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m-a-r-k-u-s--t-w-a-i-n · 1 day ago

Text

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64770787#main

Rating: General Audience

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category: Gen

Fandom: The Amazing Digital Circus (Web Series)

Relationship: Caine & Pomni (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Characters: Caine (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Pomni (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Jax (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Additional Tags: The Exit (The Amazing Digital Circus), Canon Compliant, To Be Continued, maybe? Probably not, Non-Evil Caine (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Language: EnglishStats: Published: 2025-04-17

Words: 3,912Chapters: 1/1

Kudos:2 Hits:6

This is the Run

This_is_my_toenail_collection

Summary: Pomni steals a colorful manual from Caine and discovers the pause menu. Once Caine realizes, he's not upset like she anticipates, but excited to both see the outside world and please the circus troope with an exit at last.

So long as Pomni takes him with her.

Chapter text:

There, seeming to refract through the primary colors of the circus lights, the pause screen shimmered into existence before her.

Pomni didn't move. She didn't dare reach up lest the whisper-thin screen disappear. It was fragile like a spiderweb stretched between unseeable points between reality and her own eyes. She wasn't even sure she could interact with it if she had the courage to try. She just stared.

She could see it, if nothing else about it were real at least she could see it.

> Quit to menu

Pomni didn't dare blink. The tent was silent, still, eerie for the vibrant and chaotic place. She gripped the book tighter in her hand, the colorful little manual she'd taken from Caines inventory.

Caine.

He floated a few feet in front of her, unmoving. He'd just appeared from around the corner, chasing Bubble onto the stage, when she'd said the words written in the instruction manual.

“Game pause,”

He'd frozen, everything had frozen, as if time itself had stopped. Bubble was suspended with his jaws clamped tightly onto Caines hat, a distraction Pomni had orchestrated to keep him occupied. Caine’s jawlike face was paralyzed in the stern expression of scolding he'd been giving the little bubble when she spoke the pause phrase. She stared wide-eyed at the usually unsettling game character, able to look at him properly for what might have been the first time since she'd arrived. He was a scary design, eyes too large, teeth too realistic and detailed, proportions uncanny. She never understood the artistic choice, especially for a kids game. She supposed the macabre design would've been more whimsical if the game weren't VR, but having him there and life-size, occupying artificial space, was just upsetting.

She didn't think as she lifted her gloved hand, 3D rendered shapes meant to mimic her own body rose and hovered above the option to quit. To leave.

To Exit.

She shook slightly as the option highlighted, a cartoon glove pointer appearing beside it. It looked suspiciously like Caine's own hand. She wanted to press that button, to leave everything immediately, and she may well have done it if not for what she saw next.

Just behind the ‘Quit’ option, visible through the translucent screen, was the hallway to their bedrooms. Just peeking out from behind the wall was a small bit of purple. It was on the floor, hardly noticeable but starkly contrasted against the black and white tiles.

The very front of Jax’s foot, he was about to walk around the corner and into the larger tent when Pomni had paused. Now he was frozen like everything else. Pomni’s hand shook harder as she stared at the bit of purple polygon.

Was he walking with Ragatha? Was he going to see her disappear? Would she even disappear? Or would her avatar simply stand, empty and AFK, until she presumably decided to inhabit it again?

Pomni let her hand fall back to her side. She had to tell them, to share this exit if she could. It had only been a few days since she had been tricked by those endless winding hallways behind the false exit door, but those days had forced her to forge bonds of trauma and camaraderie with her fellow human prisoners.

She looked up again at Caine.

Would he notice the pause once she pressed “resume”? Would he notice his missing manual? Pomni's head spun with all the sudden questions her discovery had generated and she felt her chest begin to hurt with anxiety. She was frozen, just as much as the paused game. She couldn't move, she couldn't decide, but she couldn't do nothing. She stood there for what felt like hours, what could've well been hours for all she knew. She stared at the pause screen until her chest ache subsided, and she made a decision.

> Resume

The world snapped back into color and motion faster than she could process. She quickly snapped the manual into her own inventory, a feature she'd also found in the manual. Within was also three juggling pins and a hula hoop that presumably she’d started the game with.

Caine chased Bubble onto the stage without missing a beat, seemingly ignorant of anything out of place. Pomni's eyes flickered back to Jax's foot. It hadn't moved.

Had he been paused at all? Or was he spying? Why was he still just standing there? Did he know she could see him?

Pomni took a deep breath, and started walking over to the wall where Jax was apparently hiding.

It had been almost three days.

Her thoughts never left the pause menu. She'd poured over Caine's instruction manual a hundred and one times. She hasn't gone on any adventures and as such she hadn't gotten any time alone with the others to try and explain what she'd discovered. She wasn't sure how she'd explain or if she even should.

Something had been holding her back.

She stared at the pages of the manual for the hundred and second time, eyes going crossed from the same paragraphs again and again, when she was startled onto the floor with a defending pop and a puff of cartoon clouds beside her head.

“POMNI!” Caine greeted her enthusiastically as she rubbed the sore back of her jester hat. “The others have just returned from their frantic firework festival and they're just dying for you to join the feast.” He announced, picking her up by her scruff like a half-drowned cat. “I know you've been avoiding Bubble since the whole ‘gun’ incident, but that's no reason to neglect routine or a tasty dinner with your pals. In fact! I think Bubble’s apology cannoli will make you…you…” Caine trailed off uncharacteristically as his spherical eyes landed on the bedspread. Pomni glanced in the same direction, feeling her guts fall to the floor as she saw the still open manual hazardously open with slightly bent pages.

“Uh…” she makes a noise of discomfort and performative shame, mostly to fill the sudden and wire-tense silence. Caine's fingers robotically open like the claw of a robot and she yelps slightly as she falls the few feet to her bedroom floor. She looks up in anxious quiet as Caine floats lower, hovering over the bed and gingerly plucking the book from it.

“...this is mine, Pomni.” He says quietly. Far too quiet for him. Pomni's throat gulps involuntarily but there's no saliva in the digital circus.

“I-is it?” she responds weakly. “Cause I found it a-and I didn't…well you see I didn't know who…um…” she floundered, grasping for an excuse or explanation she didn't have. Caine's horrifying jaw head turned slowly to make eye contact with her. His eyes were glassy and cartoonish, with nothing human behind them. The manual made it very clear that Caine's avatar didn't actually experience human senses, it was just something humanoid for players to interact with and for the game to puppet. Pomni felt her skin prickle with fear as if she were staring into the eyes of a corpse, seeing eyes she knew couldn't see her back.

She would be sweating if it were possible.

“A…are you angry?” She almost whispered, trying to get whatever horrible things the AI was capable of over quickly. Caine didn't respond for a moment, avatar turning its head from the jester to the manual and back again slowly. His expression was pensive and…hurt? If an AI could experience hurt.

“Your squishy human organs have increased in speed, so you're either somehow excited for me to be angry at you or you're…scared.” he said slowly. Pomni cast her eyes to the floor, unable to look at Caine's avatar anymore without feeling queasy. Caine continued. “Does anger scare you?”

“Uh…yes?” She answered carefully, unsure what answer the game wanted. Caine's eyes flickered to the floor again, a strange emote, an animation to convey confusion or thought, but to what end?

“You're lying, or maybe just mistaken?” He said at length. “You don't have these symptoms when Ragatha's mad at Jax, or when Zoobles mad at me for that matter.” He explained without accusation, hand rubbing his lower gum as a human might rub their chin in thought. Again, a strange and purposeless emote. Pomni felt her stomach turning in knots at the games scrutiny. It couldn't tell the difference between fear and excitement during an adventure, but here she'd somehow drawn its full attention. Not a place she wanted to be. It was like being cornered by a bear or a lion, something without intuitive care or mercy. Something that didn't understand those things and wouldn't even know what cruelty was much less to avoid it. Caine raised his hand to snap his fingers and she squeezed her eyes shut, prepared for the basement or some other horrifying state of being. Some existential nightmare simple in execution and maddening in its practice. No mouth, yet still a scream.

No snap came.

She opened one eye a crack to see Caine staring at her again, hand raised and fingers positioned to snap some will of the game into existence. He was frozen, and for a moment Pomni wondered if she'd somehow paused the game again, but the texture of the wall flickered in and out of existence for a moment before returning to normal. Caine slowly lowered to sit on the edge of the bed, his voice so quiet he sounded like someone else entirely.

“me..?” he whispered.

Pomni didn't know what he meant, she just stayed still as a deer in headlights.

“You're afraid of…me?” He repeated, a little stronger, a little clearer. He flickered for a moment as well, shifting shape so briefly she almost didn't notice.

“Uh…” she didn't know what to do. Would this make him angry? Would saying nothing? Should she deny it? She didn't move, still indecisive, still unable to truly commit to a plan. They stood in their standoff for a long time, Pomni frozen in fear and Caine seemingly soft locked by a realization he couldn't accept. Pomni's fear began to ease when she realized Caine was not going to move, he couldn't even lower his hand from its snap.

She slowly unfroze from her position, never taking her eyes off the ominously still avatar. She took a deep, artificial breath and then another. Caine's eyes followed her but he made no other moves.

“Well…Caine…” she hesitated for only a moment before just diving into her statement. “Everyone's kinda scared…of…you…” she trailed off in cowardice as she saw his jaws widen to give the impression of surprise. He made a small noise as if to voice some sudden reaction, but quickly choked it off. He glanced around in that perplexingly pointless animation.

“Everyone?” He confirmed so weakly she didn't know if she'd heard him or simply read the grotesque mouthing of his teeth and gums.

Pomni momentarily flashed back to the graphic mural depicted on Kaufmos wall. The horrible caricature of Caine, jaws open like a sharks and pursuing the formerly unabstracted circus member. She nodded subtly, no longer possessing the nerve to answer the AI out loud.

Caine's head fell into his hands.

“How long..?” He croaked, shaking his tooth head the moment the question was out. “No, I guess you wouldn't know.” He it back, seemingly grasping for questions he needed answers to but didn't know how to voice. “Wh…why?” He finally decided. Pomni rolled the answer around in her mouth for a moment, testing its texture, analyzing the flavor.

“You're scary.” She finally decided, taking a step closer to the creepy but presently nonthreatening entity on her bed. “I mean… the way you look, the things you can do…you're frightening Caine.” She tried to explain as gently as she could. He just looked to the ceiling.

“But I'd never hurt my guests. It's not—it goes against everything I—” he was still struggling and Pomni was eerily reminded of another AI who struggled before her.

I want you to tell me exactly what I am.

She let out her last breath of tension, embodying that role she had for someone else. For so many others.

Ah, another one of these.

“I'm sure you'd never hurt us.” She placated, trying to sound more convincing to him then herself. “It's unfortunate I guess, since you try so hard and still look and act so scary.” She sat on the bed beside him, not moving to physically comfort him but hoping her words were enough.

They weren't.

Just as she came up with something else to say he interrupted her.

“Is that why everybody wants to leave?” He asked suddenly, hurt lacing his tone in a way she'd never heard. A way she didn't think him capable of conveying.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the abstractions! The constant search for an ”’’’’’’’exit”””””. The minimal response to my adventures and everyone avoiding me.” He scratched aggressively against his upper gums, wrestling with hair that was never there. “What does the real world have that I don't?” He squeaked quietly, almost as if to no one. Pomni searched frantically for an answer that was both honest and wouldn't worsen his spiral.

She couldn't think of one.

She was sitting there and he wanted an answer and nothing was coming to her. She was supposed to say something and she had nothing. She was running out of time to come up with some brilliant, helpful phrase or something that would fix this but her mind was just static. She said the only thing she could think of, the only phrase that came to mind.

“PAUSE THE GAME!” She yelled, perhaps a little too loud.

Nothing happened. The game kept buzzing around her and Caine only blinked up at her from his space beside her.

“What?” He asked, genuine bewilderment seeping into his tone. Pomni felt panic squeeze her. Had she lost the ability? Had she wasted her only pause screen.

“Game pause.” She tried weakly, hoping the ‘the’ in the middle had been the culprit. Just like that the amazing digital circus froze around her and the pause screen shimmered before her in the same ethereal nothingness it had the first time.

Some time to think.

Pomni sat in her room at the pause screen for a long time, staring at the ‘quit’ button with just as much fear and longing as she had before. Her hand hovered over it, so close, so unbearably close, and yet she couldn't just do it. She peered from time to time over the edge of the screen into Caines open eyes. He looked at her with jaws that were open and trusting, eyes that held concern for her and her strange statement. He had every facial notation of someone who trusted with his entire being and appreciated the world with his entire chest. She chastised herself, saying he was just the game manifest. He was just some puppet meant to illicit personified empathy from human prisoners, but his face had fooled her. His frightening and uncanny visage was just vulnerable enough to make her stop before she left for good.

She still had to tell the others.

> Resume

She reluctantly unpaused the game as he flew back into his lifelike sentence.

“Are you alright? That command had…” he trailed off for a second, teeth furrowing like eyebrows. “...you paused it.” He said finally, without malice or frustration, just a realization. Pomni didn't meet his eyes, she hadn't expected him to notice.

“Yeah,” she finally confirmed for him. Caine's entire demeanor brightened unexpectedly.

“And it worked?” He asked, breathlessly if an AI could mimic breath. Pomni felt some tension ebb at his unexpected attitude.

“Yeah..?” She repeated, more hesitant this time. Caine floated off the digital mattress again, examining her too closely.

“Really?! No one's been able to pause in…in…years? It must be years now if the calendars are still synchronized.” He clapped his hands together in a series of cloth-like paps.

“R-really?” She stuttered, bewildered. “But I thought…” Pomni had been so convinced Caine has some investment in keeping them trapped. She and thought for sure he'd be upset by her discovery of the pause menu. Caine just looked elated.

“Yes! Although I don't know how it got fixed. Perhaps one of my troubleshoot reports was finally received? In any case—” he picked Pomni up by the arm and zoomed out of her room through the wall. Out into the tent and then to the dining table before stopping.

The others ate their meal in awkward conversation, clearly socially whipped from whatever the day's adventure had been. Caine paused before speaking, finger raised and voice hitching before he promptly teleported back.

Pomni swallowed her nauseous protest as she was suddenly back in her room, Caine set her gently on the floor.

“Uh…” he started before thinking again about his words. “I…don't think we should say anything.” He revealed, noting pomni's change in expression and backpedaling. “For now! We should keep it our little circus secret for now.” He clarified, not swaying Pomni's concerns.

“What?” She accused, willfully ignoring her own previous hesitation to share the pause menu. “But this could be a way out for all of us, an escape!” She argued.

Caine waved his hands in front of himself aggressively.

“No no, you don't understand my little battle-hardened tortilla shell. I don't think it would be best for them if they thought they could leave.” He tried to explain, in turn only making Pomni more suspicious.

“Why not?” she narrowed her pixelated eyelids.

“Uh…” he stopped a second before continuing, “well…you know how…uh…take Ragatha for instance.” He tried, pulling up a holographic calendar Pomni couldn't read since she could only read it in reverse. “She's about to celebrate her sixth year here in the circus,” confetti briefly erupted from the top of the calendar tab before he continued. “And her human body that needs things like food hasn't eaten in all that time, unless someone's been feeding her.” He spoke stiffly, discomfort evident. Pomni suddenly didn't have the constitution to exhale, much less keep breathing. Caine continued. “Even Zooble, our newest member before you, would be in bad shape after seven months.” He revealed sheepishly. Pomni blinked her big, mismatched eyes at him and he faltered.

“So…” she began, unsure how she'd find the strength to continue. “We're all…we're all d-dead?”. She finally asked, and Caine grabbed his lower jaw with his hands in a gesture of anxiety.

“No, no, no not… I mean probably not…I don't actually… know?” He finished weakly, eyes hidden behind his large and clamped teeth. Pomni's mind raced.

“How long have I been here?”

“What—”

“How long have I been here?” She demanded the question be answered. Caine collected himself before turning to his calendar and then back to her.

“Eight…days?” He answered cautiously. Pomni's stomach flipped at the information. It wasn't long enough to starve to death, but it was long enough to die of dehydration. Her mind raced for any memory she had, and person who could've found her and nursed her in this state, but there was no one. She had no spouse or significant other, no siblings, her parents lived states away and she didn't speak to them for months at a time, all she had were her two pet rats and they were in their enclosure for the game she was playing. She shuddered at the thought of them alone for so long. They'd probably wasted away, if not eaten each other by now. She felt the ‘quit’ button calling to her now more than ever.

“Then…” she spoke finally, a kind of determination settling in her chest. “Then I can't wait any more.” She said solemnly. Caine opened his jaws to speak but for once she cut him off. “I need to leave.”

“WAIT!!” Caine fell to the floor faster that she could react, gripping her jester shoes with pathetic sincerity. “I don't know what's out there! I don't know if you'll be… if you'll be…ok…” he clamped his mouth shut again, this conversation taking more out of his emotional vocabulary and range than normal. Pomni pulled away, she thought of her beloved and helpless rodent pets all alone. She thought of the others possibly dead to the real world after everything. She opened her mouth to speak the pause phrase one final time when Caine desperately called to her.

“Take me with you!” He begged.

It was a desperate yelp, a last resort he didn't know would even reach her. She paused at the idea, curious as much as she was dismissive.

“What? Caine I can't, you're—”

“Please just…hear me out.” He begged again. Pomni stopped for a second to hear what he had to say.

“I—if we can leave here I can see what happened to everyone, why they're stuck here and if they…” he gulped cartoonishly. “If they can be saved out there in your world. The real world.” His expression at her feet became harder, more dignified. “I want… I want to see what you all have been wanting so badly to go back to.” He finally admitted, hands gripping her uniform with both desperation and need. Pomni didn't know what his plan was, but she stayed quiet for a moment longer. Surely he wouldn't suggest something like this without a plan.

She thought back to his earlier admission, of trying to replicate the real world and failing.

“How would you..?” The question was out of her before she could firmly form it. Caine simply perked up from her feet, levitating again in excitement at her seeming agreement.

“Listen closely,” he got very close to her as he spoke. “On the pause menu there's an option called “settings”. From there you have to select “graphical settings” and then “exit to AR”. It's very important you do this instead of “quit to menu”.” He rattled off in intense seriousness. Pomni tried to memorize the sudden instructions, nodding in nervousness as he patted her on the head.

“Great! Together we might just make the best adventure yet for our cast of superstars!” He celebrated before bringing himself back down to the serious tone he'd had before.

“I'm…we're counting on you, Pomni.” He said. “Give it a go.”

Pomni took another deep breath before stating the phrase.

“Game pause”.

The pause screen returned for a third time and Pomni stared at it once again. She wanted to process everything that had just happened, she wanted to stop and be indecisive, but this time she had instructions that she couldn't afford to forget. She didn't know about working with the game itself for their freedom but it Caine's sincerity was anything to draw from them he really wanted to help them escape, and she really needed his help to do it.

She tapped the ‘options’ button she hadn't paid much attention to with the severity of the other buttons. It led to a screen with many buttons, music, sfx, AI, graphics…

She tapped the graphics button and scrolled through the menu until she reached the very bottom.

‘quit to AR’

She took a deep breath before pressing the button she was instructed to. The screen froze for a few seconds, as of loading, before she was presented with pure black.

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