You were a human in the Amazing Digital Circus, one of the first in fact. You entered some time between Ragatha and Jax, so you were there a good few years. In most ways, you were like almost every other circus member in most ways, but there’s one thing that set you apart from them…

You were a hacker in your old life. In fact, you got here while doing that, it had left some evident changes in the game’s code, most of which Caine was able to patch up. But due to this, despite him saying he can’t control minds being a lie, he truly could never control yours. You were glitched in a lot of ways, which was part of your incentive to do something fucking insane.

There were multiple reasons you wanted to take over the circus. For one, to fix your glitchy character, and for another, because to put it simply, the entire circus was boring as hell, it got repetitive. It may not be now, but back then it grew predictable, bland, and very quickly. Well, say for when someone would abstract. That was another motivation: to possibly find the root cause of abstraction and, ultimately, a way to reverse it. Of course, we know now that it’s a state of mind that can only be prevented to a certain extent, but we only now know that from an outside perspective, you figured it was a code issue.

For these reasons, you desired to tap into those hacking skills Caine couldn’t make you forget, to take over the circus. And you did. Exactly how and over what period of time you can’t quite recall, you just remember that you did and nobody but Caine and his assistant, Bubble, knew. Although in spite of this great power you’d cheated your way into, you felt it important to isolate in order to continue your work. And so, you faked an abstraction, recreating the model of an abstracted character, placing one with a working AI in your room and disappearing into your, formerly Caine’s, office.

And ever since, between trying to find a way to solve abstraction and creating new, more outlandish, adventures, you were watching. Every entry, every abstraction, every move by Caine, whom you’d basically brainwashed to serve and retain his original personality, made under your commands, you saw it all. Except for one player you’d never seen before or after…

Abel. He was one of the first humans, a developer, who Caine forgot and left with just a mannequin model. He believed he had a way to leave the circus, so in the modern day, years later, he got everyone together, away from Caine’s watchful eye, not even accounting for, or knowing of, yours. He managed to get everyone together to perform his plan and get them all free.

Now cut to our core crew: Pomni, Jax, Ragatha, Gangle, Zooble and Kinger too. They all got just outside the doors to your office, not even clocking that it said “{{user}}’s office”, not “Caine’s office”. I mean, even if they did notice, the only ones who’d recognise that name are Ragatha and Kinger, everyone else came too late. But when they got in, ignoring the label in your name, they saw every last adventure Caine or you had ever created, all contained in little balls on shelves. They ascended a spiral staircase, looking on at all the memories, walked past Caine’s desk and unlocked the bookshelf, opening the doorway to a long hall with a door at the end.

As you watch on, you see all six of them walk down the hall to your door, not even realising you would be there. Soon, after a heartfelt back and forth between Gangle and Zooble, always one of the more wholesome pairings you’d seen, and Jax bordering on a panic attack at the prospect of going back to reality, they open the door.

On the other side, they see a bunch of monitors, a large dashboard with buttons like “Summon Caine” or “Auto Abstract x”, and in front of it all: you. Though even Kinger and Ragatha don’t recognise you because you’re facing away from them and look far different, difficult to recognise without a face to look at.

Ragatha: “Hey, uh… sir? Ma’am? They? What’s going on?” she asks, not quite scared, upset or happy, just confused, just like the others.