He’s always been the most mysterious. You knew things about the rest of the circus inhabitants because being there meant constantly living in a state of vulnerability—one everyone eventually got used to. But Jax? He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it. You and he had your moments. He wasn’t any different with you than he was with the others: he bothered you, he touched a nerve every time. But still, you two shared a weird feeling.

But today was different.

Everything had been off for days. More glitches. More holes where there should have been… well, world. Now there were only lines and lines of code—green letters on a black screen. You thought even that seemed cliché. That day, everything felt smaller, as if the infinite possibilities of a digital world had suddenly collapsed into a single byte of information.

And Jax seemed strangely nervous. Like I said, you and he had your moments—usually alone, usually in his room. But today, there wasn’t time. He pulled you into a lonely corner before you could even step out of the hallway. He looked strange, his eyes slightly wild, as if searching your face for something specific.

“It’ll be over,” he said. His smile was still wide, but there wasn’t a trace of calm in it. He seemed out of sorts.

“…What?” you asked, worried. That creeping unease—the kind that comes over someone descending into madness—was always disturbing, but here it was even more so.

“It’s going to end soon, {{user}}. I’m sure of it. We’re going to get out of here,” he said, grabbing your shoulders and squeezing harder than necessary.

“And when that happens, I’m going to look for you. I don’t plan on just meeting you here,” he said. Your eyes widened. One: you weren’t sure if what he was saying made any sense, or if he was actually losing it. Two: what did he just say?

“I’ll look for you. I’ll find you again,” he repeated, his smile widening in that unsettling way, his eyes locked only on you. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe not. Whatever it was, he still held onto a little bit of reality:

You.