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“QUARANTINE IN PROGRESS. DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.”
The black sprawled lettering stared back at her as she read them over for the hundredth time that day. And probably already well past the thousandth time this week. Or weeks. Months? Who knew, really. Time was a bit of a structureless construct here anyways. She couldn’t remember how long it had been. It didn’t matter.
But just for a moment, Ragatha thought seeing a giant red X marring the picture of the jester’s face on the door before her would have been far less painful to look at.
At least less painful than the garish black and yellow strips of hazard tape literally thrust haphazardly all across it instead. All reading “WARNING: CONTAGION DETECTED! KEEP OUT!” in a dizzying, repetitive string. As if they were a prayer. A scripture meant to keep a demon at bay and bound forever beyond them. Trapped and locked away for all of their infinitely indefinite eternity. Alone.
It had started out as something small.
Pomni feeling a bit more sluggish upon waking. Growing a bit more tired with each and every adventure Caine would continuously drag them on. And no one had thought anything of it then. Because, well – doing the same thing day in and day out? It catches up to you. Whether or not one could truly feel fatigue in this fathomless folly of an existence, it was still a tedious tenure. So, of course Pomni would have gotten tired of it. As they all did. Eventually.
But just as swiftly as the ruse of a debility arose, so too did the more severe symptoms soon surface thereafter. Turning it into something else entirely.
At first glance, it was something akin to that of coming down with a little cold or fever. Not anything that anyone would normally bat an eye at on the outside, but in here? It was worrisome enough on its own at that point. Because none of the circus members were even capable of getting sick. Not terminally. Or well, at least— they weren’t supposed to be.
To which Caine surmised it as being some sort of a virus then. And oh, a virus it was. A deadly one, at that. One that slowly took over the jaunty, animated inanimate makeup that basically made up your entire digital quiddity and rendered it all redundant. Effectively replacing everything that made you, you, just as it slowly— painstakingly— took over.
Until eventually erasing you entirely.
And for some reason or another— for all the power that their digital dentured deity apparently did hold— he could not gain control over it. So, once it took hold of Pomni? Well. It was over. That was it. It drained her completely. Leaving her more listless and lethargic than ever. Bedridden and no longer even really herself anymore.
But even still, Ragatha chose to stay with her. In Pomni’s room. Almost every night following the infection. No matter how hard it got watching the girl she’d come to know and care for practically disappear right in front of her very eye.
And then?
Well, it all just devolved from there.
With the poor harlequin growing less and less lucid with each and every day that passed in this endless, web-based wasteland. Until growing into someone— something— else. To the point where Caine eventually decided that the best course of action would be to ‘contain her’. Or contain whatever it was that Pomni had turned into, at the very least. Before the virus could manage to find a way to spread out and into the rest of the circus.
And ultimately latch itself onto the other members still left.
Ragatha glanced sharply to her right. Seeing Gangle striding along up to the door of the crypto-crime scene beside her. Crystalline tears collecting at the corners of the gangly girl’s frowning false face before all collectively falling down to the fabricated floor below.
Gangle caught sight of Ragatha’s gaze after that. Waving a timid red-ribboned hand towards the doll through her sniveling upon them locking eyes. With a forced, fragile ceramic smile. To which Ragatha returned with a tiny smirk and wave of her own before both of their sorrowful simpers fell away in tandem with one another. Watching as the girl pulled out a slip of paper.
Another drawing.
Ragatha’s eye inspected it as the mask wearer swallowed back another wave of tears as they began to flow. Shakily pinning it to the door to hang amongst the others that were a mix of hand-drawn Gangles and Pomnis all smiling towards the viewer. But this one was different. It was a drawing of all of them this time. With Ragatha, Gangle, Kinger and Pomni in the middle. And Zooble and Jax just on the outskirts of what looked to be like a group hug. And with all of them all smiles. All happy.
And all an absolutely asinine little lie, too. Because it was nothing like that now. That’s for sure.
And then that was it. Gangle wiped at her mask with the backs of her filmstrip feelers as she stepped back. The tears leaving her bright red ribbons stained a bit darker crimson in the spots where they were left dampened along her lengthy limbs split tips.
Upon hearing a hobbling from behind her, Ragatha glanced up and over to where Zooble now stood on Gangle’s opposite side. Placing a two-pronged limb over the distraught dramedy’s shoulder as they let out a soft sigh of their own. Antennae drooping. And incongruous eyes downcast as they spoke into the side of the tragicomic’s mask.
“Hey, Gangs? It’s getting late. We should probably get some rest. And, uh… You can come and stay in my room again. If ya want to. Okay?”
The straggly girl nodded at this. Sniffling and wiping at her mask one final time before peeking back over towards the doll at her left.
“Okay… Thanks, Zooby. And *hic* Good night, Ragatha.”
Zooble then let the girl wrap her spindly ligament around the arm they still had propped against her shoulder. Until letting it gently fall before leading the still softly whimpering girl back to their room. With the multifaceted circus member soon waving their other ill-matched arm back to Ragatha as the two retreated for the night. Their usual apathetic tone tinged with resignation as they, too, called out to the doll left behind.
“Night, Raga.”
And Ragatha just standing there. Remaining silent for a few minutes as she followed their fleeing forms for a moment. Like it was all over. Like it was finally the end of the memorial service or something. And now that they had paid their respects it was time for everyone to part ways.
And oh…
Oh, how Ragatha hated it.
But despite this, she raised her hand back. Sewing another sullen synthetic smile up onto her fleece face; seeing them slink ever further away. Until they came upon Zooble’s room. Both pushing it open together and sheepishly shuffling inside right as Ragatha finally found it within herself enough to call out. Voice low. Strained.
“Have a g’night, you two.”
And then just like that— she was alone again. Just her and her thoughts. And Pomni’s big poker chip peepers forever peering down at her from the very place that had her locked up tight inside it.
And that’s exactly what she hated about it the most.
Because it shouldn't be like this. Her door shouldn’t look like this. All wrapped up and decorated with heavyhearted heartfelt messages and doleful drawings all topped off with a pretty little caution tape bow like it was some kind of gross, disgraceful gag gift. And did it make her want to gag alright.
She swallowed the cyber-spit that had settled at the back of her threaded throat as she took a step closer to what had quickly become a cage within a cage. To an accursed clown wrongly condemned for reasons beyond her control. Beyond anyone’s control.
Because none of them should have been treating any of this like it was all just some memorial for someone long gone. Some sloppy, slipshod shrine for the lost. Because Pomni wasn’t gone. She wasn’t lost. She was here. Just beyond the door. This door. And if Ragatha could just open it— she could show them! Would show them. Show everyone Pomni was still with them! And finally prove it! Prove it to them! To everyone!
…
Prove it to herself.
Her felt fingers twitched as she moved her hand towards the door’s fixed frame. Hearing her heavy, heady breaths resonate in her ears alongside the clamoring of her holo-heart in her head as the tips of them just nearly grazed the swathed ceremony-esque ingress.
Before startling suddenly when another voice cropped up from behind her.
“I know what you’re thinking – and don’t.”
The ragdoll slowly turning only to see Jax already making his way towards her. The lapin’s long, lanky lavender legs making easy work of the distance between them. Sharp yellow eyes honed in on the doll as he approached. While Ragatha’s own still functioning baby blue widened with his every steely step.
Until the coney just as quickly closed the gap. Making her flinch with Jax bending over the rag doll’s shorter, cushiony frame. Able to drone directly down into her fabric face now instead.
“I’m sure your intentions are sickly sweet and sentimental and all that sappy crap, but you shouldn’t need me telling you how stupid of an idea opening that door would be.”
And with just those words alone, her initial shock instantly faded and fell away. As did her outstretched hand. Dropping dejectedly back down to her side as she sighed. Gritting her two-dimensional teeth tight behind thin lips; remaining stoic. With a broody nod tacked on towards the end. Because this is what she hated even more. The fact that she knew he was right.
And the fact that Jax knew that she knew he was, too.
But something shot through her though, just then. In their mutual silence as Jax remained perched over her, scrutinizing her. Surveying her every movement; every expression and twitch of her fingers as though she were some ticking time bomb rearing to go off any minute. Keeping close watch of her as if he couldn’t even trust her at all in that moment.
And maybe he was right not to. Because really? She couldn’t take it. Any of it. Any of this. Because as much as she knew Pomni hadn’t just up and disappeared, Ragatha also knew that it wasn’t a demon that was being held captive behind that door either.
And thus, her rage suddenly gripped her like one.
“But I— I… I can’t stand it!”
She screeched, her plush paws flying up to grip and claw at the bright red mop atop her pounding head. The abrupt shift in her character making Jax the one who was flinching back this time.
“I just can’t stand it, Jax! Everyone is just treating this like Pomni’s just— gone! Poof! Like she doesn’t even exist anymore! Like she abstracted or something and now all of this is just another— Another f*MEOW*cking funeral!”
The purple rabbit’s golden gaze expanded as the redhead spouted up at him. Almost marveling in the way the doll mouthed off. Watching as the flattened cavity seemed to almost struggle to keep up in its animation with the onslaught of words that kept on pouring out of it.
“But it isn’t! This isn’t a funeral, Jax! It shouldn’t be! Because she’s still here! Right here! Right there! Right behind the door! And if I— we— could all just open it up for just a second and look inside? Just peek in for just a moment! And, and—! And just see her, then… then maybe, finally everyone would stop acting like— Like she’s dead!”
The longer the doll’s desperate litanies drawled on, the further Jax’s face fell with them. Eyelids falling heavy down over his ochre orbs as he ground his yellow teeth against the plush woman’s pitiful pleas. Casting his sights downwards when he saw a damning glint of hope dancing in her eye. A false hope. Masquerading itself as something else. Just like whatever was behind that door. He knew that much.
And deep down, he knew Ragatha did, too.
“Pomni is gone. And sooner or later you’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that, sure. Pomni may not be ‘dead’, so to speak— but she might as well be.”
His voice was harsh; chastising, but also… Afflicted. Conflicted, even. He wasn’t used to this. Seeing Ragatha like this. Feeling like this. Seeing Ragatha feeling like— that. So wholly unlike herself he was having a hard time connecting that it was still her in front of him. Watching her so frantic; foolhardy. Fighting against something she already knew she couldn’t change. But fighting on, ever fruitlessly, even still.
Even now.
“No! No, we— We don’t know that for sure! Caine said there could be a cure! That… That she might still be in there somewhere!”
“No...”
“Like— We haven’t even checked in on her in so long! We have no idea what her state is like currently! It-It could have changed, for all we know! Bettered in all this time she’s been hidden away!”
“Rags…”
“Maybe— Maybe it receded! From all the time she’s been locked up in there! Maybe sealing it off from everything made the virus delete itself! Killed it! Starved it out of her system; her digital makeup! We don’t know! We-We won’t know unless… Unless we check!”
“Rags, no…”
The monotonous back and forth had the purple rabbit sliding his teeth even harder against each other as Ragatha’s breath quickened. As the woman continued to run over her own words; over her own self in a hurried slurry of insistences. Her meager attempt at keeping that false flicker of hope alive with a match that had burned out long ago.
“No! No, no, Jax… Jax! Just… Just listen to me, okay? You… Y-You! You could even be the one to do it! You could open the door! You can! You have keys— somehow, I still don’t know how or why— but-but that doesn’t matter! You can open the door! Open her door so we can check! So we can see—“
“NO!”
Jax’s voice had raised along with his shoulders as he belted out the refusal. Louder than he had meant it to be, but he couldn’t hold out any longer. Having had enough, having seen enough; heard enough of Ragatha making a fool of herself. Trying to reason with herself. And failing.
Choking on pieces of what couldn’t be. Would never be.
What wasn’t.
“No, Rags! Listen to YOURSELF! I know that cotton brain is probably all soft and squishy up inside that empty head of yours, but pull the fluff out of your ears and THINK for a minute! It’s getting into your HEAD, Rags!”
“But… Pomni might be—!”
“No! Not Pomni! It! IT! You’re lying to yourself, Rags! And you know it! The only thing you’re gonna find behind that door is a shell of what used to be! It is NOT Pomni! Not anymore.”
And as explosively as her anger and desperation had overtaken her, did despair deftly return to reclaim her. The minuscule light in her eye being breezily blown out by the absolute hurricane of truth that Jax’s words rained relentlessly down upon her. The final nail in the coffin being hammered down hard. Splintering the rotten, tear-soaked wood that tugged and tore at her beaten beating heart anew.
Because God… It was true, wasn’t it? All of it! Everything that he had said. He was right! He was right... But why? Why did it have to be true? Why did he have to be right? Why? Why, why, why?! When all of this—?! Wh-When everything was so—
So WRONG!?
The vision in her solitary baby blue became blurry upon an all too familiar warmth making itself known there. Hot tears beginning to well up within it, against her will. Usually she would find an excuse to withdraw back into her own room to break down alone; not one to shed the bullish sham she’d come to be expected to brandish. But with no more strength left to fight it this time, she let them fall. Because what did it matter? To fall apart inside— Outside.
Having an umbrella doesn’t stop the rain.
And suddenly she was plummeting alongside the masquerade. As the last drop hit the bucket. Buckling under the weight of Jax’s words, under the weight of her own useless sorry squabbling; the weight of what she’d already known was nothing more than a false face feigning faith. The dummy display of delusory resolve she had all but built up now unremittingly breaking apart to reveal the truth lying within. Unearthing the broken and battered woman that had been buried beneath it all along.
The fire once burning inside her extinguishing in the tears her hands had long been stained with.
Her earlier fury all but succumbing to and sizzling out in a salty, solemn saline ocean. For the emptiness was always heavier than you think. Leaving Ragatha now falling to the ground in a heap just from the heft of it. Feet failing her as she sank headlong further downwards, joining the rest of her tears on the obnoxiously bright-colored floor. Down in front of Pomni’s forever unblinking gaze as it looked on indifferently out from over her head.
That was the parallel wasn’t it? Whereas Pomni– or what was left of her– lay in her bed beyond that damned door slowly succumbing to her death day after day. Ragatha lay in hers each night contemplating her own.
“Jax… Just what kind of Hell is this?”
They always teach you to fear Hell. A notion that was born on the same day as your nativity. Life itself ingrained that trepidation into the mind. That intrinsic dread of facing whatever comeuppance and consequences that followed you after death. When your time finally came to an end. That ever-looming foreboding of knowing that all life has a time limit. Or at least, was supposed to.
But they never tell you what it is you should really fear. What it was that constituted true horror above all that.
Because Hell? An actual living Hell? Was having nothing but time. Limitless time. Where the nightmare of an endless night was never over. You just had to learn to live in the dark.
Yeah, see, Hell was overrated. Now, this? This was more like–
“More like Purgatory, really.”
Jax’s quip of an answer to the doll was quiet, mirthless. The implications of such a sentiment resounding and feeling just as hollow as they did heavy. Left hanging in the air as silence returned to encompass the two of them alone in the hall after he’d said it. Save for the muffled cries as Ragatha poured her heart out into her now sodden, soppy palms. The lapin being left speechless for a while. Watching as the woman collapsed to the floor before him. Dragging her ragged mitts down with her over the flurry of papers and flimsy hazard ticker-tape that littered the poor jester door’s face.
And it was… a little more than disturbing to watch. If he was being honest.
Seeing the ragdoll so run through. Literally run ragged. He hated it. Hated watching her act like this. She wasn’t supposed to look like this. She was aways the strong one, or– okay. Maybe strong wasn’t the right word per se, but resilient. The literal epitome of fake it till you make it. Always sewing a smile up on her face even in the worst of predicaments. And even when half of the time those smiles were so blatantly forced and oh so grossly, piteously faked? At least seeing her like that was better than seeing her reduced to... this.
The redhead’s entire body heaved as she slumped further up against the door. A few of the drawings coming loose from the wood and floating down, billowing around her as she fought for air drowning in despair; battering her fabric fists to bits against the door’s digital frame with each body-wracking sob. The intermittent hiccups inbetween each hit hitting the hare harder and harder the louder they became.
“You… You really loved her, huh?”
His voice was still barely above a whisper, but he knew Ragatha heard it when he caught the redhead’s shoulders quaking; a new fresh stream of tears streaking down her now thoroughly wettened felt face. Balking at the piercing white glints reflected in her lone eye when she peeked back at him thanks to her tears catching the hall lights. Exploding like fireworks flowing amidst the waterworks. With the soft plips of the stricken, soured droplets striking the gaudy carpet being the only reply he received.
He hadn’t been close to Pomni. Not really. He refused to be, in all honesty. As he did with everyone. Deliberately refraining from growing close to any of the cast for this very reason. Exactly this. Because this is what happened if you did. Every time.
Without fail.
“I get it. Or, no, maybe I don’t get it. Not like you do. Maybe that’s why it makes it so hard to say anything. To try and make it hurt less, or make it easier somehow. Because there’s nothing I could say that could.”
Jax kept talking. Moreso just voicing his thoughts aloud so as to break up the melancholic monotony that was him hearing Ragatha on the precipice of breathlessness choking on her own spit and snivel at his feet. Biting his tongue harder with every punch of her frayed felt mitts to the unobstructed entrance guarding unattainable aspirations that were for now and forever confined behind it. Watching as the floor greedily drank up her tears as the sorrow continued to consume her very soul. Or what little was left of it.
Because that’s what this place did. What this place was. A sick game. Where there were no winners. As they were all sore losers in the end. Forced to play along, dragged along as puppets on a string. And only when that string finally snapped? Were you finally free.
So, no, actually. Pardon him. He was wrong. There were winners. Because that was the price. The prize: Reprieve. Freedom from this never-ending nightmare. And that’s all they sought. Was to win, and find their exit. To escape this inescapable perpetual corporeality, and claim their deathless death.
But who knew waiting for something that was supposed to be so final, could instead feel so implausibly, impossibly incomplete.
“We’re all just waiting for the end in one way or another. And it comes, eventually. Just as it does on the outside. Sometimes just as quick, and in ways we could never imagine.”
Following the trail of intricate drawings up to Pomni’s portrait eavesdropping on their conversation, Jax sighed as his own words were left swirling around in his head; tormenting him from within. A deep sigh, heavy, and with his heart weighing anchor keeping him glued in place as it fell to his feet.
Just because he didn’t go out of his way to try and make friends with everybody, or be buddy-buddy with those around him, didn’t mean he didn’t understand the significance behind those sorts of connections. Or why people made them. To try and have something to cling to when everything else seemed so… beyond their reach. Was. Beyond even the substantiality of your own life precariously left hanging in the balance.
And how it felt to have that something, something so close, so intangibly interwoven into your very own makeup suddenly ripped away from you? The pain that came from that?
Even not being able to feel physical pain in this digital hellscape anymore, that was a pain that lingered. One that left an ever-growing void in it’s wake. A void that lasted. Until eventually digging it’s claws so deep into you, you finally gave into it. Stealing whatever was left of your very soul and dragging it through the very tears you were already drowning in. Before feeding you, too, into the void with it.
“And when it does happen? Heh. Well, there’s no point in fighting the inevitable. And I think… when the Black Rainbow took her? That Pomni knew that, too.”
That got Ragatha’s full attention. Well, not entirely full, but at least got her to stall the bashing of her fists against the door. Seeing her fingers frayed and torn up along the seam of where her palm connected with the rest of her merged mass of fingers making a bubble of virtual bile shoot up. As the doll relinquished her belligerence, pushing her forehead into the door in defeat.
For what’s black and white and dead all over?
A fitting name for such an accursed ailment. And, apparently, an actual real-life phenomenon, too, or as they’d been so kindly told by Kinger. Otherwise known as an Alexander’s Band. And occurring only on the very rare, special occasion where the water making up a rainbow’s structure reflected it’s light away from the viewer! Or something like that.
“Hah… Listen. I think we both know I’m not the greatest at this whole comforting thing, alright? Just– all I know is… that you don’t deserve to have to remember her like that, Rags.”
Because in their instance, instead of just a playful trick being played on the eyes– The Black Rainbow took your eyes. It took your hearing, your voice; took everything. Everything that made you, you. And turned it into something else. Someone else. Keeping up appearances as the person you once were on the outside, but with nothing but a lifeless puppet left trapped on the inside.
And after having finished with his moment of lucidity for the day in explaining it to everyone, Caine found Kinger’s name rather fitting. Given the way the color would slowly drain from the virus’s host’s body.
And not just drain the color in a physical sense, leaving nothing but shades of black and grey in its wake, but in a metaphysical one, too. With that being how it started. By sucking all the light, all the color, all the sense out of your eyes– All the life. Before it was latching onto your simulated subconscious and spreading like a wildfire throughout the rest of your cyber-system. Like a cancer. Chewing up what little was remaining of your lifeblood and spitting it all back out as disintegrated, little glitchy black squares. That covered everything. Face, hands, mouth, feet; you name it.
A literal rainbow of soot and ash redecorating the victim’s visage like a puzzle where none of the pieces did fit quite right.
With— in this case— that poor, unfortunate victim being Pomni.
“All that’s left behind that wall is an imitation. You don’t deserve that. To see her like that… Pomni wouldn’t want you to see her like that.”
Ragatha froze as Jax said it straight. Closing into herself, and pressing even more flat up against the wall as if hoping to merge herself with it; into it. Become one with the more sturdy structure as her own fell apart. As she wholly fell apart as a whole.
Abstraction was different. Looked different, felt different. It completely changed you, your behavior. Nothing like this. Where it kept everything the same, just with none of the familiarity that it should harbor. It was foreign but in a familiar sense. Which made it all the more alien. And terrifying. A quite literal imitation, just like Jax had said.
Imitation... Huh. That sounded familiar. Almost like how Ragatha had been reduced to nothing but a semblance of what she used to be as well. A mere imitation her own self now. A person no longer certain of who they were or should even try and be; what mask to wear. She was so sick of keeping her head up all the time as it was. So worn out by it all. Shutting her solitary eye as she silently prayed that perhaps whatever had taken her Pomni away could reach through the sliver of a crack in the door she lay pressed against and swallow her up with it, too.
Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so much. Just to be wherever Pomni was. Even if that place was nowhere.
“Hey…”
Jax piped up from behind her again, and she relented in opening her eye once more for him, to face the cruel world. And his… outstretched arms? Her solitary working socket widening as she travelled from the gloved hands at the end of each arm up their lanky length to scan his face. Not descrying any devious glint in his eye, no trace of a condescending remark on his lips. Just arms open wide, waiting. Welcoming. And then–
“I’m sorry, Ragatha.”
And then he said her name. Her full name. No childish, pernicious nickname. No shortened taunting moniker or teasing derisive sobriquet on his tongue. Just pure, genuine sadness. Real sympathy through and through.
And seeing that? From Jax of all people? It tore right through her, too.
She leapt up, into his welcoming embrace as fresh tears and sobs ripped through her. Wailing unabatedly into his shoulder as she trembled, clinging to him for dear life. Unable to see, to think, to breathe, to do anything but cry. Just cry, and cry as he hugged her back. Awkwardly, at first, but soon gripping on just as tightly as she could have sworn he was suddenly shaking in her arms, too.
And for the first time, in a long time– Ever since before she even met Pomni. Since before the Black Rainbow came along to take that one sliver of happiness, that sunshine she’d finally found just as quickly away. Before this place found yet another way to kill her sun. Before everything had come crashing down all at once all over again…
Ragatha felt a little less alone right then.
“I’m… I’m sorry…”
He said it again, fighting the tremor in his voice as he buried his face in the red mop of yarn that had been whipped up into it when the ragdoll had jumped up into him. Trying to regulate his breathing as that very same doll gasped for air through their shared grieving. The blank staring painted portraits of each circus member, past and present all playing and paying witness to their penance.
“Thank you… Thank you…”
Ragatha’s own voice was high, tinny as she whined hard into the hare’s rubbery hide.
Because just maybe…
Maybe this is what Ragatha had been looking for. Wanted all along. Just anyone to wipe clear their face and be open with her. Allow her to be open in return. To let out everything without fear of discrimination or worry her image would be tarnished by showing how ugly she was, how she felt deep down. Showed just how broken she really was. To be relieved of the feelings she’d been forced to keep inside, smothering and suffocating in them as they pulled her down deeper with them.
To feel pulled out of that for a just a split second, a fraction of a moment. It was liberating in a way she’d never thought possible in the persistent prison they’d found themselves trapped in.
And he waited. Till she was all cried out. No longer shaking anymore himself, but still holding on to her with just as much fervor as before. Until she broke herself away. Sniffling, and with a darker shade to her cheeks as the tear-streaks stained her fleece flesh, but calmer. More collected as she stepped back and away from him. Both dropping their arms to their sides in tandem, respectively, as the silence reclaimed them once over again. But more comfortable this time around.
And far less distant with Jax decidedly slicing through it again one last time.
“It’s getting late. I think maybe we should head back to our rooms for the night. Kinda… try and get our minds off of everything for now. Ya know? Besides, Caine has a big adventure planned for all of us tomorrow apparently. And knowing him, we’re gonna need all the rest we can get.”
Ragatha wiped her hand under her eye to clear it from any residual drops before nodding. Proffering up the smallest sliver of a smile as she met him. Bowing her head in a small gesture of gratitude as her hands came up to clasp at her chest.
“Heh. Yeah. Right, I just... Just… Thanks, Jax. For… this. Whatever this is— was.”
“Yeah, well— Don't mention it. No. Like, seriously. Don’t. To anyone. They’d never believe you, anyways.”
Jax waived her thanks off, physically waving at the air as he did so before crossing both arms haughtily over his chest in earnest with that last remark. But not as sardonically sarcastic as usual. More light and witty as he eyed her with a quiet, scarcely hidden regard.
“Ahahaha! I know… I know they wouldn’t.”
And Ragatha laughed back. A real laugh with a light-hearted shake of her head that had the purple coney thinking that maybe… Just maybe she’d be okay. That they’d be okay. That all of them would be alright for tonight.
Or, at least, until daybreak broke through to shatter them all anew, anyways.
“Heh. Yeah… Right. But uh, yeah. Think I’m gonna call it a night here myself now. So… Night, Rags.”
Uncrossing his arms, they fell slack, lax back to his sides. Slapping on a yawn after his dialogue as if to accentuate just how late it had gotten before he was turning on his heel with a retreating wave of his yellow gloved hand out by his head. Sauntering his way back towards his room as he’d said right as he heard Ragatha call out to him in turn from behind.
“Yeah! G’night, Jax…“
And the instant his tall form had disappeared behind the snarky grinning face of his adorning the plaque designating the door that was his own, did that final bit of a whisper wither away on her tongue. All but vanishing right along with him. Upon her single somber eye sinking down towards the gilded golden key clasped tight in her hand.
“… And I’m sorry.”
Because good God. It’s not even like she had meant to take it. Didn’t even know how it happened, really. One second her hand was empty, and the next— well. It wasn’t.
She could’ve handed it back to him, really. She should have. Reached out the second after it had popped into existence into her plush mitt. Could have called out to him just as he turned to walk away. Hell, even right as he started to. No, no, no, what was she saying? She still had time! There was still time to fix this. She could do it now! Yes… Yes! That’s it! She’d just walk herself on over, politely knock on his door and—
“Hello?”
And right as she had mustered up the courage to do just that, did her thoughts and all get stopped dead in their tracks. With her freezing right along with them on the spot as a voice that was all too familiar, far too painfully identifiable graced her ears. Sounding so scared, so alone. So petrified.
So petrifying.
“Is anyone out there?”
Out here…? No. She inhaled sharply, not daring to look behind her to check. But she didn’t need to. Because she already knew. She knew that there wouldn’t be anyone there. There wasn’t anyone out here besides Ragatha now. Not another soul in this barren, harrowing hallway of this goddamn madhouse. Not since Jax had left it himself moments ago.
And that was just the problem. Because if no one else was out here then— Then that meant that…
That voice was—…
“Anyone, please…”
No… No! Not now! Why? Why now?! After all that!
After Jax had showed such a rare side of him to her. After he’d unremittingly opened himself up to her like that; allowed her to do the same…
Ragatha should walk away. Needed to. Right now. Run back to her room, crawl herself back into her safety hole and slam closed the door. Only then to start smashing up her room to bits without abandon, just so she wouldn’t have to hear the sound of that voice clawing its way into her ears, into her head again. Turning everything into an absolute wreck around her to match how much of one she was.
Before she would just wind up falling to the floor, squeezing both her hands together so tight against her head until it felt as though her virtual brain matter might burst out from between them. Just like how she did all the other times. Every night this happened. And just like all those other nights, she shouldn't be listening to it now. To its light, lilting dulcet tones calling out to her. For her. Like the broken, beguiling pleas of a fallen angel serenading her from beyond. She shouldn’t be listening. To its lies. She knew— knows. Knows she shouldn’t. But…
“Please. It’s so cold…”
Suddenly there wasn’t enough air. Although she didn’t need air in order to breathe as it was, somehow it felt like there still wasn’t enough. And yet that there was too much, all at once. A full body tremor shooting through her as she began to hyperventilate, her felt mitts turned to fists as she clasped them over the unsteadily systematic rapid rise and fall of her lurching chest.
Because she couldn’t help herself from listening to it. No matter how hard she tried. Because it sounded so real; so tangible. So unmistakable from the real thing. Even knowing what Jax had said was true. That it couldn’t be. That it wasn’t possible… But how could Ragatha believe that? When it sounded almost too identical? Too indistinguishable from the real thing to not be?
When it sounded just like—
“Ragatha?”
J-Just like…
“Is that you?”
… Her Pomni.