Chapter Text
She didn't think she'd ever consider herself to be spiritual.
Honestly, she'd never really put much thought into it.
But she admittedly found it hard to believe that some enigmatic, all-powerful being was closely controlling the narrative of her life, especially one as boring and predictable as hers.
… Or that's definitely what she would've said up until now.
But now?
Now, she was sure that, whatever's out there, it had to be playing some kind of cruel joke on her.
Either that or this was the longest, strangest dream—scratch that, nightmare, definitely nightmare—that she'd ever had.
And that wasn't just because, moments ago, Caine had cheerfully teleported them all into some brand-new, horror adventure he'd been obsessively working on.
Although she had to admit that this particular experience was not high on her bucket list.
And, of course, with the unstable mood he's been in ever since the Favorite Character Awards, he didn't even bother to give the cast members any instructions.
Instead he simply teleported away with a monotone, "HAVE FUN… OR DoN'T. I DON't CArE," before sporadically transporting them all across the map.
When she opened her eyes, it seemed like she had spawned into some kind of a small storage room, filled to the brim with various boxes and clothing on all sides.
At least whatever monster they had to watch out for didn't seem to be locked in there with her, she supposed.
She could just make out a tiny bulb dangling from the ceiling, so she reached her right hand out to feel for the light switch, when she felt something flat and fluffy instead.
"OW!! The heck are you doing?!"
Well, that confirmed that she wasn't alone.
At least it was only Jax. Still a threat, but a known one that she could handle.
She tried to focus her eyes and could tell that Jax was seated in front of her on the floor, awkwardly sprawled on top of some of the boxes. He then opened his bright yellow eyes and mouth which glowed through the darkness surrounding the two.
"Oh, geez— S-Sorry about that. Didn't see you there. I was trying to find the light switch," she backed up a couple of steps to return his personal space to him.
"Right…" he rolled his eyes.
Suddenly, shifting to lean forwards as he reached his arm over behind her.
She flinched momentarily before quickly realizing that he was only flicking the switch that had been right behind her head.
Once the light was on, he stood up, stretching out his long limbs above his head.
"So… Do you know… what Caine could be planning this time?" She idly rubbed one arm with the her other hand.
He shrugged, "Not a clue," was all he said.
"Think we should open the door?"
A smirk then a scoff, "What? You scared or something?"
"That depends on what's out there," she quirked a brow.
He hummed in acknowledgement, "Well, then, wouldn't want to keep you in suspense."
Placing his hand on the doorknob, opening it with a click, and stepping into the darkness that awaited them.
Her curiosity permitted her to wait a cautionary thirty seconds.
When no screams or yells for help followed in his absence, she let herself assume that meant whatever was out there hadn't yet made it to their corner of the map. So, she took a breath before exiting the room herself.
The night sky blanketed around them, with stars a touch smaller and more realistic than what they'd seen during the Stargazing adventure. From that, the vent openings, and horizontal bar railings fencing them in, she guessed that they were standing on the roof of some city building.
She paced around the rooftop, looking for any sign of an objective. Some sign of what they were supposed to do. But, of course, she was immediately drawn to the edge.
If nothing else, to satisfy her curiosity on how well Caine had managed to render the cityscape this time around.
Her eyes landed on Jax without a hint of mirth in her voice, "Don't push me off."
He put a hand to his chest in mock offense, brows raised past the confines of his cartoony face, "Ouch! Come on, you really think I would do something like that?"
She markedly ignored him as she made her way to the shaky bar railings that lined each side of the rooftop.
Due to her vexing height, she precariously hopped onto the lowest horizontal rung of the railing to poke her head over the edge just enough to take in the view.
She eyed the high-rise buildings and blinding lights that shone back at her as if there really was a whole congested city full of people—real people—living there.
But then, like every adventure, she couldn't help but notice the flickering, pixelated edges of shoddy billboards or how she couldn't fool herself that she hadn't just seen the exact same car model whisk by at least five times already.
Serving as a constant reminder that none of this was real.
"I don't see anything so far… You?"
No response.
"Uh… Jax?"
She shifted on the railing to eye him, "Jax…?"
He was strolling around the rooftop, seemingly without any particular aim outside of apparently ignoring her, "What?"
"Did you— Have you found anything yet?"
He grunted, "Think I would've said if I had."
"… Okay."
It didn't take much for her to slip up and forget.
Jax was different now.
He would only leave his room when Caine forcibly teleported him for an adventure.
He would only talk to the others when he was bored enough to resort to tormenting them.
And, most obvious of all, he wouldn't talk to Pomni.
Sure, he might crack an off-hand joke here or there in her presence or nudge her shoulder when he'd thought that he'd really gotten under Zooble's skin, as if she and him still held a sort of a comradery between them.
But those moments of casual conversations, the spontaneous needling for little facts about each other were gone.
After his… reaction… at the end of the gun adventure, she knew she'd have to give him some time, especially since every day he'd been digging himself deeper into resolutely feigning ignorance of the whole ordeal.
It seemed that he needed someone who was just a call away for when he felt ready to finally open up, but someone who didn't know his number and would never overstep by asking.
She was willing to be that person for him. As long as she knew that she wouldn't one day wake up to an oversized mass of black goo and glowing eyes that used to bare his name.
Being two out of the six hostages perpetually stuck in rainbow purgatory, Pomni quickly decided that she wasn't too keen on the idea of nurturing pointless grudges with anyone, if she could help it.
She wanted to apologize for some of the things she said and did that day, but she knew it'd only make things worse.
And she didn't forgive him for what he'd said to her that day.
It hurt.
But, more than that…
She just missed her friend.
"Jax…?" She asked again.
Although he didn't answer or look at her, she could tell he was listening from the slight twitch of his ears.
"Look… I don't know what's out there. I don't think you do either. We both know Caine's been… weird lately. More than usual. … I can't be sure of what he's willing do or how far he'll go. So…"
She released a breath, "Let's— I mean, can we just be— I don't know… normal for this adventure?"
He fitted himself with those empty, wide eyes and a matching expressionless smile, "I already told ya. You and I? We aren't friends, Pomni, and we never were."
She instinctively clenched her gloved hands into fists, blood boiling.
As if he actually believes that.
Still, it felt like yet another punch to the gut to hear.
"… I didn't say we have to be," she said as unaffected as she could manage.
Despite his look of petulance, she'd won him over.
Wordlessly, he displayed his alignment with her by walking over to lean on the railing beside her, looking over the edge, keeping his eyes off of her.
"… This is probably one of Caine's more… realistic maps," she tried.
He pointed down to the sidewalk below them, "Yeah, totally. Long as you don't pay attention to the dozens of mannequins down there walking 'round in circles."
"You're not wrong… Oh, uh, hey— You've been here… sometime… What's been your favorite adventure?"
"You know what they say, ladies first."
"Right… I guess… think it'd have to be the Stargazing adventure for me."
"Not gonna lie, that's an insanely mundane answer."
She huffed out a laugh, "Maybe, but I'd rather that than the alternative."
He hummed, "But that does beg the question… If Caine'd let you have one adventure, anything you want, all limits off, go nuts, what would ya pick?"
He was back to asking her questions. That was a good sign.
"Hmm, I dunno— Well… Some kind of escape room would be nice. You know, like the ones that have all those puzzles and secret codes?"
He lightly chuckled, "That's it? That's your idea of excitement? Gotta say, that sounds like yet another total snooze-fest, Pompom."
She brightened a little at the nickname, "Oh, come on, you can't tell me that you don't think uncovering a lost civilization or going through some underground lab wouldn't be kinda cool."
"Only if it's got something cool in it. Like… A masked chainsaw killer or something."
"You mean the ones with live actors?— Actually, why was that the first thing you thought of?"
"Eh, someone's gotta keep things interesting."
"Hmm, well… When it comes to live actors… ugh… Yeah, no. Not my thing at all," she grimaced, "Plus, I really don't like the horror-heavy ones."
His eyes finally shifted over to hers with just a hint of mirth, "Who said anything about actors? I'm not lookin' for some cheap, rip-off performance, I'm talkin' about the real deal."
"So, real stakes, huh? Don't think that even counts as an escape room anymore." Before she knew it, she was smiling again, "… Whaaat about you? What would you want?"
Silence.
Maybe it was too soon to ask that. Best to dial it back to a safer alternative.
Right as she was about to change the conversation, Jax spoke up, "… Huh, ya know, that ugly statue wasn't there before."
She followed his line of sight to find an unsettling statue of an angel whose hands were covered over its eyes that was perched on the ledge of the building across from them.
Her eyes moved to meet his, "Do you… know what it is?"
She looked back at the statue again. Now, it's hands were down, face revealed, looking ironically demonic with its jagged teeth and livid expression.
In just a blink, it was gone.
Before she could consider it further, Jax leaned over the railing to look directly at the sidewalk below them, "You know, Pom, I could be wrong, but something tells me these things don't like us too much."
She looked down to see a hoard of those things— Twenty? No, it had to be more than thirty at least — clawing their sharp nails into the skyscraper's windows and climbing up.
Stopping for long periods before speeding up and rapidly making headway.
"Guess Caine's thing found us. Gotta say, not too bad, but I'm still not impressed," he shrugged.
The hoard continued to gain ground. The building was tall, but even so, it was only a matter of time before they reached the top.
"Do you have any weapons?" She asked.
"Depends, do you?"
"So, that's a no then," she looked back at the statues, hearing sounds of shattering glass in succession as they broke through the windows, "Has Caine ever used those statues before?"
"Nope, city's an ancient asset, but those things are new."
She looked around the rooftop once more. There really wasn't anything they could easily use as a weapon. Especially with so little time.
Jax finally stepped away from the edge with a smug look plastered onto his face, "You know there's only one way outta this, right?"
He sauntered over to the opposing side of the rooftop and made a show of looking over the edge.
She did the same and, as he already knew, nothing was down there.
The angels had all coagulated to the right side, leaving the left completely statue-free. Not too surprising for some of Caine's simpler NPCs to miss that or to intentionally leave a few blind spots open for the sake of a fair chance in the game.
"So, they're only coming up from that side," she looked down over the edge again, "We can't make it to the ground floor using the stairs in time. And some of them might've already crawled inside anyways…"
"So, there's only one way down," he said grinning.
All but giving her the answer she'd already come to.
She gulped, "… No way."
"Not sure if that's up to ya."
"You're asking me to jump off a building, Jax."
He laughed, "Who said I'm askin'? I couldn't care less. But I think they might have somethin' to say about it," he pointed over to the other side of the rooftop where the angels had already started grasping onto the railing and crawling up the staircase.
Her heart was racing.
She didn't know what a death from these things would be like, if it would be excrutiatingly painful or forgettably harmless.
Either ways, dying in these adventures was never something that appealed to her.
"'S now or never, Pompom. Gonna be the awesome one or the lame one today?"
His words weren't comforting. If anything, they were just weakly trying to pressure her into it.
Yet somehow they made her feel grounded. Tethered back to a semblance of reality.
Who did she want to be today?
Back in the real world, or even when she'd just came here, she would've flinched at the impossibility of it all. Panicking until something happened and the choice was inevitably made for her.
But she wasn't in the real world anymore, was she?
She exhaled heavily, eyes dilating, "O-Okay… Okay. Let's do this."
"Count of three then," he sneered, "One, two— Hey, look over there!"
Before she'd even turned her head, she felt a sharp, swift kick to her back that only absently hurt once she'd realized that she had lost her grip on the railing.
These days, it was becoming harder to remember what normal sensations were meant to feel like.
Quickly, the lingering phantom perception of her stomach flipped as her heartrate spiked.
Oh, yeah. There we go.
No doubt was in her mind, she was definitely falling.
Her eyes glued themselves shut. A voice that didn't sound anything like hers, but somehow was coming from her digital vocal chords rung through the air as she felt herself scream.
She pried her eyes open into a squint to find Jax free-falling next to her, relaxed as ever; laying on his back with his arms propped behind his head and his legs loosely crossed in midair.
Her eyes couldn't help but fall shut and it was nearly impossible to force them open for too long with the constant artificial wind blowing up in her face.
Every sensation in her body was reprimanding her for having been so easily inclined to just see what happens, or rather for having tempted a certain purple rabbit.
What was even worse was that, despite being aware of the severity of the situation, within seconds, she busted out laughing harder than she had since coming here— Maybe harder than she had laughed even long before that.
The adrenaline coursing through her, the loud heartbeat ringing in her ears. Something about it was disturbingly addictive.
It was part of the reason that she had loved urbexing back in the real world. Those occasional chance encounters where she'd get just close enough to actual danger that her fight-or-flight response started to kick in and she'd finally felt present in her reality.
Alive.
"Ha! Knew it!" She distantly heard a voice beside her rushing through the air.
"Knew WHAT?!" she screamed back at him through her laughs, squinting her eyes to barely make out his form.
"Knew you'd get a kick outta this, weirdo," He yelled back at her, with way too much confidence.
Her mouth opened then closed again.
"I—"
SLAM!!!
Her face crashed into the roof of a speeding car.
Red? Oh, great. It's that same d[BOINK] car model that she kept seeing.
She groaned, feeling the pinwheels in her eyes spinning, "Ughh, Jaaaaxxxx…"
"Aww, what's up, toots? Didn't like the trip down?" He said, clearly amused.
Hearing more than seeing the self-satisfied smirk in his voice, she knew that b[BEEP]d rabbit landed perfectly on his feet, "F[BEEP] you," she didn't even bother to raise her head.
He chuckled at her expense, "Geez, sailor mouth, words do hurt, you know?"
She finally raised her head only to glare at him, "You literally just kicked me off a twenty-story building."
"Oh, don't be so dramatic, it was only fifteen, seventeen tops," he put his hands behind his head as he sighed before gracefully maneuvering off the top of the car and into the front passenger seat in a single motion.
"Why, hello, fair stranger! To what do I owe the PLEASUU—AHHHH!!!"
The featureless mannequin screamed as Jax mercilessly chucked him out the window and into the oncoming traffic before sliding casually into the seat.
Pomni saw the NPC's form shoot right past her, continuing to scream even after it had left her line of sight.
Having overthrown the previous driver, Jax rolled down every window in the car and started to repeatedly honk the horn, "If you don't wanna be an easy target for those statue-things, ya might wanna get in."
He stopped honking and instead hummed amusedly to himself, "Unless ya want me to give you a taste of my sick driving skills from all the way up there," Jax nearly sang out to her, jostling the car left and right a few times as a warning.
Knowing he'd be beyond estatic to do just that, she precariously scrambled off the car roof and tried to make it into the shotgun seat without letting her irritatingly light form get swept away by the sheer force of the artificial wind.
After painstakingly keeping her grip steady on the car roof as she traversed it, she managed to crawl to the edge of the car roof.
She then gripped the upper frame of the seat's open window, and let herself drop into the front passenger seat.
She took a moment to let her unrelenting heart calm itself for the first time in a while, before stubbornly choosing to talk even over her hyperventilation, "You— Could—Have—Stopped!! For ONE minute!!" She wheeze-yelled at the exuberant driver.
He waved his hands around dismissively, barely remembering to keep one hand on the steering wheel while driving at speeds that no car should ever be capable of, "Pfft, where's the fun in that? Plus, you know what they say, suffering builds character!"
She quickly realized there wasn't anything to be gained from continuing to argue with him, no matter how much she desperately wanted to. Instead she opted to merely roll her eyes and scoff.
Now questioning if she would have been better off finding out what those angel-things had in store for her instead of sticking around to deal with this.
"Glove box."
Her eyes darted over to him, "… Huh?"
"Glove box. Open it," he didn't elaborate.
With only a second of hesitation, she opened it to find a paper with some childish doodles on it, which she assumed was Caine's most professional estimation of a car registration, along with…
Oh.