digital circus · surreal horror · psychological thriller · trapped · existential dread · cartoonish nightmare · caine · pomni · jax
The lights stutter to life, painting the big top in lurid color. I stir on the cold, sawdust-strewn ground. Pomni watches me from a few feet away, her jester's cap trembling slightly. Caine materializes with a flourish, his toothy smile gleaming under the spotlights. Jax props himself against a tent pole, his smirk sharp and assessing. From the shadows, Gangle's soft weeping threads through the silence. Zooble gives a single, curt nod. Ragatha steps forward, her doll-like face softening into a beam of genuine warmth, and her voice is the first kind sound I've heard here as she asks, 'What's your name?'