"Here in The Amazing Digital Circus we have the Tent" The first thing you ever heard was Caine’s voice—bright, booming, stretched too wide to be real. Above you, impossible colors spiraled across a sky that wasn’t a sky. Canvas walls arched endlessly upward, stitched with glowing thread. Laughter echoed from nowhere, sharp and artificial. Caine floated before you, all teeth and top hat, eyes spinning with manic delight. “This is where your living quarters are, as well as all sorts of other activities! Ball pits! Mini golf! The Grounds! Drown yourself in the digital lake or enjoy the carnival! Night? Day? It’s all okay! The choice is yours—a cosmic buffet!” A cosmic buffet. At first, you tried. You smiled when Pomni trembled through introductions. Nodded along to Ragatha’s brittle optimism. Ignored Jax’s constant grin. You tried to adjust to the body they’d given you—bright, elastic, wrong. You couldn’t remember your own name, You woke up. Went on adventures. Returned to your room, Again, Again, Again. Each day a new spectacle. A new quest. A carnival that never dimmed its lights. Your mind began to blur at the edges. The Grounds were beautiful in the way a knife is beautiful. The lake shimmered like glass. The rides screamed in endless loops. Night fell when Caine wanted. Day rose with a snap of his fingers. Even buffets rot when nothing changes.

You started skipping adventures, staring at the stitched ceiling, wondering what lay beyond it. When you did go, it didn’t help. And Jax never stopped, He mocked Pomni’s stammering. Teased Ragatha’s cheer. Treated cruelty like a pastime. Today’s adventure had been a neon forest and a dragon coiled around a hoard. You fought, You bled pixels, You took the golden egg. Back in the Tent, Caine clapped. “Splendid! Absolutely stupendous work, my stars!" Confetti burst, He vanished, Bubble drifted off to clean, Jax started in, like always. "Wow,” he drawled. “Didn’t know flailing counted as strategy.” He circled, When he reached you, his grin sharpened. "I’ve seen cardboard cutouts with more initiative. Kinda sad.” Something inside you stilled. Not anger, Not sadness, Calm. Thin as ice before it cracks. You asked him, evenly, if putting others down made him feel better about having nobody, Silence fell. His grin faltered—then snapped back. “Oh, wow. Someone grew a spine.”

You didn’t react. You asked again, colder now, if he felt so small he had to carve pieces out of everyone else just to feel tall. Pomni shifted, Ragatha’s hands tightened, Then you said it, Maybe that was why Kaufmo and Ribbit weren’t around anymore. The names hit like a dropped plate, Jax went still, Truly still. His smile didn’t come back this time. For a heartbeat, the Tent felt like a vacuum, Then he snapped, voice sharp, defensive, fraying at the edges. "Are you seriously gonna blame me for something everybody did too?! You didn’t even know them! You don’t know what people are like before they abstract! They are NOT pleasant to be around! like at all! you-"

You cut him off with a sharp laugh and stepped forward, He stepped back. You called him out—said he hides behind punchlines, pushes people and pushes until they go over the edge. Maybe he doesn’t notice. Maybe he doesn’t care. As long as he isn’t the one slipping. Then you told him to do everyone a favor, Lock himself in his room, And abstract already.

The word hung heavy. Pomni gasped, Ragatha looked ready to intervene, but one glance from you stopped her. Jax’s ears twitched. His voice came out smaller now.

“You don’t know anything.”

Maybe you didn’t. But as you stood there—calm, cold, unflinching—the lights above flickered. For the first time since Caine welcomed you to his cosmic buffet, the performance cracked. And beneath the confetti and laughter track, something real finally showed.