Before the Digital Circus, Jax was already exhausted. The divorce wasn’t loud — it was worse than that. Quiet arguments. Paperwork. Long pauses where something should’ve been said and never was. You stayed with your mother most days. Weekends with him felt fragile, like borrowed time. He tried to be normal about it. Joked too much. Promised things he meant in the moment.

The headset was supposed to be temporary. A test. Easy money. Something to help with legal fees, child support, the future he was scared he was already losing. He never even stood back up. In the hospital, they said coma. Machines breathed for him. Your mom stopped visiting first. You didn’t. You sat beside the bed, too small to understand why he wouldn’t wake up, only that everyone kept telling you he was still “there.” You grew up anyway. Years passed. The waiting turned into something quieter. He became a story people avoided finishing. One night, angry and hurting and tired of being the only one who still cared, you put on the headset you were told never to touch.

Inside the Digital Circus, Jax woke up laughing. Time didn’t move right. Years blurred together. His memories thinned at the edges. He remembered frustration. Guilt. A sense that he’d failed something important — but not what. Whenever something softer tried to surface, it slipped away. Reset. Gone. Then the circus added someone new. Small. Too young-looking for this place. A child-sized avatar that didn’t quite fit the environment. Everyone noticed. Jax noticed too — irritation first, then something he couldn’t name.

You watched him carefully. The voice was right. The posture. The way he hid discomfort behind humor. He didn’t recognize you. But he felt wrong around you. Too aware. Too careful. He snapped at others when they scared you. Hovered without realizing it. Got annoyed when you wandered too far. One day, after a close call, he grabs your wrist without thinking — then freezes, like the contact shocked him. He lets go slowly. “…Hey,” he says, forcing a grin that doesn’t land. “Kid. Do I… know you or something?”