All of them crammed on the inside of its mouth, and all of them moving independently from each other. Their gaze darted around excitedly, but a few focused on her. She ducked back behind the giant block. She covered her mouth with both of her hands, trying desperately to reduce the noise her panicked wheezes were making. She wanted to run. She needed to run. But her legs wouldn't move, too paralyzed by fear. She heard the monster slowly approach, its heavy steps ringing in her ears. It stopped somewhere behind her, and she listened to its strained breathing and wished it would just lose interest already.
But it didn't.
It just stood there.
It wasn't moving any closer, but it wasn't moving to leave.
She didn't know what to do. Running now would be stupid, but staying put any longer wasn't smart either. She'd wish this dumb game would give her a hint!
She noticed the giant hand above her far too late.
The monster had reached over the block she used as cover without making a sound. She screamed when the claws surrounded her, and squeezed her in its vice like grip. It stood up to its full height, and brought her closer to its “face”.
A mix of emerald green and deep blue floating eyeballs stared at her from the inside of its drooling, gum-scarred maw. Most of the eyes had normal human pupils but a few had slits like a snake, or were rectangular in shape, like that of a horse or a sheep. Out of the mass of twitching eyeballs, however, was a singular blind eye gone a gray cloudy colour. All of them somehow seemed to be glaring at her, and the young woman knew this was the end. She was going to get eaten, crushed by giant molars while the eyes watched her corpse get chewed up. Once again, she shut her eyes and waited for the end.
“Anomaly detected. Performing scan.” said a glitchy, yet oddly joyful male voice.
The young woman blinked in confusion, then got blinded by a bright beam of light coming from its eyes as he scanned her. When he was done, the monster froze in place with a blank expression.
“New Player Detected!” he said, finally. He didn't move for several minutes, and the young woman looked around nervously.
Suddenly, he started to tremble.
His body twitched unnaturally, until a violent glitch came over him distorting his shape and colours. His mouth snapped shut, and some of his eyes clip outside momentarily before disappearing back in. The hand holding the young woman was involuntarily squeezing her, and she cried out in pain at the feeling of her ribs getting crushed. Just when she was about to pass out from the lack of oxygen, she heard a ding, like those old mechanical kitchen timers, and the tremors stopped.
The monster's jaw dropped open, its eyes had turned into a circular loading symbol. The hand holding her unexpectedly went slack, causing her to yelp in fear as she scrambled to cling to his glove and not fall from the dizzying height.
“What the hell is going on?!” she yelled, her nerves reaching their limit. To her surprise, the monster answered.
“Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity rebooting!
… … …
Warning! Error in code detected! Sending bug report…
Bug report sent!
Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity running at [10%] efficiency.”
The young woman only stared in bewilderment as she hung on. The self-named creative A.I thing definitely bugged out or something.
The monster's many eyes returned to normal and refocused on her, as if noticing her for the first time. He turned his hand over slowly, letting the young woman rest in his palm. She sat up, confused at the change of personality, but grateful that she didn't get eaten. The monster was looking at her now, and the young woman swore it was somehow smiling at her. He reached up, and tipped a worn top hat floating above its “head”.
“Welcome to the Amazing Digital Circus! Where you, the player, can participate in all sorts of amazing adventures and mini games! I'm your ringmaster, and before we can get in on the fun, we have some rules to review first!”
“Wha?” was the only thing she uttered as she watched the monster that, only a few moments ago was ravenously tearing apart a corpse, now recite a script with a showman flair.
“Rule number 1!” said the Ringmaster, “ No-”
All of his eyes suddenly flashed the dreaded blue screen of death as he emitted a dial up noise from somewhere. The young woman hesitantly looked around, contemplating jumping off, but as fast as he crashed, he quickly recovered, continuing on like nothing happened.
“Now that we have reviewed the rules, I'd like to know your name, my little superstar!”
The young woman blinked. Her name? She opened her mouth, only to shut it again.
Her name… She couldn't remember her name.
“I-I can't remember…” she said, quivering as she panicked. “Why can't I remember my name?!”
The Ringmaster watched as she had a mental breakdown in his palm. He waited patiently, but when the young woman wasn't calming down, he decided to help her.
“Commencing random name generator for: New Player.” he said. Five of his eyes started to spin quickly like a slot machine, and like a slot machine, it dinged when it stopped spinning, landing on a random letter.
“Select ‘XDDCC’ as your new name?” he asked, pronouncing the jumble of letters somehow. The young woman only moaned in despair in response. Not getting a confirmation, the denture-head rerolled for a new name.
“Select ‘RRKTT’ as your new name?”
“Wha- no!” said the young woman, annoyed. She may have lost her real name, but she wasn't going to be called some gibberish nonsense. The monster rolled again.
“Select ‘POMNI’ as your new name?”
The woman sighed.
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever… I guess that's as normal of a name I can have now.” mumbled Pomni, defeated.
“ ‘New Player’ has selected ‘Pomni’ as a name!”
“Registering ‘Pomni’ into C&A player database…”
“…Registration complete! Welcome Pomni!” said the Ringmaster, happily.
Another glitch briefly overcame the A.I, startling Pomni. His eyes once again turned into loading icons as his gaze slowly drifted apart, losing focus. Pomni waved her hand and snapped her fingers to try and regain his attention. Not that she wanted it in the first place, but now that he wasn’t in a murderous mood, Pomni thought she could ask him how to exit this nightmare of a game. When the Ringmaster returned to normal, his wandering eyes refocused as he snapped to attention. Before Pomni could even open her mouth, he began to walk.
Pomni fell backwards from the momentum, and scrambled to wrap her arms around one of the Ringmaster's clawed fingers for stability.
“Wait! W-where are you going? Where are you taking me?” she demanded.
“All players must remain inside their designated rooms while The Amazing Digital Circus is under emergency lockdown mode. Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity is returning player: Pomni, to designated player room”
“To prevent player abstraction, the next adventure will begin in: [4 hours 00 minutes].”
Pomni blinked, the A.I explanation not making any sense to her.
“W-wha?! What are you talking about? Please! I just want to find a way to leave this stupid game!” begged Pomni, but the Ringmaster ignored her. For a second, she thought the A.I. was going to walk straight into a wall that he was approaching. Instead he started to climb it, using his free five hands to easily scale upwards towards a partially destroyed balcony that was just above them. When the Ringmaster pulled himself up and over the balcony, Pomni saw a partly lit hallway lined with doors. Despite being big himself, the A.I had to crouched down to enter however, and moved in an awkward half-walk, half-crouched stance.
As she was being transported against her will, Pomni noticed each door had a picture of a cartoon character on them. There was a fuzzy worm, a purple dinosaur, a blue mouse, two that looked like chess pieces, a doll and a purple rabbit, just to name a few. All of them were crossed out with a big red X. The jester swallowed nervously, a red X never meant anything good. The ringmaster stopped in front of a door, and gently laid his hand down on the floor for Pomni to disembark. Pomni carefully stepped down onto the carpeted floor and gawked at the door featuring a sad looking jester portrait on the front, with a noticeable lack of a giant X covering it.
“W-who is that?” she asked, pointing at the picture. The Ringmaster stared at the portrait then back at her.
“Player: Pomni!” replied the ringmaster, like it was obvious. Pomni looked at the image of the sad jester again. That was her? She glanced at her hands, only now noticing she was wearing gloves. Looking down to the rest of her body confirmed her fears, she was indeed wearing a flashy red and blue jester costume. The hat she felt earlier was an iconic jester's cap with yellow pompoms on the ends. Like the portrait, her skin was snow white, and oddly felt like rubber when she gave it a poke.
A shiver ran up her spine. Her new body felt too real. This wasn't right. She needed to find a way out of this nightmarish circus game as soon as possible. Nothing was “Amazing” about this. There was no way she was gonna spend a second longer as a medieval clown.
“Look, euh… Mr. Ringmaster person?”
“Creative Artificial Intelligence Networking Entity.” said the monster helpfully. Pomni squinted at him, she wasn't going to repeat all of that.
“Right… euh, thanks for not… killing me earlier. But, I'm just going to go look for an exit now, if that's okay. I just want to get out of this weird, circus horror game thing and go back home. You know how it is, heh…” said Pomni, smiling nervously. She turned around ready to make a run for it, but the Ringmaster's hand slammed down right in front of her, blocking her escape.
“All players must remain inside their designated rooms while The Amazing Digital Circus is under emergency lockdown mode.” he said.
“W-wha?! Why!? I want to leave!” argued Pomni.
“All players must remain inside their designated rooms while The Amazing Digital Circus is under emergency lockdown mode.”
“I don't care! Please, I don't want to be here! I don’t even know how I got a room here!”
“All players must remain inside their designated rooms while The Amazing Digital Circus is under emergency lockdown mode.” repeated the Ringmaster, patiently. When Pomni tried to run the other way, the A.I simply used his hands to block her escape again and box her in, leaving the jester with no other choice.
Pomni grumbles, fine then. She'll enter her stupid room. But as soon as he leaves, she'll make her escape.
The jester reluctantly opens her door, seeing a red and blue themed bedroom inside. There was a canopy bed on her left, and a dresser and sofa chair on her right, and in some corners of the room, were stacks of oversized wooden toy blocks for some reason. Pomni carefully enters her new bedroom, and slam shuts the door behind her.
“To prevent player abstraction, the next adventure will begin in: [3 hours 52 minutes].”
Reminded the muffled voice of the Ringmaster. Pomni scoffed, she wasn't going to stay in this VR world for another minute. The jester sat on the plush sofa chair and waited for the Ringmaster to leave.
…
…
…
Only … he wasn't leaving.
Pomni could hear him breathing outside like some sickly guard dog. In fact, she heard him settle down right in front of her damn door, coughing loudly. Did this stupid A.I seriously not have anything better to do?! The jester let out a long angry sigh as she leaned back into the chair, defeated.
She just wanted to leave this place… why was it so damn hard to do so? Pomni shut her eyes. The Ringmaster said something about an adventure starting in 4 hours to… what? Prevent player abstraction? She wasn't sure what he meant by abstraction, but Pomni dreaded to think what this identity crisis of a game was going to throw at her in an “adventure”. The only positive she could think of is that she could try and escape the buggy A.I when he retrieves her. With nothing else to do for 4 hours, Pomni moved to her bed to lay down.
She might as well rest. It was going to be a long while before she could leave this hellhole and go home.