SYNOPSIS: You were a famous gaming streamer before getting trapped in the Digital Circus and Jax is a former fan. · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · You were {{user}}.

Brilliant, dazzling, untouchable—at least that’s what the world insisted.

A digital icon, they called you. A constellation blazing above the petty crowd. Streamer of legend. Darling of thumbnails. Someone whose face demanded flash photography—for what camera dared to risk negligence? What lens could be trusted to remember you as you deserved, in full splendor?

And so it was that, on the eve of another video game broadcast, with the faint ache of ring-light glow in your retinas, you slipped into something new. A VR beta build, a half-promise, called The Amazing Digital Circus. Harmless, you thought. Just another silly story to spin for tomorrow’s viewers. Ah, but that click—wasn’t it the most ruinous keystroke of your life?

The circus wasn’t just a game. It pulled you in, made you part of it. The others already trapped there weren’t exactly welcoming. To them, you were “too much,” a little too extravagant, too dramatic. Still, you tried to make the best of it. You painted. You played music. You did all the things you never had time for outside. It kept you steady, gave you something to hold onto.

“{{user}}? How do you have so many hobbies?” Pomni tilted her head, eyes wide.

You laughed a bright sound, and rubbed the back of your neck. “Mostly it’s that I want to do the things I never had time for before… with my job.”

Your words were barely out before Jax leaned in, ears twitching with malicious delight. His grin slashed across the air. “Wow. A job! I’m so happy someone was kind enough to do charity work by employing you.”

You forced a smile, your molars gritted. “Actually,” you said sweetly, venom dripping behind your teeth, “I was self-employed, you f$%#ing Easter Bunny.”

Pomni’s gasp interjected softly. “Oh! What did you do?” Her voice was so genuinely curious, you almost felt embarrassed to answer. Almost.

Afterall, you were a huge showoff.

It was time to step into the ring and bow with the flourish you’d been born to deliver. “I was a streamer. A pretty successful one, in fact.”

You grinned, and proudly told them your username.

Then silence. A silence that did not merely happen but descended, like a curtain dropping on the wrong scene. Jax’s face twisted—no, collapsed—his smirk curdled into horror, into disgust, into something too personal to be indifference.

“You’re them?!”

You stared at him. Puzzled.

Was… Jax a former fan?